Chapter 15.1 - Woman in the Ruins

The Eastern Kaal Mountains loomed before them like the broken teeth of some primordial beast, their jagged peaks cutting into the star-drunk sky. Here, where the desert met stone and ancient sorrows lingered in the wind, two figures stood before gates that had not welcomed visitors in two centuries.

Moonlight danced across the golden strands of the woman’s silver hair, a feeling reminder of only beauty in a wasteland of despair. She stared at the massive gates embedded in the mountains, their ancient stone weathered and scarred, the colossal hammer emblem above them a silent testament to the place's lost grandeur.

Behind her, her companion crouched over a skeletal frame that crumbled under his touch, its remnants spilling like sand through his fingers. "Konduhr," he muttered, his deep voice laced with grim curiosity. "What would we find in this old dwarven city?" With no answer coming from his companion, he turned to her. "Eris?"

Eris ran her fingers over the jagged impressions of bloodied handprints on the stone wall. Stains had long since dried, but they told a story of terror that lingered in the air like a ghost. "Truth," she said, stepping forward as if the gates had whispered her name. “These expeditions, these years of searching... it all leads here. Wilford.”

Wilford straightened, casting a wary glance back toward the desolation they'd traversed. His wand was already in hand as he followed her through the half-open gates, his steps measured and his gaze sharp.

Inside, darkness swallowed them whole without the moonlight being able to penetrate inside. Eris flicked her wand, and a sphere of light blossomed above her head, its soft glow pushing back the shadows. A cavernous hall came alive in fragments: towering pillars cracked and leaning, massive statues shattered into rubble, and remnants of battle strewn across the ground. Rusted axes and splintered shields lay among heaps of bones and patches of dried blood that had blackened with time. Air hung heavy with dust and the faint, metallic scent of decay.

A screech tore through the silence as a tide of bats erupted from the rafters, their leathery wings creating chaos of sound and motion. Eris stood firm as the creatures swarmed past, her expression calm. Wilford ducked instinctively, cursing under his breath as the storm of wings passed. He rose, brushing his robes. "Still a damned marvel, how you cast without a word. Makes me feel like a novice at the school, and not a professor."

Eris's eyes scanned the hall, her voice a murmur of quiet authority. "Chants are a crutch. Magic answers will, not words. If you stopped chasing perfection, you might see that."

Wilford smirked, though it didn't reach his eyes. "And yet, perfection defines me."

They moved deeper into the ruins. The pillars grew closer, their carved surfaces marred by age. Forging rooms lined the sides of the hall, their once-mighty anvils buried beneath webs thick as cloth. “It still bothers me,” Wilford said, his voice low. “High Council’s sudden approval to explore these ruins, when we have been trying to get their approval for the last two years or so. They’ve guarded its secrets for decades, but now they send us in. Just like that? With conditions, no less.”

Eris traced the edge of a rusted forge, her fingers coming away blackened with soot. “Their conditions were fair. We clear any rogue sorcerers; they grant access to this tomb of horrors, and the truth that hides within it. We need to know why this city fell in a single night.”

Wilford scoffed. “There’s no ‘we’ here. You need answers about the old era, when old scrolls are present in the school. And the reason’s simple for me, the Witch. Her mark’s all over this place. Death lingers in this hell, bones of dwarves, their dry blood on the walls, everything screamed of the on slaughter that happened here.”

Eris turned to him, her gaze cold and cutting. “Tread carefully, Bloodrose. I walk with the school for myself, not for an old man’s wisdom and his ideals. It’s Syrus who needs me for his goals, not the other way around. You follow him for his protection, but I’m not the same.”

Her face softened. “And if the Witch is indeed my Serena, then this massacre wasn’t mindless all those centuries ago. She must have a purpose. I’ll trust the blood-stained hands of my sister over soft ones that wrote the histories.”

Wilford raised his hands in mock surrender, though his smile was strained. “Easy, Valeria. No offense meant. Sometimes I forget the truth of you. That Eris Vermillion, the Grand Sorceress and celebrated professor, is merely... a mask you wear. Who would suspect your origins stretch back before the dark era itself?”

"And who would guess," Eris replied with a faint smile that held no warmth, "that the dead bloodline of House Bloodrose still flows in your veins, despite what the histories claim?"

Before he could answer, her ring pulsed with golden light. The sensation was immediate and overwhelming, like ice water flooding her veins. Her breath caught in her throat as the world around her seemed to shift and blur.

"It's glowing again," Wilford said, his voice edged with unease. "What is happening to it?"

Eris touched the ring, her breath catching as fear flickered in her crystal-blue eyes. She pressed her hand to the phoenix engraved on her bracelet, and its gem burned with radiant light. Her hair was streaked gold, and her eyes gleamed like molten sunfire. She looked upward as if seeing through the walls of the ancient hall, her lips parting in a whisper. Her voice, thick with longing, carried an unfamiliar softness of a lover.

“Focus on my voice, my love. Forget about everything else around you... Just reach for my voice in this pitch darkness.”

Her words were a thread in a storm, and then the light faded. She dropped to her knees, coughing violently, crimson blood spattering her trembling hand. Wilford rushed to her side but paused as she raised her hand, her posture still proud despite the tremor in her limbs.

"What was that about?" he demanded, his voice low but sharp. His gaze fixed on the blood staining the floor between them. "You're coughing blood now? That's not normal."

She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, her expression resolute. “The ring... It’s a tether. To another. A price was paid when I performed a forbidden ritual over a decade ago. I thought it only took a piece of me as a sacrifice, but in time, I realised that it took much more than a piece of me. My divine essence core had shattered—”

Her words faltered for a moment. “What I thought was a controlled sacrifice became a slow execution. Each time I draw upon what remains of my power, the fractures spread deeper. The very gift the divines bestowed now devours me from within, consuming what little life I have left.”

“Is that why the headmaster stopped you from going alone?” Wilford frowned. “And you thought now was the time to use that essence of yours?”

“It was necessary.”

"Necessary for what? Who were you talking to?"

Before she could answer, a sound reached them through the darkness. Faint but deliberate: the rhythmic tap of footsteps on stone. Eris's light vanished with a flick of her wand, plunging them into absolute darkness. Wilford stepped back into the shadow of a pillar, his wand already raised and ready.

The footsteps grew closer, accompanied by the flicker of torchlight from a nearby stairwell. Three figures emerged, their black robes marking them clearly as enemies in these restricted ruins. Their wands were drawn, held ready for trouble.

One carried a torch, its dancing flame throwing wild shadows across the walls. "Told you, there’s nothing here," he said, his voice impatient and tinged with frustration. "Just rats and shadows."

"Hold your tongue," the second man muttered, scanning the darkness with eyes that had learned to see in places where light feared to go. "When did you ever hear rats cough? Someone's here. I’m sure of it. You want to explain to our captain why we missed them?"

The third figure lingered by the stairs, his attention split between the hall and the passage they'd emerged from. "Both of you shut your mouths. I'll watch the stairs. You two search for our 'rats' before they scurry away."

Eris pressed her back against the cold stone of a pillar, feeling the chill seep through her robes and into her bones. Across the hall, she could just make out Wilford's silhouette crouched low behind another column. His voice came as barely a whisper, so quiet she almost missed it in the vast space.

"Will you be able to fight?"

She nodded once, though she doubted he could see the gesture in the darkness. "I'll take the one at the stairs," she breathed. "Wait for my signal before you move on the others."

Wilford's jaw tightened, but he gave a curt nod. "Understood."

The three figures spread through the chamber like spilled ink. The torchbearer moved ahead, his weak light revealing cracked stone and rusted remnants of forgotten glory. Eris became shadow itself, her movements fluid as water as she circled toward the lone guard by the stairs.

The torchbearer knelt beside a dark stain on the floor. His fingers came away red and wet. "Warm," he muttered, bringing the blood to his nose. "Human."

Behind him, a soft thud echoed through the chamber.

Moments before the thud, Eris struck.

Her wand blazed with golden fire as she stepped from shadow like death made manifest. "Tsk. Tsk." The sound was soft, almost playful, drawing the guard's gaze like a moth to flame.

He turned just as the bolt erupted from her wand. Golden light streaked across shadow and buried itself in his chest. His scream died unborn. The impact threw him backward with a thud, his chest transformed into a hollowed ruin of gore and splintered bone.

The torchbearer spun, his eyes wide as Eris’s voice rang out, sharp and commanding. “Wilford!”

From the shadows, Wilford’s voice boomed, steady and sure. “Yolstravis!”

A bolt of flame roared across the chamber, slamming into the head of the second guard as he raised his wand. The explosion of heat and force sent fragments of skull and sizzling flesh spattering the stones.

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The third guard stumbled back, his knees hitting the floor as panic overtook him. Eris’s wand shifted toward him, and another lance of light struck his chest. Though it lacked the lethality of the first, it was enough to send him sprawling, writhing on the ground with a groan of pain.

Wilford strode forward, his wand aimed at the fallen man. He grabbed the guard by the collar, dragging him up and pressing the tip of the wand to his temple. "Start talking. Why are you scum skulking in these ruins?"

Eris knelt beside the groaning man, tapping his face lightly with the tip of her wand. Her voice was calm, almost too calm. "Speak truly, or the next spell won't be so merciful."

The guard’s gaze darted to the mangled corpses of his comrades, the blood staining the stones, and the faint torchlight casting flickering shadows of death. His breathing was shallow, his voice trembling. “Please... I beg you. Spare me, lord.”

Wilford sneered. “We’ll see. Now start talking. Why are you here?”

"We follow orders," the guard stammered, words tumbling over each other in desperation. "Our leader... he was here before us. We just do as commanded."

“How many?” Wilford demanded, his grip tightening.

"Five, maybe six total. Most were sent out weeks past for supplies, and for..." He swallowed hard.

"For what?" Eris interrupted, ice in her voice.

"Subjects." The word came out broken. "Humans. Children, women, men... dwarves. Anything that draws breath. Our lord needs them for his work."

"What kind of work requires living subjects?" Wilford pressed his wand hard. “Are you bastards mining illegally?”

“No… no.” The guard shook his head. “He needs them for his… experiments.”

Wilford’s expression twisted with disgust. “Experiments? On living people?”

"He’s researching," the guard blurted. "Something from the old scrolls, something forbidden. I don't know the details, I swear by the Lord of Light. I just guard empty halls."

"And your lord?" Eris's voice dropped to a deadly whisper. "Where does he conduct this... research?"

"Deep below… in the old mines. He’s always there, with his creatures. They keep him company, or maybe they just let him live. I don't know which… I’ve never seen him."

"Creatures?" Wilford narrowed his eyes. "What manner of beasts?"

The guard shook his head frantically. "Things that shouldn't exist. Things that hunt in perfect darkness. He controls them, or thinks he does."

Eris stood, her expression hard as winter stone. Without ceremony, she raised her wand. Golden light erupted from its tip, tearing through the guard's chest and silencing him forever.

Wilford grimaced, watching blood pool beneath the lifeless form. "We'll find these bastards and end them." He glanced at Eris, whose conjured light already illuminated the stairs descending into black depths. "All of them."

As they began their descent, the abandoned torch flickered behind them, casting grotesque shadows across walls painted with fresh death.

"How do we handle this?" Wilford asked, wand ready in his grip.

Eris didn't turn. Her voice carried the certainty of winter winds. "We kill them all. Then we find what we came for."

Wilford sighed, his expression darkening like storm clouds. "So be it."

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The lower depths were a tomb carved from despair itself. Sand and broken stone carpeted the floor, each footfall muffled by centuries of decay. The air hung thick as burial cloth, reeking of unwashed flesh and stale sweat. Beneath it all lurked something fouler: the sweet-sick scent of fear and suffering that clung to stone like oil.

Dwarven carvings adorned the cracked walls, telling stories of great feasts and greater battles. Hammers rang eternal on stone anvils, warriors raised cups to fallen brothers, kings sat in judgment from thrones of carved mountain stone. All fractured now, their glory ground to dust by time's patient teeth.

Eris moved ahead like death given form, her wand's pale silver surface catching distant torchlight. Behind her, Wilford's crimson-trimmed robes whispered against stone, the sound lost beneath voices that drifted through the stillness. Low laughter mixed with a girl's broken weeping, despair made audible.

The hallway narrowed, splitting toward two chambers. One glowed with firelight, shadows dancing across its threshold like demons at play. From the other came sounds that made Eris's jaw clench tight as a steel trap: muffled cries, guttural grunts, the creak of wood under violent use.

She raised her hand, fingers cutting through the air like a blade. Her whisper barely disturbed the heavy air. "Four in the far room. Take them."

Wilford's nod carried grim understanding. His fingers wrapped around his wand like a man gripping salvation.

"I'll handle the rest," Eris said, turning toward the nearer chamber.

Three men sat at a rough wooden table, their hands grimy with old blood and older sins. Cards lay scattered between mugs of something that might once have been ale. A fire crackled in the far wall, casting their shadows large and monstrous across stone stained with things best left unnamed. From the back room came sounds that turned Eris's blood to ice: a woman's broken sobs punctuated by violence.

"On your mark," Wilford breathed.

Eris raised three fingers. Two. One.

They struck like judgment itself.

Eris stepped through the doorway, her wand rising in fluid motion. Golden fire erupted from its tip, slamming into the man nearest the table's edge. The spell struck his chest like a giant's fist, shattering ribs and hurling him backward into stone. His skull cracked against the wall with a sound like breaking pottery.

"Bastard whore!" the leader roared, kicking the table sideways as he fumbled for his wand.

Eris ignored his words, her attention already shifting to the third man by the fire. He had time to rise, a wooden spoon still clutched in his fist, before golden death found him. The spell lifted him from his feet and sent him crashing into the hearth. Hot stew splattered across stone and flesh alike, steam rising from the mess as he convulsed once and went still.

From the far chamber came Wilford's voice, booming an incantation that made the air itself shiver. Flames bloomed like deadly flowers, painting the hallway in bursts of orange light. Screams followed, raw and animal, cut short by the crack of destructive magic.

The leader crouched behind his overturned table, eyes wild as a cornered rat's. "Who in the seven hells are you?"

Eris gave no answer. She stepped closer, her wand trained on the makeshift barrier with the patience of winter itself.

Desperation made him bold. He grabbed a broken bowl from the floor and hurled it at her head. She swatted it aside without breaking stride, but the distraction gave him precious moments to weave his spell.

"Velseran!"

Black tendrils erupted from his wand like serpents born from shadow. They wrapped around Eris's arms and throat, pulsing with malevolent energy. For a heartbeat, she stood perfectly still.

The leader's lips twisted into something that might have been a smile. "Got you now, bitch."

Eris tilted her head, crystal-blue eyes catching firelight like frozen stars. "Do you?"

Her bracelet blazed with golden radiance. The dark tendrils withered like flowers touched by frost, dissolving into wisps of smoke that carried the stench of burned corruption.

"Vistras!" The leader's voice cracked like a whip as he hurled another bolt of shadow-wrapped death.

Eris deflected it with contemptuous ease, her ward spell turning his magic aside like rain from a roof. The collision sent sparks dancing through the air, heat washing over them both in waves. He chanted again, movements clumsy with terror, but her next spell cut through his defenses like a sword through silk. Golden light pierced his chest, and he crumpled to the floor, blood frothing from his lips.

She stepped over scattered cards and spilled ale, her boots crunching on broken pottery. "Your lord," she said, voice quiet as a grave. "Where is he?"

The man's breath came in wet gasps. "Below... left stairs... please..."

"Wait, no..."

The spell hit him with surgical precision, his skull erupting in a spray of crimson and bone fragments. Silence crashed down like a falling stone, broken only by the fire's gentle crackling.

From the back room came a sound that made Eris pause: footsteps, hurried and clumsy. A figure stumbled through the doorway, still fumbling with his trouser lacings, face flushed with interrupted pleasure.

"What?" He blinked at the carnage, his gaze fixing on Eris with the slow comprehension of a man waking from deep sleep. "Who are you?"

His head turned toward his dead companions, mouth falling open like a landed fish. From behind him came a whimper, soft and broken as a bird's wing.

Eris looked past him to the doorway, her jaw clenching until the bones creaked. The sound came again, barely human, thick with pain and shame.

Her teeth ground together like millstones. Without a word, she raised her wand.

The man lifted from the ground as if grasped by invisible hands, his feet kicking uselessly at empty air. "Wait, wait..."

She hurled him backward with violent force. His body struck the stone wall with a wet crack, vertebrae snapping like dry twigs. Blood painted the ancient carvings in fresh crimson, and he slid to the floor like a broken doll.

Eris turned toward the back chamber, each step measured and deliberate. What she found there would have made lesser souls weep.

A girl crouched naked against the far wall, no more than twenty winters, her body a ledger of fresh cruelty. Cuts and bruises mapped her flesh like a cartographer's chart of suffering. Her eyes stared at nothing, seeing everything and nothing at once.

Eris knelt before her, her tone gentling like steel wrapped in silk. "Child. Do you wish to live?"

The girl flinched as if struck, hollow eyes lifting to meet Eris's gaze. Her lips moved without sound, a fish drowning in air.

"I can end this suffering," Eris said, her hand hovering above the girl's matted hair. "Or I can give you strength to leave it behind. The choice is yours alone."

The whisper came like wind through dead leaves. "Help... me."

Eris touched her forehead, golden light flowing between them like liquid sunfire. The girl gasped, her back arching as vitality flowed into her broken frame. The scars remained, but strength returned to her limbs, and her eyes regained their focus.

"Find something to cover yourself," Eris said, her voice tight as bowstring. "Wait here."

The girl nodded, clutching a torn blanket to her chest as Eris rose. In the doorway, she stumbled slightly, pressing her hand to her mouth. Blood stained her palm when she pulled it away, but she wiped it clean and stepped into the hallway.

Wilford stood amid charred corpses, smoke still rising from their remains. In his arms he carried another girl, this one limp as wet cloth, her eyes windows into an empty house.

"What do we do with her?" His voice carried the weight of mountains.

Eris touched the girl's forehead, closing her own eyes. When she opened them again, her tone was forged steel. "Finish it."

Wilford's brow furrowed, but he asked no questions. A moment later, magic hummed through the air like a lullaby, and merciful silence claimed the hall.

Without words, they turned toward the stairs that led deeper still, their footsteps echoing into the hungry dark below.