Imagine drawing a ruler-straight line on paper, then folding the sheet. To us, the line bends - but for flatlanders confined to two dimensions, the path remains unchanged. What we see as overlapping points separated by a paper's thickness becomes an insurmountable void for creatures without height perception.

  Such is our limitation regarding higher dimensions.

  From celestial vantage, the Infinite Corridor resembles monstrous entrails - countless chambers packed in dimensional casings, twisted into grotesque neural patterns.

  Mortals perceive normal geometry here. Only the awakened sense spatial wrongness.

  This was the eldritch stage from Ivette's vision. The abomination - a giant elder's head on shriveled infant limbs - sat festering in its den. Oil-black cysts now mottled its form like bloated leeches gorging in repulsive banquet.

  A brawny attendant carved at growths with the shattered Holy Lance. Each incision spewed vile sludge and squirming parasites. The man trembled, pallid and drenched.

  "Cease, René," the elder-head rumbled. "This foulness strains even your resolve."

  "Let me persist!" The man's determination outweighed revulsion.

  "If I retained human form..." The monster turned to a ginger-haired subordinate. "Lederbate's status?"

  "Gone silent after Sporefall, Beloved Father." The man's choked voice betrayed kinship to Ivette's victim. "His last message claimed stealth in London..."

  "My old pupil's loss pains us all, Edwin."

  "Now I burn only for enforcer blood!"

  "Too narrow," the elder-head chided. "Hate Creation itself. The masses cling to their illusions, obstructing truth's ascent."

  "My shame... We lost a true starspawn..."

  "Occult Police took him. The Starseekers' dissolution proves it."

  "Our guided stargazer?"

  "Severed ties post-descent. Wisely - his quarters likely swarm with enforcer spies now."

  "So the Emissary's destroyed?"

  "Enforcers purge all Dominated beings. We nearly claimed two prizes - first a madman fleeing his pregnant 'mother', who died mysteriously. From his crumbling mind, we calculated celestial cycles..."

  "Actual Old One's flesh! And we lost-"

  "The Creator bars easy escape. Three centuries yielded one stillborn godling - yet its rotting power sustains me beyond mortal limits. Past allies crumbled to mush wielding such forces. But this corpus breaches creation's ceiling."

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Edwin trembled. "Can't we wrest it back?"

  "Enforcers hold primal relics. Even my Divine Carcass rots from Creation's bite. Their new Fate-Warden troubles me - perhaps they've mastered backlash suppression."

  "We endure defeat?"

  "Transcendence opposes gods. But vengeance?" The elder's lips curled. "That's merely killing men."

  "Sir! Over here!" Yvette had barely descended the carriage step when a familiar voice called out. She turned to see Master Dazart, the astrologer, hastening toward her. The man clutched his celestial charts like a lifeline, eyes darting nervously.

  "Pardon the intrusion," Dazart began with hesitant curiosity. "But have we crossed paths before?"

  "I fear not," Yvette replied with a smile so politely detached it could frost glass.

  "Ah. A trick of memory then." He worried his brass stargazing pendant, muttering, "Perhaps the recent ordeal..."

  Yvette observed his agitation. The Organization's mind-weavers scrubbed his memories clean, she deduced. But Dazart’s breed—the twitchy, obsessive sort prone to occult dabblings—always left psychic residue. A few blurred edges remained, though insufficient to threaten her disguise.

  They stood beneath the ivy-crowned archway of the Labyrinth Club. As Dazart fidgeted, she continued the charade: "A new patron, sir? I don’t recall your presence at our gatherings."

  "I sought consultation," he confessed. "Rumors claimed your club resolved even the 'Gentleman Burglar' affair. But..." His shoulders slumped. "My questions... went unanswered."

  Yvette suppressed a smirk. No surprise there—the Labyrinth’s amateur sleuths thrived on "artistically macabre" mysteries, not messy highway killings. They'd dismissed Dazart’s doubts over brandy and cigars.

  "Three nights past," Dazart continued, voice fraying, "I led students to observe Saturn’s rings. Brigands ambushed our caravan. A colleague... was slaughtered before our eyes. Police named his killer some wanted rogue, shot dead days later. Yet..." He tapped his temple. "It feels... staged. Like a theatre tragedy I watched, not lived!"

  "Trauma rewrites memory," Yvette offered solemnly, mimicking textbook diagnoses. "The mind sands sharp recollections into bearable fictions. Consider it nature’s anodyne."

  Dazart exhaled a decade’s worth of tension. "Anodyne… Yes. Perhaps you’re right."

  As he shuffled away, Yvette marvelled at her growing knack for falsehoods. Lies draped her like mist now, obscuring truths that might shatter lesser minds.

  Inside the club's oak-panelled hall, Strychnine supervised artisans mounting a brass-framed document. A scarlet Scotland Yard seal glinted below.

  "What's this?" Yvette inquired.

  "An official commendation," Strychnine grinned. "For solving the Gentlemen Burglar case! Though they addressed it to the 'Labyrinth Club' collectively. Should’ve named you, Mandragora!"

  Yvette shrugged. Letting authorities obscure her role suited perfectly—avoiding vengeful criminal attention outweighed fleeting fame.

  "Brilliant, really," Strychnine continued. "If every two-bit thug knew our members’ identities? We’d need armed guards!"

  As if cued, Yvette produced a banknote bundle: "Then let's hire some. My ‘consulting fee’ from Lloyd’s insurance."

  Strychnine gaped at the sum—enough to fund six guards annually. "But this is yours—"

  "Club donations built our library. Consider this my contribution."

  Before he could protest, Strychnine steered her upstairs. "Come! A new case from Birmingham—horrific killings in the slums!"

  Birmingham? Yvette stiffened. She had business there already with “The Artificer”—an Organization craftsman whose "memory-altering rabbit" kept escaping its box to gnaw at her pendant. A consultation was overdue.

  "Three women butchered monthly," Strychnine narrated theatrically. "Corpses mutilated in ways that’d shame Beelzebub! A madman or demon stalks those gaslit alleys—"

  Yvette’s breath caught. Nighttime murders... sex workers... visceral desecration...

  Jack the Ripper? The thought leapt unbidden. But here, in this smoke-choked Victorian mirror-world? Coincidence seemed unlikely. Unless...