As I grabbed the hands of the two men next to me, I felt the magic hitting my skin, like daggers scratching the surface of a rock. I continued enchanting my spell, as the cloaks started glowing and my voice started to fade away. I knew the ritual was done when I could feel some strong vibrations hit me, meaning the amount of magic needed was surpassed.
It was very hard for me to approximate how much magic I should have taken from the two of them and the speed I could have used in reciting my spell, but, at the same time, nothing could have went wrong. I had the knowledge and they had the power. It was mostly about efficiency.
I am now walking towards a cave, every step feeling like an eternity. Leon, in front of me, seems to have gotten braver and Xayan, behind us, tries to read our surroundings with caution. As I approach the darkness of the cave, I feel like I am swallowed by despair. My chest feels empty and heavy and my eyelashes seem to be made of steel.
Black magic. This place reeks of black magic. But it's not enough to wear us down.
The hallucination magic is different this time. Using someone's skin, flesh, teeth or even certain bones creates a stronger spell that cannot be easily disrupted by speaking, but the magic will wear off as soon as we take our cloaks off. Our clothes, the ones that can be seen from the outside, are no different from the ones the men wore, making our disguise perfect. But we only have 45 minutes before we will start reverting back. This thought gives me anxiety, so I start walking faster and faster taking Leon by surprise.
"Shouldn't you be outside, making sure no stranger is here?", an old man asks as he watches us from a corner.
"We have been called", I speak coldly. I'm trying to think of something fast to say, but nothing comes on top of my mind, as I realize I do not know anything about the hierarchy of this establishment. From the bag the old man cannot see, I open a yellow sachet. The sachet of desire.
"Father", I call him, as his thoughts penetrate mine and I realize he had a child he lost. "Father, I am alive", I whisper seeing the memory of his sick dying daughter. My appearance changed in his eyes, but he does not seem moved.
He frowns instead.
"Are you trying to use black magic inside a place protected by black magic?", he says with an upset voice.
"Father, it hurts", I say as I point to my chest. Blood starts to pour out of nose and I understand his daughter was cursed. My skin seems to be peeling off and I grab the man's hand before he manages to make a spell that would fight mine.
"You are going to kill me? Again, father?", I ask. Her mother cursed her, as revenge, after the man asked for a divorce. Guilt. Guilt is killing him.
"I am here to bring you back to life, Alysha", he says, finally losing his senses.
"Oh, father.. what nonsense can you think.."
Xayan hits the man, rendering him unconscious and I close my sachet, the magic starting to wear off. His deepest desire is to bring back his daughter and he thinks the immortals are they way to achieve such a goal. Fascinating. The men saw the whole scene, but it doesn't seem to bother them.
We keep walking deeper and deeper, but the two other men moving around don't ask us questions. I have my suspicions of them, but time is never on my side.
We reach the point where a pair of men is standing on guard, but they don't manage to say anything because they freeze instantly.
"Hey", I try to scold Xayan, but he smiles at me and plays with a blue stone in his right hand.
"You're just too slow, sorry", he says, but I point to his little toy instead. The light of the stone can pierce through hallucinations, exposing us. Embarrassed, he hides it back in his pocket.
I don't want to be too negative, but I always feel the worst is yet to come. They're hiding not one, but two dragon riders and they're keys to something important. This cannot be good news. We dive in deeper, with no fire around to light up the way. A smell of rotten flesh hits my nostrils and I realize I was right. Someone or something is throwing itself at me. I don't do anything to protect myself because I am saved by the one and only Leon, after he uses the white stones to create defensive walls around us. That special something keeps punching and punching the walls and they start to break, just like glass.
Xayan uses the red magic stone, and a small ball of fire appears to be floating in front of us. Thankfully, he didn't rush to set this place and the monsters on fire, since our plans would have been destroyed. I look at those beings and they seem to be humanoid creatures with black round eyes, broad shoulders and narrow hips. They are marching towards us, mindlessly. Their skin is rotten and their teeth are fully visible. Some of them have a missing hand or even a whole arm. One body is even walking without a head. They are weirdly strong, considering their condition, as they manage to break the defensive wall completely by now.
"Guys, time to take the damn swords out", I mumble and they jump in front of me, doing what I said. From an outsider's perspective, it seems that the objects appeared from thin air. I close my eyes, as the fire is following Xayan anyway, and try to sharpen my senses. Hearing them dragging their feet on the ground makes it easier for me to just start running and dodge them while they try to catch me with their slow hands, leaving the two men behind, slicing up the walkers.
Someone in a trance must be manipulating them, flesh puppets, therefore I have to keep running until I find the source. The men manage to get close to me again pretty fast, as their skills are being enhanced by the swords I made. I ask Xayan to send me the fire, since I can feel something, and there he is, almost glued to a wall, the mastermind controlling the monsters. He is being watched by some big guy I didn't notice from the first second, but it makes sense. There were two more people inside this place. The guardian is staring right into my soul with green, daring eyes, trying to intimidate me.
"In 5 minutes, the soldiers will be here. Your presence has been noticed, the corpses were just here to slow you down", he informs us nonchalantly.
"I can't fight corpses, since they have no mind, but I can fight you", I say and open the purple sachet.
Images flow from his mind into mine and he seems to be caught up in it, fast enough for me to understand his abilities are purely physical, with low magical immunity. My two partners are now the ones leaving me behind, as they hurry up, trying to find the men we came for. It's close. I know it.
Focusing myself on the enemy, I realize the other man is slowly waking up from his puppeteer dream. I have 4 more minutes.
Drowning, he's afraid of drowning. I open the red sachet now to double my mental attack. He's falling in love with an illusion and then sees her drowning. He's into it. He's crying. The other one is slowly opening his eyes. The big man is now on his knees, holding the dead body of the illusion I made. I grab a huge stone I lay my eyes on and hit the corpse master with it, before he attacks me. I throw the sachets I am using on the floor, making sure the spell doesn't wear off after I leave and I start to run once again. I'm risking being found by leaving marks behind, but it doesn't matter anymore.
2 minutes. I can hear them marching.
In the distance, Xayan is preparing a teleportation spell. One man is standing up, supported by Leon, the other one is laying on the floor. He has no legs and his lower body is bleeding. I don't have the time to process the image.
I run.
Xayan repeats whatever the man with no legs is telling him, but they wait for me to finish the spell. The soldiers are here.
"Stay right there", I hear and I feel a sharp pain in my back. Why did they ask me to stop if they shot an arrow at me anyway? And another one. And another one. But it doesn't matter because I'm finally inside the teleportation spell's radius.
We leave this damn place.