"Now," Kurt whispered in a low, gravelly caress that made the cultist’s skin crawl. "We can do this the hard way, or we can do it the really hard way. Personally? I’m rooting for the latter."

He reached down, grabbed the man by the front of his loosened robes, and hauled him toward the center of the room. The white marble statue of the Goddess loomed over them, her serene, carved face appearing to judge the scene with a cold indifference. In a sudden, explosive motion, Kurt slammed the back of the cultist’s head against the Goddess’s marble pedestal.

CRACK!

The sound of bone meeting stone was sickeningly clean. The cultist shrieked, kicking his legs uselessly against the floor.

"Oopsy daisy, haha. Gotta control my strength so that you don’t die too early. Now, where is the bishop?" Kurt asked, his face inches from the man’s. He had a small, crooked smile on his lips. A look of genuine, boyish excitement.

"And more importantly, where are the children?"

"I... I won’t betray my brothers," he wheezed as he spat a glob of blood and broken teeth onto Kurt’s boot. "The Goddess... She sees you, monster. She will protect me. You are nothing but a heathen in Her world."

Kurt’s smile widened, revealing his own grit teeth. He looked at the blood on his boot, then back at the man. "Thank you, Mr. Cultist. Thank you for choosing the latter."

He reached for a palette knife sitting on a nearby workstation. It was dull, designed for mixing thick oils, which made it the perfect tool for what Kurt had in mind. He began to systematically "paint" the cultist’s skin, pressing the blunt edge into the soft tissue of the man’s thigh and dragging it with agonizing slowness.

"G-Gaa–Mmmmmm!" Kurt covered his mouth before he could scream.

"Please~" Kurt dropped his voice into a playful, mocking whimper. "Please just tell me where they are. I’m begging you~ My feet are so tired from all this sneaking around. Don’t you want to be a hero and save me the walk?"

He punctuated the request by slamming his fist into the man’s ribs. Two of them snapped with a muffled pop. The cultist let out a strangled cry. His breaths coming in short, panicked gasps.

"Oh, I know. How about a compromise?" Kurt suggested, leaning in close, his one eye shimmering with a sadistic light. He looked like he was having the time of his life.

"How’s this sound? You don’t have to tell me where the bishop is. I’ll find that old vulture eventually. Just tell me where the kids are. That’s it! One little secret for your life. I’m begging you, ’Brother’. I don’t want to have to search the whole estate. It’s so big, and I’m just one guy..."

He grabbed the man’s hand and laid it flat on the marble base of the statue. With a casual, almost bored motion, Kurt brought the hilt of his black sword down onto the man’s pinky finger and crushed it.

"MMMMHMHM!!!" The cultist’s scream was once again muffled by Kurt’s gloved hand.

"See? This is exhausting for both of us," Kurt teased. He picked up a jar of turpentine and poured it over the man’s fresh wounds. The chemical burn made the cultist thrash like a landed fish. "Tell me where they are. Don’t make me get the charcoal. You know that shit gets everywhere~"

.....

After ten minutes of methodical brutality, the cultist was a shattered shell of a man. His face was a mask of purple bruises, his breathing was a wet rattle, and his spirit was fading into the grey fog of shock.

Kurt grabbed him by the hair, dragging his limp body up until he was forced to look directly into the blank, stone eyes of the Goddess statue.

"Look at her," Kurt whispered into the man’s ear, sharp and hypnotic. "Look at your Mother. Do you see how she’s looking at you? She’s disappointed, Brother. She’s... disgusted by your silence."

"N-No..." the cultist moaned. "She... She loves me..."

"Does she? Look closer. See the way the light hits her eyes? She’s weeping, you fool. She’s weeping because you’re making Her guest wait. She wants you to tell me. She’s whispering it to you right now. Can’t you hear it over the rain?"

The cultist’s mind, fractured by pain and blood loss, began to hallucinate. The flickering candlelight caused shadows to dance across the marble face. To his dying, delusional mind, the Goddess’s lips seemed to twitch. The stone appeared to soften into flesh.

"She... she’s speaking," the man whimpered, his eyes wide and vacant.

"What is she saying, Brother?" Kurt urged, his voice sounding sweet as honey. "Tell me what She says."

"The... the basement," the cultist sobbed, his head lolling against the cold marble. "They’re in the basement. The entrance... It’s on the first floor. Behind the grandfather clock in the main study."

"And how do we get in? The clock doesn’t just move for anyone, does it?"

"The time..." the man gasped. "Turn the long hand from twelve to three. Then... anticlockwise to nine. Press down on the face. The mechanism... the wall will open."

Kurt leaned back, the sadistic light in his eye replaced by a cold, finished precision. He looked at the man–No... this creature who had intended to spend his night hurting a servant woman and felt nothing, but the weight of a chore completed.

"Thank you, ’Brother’," he said sincerely. "You’ve been a massive help. The Goddess thanks you too."

SNAP!

Thud!

He snapped the man’s neck with a singular twist. The body slumped against the Goddess’s feet, a final, bloody offering to a statue that didn’t care.

Deciding not to linger for another moment, Kurt wiped his hands on a clean cloth from the art station, pulled his hood back up, and eased the gallery door open.

The estate was quiet, the sound of the rain outside masking the minor scuffles of his work. He moved down the grand staircase, staying in the deep shadows of the banister while on high alert, sensing the presence of any guards or cultists patrolling the lower floor.

He reached the first floor and found the study. It was a room filled with the smell of old leather, parchment and tobacco. In the corner stood the grandfather clock.

Kurt reached out, his fingers steady. He moved the long hand: 12 to 3. Then, with a slow, grinding click, he rotated it anticlockwise to 9. He pressed his palm against the center of the clock’s face.

A series of heavy iron gears silently began to move behind the wall. Suddenly, the entire section of the bookshelf beside it recessed and swung inward, revealing a dark, stone staircase that spiraled down into the earth.

"Damn. Here’s hoping the place isn’t filled with bats." Kurt looked around one last time before descending.

The lower he got the colder the air grew, smelling of copper, lye, and something sickly sweet. When he reached the bottom, he found himself in a nightmare of clinical precision.

’What the hell is this place?’

The room was lined with iron-barred cells but inside were no beds. Only cold stone slabs and medical equipment. In the first cell he passed, Kurt froze still.

A group of children, perhaps ten of them, were huddled together in the corner. They were completely malnourished and their eyes were sunken and glassy. They didn’t even look up when he passed; they were beyond fear, trapped in a state of living death. These were the friends that Hope had been looking for.

Further down the hall, a soft glow of magi-lanterns illuminated a central surgical theater. Kurt pressed himself against the cold stone wall, inching closer until he could see the occupants.

Two men stood over a stainless-steel table. They weren’t wearing the black and red robes of the cultists; they wore sterile, white versions. Their robes were stained with brown splotches of dried blood. One was holding a clipboard, the other a long, silver needle.

"The current batch is drying up," the first one said. "We’re going to need new blood bags soon. The extraction process is draining them faster than the replenishment cycle can keep up."

"The bishop is getting too impatient," the second one replied, checking a vial of glowing, deep red fluid.

"Even though the children’s blood is pure mana and is potent enough to last a significant amount of time, he goes through vial after vial as if he’s been stuck in the deserts of Tricea. We should probably clear the cells tonight. Kill the remaining children and extract the hearts while they’re still fresh. We can give them to Violet for her to add to her collection."

’... What...?’

The revelation hit him like a physical blow. Violet isn’t an immortal mage. She was being revived by a literal hoard of harvested hearts. Every time he had fought her, every time she had "restarted" her life, it had been paid for in the blood of the children in these cells.

"We start with the smallest ones in Cell 4," the first doctor said, turning toward a rack of serrated knives. "This’ll be their last extraction."

Kurt didn’t wait for them to finish their conversation. He didn’t care about sneaking anymore. It was time for pure, unadulterated retribution.

"You’re going to need a bigger rack," he said as he stepped out of the shadows.

The doctors stared at the blood-splattered man in the doorway, their eyes widening behind their sterile masks.

"What!? Who are you?!"

Kurt didn’t answer back. He just stepped closer and closer. This underground hell that was built for the extraction of life, was about to become a place for a very different kind of surgery.