A strange procession entered the hall. Two guards in light armor led a fair-haired girl by the arms, dressed in a tattered white dress. Bruises and bloodstains marked her face and hands. She moved her feet slowly, hanging on the shoulders of the warriors escorting her. Two more guards followed behind them.
They approached the dark pool. The man floating in it, wearing an old nobleman's suit, smiled vilely. At the sight of him and the black sores with worms, the girl bent over and emptied her stomach directly into the pool. The morbid nobleman watched her shock with interest.
Meanwhile, the Cursed came close enough to hear the speech with which the nobleman addressed the girl.
He stretched a diseased hand toward her and said words that sent a chill through the skin:
"Accept the Touch of Death, dear, and enter the after-death existence in which you will remain forever."
The morbid hand, covered in black ulcers, reached for the girl. She screamed wildly, trying to break free and run, but the guards held her tightly.
The horrible hand almost reached the young, life-filled female body when suddenly a long sword, lightning-bright, passed through the rotting flesh, and the dreadful limb fell into the pool and sank into the dark liquid.
The morbid nobleman, now left with only one arm, turned in surprise toward the source of his loss.
The Cursed stood before him, the blood-stained sword in his hand.
"Leave her, or you will die a terrible death," he said, baring his teeth.
He kept the heavily armed guards standing around the pool in his sight, through whom he had darted with vampire speed. Yet, for some reason, they stood in place and did nothing to protect their master. A very strange place.
The morbid nobleman, meanwhile, turned to the girl and reached out with his other, surviving hand.
The Cursed conjured a long dagger, grabbed the stranger by the neck, and drove several strikes of the blade straight into his heart. Strange flashes of visions burst into his mind. A black, ancient dungeon, where a large white monster with big teeth and countless tentacles lived.
The morbid stranger looked him in the eyes, hunted and bewildered. Then he gave a crooked smile, revealing his few rotten teeth, and said:
"I cannot be killed. I am immortal."
His right hand began to regrow. The Cursed recoiled.
When the right hand had fully returned, the morbid nobleman reached out and touched the girl. The Cursed could only watch helplessly as the gruesome process unfolded. At the moment of contact, the girl froze, her gaze went empty, and her skin turned pale. The guards stepped back from her. She stood motionless for a while, then walked and lay down on the floor at the far end of the hall, joining the other dead.
The morbid nobleman convulsed in what was either agony or ecstasy. Black veins appeared across his body. His face twisted into a wide, distorted grin. His eyes rolled back. He floated senselessly in the dark liquid. He drifted on the waves of death.