It seemed a sort of soul existed here, though even to the hero it was poorly understood. But it was known that the soul was indestructible yet malleable; it could change and manifest into many different forms. Every living being possesses one, though the strength of the soul differs. Among the living who have souls strong enough and desires unmet in their time living, they could manifest into undead or spirits.
The former having profane souls, which manifested due to rage, resentment, despair, horror, and the like. The latter, meanwhile, were much rarer but came from having purer souls untainted by such negative emotion but were birthed from strong neutral or positive emotion. They were often made manifest due to feelings of duty, kinship, longing, incompleteness, joy, and the like. Though it was hard to tell the difference.
It seems the system on which magic and the like are built on relies not only on mana, souls, or the elements but also on emotion and intent, which makes my intent-based enchantments make more sense. As I lobotomize the rest of the paladins, I gain further knowledge of the gods.
Of which there seemed to be seven, there was the lord of light Solus, Mother of the Harvest Polosmia, Mountain Maker Gulom, Sky Father Duese, Flame of War Sera, Source of Rivers Amarine, and finally the broken goddess Nocta.
These gods were commonly represented with iconography, as the paladins seemed to serve the Lord of Light, his symbol that of the blazing sun, was stamped in every corner of their armor and weapons. Among these gods, it seemed only the Lord of Light and the Mother of the Harvest were commonly worshiped here; the others probably had other nations or kingdoms that worshipped them more.
Though it seemed the broken goddess was no longer worshiped by any nation, which was odd, These names and titles seem to correspond to certain elements. Lord of Light clearly refers to light, Mother of the Harvest to nature, Source of Rivers to water, etc. The broken goddess was the hardest to fit an element into, as the title didn't give anything away. But via the process of elimination, it probably had to be either the darkness element or the death element.
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Which was strange as all the other elements seemed to possess a god of sorts; why not darkness or death? Well, considering these elements seem to be more taboo, perhaps one of them was simply shunned, never to be taught even to the paladins or clergymen? Or perhaps the god had simply been forgotten? Or no one had risen to the throne of that respective element's god? Or maybe the god was even dead? Well, who knows?
Certainly not me. Unfortunately, I could only extract this information from all of them, as the brains were simply dead for too long. If I had started earlier, I probably would've gotten more results, which is such a shame. Anyway, I continue to put their bodies in stasis, as the bodies of six able-bodied men would be quite valuable if I ever figured out how to do necromancy.
Turning my attention to the fourth, I start working on the second section of the floor. After reaching the end of the flooded temple, I created a staircase that led to dry land. I carve out a fairly large room, about 50 by 100 meters. The room looked quite plain, so on the walls, I carved beautiful patterns and sculptures of water in a distinctly Minoan Greek style. I caved twisting and turning lines into the dense stone brick, which represented Water from meandering rivers, torrential rains, and ice-capped mountains all meeting into a boundless sea.
After the ornamentation, I began to work on the enchantments. The mechanics for this section are quite simple: when an intruder enters the room, it will flood, not leaving any air inside. Ice-cold water would envelop everything in sight, and fast currents would push and pull any intruder into random parts of the room. One must be quite agile or a pretty good swimmer to escape it. On the roof of the room, I gather three Olympic pools worth of water and store them there. Once an intruder was detected, it would release all the water, flooding the room with freezing cold water.
On the walls, ceiling, and floor of the room, I carved out circles of varying sizes and diameters. Filling the indents, I took the silver from the armor of the paladins and molded it into large rings of silver, which I then placed into the indents. Enchanting the silver rings with monstrous quantities of water mana, I enchanted them with the intent to swirl, ebb, and flow to churn the water constantly. And after a day or two of tinkering with the enchantment, I was complete. The fourth floor was done for the most part. I may add some traps here and there in the future, but I'd say it's complete for now.