Roger led the scared-looking group into the bowels of the old power plant, the very atmosphere growing thick. Icy cold, it still felt humid the air seeming to congeal. And yet as they went on, chills swept the group, not one of them not looking at the other. It was like tiny pockets of cold in the depths reached out and touched you, and not metaphorically.

“In order for the good to be considered ‘good’, we need the binary opposite,” he started. “This demand for balance is woven all throughout life, with ‘death’ being what gives ‘life’ meaning. In religion, the gods of death, who are necessary for maintaining the balance of the world, are often overlooked by those who favour life. Seen as evil, but life is far less eternal than the death we found.”

He led them out to a hall where a little line on the floor marked the boundaries they could walk. Others passing by them at breakneck paces looked stoic, faces blank, like they wore masks.

“What does this have to do with power?” Yuri Aslonov piped up asking.

The others mumbling about it too.

“Did none of you read my syllabus? Throughout history, who have our ancestors been worshipping, and why did they believe that they would now reside with them?”

They all looked at Roger, seeming stunned.

He just smiled, and went on.

“The gods of the underworld have forever held us in their grip of fear of the unknown,” Roger paused for dramatic effect as they stopped before the doorway to the core. “But now, they work for us.”

The massive twenty-by-twenty door cracked open just a little, only wide enough to allow them to pass two at a time, so they scuttled into the main control hub. It was a raised ring that surrounded the room, a stone plinth in the heart of the vast room holding a single occupant a man who screamed in endlessly. His wailing shrieks echoed a thousand times as if he spoke with countless voices. Around the room stood others like him, connected on wires that came down from above and plugged into their bodies, down their spines, and along their sides. They spoke in tongues, wild-eyed and panicked, not one calm or even lucid. Tubes and more wires connected to their faces through masks.

And below them all, what one could only describe as~

“Tartarus,” Roger smiled.

The ground around the plinth was filled with mists, deep green glowing mists that seemed to shift and flow as if something moved within them.

“What is this!” Sheryl Pinkerton screamed to be heard over the screaming.

But what happened next not even Roger expected.

The chanting and screaming stopped.

As one the Wired Warlocks turned and looked at her.

“Hello Sssshhhheryl,” they all said as one.

All colour leeched from her face, and her assistant had to grab her to keep her standing.

The Wired nearest them suddenly dropping slowly to the stone catwalk, his harness moving with him as he walked close to be amongst them.

“I will sssspeak through this one, the otherssss musssst maintain the connection.”

Roger gestured wildly, “Meet, Sam.”