The Chained Watcher

The Watchers

What of the Watchers who were supposed to be monitoring stuff to make sure nothing happened to the power source?  What were they doing while all this was going on?

Inside a dark room, deep in the fortress.

"Ugh."

A pair of Watchers with a single pair of wings each slouched in their cheap swivel chairs, staring at the screens of the phones in their hands. These are the ones who are in charge of monitoring the array of hidden cameras to make sure noone got close to any important parts of the fortress. They are also currently bored out of their minds. You see, these Watchers made the mistake of staking a week of guard duty as a bet, and never considered the possibility of losing.

Unfortunately for the rest of the fort, they had quite literally zero interest in actually checking the wall of monitors for any abnormalities, instead choosing to watch one of the prerecorded gladiator matches from the local arena. This meant that, despite the alert that popped up when the lock broke, neither of them noticed a lone figure entering one of the restricted areas. Their first clue that something was wrong was when the power flickered, monitors flashing with static as they lost connection to their respective cameras. 

Now, they might have ignored this too, had the lack of power not also taken down their internet access. Red lights and alarms started going off in the room, shining light down on the two guards as they frantically tried to figure out just what went wrong to set off this many alarms. Channeling some of their own magic into the alert log, they scanned through the clog of alerts currently screaming, and found the one that went off first.

"Unauthorized Access: Power Room," one of the two read off. They exchanged looks of horror. Someone had done something to the power source, and their heads were on the line as tonight's guards. Behind them, a speaker crackled to life, and the voice of their superior rang out from it.

"What happened?! What did you numbskulls do this time!?" their superior berated angrily.

"W-We don't know, sir!" stammered one of them, before the other continued with "S-Someone entered the power room, Sir! As there are no cameras inside the room, we do not know who it is, sir!" while sweating profusely. The speaker was silent for several seconds.

"Well, unless you want to go beg for forgiveness yourself, go figure out what went wrong, and fix it! NOW!" 

"SIR YES SIR!" they belted out fearfully, before taking off down the halls in the direction of the control room.

Normally, flying in the halls was strictly forbidden, but genuine emergencies can override that rule. Unfortunately for them, the thing they actually needed to find had already made its way quite a distance from the now-empty power room, so by the time they made it there, all that was left was a crumbling hole leading into the crushing depths of the void.

Stepping up to the edge of the void, one of the Watchers accidentally brushed a loose chain trailing down the wall with his wing. The chain flickered a pale lilac as the Watcher screamed at the feeling of having most of the magic in his wing forcibly ripped out. His companion flinched backwards several steps as the nearby torches flickered for a moment before going back out. He had a feeling that they weren't supposed to know about those chains, and resolved to feign ignorance should anyone ask.

No longer touching the chain, the now weakened Watcher retreated fearfully from the room. A quick examination of his wing revealed it to be nearly bone white and trembling weakly, and an experimental flap showed it to no longer be up to flying before it recovered. If it recovered. He went to look at his companion, but found them fleeing down the hall.  

Now, you can't really blame them. After all, heads have rolled over smaller secrets. He knew this, and had come to the conclusion that, should he not get out of the fortress before his higher ups arrived, it would be his head that would roll. All he needed to do was make it to the portal hub. He could take one of the newly formed as-of-yet untouched portals before severing the link to the hub. Sure, it was a bit of a gamble, but what other choice did he have? Go and beg leniency from their superior? Ha.

He rounded another corner, flying at break-neck speeds before he spotted the portal room. A squad of servants were standing guard at their posts, their soulless gazes spotting him before they bowed. After all, no matter how heavily modified, they were still lesser beings at their core. Striding purposefully through the archway, he straightened his wings and looked through the different portals for a heart-stopping twenty seconds before finding the telltale signs of a fresh portal.

His chosen escape portal was surrounded by strangely colored light, and the bricks of the containment arch used to lock it in place were noticeably newer, thinner, and most importantly, weaker than the more established portals. Glancing at the guards, he saw them back to standing at their posts, with not a single one watching him. Good.

He condensed a good portion of his free magic into a tight ball, paying no heed to the strain this put on his mind. Consequences could come later, once he was safe. Once he was sure the ball of magic would explode if left alone, he backed up to the portal with the ball in hand. Looking once more at the hub, he sighed and raised his hand, before releasing the ball as he let himself fall backwards into the portal.

The unstable magic rushed out of its containment. The portal crumbled, the only sign left behind being the blast mark on the floor where it once stood.