Chandrika

The three students erupted from a burst of arcane mana, lurching forward. Chandrika loosened her grip on both of her classmates' hands, falling to her knees onto cold tile.

She felt exceedingly nauseous,her head ached, and her eyes felt like they might pop out of her skull, but she felt otherwise amazing.

“I… can finally think straight.” She whispered. Getting to her feet, she hugged Gio.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!!” she repeated, squeezing the boy.

“You’re … welcome? I think? Where are we?” Gio replied, unsure.

“I have NO clue. For the past couple of hours, I felt like… I was swimming in a sea of wrong answers. Everything felt like it led to… a bad direction? If that makes any sense. All I knew was that we had to be here. This felt the least wrong.” Chandrika stated, nervously.

Now that I'm not being crippled with sensation, I can begin to sort out the fragments of visions I've been having. Why is this the only correct place for the three of us to be? Where even are we?

“Rika, I’m glad that you’re feeling better, but… this does not seem like a good thing.” Jean said, looking around.

The three students found themselves in an open atrium. The tall, domed ceiling of the space opened into nothingness at its apex instead of the light of the sky, while the dingy, decaying tile of the floor was covered in puddles of indiscernible murky liquid.

The musty air smelled stale and stagnant, like opening a cellar door for the first time in decades.

The dim room was barely lit with sparse motes of mana that Chandrika didn’t recognize, as well as a single flickering sphere opposite the chamber, casting a shadow onto the door to the sole path forward.

“Guys… I think the air here isn’t safe to breathe. I’m detecting disease mana.” Gio said, voice tight.

“[Aspect of Purity]” Jean invoked. A shimmering, opalescent bubble surrounded the three of them, centered on Jean. The air within the space immediately smelled better to Chandrika.

“Can you maintain that spell for long? I don’t know how long it’s going to take for them to find us.” Chandrika said.

“I can maintain it for a while. More importantly, how do you know all this? How do you know that they will come find us, and what is that thing?” Jean said, in a stressed, but careful tone.

He has every right to be upset. I’ve been in a daze for hours, and I may have just doomed us all. I hope Professor A managed to convince Headmaster Vespertine to use… whatever magic she has?

Chandrika winced. “It's my skill. The details are all very foggy at best. [Sage] has never been so active… I think I might need to call home if we get out of this. I’m sorry for dragging you both into this. Jean, I know we haven’t talked much recently, but I just felt… I felt like you were going to get hurt if this didn’t happen exactly this way.” She stated, sheepishly.

“It’s… okay, Rika. I’m just scared. It’s one thing to train for something like this, and another thing to be in the middle of a dungeon with no way out. At least Gio had the foresight to make sure that we brought supplies with us.” Jean offered.

“Professor A really drove that point home, so we can all thank him when we get out of this uh- wet room?” Gio said, regarding the environment.

Gio regarded the black idol, trying to identify it at all. Chandrika looked as well, not entirely aware of why this object was the focal point in her headaches. The carved face on the side of the oblong, rod-like stone was just… some person. A person with a completely neutral expression.

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“[Identify]” Jean spoke.

“Whoa, you have identify?! That’s the spell I've been trying to make!” Gio said, eyes alight with curiosity.

“Yes, it’s a very useful spell.” Jean replied. His features shifted to utter shock, regarding the idol.

“Identify says that’s a relic. It is a “[Torrential Reservoir Key]”, it doesn’t say the grade, which I think means that it’s above the epic tier?”

“A real relic! What does it do?” Gio asked.

“Something about linking to a supply of mana. I guess you could use it as a foci for some sort of power system? Or break it for a one time burst of mana.” Jean replied.

“Interesting. Sort of underwhelming for my first time ever seeing a relic in person, but I guess I'd rather that than it being incredibly cursed or something. Now, we should probably get a bit of strategy going.” Gio said.

“I agree.” chimed Chandrika.

“Same here,” agreed Jean.

_____

Gio

After stopping to eat some rations from Gio’s [Spatial Bento Box], (having long since enjoyed the original contents, Gio primarily used it for long study sessions in the library). they had begun to discuss what they knew, and had the time to dissect Chandrika’s limited knowledge of what had happened to her.

“Okay. So, you knew that we had to come here, but we don’t know why. Jean needs to be here to not be hurt somehow, I needed to get us here. The idol or key… thing was hidden and trapped to teleport people here, to some sort of what, prison? We’ll get back to that later. Headmaster Vespertine has some sort of magic that is the only thing that can find us. Is that about it?” Gio listed out.

“Seems about as much as we have to work with right now.” Jean stated calmly.

“Alright. Well, we should proceed with caution. I’m expecting traps, monsters, the whole song and dance. Rika, if you feel up to it, use your crown? I’ll get my eyes going.” Gio stated, emboldened.

After the team had applied their enhancement magic, they begun to move toward the sole door in the space.

The walls of the decrepit atrium were lined with decayed banners, each of which looked to have once held an image of some sort of heraldry that none of the three students recognized. Gio passed the [Cleanse] spell over the puddles on the floor, somewhat dismayed when their contents did not clear.

“Let's avoid the mystery fluid. It’s some kind of reagent, or at the very least it contains enough mana to be useful as one. I’m picking up a lot of disease and death. Not looking real great here, guys.” Gio said, attempting to keep a bit of levity in his voice.

Crossing the threshold to the next room, the light of the cleanse spell revealed a slumped body against the wall of a small hallway dividing the previous room from the next. As the pale light hit the corpse, it began to stir.

“Yep, thought so. Jean.” Gio motioned to the taller boy.

“On it.” Jean confirmed, summoning a spear of light.

The shambling, ragged looking skeleton had loose scraps of what appeared to have once been robes. The skeleton clung to the wet, lumpy remains of some sort of book. When the skeleton’s outstretched hand began amassing a small amount of black-tainted fire mana, Gio stepped in front of Jean, reflecting a jagged firebolt back at the husk.

The skeleton erupted in a burst of vile flames, the corrosive magics eating away at the threadbare robes, but not managing to damage the leather bound tome.

After the skeleton had burned to ash, Gio stepped forwards, carefully regarding the book.

“Tainted with death mana, and utterly ruined.” Gio stated. He tried to hold the cleanse spell closer to the book, to no meaningful result. “What a shame.”

“[Moth’s Binding].” Chandrika chanted. A flurry of illusory threads wrapped themselves around the book, weaving together in delicate patterns, smothering the corrupted mana leaking out of the book. Chandrika handed the bound tome to Gio. “The least I can do for getting us into this mess is help you gather some research materials.” She said, smiling slightly.

After stowing the book, Gio led the group forwards, flanked by Jean and Chandrika in a tight formation. Each of them readied magics, prepared to meet with more undead.

Gio held up a hand to stop the formation after stepping into the new room. The wide hall was littered with piles of debris, burned looking fabric, and shattered glass. Decayed gilding decorated the wooden banisters that lined the far end of the room, revealing a winding staircase going downwards. Before the way downwards, Gio saw several corpses, likely waiting to re-animate at the slightest bit of stimulus.

Gio walked outside of Jean’s bubble, smelling the air and activating his mana senses.

“I sense rot. There’s something here that’s leaking a high amount of aspected mana. I think we’re closing in on the source,” Gio said.

“Great.” Echoed Chandrika and Jean in unison.