Intriguing Yet Highly Disturbing

After making up my mind, I began the long process of turning this room into a semi-respectable ritual room. With my Familiar acting as an alarm for any strange noises, I put the shard of glass down and started the preparations. The first step was clearing out a sizeable spot in the middle of the room which proved to be surprisingly tricky considering the tables were built into the floors, but with a lot of brute strength and just a pinch of .... brute force, I was able to get them out of the way. Next came the boring part, carving the runes into the floor. Starting from the center, I began cutting the Runic Patterns necessary to focus my divinations into larger concentric circles until I touched the walls. With my preparations complete, I sat in the center of the room and looked at my hard work. Yet what surprised me the most was that despite all of the work I had done, I wasn't even slightly winded. Now, usually, this would've been of no concern considering most wizards pump mana through their bodies to augment their strength when needed. But throughout the entire process, I hadn't done it once because of another quirk I had noticed about this place; it is almost entirely barren of any mana. After casting 'Conjure Familiar,' I had thought by simply resting for a moment, I would be able to recover, and yet it's been hours since I had cast the spell. It'll probably be even longer till I can release anything else. That is simply unacceptable. With so many unknowns, I am at a total disadvantage, and while this lab may be abandoned now, who is to say it'll stay that way. After a moment of contemplation, I realized that while unpleasant, there is a way I can recover my mana faster.

I pulled on the connection between me and my Familiar with a stern look and ordered it to bring me some of its kin. As soon as the command was given, the soulless automaton that is my Familiar ran off out of the lab, leaving me sitting alone. Deciding not to waste any time, I thought about what to use my limited mana on. My priority is figuring out if I will have any uninvited guests in my new home. Frowning, I realized that my questions remained near-endless even with that information. Why is the mana density so low? Why don't I sense the Empire's beacons? Am I in a different world? And then there's the one question that sends shivers down my spine and makes me want to gag just thinking about it...What was the beast that sent me here? The moment that thought went through my mind, pain so great that it took all of my being to resist screaming, wracked my mind for ages. When I was finally freed from the pain, I noticed that curiously staring at me was my Familiar with what looked like an entire family of rats meekly hiding behind it. Standing up, I went to one of the last standing desks in the room and cleared out the dust that had settled onto it. Once the desk was clear, I turned towards the rats and had my Familiar guide them onto it with a simple nod of my head. It took a while, with the beasts probably having some sort of instinct telling them what was about to happen. But the prodding from my Familiar, who most likely took the body of someone they cared for, and the confusion they no doubt felt from feeling the mana in the air around them get pulled into me, they made their way in front of me. Looking down at the four rats in front of me, I couldn't help but have some pity. I never liked hurting animals, yet I had no choice with no better mana source. Steeling my resolve, I swiftly grabbed them by the tail and held them up, and with a cold look, I broke their legs. Immediately they screamed out, and yet I knew they wouldn't suffer for long. You see, it's easy to simply steal the mana in someone's body, but to truly maximize the benefits, you need to slowly siphon the mana from them over time. Thankfully they should lose consciousness before the actual pain of having your very being torn asunder kicks in. With the rats disabled, I set them down on the table and began focusing my mana into the spell pattern for 'Vampiric Touch.' Feeling my mana reserves replenish, I quickly switched between the different rats, only holding each for mere seconds. Once I thought the rats couldn't hold on much longer, I stopped and commanded my Familiar to go out and scavenge whatever it could find to feed them. Still, after thinking about it, I realized these 'batteries' only needed the bare minimum, so I corrected my order and told it to simply find a bowl to fill with the filth flowing in the sewer and feed it to them.