Work Text:
“Well, this looks like the place.”
The young Lord Angus McFife, youngest of his blood and yet heir to the family regardless, gave a gentle tug on the reins of his unicorn. The trot of hooves fell silent as they stopped in front of a very old metal gate, tall as two persons and surrounded by an arch of black stone that connected to a wall that more resembled a prison fortification than a school boundary. Then again, the young McFife warrior was not one to judge; who knew what mages were like. (He certainly didn’t.)
A second unicorn came to a stop beside Angus’s before its rider dismounted, hood lowered and hair not at all wet from the falling rain they had ridden through. Highmage Ralathor of Cowdenbeath was Angus’s sole partner for this mission; Lady Rona McGongal had requested they go as a small group to avoid drawing unwanted attention. Why that was important, Angus did not know -- this place looked abandoned, mostly, and was in a remote area of the kingdom, far from any other civilization. He doubted anyone would notice whether they came as a group of two or two dozen.
The mage approached the locked heavy metal gate and examined it, first the lock but then also the hinges. Angus got off his unicorn in the meantime and tied both unicorns loosely to a nearby tree branch (loosely so that, if they got spooked, they could still break free and run to get to safety). He didn’t bother with special knots or anything; not like anyone would steal their unicorns in an abandoned area like this.
“The gate looks recently used.”
Or maybe it was not so abandoned after all.
Angus gave a nod at that and got his warhammer off his back, holding it at the ready. “Can you get it open?”
“Step back.” The mage’s hands already had a subtle glow about them as the mage rested them against the metal gate, one hand on the lock and the other over the upper hinge. Angus took one step back just before the gate flashed blue and then proceeded to break off of its attachment points to the blackened stone and fall to the ground in front of them with a clatter that echoed across the barren academy grounds.
“Well, that’s one way to get it open,” Angus commented. “Think anyone heard that?”
“No one should be here,” was the short answer the Mage of Cowdenbeath gave. He didn’t expand on it even a breath more, not addressing the fact that he himself had been the one to comment on the potential recent presence of others in the area, instead already stepping over the fallen gate and onto the grounds of the old magic academy.
“And if we’re not lucky?” Angus hoped there would be no one there; long as this was a quick easy-in easy-out, he could likely make it back to the citadel in time for Yule.
“Then try not to die.”
Angus rolled his eyes. “Great plan.” He held his warhammer just a bit tighter as he stepped over the fallen gate as well and followed after the mage, trying not to fall on the rather slippery stones as they made their way down a half-overgrown stone path. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for an abandoned structure -- no odd footprints, no signs of a campsite like bandits would make -- but something still felt odd. Angus didn’t know how to describe it, but something was giving him goosebumps, and more than anything that kept him on constant alert.
Following the twisting and turning path through long-overgrown gardens, they came upon a grand set of doors.
Angus walked up to the door and tried to pull on the handle. Locked.
“Allow me.”
Angus stepped back without needing more explanation as the mage did their weird work with their glowing hands (and slightly glowing eyes). He actually turned around, trying to be useful by guarding their rear and taking one more glance over the abandoned gardens to see if they missed anything. But alas, everything looked like a regular overgrown garden, like what happened to Malcom’s garden after Malcom got injured and--
There was a flash of blue from the corner of his eye, followed by not the heavy thud of the locked grand doors but instead by a smaller thud and a groan. He turned quickly and looked in shock as the usually meticulous and formal mage landed ungracefully ass-first on the ground, disoriented and with slight smoke coming off of him. Before them, the grand double door was still standing perfectly in place.
“What happened?” Angus swapped to holding his warhammer in one hand, resting the handle end on the ground as if it were a cane, so he could offer his free hand to help the mage up.
The offered hand was ignored as Ralathor got back up to his feet and brushed himself off, blue wisps of magic immediately fixing his appearance. “That was not supposed to happen.” The mage was glaring at the door as if it had insulted his honor.
“I figured you didn’t knock yourself to your ass on purpose, Lord Ralathor,” Angus commented, which got him a brief glance that spoke of pure annoyance. “Want me to give the door a try?” -he picked up his hammer in both hands again.
“And have you break your arms, if not worse? No. Those doors won’t budge; they’re warded. We must find another way in.” The mage then continued talking, something something about stone-shattering spells, but Angus tuned that out, instead looking past the mage. There! He found their entry point.
“How do you feel about doing some climbing?” Angus asked suddenly, cutting off whatever the mage had been talking about.
It took the mage a few seconds to recover from the sudden interruption before the mage’s expression settled on something with less surprise and more annoyance (though he still had a raised eyebrow). “What do you have in mind, McFife?”
“Window.”
The mage turned and followed Angus’s gaze towards the shattered window. “... I see.”
Climbing up a wall to a window while carrying a warhammer was generally not easy. However, when one had a mage aiding them with telekinesis, it was almost a trivial tasks. It took no more than a minute or two before Angus was in through the shattered window, the hermit following.
They found themselves in a hallway, leaving muddy footprints on a long-ruined rug. Angus was glad they were out of the rain finally, but this wasn’t that much better. The stench of humidity and mold hung in the air, and Angus was fairly sure he also smelled animal dung (perhaps a mouse infestation or something). But there was something else, though, like a faint smell of smoke…
Why were the sconces on the wall lit up?
Angus tightened his grip on his hammer, widening his stance a little and glancing down the hallway both ways. He could feel that the mage was standing back to back with him, likely doing the same, the air becoming slightly electrified with magic.
No one attacked them.
Keeping his guard up, Angus let his shoulders relax a little. He kept glancing down the hall both ways as he asked, “At least no one’s shown up to murder us.”
“No, but someone is here. Keep guard for a moment.”
“Already doing that, Robes, but noted.”
Angus took that as time to better study the hallway they had ended up in. The walls were stone and fairly unweathered, though anything that had once hung on them had been ripped off, evident by the occasional remaining hanger and sometimes even torn fabric. The ceilings were high and wooden, which felt like a bit of an odd choice. They were also in good condition, which implied that the roof of this place was still holding strong somehow despite being abandoned for… some time. Angus actually had no idea how long this place had been abandoned. When Lady McGongal had described it, he had expected it to be something that had been abandoned for over half a century, if not more than a century, but this… this looked more recent, unless someone had been secretly renovating it. (Or it could be a magic thing.)
He was snapped out of his thoughts (and realized he had dropped his guard a little by accident) when the mage spoke behind him.
“This should help us find whoever is trespassing here.”
Angus turned around and found that the mage had conjured a blue wisp that was currently zooming around in a circle like a hyper child.
“It’s not doing much leading,” Angus commented after a few seconds.
“It’s not,” the mage agreed, his voice sounding a little strained and hand and eyes alike glowing. “There’s some interference. I’ve almost got it.”
There was a flash of blue, and suddenly, the wisp stopped in place.
Then it zoomed off down the hall and around the corner like a hyper toddler on a sugar rush.
“Follow it!”
Angus didn’t even bother putting his hammer on his back; he just carried it in his hands as he sprinted after the wisp, the mage’s footsteps not far behind him.
They went down several halls, all of them eerily lit up. Then there were some stairs leading down, then more halls, then a rug that had an edge partly rolled up that Angus almost tripped on, then a courtyard, then more halls, then a door Angus just rammed down with his hammer, more stairs, more halls but narrower ones, and then an incredibly narrow and steep spiral staircase that Angus would have fallen down several times if not for the firm grip on the back of his jack and the blue magic that was coiling around his feet and helping keep him steadier despite their fast pace (he was fairly sure the mage had just hovered or floated down the stairs behind him or something).
At the bottom of these steps, the wisp stopped. Or rather, it was stopped when it got downed by the swing of a staff of a masked individual, one of several who were in the hall just beyond the stairs, all of whom were likely a little surprised to find the warrior and mage intruding on whatever they were doing.
Their shock didn’t last long, but neither did Angus’s or Ralathor’s. Mighty warhammer swings and arcs of lightning filled the air, clashing with fireballs and swords in the fray of epic battle in a dark and damp underground hallway beneath an old magic school.
It sounded a little poetic, if one thought about it.
The masked people -- masked mages, mostly -- fought with all they had, refusing to surrender and leaving Angus and Ralathor with no choice but to down some of them. Angus tried to take one alive, but they disintegrated into ash the moment they got knocked out. The same happened with any of the bodies.
The hallway went completely dark when the last masked mage fell.
“What… what was that?” Angus was struggling to process what had just happened. It didn’t help that the feeling of goosebumps from before had returned but now with tenfold potency.
A blue flame sprung to life, floating over the hand of Angus’s adventure partner and casting a ghoulish light over them both, which only made the mage’s expression appear even more dire. “Someone is here, doing something nefarious. McGongal was right to worry. We must stop it.”
“Stop what?” Angus had a feeling the royal mage, one of the most trusted men in the Kingdom, was not telling him something.
“I’m not quite sure yet.”
“You’re lying to my face.”
“I’m telling you what you need to know. I am not certain, and if I give you the wrong information now, it could be the difference between your life and death.”
“You’re talking in riddles again, Lord Ralathor,” Angus said with a slight bitterness lacing his tone; he preferred being treated like a warrior, not like a naive child. “Have you considered a career as a poet?”
That seemed to hit a nerve.
“Just leave the thinking to me and swing your hammer when I tell you, McFife.”
Angus knew he partially deserved that.
Before Angus could even consider apologizing, the mage turned and began to walk down the hallway, carrying the blue flame with him and threatening to leave Angus in the dark. Not particularly liking his chances of survival in total darkness, Angus followed the silhouette of the mage, occasionally stumbling on loose stones and gaps in the floor and trying to use his hammer as a walking stick to help guide him.
The mage stopped suddenly, and Angus bumped into his back, stumbling them both slightly. However, rather than comment on the matter, the mage turned and motioned for Angus to stay silent, letting the blue flame dim.
Angus noticed the flickering light coming up from ahead, from behind a corner, and understood why. He readied his hammer and followed the mage towards the light at the end of the hall. As they got closer, they could hear voices.
“It is almost complete.”
“Good. Our Lord will be pleased. Soon, the crown shall be--”
At that moment, Angus felt his foot connect with something. He winced as a clatter rang down the hall.
Everything was silent for a moment.
“Intruders!”
“Protect it! Protect our Lord’s secrets!”
Angus and Ralathor had no choice but to jump into action. Having lost the element of surprise, they were met half-way at the corner by another group of the masked mages, but this time, the masked ones were better prepared. On at least two occasions, Angus felt the heat of a fireball pass by his face, far too close for comfort, and he could tell that Ralathor was hardly faring any better.
It was pure chance that a mostly-missed swing from Angus’s hammer still caught the mask of one of the intruders, snapping the band holding it in place and sending the mask flying. Angus looked up as he adjusted the grip of his hammer, partly in morbid curiosity for he knew that he would likely need to kill this individual for his own survival…
And he found a skull staring back at him.
The moment of shock let the unmasked person ( skeleton, they were skeletons ) strike him, and he felt a pain flare up in his arm. That forced him to focus.
A swing of his hammer, and the skeleton was dust, just like the rest of them.
“Are you alright?” That was the first time Angus heard concern from the mage in a while.
“I’m fine, just a scratch.” In the light of the fading flames of the firestaves the skeletons had wielded, Angus examined the gash on his arm where a blade had struck in-between the plates of his armor. He leaned his hammer against a wall and took off his vambrace. (At some point, the light from the staves faded, but Ralathor brought up the blue flame again.) It wasn’t a particularly deep cut, but it wasn’t clean either. “It looks worse than it is. I’ll be fine, long as I don’t get lockjaw.” And wasn’t that a nasty way to go.
“Let me see that.”
Angus extended his hand so the mage could examine the wound. After a bit of looking at it (and poking it rather painfully not once but twice), Ralathor poked the wound (a third time!), this time with his hand covered in magic. Angus felt a burning sensation, which caused him to hiss, but it was over in a few moments.
When Angus looked at the wound again, it was closing itself before his very eyes.
“I didn’t know you could do that.” He rubbed his arm where the wound had been, feeling the new and whole (if slightly tender still) skin where the wound had been only moments ago.
“There are many things you don’t know about me. It’s better like that.”
Angus refrained from making the poet comment again. He didn’t particularly want to get a fireball to the place on his arm where Ralathor had just healed him or anything. Instead, he looked at the ash that was on the floor -- all that remained of the skeletons they had fought moments ago. Even the staves had disintegrated.
“They said, ‘protect it.’ What’s ‘it’?” Angus wondered aloud, though he was also half asking Ralathor.
The mage didn’t respond immediately. “A chaos shard.”
“A what?”
“Chaos shards. Physical manifestations of interdimensional entropy, which can be used to open interdimensional vortices.”
“That sounds bad.”
“Indeed.”
“We have to stop them.”
“We will. Let’s go.”
Angus re-fastened his vambrace as quickly as he could before he and Ralathor headed off further down the hall, this time walking together side by side.
Angus felt a shiver go up his spine.
“Am I the only one feeling that? The... goosebumps, and shivers, and all.”
“Interesting. So that’s how those manifest to someone without magical training…”
“Ahem, riddles and rhymes?”
That got an annoyed and almost weary sigh from the mage.
“What you’re sensing is concentrations of… a type of power. My theory is they’re concentrating this power to some contraption in order to harness its entropic values.”
“And create chaos shards.”
“Most likely.”
They continued down the halls, with Ralathor leading the way whenever they encountered an intersection of hallways (though they really were more like rough tunnels at this point, and also sloping slightly down). The air was growing colder, and although it was damp, it was also less moldy. There were also occasional unlit torches on the walls.
Whenever they reached a cavern or room, there were often several masked skeletons there, already alert and waiting to strike. They were at most a nuisance, though; now that Angus knew what they were, that couldn’t catch him by surprise anymore, and so he didn’t make as dumb of a mistake in getting distracted again.
After about the third chamber of skeletons, Angus stumbled slightly and leaned against the wall with a white-knuckled grip on his hammer as a wave of the uncomfortable paranoia and shivers and even pain washed over him for a moment. His head was pounding, and he felt like he was going to be sick -- at least, until the pulse of whatever-that-was ended and the symptoms cleared pretty quickly.
“Ugh, what even is this… magic, thing,” he groaned, standing up again. “Makes me want to curl up and die when it pulses.”
“We’re close. Are you able to keep going?” Typical. Angus’s question was ignored.
“Yeah, yeah I can continue. Just try not to let me fall face-first into my own bile if I throw up, alright?”
“Try not to get any on my cloak, either.”
The banter was the only normalcy in this place as they continued on down the next tunnel. It was a normalcy that was much appreciated when dealing with these sorts of dangerous matters.
It felt like an eternity before they reached something new -- a door. Ralathor was about to raise his glowing hands to handle it, but Angus tapped him on the shoulder and gestured to the warhammer. If the door was warded, it would no doubt harm the mage to interact with it; but pure old steel? Sometimes, pure old steel was just what was needed to do the job. (Angus tried not to celebrate internally too much when the mage sighed but stepped back nonetheless.)
The door wasn’t particularly tight on its hinges. It wasn’t durable, either. It broke into pieces, with only the part with the lock remaining hanging. Angus used his hammer to dull out some of the sharper jagged edges before carefully stepping through first, with the mage following.
A few more steps and they found themselves on a platform overlooking a larger room, almost like a balcony. Below, there was a single masked individual channelling some sort of spell in front of a crystal. Something was different, however. This individual had a different uniform, and their movements looked more… human.
There was a slam behind them as a stone suddenly blocked off the tunnel through which Angus and Ralathor had come in through. Angus jumped slightly and looked behind him.
They were trapped.
There was a laugh from the chamber below them, followed by an echoing voice laced with a darkness that sent chills down Angus's spine.
“Is that you, Ralathor? I thought you’d lost your appetite for screams.”
“You know him?” Angus whispered quietly yet urgently, looking to Ralathor before turning around to look at the figure in the room below them. In the blue light of the flame the mage held, Ralathor’s expression appeared as ghoulish as the skeletons they had fought earlier. And down in the room, the figure had stopped channelling and was instead turned to face them, looking up at the balcony they were on.
“Whatever you’ve gotten yourself into, Peadaran, it ends here,” was the curt response from the royal court mage, as if he hadn't heard Angus's words.
Well, that just about answered Angus’s question anyways. Which only brought up more questions, but he pushed those aside for now. He could feel that a battle was coming, so he tightened his grip on his hammer.
There was a flash of a vile, sickly red under their feet before Angus and Ralathor were suddenly on the main floor of the room, not too far from the masked mage. Behind the masked mage, there was a large black crystal that seemed to swallow all light that came its way, tall as a person and a half and wide as a wardrobe. Whenever it pulsed darker, Angus felt like he would actually throw up, but he tried to hold that back. He knew one thing, though -- that crystal had to go, and while Angus wasn’t exactly skilled at fighting mages, he had the perfect tool for smashing fragile things.
“I’ll handle the big rock, you worry about him!” Angus called out as he saw the two mages powering up for a fight.
A blue bubble formed around Angus, protecting him from any flung spells (and, in the process, lessening some of the sickly influence of the crystal). As such, he made a beeline for the void-like crystal, hammer-first.
“If you listen carefully, you can still hear all their screams.”
Sadly, it was tougher than it looked, and it didn’t shatter immediately upon impact. However, Angus saw the cracks forming in it, places where it could take in light.
“Stay away from that!”
Angus got flung across the room suddenly, anti-spell shield bubble included, when the floor under him suddenly catapulted him upwards. He managed to roll upon landing, thankfully, so he was fairly sure he didn’t break anything, though he felt the vambrace on his arm loosen in the impact, buckle coming loose. He must have not secured it properly before; not that it mattered now, not when he noticed that the mage having the upper hand in the duel was not the one who had a greater interest in Angus’s survival. He rushed in to help.
“Careful, he’s channeling short pulses!”
Angus ended up on his knees, blue bubble no longer around him and feeling bile rise up his throat before he could react to the warning properly.
“Is that malice in your eyes, Ralathor? Have I rekindled your passion for causing pain?”
“You’ve always had a special place of loathing in my heart, Peadaran.”
The blue shield reformed around Angus, and he managed to just hold back from having his breakfast make a second appearance. Angus stumbled back up to his feet.
“It's not the killing I enjoy most. But I do enjoy it.”
“You won’t get to enjoy it again!”
It was a bold statement, coming from the one who was losing the duel.
Angus felt a bit too weak to swing his hammer properly, but he had one other tool up his sleeve, literally. He ripped the loose vambrace off his arm (it was only held in place by a barely-fastened quick-release buckle anyways) and threw it at the masked mage.
It wasn’t a particularly strong throw, but it was a physical item, so it wasn’t stopped by the various magical shields the masked mage had raised, and the masked mage was otherwise preoccupied with fighting Ralathor. The vambrace hit the mage’s masked face, stumbling them and sending them falling against the cracked void-like crystal.
An inhuman scream filled the room as the masked mage’s body disintegrated, followed by the crystal turning into dust.
The air in the room returned to normal, and the lights illuminated themselves. Most importantly, the feeling of sickness was gone completely now.
Angus didn’t feel a sense of victory or pride, though. If anything he felt… angry. Betrayed. When that crystal shattered, he realized what the missing piece of all of this had been. The reinforced walls, the secret tunnels, the comments the other mage had made. It all made sense now. This place they had been sent to investigate -- it may have been an academy at one point, but it had also been something else. A prison. A torture chamber. The energies that had made Angus sick were the remnants of the cruelty that had taken place there.
And Ralathor had been a part of all of it.
Angus stood up, leaning only some of his weight against his hammer, and looked up to glare at the royal court mage he had thought he knew well by now.
“He was responsible for this nightmarish place. You were responsible for this nightmarish place!”
“We did what we were supposed to do.”
The fact that Ralathor didn’t even try to defend himself only fed Angus’s anger.
“We just killed another mage! Someone you knew!”
That made Ralathor pause for a few moments, but it made his next words no less callous. “No one was supposed to be here. This place was closed permanently years ago.”
“I can’t believe you.” Angus sheathed his weapon on his back and crossed his arms, his strength returning now that there was no longer the sickly energy affecting him. “The king will hear about this place.”
“He may not react the way you think.”
And wasn’t that an implication. (After all… why else would Lady McGongal have asked them to travel as a small group in secrecy?)
Angus wasn’t one for threats often, but he stepped forward towards the mage he had once called friend. One step, two, three. “He’ll hear about it in front of the entire court, so the whole Kingdom knows what you’d done. And if he refuses to put you in chains… I’ll find a way to do it myself.”
The journey out of the basement tunnels, out of the old “school”, and back to Dundee was done in silence.
Highmage Ralathor of Cowdenbeath resigned from his position in the royal court and disappeared the day after to a self-imposed exile. Angus considered this to have been for the better; he had not truly known whether the court would actually believe his word over the mage’s if he had made any allegations. All he could do now was to try putting the past behind him… and hope it didn’t bite him in the arse later.
(Meanwhile, by Lady McGongal’s old “academy” of magic, a dark cloud of energy was solidifying into a humanoid shape, fueled by Peadaran’s final sacrifice and his determination to free the Final Prisoner -- the one that the Kingdom had long forgotten about.)
(The Dark Lord has risen once again.)