Abel took a stiff glance at his surroundings. Although he had overcome nearly suffocating to death, the triumphant emotions he felt had dulled almost immediately.
Without the scuffling sounds of his own struggle against the tombs' unwelcome embrace, the crypt was quiet again.
Not peaceful, quiet. Not the kind you found in an empty house or a silent street late at night. This was the heavy kind of silence that pressed in from every direction, Abel felt a suffocating force bare down on him with each moment that passed.
Rows of stone coffins surrounded him, stretching through the chamber in uneven lines. Dark and cold, they were arranged in such a way that would efficiently fit as many tombs as possible. Some were cracked with age, their lids half shifted aside or inwards. Others remained perfectly sealed, thick slabs of damp stone resting over whatever waited beneath them.
Abel swallowed.
"If there's one thing crypts usually mean…" he muttered quietly.
"...it's undead."
Skeletons. Liches. Rotting corpses that decided death was optional.
The Crucible had a reputation for things like that.
A cold shiver ran down his spine.
Great start.
Still, panicking wouldn't help him now. The officers back on Earth had said the same thing again and again. Observe your surroundings first. Rushing blindly into danger inside an Embrace was how most people died.
So Abel forced himself to look around properly.
The chamber was larger than he had expected. Rough stone walls curved outward into shadow, and faint crimson light filtered in from somewhere above a staircase at the far end of the crypt.
Then he heard it.
Drip.
Abel turned his head sharply.
A shallow puddle had formed on the stone floor a few metres away. Above it, a thin crack split through the ceiling. Water slowly seeped through the fractured stone, falling into the pool below one drop at a time.
Drip.
He walked closer and tilted his head upward.
Beyond the crack he could see packed earth and sediment wedged between the broken rocks.
Abel frowned slightly.
"So I'm underground.." he murmured.
That made sense. A crypt was supposed to be buried after all. Still, actually seeing the dirt above his head made the situation feel a lot more real.
He rubbed the back of his neck.
Alright. Underground crypt. No obvious exits besides those stairs. Possibly full of undead.
Fantastic.
His gaze wandered through the chamber again.
That was when he noticed a coffin much larger than his own.
It stood slightly apart from the others near the far wall. Most of the tombs surrounding him were smaller than the one he had woken up in, their lids worn and uneven with age.
This one was the opposite.
The stone was thicker. Cleaner. The lid, perfectly intact.
And carved into a plaque of metal placed upon its surface was a name.
Abel stepped closer, brushing a layer of dust away with his sleeve so he could read the inscription.
The lettering was precise, almost elegant.
Herein lies the Cardinal of the Church of Crimson Communion
Abel blinked.
"Well that sounds important."
He leaned back slightly, eyeing the tomb with new caution.
The title alone made it clear this person had been someone powerful while they were alive. Not a merchant. Not a noble.
A priest or cleric. A clergyman to be sure. Or something close enough to it.
He glanced back toward the staircase where the crimson glow spilled down into the crypt like diluted blood.
He stood there for a moment, considering the coffin and its implications.
Opening it crossed his mind.
Then he imagined what might be inside.
If the Crucible had decided to drop him into a nest of undead priest's, disturbing the body felt like an excellent way to die in the next thirty seconds.
Abel slowly stepped away from the coffin.
"Yeah… let's not do that. I'd much rather take my chances with those creepy stairs."
The stairs were the only obvious way out anyway.
He moved carefully across the crypt, keeping his footsteps quiet despite the fact that the place already felt abandoned.
The crimson light grew brighter as he climbed the staircase. It poured through a heavy wooden door at the top, slipping through cracks in the planks like liquid fire.
The door itself looked old but sturdy. Thick reinforced wood bound together with iron bands.
Abel hesitated for a moment before pushing it open.
The hinges groaned loudly in protest.
Abels heart skipped a beat before racing out his chest. "Goddamn it be quiet!"
The sound echoed through the air as the door slowly creaked outward. Letting the cool night air rush past his ankles then his face and hair.
Abel took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway and froze.
"I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this.."
Gravestones stretched across the ground in every direction. He was standing in a cemetery.
Tall black monuments leaned at odd angles between patches of pale grass, their surfaces stained dark with age. Stone paths wound through the graves before disappearing into the surrounding trees.
But that wasn't what had caused him to pause in his tracks. It wasn't the gravestones, the pale almost deathly shade of grey the grass held or the scent of decay he couldn't seem to get away from. No. It was the sky.
No stars.
No moonlight.
Only a vast crimson glow hanging in the heavens like a wounded eye.
The red moon loomed over the town beyond the cemetery walls, bathing everything beneath it in a dull scarlet haze.
"Crimson Communion." Abel got out under his breath.
The words weren't exactly subtle.
"...Well," Abel muttered.
"That's comforting."
Beyond the graves, dark buildings stood in silent rows. Tall narrow structures made from deep crimson stone, their architecture sharp and gothic.
They didn't look ruined.
Just… empty.
As if everyone had simply left.
He was in an abandoned town. Stood within its cemetery. And from what he could see, it was surrounded on all sides by a forest of towering trees. Their trunks were thick and dark, the bark held subtle hues of purple behind them.
Even their leaves were tinted red beneath the moonlight.
Abel let out a slow breath.
"Alright," he murmured to himself.
"Creepy abandoned town. Blood moon. Possibly a cult."
He rubbed his temples.
"Sure. Why not."
Staying out in the open cemetery didn't feel like a great idea, so Abel headed toward the nearest building at the edge of town.
It looked like a rather homely abode by his standards. But then again, he had never owned a home, so he didn't know what to look for. This was of course, excusing the strange dark crimson material used to construct the building and the architecture that was stranger still.
The door hung slightly open.
Inside, furniture sat exactly where it should be. Chairs around a circular table, shelves along the walls, a cold fireplace near the corner. Whoever had lived here hadn't fled in panic.
They had simply… stopped being here. Or at least left casually.
Abel searched the house quickly.
There wasn't much of use. No food. No water.
Just old belongings that had been left behind long ago.
He was about to give up when something metallic caught his eye near the back door.
A dark crimson pole leaned against the wall.
Abel picked it up, testing its weight in his hand.
"Not bad, I think it's some kind of metal," he said quietly.
"Better than nothing."
He climbed the staircase to the second floor.
Upstairs was also left mostly untouched, a bedroom, seemingly belonging to a couple, likely the home owners had its door left ajar.
He entered slowly, looking to his left and right before fully stepping into the moonlit room. The red haze cast by the crimson moon made his skin crawl, and it was even worse in dark places. It felt like the shadows were watching you, like they knew and could feel every move you made.
An involuntary shudder ran down Abel's spine.
He looked over to the windowsill, past the black sheeted king sized bed. And from there he finally saw it. Through the glass pane, past the streetview and on the horizon.
A cathedral.
It dominated the center of the town like a black spear rising toward the crimson sky. Massive gothic towers surrounded the main structure, their sharp spires cutting through the red glow of the moon above.
Even from this distance Abel could see the enormous doors at the front.
And the dark banners hanging from the stone walls.
"Yeah," he murmured.
"That's definitely where the cult lives."
He stood there for a moment, staring at it.
If there were answers in this place, they would probably be inside that building.
Abel turned away from the window and headed back downstairs, gripping the crimson pole a little tighter as he stepped outside again. Then he started walking toward the cathedral.
The streets of the town were strangely intact. Cobblestone paths wound between rows of dark buildings, their windows black and anti light absorbent.
Strangely, I could see out the window of that house perfectly fine, yet in the street, its impossible to see inside. Why would a town that seems so lost in the past have the knowledge of one way glass panes? Abel thought. His train of thought derailed as he noticed other strange details about the town.
There were no signs of destruction. No broken carts, no collapsed walls, no scattered belongings left behind in panic. If anything, the place looked as though the people who lived here had simply stepped outside one day and never returned.
If I were to make a guess, the Cathedral would have answers about this too. Maybe they were gathered there for something. I remember vague mentions of witch trials and public executions that happened in our history. Maybe something similar happened here.
Abel kept his footsteps slow and careful as he walked, the metal pole resting against his shoulder. Every sound seemed too loud in the empty street. The faint scrape of his shoes, the quiet rustle of wind through the crimson leaves overhead.
Something about the silence bothered him more than the crypt had. Cemeteries were supposed to be quiet. Towns weren't. A place this large should have had something living in it. A dog barking in the distance. The creak of a door in the wind. Even the hum of insects in the trees would have been enough to break the uneasy stillness hanging over the streets. But there was nothing. Just the distant silhouette of the cathedral growing larger with every step he took, its jagged spires clawing upward toward the red moon like a warning.
Suddenly, from the corner of Abel's eye, something lurking behind one of the many spaces between the large, gothic styled, crimson buildings, moved.