The night of secrets was just beginning

Depths of the Thirteen Families' Alpine Bunker -

The Director's order had resonated with the cold finality of a judgment. While on the surface, humanity was just beginning to shake off the effects of Cthulhu's proximity, and primordial battles raged in the Hollow Earth, in the very bowels of the Thirteen Families' fortress, a different kind of horror was preparing to be consulted.

The lower levels of the bunker bore nothing like the opulence of the council chambers. Here, polished marble hallways gave way to corridors of steel and reinforced concrete, lit by a cold, functional light that never flickered. The air was frigid, with a faint scent of disinfectant, ozone, and something else ancient—something that smelled of pent-up despair and suppressed power. This was the Families' strange dungeon, their private collection of anomalies, threats, and knowledge too dangerous to be set free, yet too valuable to be destroyed entirely.

In one section, cells with reinforced Plexiglas doors housed gaunt human figures, dressed in simple gray uniforms. They were the "disappeared": brilliant scientists who had stumbled upon inconvenient truths, journalists who had asked too many questions, inventors whose creations threatened the Families' monopolies. Their research labs had been burned to the ground in opportune "accidents," and the world had left them for dead, with them seemingly inside. Now, their eyes, once bright with intellect, were either empty or filled with a quiet madness, their minds shattered or rewritten.

But beyond, the true bestiary lay. Cells lined with unknown alloys that dampened magic, engraved with faintly glowing containment runes, and equipped with sonic frequency emitters or energy fields designed to inhibit specific powers.

Here resided the other imprisoned beings. Elder magi from forgotten orders, with gazes that held the wisdom of centuries and hatred for their jailers. Witches who whispered curses in dead languages, their twisted fingers clutching makeshift talismans. Vampires of rebellious or all-too-notorious bloodlines, chained with pure silver, their red eyes glowing with bestial fury in the gloom. Werewolves in their human forms, but with a muscular tension that betrayed the beast lurking beneath their skin, their cells reeking of musk and suppressed rage.

And then there were the darker creations, the mistakes of nature or of magic itself. The Necrovampires, pale and cadaverous, from whose cells emanated a sepulchral cold and the whispers of the restless dead. The colossal Draco Vampires, barely contained in titanium-reinforced enclosures, their scaly hides gleaming faintly, their guttural roars a constant vibration in the floor. And even, in cages of cold iron laced with hawthorn and silver, some original Blood Fey, whose ethereal, cruel beauty was a promise of ecstasy and pain, their eyes glowing with malicious intelligence and unquenchable thirst.

The place, just hours before, had been utter madness. The psychic ripple of Cthulhu's awakening had pierced even these depths and these defenses. The already unstable supernatural prisoners had been sent into a frenzy. Wizards had unleashed bursts of uncontrolled power, vampires had crashed against their chains, werewolves had howled until their throats bled, and Fey had emitted shrieks that tore at one's sanity. The guards had fought desperately to maintain control, using sedative gases and energy blasts, but the terror had been palpable.

Now, a team of elite guards, clad in black combat armor and carrying energy rifles, entered these corridors with visible tension. Those who went to look for the wise mages walked with great fear. The memory of the recent pandemonium was fresh. Every step brought them closer to the cells that housed large creatures like the DracoVampires, whose massive silhouettes moved restlessly in the gloom; they passed other strange and disturbing creatures, like the NecroVampires who seemed to watch them from the brink of death; and they felt the dangerous attraction of those with a singular beauty that made one fall in love just by looking at them, like the Blood Fairies who followed them with feline gazes and promising smiles.

Finally, they stopped before a series of cells at the end of a particularly well-guarded corridor. There were no roaring beasts or seductive beauty here. Only old men, sitting in the gloom, withered human figures but with eyes that still burned with an ancient intelligence and a severely suppressed power. They were the "wise magi" the Council had decided to

consult.

One of the guards gulped, the sound unnaturally loud in the oppressive silence, before activating the opening mechanism of the first cell. The door slid aside with a heavy hiss, revealing an elderly wizard who looked up slowly, a spark of bitter, weary amusement flashing in his deep-set eyes at the sight of his jailers, now transformed into supplicants. The night of secrets was just beginning.