Crystal Mutation

Soon on the surface, the mages were mobilized, the seeming infestation of crystal rats was much bigger than expected by council, and seeing the apprentices running for their lives out of the sewers they knew they had to act fast to maintain order.

Auron was not among those mobilized but he hurried to see the commotion in the sewers since his apprentices were down there as well.

Counting the apprentices he was relieved seeing as much less talented and stupid apprentices made it out it would be obvious that would his... that is what he thought at first, but seeing as his apprentices were almost the only ones not here he began to worry.

'Has it happened again? is it my fate to see the demise of all I teach? If that is so, I would rather never teach again!' he thought in melancholy.

Soon the mages would enter the sewers, maybe he will find them fine then, he could only hope for that since his body was no longer able to fight as he once did.

-----

Under the sewers, in the caves and tunnels filled with crystal, they soon came upon a large room, the walls and ceiling looking like crystal mirrors, to the point one could even see his reflection.

In the center of said room was clearly a lab, with open cages that were busted from inside out, they also saw old blood on the floor, but no sign of bodies nor bones.

Also in the lab was a large table full of enchanted scribbles, glowing in with powerful rainbow light that would make the already enchanting visage even more beatiful.

But soon they were broken from their moment of appreciation of beauty by steps. The steps sounds resounded in the cave, they were raspy, it was like two pieces of glass rubbing against each other, by the loud and dull sound afterwards one could deduce that it was also heavy.

Turning their heads to the direction of the steps, they soon found a humanoid, two meters tall, half crystal, half human, just like the rats, and also the most likely culprit of this mess.

His eyes were dull and lacking intellect, it only looked hungry, wishing to take their mana dry.

The duo did not hesitate to speak with each other.

I soon sent a message to her mind ("I will trip and immobilize it, you do the killing blow, Freezing the head should be enough!")

"Un" She said in her characteristic cute manner while nodding

The monster locked eyes on us and started accelerating towards me who was closer. he was around five meters away, so to avoid him reaching us in a moment, I cast a illusion on him, since using our mana was way easier and painless than our draconic powers, along with that I let my my dragon form out sending my tail at its leg.

Seeing that another target entered its sight the Crystal Abomination merely glanced at the illusion before dismissing it, something that while being a fast action still gave me an advantage in taking the initiative.

As my tail hit its leg shattering the crystal one and breaking the bones on the fleshy one, the monster soon staggered to the ground, using its arms to crawl our direction, my tail was quite injured in this move, I felt it being cut and breaking a few tail bones in my recklessness.

Selia didn't give it much time to react, she took aim while it crawled in our direction and shot a powerful single icicle in its temple, the icicle went through the head and froze it, leaving its head as a frozen statue of flesh and bones over its shoulders, the monster stoped responding after that.

The commotion soon attracted the rats that went to the sewers, making them flood the corridor leading to the chamber.

I took Selia in my front paws and took us on the direction the Crystal Abomination came from, and soon as the entered the corridor I used a Sand Breath belonging to a bronze dragon on the doorway, making it give in and blocking the path of the small swarm of rats that came our way.

Selia was looking at my face contemplating something, and reacting to that I said "I am cool right?"

She rolled her eyes at me and retorted "How you plan on leaving after that?" making me realise that we now only had our path foward to go toward, or try and using our powers to access the sewers once again, something that would most likely cause us both pain at this depth.

To that I could only let a tear out for my image of reliability being crushed so mercilessly while trying to show off a bit.

But soon I looked at the front with a bit more seriousness and said "There's light up ahead, I think that crystal dude had a reason for coming this direction, we need to be careful now..."

Selia also got serious hearing that, she knew Theo liked to joke alot but knew how to get serious, but she still quipped "You are one to say about caution, huh?"

'Damn woman, can't you let me off?' I retorted internally knowing she had a point, but at the time not being affected by it.

So while doing a "Tsk" sound I went first to act as the tank of our party of two. My tail still hurt and throbed with pain but I was already used to pain, and healing my tail now would take too much out of me for the moment.

Soon I saw what looked like a crystal heart, that pulsed with light, around it were carcasses of other rats and domestic animals one could find in the surface, some of them were with tiny bits of crystal starting to grow on them.

"So this is the hive mind eh? We are lucky the swarm is behind us, but why would this be unprotected?" I asked.

Selia just poked my back and pointed to the ceiling, making me think that I jinxed myself.

There were fully crystallized abominations on the sealing looking at us, they looked much harder to deal with then the one we defeated previously.