While the information Aryll shared was...interesting, it wasn't necessarily important. After all, Endyr was a believer of none of the Gods and had interest in pursuing romantical interests. 'Although, it has been a while since my last spin. Those Xelitarians kept me shackled in that goddamn room for centuries. If I get the chance, I'll devour their entire civilisation. Well, that's if the other Denizens haven't done so already.'
The Xelitarians were the people that held Endyr's Avatar captive during her last stint as a Denizen. How they had captured her, she wasn't completely sure. All she did was take a nap in some unimportant corner of a meagre Universe and the next thing she knew, she was held in chances by some weakling, mortal Race. As for why she hadn't simply vacated her Avatar? Well, she was too embarrassed to return to her fellow Denizens. And creating that Avatar hadn't been cheap either: Endyr had a limited quota each millennium. Surprise surprise, making bodies capable of handling a existential paradox was more quite hard.
That's why they loved doing it after all. Splurging the System's hard-earned taxes was a source of great delight for the Denizens of Infinity.
Unaware of the thoughts running through Endyr's head, Aryll continued to talk about the differences between the three Churches. Gaia was feminist, Dendron was masculinist while Tiamat was gender-neutral. If not for the fact Gaia and Dendron were siblings, it was likely the tensions would run three ways instead of "Them" picking only on Tiamat.
As she talked, Aryll became more and more vocal and animate. Clearly, she had an avid interest in theology and was happy to have new people to talk to about it. Judging from the wry looks on Ruby's face, this was a common occurrence, while Himmel just looked resigned. The rest of their cast looked on in amusement, momentarily forgetting where they were.
Something Endyr was quick to remind them.
"Found something" she announced loudly, cutting off Aryll mid-speech. Everyone instantly fell silent as they waited for Endyr to expand on her discovery. "There's a strange Mana pulse up ahead, and it transforms any other Mana it touches into a clone of itself, at least on a superficial level."
"Some sort of Soul Mana?" Johan proposed, looking at Ruby for confirmation. The blind woman shook her head upon sensing his gaze and furrowed her delicate eyebrows. "It's something I have never felt before, so it's definitely not Soul Mana" she denied.
"Perhaps some minor Affinity then" Johan looked to Kulkiri this time. He chuckled and brushed back his grey hair.
"It's not like I know every Element in Orvonia. Some are so bizarre that they can only exist for a moment before breaking apart, so people are unable to experiment on them. Of course, I can try my best with a better description."
Endyr nodded and poured as much Mana as she felt comfortable with into her eyes. The world before her underwent a shift, as reality peeled apart and the Spirit World unfurled before her. She purposely held back however, in no hurry to meet the Gods' Astral Projections again so soon. The colours were more muted than normal, and this time Endyr could see shades of grey, black and white that seemed to stretch into infinite distances. These colours were not perfectly part of the Spirit World, and were instead tethered to certain spots.
'The grey is likely the Underworld, the black the Void or Abyss and the white...the Mirror World?'
Endyr ran through all the mysticism knowledge she knew about the different Realms on Orvonia before deciding to focus on the task at hand. She scoured the dimmed Spirit World for the special Mana she detected. After several seconds, she managed to find it.
This Mana was a pale purple with shades of black, but it turned transparent after coming into contact with foreign Mana, concealing both itself and that Mana to a certain extent. This was what had been interfering with everyone's Mana Sense in the tunnel, she was certain. After confirming this was what she wanted, she began to describe it to Kulkiri.
"Hmm, purple Mana is Poison, but the shades of black could either be Death or Darkness. Turning transparent...Hmm, I vaguely recall hearing something like this. Is it pure purple or closer to amethyst?"
Endyr focused on the strange Mana. "It seems slightly more like the latter.." she answered, not quite sure herself. Her answer caused Kulkiri to snap his fingers and laugh though. "Aha, I believe I have it! Yes, the purple and black are likely just the influences of the spell's caster, and the actual Mana is transparent. Yes, that leaves one option to be the most likely."
"Well, what is it?" Himmel asked grumpily from behind them. Kulkiri clasped both hands behind his back as he turned to face him. "Well, if you really want to know...It's Crystal Mana."
"What?" Victoria blinked. "What the hell is Crystal Magic? And how is it affecting all other Mana around us?"
Everybody focused on Kulkiri, waiting for his explanation. Seeing how everyone had turned to him, Kulkiri smiled behind the mask as he raised both arms. "Well my ignorant friends, allow me to give a short crash-course on Crystal Mana. Bear in mind, I only know the basics myself. Crystal Mana is found exclusively underground, in the lairs of Terrors and above. As such, access to it is quite rare and hard to maintain." (A/N: A Terror is a monster that correlates to Epic Tier)
"Crystal Mana is a mix of Earth, Soul and other Mana minorities. As far as I know, it is practised solely by the Churches of Metallus and Consus. The market for Crystal Magic is low on both supply and demand. Anyway, Crystal Magic is mainly an auxiliary type of Magic: it is used as the foundation and fuel of larger Rituals and Spells. Crystal Magic is actually the main power source for Thaumaturgy here on Orvonia. With Crystal Magic, you can use crystals as a conduit to manipulate other Mana types with extra affects. For instance, using a crystal with Space properties to power a flame spell will cause it to break the temporal barrier and appear from anywhere in the area with near-total unpredictability. Heh, this is just the example I read."
"Crystal Mana takes the colour of crystals, obviously, and the main variants are diamonds, rubies, emeralds, opals or amethyst. The black likely came from the caster of the spell, who polluted the Crystal Mana when using it. Since it should be a Vampire, this is to be expected. Now, the transparency bit is because crystals can become see-through depending on their quality and the light around them, like normal glass. The Vampires obviously made use of this fact to hide their traces. As for how its affecting other Mana types, that's because Crystal Mana can allegedly latch onto other Mana and parasite them, growing itself by consuming Mana."
Ruby politely raised her hand and, upon receiving Kulkiri's attention, politely asked. "If that's the case, what other capabilities does Crystal Magic have?"
"Well, it can latch onto Ascenders and drain them of their Mana pretty fast. As its a variant of Earth Magic it can also form walls, fire shards of crystal and can boost other Magics cast with them as a medium" Kulkiri explained. "Crystal Magic boasts a high Magic defence and serious power, but is fragile to physical attacks and also very taxing to cast. Unless the Vampires have a vault of gems, each spell will require them to create the crystals purely from their own Mana. A dozen shots would likely wring them dry."
"If they have been using it nonstop since we attacked however, there is a solid chance they do have a stash of gems down there though" Aryll pointed out. "And whatever they're willing to hide using such an expensive method must be very important too" Victoria added.
"I'm curious now, what other minor Mana Affinities do you know about? Erich piqued in an interested tone. Kulkiri scoffed and fixed him a look of slight disdain. "I only know a few. After all, I don't belong to a Church, and neither am I a particularly important person. Apart from the aforementioned Crystal Mana, I only know a few more. Mist, Sand, Sound and Aberrant Magic are all I know."
"I know Chanteur controls Sand alongside Soul" Victoria mused. "And I can guess what Sound Magic is. But I've never heard of Aberrant Magic before. What is it?"
Kulkiri shrugged with a sigh. "All I know is that is originated from either the First or Second Era and was outlawed by the Almighty Primordial. It predates our current system and apparently, it was all about sacrificing parts of yourself for power boosts, kind of like Blood or Death Mana. It was said to have been awfully inefficient too, which was why the Almighty did away with it. Now, no one uses Aberrant apart from the odd, isolated case."
"And Sound is simply about making use of sound waves and certain types of energy. It's another derivative of Soul Magic, like most minor Elements in the world. It has very few applications apart from disorientation, audible hallucinations and teleporting within the sound radius. Oh, you can apparently create sonic blasts too but that's basically it."
"That's enough getting off-topic" Endyr interrupted. As interesting as it was, this discussion wasn't needed right now. "You can compare thesis' and stories after we deal with whatever is ahead. My gut tells me it isn't anything simple."
In fact, her gut has little to do with it. In Endyr's vision, the Crystal Mana had begun to fluctuate and change slightly. The Spirit World was also undergoing a small anomaly before her very eyes, slowly sinking in towards the centre of the Crystal Mana like a sinkhole. Something was starting, and for once she didn't want to find out.
"I agree" Johan spoke up as he gestured forwards. "The shadows around us have grown stranger, and my control has become less fluid. We need to get to the bottom of this, now." With the urging of two party members, the rest decided to leave the conversation there and continue onwards at a fast pace.
Before long, the group arrived at a large set of double doors that were directly carved into the wall. On it, murals and tapestries were carved with a master's hand. They depicted a gaping maw of unnatural darkness, with a spiralling vortex of tentacles coming out of it.
The tentacles had various symbols and engrams on it, and merely trying to decipher them caused the blood vessels in Endyr's forehead to bulge. To the left of the maw of tentacles, there was also a distorted clock with shattered symbols hoisted up by strings and glistening with starlight. Looking at it made Endyr's thoughts slow down, and she hurriedly moved her vision.
To the right of the maw, a distorted and blurry mask was craved into the stone. The left eye was a diamond, while the right was a heart. An exaggerated and mocking grin served as the mouth, and the entire mask seemed to be shifting, causing Endyr to be unable to properly focus on it.
These three symbols were carved underneath a fourth, and this symbol was the biggest in size. A gigantic glowing cross with wings of light spreading out from behind it, and a silver eye without a pupil suspended in the middle. The cross was placed directly on the gap where the two doors met: the maw under it, the clock on the left door and the mask on the right. Endyr's instinct began to nag at her as she scanned the door, having a vague premonition of what was before her. But it was Kulkiri who got there first.
"The symbols of Fallacy, Daemon, Jester and the Almighty Primordial" he said gravelly, the usual mirth absent from his voice. Everyone stared in silence, trying to work out the implications of this design.
"So whatever is behind this door may very well be a relic belonging to either the Dread Three, or the Primordial?" Erich asked slowly. Aryll shook her head as her gaze lingered on the cross. "Not necessarily. While this door looks old, it could have been purposely designed like this. After all, the Churches have never noticed something like this in the city, so it can't be new."
"Or maybe they just never found it?" Endyr proposed.
"Unlikely" Victoria shut her down. "If not the Churches, then Le'garde himself would have found this crypt or whatever it is by now. It has to be recent."
"But why add the symbols of the Dread Three and the Almighty? The Vampires worship none of 'Them' and, in fact, their Gods absolutely despise 'Them' with a passion" Johan argued. No one spoke for a minutes before Ruby sighed and shook her head. "Regardless of who made this door, we have to enter" she said solemnly.