"A bar? That doesn't exactly seem safe." Liam spoke to himself aloud as he approached the older building. He had gone back to the dormitory to pack before returning to the Autopsy Group's closest building. For some reason they directed him to a different entrance on the other side of London. Apparently some escapees had let loose several Magical Beasts there, so the area was sectioned off for repairs. Nonetheless, the distance and heat had left him in a sour mood.
His GPS placed his destination to an alleyway between a rather bustling pub and some sort of law office. If he hadn't spent almost an hour walking here in hot and humid weather, he may have appreciated the irony.
'Nothing better than hiding in plain sight.' Liam thought to himself. He made his way into the alleyway, sandwiched between the dark wood from which the bar was constructed from and the lifeless gray drywall of the office. The white stones which made up the sidewalk transitioned into brown bricks as the mage made his way down the steps. One man stood beside the lower door which led to the bottom floor of the bar in a worn, white wifebeater. A cigarette threatened to fall out of his mouth, held just at the edge of his lips.
He approached the man slowly, both out of exhaustion and cautiousness. He shifted the familiar black bag on his shoulder. Once within a reasonable distance, Liam called out to them,
"Is this the entrance to the Tomb?"
The man didn't respond. He merely removed the cigarette from his mouth and held out his other hand. His eyes looked almost dead, as if to merely be here took years off his life, but he at least seemed halfway normal. Maybe feeling that way was normal.
He extended the papers out to the man, who promptly snatched it out from his grasp. Liam scoffed audibly, subconsciously crossing his arms. Why couldn't the guard to a magical cavern full of monsters be a nice person? Apparently his feelings were well shown by his face, as the man gave a chuckle when he glanced up at the boy.
"Good to go." The man spoke in a raspy and low voice, handing the papers back to Liam. He took them and stood there, his eyes on the man expectedly. After a moment of silence, he opened his mouth to speak, but the man had caught on too. "It's back there." He mumbled before point behind him with his cigarette and sticking it back into his mouth. Liam looked down the alley further with furrowed eyebrows, looking around for a few seconds before noticing something.
At the far wall was a similarly sized door to the one which led to the bar, but made out of metal. It looked industrial-one they would use on a military ship or submarine. The hinges gripped the brick around it, the metal being practically the exact same brown color.
"Damn." Liam spoke before approaching the door. He hadn't even noticed it for the entire five minutes he was down there. Once he reached it, he discovered why.
Placing his hand on the door sent a jolt through him. The metal was cold and unnatural, but something more had triggered his senses. A bounded field. It was fairly small, only covering a five meter radius, but it was inhumanly strong. A boundary was typically meant to defend or conceal a certain area, such as a mages home or workshop. The best boundary would be one that couldn't be detected, or that no one could noticed. His mind hadn't even thought of looking down the alley to see the metal door, and even if he had, he probably wouldn't have thought anything of it.
His brain struggled to reconcile the two feelings-of knowing that the entrance was right in front of him, and the influence towards ignorance being pushed into him by the boundary. Liam figured that the door itself was probably at the edge of it, so passing through would get rid of this contradiction. Heaving, he pulled open the thick, metal door.
The entrance to the tomb was a long and seemingly natural cavern. It was about four meters wide, with the walls being made up of sharp and jagged rock. The torches which hung on the rock every couple meters gave a scarlet hue to the walls as well as the ground.
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Slowly, Liam stepped inside. The feeling of passing through the boundary felt like walking through a wave of water, but reaching the other side brought instant relief. That is, until he looked behind him.
A small, blue and formless cloud compressed against an invisible wall next to him. It pushed harder and harder, with only a few inches of it managing to cross into the cavern. It took almost a minute until Kite squeezed inside. It’s body basically burst through all at once. The boy gave a loud sigh as he felt his the knot in his stomach loosen. He almost thought Kite wouldn’t be able to come with him.
After that small heart attack, Liam let the door close with its own weight before continuing onwards through the tunnel. The Djinn returned to it’s immaterial form, vanishing from sight.
The was almost no variation to the large tunnel. The depth seemed to be endless, with the floor only slightly tilting downwards into the earth. Just as he was about to get pissed at having to walk another absurd distance, Liam managed to make out an odd structure in the distance. About 20 meters ahead, there was a sort of wooden and rope contraption. Mustering up enough energy, he jogged over to the end of the tunnel.
He stopped in front of it with a raised eyebrow. It was a mostly wooden box, with two poles of wood at it’s side and rope attached from its top to those poles. The box itself was a couple meters wide and maybe three tall. The walls were constructed out of a flexible bronze-like metal, with the front wall specifically remaining as a gate. Slowly, Liam slid open the gate and stuck his head inside, inspecting the odd creation. After much deliberation, and seeing as there was no where else for him to go, the boy entered the box and closed the gate behind him.
The lift began to move almost immediately. Liam stumbled, his right leg quickly moving to catch himself in a fall. He had begun to move downward, or more specifically, the elevator was.
The first layer of the Spiritual Tomb of Albion, where the underground city of Magisfair laid, was approximately ten kilometers underground. Over six miles.
Liam slipped his bag off of his shoulder, letting it fall to the wooden floor with a loud “thunk”. He shuffled over to the back wall of the elevator and slumped down, crossing his legs. It would take at least an hour to travel that distance, so he would prepare accordingly with the shortest nap he had ever taken.
Unfortunately, his body actively worked against him. He had to force himself to close his eyes, which wasn’t very conducive to the whole sleeping ordeal. He felt an urge to check his phone, but he was actually 100% certain it wouldn’t work down here. Not only would the bounded field make sure it couldn’t function, he would just be too far below ground to reach any cell towers.
After fifty minutes of staring at the same flavor of rock, the trip finally made some headway.
The claustrophobic shaft abruptly cut off as Liam descended into the city of Magisfair. He had just crossed the “ceiling” of the city, now able to see over the whole area through the metal gates. He shuffled across the lift to get a better look.
Magisfair was easily half the size of the whole London area. The entire scene was colored a royal purple-as the rock around them as well as their own light sources gave off such a hue. The buildings were numerous and varied, with some being simple huts formed out of dead and dull rocks with sparse planks of wood, and others built from bright purple and black bricks, with intricate archways which separated a courtyard from a private garden. Tiled roofs of an even lighter shade of purple was prominent among the better built structures. There were even roads mostly paved-smoothed and formed out of a deep black mineral. The lamps and torches all burned a bright purple. The completely alien world he had just entered was almost enough to distract Liam from the destruction below him.
Hearing shouts and crashes from almost fifty meters off the ground, the boy strained to look below him through the gate, his longer black hair getting caught in the metal hinges.
Almost a dozen mages gathered around some sort of figure-which was almost certainly inhuman. It was bigger than even two humans in height and length, and was completely colored black. He saw it move towards one of the people, swatting at it with a limb Liam could barely see. They collapsed to the ground with the monster towering over them, its head lowering down to, presumably, close its jaws around their head. Another mage spewed fire at it from their hand, which drove it away a couple meters. Now it’s attention was on them.
Liam’s eyes darted from side to side, judging the nearby terrain and buildings from what he could see. He scrambled to his feet and heaved his bag up to his shoulder, tightening the strap to ensure it wouldn’t fall. After a couple of deep breaths, he figured he had delayed it enough.
“Kite, I need you to handle the landing.” He spoke aloud as he opened the metal gate in mid-air.