The group walked into the ruins cautiously expecting to be ambushed but the further they went while killing every monster they saw so they couldn't be used as reinforcements as alastair explained the less likely it seemed like it would happen. after slaughtering their way through the ruins they came across a room with multiple paths and a Yggdrasil root in the middle of it. alastair decided to show off for the two new members of the party and reached out with his left hand to touch the root causing the mark to glow.
The parties vision faded and they all watched from a strange third person view as a shadow monster floated towards one of the paths but stopped. the monster talked about how it had almost fell for his own trap as well as how to avoid it by going the long way around. the vision just faded away after this and the two girls just stared at alastair in amazement. after alastair explained what just happened to the two girls the group followed the directions said in the vision and soon reached an area with a huge fountain that somehow still worked.
Veronica noticed a girl in green laying on the floor and run over in a panic. "serena wake up! come on wake up!" she said panicky shaking the girl. the girl yawned and stretched out languidly "i'm sorry i was just so tired i thought to lay down for a bit." serena said tiredly with her eyes closed but looked stunned when she saw veronica after opening her eyes. "veronica! is that you? what on erdrea happened to you to look like this?" she asked surprised at the obvious and dramatic change in her sister.
Veronica then explained to her sister about how she was captured and how the monster tried to take her magic but the more she fought the younger she got until she escaped looking like she currently does. "i see , that must have been positively dreadful. also you do realize who you are traveling with right?" serena said with a curious look. veronica nodded "of course i do but surprisingly he isn't the most unusual person here." she said honestly. serena looked astonished "really? but who could be more outstanding then that person?" she asked eyeing erik and erisa curiously. "its that tall red head over there." veronica said honestly.
"She apparently is part of a race that are innately gifted in transfiguration and has a small population and whats more she is actually trying to woo the luminary himself." veronica explained with a smug look at alastair who immediately clarified that he refused. the party all introduced themselves to serena who did the same before they headed further into the ruins. after walking and killing everything that moved for an hour the group came across a door that refused to budge and another Yggdrasil root. alastair repeated his little luminary parlor trick this time learning that the door only opened with a password.
By this time alastair was looking forward to rescuing the kidnaped people and killing the boss monster since he is really close to level eight after all the killing he did which included three extremely odd slimes made of metal that yielded a huge chunk of exp each. of course he was entirely unaware that normally they would have more likely than not ran away had it not been for metalbane devouring them on contact. the screams of the metal slimes as they were being devoured still caused erik and veronica to shiver briefly each time they saw metalbane out.
The group use the password to open the door a crack and hear a large monster that alastair identifies as a type of jargon speaking. the monster complains about having lost veronica due to how hard it is to find sorcerers like that. the monster went on to basically explain how its plan is to steal the magic from a huge number of people before giving it to some lord. at this moment serena seemed to notice a presence behind her and turned around before screaming in surprise at the shadow monster. she also backed into the group pushing the door open and revealing them to the jargon called jarvis.
Jarvis was obviously happy to see veronica and ordered his shadow minions to treat the party to show some hospitality menacingly. the following battle was crazy as the five shadow minions each used hit and run tactics. the worst part was that the shadows were ridiculously fast making actually hitting them with an attack problematic. serena was actually the one who solved this problem by casting deceleratle lowering all of their speed substantially. after being slowed alastair and erik as the two fastest killed the shadows in rapid succession.
After the shadows were taken care of alastair amputated Jarvis's left arm which stopped the jargon from using magic since his kind used the jar they carry as a catalyst. soon the party battered jarvis to the point he was on his last legs and collapsed on the ground with purple mana slowly seeping out of him. jarvis complained about being to weak and how the lord would take care of them before he breathed his last and dissipated into a large cloud of purple corrupted mana.
Time slowed down after that as alastair leveled up to level eight and got to choose from the new perks. alastair frowned at the new perks as they seemed pointless to him due to various reasons so in the end he chose one of the previously available perks with an interesting effect just because he could. the perk he chose was bloody mess and for those unfamiliar with it the way it works is that occasionally when he kills something it will explode in a gory mess. as for his skill points alastair dumped them in athletics again bringing it up to sixty six.