Stealthily, we made our way towards the hedge surrounding Tegi, looking for a good hideout for Sigmir. We managed to find a dense copse of trees for her to stay in.
After placing another concealment-spell on her, Ylva and I moved out, with Lenore staying within her Hallow. We made our way towards the frozen river, staying well away from the hedge. It took only a few minutes to get there and move across the ice to our entrance-point. After fusing the pre-made ice-plank with the river-ice, we moved over it, entering the grove itself. In here, the air felt quite warm, almost spring-like. The incongruity was unsettling.
Creeping through the shadows within Tegi was easy, the bright light made for deep shadows, allowing Ylva and me to infiltrate the grove. Every so often, I used Lenore's sight to check for magical traps, wards or similar things. There was something in the warm air that pearled off the concealing shadows I had summoned. Maybe it was a ward, maybe it was part of the unnatural warmth around here. Not knowing the possibilities for magical detection was quite annoying.
I had planned a route through what I believed to be the residential district of Tegi, so we were able to avoid most of the crossroads, following a circular path close to the river. Doing so kept the trunk of the huge central tree between us and the large light-crystal. It took maybe an hour of skulking through the shadows, during which we neither saw nor heard anyone, to get to the temple-area. Here, we saw our first inhabitants.
The two guards looked just like the hunters we had killed in the forest, tall, lithe forms, garbed in wooden looking armour and armed with spear and shield. To take them down without noise or really, anything that might give things away, I had to either one-shot or disable them. It also would be bad if there was a change of guards while we were here; last night I had seen a flurry of activity about two hours after dark. Staying in the shadows, I heard them talking about their dinner and the relief they'd be getting soon. That cinched it, I'd wait until after the change to make my move.
It took maybe half an hour for the relief of the outer guards to arrive, they talked for a bit, making jokes about their 'oh-so-difficult posting' before saluting and marching off. Two more went into the guarded space and a short while later two more guards came out.
After waiting for about ten minutes, I struck with a combination of Shadow, Concealment, Disorientation and Torpor, extending an unnatural shadow for each guard through the natural shadows to hide their passage. Each tendril merged with the targeted guard's shadow, softly wrapping around their legs, creeping up their bodies and covering their heads like an invisible, dark hood. I kept the connection active, focusing on the individual spells, channelling power into them and losing myself in the simple task of drawing Astral Power into my body and pushing it into the spell. Simply striking them would be easy, putting them down without either of them realising foul play was harder.
Bits and pieces of their conversation entered my mind, talking about their duties and the fact that two of their huntresses had been killed by the Nethersprites, ridiculing them for their failure. Apparently the Arch-Druid of the Grove had been pissed because the loss of huntresses meant less sacrifices. They also griped about one particular huntress who caught a dryad from another grove, looking forward to the great sacrifice, bleeding animals was good and dandy to them but a true sacrifice was a lot more powerful, giving the grove more power for its pursuits.
Through the shadow, I felt a bit of information flowing back, allowing me to keep both at the same level of mental acuity so neither became suspicious. After an indeterminate amount of time, both guards were unsteady on their feet before slowly sinking to the ground, down for the count. From the feedback I was getting, both had slipped into a deep sleep that would last until an outside disturbance woke them. Neither Ylva nor I heard any disturbance so we entered the temple-area, moving past the guards. If I left them as they were, they might muddy the waters, discovering their absence would probably raise at least as big an alarm as discovering them sleeping on the job.
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Inside the temple-area, there were two distinctly different areas. The ziggurat, towering above the grove and a garden. Within the garden, I was able to see the glimmering shapes of a few golden apples, growing on half a dozen trees. Checking with Lenore's Sight showed me that there was a thick net of magical flows, woven together into a spider net, covering that area.
There was no way to get close to the trees without moving through the tendrils, and their spider-web like appearance gave me a strong feeling about their purpose. The tendrils gathered into thicker stands, leading to the ziggurat and to the large central crystal.
Following those strands, I moved closer to the ziggurat, staying in the shadows as much as possible. The strands guided me to the ziggurat itself, but noises drew me to a small side-plaza filled with cages and the two guards I had seen before. The noise I had heard were one of the guards, dragging an animal back to an empty cage. In the filled cages, a menagerie of different animals was detained. Lenore's sight showed me that the cages were enchanted, and judging by the subdued behaviour of the caged animals, it was a tranquility-enchantment.
One of the guards was standing close to an altar upon which an animal had been placed. The guard was watching the animal slowly bleed onto magical formations which were draining the power out of the animals blood. Watching the flow of power reminded me of a river, a few tributaries joining together to feed a lake before going through a regulating dam, making sure that there was a constant flow of power up the ziggurat. Up there, I saw a large, mottled grey crystal, taking in the power and spreading it into multiple strands. One strand was leading to the trees, splitting further until it became the series of strands that I'd followed. Another strand was leading over in the direction of the large light-crystal and the rest of the power fuelled the barrier I had seen before.
From the bits I had heard before, the barrier kept Nethersprites well away by turning the death-element gathered from the blood-sacrifice against them. What normally would draw Nethersprites here in droves was used in the dark crystal to keep them away. Looking up at the crystal, I was awed by the complexity I saw, it was a thing of terrible beauty, flawless edges, marrying form and function into a multi-faceted magical masterpiece. I had no idea how to create something like that but the delicate strands of power within gave me pause. No wonder they regulated the flow into that thing, it looked as if the crystal itself was separating and purifying the power drained from the animals to channel the raw vitality into the trees, the death into the barrier and the rest into the light-crystal. Sadly, I was unable to look at the light-crystal, I had a suspicion that it was just as complex, using the chaotic mixture in some ingenious way.
Looking back at the altar, I felt a mixture of disgust, unease and outrage from Lenore, especially when the guard lifted the animal, carrying it back to it's cage. They were keeping them alive to bleed them another day, wringing every little bit of power from them. Part of me applauded the efficiency of their methodical process but that little part was drowned out by the feelings coming from Lenore. While the altar was unoccupied and the buffer provided power, the two guards were standing around, having small talk, taking bets how long particular animals would survive before dying and being fed to the remaining animals.
If I wanted to free the animals, I'd have to take out the guards and if I wanted to take those apples, I'd have to get rid of the magical formations around them. Studying the magical flows, I formed a plan. The regulating dam looked as if I'd be able to temporarily strengthen it after blocking the magical grounding that prevented overstressing the dam. Doing so would allow a huge pressure to build, and the moment my strengthening wore off, the flow would burst through the dam, racing into the dark crystal, shattering the bindings in there and hopefully inducing cascade failure in their magical system.
I started by subduing the two guards out here. Just like before, it took some time - and towards the end, I had to push quite a bit of power into them - but they slumped down, out of the count. I moved up, inspecting the various animals, when the sight of the inhabitant of one of the cages stunned me. In it was a dryad, but that wasn't the thing that gave me pause.
The dryad's features looked just like Kallista, only with a different skin-colour...