They all saw the expression on Selene's and Esther's faces.
It was not just fear, at least not in the simple, common sense. It was something worse. A quiet growing dread. That was the look of those witches who had brushed against Magic too old to name and too wrong to speak of.
Annette didn't share the same feeling because she is learning healing and protection Magic only from the church. And the church doesn't teach that kind of foul Magic.
Everyone stiffened. Mark's knuckles went white on his sword hilt. Hund lowered his sword only an inch before gripping it tighter. Kaela had narrowed her eyes and said nothing, choosing silence over false comfort.
No words needed to be said. The weight in the air had spoken enough.
"…Alright," Jan said simply, but deep within, his heart drummed like warbeats against his ribs. "Let's move again."
They pressed deeper into the temple.
Corridors stretched like veins, leading them to chamber after chamber. From this point each one of the chamber looks the same. They were filled with people who slumped, emptied, and hollowed. Some still blinked but some simply stared and no one responded.
They saw the same chamber again and again.
"It's like they're harvesting these people," Kaela muttered under her breath after the fifth room.
Mark crouched beside one of the newer victims.
"This one's still warm," he said grimly. "Not long. Maybe a day or two."
"But this place was ruins," Hund said. "Just stone and moss a few weeks ago when we visited them."
"It might've looked like ruins when we visited that time. This kind of Magic can veil a place in illusions." Selene's voice was cold. She swallowed her saliva involuntarily.
Jan paused and looked at them all. "We've been moving through this place without alerting anything. Just… this."
"It's because they don't need to stop us," Esther said. "The ritual's already been running for a long time. Longer than we realized. They've been collecting people's mind after mind, until they've had enough to feed that old god of forest."
"Whatever's at the heart of this temple must be nearly done growing," Annette said, frowning.
"There's no use talking about that right now," Jan cut in quickly, his voice tight. "We need to find it and stop it first."
No one disagreed. They kept moving.
Deep inside the temple, in a vast black chamber ringed by pillars, three figures remained in meditation after Orzhal-Kur departed for battle.
They now sat in a triangle around a basin filled with thick pulsing dark liquid that rippled despite no movement. But now the stillness was breaking.
The older cultist at the center slowly opened his eyes. His pupils change from human pupils into black slits, and faint blue veins glowed beneath his skin glow brighter, tracing up his throat and disappearing into the corners of his eyes.
"She has engaged the two intruder," he said softly.
The one with the silver tattoos spiraling down both arms inhaled slowly. "I felt the tremor. Orzhal-Kur's wrath has been unleashed. The forest will burn before the hour ends."
The youngest of the three, the one with short-cropped hair and cracked lips, cracked his knuckles methodically. "But I feel something else has shifted."
The central cultist turned toward him. "The chamber of offerings?"
"Yes." His voice was hoarse, rasping like dry leaves. "Something entering those chambers."
"That means they've arrived," the silver-tattooed one said, slowly standing. The patterns on his arms began to shine softly. "The adventurers who had been bothering us from the kingdoms. So they were still alive after all."
The three of them stood now with calm expression.
"Our work nears completion," said the youngest. "The memories taken have nearly filled the vessel. We just need a little more spark and the King will awaken."
The elder cultist stepped forward and dipped two fingers into the black liquid of the basin. The ripples began to twist and spin, forming a spiral.
"We should just let them see the awakening process if they managed to survive this," he said quietly, smiling without warmth. "I will not bother stopping them."
He raised his hand that was now coated with the dark ichor and pointed toward the western chamber of the temple where Jan and the others were heading.
"That sounds like pretty good entertainment," the youngest said.
The eight adventurers advanced with weary steps. After they pressed deeper, the chambers began to shift. The corridor ahead opened into a chamber that felt different from the rest.
This one was wide, lit by veins of green light pulsing from the floor itself. The chamber was furnished like a hall. Long tables stood there, carved entirely from pale marble with veins of the same shimmering green. Chairs surrounded the tables, also made from the same stone.
No dust covered the furniture. No cobwebs hung in the corners. The room was impossibly clean and preserved.
Mark raised a hand silently, signaling them to stop.
"No one touch anything," Jan said.
Then came a sound from the other side of the chamber, something slithered toward them.
All eyes turned. At first, only the sound moved. It was a sticky slosh against stone.
From the threshold emerged something that had once tried to resemble a man. Its form was tall, nearly scraping the top of the arch, but it seemed to shift constantly.
Its body was composed of the same viscous black liquid from the basin deep in the temple but it was now given shape and will.
Veins of glowing dark green ran through its body. Parts of its limbs were jagged and hardened, while others rippled like tar.
Its face was the worst. Half-formed and half-melted. No eyes, only the impression of where eyes should be. Its mouth was a long curving line filled with teeth that formed and dissolved in dripping cycles.
The adventurers instinctively raised their weapons, but the thing didn't charge. It stepped forward slowly leaving behind a smear of black and green ichor.