The woman on the floor squirmed in pain. Blood flowed out of her open wounds and dripped on the magic circle.
I now noticed that the circle mirrored the ones used in the inferno in the temple like structures.
The woman cried out, but no one intervened. All they did was reach for their weapons that I had not seen before.
Those weapons resembled spears, but they had an energy core just behind the blade. I could not tell if it was magic or something else since its presence was extremely well hidden, to the point where it looked like it was just a glowing orb behind the blade.
After a while, the metallic smell of blood became more and more noticeable. This was also the time where the magic circle came into effect.
Like those back in hell, it was extremely alluring.
But I knew that that was what they wanted. They wanted me to reveal myself so they could get rid of me.
Therefore, I had to resist the ever-growing urge to respond to the call.
It took a little while before the woman was finally dead. But that did not make things easier.
Normally, when a soul is in a living body it is like it is in a package. You first have to open the package to get to the food. but when someone died the package is opened. And whatever was in there is now yours for the taking, making the circle with the offer only more tempting.
The tough to kill all of them and take the offer had come to mind more than once. But if people who came here kept getting killed, then it would only confirm that I was out here. I could not simply kill everyone since only more would be send after me and eventually I would no longer be able to keep up.
Even more time passed, and the mage took a deep breath, the two men also looked relieved. But I could tell that the one covered in burn marks was also feeling guilty.
I understood that he felt like he should have done more. but those feelings would be useless. Because of what I had heard, she was destined to die soon anyway.
Now that they were not paying as much attention to the surroundings as before I decided to slip out.
I had no idea if they were going to try something like this again, and when that happened, I better not be close.
However, when I stood up and walked past the wall, I saw how the man with the burn marks turned in my direction.
I immediately froze, hoping that he had not heard my footsteps.
But the man twisted the end of his spear and a pure blue light shot out of the cold steel blade.
Out of reflex I jumped away and not even a second later, the light struck the place where I had been standing.
It had blown a hole in the wall. A cloud of dirt and dust filled the room, and everyone turned to the man who had shot.
"What was that all about!?" the other man jelled. "Do you even know how expensive it is to charge that thing? Also, you could have let this place collapse upon us."
At this moment I was scared to move. The last shot had missed, but who knew what might happen if I took a direct hit.
"I- I'm sorry. I thought I heard something."
("That voice. Why is it so familiar?")
I could not tell the direct age of the man judging from his appearance. But based on his voice I would assume that he was somewhere in his forties.
"I swear if you do that again I will personally reunite you with your two children." The woman spoke while pointing her staff at the man.
But he did not respond and is gaze stayed fixed on the place where I had been standing.
Then I suddenly noticed something that made me worry even more. the blast had left a weird metal like substance behind.
For some reason it was draining my magic at a rapid rate. At the level where I was at not, I could hold a simple illusion like this for a few days, or maybe two weeks if I tried hard enough.
But now I could only hold it for a few seconds longer.
I took one last look at the face of the man and then jumped out through the hole in the wall.
However, I was not fast enough. I was almost completely out of view, but then I just could not hold the illusion any longer.
The only thing that they possibly could see was the tip of my tail, and the dust would have it also made harder to spot. But it was still a disaster.
If even one of them saw me then it would confirm my presence. They would send out people to hunt me down and investigate everyone who had come close to this place during the last few weeks. They would immediately find the dwarf since he spent most of his time here and trough him, they would find the others.
I had no way of telling them what was going on. The distance was just too big. And since no one else was here I could not send anyone to tell the others.
I couldn't even take control over the mind and body of any of the people here to tell them, since again that would confirm my presence.
Right now, I could only hope that I was not seen.