The whirring chainblade of Iron Skull's sword pressed against Carlisle's lower back, forcing him through a tunnel where flesh and crystal intertwined. Jagged purple crystals protruded from the rock walls, each encasing grotesque human shapes—the missing miners from last week. Their spines pierced through their skin, twisted into blasphemous symbols that floated in the air.
"Duck!" Iron Skull suddenly yanked Carlisle by the collar. A purple beam shot past their heads and struck the wall behind them. In that fleeting moment of light, Carlisle saw the source of the beam: the suspended corpse of a miner. His eye sockets were replaced by crystals, and his arms had mutated into cannon-like appendages.
"Their toys keep getting more refined," Iron Skull muttered, swinging his sword to shatter the corpse. Flesh fragments sprayed across the tunnel, along with star-shaped crystals. Carlisle picked up a shard and saw his wife Susan's face flickering within. "An illusion…" he muttered, grinding the crystal to dust, only to hear her soft laughter in his ear: "You can't escape, my love."
A harp's melody drifted from the end of the tunnel. Iron Skull's breathing grew heavier as viscous fluid dripped greedily from the respirator vents of his power armor. "The altar is near."