The sunlight peered through the glass window, accentuating the books scattered around the study. It was a normal study room, with papers and book messily piled beside the work desk. There were multiple objects scattered around the room, from candles to quills and ink wells.

Huh, nothing suspicious here. Arise thought

He proceeded deeper into the study room, he caught a glimpse of a swirling dark aura pooled around the bookshelf near the sunlit window. It was collection of purple leather binded books. The aura seeped from the binder of the book, laced with heavy curse that protected itself from any damage.

To Arise, the aura made his mind whirled. It was heavily disorienting, and his skin felt like it got covered in a layer of rotten butter; it smelled sour and foul.

“You found my father’s collection of dark books.” Hazel commented, she brought the book from her sling and lodged it with the rest of the dark books. ”That’s how I found it, nothing could really mask the stench of dark magic. Like all magic, they leave a trace, dark magic leaves a mark.”

Arise shifted his gaze away. “It’s impressive that you know alot of dark magic.”

It was unnatural, even for a rich family. These practices were banished from Solicia region three hundred years ago. Their impact on the caster itself raised a question if dark magic can even be used as normal magic, if every cast had a trade off. Then what about Hazel? Surely, she paid something to cast mimicry.

Fortunately, mimicry’s price was nothing compared to the immovable hex. Only needing to sacrifice the current form of the target for 45 hours before it could turn back. Of course, Arise had no idea about this, neither does Hazel

Hazel giggled, she walked to the bookshelf near the study desk, she held the orange bound book. “Well, if you feel rebellious in a house of sadist, and you discovered your father has a collection of illegal dark magic, would you be eager to study it to spite them?”

“Eh, good point.”

She unfurled the book, riddled with cryptic symbols of circles and letters. It seemed like a magic formula. Hazel gestured Arise to make a room, she held her palm inward, then she placed her fingers on her right palm as she let the aetheric energy flow throughout her body.

She took a deep breath and released a sigh. Hazel then casted. “[Inverted Mirror of Dreams.]”

The air shattered glass as it glimmered and disappeared into embers. The dimension returned to its former orientation, the study room tranformed into a cobbled room covered in darkness.

Arise’s squinted his eyes, unable to see past the dark horizon of the room.

Arise stood quietly, the darkness festered around him. I can’t see it very well, but judging from the feeling, it felt like I’m underground.

An opressing breeze came from the deeper part of the hallway. It was foul, a stench of decay, like rotting meat. Arise retched at the smell as he supported himself on the wall.

That smell... Ugh, it’s worse than I thought.

The fair lady brought her hands together, letting the aetheric energy pool. She blew a gentle breeze onto the pool of energy. A spark emerged as the flames danced, then it was compressed to a single point and lit up tremendously. “[Gabriel’s flame]”

An orange glow illuminated hallway, series of wooden doors emerged as rats and insects scuttled along the crevices of the rock.

“How in the world did we get here.” Arise asked, his vision adjusted to the orange glow.

Hazel held the glowing ball of flame. “The study room is under a high level illusion spell. A kind that let you interract with the objects on it. While my Father’s original study room is in Lucern. My spell temporarily broke that illusion that allowed us to enter the passage.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Five year ago, when Hazel first entered the duke’s study room without any permission. She noticed many inconsistencies with it. Missing details, walls not alliged correctly, the heavy feeling of deceit gnawing on her brain. She made an equilibria spell to specifically counter it.

It was inspired by a dark spell she saw on the dark book made by Tenebria. An illusionary spell that allows the user to entrap anything and anyone into a convincing illusion. Anything trapped inside the spell will dissipate as it could overwrite equilibiria functions. Much like her spell, this created a dome of light around Hazel, this domain of light dispells anything inside, allowing her to gain true sight.

Arise lips twitched, he walked in silence as the growing stench became stronger. Nauseating, did they just leave anyone dead here? This is why Hazel was hesitant to come back here?

After a moment of walking, Arise saw a light piercing through the end of the tunnel. Outside was a large dome, scattered with papers and strange symbols written in blood. Hazel stood horrified as Arise froze as well...

“W-what is this?” His lips curled as he witnessed the monsters inside the dome.

Series of cages ligned up together, locking up a barely humanoid monster. Dribbling with rotten matter, covered with their filth as it groaned from the sight of Arise and Hazel.

It uttered, barely recognizable phrases. “H-help... m-me”

“Save us.”

“Kill me please”

All of the monsters sound hoarse as they tried to speak. Gripping the iron bars with their lanky rotten fingers.

Arise’s gaze pierced through a tag, written in Lumenian. He could understand it, a name of someone. It was written as ‘William’

William? Is it the same William those servants mentioned? Is this why many servants went missing inside the mansion. How terrible.

Despite being perturbed by what he saw, he proceeded to enter the area.

He felt his stomach rumble, as the bile on his throat teetered to come out.

It looked like experiments to Arise. The duke was trying to achieve something but each attempt resulted in failure, like the transmorphed humans in the cages. Then Arise piles of parchment on the table. It was signed to Duke Thomas Rhoeia, it was written in ink.

“Day 103

other failure, after subject 210 gave up after ten days. Nothing emerged out of him, his soul did not respond to the excessive magic inside his system.

What I observed through subject 210, he his body reactively negatively to the transmogrification circle. His body rejected the advances of magic permeating through his flesh.

Bring in another batch of servants, trying a different approach to not lose their humanity in the proccess.

Failure”

He shifted through the papers, calmly as he read the logs written by the duke.

“Day 143

Subject 214 transformed into a monster, her body lasted for eighteen days. Much longer than any of the past subjects.

Her soul had a slight reaction to the magic permeating through her system. I am hopeful of the results.

Next subject, I’ll try to incorporate hexes to their bones.

Failure”

He saw vials of liquid inside a glass bottle, infused with aetheric energy. It was attached to a tube which had a needle like protrusion on its end. It delivered the charged liquid into the woman’s skin who laid on the bed, chained as she twitched everytime the liquid went inside her.

Closing in, both Arise and Hazel carefully stared at the woman on the bed. They looked at each other and agreed to not touch her for the time being. There was a parchment beside her, detailing her progress on the duke’s experiments.

“Subject 215

Her body reacted differently than the other subjects. It seems like her bones accepted the dark hexes I applied. Her soul seem to glimmer every time the hex activates. Though, it hurts the subject in magnitude.”

“Now, I understand why you wanted me to see this.” Arise murmmured, his vision scanning the room as he noticed the bronze like insignia on the wall. “Even for me, this goes so far. There’s limit to how much suffering you could inflict with science, even with magic.”

Arise believed that in science, there were necessary sacrifices to be made. Whenever it was immoral or not, but if such actions crossed the river of immorality and dipped its toes on these kinds of research... He could feel his rage seething from his skin. The first time he saw these kinds of research was the documentary about Dr. Mengele. The attrocities against the mankind, just in the name of science. It was the river that he would not cross.

“You win.” Arise surrendered to Hazel. He saw enough to reconsider his decision to join the resistance Hazel started. “I’ll join your resistance, on one condition.”

The fair lady nodded, she listened to Arise’s demands.

“Mel and Stanzi should not know I joined. Knowing Stanzi, he would have followed me by joining, I can’t risk unnecesarry deaths.”

Hazel’s resolve burned brighter after she convinced him to join her. His presence alone could tip the balance their side, especially against Arise’s knowledge of the otherworld. It was the last puzzle piece she needed to go against her family and by extension the whole Soren kingdom.