More~

I know I said I'd have this up within three days and it's now up about eight days after the last chapter, but, uh... sorry. Life intruded. Particular apologies to RedBrickAndIvy, a wonderful reviewer who I really did promise to have this chapter up sharpish. Sorry!

Contains: A ritual scene. Yes, it's time to paint the man. I'm not going to up the rating to M unless people are really shocked by the toture scene - I know it's not a good defence, but I've seen real smutty stuff at rating T, and this is just some bloodiness. I'll let you guys decide this. (And besides, this is Amnesia. It's a kind of bloody fandom.)

Enough from me prattling, on with the chapter. C:

Amnesia:The Dark Descent (c) Frictional Games, the buggers.

Agrippa was cursing; damn, but this was difficult! Who would have thought that after decades of immobility, perhaps even hundreds of years, simply moving all your limbs at once would be so difficult?

Most people, he replied to himself. He had to acknowledge that as a fair point. Then he sighed; he was alone so often, and had been for so long, that it had become normal for him to hold conversations and even debates with himself. He was never far from decent company at least.

But why did this have to be so difficult? Every day, healthy people moved their limbs in wild conjunction without even noticing – he had been healthy and normal once, why was it taking him so long to get the hang of it again?

It's not like you can forget how to stretch your arms, how to wiggle your toes. We all learn it as babies, for Heaven's sake! Get a grip, Heinrich. He giggled suddenly. Get a real grip!

Focussing himself again, a task that was getting harder and harder with each week he passed down in the depths of Brennenburg, he started slowly rotating his ankles and wrists. The ropes that held him safe from injury were old and fraying; just enough to keep him supported and no more. Alexander was no monster, after all. He wouldn't chain Agrippa up just because he was immobile.

Well, immobile no longer.

From what Alexander had asked, Agrippa knew he would be moving soon, and taking an unwitting Daniel along with him for no reason other than his own selfishness. After the way Alexander had hounded him for answers on how a mortal human might travel through the portals without harm, and how to extend his life, Agrippa highly doubted that Alexander's motives were pure. Agrippa was sure that Alexander felt he was running out of time to harness the Orbs' powers before the Shadow caught up to Daniel and reclaimed its property, and as such his requests – demands really – that Agrippa tell him everything he knew could be nothing more than a way to keep Daniel with him for just long enough for the Baron to find out all the boy knew of the Orbs. Agrippa had no doubt that after Alexander had accomplished the task he had been researching and hunting for all these hundreds of years, he would cast Daniel aside with as little thought as he might toss away a used tinderbox.

So it was up to Agrippa to save Daniel.

Strange, he thought as he strained to break the last few cords of rope holding his left wrist, that I should feel this way. I know the boy not at all, only from what precious little Alexander has deemed to share with me about his new student. I haven't any sympathy for this plight – the boy should have faced his death like a man when he realised the Shadow was coming after him, not desperately run away like a scared child and seek ever-more drastic measures to escape the inevitable. But for all that, I suppose the boy is an innocent, and I am the only one who can save him from Alexander's machinations.

Agrippa paused for a moment to let out a bleak, humourless laugh. And it was I who provided the means to this quick step through the portal. It is most definitely my responsibility to correct that error, made from my own overweening cowardice.

He sighed. I may not have been brave enough to follow you last time, my apprentice, he thought to the shade of long-gone Weyer, but I shall put things right now, God willing.

In a different part of the cavernous castle of Brennenburg, Daniel tied the heavy leather apron around his waist, pushing away the uneasiness that always came with donning the protective garment. It was a butcher's apron – the heavy duty sort that the butcher would wear when slaughtering the animals or cutting up the carcasses.

That was another thought that Daniel pushed away, tying the cords securely so the apron covered his shirt and trousers – he had left his waistcoat in the higher levels, favouring practicality over warmth. There was no point in getting all his clothes bloody; as long as they kept moving down in the lower, colder levels by the gaol-dungeon, he wouldn't get chilblains, and they wouldn't be down in these odious levels for very long anyway.

He glanced over at his companion, the Baron. He was tying his apron similarly, though with noticeably more composure. After the first of the procedures – the first of the tortures Daniel had participated in, after the first of the ritual killings – Daniel had been horribly sick, and Alexander had been patient enough to wait with him until he was more recovered and fetch him some water with which to rinse his mouth. When Daniel had felt he could open his mouth without vomit issuing from it, he had asked Alexander, sickened to the core, how he could stand there so calmly.

Alexander had replied that it was necessary, and that just because one did not show outward signs of distress – such as the retching and vomiting exhibited by Daniel – it did not mean one was unaffected by it. In a quiet voice the Baron had said that he was as disgusted by the rituals as Daniel was, but that if they were going to defeat the Shadow they must overcome their visceral reaction and move beyond it to the intellectual reaction, and the learning to be gained from the exercises.

Daniel had grudgingly agreed and had not offered up any meaningful protest the next few times. Alexander's logic was sound, after all, and Daniel knew that Alexander was as anxious to study the Orbs as he himself was, albeit maybe for undisclosed reasons.

Some twinge of his conscience still bothered him on occasion, however. Sometimes he couldn't shake the feeling that Alexander was getting more desperate, and he knew that soon they would have depleted the gaol's supply of criminals, those who would surely deserve the exotic treatments the Baron and himself performed upon them to extract the precious vitae. He hadn't dared ask what would happen then, for he was half-afraid of the possible answer.

Alexander raised his eyebrows enquiringly, politely. Are you ready? Daniel nodded an assent and they moved quickly through the labyrinthine corridors, Alexander leading unerringly while Daniel tripped to keep up and stay close, towards the rooms that could only be called, for want of a better word, torture chambers.

The cold air whipped at the ankles and at exposed areas of skin, drafts from between the bricks and the few air vents to circulate the air – it wouldn't do to have the prisoners die untimely deaths, with their vitae dormant and useless in death after all. Daniel shivered and tried to get into the right frame of mind; they were going to perform the ritual shortly to stave off the Shadow, offering a man's life in exchange for Daniel's. If the intent did not match the words, the enchantment would not hold. Alexander had been most stringent on that point when instructing him for the first ritual they had performed.

Nevertheless, knowing that he was going to face the Shadow again, even if briefly to force it away - filled Daniel with a sickly dread, as if every corner hid an enemy and every flickering dance of candles disguised the Shadow's lurking progress behind him. But he forced his breaths into a normal pattern and filled his thoughts with righteousness. These men were criminals, filthy lawbreakers, and they deserved all they got. In Heaven's name, offering them as sacrifices to further the great cause of science could be seen as a better end than awaited them stinking in the gaol cells and surrounded by the other dregs of society. One might even say it was a privilege.

Alexander had been watching Daniel out of the corner of his eye as they had progressed down the levels, and nodded slightly to himself. Daniel was ready to perform the task required – if Alexander were to do it himself there would be no point; the Shadow was after Daniel and it only struck at those who got between it and its prey. As far as they had been able to determine, the Shadow – in what sentience it possessed – did not consider Alexander to be a threat in this way. It was unclear why not, as Alexander was showing Daniel how to oppose the Shadow and deny it the satisfaction it craved.

Perhaps it is tired of hunting those Daniel comes into contact with, and wishes the task to be over. Maybe it loses its potency with time, and must now complete its task without further ado. Alexander frowned to himself. If that theory holds true, we must work even faster and more efficiently to escape it in time, before our efforts are no longer effective. Everything can withstand anything, after all. After so many rituals to keep it at bay, maybe they hold less power over it each time. Maybe that is why Brennenburg appears to be falling down around us even as we learn and buy more time.

We cannot afford to delay. I must save him. I must take him with me, back to the homeland, with as much haste as I may.

He looked again at Daniel as they walked through to the gaol area. Had Daniel returned the look – he was quite used to Alexander's odd, considering glances and assessments by now – he would have seen how the Baron's usual serious expression softened, and his eyes glinted gently in the low light, lit by determination and affection.

Within the next few days, Alexander thought resolutely. And he shall be safe eternally.

In the sacrificial chamber they paused, hardening their resolve. The long, manacled table was encrusted with gore and dried blood, etched into intricate whorls and staining the wood indelibly. As Alexander had explained to Daniel once, it was not just the patterns on the skin that mattered; it was the patterns of the blood, painting patterns within patterns, making a stronger defence than a simple sketching of blood and marred skin. It was the intricacy that mattered, in confusing the Shadow's senses and protecting them for just a bit longer. Every detail must be attended to.

They turned to each other, expressions and stances a perfect mirror between young and ancient.

"Bring him."

Daniel nodded seriously and left with a measured step, ready to face the darkness of the stone hallways knowing it was with a purpose. He knew the steps from the sacrificial room to the cell they had termed 'the waiting cell'. It was where they moved the prisoner destined to die next. It was surrounded by other occupied cells, and with the piping system the noises of pain and anguish were amplified into that room in particular. That way, the corpse-to-be would hear all the pain of the others and never see it; why go to the trouble, when the human mind could invent scenes more terrible than the physical world could ever provide? Maximum vitae produced, least effort expended.

Efficient, elegant.

Daniel made sure to make noise as he walked, banging on the doors to other cells – mostly empty now they were running out of prisoners, but some provided a few whimpers that would be heard most acutely in the waiting cell. It garnered the desired effect: when he opened the door to that cell, the prisoner was already weeping and huddled in a filthy pile of rags and soiled straw in the corner, as far from Daniel as possible.

"Please," the man whimpered in a broken voice, holding himself. "Please, not me, anything but that…"

"Silence." Daniel commanded, and hauled the weak shell up out of the corner, nose wrinkling with distaste at the rank smell and almost furry feel of his unwashed clothes. "Face your fate with dignity, at least. If not a clean conscience."

The man was too weak to struggle as Daniel dragged him sobbing through the halls, barely able to support his own weight as he blabbered his innocence and claims of denial. Daniel shut them out with ease; it was all the same, one sinner to the next. They all claimed their innocence then, at the ultimate end, tried to bargain with Daniel and Alexander, begging for more time, trying to buy them off and exchange their lives for that of other prisoners.

As they walked the man gibbered with fear every time they passed between the many hanging corpses, a testament to the extremes Alexander and Daniel had brought themselves. To the prisoners they served as yet another way for them to generate vitae.

Daniel lugged the prisoner into the sacrificial room and exchanged a solemn look with Alexander. While Daniel had been fetching the sorry excuse for a human being, Alexander had been readying the room; lighting the candles, cleaning the knife to a fearsome gleam and making a small offering of his blood to the altar at one end of the room. He stood on the other side of the table, facing Daniel across it.

Without a word Alexander tied the canvas hood around the prisoner's head, ignoring his cries as staunchly as Daniel had. They shackled him to table and paused for a moment, feeling the Shadow's omnipresent aura thicken. The time was now. Alexander quickly painted intricate designs onto the man with practised ease.

"Please," the man groaned, twitching and straining against the shackles. "I am innocent, there's no need to kill me—"

"Be quiet, wretch," Alexander spat, backhanding the man around the face through the hood. "An innocent man need not fear death, for he shall be reunited with the Lord in Heaven. Your fear professes your guilt and necessitates your death. Be silent and be of the only use you may, as a sacrifice."

The man whimpered and sobbed, shaking as the Baron's words struck him hard.

Alexander picked up the cruelly shaped knife from its place by the victim's head and offered it to Daniel across his upturned bloody palms, still bleeding from his offerings. Daniel turned the knife by its handle, covering the blade in Alexander's blood. He then touched the devilishly sharp edge to his own palms and his blood joined Alexander's on the blade.

A few droplets of their combined blood fell and spattered onto the victim, making him startle and moan. They knew that the silence was making the victim even more anxious, and that unexpected warm wetness on him was causing a terror they could not have engineered.

His blood must be brimming with vitae by now, Alexander mused, and nodded to Daniel to begin the ritual.

The air in the close little room almost stagnated with the first cut Daniel made into the man, the Shadow drawn by the spilling of blood and the mingling of Daniel's with the sacrifice. Bloody crimson organic matter began to swell in the corners of the room and Alexander stood up straighter, saying not a word but Daniel knew that this was when they needed to move quickly. If they let that organic matter touch them even with a sacrifice to take their place, it would kill them just as maliciously.

Daniel began the chant as he cut quickly and deeply, the blood flowing like dark wine in the ascribed patterns, falling to drip in ghastly counterpoint of Daniel's voice into the grate in the floor, where it would collect and mingle with the few drops of Daniels' and Alexander's blood. After the man was dead, they would empty the depository under the grate and Alexander would take the precious liquid to the laboratory to extract the vitae and make his potions with it; Daniel was never exactly sure what he used it for, and Alexander refused to fully explain.

"Paint the man, cut the lines. Cut the flesh, watch the blood spill," he chanted in an increasingly more intense pitch as more blood flowed. He repeated his stanza, voice raising to combat the screech that was howling through Brennenburg as the Shadow hunted for them and bloated the air, whipping up a wind. The prisoner's screams lessened as he came close to death.

Daniel looked up over his bloody victim at Alexander, whose face was splattered with arterial spray from the victim and his white hair stained with scarlet streaks. He nodded seriously and Daniel plunged the knife into the wounds of the victim, staining the bluish lines with blood that flowed over the body.

"Paint the man, cut the lines, cut the flesh, watch the blood spill," he shouted urgently, completing his cutting with a vicious slash that ended the man's life. "Let it come!"

The Shadow howled and the walls shook , the fleshy growths bubbling and threatening to overcome the room.

"Begone, Shadow! I offer you this sacrifice in place of my own. I have beaten you this time, foul Shadow!" Daniel shouted to the ceiling.

The Shadow shrieked in frustrated bloodlust and slowly receded, the fleshy growths vanishing as if they had never been.

"Well done, Daniel," Alexander said quietly, looking around at the new cracks in the walls.

Daniel let out a huge breath in relief, shaking slightly from the stress. With trembling hands he set down the knife and avoided looking at the brutally carved body. "Safe for now," he muttered to himself.

"There is but one more thing we must do with him," Alexander said, almost gently. Daniel nodded and unshackled the still-warm body. They manhandled it out into the corridor, where a hook and length of rope was already waiting.

Daniel fought down the upsurge of bile in his throat when the still-oozing blood from the corpse dripped on his face as they heaved on the pulley to haul to body up to the ceiling, tied by the ankles.

When the man was successfully tied up, still twitching a little as his nerves fizzled out, Daniel collapsed to the floor, hyperventilating and shaking. Alexander crouched down by him and put his hand on the young man's shoulder in silent understanding. Daniel managed not to vomit, though it made him queasy to swallow down the acid. He clenched his eyes shut tight, seeing himself covered in blood up past his elbows, knowing the apron was awash with gore and he could feel the steaming blood on his face. Hot tears escaped his eyes and burned away the blood to drip miserably onto the floor.

"What are we becoming, Alexander?" he wept. "What monsters are we to do these things?"

For a moment Alexander didn't reply. When he did, his voice was soft and gentle.

"I think that is the last ritual we need do, Daniel. We should have enough vitae amassed for me to make to final preparations for our journey."

"Are you sure?" Daniel asked, looking up with painful hope, brushing away his tears with bloody hands and smearing his face more thoroughly with gore. He was almost taken aback by the affectionate countenance he had surprised. Alexander looked away, composing himself.

"Yes, Daniel. Go clean yourself, prepare to leave. I shall make up the necessary potions. Occupy yourself how you wish, but do not disturb me until I come to you – it is vital I undertake this last step alone. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Baron," Daniel replied obediently, getting to his feet with Alexander's help. "Are we to leave soon?"

Alexander thought for a few moments. "Go now, fill your time with happy pursuits. Come to me here at midnight, three days hence. We shall leave then."

Daniel didn't question how they would leave Brennenburg through the bowels of the castle. He trusted Alexander, after all. He smiled shakily.

Alexander's strange yellow eyes flicked back to Daniel's face and he returned the smile.

"Don't fret, Daniel. I have everything in hand, and soon we shall leave this place."

When Daniel was gone, the brief contentment in his soul that Daniel's presence brought him faded, and the dark knowledge of what he had to do overtook him. He washed his face quickly with water from the well, making sure the blood that had sprayed onto him was gone.

Going into a hidden room, one Daniel had never found and never would, Alexander walked with dark purpose to the bookshelf against the stone wall and selected a book. Pulling gently on the spine, he waited as the bookcase spun gently and deposited him outside of Brennenburg in the crisp night air. He saw distant lights, and headed towards them briskly.

For the truth was, they did not have everything they needed for Daniel to survive the passage through the portal. Agrippa had been very specific.

He had all the other ingredients: distilled vitae, blood from Alexander's heart, water from the sewers, the plasma of the kaernk, offal meat of a pig, a broken cog melted down to ore and slag, the heart of a poisonous mushroom, a hair from Daniel's head innocently taken while he was sleeping, dust from a book of alchemy, and the dregs of the amnesia potion from when it was brewed.

There was but one thing he needed to complete and assemble it, and he knew Daniel would not be able to help him, not after his reaction to the ritual. He would be horrified and might even refuse to take the potion, knowing what was in it.

And he must be saved. Alexander could not bear to leave him alone, and so he would collect this blood without Daniel's knowledge or help. It was a necessary evil.

Creeping into the farmhouse, Alexander composed himself. Curse you, Agrippa, for making me commit this sin. Only for Daniel do I do this, he thought to himself, and readied the gag and rope.

All that was left, he would collect tonight. A virgin sacrifice.

Daniel washed himself thoroughly, trying to rid himself of the guilt as well as the blood. Dressing himself in clean, soft clothes he went to the library and busied himself with a large book, pushing away the memories in favour of Mr Dickens.

After some time, however, he heard a shuffling sound of footsteps along the corridor. Putting the book aside with a racing heart and grabbing a candlestick as the best weapon he could find, he walked silently to the door and peered around it.

His breath caught in an inaudible gasp.

Shambling up the corridor was a broken husk of a man, supporting himself with difficulty and walking like a young child, unsure of the motion and seeming in pain with every step. He was hollowed and gaunt, corpse-like. For a terrible moment Daniel thought one of the victims had come to find him.

"Daniel?" A strangely melodious voice issued from the dead-eyed man, and he look around. Daniel calmed his racing heart; none of the prisoners had spoken like that, with that strong a German accent.

He stepped out from behind the door, keeping the candlestick between them as a pitiful sort of weapon. Just in case.

"Ahh, so you are Herr Daniel," the man said, sagging against the banister.

"Who are you?" Daniel asked, voice tight with barely-controlled fear.

The man gave a horrible smile, exposing stumps of rotten teeth. "My name is Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Daniel. Pleased to meet you."