The underground tunnel was everything one could ask for when it came to spooky old wizards. In fact, even to call it a tunnel did it a disservice. Sleek unblemished granite covered floor, wall, and ceiling alike, broken only by the occasional imposing column interspersed with some blue mage lights that lit up at their approach. Slanted downwards and curved to the side, the corridor brought them deeper and deeper as it spiraled downwards.
Combined with the unnatural atmosphere, there was a certain thrum of mana which grew stronger the farther they went. Altogether, it managed to silence even Cal, the very act of speaking feeling both ill-advised and irreverent.
After several eternities, the passageway at last terminated in a massive arch, spilling out into a circular room which looked as though it could house an entire city.
This, however, was not its most notable feature.
The very moment the room came into view, all three of them pulled up short.
Ten. No. Twenty. Etched into the granite floor was the most mind-bogglingly massive spell diagram Verin had ever encountered. At least twenty times larger than the ritual which brought us here.
And not just larger, but more complex. Despite a fairly good magical education, Verin wasn’t the strongest when it came to the Spell Insight skill. Even so, she could normally roughly gauge how advanced a ritual was. In this case, however, even looking at the diagram made her head hurt, and she meant that in a literal sense.
And yet, for all that a freakishly large ritual at the end of a hidden underground tunnel should have been the main point of focus, Verin was far more concerned with what lay within said ritual.
At the very center of the room was a black pedestal, a smokey gray gem lying atop it. And directly behind that pedestal was a man.
Or is he a man? She wasn’t entirely sure. His skin had a strange sheen and color to it, a mix of red and black, and his features were harsh and alien . Entirely nude, he hadn’t been physically harmed in any way, but the myriad chains and shackles which bound him made it clear he was a prisoner of some sort. His black hair was the most human thing about him, though it had grown long and raggedy, enough to almost obscure the short horns poking from his head. His eyes were firmly shut, a testament to their owner’s ability to sleep in such a predicament.
I cannot be entirely sure, but I believe he may be a-
“Demon…” As if involuntarily, Cal choked the word out in a hushed whisper.
So it was a demon. Was this part of the archmage’s master’s research then? Summoning and binding demons?
Perhaps not something we should approach so casually, then. If indeed this room did belong to the archmage’s master, he clearly wasn’t present at the moment. Waiting further up the tunnel might be the safer option.
It was quite unfortunate, then, that just as Verin was about to suggest such a thing, her body froze.
She had only a second to be shocked before she started flying out from the tunnel and into the ritual room, unable to even squeak out a protest as her muscles refused to obey her commands. Worse than that, she activated a number of trinkets she kept on her for exactly such occasions, only to watch in horror as they all sputtered out.
Verin jerked to a stop, only belatedly realizing that Tess and Cal had come along for the ride. All three of them now hung in the air in the very center of the ritual.
With the demon.
Who then opened a single, red eye.
In a voice that was at once as deep as the ocean and as shrill as scraped glass, he rejoiced.
“How lovely! New toys. Welcome…”
Having spent the vast majority of her life maintaining as calm and collected a demeanor as she could manage, Verin reflected that panic was rapidly becoming a far more common companion to her than she’d have ever guessed. Or at least, she would have reflected in such a way were she not too busy with said panicking. As the three of them hung before the red-eyed demon, Verin rapidly shifted through all her skills and items, finding them all just as equally useless and inert. In fact, they were worse than useless — for whatever reason, everything she tried seemed to suck far more mana from her than she expected, draining her pool at an alarming and frankly unreasonable rate.
Even with most of her mind devoted to either fear or activating her various failsafes, Verin also spared the barest bit of attention to her surroundings, hoping to find anything that could turn the tides. Save for her companions, though, the only thing of note was the black pedestal they’d noted before, the strange gray jewel sitting patiently atop it.
As quickly as she took it in, however, she dismissed it. Close as it was, it might have been on another continent for how little she was able to move towards it.
In those brief few seconds of her plotting and failing, the shackled demon shifted his gaze between them, regarding the trio somewhere between an interesting lab experiment and slabs of meat. If he was disappointed that they hadn’t returned his warm welcome, he hardly showed it, proving perfectly capable of holding the conversation by himself.
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“What do we have here, hmm? Three of the emperor’s whelps dumb enough to stick their noses where they shouldn’t? What do you think, should I send him a nice present of your severed heads to express my gratitude? A touch cliche, but I’ll admit a certain fondness of the classics.”
He reached a shackled hand out towards Verin as if to make good on his idea, only coming up short a few hairs before her neck — a fact that Verin was eminently relieved by. While the demon didn’t lower his arm, his previous savage glee took on a more pensive tone.
“That can’t be right, though. I could have sworn it was a few centuries too early for that, no? And on second glance, you don’t quite look like his. Curious… I suppose I could just ask, although it would probably be faster to tear into your minds and rip your memories out. I’m sure I could put you back together if I really needed to. Probably.”
Keen on not having her mind torn to shreds, Verin went into overdrive, trying both anything and everything to escape. None of her other trinkets having worked, she funneled as much of her mana as she could into the only remaining object she could: the locator gem, held ham-fisted at her side.
It is capable of breaking spatial locks, yes? Perhaps it can undo whatever stasis spell he is using on us. Failing that, she held a spark of hope that the archmage’s master might sense her using the gem and come back to put his unruly summons in its place.
Even with those thoughts in mind, it came as something of a shock when she felt herself falling to the ground, her mobility restored. Before she even hit the ground, however, her fist was pried open, the badge snatched from her grip in an instant.
Did that mean it worked? Did he take it because he could feel it calling the archmage’s master here?
“Is that…” Even as the demon trailed off, his form shifted, his bare skin disappearing beneath regal draping robes while his disquieting visage morphed to that of a standard human’s in his fifties. The only signs that the creature before them was the same as before were his reddish-black skin and long, messy dark hair which covered his horns.
“It is! Hah. Even at my old age, it seems I can still be surprised. Enough with the cowering, enough, enough.” As the three collapsed to the ground, he beckoned them up as if he hadn’t been the one to drop them there in the first place.
“This badge was for little Xan, wasn’t it? I can’t imagine you three kids stealing it from him, so you must be friends, yes?” He flashed them a smile fully dissimilar to his earlier malicious grin.
“Tell me, how’s that foolish student of mine doing these days, hmm?”
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Misunderstandings, as it turned out, were far easier to clear up when one wasn’t suspended mid-air and barred from talking. Partly out of a desire to not end up back in a similar circumstance, Verin made sure to explain the series of events that had brought them here, stopping only for occasional interjections from Cal. By and large, she told the unvarnished truth, only omitting a few more sensitive details like Tess’s status as a Protagonist.
For his part, the demon — or rather, the archmage’s master — remained almost eerily silent, not even offering his name. Of course, she would wait for him to offer it. Etiquette aside, there was no way that Verin would dare Identify someone so powerful for fear of offending-
“Hey, do you have a name? I’m getting tired of thinking of you as ‘the freaky chained demon teacher,’ and my Identify keeps failing.” Evidently tired of standing, Cal dropped down into a squat, pulling Tess down with her and motioning for her to take a seat.
Damnable rogue. What did they even teach you in that palace of yours? Verin tensed, ready for the worst. The only thing to greet her, however, was a light chuckle.
“Ah, I should probably flay your mind for that so no one thinks I’m going soft, but you’ve put me in a good mood, children. As to what you may call me, I will admit to having a great number of titles I like to ramble off to my enemies, but for you three, Sett will suffice. But if the tyke is calling himself an ‘archmage’ what does that make me? An ‘arch-archmage’? A ‘grand-archmage’? You know what? Let’s keep it simple and go with ‘grand magus.’ That sounds suitably fancy without actually meaning anything, right?”
At Cal’s lack of visible response to both his threats and musings, he huffed, but otherwise let it slide. “But how lovely it is to hear that little Xan is still alive! I wondered where that bone-headed student of mine had gone off to. Who would have thought he’d be hiding in some low-leveled backwater, hmm? A peculiar lad, that one.”
Though his chains prevented him from fully sitting, Sett bent down as low as he could, coming to eye level with the least vocal amongst them. “So this is my grand-apprentice, hmm? And you were hoping I’d heal her up and then send you on your way?”
“That would be correct, yes. It was the archmage’s wish. Is this something you would be able to assist with?” For all that Verin had been sure that she would die here, she found herself far more optimistic at her prospects now, even more so with the next words that came from Sett’s mouth.
“I’d love to!” He shot back up, clasping his hands together in a manner fully unbefitting the demonic form they’d seen earlier. A great sigh escaped from Verin, glad to finally have a stroke of good luc-
“Unfortunately, I can’t,” he continued.
It took every point of Charisma and every level of Etiquette to keep her face from twitching. “Honored Grand Magus, would you mind elaborating? Xander’Callis seemed quite hopeful that you would be able to assist in this matter.”
“Oh, yes, yes. Normally I’d even enjoy such a delicate procedure. But while you’ve been very polite not to pry, you may have noticed that…” he intoned while gesturing to the host of restraints chaining him to the center of the massive spell diagram below. “I seem to have found myself in something of a predicament, as you might say.”
Under different circumstances, Verin would have been hopeful at her ability to help the demon with whatever his problem was. Even had she not been cut off from her family and resources back home, however, she doubted there was anything she could do that the teacher of the archmage couldn’t. Still, there was no harm in trying.
“Perhaps if you could explain, we might be able to assist you?”
As if waiting for that exact phrase, Sett began to lean forward. “Ah! But that’s so drab, is it not? I believe I can do one better. Here, why don’t you see for yourselves?” Faster than a mage should have been able to move, he swung his arm in a downward arc, connecting with all three of their heads. Though he’d barely used any force, all three were knocked out cold as their vision was filled with jumbled images of gold and sand and blood. As the vision began to resolve itself, their minds were gripped by foreign thoughts. One, more than any of the others, pushed its way to the top.
What a wonderful day it is, Sett reflected, for a touch of regicide.