The earth shook, trembling ever so subtly, so weakly that none could suspect the sort of force occurring below their feet, tons upon tons of stone and earth being forcefully moved to the side, compressed by the will of another party, made to part ways and allow the creation of a stable, wide tunnel that could allow even the passage of men that would be called giants amongst their kind.
The natural ground formations could not resist, effortlessly controlled, until the mage injecting his ancient mana into the area around him was met with the sight he had been expecting, iron, lustrous metal that seemed to reflect all light that reached it, somehow having reflections even if total darkness.
Walking up the magnificent iron, the earthen mage put the rocky staff he held in his left arm, rising the right and calmly knocking thrice against the peculiar surface, speaking out words in a language no living being could comprehend.
"Sir Faraday, may I be allowed inside?" before he could finish his sentence, the way opened up revealing a large room built from naught but the same material, giving a surreal sight.
Getting in, sensing a slight change as the caster passed through something that could not be seen, he raised his arms.
"Unacunerra, it has been a while" standing beside Faraday, Slotriig spoke first, towering over everyone present.
The two saluted one another, as they were the only two given the title of royal guards, ever, the skeletons were obviously greatly familiar with one another, although it had most certainly been more than a thousand years since their last meeting, it seemed no different from not having crossed path in just a few days to them.
"If it is not The Earthen Catastrophe! I take it that you have been made knowing of this location by Loimos? That little boneling certainly is a death-sent blessing" Faraday quickly approached Unacunerra, poking him where his skull was cracked.
"Is that from when Liameilos kicked you in the head? You would think that it would be mended by now" he tapped continuously.
"I keep it to remind myself of my failures, and as far as I know, everyone here got beaten down by this damned elf at some point, but that is beside the point! We are going away, meet up with Artencil and set up a hidden base underground near Bourgliotte" he raised his rugged staff up in the air, hollow sockets flaming with dark brown flames.
The two iron skeletons looked at one another.
"Excuse me, but what is Bourgliotte? Never heard of it"
"Sounds ridiculous, is it a place? No one would name a place so poorly, unless they hated it"
"Actually, it sounds like a kitchen recipe-"
"I did not miss those sort of interactions, Bourgliotte is heavily defended city found in the country of Starkefolten, they are descendants of Leistung, they have inherited most of the defence mechanisms, and improved upon them even"
"Ah, they have descendants at all? I remember Nosferatu making all of royalty explode" Faraday titled his reflective skull.
"Their armoured knights were rather formidable" Slotriig recalled some memories.
"Well, Bourgliotte was built around his majesty's crypt, and I have noticed that priests and paladins of Phanes have been moving in en masse for months on end now, they seemed to have been working on this city for centuries at least, it is otherwise better prepared to receive an assault that we would be used to, the terrain is also under the dominion of life nowadays, which is why Loimos is gathering the gravelords at the moment, to kick start this new war on the best terms possible, we must eradicate Starkefolten and take control of their borders nearly at the same time as King Nitok is unsealed"
Unacunerra spoke like it was no big deal, but of course, even for them, it was a rather tall order, Nitok is not just sealed, his seal suppresses his powers and death, meaning that he would not be at his peak strength from the get-go, his mere release would cause waves but they needed to deter any thoughts of counter attacks for a little while at least, take control of large spans of land in record time.
"I see, that makes sense, but if I may ask, we have all been ignoring the elephant in the room, but what is this living for, and why is he burning?" Faraday quickly accepted what he was told, instead pointing his staff at the defiler trapped in a floating block of rock beside The Earthen Catastrophe.
"This guy? He is the key out of here, they hadn't arrived to the continent during the war, but they are pretty handy" turning the defiler around, the skeleton mage prompted him to unleash a stream of heretical fire in the direction where the seal was situated.
The entire place shook terribly, as though it was turn upside down, a loud shattering spread through the entire dungeon, like a mountain of glass was crushed, ricocheting all over the empty expanse of the dungeon and straight out into the town above, positively making every single inhabitants sully themselves in terror.
"That was not very wise-"
"Gather your servants Faraday, leave through this tunnel, just keep going forward until you can't anymore, retract your iron from this place little by little, I'll collapse everything afterwards" silencing the critique, Unacunerra urged them to hurry.
The mage knew that the seal had been weakened quite a bit, but he had still not expected a single touch of heretical fire would immediately tear it down, especially coming from such a weak individual, the defilers made using brainwashed goons of One were weaker than the regular ones, hosting less destructive flames.
But the defiler's flame were the bane of all that was holy and divine, Unacunerra ripped the man's head off, crushing it into fine red mist with two rotating discs of earth, throwing the headless cadaver to the ground, he had made certain to dress this nameless servant into something more regal looking, that way, if anyone was willing to dig through the debris to find out what had happened, they would assume that this was the thing responsible, or the master of the dungeon, either way, as long as people were distracted from the truth, it would be considered a win in the skeleton's book.
He looked toward the huge gate of the room, sensing two mana signatures descending into the dungeon.
'Hey… What is this?' he probably would have frowned had he not been bones, being of the calibre that he was, he had not forgotten any mana signature he had ever had the occasion of sensing.
'Students of that academy? Well, graduates now, I suppose'
They were definitely going to reach him before all was done, manifesting a mask and such to cover his undead nature, he decided that he would meet them halfway.
'They will recognise me from back then, most certainly, run away to tell their teacher, and that woman will be busy checking nothing here for a while, that will give me an occasion to test her a bit more as well'
Unacunerra was going to make the most out of this little coincidence.