[EwulSpif]

Chapter IV: The Blood in the Foyer.

The oak doors did not creak when Sszar pushed them. They gave way with a soft, wet splinter, like a boot stepping on a bloated corpse.
Inside, the Estate of Unrest smelled of old grease, wet wool, and copper.
The foyer was a hollow ribcage of dark wood. A grand staircase curved upward into the blackness of the first floor, its banisters cracked and weeping dry rot. On the floor lay the remnants of velvet carpets, now reduced to a black sludge that clung to the IMS’s boots.

They did not rush. They stepped into the room and became part of the silence.
“The air is heavy,” Gorg muttered. His hand stayed on his axe hilt. Fluffy pressed close to his leg, the drake’s throat vibrating with a silent, rhythmic click.
“It is the weight of bad deaths,” Voksh said. He raised his bone wand, his hollow eyes tracing the shadows on the ceiling. “The soft-skins who died here did not want to leave. Their greed is still stuck to the walls.”
⸻
The sound came from the corridors leading off the main hall.
A wet, dragging scrape.
Three dark ghouls shambled into the dim light of the foyer. Their flesh was the color of bruised plums, torn open to reveal grey muscle beneath. They did not have the mindless hunger of the skeletons in the yard.
They had malice.
The lead ghoul carried a broken iron poker, its fingers fused to the metal by old fire. It looked at Sszar and let out a wet, rattling scream that tore through the quiet of the house.
Behind the squad, Jingles shifted his weight on a broken stool.
His fingers didn't hit a chord. They scraped across the silver dwarf-wire, producing a sharp, metallic screech that perfectly matched the ghoul’s frequency.
The sound did not soothe. It pinned.
The ghouls faltered for a fraction of a second, their heads jerking as the dissonant vibration disrupted their focus.
“Take them down,” Sszar hissed.
⸻
The foyer became a meat grinder.
The lead ghoul lunged, swinging the iron poker toward Sszar’s head. The Shadowknight did not parry. He stepped into the blow, letting the rusted iron shatter against his heavy shoulder plate.
The pain was clean. It fed the cold stone in his chest.
Sszar brought his mace down in a vertical arc, burying the spiked head directly into the ghoul’s collarbone. The violet spark surged, smelling of ozone and burnt hair as it tore through the creature’s rotting marrow.
To his left, Krazz was already moving.
He didn't use weapons. He used leverage. The Monk caught the second ghoul by its throat, using its own momentum to slam it into the stone hearth of the fireplace. There was a dull thud, followed by the sound of a skull cracking like an eggshell.
The third ghoul slipped past them, its black claws reaching for Voksh.
The Necromancer didn't move. He didn't blink.
He reached out and touched the ghoul’s forehead with his bare, scaled palm.
Vampiric Bite.
A sickening crunch echoed through the hall as Voksh’s magic tore into the ghoul's remaining flesh. The creature withered, drying up like salt-cured meat in seconds, while the shallow cuts on Voksh’s arms closed with a wet, black sheen.
⸻
The foyer was still again.
Three corpses lay in the sludge, their essence entirely harvested.
Voksh knelt beside the ghoul Sszar had crushed. The creature had been wearing something beneath the filth—a torn, heavy linen garment, thick with old stains that refused to fade.
The Necromancer pulled it free.
Bloodstained Tunic.
It was heavy, stiff with the dried vitality of a hundred victims. As Voksh threw it over his shoulders, the fabric seemed to tighten, the dark red stains pulsing faintly against his grey scales.
He looked taller. More ancient.
“It retains heat,” Voksh murmured, his claws brushing the dark cloth. “The mages of the soft-skins think this is a curse. To us, it is a reservoir.”
Sszar wiped black ichor from his mace onto his thigh. He looked up at the curved staircase.
From the darkness above, a new sound began to drift down.
A cold, aristocratic laughter. The sound of dry bones and old iron.
The King of the Balcony knew they were there.
Sszar gripped his weapon tighter.
“Let him laugh,” Sszar said. “He’s just naming his price.”