Another ferry trip across the river, and your team is hiking through the plains to the mountain again, keeping an eye towards Magusalto for any sign of the 'Ensi'.

Trekking up the mountain, you locate your bonfire. The flame has died down but the embers are still hot, could start it up again if you wanted. You take a moment to give your teammates a look-over.

Amelia has brunette hair in a bun, brown eyes, and an agile figure. She looks a bit young to be in the military.

Ethan is a little taller than you, and fairly muscular for a mage. Messy dark hair and stubble that could give him a five o'clock shadow at 7am. Looks slightly on the older side, like a seasoned veteran, or maybe just alcoholism and other bad habits.

Before you know it, the three of you are back in front of the mountain base entrance that you found earlier, the charred bodies sitting in their usual spots.

Amelia: "Looks like hell came through here."



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Black Mage: "Some think they're the male versions of witches. Instead of having a city contained in their core, they have a giant body that they can swap their smaller form with."

The warlock continues flying around the plains to the south, occasionally dropping down to crush something, leaving a broken witch core behind. The leviathan continues, uh, doing the giant angry-mountain-smashing.



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Grant: "The appearance of Infidi signals that the gates to Hell will open, and flood the land with beasts and corruption."

Faren-Wuust: "The Ruhe denies the connection between the Ensi, or Infidi, to the Corruption. Of course, neither of us can prove anything, so we should prepare for the worst."



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You split the food with Dehlii and exit the shop, heading down the road to what you remember was the entrance. Dehlii seems to take a bit to process a response.

Dehlii: "Well, the other's would've been upset if I just let you run off by yourself."

Now that you're this far from the center of "town", you notice the massive wall surrounding the entire area, and remember that you're in a giant cavern inside of a mountain.

In front of you is a large metal gate, two solid walls of metal that slide on rails. Or, would slide, if whatever switch operates then is flipped. A passageway into the cavern wall nearby looks promising, so you head that way to find it barred by an armored chirop standing guard. In the dark?

Guard: "Little late for a walk, huh?"

You send out a Captivate net to search the area, approximately 300 meters around the landing site.

Numerous voids or places that screw up your Captivate nearby to the south, some steady, others erratic. You assume the damaged cores littering the area are responsible, but it's hard to tell if there's an actual live anti-magic user down there.

Black Mage 1: "No idea. They're almost legendary, in that no one ever sees them."

Everyone scans the area, on alert for hostiles. Not sure how well they can actually see in the dark, though.

Sanoa: "Some people think they're rare witch variants, others say they're an unrelated Fourth-tier creature. I don't think anyone's ever studied a warlock, dead or alive."



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Setting the lantern to the lowest brightness that's still useful, you hang it on your belt and enter the mountain tunnel.

Spear in hand, you feel out the path for traps or pits, and end up prodding a crisped body every few paces. Amelia and Ethan follow behind, not too closely though, perhaps to avoid getting caught in any attack that comes your way.

All the side passages that you encounter are rooms full of the dead, with nothing noteworthy left intact.

A few minutes, dozens of bodies, and a hundred or so meters pass until the tunnel suddenly opens up into a large, empty void. Your light doesn't stretch nearly far enough to reveal anything past the curtain of darkness, but you're sure there are at least more bodies.

Ethan: "All clear, so far."



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Grant: "Aye. Leviathans, witches, manticores. Dragons aren't so bad, they just eat your livestock."

Faren-Wuust: "Or nothing might happen. Though, better to be safe than sorry."

You keep your Captivate search going while the mages grabs their crates and haul them away from the landing zone.

Oh, maybe that's a good idea.



You detect movement to the south. It's not moving fast, or moving at all right now, but it seemed like it came from dense spots of corruption and walked your way for a bit before stopping.


You follow the others, though maybe you should grab your crate, too.

You do a check to make sure everyone around you is added to the exceptions list and enabled - looks like they were already added.



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You crank the lantern to MAXIMUM, but it's only like what, 50 feet of light? Not exactly a focused beam, and definitely not enough to see the opposite side of the cavern.

Ethan: "Pretty big. There're like a dozen tunnels that lead to even bigger, gigantic caverns, that have like, towns or crap."

You walk around a bit, since it seems safe. It's, pretty large, but you reach the other side without that much leg work. No signs of life, just dead.

Ten tunnels are on the far wall, with the leftmost looking like it has a particularly large number of dead in it.



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Grant gives a shrug.

Faren-Wuust: "Being far away might help, or stopping it from happening altogether."