Yeah, I'm not going in the basement.
"But basement is place of learning,"
Basement is also place of torture. I mimicked his speech pattern in my mind.
"Fine, if you do not trust me, I give you my Oath,"
Oath? I'm under the impression that only knights can make Oaths. So this comes as a mild surprise.
But despite however I may think, Lacer conducts an Oath,
"I swear upon this Oath that binds my soul, that no harm will come to you in the basement,"
He says, with an outstretched hand, awaiting my input.
I mean, this looks pretty legit. Oaths were methods of ensuring promises or to swear loyalty to a liege. Though, apparently, it can be used in other manners, like this.
Clasping his hand, I complete the Oath, and a small chain appears and binds us. The chains come from nowhere and exude a soft pale light. It's nothing too solid, but should be enough to hold his end of the agreement for a while. It's a small Oath, not like the permanent ones I've seen knights take.
I'm still sceptical about the basement but granted, it did kind of make sense in a roundabout way that dark arts would be learnt in basements. Like a tradition of some sort.
Though despite my inhibitions, I follow Lacer's lead and follow him into the basement. Of course, I have my crossbow on hand and a full quiver of bolts. Even if I believe everything will go alright, I might as well tie my camel.
The hard stone stairs beneath my feet give an eerie vibe to the place as we descend into the darkness of the basement.
At the bottom, there's a door, and pushing the door open we enter a dark room. Down here, it's pitch black, and even I struggle to see ahead of me.
Though Lacer goes around and lights some candles placed around the room as if he knew their exact locations. And he probably did, this was his basement after all. Now, with the room properly lit, I scan around the musty basement...
Only for my expectations to be let down.
I hate to say it, but I was mildly expecting it to be some kind of dank, bloody, torture chamber, but looking at the blackboards and well organised books. I had to say, it looks exactly like a study room.
*Clap!*
"Alright! Be prepared comrade, as dark arts is hard and you might die if you're not careful, so I teach you basics first, so you do not die,"
I guess that was nothing new.
"We, in the city of Sharne, focus on death arts, the most basic of the dark arts," He writes out on a blackboard, as I seat myself.
Damn, it feels like recruit training all over again.
He continues, "There are four branches, but they are irrelevant for now,"
Making a brief introduction of dark arts, he goes on to introduce the basic outline of what this branch does. And in brief, it is the stereotypical dark arts that everyone hears about. Life draining, vitality crippling, cursing and a bunch of others down that same line.
"Any question?"
Yup.
"Why are you teaching me this?"
"Good question," He scratches his chin, "It is because you are member,"
"But why're you accepting members so arbitrarily," with no criteria as for as I can see.
"If I had to say, it because we running out of members,"
Hm, I mean fair, might as well try rope in anyone you can to try to continue the cult.
"It has been tough, the empire has nearly eradicated us and the gods' influence is stronger than ever.
"Recently, we get anyone who doesn't have home like the little ones or those antagonistic with the Kingdom like you,"
So it really has little to do with actually believing the doctrine does it?
"You are correct, as long as you do not believe in the gods, it is best we could ask for,
"Beggars cannot be choosers, even in the fatherland, this is true,"
Damn that's pretty deep. And there's actually a common phrase that remains withstanding even in the empire? I can't help but feel like that's a lie.
"Though, does that also mean you'd also accept any criminal all willy nilly?"
"Not exactly, it is feeling we get, about who to trust and who to doubt,"
"So you leave it to your gut?"
"No, we leave it to our intuition, a method that has never failed us since times of yore,"
Okay, so basically these guys accept people who have a favourable impression on them. Rather fickle to be honest and isn't really a solid threshold to measure by, by any account. I don't even know how this cult has even managed to last this long if the standards, or rather lack thereof, is this basic and haphazard.
"Oh yeah, do I not have to like do some kind of ritual to be admitted into the cult or somethin'?"
"Why do ritual?"
"To ascertain my loyalty or something? I dunno man," I thought cults did this sort of thing.
"That is only for weak, pathetic organisations. Lack of trust for even their own men. Though, be aware that you are not full member of the cult yet,"
Lacer scoffs, waving his hand.
"Anyway, moving on,"
Lacer then went on to explain the principles of the death branch of the dark arts, which is all ground with solid theory and formulae that he presents.
Like they have everything sorted out. From the method of performance to how to regulate yourself and even the subsequent effects on different parts of the body. I guess, when a cult's been practising the same technique for millennia then they're bound to get some research done.
Though, something key I've noticed is that everything seems to be single target. Rather odd, but granted this was merely one of four branches so it also made a lot of sense for one of them to be single target and the others to perhaps focus on other specialisations.
For example, from the brief description I've been given, the ruination branch allegedly focused on widespread destruction, while desiccation and plague put emphasis on curses and hexes of varying scales. Which is a rather large type spread from a commander's perspective. As usually any main category of arts would just focus on one thing, whether it be physical impairment to outright killing, and any branches would just be different applications of the main branch.
However, from what I've gleaned the dark arts is different in that I couldn't find a definite main branch, rather there are only sub branches that stem from the basic set of dark arts which is applicable to all the other branches. Each branches descriptions, states that the branches are in of themselves unique to the others, yet still have a strong connection with each other. Very interesting.
I'll need to research this more later.
And so far, from the basics that I've been taught, I can see why dark arts cultists are allegedly capable of taking on a platoon of soldiers unharmed. Well, not unharmed per se, but it would be better to say that it would be a simple feat for them.
Life siphon. It does what it says, it siphons the life essence out of the target to either supplement one's own life or use it for other miscellaneous purposes. And a basic technique that all the branches use.
Just this skill alone allows one to match up against many times their number. And is what makes even the lower tier dark arts cultists fearsome as it increases their tenacity by many folds.
And this also brings into perspective magic. Despite my first thoughts, they barely have any magic here, it's all mainly arts and techniques.
With my first impressions, I thought that arts were just another way to say magic, but apparently, that was not the case, as Lacer explained.
Magic is any phenomenon that is evoked through the usage of essence. This includes the basic attack spells, like fireballs, or lightning bolts. As they all burn up essence in order to manifest something. However, the aptly named dark arts, don't really follow this pattern, instead it relies on using essence itself to perform an action.
Though, it's more of a technicality than anything.
It's a small difference and apparently, due to that small difference, they're called arts and not magicks.
Which really means nothing.
Just thought I'd point that out.
It was just interesting to me, that's all.
At most, it just means that the way it's executed is slightly different to how magic is performed, making it more suitable for non mages, as mages tend to have a rigid mindset on how different spells are formulated. Meaning it'd be tougher on them to try to grasp any arts.
"Okay, I taught you theory, now you can do whatever, if you have trouble, ask Laffer,"
Finishing the lesson, he promptly wipes the blackboards and extinguishes the candles, as he makes his way out of the basement.
Left in the dark basement alone, I mull over what was just taught to me. I never expected to actually learn anything when I joined.
Which is hmm, surprising. I actually learnt a lot here. Even if it was just the basics.
Unlike training…