Quiet

"Alright, here we go." Rethys declared, taking steps back and forth to psyche himself up.

"Do you truly need to have a whole ceremony over it?" Sevi sighed.

"Shush." He responded dismissively.

How could she understand what was going in his mind? The last time he so much as poked his head through the door upward gave him quite the scare, one still fresh in his memory. And as he opened the door and started ascending the steps leading up, his senses were greeted with a new symphony, or rather cacophony, of ether.

While the ether down in the catacombs spoke of mindless, pointless suffering, the ambience up here retained none of those aspects, only radiating cold and quiet focus. It was obvious from the very first moment that things here were completely different, and Rethys' state shifted to adapt to those changes.

At first, he felt liberation from no longer having to constantly listen to the agony of unjust suffering. Yet that feeling was short lived, having been instantly replaced with awareness of the danger that must be lurking around every corner.

Sevi's powers could and would shield him, but his acute senses dictated that he adjusted regardless.

Still, the silence did feel very comfortable, leaving Rethys to wonder in hope of what it would be like back home, back where there weren't unspeakable monstrosities everywhere.

After leaving behind the steps leading back down to the catacombs, He was greeted with a jaw-dropping sight.

Gone were the tight and dark corridors and small burial rooms of dark stone crisscrossing the catacombs in an infinitely repeating pattern, instead being replaced with extremely spacious, well-lit expanses of underground that continued into tunnels that Rethys could tell led to more open areas.

The ceiling of the underground here was exceptionally high, held up by immense pillars that seemed to grow upward from the smooth, beige stone of this place, with arcs and bridges further branching out of them, connecting elevated platforms that combined to form a second, upper level. The seamless magical stone craftsmanship was as beautiful as it was dizzying.

That upper floor itself had discernible features that Rethys could see from where he stood, pathways leading here and there and stairways leading up and down dispersed around strangely shaped buildings in an utterly confusing yet simultaneously pragmatic and economical manner.

Yet the most eye-catching feature had to be the canals and aqueducts of water running all over the place. On the ground, through the upper level, its pillars, the freaking walls and ceiling, the channels of water seemed to move wherever they pleased regardless of logic or limitations.

Some streams would come to a ledge, and instead of the water in them plummeting down in waterfalls, it would instead continue into the air for a while before joining another canal on another side or disappearing into some hole in the wall, and some other canals pooled together into massive globules of water suspended in the air with magic like floating lakes.

Rethys could tell that all of this was thanks to the heavily enchanted stone and the myriad of magic circles dotting the entire place, yet it did not detract from the otherworldliness of it all. The rustling of moving water was always there, and as different currents shifted and intersected it made for a strange yet soothing, tranquil atmosphere, especially when combined with the soft, passive hum of magic all around.

"And just how deep down are we?" He sighed, staring at the lights shining from the very, very distant ceiling. "This doesn't make any sense."

It was an obviously impossible structure to build unless extensive magic work was involved, that part at least was perfectly explainable. If Yvtar was anything like Sevi had described it, a country of magic first and foremost, then even this much would've been child's play for them and even for the civilizations that preceded them.

Yet the impossible layout of this place threw him off again. From what he knew from his out-of-body experiences and general knowledge, the catacombs shouldn't have been that far underground. Coupled with the ritual wing way back down and its own freakish geometry, things simply made no sense to him.

"Hmm, my best guess is that the entire underground complex is built into some sort of world anomaly, which may have concerning implications, but it remains only a guess. In any case, we have no time to be appreciating architecture, our first stop is the High Council's tower, far to the north. We need not ascend higher, the city waterways will lead us directly there with minimal difficulty, and the inside of the tower itself should be free of the surface dwellers."

And so, the two began their long trip through the old city waterways.

The journey consisted of walking, a lot of walking, occasionally broken up by a bit of running or sprinting when the monotony of repeating steps became too heavy. The waterways were absolutely gigantic in scale, and Rethys needed to maintain quite the brisk pace just to feel like he was making progress. He stuck mostly to the lower level to the pillars' base, but occasionally had to take long routes through the upper levels.

His journey took him through beautiful stone galleries and arcs surrounding strange, abandoned buildings that seemed to once have function, yet were eroded so much by time and neglect that they stood only as stone monuments. Not even Sevi knew of their purpose, so as far as the two were concerned, it was now just another of the waterways' strange features.

The creatures dwelling in this region of the underground mainly hung on its upper level, leaving its lower level almost entirely devoid of any activity. And as the trip mainly consisted of sticking to the safer part, even if it meant having to cross water canals, there was a lot of downtime.

Rethys spent this downtime getting taught more magic, from improving his basics with managing intent and control, to expanding his knowledge of channeling and his understanding of his own element. Sevi was intent on drilling into his head all she could about magic, seeing what stuck and what didn't due to his unique nature and then trying to work around them.

According to her, her reason for doing this was to obviously increase their odds of survival. After all, it didn't take a genius to realize that Rethys was the weaker one between the two.

Sevi could run out of lifeblood and have her combat proficiency drop, but she was still an unbound mage who could keep fighting for hours on end. Rethys meanwhile, had no ways of recovering neither health nor energy, and would run out of both fairly rapidly. And while Sevi did note that his energy regeneration was on the higher end, it was still nowhere near enough to allow her to express her powers properly.

But it couldn't be denied that she was still quite research driven about the whole thing, trying her best to put him through strange experiments she derived to test all sorts of things to do with his element. And while he entertained her ideas at first, seeing as she had recently gone through an ordeal of her own, this only made her requests grow more and more outlandish, making the youth regret his decision.

Still, all the exercise improved his abilities quite a bit, giving him a greater range of intensity for his spells as well as taking his first step towards channeling, which Sevi considered to be true magic.

It was that channeling that allowed her to dominate the high cultists despite their own generous magical prowess, as they were seemingly only capable of managing spellcasting.

Rethys for his own right could now manipulate increasingly large but still quite small amounts of ether and guide them with his will through a wide range of motions, commands and functions, nothing useful in a fight but a first step nonetheless.

Yet Sevi's true interests, which lay in his understanding of Origin and his potential ability to use her element of Blood, fell quite short. Rethys could hardly decipher his own element's capabilities from gut feelings and instinctive movements, and thus was largely incapable of understanding its nuances or inciting strange effects from it.

Both of the two had a good idea of what the only other users of the element, its elementals, could get out of it. That included mind, or rather soul it seemed, control as well as a strange form of invisibility, yet they did not know the governing principle behind how they functioned, nor at the very least the conceptual side of it. They needed either how it worked, or how it was believed to work, and had neither.

And while he was now attuned to the element of Blood, he could not at all manipulate it.

He became capable of emitting raw ether of it, but other than that couldn't accomplish even the slightest feat with it. Sevi had judged it to either be a consequence of Origin, or him simply having very bad affinity with Blood, a mundane yet still very possible outcome.

Devices that measure affinity were apparently very closely guarded, with the only two locations in the city above containing such tools, the first being the Prime Academy to the western end of the city, which was crawling with horrors beyond mortal comprehension imprisoned within its walls, and the second being the High Council's tower where they were headed.

Armed with this knowledge, the two were going to discover which of the elements were suitable for Rethys' true secondary element, seeing as Blood was a flop. It would not exactly grant him great powers but still expand his capabilities immensely.

That and Sevi was just dying to analyze every aspect of the peculiar young man, which only made him more uncooperative.

He could tell that her feelings were genuine, so much so that he was always at risk of going with the flow, yet still felt put off by the strange obsession.

And so, time continued to pass, soon turning into two whole, uneventful days of navigating the underground passages. Rethys had expected the trip to be short, perhaps half a day at most, yet they were still walking, and climbing up levels, then climbing them down, then crossing through canals, over, and over and over. Still, he rather enjoyed the tranquil tedium, it was a nice change of pace that, combined with the change of scenery, took his mind off things quite a bit, which was very good for his troubled mind.

Yet eventually, that quiet became heavy, then stifling, then completely unbearable.

And this quiet simply did not sit well with Rethys.

Yes, they avoided everything they could; yes, they traveled in a manner that put them a ways off the creatures' paths; and yes, the Death circle was already making even the strongest of them quite lethargic, yet he still couldn't shake away the nagging feeling that something was missing. He didn't know if this feeling came from his element's senses, his own soul, or just a random gut feeling, he wasn't experienced enough to tell the difference, yet it was still as vivid as ever.

The open space around them turned from liberating and loosening his spirits to aggravating his combat readiness, after all, any number of creatures could be lurking just outside of the range of his otherwise reliable senses. The bright and generous lighting of the place also turned into yet another aspect of danger, for Rethys felt uncomfortable fighting away from the shadows he had grown so used to.

He felt forced to constantly strain the limits of his Origin senses, trying to encompass as much as possible of the beige stone around them into his domain, trying desperately to keep a handle on his surroundings.

If at first, things felt like a bit of a vacation, especially after the struggle against the cultists, now things felt once again like proper Yvtar, unknown and unknowable danger. He could feel and hear it from the ether, and he would not distrust it for even a second.

Sevi at first scoffed at his paranoia, yet still made an effort to stay vigilant, at least until they reached the passages that would allow them to safely slip into the surface. Rethys' air of constant preparedness however kept all their conversations short, before then forcing silence.

Then came the third day.

They were on the upper level, in a series of particularly precarious platforms and bridges, the last climb upward to the surface

"We are approaching our destination; we must be right below the innermost district. Only a bit more now and we should see the entrance we seek." Sevi revealed.

Rethys didn't answer, only nodding with a grunt.

At this point the tension was so palpable, bubbling, and ready to burst that even Sevi could feel it, and it wasn't pleasant.

"Something must have happened with the circle." She concluded. "Something or someone may have traced either or both our connections to it, and some feedback is being sent to us."

"Someone..." Rethys lingered on the word for a moment. "Is that really possible?"

"Remember what we saw, did, and now carry with us, Rethys. Despite its immense danger, Yvtar remains a veritable treasure trove of all things magical, from artifacts to research findings." Sevi reminded him.

"We need to stay sharp, tell me if you feel anything, even the smallest thing." He declared.

"Yes." Sevi answered.

Eventually, Rethys felt it coming. A great mass of ether entered the threshold of his senses and began moving extremely rapidly towards him. He didn't have much to think about before it drew too close, only noting that it arrived from the direction they came from, meaning that it may have followed them up from the catacombs.

He felt the signal growing brighter to his senses, and before long, the quiet was broken by the sound of footsteps growing louder and louder. Rumbling and rapid footfalls shook the platform they were on, whatever came for them was not any ordinary creature it seemed.

He could only hope that Sevi could deal with this creature like any other, yet felt deep down that this would not be so easy.