Hushar sighed, and trudged over, only for him to stumble as his foot caught something invisible. He let out a cry of shock, before catching himself. Then he looked down at the nothingness before him, and reached out.

He lifted up something from the ground, but it remained invisible, and unmoving. Hushar let out a low whimper, as he ran his hands along the form. “It’s Tukar…”

Jonathan stepped carefully over, and tried to pierce the veil covering the still form. There was nothing there, as far as he could tell, no matter how much he tried to refine his perception. There was no elemental residue, at least to his limited abilities.

Then he spotted something. There was a tiny thread poking out of the air, filled with a conceptual energy that he recognized. That of nullification. It seemed to be only a byproduct of whatever had rendered Tukar invisible in the first place, but it was a start. He reached out with his Void elemental mastery, and touched it to the thread. Suddenly, the air before him lit up as his energy was sucked into the thread, spreading in a lattice across a humanoid form.

Jonathan narrowed his eyes, and exerted control over the threads, forcing them apart. With his skill in elemental manipulation, it was child’s play. Bit by bit, the elemental weave came apart, slowly revealing a patch of red skin below. After about a minute, Tukar was fully revealed. He was completely still, but as the last bit of elemental thread disappeared, he came to.

A fist hurtled towards Jonathan’s face, but he blocked it, gripping the Uthraki’s hand. “It’s me. Slothari is dead.”

“Jonathan?” Tukar said uncertainly. “Hushar? Where am I?”

“Still in Slothari’s throne room,” Hushar replied, a slight mist entering his eyes. “You’re safe now. Jonathan managed to unbind whatever it was that had kept you hidden.”

“Are the others safe? Branth was taken somewhere, but Maranta and Bordeg were here with me.”

Jonathan moved over to where Tukar had been laying, and felt around. There were two more forms lying on the ground, and he searched for a thread of elemental energy. Both of them had one, and he sent his mastery into them, repeating the same process that he had used on Tukar. Maranta and Bordeg came into view over the course of a few minutes, waking up like Tukar had.

After being told what had happened, the two Uthraki followed Jonathan down from the ledge, and into the throne room. Edgar was waiting there, a smile on his face. It was a bitter smile though.

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“I apologize for not being able to find you,” he said as soon as the Uthraki set foot on the ground. “Had I manually searched up there, it would have been a different story.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tukar replied. “No time passed for us in that state. At least Slothari kept us alive.”

Jonathan frowned, remembering something. “If Branth wasn’t here, where is he? Was he killed?”

Tukar shrugged. “I don’t know. When we were in Slothari’s dungeons, he was continuously moved through the cells, further and further away from us.”

Jonathan nodded. “Well, that’s as good a place to start as any.”

As the ground left the winding passageways of Slothari’s mountain stronghold, they conversed about lighter topics. The three Uthraki who had been imprisoned were quite stoic about the whole thing, happy now that Slothari had died. Their quest was completed, and Mire was saved. None of them had joined the circle lord in her demise, which was the best outcome any could have expected.

By the time they reached the road that circled down the mountain, they were laughing, feeling glad to just be alive. For the Uthraki, a race whose entire existence was a cycle of life and death, managing to preserve their memories for just a while longer was a blessing indeed.

Ten minutes later, they stood before the city’s dungeons, peering down into the dark hole that led to them.

“Who exactly is kept in there?” Jonathan asked. “I suspect that many of them are here unjustly.”

“We were too preoccupied with finding Tukar, Maranta and Bordeg,” Edgar replied, a look of shame on his face. “But yes, I believe that most simply suffered from the whims of Slothari.”

“Start freeing them, then,” Jonathan said. “But first, let’s try to find Branth.”

The group split up within the dungeon, Jonathan continuing on ahead, with the others taking side passageways. As he progressed through the warren of tunnels, Jonathan relied on his enhanced memory to keep track of where he was. There was a steep downhill slope, and the air grew colder and colder the further he went.

He passed by hundreds of cells, many of which were empty. None of them contained the man he was looking for though.

The earlier ones had given him hope, as they weren’t exactly tortuous in design. Instead, they had large beds, and the people within them were dressed in the attire of nobles. Jonathan ignored them for now. They were hardly at the top of his agenda.

Most of the people there were hard bitten criminals or rebels. Some of them banged on the bars as he went by, but many of them simply languished into the cells, likely having been there for years. If their crimes did not merit their punishments, then they would be released in time.

Jonathan headed further down into the dungeon, passing by increasingly filthy cells. Eventually, he reached the bottom, finding no indication of Branth’s presence. He sighed, and turned back, heading up through the rows of prisoners and their cells. The whole thing was quite depressing. He would rather die in battle than rot in a cell for years on end. Until he had slain Slothari, there would have been no escape either, as the circle lord was immortal, at least in terms of aging.