Chương 153: 144. Bad news

"And how exactly does someone lose a key to an ancient Vatican gate?"

"Well…" Zenon started.

"As you know, there were unforeseen—""Okay." I stopped him, practically seeing him look for another dismissive answer.

"I'll go back to my friends for now. Don't worry—I won't spread panic," I quickly added, noticing one of the paladins opening his mouth.

"And have a good talk about what happened and what you want to tell me. Then we'll talk about solutions, because whether we like each other or not, I'm pretty sure we're in the same boat now." Zenon and the rest agreed, and I walked back to my group. I needed to know what was going on. Even if they decided to fix it themselves, I would have to investigate anyway, and arguing for every scrap of information with the church wasn't on my to-do list. I went back to start planning things with the people I trusted.

"What's up?" Luna asked when I approached them.

"They fucked up and lost the keys to that gate. Not sure how that's possible," I said, not breaking my word as I spoke in a hushed voice.

"How would they do that?" Ophelia asked, tilting her head lightly.

"Are they stupid, or what?" Darius said a bit too loudly, but thankfully, his comment didn't give anything away.

"I'd like to say yes," I said with a light smile.

"But this is way too many coincidences. We're pushed from the hall, the exit they went to was protected, the whole group ends up here, and now they lose the key to the gate." The overwhelming feeling of wrongness was present. Nothing was adding up, and I was missing way too many pieces of the puzzle to see the picture. We talked for another fifteen minutes, while the church group was also deep in discussion.

But it looked like after my short talk with the pope, the others were catching on to the fact that something was very wrong, as conversations around stopped as people looked to the church. We moved to sit with Astrid and two more members of the Third Chamber who approached to form one group: a Husar named Bolesław—shortened to "Bolo," due to pronunciation—and a spirit summoner from Japan named Aiko.

The rest of the Third Chamber formed one larger group closer to us, but they gathered around one bigger clan with whom they were politically connected. Overall, there were around seventeen people from our faction, counting our five. The nobles also now stayed in one group, although separated into three smaller ones, which seemed to be the Riswalts and other houses not affiliated with them. The subfactions gathered around a French woman with long blond hair and a frail-looking noble.

And finally, the religious groups, who stayed as a few smaller separate parties, not joining the church but staying close to it. All in all, there were around seventy people here, with a few cats walking around, eager to talk with everyone. After another five minutes, the church cardinal moved to the centre of the room and drew our attention, inviting representatives of all those gathered to discuss the situation. The fact that he didn't just announce it couldn't mean anything good.

I got up and saw a warlock from the other Third Chamber party do the same, giving me a questioning look. I nodded at him, giving permission. I didn't care for dick-comparing competition on whether he could join me as a representative on the same level or not. The other representatives gathered, along with two cats, which was rather strange, considering there were only about five felines total in the crowd. We all approached Clementus, who stood up only to say that Leo would explain the whole situation.

"My lords, ladies, and all others. We regret to inform you that an unforeseen circumstance has arisen that has affected our plans. It seems that the man carrying one of the keys to the gate… left. And we can't leave as of right now." A confused murmur passed through the few people gathered.

"Left?" asked the warlock.

"And you said ONE of the keys, so what's going on? Why can't we leave?"

"Well. The first key was carried by Cardinal George, and he seems to have… disappeared." He corrected himself after a second of hesitation. I raised my eyebrows at that and said, "Impressive spatial magic, to just disappear without a trace." The mortal pope gave me not the most pleasant look before slowly explaining, clearly trying to choose words that didn't make it sound like they had a traitor among their upper echelons.

"He left, leaving some of his clothes behind. It looks like he initially carried a fake key, and he has now left before switching the keys. He is an eccentric man, and we fear he has decided to seek out an artifact or some other useful historical item. We would like to propose splitting into groups and looking for him in the surrounding corridors." I frowned, and so did the other representatives.

"Not possible," the woman with the French accent said.

"If you want someone to do your bidding, then tell the Riswalts to do it," she barked, earning a sharp look from the other nobleman in the group.

"We won't help unless you tell us what is going on and where we are." We all nodded to her words.

"Miss D'Arc is right," spoke an orange cat.

"You led us here, and now you withhold information. You want us to help—but help with what? You suddenly lose the key to the gate, and then your man disappears out of nowhere? Switching keys?" Once again, everyone gathered nodded. The pope swept his gaze over the people and, after a few seconds of consideration, began speaking—the soft, calming tone gone from his voice.

"Two people carried the key to the gate: the pope and the leader of the cardinals. The new pope wasn't properly introduced to everything yet, so I carried his key." I looked to Clementus, but he just calmly nodded along.

"George was wounded when we were attacked while going for the exit. He took an attack meant for me, which almost killed him. So after we arrived here, we let him rest in one of the side rooms."

"Wait," said the other delegate from the Third Chamber.

"You opened the gate—I saw it. Your key worked well before we got here."

"Well, that's the issue. Someone switched them up. The one I have now is a fake."

"How's that possible?" I asked.

"When we got here, we were tired and wounded. Before going to lick his wounds, George approached me to thank me for the guidance—he almost fell on me due to blood loss—and I think… I think he might have switched the keys then."

"Why?" the cats asked.

"In this situation?"

"He was eccentric, fascinated with the Old Vatican and wartime. For whatever reason, he had a fake with him, and he might have switched it to make sure he wasn't left here and had the time to explore." I almost laughed at the 'for whatever reason' part.

"Aside from the reason to carry a fake key…

"D'Arc started, her eyebrows rising up.

"What kind of place has only two keys carried by the highest officials?" There was another stretch of silence before the pope continued.

"Look, we wanted somewhere safe, and we knew nothing was getting through those doors. We didn't think we would ever have to walk around here or explore. This wasn't planned or—""Where are we?" the woman pressed. Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"…this corridor leads further underground and into the Old War Command."

"Okay, shouldn't be that bad," the orange cat said, her eyes narrowed.

"Well… Not many people know, but when the war was coming to a crescendo, and the Summoning happened… a secure site for the God's power was needed and—""What is down that corridor?" I asked this time, my voice firm, expecting the answer. Leo took a large breath.

"It's not just the command… It's also the site of God's descent. It's… a ninth-tier singularity—a memory of an event that shattered the veins." There was silence. We all looked at him, stunned, not sure what to say. When he told me it was Old Vatican, I thought it was just a massive old command centre, not a goddamn singularity right under our noses.

"Are you suicidal?" the cat finally snapped.

"Ninth tier? What the fuck were you thinking, bringing us here?" she shouted, her gaze going to the opening of the tunnel.

"One thing crawls out of there, and we are dead meat."

"Only the centre should be at the ninth tier. The outer rings should be much less dangerous. And here, mana doesn't even reach—so there is no danger."

"And what tier is an outer ring of something like that?" I asked with raised eyebrows.

"It's… third to fourth?" he said, unsure, which once again was met with swearing. But I picked up on something else.

"You're not sure?" I asked.

"Singularities need mana to exist. The Old War Command was described as a city underground. You mean to tell me that you had a city's worth of high-density magic and you were just sitting on it this whole time?" I asked, my tone deepening.

"We tried, sure, but…" Leo started, the meandering tone back in his voice.

"But none of the expeditions ever returned," Helga finished.

"Fucking great," I said, now also looking at the corridor.

"None of those who went into the singularity returned," Leo corrected.

"It was described as perfectly safe in the mana-free zone." He was speaking quickly, as some present looked like they were about to strangle the man.

"There are corridors around us, used by servants and to supply the other rooms. There is a good chance that maybe George is in one of those, looking for any artefacts."

"What if he went into the main corridor?" I asked, nodding toward the darkness.

"We have considered that, and we will send a small group a bit deeper—not anywhere close to where mana starts. From the reports we had, the singularity should be much further in."

"And that massive gate was added for decoration, I presume?" I said, my eyebrows reaching my forehead.

"Mana aberrations can wander off."

"But there were no tracks when we arrived. According to reports, no aberrations wandered out in the period after the war until the Inquisition. This gate was just a precaution." Not much knowledge of singularities was preserved. I knew it was possible for the creatures in it to wander off, but they didn't do so normally. What "normally" meant in this context, I could only guess.

We tried to learn more about how this whole thing came to be, but any topic that touched on the church's inner politics quickly devolved into roundabout explanations and topic changes. Pressing on would probably just get us lies, and not even good ones, considering that so far the story had so many holes it could function as a sieve. But we needed to find the key. We switched to a discussion about how to split and who would look where. Anyone with tracking abilities was separated into different teams.

We then separated everyone by power and abilities, trying to keep the original groups so that people who trusted each other could work together. I ended up with my friends, as well as the two who had joined our team before. The spirit summoner in our group would use one of her creatures to track the man. Astrid stayed behind to look over the oracle, who was still tired. Once everything was decided, we went back to the people and gave them the short version.

"Holy shit. So one of the sites of God's descent was here." William slowly nodded.

"And I argued for the Nazareth theory all that time," he added with a chuckle, looking ahead with disbelief.

"Think we'll find some artefacts?" I asked with slight excitement. Despite the situation, the scholar in me was curious about what lay further down the corridor.

"We're not going anywhere near artefacts," Luna cut in, to which Darius and I deflated. Once we were gathered and ready, we went to the room where the cardinal had been recovering from his wounds. It was a smaller stone chamber. Judging by the remains of shelves, it had once been used for storage. There were some drops of blood on the ground and a few smears of the red liquid where the man must have lain.

There was also his cloak and cardinal's hat, set atop some of the wood and other bloody fabric to mimic the man sleeping, wrapped in clothes. We approached after the church's official search party was done, and our tracker began her work. She first extended her hand and puffed up her long sleeve, making sure it flowed straight down. She then put her hand into the sleeve and widened the opening in the fabric. Then mana flowed from her and coagulated into a creature.

Before I took a good look, it jumped into the woman's open sleeve, and after some movement inside, a small fox-like snout popped out. From the quick look I got, it was shaped like a very long, small grey fox, with a body reminiscent of a short, furry snake with paws.

"What's that?" I asked, curious.

"Kudagitsune, her name's Kiri," the woman answered with pride.

"She's a great tracker. Although she can have a bit of a mean streak," she added, as the creature tried biting her while she was patting the head popping out of the sleeve.

"We handle one animal with a mean streak—we can handle another," Will said, looking at me with raised eyebrows.

"Hilarious," I said, and moved to the side, letting the woman do her work. The woman walked around, letting the creature sniff. And after a few minutes… we got nothing. The animal simply looked at the place where the man had lain, and when prompted to find the scent anywhere else, it just went back to sniffing. Aiko looked between the creature and us in consternation.

"Well, it doesn't do that normally," she said awkwardly.

"Scent can be easily masked," Luna said, but Aiko shook her head.

"It should also pick up on bits of aura, like an empath." We let other trackers in, but everyone got similar results. The man seemed to have just disappeared without any trace—just puffed into thin air. All that was left was to look for traces in the corridors. The rest were tasked with the passages around, while the church group and we would go down the main one, watching out not to go anywhere near mana. Their group consisted of the cardinal, two paladins, Helga, and Nathan.

Finally, once everyone was ready, we slowly entered the long, wide corridor that led deeper underground. We walked slowly, our path lit by magical braziers on either side. The stone hallway was filled with carvings of holy icons and heroes of many other factions and religions, shown working together—at least where the decorations were still legible. It took us around fifteen minutes of slow walking for the spirit to pick up on something, as it gave off a strange, low, clicking sound.

"Got something?" I asked.

"Yes," Aiko confirmed and closed her eyes, concentrating.

"He walked through here?" asked one of the paladins, a bit of hope in his voice.

"No," the woman said with a frown.

"It's not pieces of aura—it's more like a strong source of known scent up ahead. Still far away though." I saw Nathan get lower to the ground, looking over the floor with a frown.

"Hard to track on stone," he said.

"But I don't think anyone walked in here for a long time." It was strange, but we needed that key. If that gate could stop mana aberrations from a ninth-tier singularity, we weren't getting through it any other way. We prepared for an attack and began moving even more slowly. I let my irises open a fraction. I didn't care about anyone finding out, especially since the braziers' light only reached once we were closer, each time suddenly revealing part of the darkened corridor.

The anticipation of an enemy revealed from the darkness was weighing on everyone's nerves. It took us twenty minutes of the slow, unnerving crawl until we finally found the source of the smell, and at this point, we didn't need a spirit as the iron in the air was impossible not to pick up on. George's body lay there by a wall—or at least what was left of him. His entire front was torn open, with skin and flesh lying everywhere.

The face was relatively intact, but the expression frozen on it was barely visible from the gore. The organs and entrails lay scattered, meaning the tearing force must have been massive. It looked like something ripped him open from crotch to throat with terrifying strength. It looked like that—if you didn't notice two details. The moment I connected the dots, I prepared for the attack. Looking behind me, I readied to cast Shield. It could come from any angle.

I was ready for battle and ready for the pain casting in my state would bring. But nothing happened. I swiped my gaze along the faces of the people around me, looking for a crack, a misalignment—something to give them away. But I got nothing. Maybe we passed it, but that should have been impossible.

"Is the key still on the body?" the cardinal asked. I didn't pay them any attention. Whatever the miracle bringers were after was here, and now I had my confirmation—this was nowhere near the end of it. I moved back and stood close to Ophelia and Luna, to give them the news before I did the same for Will and Darius.

"Don't react," I whispered, making sure no one else heard me.

"Watch out for the others. Don't leave your backs open." As I spoke, my eyes were still on the rest of the people gathered, trying to catch on to anything that would help before I gave them the news.

"There's a skinwalker among us."