Retreat

Shaking away his bitterness and irritation, Rethys dragged himself to a nearby chair and plopped down on its softly cushioned seat. He then looked at his left arm and the shards and debris that was lodged in its skin. Despite the horrid sight, he didn't feel anything and Sevi would just heal it, so he didn't worry too much about it.

Taking out of his pouch some healing stones, grumbling as he did, he took to applying them generously seeing as he had decided to head back.

He watched as the teal stones of Restoration took on the dark blue of Origin, a process he had grown used to seeing by now. He didn't feel anything as he wasted the Restoration-attuned stones and turned them into those of Origin, after all he had plenty of them.

Sevi had said he needed the superior control gained from attuning to two elements to be able to properly use etherstones. Asking her how to achieve a second element bore no fruit however, as she simply began speaking in circles, calling upon such complicated jargon and babble that Rethys could hardly understand anything she said. She then concluded her "explanation" by telling him that he simply wasn't ready.

Remembering that interaction with the trapped mage and how unhelpful she can be at times sparked some rage once again in Rethys' heart.

"She's doing that on purpose... I'm sure..." He sighed as he reclined deeper into the luxuriously-soft chair.

The chair's comfort did little to relieve the anger boiling inside him, but it helped steer his thoughts away and distract him.

"How is this still intact?" Rethys wondered as he looked at the ornate chair he found. "Must be made out of some magic wood or something."

Gazing upon the mundane but extravagantly-made wooden chair, he thought of the outrageously opulent lives the mages of this place must have led once upon a time. And looking around him, he could see despite the workshop's decrepit state that not only was it furnished and equipped lavishly, but it has also endured minimal decay from the forces of time.

Switching to his ethereal senses he could see how almost every single thing that dotted the workshop bore an enchantment of some kind or size, from the simplest tools to even the furniture. Most of these enchantments were broken of course, their magic circles and runes being either incomplete or outright broken, though many seemed intact.

Even the chair he sat on was fitted with an enchantment that was seemed to be still functional, though inactive. Rethys didn't dare to activate it, even if he knew that it probably did something harmless like warming the seat or something.

Still, the sight of normalcy amidst the chaos here calmed him somewhat, and Rethys let his mind wander a bit. He thought of these sorts of enchantments and how they eased life, he had owned one himself after all. It was a magic alarm tool, gifted to him by his mentor to help with waking up in time for his morning chores.

He remembered how Fulgrith described the magic tool's function, how it counted time using some magical mechanism then activated at scheduled times. And he remembered how he had spent a lot of time mulling over how such a thing functioned, only to never find out until now.

He also remembered how his master used the excuse of him having an magical alarm to stop using his own and begin sleeping in.

"Shameless old man..." He sighed his eyes staring blankly into the distance.

After a while he snapped out of his reverie, he was sufficiently healed now and ready to move again, ready to leave this place, for now.

"Enough reminiscing." He uttered as he reached towards where he had put his satchel when he entered the room.

He didn't even need to search this room he had chosen, for while it seemed full of items from an external glance, all of it was now mere magically-charged debris. Anything of value this room may have contained was completely annihilated by the Malice creature's huge magic nova after all.

The only useful things that survived its spell were bundles of paper that Rethys simply shoved into his satchel before reaching towards the door.

Stepping out into the corridors, he took a moment to remember how much time he had until the reanimation of the Water wielder.

'It's been about two hours no?' He pondered. 'There's still time actually.'

Indeed he still had time before he absolutely needed to leave, and though he had decided to quit trying to fight his way across this place, he could still safely explore the corridors at least and get a better understanding of this place's strange structure. He still wondered what he would come to at end of this place, seeing that it continued westwards beyond both his senses' reach and his ability to make sense of it.

'It should be fine...' He sighed inwardly, exasperated with how he couldn't convince himself to just drop it and leave.

And so he went back to basic exploring, avoiding any encounter and only making note of what he saw without risking his life. Simply walking in a straight line westwards and only making occasional turns and detours to avoid patrolling robed mage creatures.

The sheer number of robed creatures he had seen thus far was nothing short of concerning. And as he passed through many rooms and the many corridors intersecting them, he wondered as to how there could be so many mages of this level in one place.

By now he had managed to gain a good understanding of this place. It had two types of rooms, workshops where more unbound creatures dwelt, and the titular ritual rooms which occasionally contained strange soul signals Rethys had never seen before. He figured these rooms contained the strange daemons he had read in the documents he had found, and made a point never to try entering them.

Eventually however, after walking for so long westwards that it was becoming concerning, he came to a massive door at the end of the corridor he had followed. And trying to walk around this door revealed that there was no other way forward.

Going back to the door itself, Rethys scrutinized the frankly gigantic mass of lustrous white metal that blocked the way. It was seemingly made of Endrasum, the magical metal that Sevi described to be the one most capable of accommodating magic, and looking at the object in front of him, that pretty much fit the bill. It was in fact so magically-charged that Rethys didn't need to look at it with his ethereal senses to get an idea of its power, as simply standing in front of it made his hair stand on end.

Even so, he could tell that not even this monolith of magic could compare to the enchantments binding Sevi.

The door obstructed his senses, preventing him from knowing if it hid more corridors or simply marked the end of this place. Regardless, Rethys didn't need to see what's on the other side of this door to realize that it did mark the end of what he could explore. He knew he couldn't hope to use his abilities on the mass of magic before him, not as he was now and probably not for a very long time.

Now there were two possibilities, the first being that the runic lexicon was in one of the rooms he had passed, which while very dangerous to explore were somewhat manageable. Though that might not truly be the case if the creatures truly were as intelligent as he feared.

The second possibility was that his objective lied behind the massive door, which did not bode well at all for him.

'And that's that...' He thought, figuring he had done all he reasonably could.

Now he'd head back and hope Sevi could give him some insight into how to proceed with this dilemma.

He had high hopes, after all, even if she didn't know a solution, she'd at least point him towards something like she always does.

And so Rethys began his trek back, first avoiding the twisted mages' patrols and after a while reaching his exit from the ritual wing, the entrance hall that housed the ice mage.

The creature did not reanimate yet, Rethys had basically lost count of the time thus far and estimated that it would take a quarter of an hour or so for it to get back up. He decided to wait for it to reanimate to observe the process safely again, thinking that the added knowledge wouldn't hurt.

What felt like an entire hour had to pass before the creature showed any signs of restored life. Rethys had expected for his calculations to be off, but not by such a wide margin.

'Well it was close enough.' He thought, deciding not to dwell on it too much.

Approaching the writhing creature, he saw how its form was suddenly enveloped by a bright burst of white light and shone with dangerously dense ether.

Rethys kept a safe distance and focused his senses as much as possible, trying to glean some insight from the process he was witnessing. He wanted to see exactly how the Purity element managed to heal missing parts, something he knew for certain the element of Restoration was incapable of.

The wave of Purity magic washed over the warped mage in its entirety before focusing on its crushed head in particular. The ether rapidly moved and condensed around the wound before disappearing, leaving behind a perfectly restored head.

'Huh...' Rethys thought after seeing the strange spectacle that unfolded before him and realizing he didn't understand anything of what had happened.

He wasn't bothered however, as that was an expected outcome, and stepped forward to once again crush the now uncrushed head of the ice mage.

Now having done everything he could in this place, he decided to finally start his trip back to the sealing chamber.