15 Chapter 15 - Crimson Truths

He still lacked the required information, he knew this place was dangerous and by the strange archetype, this must have been done by some skilled magicians or labours with magical kits. He looked around at the high ceilings, the benches lined up. It was like some sort of holy church, except the members were all vampires which made this seem even strange.

"Need to stop using stereotypes, vampires can go into churches" He would mutter to himself, heading into the left as he would approach one of the doors, his magic slowly moving towards the room as he would check it out.

He could sense that the door was unlocked, though there was tension on the door which indicated a trap of some kind, he would quickly find it was a rather simply alarm trap, he made sure to silence the sounds, the wind dampening any type of noise made by this device. As air conducted noise and he could stop or even dampen it.

He would reach out, grabbing the door as he would pull it open, the string cutting as the many bells around him started to move, he barely could hear anything, the magic stopping anything from emitting, after a minute the bells would stop and allow him to continue.

Moving down the hallway, he would start to sense changes again in the atmosphere, his eyes slowly adjusting as he came into another large hall, his mouth hanging open as he felt like throwing up.

Many cages lined the walls, floors and even some hanging from the ceiling, men and women in cells with almost dead lifeless eyes, each of them with some tubing attached as blood was pumped out into barrels, a vampire laying on one of the couches, clearly asleep as it was still early in the evening, lightly moving as the people around him made almost no noise.

Darrien felt pure shock and hatred, these vampires had broken the law on a huge scale, this was one of the reasons why the original demonic war had started because of kidnappings like this. He felt his mouth clench as he would continue to walk forward, his eyes continuing to look as he knew that even if he opened the cells for these people then they would still not likely run, they all seemed to be under a spell.

Continuing on, the wind magic dampening his footsteps, he would see something ahead which made him stop, it was a large stone monument with a single large gem trapped in the centre, the brown colour looking like mud but in a crystal form, it would shine lightly under the poor light.

"Help.."

His eyes would fix onto the crystal as he made his way up, he could swear this thing just talked to him, how could a crystal speak to a person.

"Trapped... Help"

He shook his head as he would slowly look around the pillar, trying to think of a way to release it, the crystal seemed to be deeply embedded into the stonework, he needed a way to remove the gem without the vampire waking up, this was going to be more dangerous then he could imagine.

He would nod his head slowly as he began to forage around the room, shaking his head a second time as he found this place to be empty, except for the blood getting drained and the cages it seemed that no other equipment was here.

"Ill free you and the others, just give me a moment"

He would look around again before trying to think, he needed to get the police or someone else involved, maybe the Celestial Union, either one would be a problem as the police were useless against these types of criminals and the Union was a slow beast and he did not know if the vampires had any inside connections.

He did not want to endanger them or himself, he had only just found out that this was a dangerous place, he knew vampires liked to nibble and bite people but that was safe if done in moderation and was actually a rather nice stress relief for certain people, he was not one of those people as it was something one could become addicted to.

He would watch the vampire slowly turn in his sleep, clearly not as asleep as he hoped, shaking his head as he would turn around to the crystal, he only really had one chance to try and pull this thing out before that creature awoke and noticed his lair disturbed.

"One second, let me try and pull you out!"

His hands would reach to the crystal, smooth and soft as his fingers wrapped around the crystal, before he could even pull he would hear a soft voice in his mind, female-like as he would almost try to pull it towards him.

"Help me.."

He felt this voice coming closer to him with each moment, his body shifting as he pulled this lost soul into him, the crystal in his hands fading dimmer and dimmer with each passing second before it was fully colourless.

He would slowly feel the power enter him, it was soft and warm. The warmth wrapping around him as he could only hear a gentle voice in his mind, the giggle coming louder as the spirit was happy to be free for once.

"Thank you Master"

He blinked slowly as he heard the voice, trying to make it out, wondering who this creature was as he tried to pull his thoughts together.

"I'm Gnome, thank you for freeing me, I shall aid you as I can see you are currently blocked by my magic, but your capacity is great. I guess that is what happens when you are... Oh Slyph just told me to be quiet!"

The voice seemed to be childish and laughing, before he could feel his powers shift and change, the earth moving slightly around him, he could feel every detail of the earth and the warmth around him, he could even sense all the caverns around and the entire structure.

This place was massive, it made him wonder how long it took to dig this entire place out.

He now needed to get out of here, though planning on helping these people escape.

"Who are you, wait you are Darrien. I don't know how you got down here but you made a mistake, no worries I wanted to sample that lovely blood anyways"

His body would shiver, slowly turning his head as the vampire sleeping before had awoken and wandered over to him, clearly hungry.

"Maybe I could make you a drink instead?"

The vampire just laughed at his response.

"Stupid, you are the drink!"