While Leif Starchaser had been in his state, he heard little of what the others had been talking about, nothing but a few strings of discordant syllables. He was quite sure there had been an argument, which didn't really surprise him much. He was also unsurprised that his ears rang horribly more than once. It was one of the few remaining traits of his partial-elven heritage that allowed him to know when others were speaking about him. Any details, unfortunately, he knew nothing of.
He had been concentrating on the dizzying, maze-like nest of rooms and hallways that were the spaces behind the glyph-imbued door. The glyph itself was an archaic symbol that meant proceed ye with caution he had seen in one of the ancient texts he had been studying since coming to Oasis. It was easy to open using three words he had learned--forced to learn really--when he was only a child and meant simply, I shall pass. The Old Language--the words of Aenim from before the Stasis—always interested him, though, if that hadn't been the case, he was quite confident one of the White Guard, or maybe many somebodies, would've been able to get them past the glyph using something similar in a local language.
Beyond the door, he began the series of rights and left he had taken in the vision while the argument ensued, consisting of corridors and rooms that needed to be crossed, most with many doors, though none further protected by any such device, either mechanical or magical. Although he had never been inside, not physically, his instincts worked miraculously well in leading him closer to the unwelcome persons location.
After a short amount of time, Elle, all the way at the rear of the column, behind her brother who was following Lief's turns and steps, pushed past first Korah and then Leif. Combined, they incurred a mad series of clanking noise that sounded loud enough to wake the dead, Leif thought.
"I've picked up his mind. Thank's Leif, I can guide us the rest of the way." She offered as explanation for doing so.
"Do be careful--" he began, and then stopped, thinking to himself that he was wasting his breath anyway, Elle Fairheart, much like her brother, did as she pleased and didn't mind letting anyone, of any rank, size, or shape, know exactly that. It wasn't that she lacked empathy; she certainly did not. Nor was she being rude, she was just determined and, much like Leif, put her concentration above social niceties.
If Leif had thought the twists and turns he had had to remember from what his third-eye, no longer completely wide and seeing clearly nor shut completely, not yet, hadn't known any of the catacombs, not the way Elle did. Very well, if the twists and turns in, out and across the many corridors, and the entrances into and out of chambers, storerooms, and grand staterooms, large and small, were any indication, it was best someone not operating on such half-guesses as a vision lead the way. Leif, at first, tried to keep up, but quickly gave it up as a both a bad job and one of extreme difficulty.
Other thoughts raced through Leif's mind while he followed Korah's form, a few paces in front of him; he had fallen back when the Philosophers Stone, which had, at some point, though he couldn't remember how or when, suddenly become heavy inside the enchanted bottomless bag made of canvass at his right hip. Suddenly, he felt like a weight he found difficulty to bare was dragging him down, slowing him down. It was only when he reached inside the bag that he felt the glass egg, and only when he briefly pulled it out, could he completely identify it's glowing nature.
He hadn't told a soul--not Korah, nor Elle, nor anybody else, along with a long list of things yet to be said to them both--that it was there. He had, in the privacy of his small room in the southeast section of Oasis, known as Southcrest, taken the stone out to hold it in his hands. His memories, which seemed to have happened both to somebody else and ages ago, were of a vibrant glowing egg pulsing with energy. What he held in his hands in recent weeks--months even--was just a cold, lifeless, carved-glass egg, light and easily hidden among other items in his enchanted satchel, but now something had changed; it felt unbearably heavy.
A short time after the Witch had realized this, Leif was stricken with a knowledge he couldn't have, and heard what he felt come from parched lips--a side effect of the Tempest he had drank only two hours at most before.
"I can feel him, your intruder. He's nearby. And he's scared--terrified, even," Lief said, louder than he intended. He thought he should be short of breath, they had been moving from room to room, corridor to corridor, for half an hour at least, but he felt inspired, invigorated--possibly even elated, and couldn't imagine why it should be so.
"I'm listening to him think. He is scared, but not of us. Someone else; what it might be I cannot imagine," the spry Elle said, winded.
"We should slow down," Korah suggested, and the three friends did exactly that, and rested in a long dining hall. It's walls and corners were covered with dust, dirt, and grime that prevented any real detail about the space from being evident simply by looking.
"He's not far, really," Elle admitted after she had taken but a moments rest. "If my memory is accurate, and I have no reason to believe it's not, he'd have to come through by us one way or the other. We need to be careful. I don't know why he's scared, and none of us really know why he even came back."
"We will. Me, I'll take the lead, Lief. Follow closely--" Korah began, Elle interrupted him.
"I can fight," Leif heard her say, as she unsheathed the long, stiletto daggers that usually clanked, hidden in leather and strapped at her calves.
"Indeed you can, but best you not lead. I can take some of a beating if it should come to that." Korah clarified.
"As can I," Lief chimed in, but Korah ignored this and quickly continued as though he hadn't heard.
"Should battle erupt, best you come from the sides. while Lief and I gather ourselves." He explained.
"I dont honestly feel it should come to that," Leif said, strapping on Mythril-weave gloves with pentacles engraved on the palms that amplified his faster, quicker spells of healing and protection. Then he pulled out a single, Mythril-tipped short staff he used as a last resort.
While Leif did that, Korah weaved his hands in intricate patterns of blue and white in front of him, enchanting the spell-blades, simple short swords that hung on his hips and stayed there--Korah was a mage and no swordsman, he only had only rudimentary, defensive training in swords, similarly to Leif's short staff, just in case.
"He came in alone," Elle warned, frowned, then continued, eyes downcast. When she looked up again, first at Korah, then at Leif, the three of them knew something had changed. "But he's found something--or maybe someone, its unclear--but he's scared; he knows were coming, but it's not us he fears."
"It's what he's found that he fears," Lief explained grimly.
Ready, the three silently set a cautious approach deeper into the catacombs.