Eight Intertwined

89 - Gideon

By some grace of the gods, the travelers managed to press through the remainder of the sewers without any other interference. At the end of the winding paths, a large room could be found, its door shut tightly. Unlike everything else made of stone within the sewers, the door was ragged and wooden, weakened by its time out of the care of others. Cyrus was certain that whoever they were searching for--the one behind the kidnappings and the leader of the dark mages they had seen throughout the tunnels--was on the other side of this door. He had no idea what he was going to find specifically, but now wasn't the time for doubts. They had to push onwards. 

Cyrus pushed the door open slowly, a frown on his face. He imagined there were going to be at least a few dark mages waiting for him inside the room, so he readied his other hand in case he needed to release a quick spell, but in the end, his concerns were unfounded. The room was dark, but there were no shifts in the shadows to indicate anything resembling movement. The only light source rested at the center of the room, a single glowing stone of bright red. Cyrus reached into his pocket and pulled out the crimson gem he had found earlier, staring at it in muted curiosity. Could they be related? His hadn't glowed this way, but the colors were too similar for it to be a coincidence. 

Before Cyrus had the chance to question this, a thumping sound thundered through the room. Tressa squealed before throwing her arms around Primrose from anxiety. Cyrus nearly jumped out of his own skin before whirling to face the source of the sound. The noise had come from near the wall, though Cyrus had no idea what could have fallen. 

Some small part of him wished he never found out. 

It was a man, his brown hair dirtied from what appeared to be quite some time without any proper care. He was completely motionless, his eyes closed as he faced the ceiling overhead. Cyrus reached for the man's neck carefully, searching for any signs of a pulse, but he was met with nothing. The other travelers had clustered in around him, curiosity and worry written all over their faces. Even in the darkness, Cyrus could see that much from the limited light offered by the lanthorn. 

"He's dead," Cyrus told them softly. He rose to his feet before looking up at the wall nearby. There were three wooden plates attached firmly to the stone, each of them bearing shackles of steel to keep their hostages suspended in the air. The man had been attached to the center plate of the three, but he had collapsed when the shackles decided they could no longer hold his dead weight. A single torch rested at the center of the wall, but it had been extinguished since nobody was using the room at the moment. In between the plates, small containers could be seen, and when Cyrus crouched down beside them, he realized they were filled with soulstones just like the chest he and the others had found earlier on. When he grabbed for them, he realized they had been completely drained of energy, as if all of their magical power had been used to charge something else recently instead. 

Cyrus returned to the man's side a few moments later, examining him a bit closer. He was incredibly pale, startlingly so, and when Cyrus lifted the body's arm, he found that the limb was much lighter than it had any right to be. "It's as if the blood was drained from his body," he murmured. He turned his attention back to the center of the room, watching the red stone that rested on the floor there. Beneath the crystal, sigils came into view. They were carved into the ground with rusted scarlet, all of them precise and terrifying. It was far from being like anything he had ever seen. 

"What could those marks mean?" Alfyn questioned, trying to hide the way his voice shook and ultimately falling short. "I don't know what they did to that man, but it doesn't seem like he was here for good reasons."

Cyrus frowned before letting one hand come up to his chin. "Clearly, some baleful sorcery has been performed here," he whispered. He turned his attention off to another corner of the room, and he realized a small candle was lit atop a desk. He approached it, finding even more of the small red stones on top of the wood. He picked them up, examining each facet as carefully as he could, before his eyes went wide. "If my hypothesis is correct, these gemstones..."