World Of The Fallen Dragon

7

Finding no remnants of magical energy, Tobius dispelled the Raccoon Eyes and created True Sight. However, the result was the same - no magical presence. By all accounts, it turned out that they had discovered a wizard's laboratory in which there was no place for magic.

- This is absurd. There must be something here.

“Everything is shielded, char Tobius, the work of a master rank wizard, no less.

Both mages came up with the same thought, and they began to fear for the integrity of their skins more than ever. Until now, they had hunted a dangerous maleficarum, but now there was a possibility of meeting with a magician of the level of a master or, worse, an archmage, which neither one nor the other wanted.

With a gesture forcing the golems to halt on the stairs, Tobius shifted his grip on the wand and walked forward. As soon as he took two steps, a wave of magical power hit his head, and with all his available senses, the wizard felt the heavy oppressive aura of that place.

“It’s true, char Maren, the screen is holding back the radiation, and it’s accumulating… what an abomination has been going on here!”

Thobius knew the purpose of the metal cylinders pressed against the walls. Breeding chambers are incubators for creatures raised by vitamagi and animagi. The blueprints on the floor were unfamiliar, and the sets of ingredients left by the cauldron were unfamiliar; what was being prepared in the stills, the gray magician, again, could not know, but he was sure that he and Marin did not end up in the alchemist's laboratory. Any alchemist would have found a place for an athanor in his dwelling, and the local master did not pay attention to this.

Everything is screened to the highest standard.

Stepping carefully, Tobius walked past the incubators, peering in through glass windows in hermetically sealed doors. A greenish haze of the nutrient solution hid the contents, but in the seventh chamber something very repulsive leaned against the window, some kind of eyeless creature with a wide fish mouth and a disgusting muzzle. Wide gill slits and rare but sharp teeth were noticeable. Tobius could not resist and knocked on the glass - the freak immediately recoiled.

- I am tormented by vague doubts: it seems that there are people inside. Or what were people.

- The death penalty without the right to appeal the sentence is due for such experiments on people. The necromancer also risked going beyond the edge of the barrier and plunging into the suffocating atmosphere of nightmare left by the sorcery that was going on there. His dark figure slid slowly between the tables, and Tobius caught himself thinking that he was trying not to let Marin out of his sight. The innate suspicion of mages made him suspect… “There's another door here.

Marin pulled an iron hook in the wall, and a passage opened in it. Cold air rushed into the lab, accompanied by the smell of decaying organics. The flames on the oil lamps set into the walls flickered but did not go out. Tobius took up a defensive position at the door, and Maren slipped inside - if it smells of carrion from somewhere, then let the necromancer deal with it, he knows better and is more familiar with it.

— What is there? the gray mage asked after a while.

The answer did not come immediately.

- Cutting tables. Chains and hooks. Some of the bodies are of animal origin, but mostly human material. Organs in separate containers. I think I found the last loss - these organs are the freshest. In total, about three dozen bodies. Very large stock, very large pantry…

- An ice crypt for storing corpses.

“Exactly, char Tobius. And they are constantly being used. Cold concentrators are woven into the walls, whole bodies are laid out in floor niches and on free sections of the walls, already chopped carcasses lie on the tables.

Carcasses, Tobius thought, material, stock. Just a professional language, but how it cuts the ear.

The necromancer came out of the terrible pantry in some kind of high spirits.

— I see you started without me, — was heard from above.

The wizards raised their wands, but it turned out to be only Brother Olveh, descending the stairs.

"You scared us," Tobius admitted hoarsely.

- It's part of my job. - The monk looked around the laboratory and stared unblinkingly somewhere at the node for distributing the nutrient solution to the incubators. “It’s my job to scare wizards…”

- Nobody's here. Undoubtedly, this is the lair of a maleficarum that hunts people, but we did not find the sorcerer himself ...

“And you decided not to notice this creature, char Tobius?”

The magicians immediately got into fighting stances. At the same moment, a dense shadow, lurking among the tangle of pipes, darted forward. She easily avoided the three Fire Arrows fired by Thobius, spread her black wings and soared to the top of the stairs. With a shout, Maren hurled Zardgatsu after him, a ball of terribly screeching green light, scattering deadly prominences in flight. The dark thing didn't even flinch as the necrotic projectile hit it. However, there was a loud, like the sound of a cathedral bell, the Word,   and as if an invisible rock pressed the flyer to the steps. Thobius and Maren screamed involuntarily, blood gushing from the necromancer's nose. Brother Olveh held in his hands the heavy volume of the Blacksmith's Word and continued to read, and his eyes blazed with a blindingly bright light.

The imprinted thing transformed into a thick snake.

- Bully! Reaper! Drop it!

Obedient golems rushed into battle, fast and completely fearless. The bully earned with iron fists, and his partner plunged claws-sickles into the black unsteady body. Perhaps the serpent would have defeated the magic blockheads if the power of the recited prayers had not burned him like the heat of a gnome forge. Together, the golems tossed the creature down the stairs, and it slammed to the floor, knocking over one of the lab tables and splashing pitch black spray all around. The golems fell next - they also got the sacred grace that dispels magic.

Thobius hurled the Spiral Blade with a scream, but the creature's body simply melted under the attack without taking any damage. It crawled away like a black puddle towards the door to the dead storeroom. The next few attacks crashed against the placed Shield of Kudula, the most commonly used defensive spell.

Taking advantage of the time received, the black substance quickly stretched out and took shape, acquiring human outlines. The sorcerer has demonstrated an excellent ability to metamorphism. It was a man dressed in a Tibonic traveling cloak, a long leather robe with a high collar. In the raised position, that collar covered the lower part of the face and resembled a forked snake tongue. The eyes of the sorcerer burned with green fire, and around his neck, over his cloak, hung a gold medallion studded with precious stones, similar in shape to an lancet window, decorated with bright stained glass. With the metamorphosis completed, the maleficarum raised its arms and unleashed a veritable barrage of offensive spells. Most of the furniture toppled over, three incubators exploded, spilling stinking goo, and Thobius and Maren had to rush to the first shelters that came up. It was easier for brother Olveh:

The golems, barely recovering from the prayer that had weakened their structure, were already rushing hand to hand, but the will of the owner, like puppets on strings, pulled them back. The Reaper nearly got hit by the Ax of Shaab, which would have turned him into a smut, and the Ruffian avoided the Fatigue of the Tree and did not become dust before the deadline.

Thobius and Maren responded as best they could, their incantations now and then adding small chords to the melody of howling, whistling and roaring that filled the relatively small room, but the sorcerer's incantations performed the main symphony.

“This creature is a real battle mage!” Tobius yelled for some reason, as if someone else didn't get it.

The gray wizard took cover behind the desk, a heavy inkwell fell on his head, so that a mixture of blood and ink flowed down his face, and a pile of parchments and paper slips lay around. Raising his Shield of Kudula, the young magician jumped up and began to unload combat spells at the enemy. First the Iron Whirlwind, then the Desert Sand Hammer. From the first, the sorcerer defended himself with a shield, towards the second he threw a Water Ball, counterattacked with the Black Press. This spell was missed by Kudula's Shield, and for a few moments Tobius felt a terrible weight on his shoulders. With a short groan, he spat out the reverse formula and hurried to throw himself on the floor, because Kudula's Shield had burst and the Howling Blade nearly cut off the mage's head.

Marin fell silent, hiding behind a fallen bookshelf and attacked less and less until he completely stopped. Thobius could not see him, but on the other hand he saw how Brother Olvech recited the litanies of Wrath loudly, weakening the enemy pressure before his eyes. Taking advantage of a moment's respite, Tobius began to chant combat spells, replenishing ammunition. At the same time, he fumbled through a pile of papers, grabbing, clumping and shoving everything that came to hand into his bag. The wizard himself could not answer why, under a flurry of deadly spells, he suddenly began to do this - he simply felt that if he survived, he would still need to properly understand the circumstances.

There was a loud scream - some of the litanies broke through a powerful shield and, apparently, touched the sorcerer. Seizing the moment, Tobius jumped up, vaulted over the table and pointed his wand in his direction. Incineration rushed silently at the enemy, then five Ice Balls at once, exploding in a hail of fragments on impact, then the tremendous power of the Ax of Shaab, from which unbearable heat reigned in the laboratory, and in pursuit - a writhing dazzling serpent of Lightning. The wounded sorcerer was only slightly embarrassed, but did not flinch, as three Ghost Spears struck in response one after another. Reflecting them, Tobius with a terrible cry threw the Needle of Light from his left hand, created a powerful Push and threw an alembic at the enemy with a telekinetic blow. The cube turned into thousands of glass fragments that shredded the maleficarum's clothes and body, the Needle dug into the sorcerer's liver area, and the Push pressed him to the wall.

His collared mouth let out muffled wheezes, but he was able to restore the Shield of Kudula and beat off new combat spells with it. It was becoming clear that the sudden aggressive attack had been successful, and Tobius did not slow down. In his arsenal there were many ways to destroy a person, once he single-handedly defeated a real master, and then for a long time rushed along the wild edge, fleeing from a variety of applicants for human flesh.

The sorcerer stopped responding to attacks and went on the defensive. However, he did not remain idle - streams of dark power swirled around the maleficarum, and the blood from his wounds turned black, turning into some kind of resin. Falling under the feet, drops of this rubbish turned into large black snakes and crawled literally in dozens to uninvited guests. That it was not an illusion, Tobius was convinced as soon as one of the creatures clung to his boot, almost reaching the skin with long stingers. Ripping off the animal, he shouted out a word that awakened the Crematorium spell, and two-thirds of the hall immediately sank into a fiery pool, incinerating most of the snakes. Those that crawled towards Brother Olveh spread like a vile slime, not even reaching the sandaled feet.

With redoubled strength, Thobius rushed to the attack, moreover, he was quite afraid that the holy Word would bake his seat too. The wrath of the Lord Smith against the bearers of the Gift has always been blind when used by clerics. This cleansing power doesn't care what kind of magician to burn - a healer or a sorcerer.

Causing the shield of the maleficarum to shatter from the impact of the empowered Fireball, the gray wizard attacked with Enduring Fetters, but they were instantly destroyed by an acidic counterspell, and the sorcerer grabbed his medallion and let out a scream so loud that Tobius was thrown away by a sonic wave and even deafened.

There was a disgusting lingering squeak in his ears, his eyes were almost blind and hurt from ruptured capillaries, and when the young wizard was able to recover at least a little, he saw the restless ones bursting from the ice crypt. Having revived the dead, the sorcerer in the guise of a huge scorpion had already climbed the wall and jumped onto the stairs. Without hearing himself, Tobius screamed and rushed forward when the figure of Marin darted from the right. Having bypassed the monk, on whom the pale stiffened corpses settled, the necromancer flew up the steps and raised his wand. Some kind of gray smoky lasso shot out of the green stone, which swept over the tail of a scorpion. Tobius had expected the enemy to simply change form, but it didn't. The scorpion tried to crawl further, to escape, but could not, and in the meantime the necromancer rose higher and higher, he did not take his eyes off the creature,

At this moment, the Petrian, who was surrounded by the dead, decided that there was no time left to stand on ceremony; In order not to be torn apart, he threw up his arms and opened his mouth wide - a shockwave of holiness descended on Tobius's head with a blacksmith's hammer. The necromancer, who was much closer to Olveh, was simply thrown onto the steps, the smoky lasso melted away. The sorcerer, although he received a fair portion of church grace, recovered first, showing miracles of endurance. It flowed into the form of a huge black hamadryad and opened its mouth just as Maren tried to get up. Tobius, barely on all fours, saw sparkling needles flying from the cobra's mouth - in a few moments the face and chest of the necromancer turned into a terribly torn tailor's pillow.

The gray magician rushed to help Maren, but his body was already rolling head over heels down the stairs, the wand flew off to the side, while the serpent quickly crawled up. Jumping up to the necromancer, Tobius immediately tried to check for a pulse, but with a yell, he pulled back his hand, which was already bubbling with some kind of purple goo. Judging by the way Marin's face was spreading, the needles oozed acid.

Quickly rolling up his sleeves, Tobius covered his hands in a pulsating healing glow and began to run them over the wounds. The damage was terrible: bones, skin, muscles - everything suffered. Toxins were already spreading throughout the body, causing destruction to all tissues, tormenting the nervous system and entrails. When the poison enters the heart, it will immediately die.

Tobius slowed down the flow of blood, cast the strongest regenerative spell on the body, increased the body's resistance to toxins tenfold by injecting Marin with the so-called "oriole tears." He whispered the right word formulas and sprinkled on the wounds with precious ingredients, taken from the many inside pockets of the bag. Convinced that he had won some time for the necromancer, the magician rushed up the stairs, thinking only about how to catch up with the ripper sorcerer.

Not understanding the road, stumbling in the dark, risking falling and breaking his head on the steps, Tobius rushed upstairs. He easily healed his minor wounds with Healing, but did not feel better: too much strength had been expended in the duel.

Breaking out into a stone bag, he made his way up the tunnel and crawled into the crevice towards the light, but what he saw, breaking free, did not please him - in a pile of smoking rags, lying at a distance on the scorched earth, Brother Horace was hardly recognized. Half of the huge monk's body turned black, swollen with blisters, the left eye was lost, patches of charred bone were visible in places, blood did not ooze, because all the wounds were baked by a terrible heat. Not far away, a sword protruded straight from the melted stone, the light of its grace and the heat of holiness burned and blinded Thobius even at a distance, so that he did not dare to take a second look at the weapon.