"...Monsters... the lot of them..." Sevi uttered hatefully as she gazed at the sight before them.
Rethys for his part didn't show any reaction before such inhumane atrocities. He knew less than a true mage like Sevi, yet understood so, so much more. Words were needless at that point, and he moved instead, his purpose clear and his conscience focused.
He had expected to see horrifying things the further he stepped into the lair of the cultists supposedly responsible for everything around him, yet nothing could have prepared him for this. He thought he had already seen the 'too much' point of things in this place, yet new horrors kept pushing the limit, and he didn't like having to redraw the lines so often.
He feared this place would eventually make him used to all of this, whatever it was.
"I'm starting to get an idea why you don't like that Titan guy." Rethys whispered as he scrutinized the mess before him.
Rethys thought back to one of the stranger creatures he encountered during his stay here, a mess of bones, chains and souls bound together. It was similar to what lay before him, yet far more benign. Here, the wrongness radiated was palpable.
"Can't even tell where things start and end." He sighed.
"Can you free them?" Sevi asked.
"I don't think I can." He replied in a pained voice. "No scratch that. I know I can't. Not when they're like this. I'm afraid it'll make things worse for them."
This place was once again testing the limits of his tolerance, pushing his very humanity to the edge. He felt that simply standing here before the thing in question took away something from him that he'd never ever get back. And although Rethys tried not to, he couldn't prevent his imagination from going exactly where he feared.
He could almost see it: normal, everyday people helplessly dragged from their houses, families, jobs and lives to fuel the horrid visions of some twisted mages unable to see anything beyond their research. All put in one place, to make this...
But what was truly disturbing was what surrounded it. Magic notes, tools, chairs and what looked like blasted teacups, objects of normalcy before something so unacceptably unnatural. Someone had once looked at this and saw only magical material meant for study.
His apprenticeship under Fulgrith showed him some of these types, and if before they made him uncomfortable, now they made him very concerned. He shuddered to think what such people could be doing in the bowels of the Kingdom of Voldren this very moment.
His memories then wandered to a certain High Mage of Voldren.
'Was this what it meant by 'sinner'?' He wondered.
Rethys suddenly felt like he didn't want to be a mage anymore, not if it meant tolerating such things.
"This whole ensemble should break apart by itself once we get rid of its makers. Come now, we should not linger here." Sevi reassured.
"After we take care of this, we're never coming back down here." He declared.
"Yes. Agreed." Sevi responded almost instantly.
Turning away from the object of horror and pity, Rethys exited to the corridor outside. He didn't stop for a moment to inspect the room or what else was in it, not with things as they were.
He could sense that many of the rooms to his sides were dotted with more affronts to humanity, but nonetheless dulled his mind and focused on the task at hand. For now, they had to get the runic lexicon and secure a way out, that was the reason they were here.
Yet for all his attempted indifference, the only reason he could ignore all of it was the conviction that he could solve it by going forwards. For he felt he couldn't leave things as they were so easily, and that no matter how he spun it, he simply couldn't ignore this.
Rethys walked through the long hallway, his eyes staring vacantly ahead as he was forced to sense what was around him. The young man couldn't withdraw his senses and expose himself to danger and was thus forced to get a preview of every single thing they passed by. The experience was less than pleasant, but he endured it, as he did everything else in this place.
As for Sevi, she was going through her own ordeal. She didn't have magical senses as sharp or clear as Rethys, but her knowledge was that much more expansive. This meant that she had a decent idea of what went on behind every door they passed, the things committed against the people of her country, people that she swore to protect.
The duo moved slowly, painfully, and the doors to their right and left seemed endless as the corridor stretched on and on.
"Move quicker please..." Sevi requested, empowering Rethys and prompting him to accelerate first into a light jog, then into a full-on sprint.
He felt his legs gain unprecedented strength as he began leaping forwards in great strides, yet the corridor continued on and on and on. It seemed unwilling to end anytime soon.
"You know, if things made sense, we'd be a few kilometers off the shore now. But for some reason this place keeps going." Rethys commented.
"If I did not know better than I would have thought us trapped in an illusion, but all of this is unfortunately very real. I have no idea why this is the case. Though I believe we will get answers soon." Sevi answered.
As so the young man ran as fast as his legs could take him, hoping to drown out what he could feel in his soul. Sevi for her part, wasn't coping so well, feelings of nausea, disgust and shame overtaking her.
Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, they could see in the distance the end of the serpentine hallway. An ornate wooden door, slightly ajar and leading to a room that Rethys presumed to be the source of the strangeness of the ether.
"Just go! I will kill anything inside. I beg of you just get us out of this place Rethys!" The Blood mage pleaded.
And so, accelerating his sprint, Rethys crashed into the door in a powerful dash forward, his strength reducing it to splinters as he landed inside the room.
First, he sensed a few presences around him, then he saw their robed forms staring at him with their hooded faces, eyes underneath glowing in a myriad of colors.
"Ignore them! Keep running, door ahead!" Sevi ordered as soon as Rethys regained his footing.
He didn't have time to absorb all that surrounded him, only seeing a long room, probably a workshop, filled with tables and robed cultists. He did see the door on the other side however, and instantly sprinted towards it.
The cultists around him began rising, their forms regaining life as they stirred from centuries long torpor.
For a moment Rethys felt vulnerable, surrounded as he was by a huge number of enemies. This was the first time he faced more than two enemies at once, and at a glance he could count at least twenty of them.
He wasn't alone however, and moments later a powerful beating of a heart was heard, thick waves of blood-red ether washing over the whole room with its every motion. The ether all around him shook, and then there was blood.
Rethys didn't need to look further to know that all the cultists around him were taken down. And behind his sprint trailed a river of blood, churning with magical power as it transformed into fuel for future spells. In but a few moments, the energy spent on the massive spell was restored, and the excess lifeblood gathered into a mist that hovered behind and around them.
Eventually, Rethys approached the door at the end of the room, and began to slow down, seeing it enchanted. Sevi, however, had other plans.
"Energy surplus, excessive enhancement. Keep going and just punch the door as hard as you can. I will take care of the rest."
Rethys then felt his whole being brimming with limitless power as the mist around him merged with his body, and he resumed and accelerated his sprint.
Arriving in front of the door, he skidded to a stop. And pulling his arm back, the mist coalesced entirely into his fist, making it brim with so much ether that it terrified him.
The condensed energy screamed for release, and Rethys answered, swinging his fist and striking the metal of the door with immeasurable force.
Magic met magic, and the force infused into Rethys' fist came on top, tearing its way through the metal of the door like it was paper. A loud explosion then resounded, pushing him back as it kicked up clouds of dust and wooden splinters.
"Oh wow..." He sighed as he beheld the destruction he just made.
The door now featured a large hole in the middle of it, with its metal warped inwards by the strength of the duo's strike.
"No time to waste. Go inside while we still have some excess energy." Sevi instructed.
"On it." Rethys answered.
Jumping inside, Rethys first took note of his new surroundings. It was a spacious circular hall that had a large, elevated platform in the middle while shelves and tables lined its walls.
Sitting across the tables and workbenches on the room's periphery were more cultists, slowly rising from their slumber and turning towards the destroyed door. But they were different from the any other cultists Rethys had seen thus far, their robes wholly intact and their aura many times more intense.
What attracted his attention the most, however, was the frankly massive cultist standing in the middle of the room, on the center of the platform there. Unlike the others, this one was fully awake. And turning around, it fixed Rethys with a terrible gaze, a singular white light shining from underneath its hood. He was also standing completely upright, not hunched over like the others.
As Rethys soaked in the spectacle that surrounded him, he suddenly began moving slower, his body growing heavier by the second. It felt like he was wading in deep mud, with things moving slower and slower.
For a moment, he feared he was already under a spell, yet a pleasant voice resounding in his mind quickly reassured him.
'Do not panic, this is a Mind spell of mine, Quickthought.' Sevi's voice echoed in his mind. 'I will keep this brief. The ones around the room are high cultists, and the one on that stage should be their leader Levantros. His primary element is Purity, as you can probably tell, and due to that element's nature, it can only be used by intelligent creatures. This means that his wits must still be intact, though I do not know to which extent.'
Looking at the creature standing on the platform, Rethys confirmed what his partner had said. This Levantros was very powerful, not up to Sevi's level, yet still far above anything else Rethys has encountered thus far.
'What do we do?' Rethys asked.
'And to answer the questions you must be having now: no, I cannot read your thoughts; you also cannot speak back to me until you master the Mind element; no, I cannot use this spell for long; and yes, I have disabled the curse.' Sevi revealed.
'Oh...'
'He is an ascendant mage, the rank above unbound, meaning he has largely become one with his element and transcended his humanity. A few of the high cultists are also of a similar level and we will first dispose of them before engaging the cultist leader. You will first engage the third one on your right. Once I lift this spell, things will happen quickly, and we must execute things perfectly. You should be able to sense their elements and react accordingly.' The Blood mage explained.
Rethys couldn't express his affirmation, so he just waited for Sevi to give the order. In the meantime, he took note of his targets, his eyes slowly turning and looking around the room.
'Lifting Quickthought... Now!!' Rethys heard as time resumed flowing.