The Twice-blessed Paladin

The moon hangs low, a pale, sickly white in the sky as Aldric approaches the ruined chapel.

It stands alone in a field of dead grass, its once-proud spires broken, the stone walls cracked and covered in creeping vines.

The doors are missing, leaving the entrance a gaping wound of darkness.

As he steps closer, the air changes.

It is not just silence that surrounds this place.

It is absence.

There are no insects chirping. No birds roosting.

Even the wind seems unwilling to pass through these broken walls.

Aldric grips his greatsword tightly, the black steel resting against his armored shoulder.

"This place has been forsaken."

He steps inside.

The interior is worse than the outside.

The pews are shattered, wood rotted and broken as if something had torn through them.

The altar, once a place of worship and light, is defaced beyond recognition.

A symbol has been carved into it, deep and jagged, its shape wrong—as though the hands that made it did not understand mortal geometry.

The air is thick, heavy, wrong.

He kneels, running his gloved fingers along the carvings.

The grooves are not old.

This was done recently.

As he examines the altar, he hears it.

A sound. A whisper.

Not words.

Just a presence.

Aldric rises to his feet, turning.

The shadows at the far end of the chapel shift.

A figure steps forward.

And then another.

And another.

They emerge from the darkness between the pillars, cloaked figures with hoods drawn low.

But as they step into the dim moonlight, Aldric sees them clearly.

These are not ordinary men.

Their robes are black, but not of cloth—the fabric moves, writhing like something alive.

Their hands, visible beneath long sleeves, are unnaturally thin, their fingers elongated, nails sharp like claws.

Then they lift their heads.

Aldric's grip on his sword tightens.

Their faces are stretched, distorted—as if their skin does not quite fit their skulls.

Their eyes are empty, hollow pits, devoid of anything human.

And then they move.

Not like men.

But like things learning how to walk.

One lunges forward first, faster than expected, hands raised like talons.

Aldric steps aside, his sword swinging in a clean, practiced arc.

Steel meets flesh.

But the flesh does not resist like it should.

His blade sinks too easily, splitting through the cultist's side like cutting through wet paper.

The creature shudders, body convulsing before collapsing.

But it does not scream.

It does not bleed red.

A black ichor seeps from the wound, thick and oily.

Aldric pulls back his sword, watching as the thing twitches once, then goes still.

Then the others attack all at once.

Three initiates rush him, their movements erratic, twitching unnaturally.

Aldric steps back, pivoting on his heel, bringing his blade upward in a deadly arc.

The first cultist is bisected, his body folding apart like something that was never meant to be whole.

The second lunges low, clawed hands swiping for his legs.

Aldric brings his boot up, smashing into the creature's face, sending it sprawling backward.

The third comes from behind, but Aldric is faster.

He twists, swinging his sword with deadly precision.

The blade catches the cultist at the neck.

There is no scream.

Only silence as the head tumbles to the ground.

The final one, the one he kicked aside, scrambles back to its feet.

It hisses, its voice inhuman, whispering something in a language that burns his ears to hear.

It raises a hand, dark veins pulsing, preparing to cast something—

Aldric does not let it.

He steps forward and impales the creature through the chest.

It shudders once—then collapses into a heap of convulsing limbs.

Aldric stands amongst the bodies.

They do not dissolve, nor rot.

They simply remain, broken things that should never have existed.

He grips his sword tighter, turning back to the altar.

This was not just a desecration.

This was a ritual.

And rituals leave trails.

Aldric scans the stone surface of the altar, searching for anything out of place.

Then he finds it.

A seam in the stone, subtle but there.

He presses his gauntleted fingers against it.

It shifts.

Then, with a low grinding sound, the altar moves.

A hidden passage opens behind it.

Aldric stares into the darkness beyond.

A tunnel.

Not old, not ruined—recently carved.

His eyes narrow.

"A hiding place."

Or worse.

"A lair."

Aldric grips his sword and steps forward.

The darkness swallows him whole.