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completely unaware of this grand old castle and the historic battle that was fought within. As they entered the great crack in the mountain, Nero rolled the dial on his trusty goggles to night vision mode. Everything went ghostly green.
    “Sir, I would strongly prefer it if we brought along some of the men,” Carlson s aid anxiously as followed Nero into the darkness.
    “We have the lantern,” Nero said reassuringly.
    The sound of their boots crunching over the pebble-strewn ground filled the narrow space between the castle walls and the mountain. Two of the castle’s four towers had caved in untold years ago. A third was leaning against the mountain wall, ready to crumble at any moment. No one had even bothered to close the front gate when the castle was abandoned for the last time.
    A thick layer of ice coated every s urface inside the castle. Nero signaled to Carlson to step around the remains of a long wooden dinner table that had cracked in half under the strain of its icy cocoon.
    Something fluttered in the corner of Nero’s goggles-- a moving shadow that vanished around a corner.
    “Sir,” Carlson said sternly. With the box in his hands he was ill prepared for a fight.
    “Do not drop the box,” Nero ordered as he stepped into the Great Hall.
    The Great Hall had seen better days. The west wall had collapsed under the weight of one of the crumbled towers. Broken bits of furniture lay in heaps under an in ch of ice and debris. But Nero was more interested in the ceiling, mostly because it was moving. Hundreds of bats clung to the ceiling. They appeared as a massive wriggling green blanket in his goggles.
    Squeeee .
    A cloud of startled bats dove on Nero and Commander Carlson.
    “Open the box,” Nero yelled as he covered his head with his hands.
    The light from the box bathed the entire room in a bright glow. It was so bright he had to rip his goggles off, which was not a smart thing to do in a room full of angry bats. Cowering from the bats’ attack, Nero yanked his right glove off and lifted the Lantern of the Blue Flame out of the box.
    “ Necro Retondo,” he yelled.
    Tendrils of blue fire whipped out of the lantern and writhed across the floor until they rose into the air as a small blue tornado of flames. Bits of dust ascended from the ice into the swirling vortex. Soon the dust particles began to take shape. As the blue flames spun faster and faster Nero could make out the vague shape of a man inside the tornado. Fortunately, the flames seemed to scare the bats away.
    With one final burst of light , the flames retreated into the lantern, leaving behind the figure of a man with his right hand stretched out as if he was holding something up in the air to study it.
    “-shall die!” the man yelled in a feral rage.
    He clutched at the air a few times, trying to grasp whatever it was he had been holding. A low guttural growl of confusion and anger escaped his throat as he frantically scanned the room. The light from the lantern revealed the man to be in his early twenties. He had long bright red hair and handsome features. He was also naked.
    His rage-filled eyes fixed on Nero and Commander Carlson. His lips curled back to reveal long white fangs.
    “Who are you?” he demanded in a kingly fashion.
    “I am Alexander Sebastian Nero Jr., your new master,” Nero said, getting to his feet and brushing the ice off his expensive thermal pants.
    The man laughed, long and deep, like a man who hadn’t laughed in years.
    “Normally I throw the small ones back. But today…” the man said with a toothy grin.
    “Sit,” Nero commanded.
    The man sat down on the icy floor. His head whipped around , stunned by his own actions. His muscles strained as he struggled to stand back up but could not. He growled some more.
    Nero smiled politely. “I think you can call off your little friends now, if you please.”
    The man squinted in disapproval , but he couldn’t stop himself. He waved his right hand and a hundred