"What… what the hell just happened?" Harold asked as he touched his face, still wet from blood. The room looked pristine, save for the broken reception. The corridors were well lit, everything was neat and clean, and there seemed to be no threat in sight.
"We were caught in an illusion of some kind, as far as I can tell," Nero said as he patted his body, checking to see if anything hurt. Any sudden sharp pains would indicate born bones or bruised muscles, but everything seemed fine. Besides the ringing sound in his ears and slight dizziness, he was alright. But the same could not be said for the rest, especially Jackal.
Nero opened his card case and took out the card that was right on top. It was a simple card used for purification. It wasn't perfect, but it would suffice. He used the card on himself, but there did not seem to be any residual cursed energy on him.
Everyone else did the same and most of them were fine, but a large swathe of black dust leaked from Jackals nose when the card was used on him. His eyes flashed open and he immediately began coughing, letting out black phlegm. After a heavy bout of coughing, and numerous spells used on him for purification, he finally recovered.
"Thanks," he said, hoarsely. "Did we get the curses?"
He looked around himself upon discovering that they were not under attack, nearly slumped his shoulders. But he did not have the luxury for such a thing. Instead, he opened his backpack and took out a vial containing a light blue potion and drank it.
This would prevent him from taking any other potions for the next few hours, but he had to recover as quickly as possible. The mission had only just begun.
"What's next?" Gabriel asked as he walked up to them, his face wiped clean off his sleeve.
"The rooms here seem to hold only records, but we should check them out anyway. We might learn something useful. From what I recall, Remi said that the rooms were about Corruption, the moon, the Mists of Shahbaal and Dimensional rifts. Although I don't know much about the other rooms, I suggest we check out corruption at the end. That is what the Eldrim seemed to have called cursed energy."
"Is everyone good? Have you all checked for injuries?" Nero asked, making sure they were fit to go on. They were all fine, relatively speaking. It was ironically Remi, who had not suffered any injuries at all, who was most reluctant to go on.
Nero could not understand what was going through her mind, but he at least admired the fact that despite her fears and reluctance, she obeyed all orders.
Nero used Aether Pulse once more, and this time detected a few curses in the corridors, but that actually reassured them. An enemy they could detect was a lot better than one they didn't even know put them under an illusion.
"Human specimen, you are charged with the destruction of cathedral property," a sound suddenly blared. "The punishment for such crimes are incarceration and a public trial. Turn yourself in to the nearest sentinel."
"Hey, your property was infected by corruption and nearly killed me!" Nero explained. He didn't know if the announcement could accept responses, but it couldn't hurt to try. As it turned out, it could.
"Corruption accusation has been filed. Testing for corruption. Testing… Testing… Warning! Corruption detected on all floors! Emergency protocols initiated! Error!
Missing components. Error! Missing data node. Initiating contingency protocols. Error!"
The announcement suddenly shut down, which was both relieving and concerning. It seemed like whatever happened to this place must have happened overnight so that the systems did not even detect anything. Or perhaps they had only recently restarted, which is why they didn't know about the state of the city.
"Let's start with the Mists of Shahbaal," Nero said after a few moments of silence. "If we're lucky, then the mists refer to the fog that surrounds us. We might just learn something new. But remember, our mission is not to gather this data, we're here to search for artefacts. There will be others after us to record all of this."
The team gathered themselves up and entered the corridor on the left. Each corridor led to two rooms, and the one hosting the archives on corruption were on the right, which is why they would go there last.
There were a few curses in the corridor which they easily detected and fought off without much trouble, but none of them lowered their guard. Their recent experience had been too harrowing for them to relax any time soon.
Nero tried opening the door, but it wouldn't budge. He had Remi try, and the door opened immediately. It seemed like their individual access levels in the city mattered a lot, even here.
Something lunged out of the room at Remi, but the team was both ready and expecting as much, so they easily pulled her back and attacked. The curse once more looked like it was made of vapours, though the shape was different, and it was followed closely by a dozen more.
The narrow corridor and close proximity made the fight a little tough. Nero used his flaming spear to pierce through the attacking curses, while Harold punched through them.
His ability was a strange one, and had to do with pulses or tremors. Nero did not know the exact details, but his ability could only be used through his body and not other objects, so he was forced to be a close range fighter.
But that did not make him weak. On the contrary, each one of his punches packed a lot of power. The vapours dispersed under their combined onslaught while the others had stepped back to give them room to manoeuvre.
Once they were sure that the room was empty they entered to discover sixteen green pillars placed throughout the room, and nothing else. Nero touched one, and discovered that the pillars were made of some strange metal.
"Are these the records? Remi, can you see if you can learn anything from them?" Nero asked.
The pale girl touched the pillars and tried to access anything within, but got no response. Each of them tried various things, but the pillars seemed to be nothing more than that.
Unable to discover anything, they moved onto the next room.
Unsurprisingly, it too was filled with curses, but this time their numbers were massive. The whole team had to retreat from the corridor as they fought them off. This time, it was Gabriel who became the deciding factor in their eventual victory.
As they retreated he kept on covering the ground with his red sand, and once they exited the corridor he immediately activated it. The sand exploded off the ground, and burned through the vapour curses as if they were kindling. But there were no flames or heat when the sand burned them. There wasn't even any ash left over.
After everything was done, the only thing that remained was more red sand.
But as powerful as his ability was, neither of them could afford to use their abilities heavily like that.
They entered the room, only to once again discover sixteen metallic pillars and nothing else.
"I'm beginning to see a pattern," said Harold.
"Let's check the other rooms," Nero said. No matter what, they could not afford to leave any room unchecked.
The next two rooms, one focused on the moon and the final one unknown yet again, were similarly filled with curses and revealed nothing save pillars. That ultimately left only the last corridor.
"Everyone, recover your aether a bit before we proceed," Nero said. "We've had a few tough fights, and there are more ahead. We need to make sure our energy doesn't run low."
After spending some time recovering, they all went towards the fifth room. Surprisingly, this time, when they opened the door they were not assaulted by vapour curses. Instead, the room seemed to contain countless corpses.
Bones literally fell out the door when they opened it, giving Remi yet another fright and causing everyone to step back.
The bones were yellow from age, and black from rot, so it was not easy to determine what they belonged to, but there must have been thousands of such bones inside that room. Even the pillars were not visible.
Everyone looked towards Nero, waiting to see what he decided. If he still wanted to explore the room, they would have to remove the bones, but none of them wanted to get close to them. It was like asking to get cursed. It was an incredibly ominous sight.
Just as Nero was wondering how they could explore the room, the loud sound of a door opening attracted everyone's attention. At the same time, the bones began to tremble, as if some force was bringing them to life.