The two rush towards the direction of the tunnel.
"Are you good for a mob battle, Hector?" Arryn queries.
"I'd rather you save the underestimations for the others, Ari. You should know how not being able to do anything makes me feel."
"Apologies." He concedes.
"It's nothing. Actually, I should be asking you that same question. Will you be okay? fighting without using magic?"
"These are Cult members. they won't be physically powerful, so as long as I can evade their magic,I should be fine."
"And if you are forced to use magic? what will you do if it rears its head again?"
"There's no time to worry about that..."
Hector stops. "Arryn...I know that we're pretty much out of time already, but your wave energy is waning. These guys summoned Wallakki as protection, and you have to think they'll have at least two or three more expendables for the ritual."
Arryn turns. "What would you have me do, Hector? What is our way out here?"
"We don't have one. But, if that shows up again, just siphon my wave energy and push it back down. We don't want our customer dying by our hands."
"Have it your way, then." Arryn says and takes off running again, Hector following behind.
The two arrive at a cave in the middle of the eerie forest. The cave is covered by a large boulder in front of it.
"After you, Lord Hector..." Arryn jokes.
"I'd rather leave the explosive entrances for you. I'll stick to the cool one-liners." Hector replies.
"I insist." Arryn says.
Hector pauses. He notices Arryn's expression has changed to a slightly brighter expression.
"You've got a plan, don't you?" Hector asks rhetorically.
"You know me well." Arryn answers.
"Very well. Here we go." A bright green light shines from Hector's arm as he stretches it backwards.
In the interior of the cave, at the foot of the tunnel, there are two men, wearing light armor over white cloaks, carrying spears. They are having a conversation when they hear a loud boom at the cave mouth. They take of running towards it, spears at the ready.
Arriving at the scene, the boulder is shattered to pieces and Hector stands there watching them. "Aren't you lot meant to do something about this?" He asks sarcastically.
"Who are you?" one of the guards ask.
"Well, I can't exactly tell you...but I know who you are." Hector walks into the cave calmly.
"And who do you think we are?" the other asks, his spear pointing at Hector's neck.
"A bad guard, since you just let my friend casually walk into the place you've been tasked with defending."
"What?!!" They turn immediately and don't see anyone behind them. Hector knocks the two of them out at once with a single, double-handed chop to their necks.
"That always works for some reason..." He says and casually walks into the tunnel.
The main ground for the cult's rituals is rife with the stench of blood. Outside the ritual room, there are about ten female corpses, each one grotesquely disfigured and mangled. There are more guards than the ones at the cave mouth, about ten more, five armed and the others unarmed.
Suddenly, the guards are distracted by heavy footfalls.
"Someone's here?! How?" One armed guard says, gripping a sword.
"Light Magic." An unarmed guard; a tall, white-bearded man says. "He's quite strong."
"He's invisible?" another armed guard says.
"I guess it wouldn't make sense for a cult to lack a guard capable of seeing beyond the physical..." Arryn's voice goes as his transparent body reverts back to its natural state. "...but, I've got to say, I've met some good people who've been pushed into doing bad things...be it society, peers or the like..."
Arryn steps further toward them, his anger burning through his aura, putting fear in the guards facing him. "...and I can tell, you lot aren't good people. Here you stand guard, in the midst of innocent corpses, unabated, standing firm to your 'beliefs', even if that belief is blatantly evil."
"What do you know?!" The unarmed guard who noticed him earlier speaks.
"Oh?" Arryn pauses with a puzzled look on his face. He closes his eyes.
In the blink of an eye, Arryn is in front of the man, his arm bloodied through the chest of the man. "I'll have you know..." He withdraws the impaling arm from the man as he coughs up blood and yells in pain.
The guards turn to see him behind them. Their fear and anxiety skyrockets.
"...I'm an excellent judge of character." He says, opening his eyes to reveal teal-colored irises with bright red pupils.
"His eyes changed colors!! He's a monster!" A young unarmed guard says.
"Ah, I see. The unarmed ones are the mages...I was wondering. But you don't need to worry about me..." Arryn pauses and waves an arm.
The young man's body is cut cleanly in half, without a single spray of blood dropping on the already blood soaked grounds.
"...You and your comrades killed this much unarmed innocents without cause. A monster knows its kind, no? Are we not both monsters?"
"That's some logic." An armed guard, with a stature similar to Gavric, and with black, long hair, readies himself. "Regardless of what you think of us, you won't be making it out of here alive..."
Arryn stares at him with a slightly disgusted look on his face. "What? You think you can kill me? With that kind of blade?"
"Guards, attack!!!" The man yells and charges at him, as the other armed guards follow suit. The mages start chanting spells.
"Fine. I'll humor you." Arryn says and rushes at them. His arms are coated in green ethereal energy as he deflects blows from the swords and quickly lands punches on all of the guards coming at him, knocking some of them out. The ones who recover quickly from the punches launch an immediate counterattack, only to have their swords destroyed in one swing of Arryn's arm.
"Impossible!" The guards say in shock.
"No worries, though." The black-haired guard says.
A torrent of water, fire and blood fly out over them and toward Arryn from the mages' positions.
"Is this supposed to be a trump card?" Arryn says.
The attacks seemingly land on him and the tunnel is shaken. Smoke erupts from where Arryn was standing.
"Did we get him?" A mage asks, with a delighted expression on his face.
"Fat chance." Arryn says as the smoke fades out from the position he stood. "Try something different next time."
"Spatial magic...you used it to kill Robert, and now you use it to defend from that." The black-haired man replies.
"Ah. His name was Robert. How sad. You seem to be able to perceive magic well." Arryn says.
"Indeed. Fire again." He retorts, commanding the mages behind him.
"That won't happen again." Arryn says as numerous dark tendrils creep up from behind him. He fires the tendrils at the mages and in a deadly display of efficiency, the mages and soldiers are all brutally decapitated almost instantaneously.
"How was that, Dark Hair?" Arryn taunts.
The man shakes off his shocked expression. "You've got dark hair too, you know?"
"I know. You're a blast to toy with, did you know that?" Arryn says, smiling.
"That's why they called you a monster, you know that?" The man laughs.
"I know. You've got to die now. What's your name, dark hair?"
"Arryn. Arryn Thornewater" He says.
"How sad. My name is Arryn too." Arryn says as a remnant of the tendrils comes back and impales him.
"That's nice." The man coughs up blood and falls on his chest.
Arryn turns and sees Hector sitting on a rock outside the door that the guards were watching over.
"I'll give you a ten out of ten for the masterful display, however the retorts and the sarcasm were a bit lacking, so a six is in order." Hector jokes.
"Ha ha, very funny, Montie. How's the girl?" He replies.
"She's good. Been roughed up quite a bit though. However, there are only two girls left before her."
"I think we'd better move." Arryn says and faces the door.
"Are you good enough to go? You used the eyes. That dark and sardonic humor, That's Peep, isn't it?"
"It isn't. I've got it under control. Peep won't show up. I can control the eyes. At least, long enough to manage an escape."
"You won't make it an escape if Peep comes out. It'll be a massacre."
"It's under control, Hector." Arryn says, angrily.
Hector sighs. "I hear ya, leader." He says.
Arryn coats his arm in green energy again. The large, metal doors are rent from the hinges moments later, sending a loud boom throughout the cave and the entire forest.