Basilisk Isles, Tear Island, High Sothos Ruins
Crunch... Thud...
A Three-headed Hellhound pawed a calcified ribcage out of its path, its multiple heads sniffing the stagnant air with rhythmic snorts. Jon followed, his eyes scanning the carpet of bones that lined the obsidian-smooth corridors.
These weren't just the dead; they were the discarded. The fractures in the skulls and the warped growth of the spines suggested that these slaves had been subjected to horrific, experimental tortures. Mingled among the human remains were the skeletons of failed chimeras—Minotaurs that died in infancy and Lizard-Men who hadn't survived the "ripening."
It seemed that when the "Red Death" plague hit, the hierarchy of the pits collapsed into a primal struggle for survival. Whether it was the slaves or the monsters who broke the inner seals mattered little now. Jon moved through the silent graveyard, his hand outstretched as he gathered the thick, swirling mists of necrotic energy—the "Grudges of the Pits"—into his collection stones for future use.
The Heart of the Laboratory
Hiss... Hiss...
As Jon reached the fifth and deepest level, a strange, rhythmic whistling echoed from a massive vertical shaft. This was the "Garbage Chute" of the Blood Mages, a bottomless pit where failed experiments were tossed to rot.
Jon ignited a high-intensity whale-oil lantern, its Tyrosh-engineered prismatic glass casting a brilliant, wide-angle light that cut through the darkness. He walked past Black Stone pillars carved into the likeness of lunging dragons, their claws holding crystal basins meant for ancient candles.
Behind these pillars lay the "Sanctum of Flesh."
The rooms were labeled in High Valyrian: [Material Repository], [Incubation Chamber], [Observation Vault]. Most of the iron-wrought gates had been shredded from the inside out, but one remained perfectly sealed, its hinges coated in a layer of ancient, magically-infused wax.
The Incubation of a Legend
Grind... Screech...
The iron gate groaned as Jon forced it open. Inside a fifty-square-meter vault stood a single object: a massive, egg-shaped monolith of Valyrian Black Stone. A faint, rhythmic pulse—a "Thump-Thump" of raw life force—vibrated through the floor.
Beside the egg was a desk covered in scrolls made of human-flesh parchment. Jon gathered them into his spatial storage, but one leather-bound journal caught his eye.
"Blood purification successful. Subject 4 displays perfect synchronization with the Dragon Essence...""The Red Spots have appeared on the upper levels. The masters have fled. I am the last...""My body fails. The egg will remain. Valar Morghulis."
Jon sighed. "All men must die," indeed. Even the gods of Valyria were eventually claimed by the very biology they tried to conquer. But the legacy remained.
The Silver-Haired Subject
Jon approached the stone egg. Dark Sister hissed as it cleared its scabbard. Jon didn't use brute force; he used the system-enhanced edge of the Valyrian steel to surgically peel away the layers of Black Stone.
Crack... Drip...
A translucent, milky fluid began to seep from the breach. As the shell fell away in heavy chunks, Jon caught the body as it slumped forward.
It was a woman. She appeared to be in her early twenties, with skin as smooth as polished marble and a cascade of brilliant, moon-silver hair. She was naked, her body still coated in the nutrient-rich fluid that had sustained her for centuries.
The life-force radiating from her was staggering—it made Jon's own blood sing with a strange, harmonic resonance. This was a "High-Purity" Valyrian, a being whose bloodline had been distilled to its most potent form.
She remained in a deep, magical coma, her chest rising and falling in a slow, rhythmic trance. Jon draped a heavy cloak around her and secured her to a specially-made carrier on the back of his strongest Three-headed Hellhound.
"Let's go," Jon whispered, looking back at the dark lab one last time. "The past is dead, but the future is waking up."
Jon had found what he came for: the technical blueprints for blood-alchemy and a living key to the Dragonlords' secrets. The harvest of High Sothos was complete.