Chapter 297: The Master’s Sanctum Part 3

Ah, here we are. The dark spot in these mountains. Ironically, not as dark inside. A man so obsessed with flesh crafting is going to need to write down some of his work. Some of his thoughts. Even if he was a musclehead before, Anthony clearly grew into his new power mentally.

They found the stairs behind a bookcase with a hilariously cliché book lever to open it. It slid out and open on a silent path, baring the staircase upwards to the second floor. It was a wooden staircase this time, complete with a nicely polished railing. The lighting was a bit poor, since half of these crystals had gone out, but it looked like it was very well made.

Not a creak was heard as they ascended. Even Kat’s boots fell like dead weights on a concrete floor as she clomped upwards. They took their time, not wanting to exhaust themselves before a possible fight.

“So, wood’s kinda a big thing in Graven Keep and Korvas, right? Was that just scarcity? Seemed like we came out of forests every time we headed into a city, and weren’t far away from more,” Ann asked, tracing her claws across the wood grain.

Bren answered, his breathing slightly laboured. There had been a lot of stairs today. “Gods bless my calves, for they are about to give out. It started as resource scarcity, but also just that woodworking is a material skill that any person can learn; thus, disciplines in magical manipulation of wood itself are less common. Stone was far more difficult to work with by hand, so Paths centred around its manipulation became more common and respected. If you see wood, you usually know that a craftsman has worked hard to create either the furniture or structure.”

“Ah, gotcha,” Ann nodded. “Do Thalten and Indelholm have the same, uh, notion about it?”

“No, actually. Thalten is a fertile land with rich forests. Their crafters are well known throughout Korvas, and wood is their speciality. Indelholm is odd. If you were to find a wood shaper, it would likely be there. I might look them up for some work on my wand. Such things are more their work, along with enchanters.”

“Think they’d be able to work on my staff? She’s been beat up a little,” Rosalyn asked.

“I am sure they would be happy to, for coin. Ah, here we are.”

Here they were indeed. Another door. Wood, with a heavy ring in the middle.

“Good evening. Are you guests of the Master’s?”

Ann yelped as a face emerged from the door. It wasn’t a ghost, or really a wooden face, but more like there was a man put into the door and the wood had been worked into his flesh. The edges of the wood looked like they slid over his face if he relaxed, hiding him. He was bald with droopy jowls and a long face. Ann couldn’t see any arms, or really anything besides his neck.

“You clearly aren’t the Master. He has a fondness for women, but not quite your types. Alas, you may not enter unless you know the answer to the challenge. I doubt you will, as it’s been a very,” he yawned, deep and wide, revealing wooden teeth, then smacked his lips. “Very long nap.”

Ann took a deep breath. She patted down her tail and ears. “I dunno about that. Think I’ve got a better shot than most people now. What’s the challenge?”

“When, dear guest, did the Leafs last win the Cup?”

Shit. Ann wasn’t a sports head. Sure, she’d watched plenty of hockey, but that was like, a national obligation. Apparently Anthony was a bit more into it. “Can I have a minute to think?”

“Take all the time you need. Neither of us will be going anywhere,” the door sighed.

“God damnit, I know my dad talked about this,” Ann groaned, clutching at her ears. “What fucking year was it?”

“I’ll need the date, too,” the door yawned.

“Fuck you!” Ann snapped. “Alright. It was a while before when I was shot…”

“Ann, what’s hockey?” Rosalyn asked.

“I’ll explain it in a bit, Lambchop. Sorry, need to think. So, it was always a big thing around when school was getting out. Like, after, but not much after- so June?  Fuck, but it might have been earlier. Didn’t it have to do with the number of teams left? It could be earlier! Shit shit shit?”

Ann started pacing on the step, trying to get it through her head.

“Ann?” Rosalyn asked.

“If you know anything about a maple leaf beating… damnit, I even know it was the Red Wings, I’d be happy to hear, love,” Ann grumbled. Damnit, she knew this! Her mom had loved all of that statistics stuff and had loved watching the games. Why couldn’t she have inherited her ridiculously good memory?

“Well, there’s the story of the Robin and the Tree,” Rosalyn said slowly. “It’s an old one, so it might be relevant?”

“Does it have a date?”

“No, just that it was in spring. Sixty-seven leaves were plucked from the tree to line the bird’s nest. Torn from their home, they rotted quickly. Five and two days it took for the Robin to feather its nest, though it was late in the year to find a mate. Be careful, oh children, when building your nest. It is your home, your safest place. Doing things right will save you from the Robin’s plight.”

Ann stared at Rosalyn. She was shocked how relevant the parable was. “Huh… that’s actually perfect. Wonder who the hell wrote that? Anyway.” She turned and faced the door. “August second, nineteen sixty-seven.”

The door opened back up. “Hm? What was that? I dozed off.”

“The password,” Ann sighed. “Last time the Leafs won the Stanley Cup? August second, nineteen sixty-seven!”

“I am shocked to hear the correct answer! Welcome in, oh knowledgeable one.”

The door clunked and swung inward, the face leaning back into the door.

“I uh… I’m not that smart,” Ann muttered to herself. Had the Leafs really never won another championship? Her mom would be pissed.

“So?” Rosalyn asked. “What’s hockey?”

Ann sighed. “It’s an old sport. You got a bunch of guys in padded armour; they’d all put skates on, go out on flat ice, and use sticks to try and shoot a rubber disc into the other team’s goal. No clue when it started or much of the history around it, but mom liked it a lot.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun! Could we play?” Rosalyn asked. Her eyes were planted on the doorway, but she hadn’t made a move to go forward.

“It’s kinda a rough sport, but sure. We can try. After this? We can have Minnie be ref.”

“Sounds good tae me,” Kat said. She couldn’t hide the edge in her voice. That one she always got when she was expecting a fight. Half nerves, half excitement.

“Are you going to go through? My arms are getting tired,” the door groaned.

Ann took the first step into the room beyond. A heavy clunk shot her into a fighting stance, the floor shifting under her feet.

Lights slowly bloomed into life ahead of them, giving life to the rest of the room. A white grin, macabre in its skeletal joy, greeted them from the depths of a plush leather chair. Long white hair wove with cobwebs down its body as it rested there, hands placed in its lap as if it were simply waiting for them to sneak in late like unruly teenagers. It wore a moth-eaten robe of interwoven reds and blues that draped loosely on its frame.

Ann, her heart beating a quick rhythm, stalked further into the room. She couldn’t tell who the skeleton was, but had to assume it was Anthony. With ghosts of his victims haunting the halls below, she refused the notion that he wouldn’t also be clinging to the afterlife.

Rosalyn and the rest crept in behind her, avoiding the light pressure plate in case they accidentally sent the room back into darkness.

The skeleton was sat at a small round table beside a large hearth. It was the type of fireplace you’d see in movies where rich people would have a veritable bonfire in their living rooms. Soot still stained the inside from millennia long past. A tray rested on the table, a pair of mugs and a tea kettle resting between the occupied spot and its vacant opposite.

Rosalyn approached the remnants. “Oh, not him. Pelvis too wide, other markers; this was a woman. Guessing this was his wife? Seems like a cushy life. Wonder why she kept her room downstairs like that if she also lived up here?”

“Ye see anythin’ fer cats?” Kat asked, searching for threats.

Lucia shook her head. “No. Anthony didn’t like. Maybe didn’t allow. Rooms downstairs hers for own things? Own space.”

“That could well be. I see this as Anthony’s space she lived in.” Bren approached the chairs, then cast around the room.

The outer walls were actually organised with several trophies of strange creatures Ann hadn’t seen yet, along with a few skulls she was convinced were results of his experiments. Too many eye sockets. Horns or other strange protuberances that Ann would have associated with a Warped if this wasn’t from well before that time. There were also some books, and Bren was naturally drawn to them.

“Ah, this is what we are looking for,” he announced after a quick scan of the first few. “Experimentation logs. This one is about his experiments with Daisy, but I think we know enough about that for now. I at least can recognise her name by now. Ann, what are the rest of these?”

“Let me see,” Ann said, pulling up next to him and leaning over his shoulder. “That’s about traps in the hotel.” She grabbed it and flipped through. “Looks like it’s for the residential section. I don’t see any mention of his personal quarters. Lemme have the next?”

Bren handed the book over his shoulder, already pulling another down. He couldn’t read them, Ann knew, but it seemed like something he’d be trying to pick up quickly.

“Alright, this one’s more relevant. It’s about who he abducted. It’s… oh that’s graphic. Ahem…”

“Short stay guests are the easiest to yoink because I can just say they checked out early. I’ve got my receptionist well compensated to keep his fucking trap shut about any weirdness there. Not gonna get in trouble there, and I can always get a new guy if he fucks this up. Anyway, I’ve been taking a good quarter of them. The abduction traps are working well, and don’t even need me to get involved except for the shower one. Gassing people’s annoying, and I’m probably just gonna stop that one. It’s also really hard to make that shit. My superpowers seem to be better at working with solid stuff.

“I still have to be careful about who I do it with. Learned that really quick after I killed someone who was apparently a pretty well known fighter in the nearby town. Had to use the body to make a thing that killed him, and leave body parts. Complete waste of a body, let me tell you. Got a reputation to keep, though, but that one made me fucking sweat.

“What was that fancy word the business types keep using? Acquisitions! Acquisitions are pretty consistent. Seems like everyone’s got some level of superpower now. Glad I came up with the traps before I had to actually fight any of them. Not sure how well my powers will work on other people. Rocks could work, sure, but still. Daisy’s been foundational to my work here. I still can’t get the sound of her legs dragging out of my fucking head. Need to make that right, so I’ve been doing a lot more with changing body parts. Did you know that if you add too many muscles, they all kinda die because blood doesn’t work right? Had to figure out how the hell that worked by messing it up a few times. At least I can keep them alive through it all in those cages. Don’t even have to touch them.

“Alright, so I may have gone a bit further than I thought I would, and started adding things to a body to see if I could. For some reason, it’s getting harder the more I understand the process. It’s like if I know more about how things work, the powers stop taking over parts. Or maybe because I know more, it’s taking more to do the more complicated stuff?

“Had some people come poking around the hotel the other day. So glad I’ve been really fucking careful. They seemed strong. I invited them to look around, but they couldn’t go into occupied rooms. Didn’t find shit. Still, who’s being suspicious? I’ve been making sure my experiments are only on drifters. I’ve made sure I know the people from town and who they know. Kinda accidentally became a local figure myself while I did that.

“Been really stuck on those people investigating and decided I needed something to deal with strong people. I’ve been working on these big people. Fucking huge freaks that have enough muscle to crush just about anyone into soup. It’s been slow going, though, because I need so many people for it. Even with the amount of people I’ve got, the amount of bones and muscle I need to make this work is going to take time. Plus side, I’m getting used to the screams in the experiment room. Gave me nightmares for a while. Probably should have plugged my ears, but eh? Don’t care enough. Just gotta keep myself safe from outside interference. There’s some dangerous shit out there, people and not. There were massive earthquakes when all of this started, and aftershocks still happen. Now the animals are all getting weirder. I swear I saw a unicorn the last time I was out. Wonder if I can make one?

“Can’t make a unicorn. Apparently horse hair and human hair aren’t close enough to change between the two. Couldn’t get it to look right. Also, have you seen a horse? The head on those things is fucking weird. Don’t think I want to try that again, but it’s definitely going on the shelves. The look on the woman’s face when I told her what I was going to do was hilariously terrified and happy at the same time. Had to pull in a couple other people to make the size right. She got really scared during that part. Didn’t survive the process, but I figured if I could get the shape right, I could do better on the heart and all of that on another try. Guess not. Work on the giants is ongoing.”

“Work on the giants went… weird. I think I was doing alright with them. Got them big. Their proportions are a bit weird, but they’re strong, and I’ve been pumping magic into them. I only have four of them really ready. The rest are… experiments in how far I can push what a body can handle. The brains are tricky. Meshing them together is not pretty. Anyway, I was about to take them out to test against a dragon that’s shown up in the area. Like, holy shit a real dragon! Got two women, two men. Figured that’d be fine. Whatever. They’re implanted with guarding my shit and doing this is a good test. Well, I took them out and… they left? Don’t know where I fucked up with the whole instinct thing, but yeah. Thirty-foot-tall fucking giants are just now wandering out there. I’m sure some dumbass fighter’ll take them out. Gonna focus on the weirder ones. Gonna put the diagram I drew of them in here for just keeping the idea there. Maybe I can try doing a giant human centipede thing next. Not like the poopy way, but actual limbs and bodies all in a row.”

Ann turned the page, uncovering a drawing she could only call terrible. An outline of a somewhat human frame was laid out with lines and notes on several of the parts. It was obviously huge, and the stocky limbs supported that weight. Their shoulders and thighs were noted specifically as points where he bundled muscles in ridiculous portions to help lift heavy objects.

“Wait, does that look like…” Kat asked.

“Kinda, yeah,” Ann muttered, continuing her review. Notes on how one of them got larger when imbued with wind magic. “No.”

She kept going and found a note at the bottom.

“Gotta have a name for these things. Guard mutants sounds stupid. I want to have something that sounds strong and all that.” The ink visibly changed between this passage and the next, either by time or just a different well. Regardless, this was clearly something he spent time on. “Got it. Working name…”

“Mulsfar,” Ann breathed.