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Continuing along the path, the man ran his hand over each tombstone, stopping at one. Sitting down next to it, he gently stroked the marble slab - "I see a girl behind this mirror – a lost soul. Nineteen years old – such a young age, yet the bony hand of death reached out for you. Suicide… Oh, how tragically this beautiful innocent life was cut short – you felt pain all your life, and only when the blade passed through your veins did you feel cleansed…" The man lightly touched his lips to the tombstone, then walked on.
The dark clouds thickened, and the rain intensified, as if accompanying the traveler. The cold added to the discomfort, causing puddles to form a thin layer of ice. "Arandor... sometimes emotional pain is too strong to ignore. Worrying about friends turns life into hell, and you are ready for anything just to help them". The man continued to move slowly forward, heading towards a large stone cross. "Neira Drake... when you find yourself in the middle of an ocean of fear and despair, you begin to lose your mind. You want to cry, but you can't anymore". Reaching the cross, the man knelt directly in front of it. "Who is to blame? Who is right? Does any of that even matter now? Everyone who stands in my way will perish.
Chaos reigned at the academy: distraught teachers were desperately trying to find their students among the rubble; the sole librarian, Nebo, was searching for any remaining documents from the Archive; the archmage prepared to deliver a speech, slightly nervous. In addition, surprisingly, Siverfail, who had been unconscious until then, survived this ordeal.
- Hey, where’s Arandor? - Lizard asked first, but before he could get an answer, Magnus spoke up from behind him, having climbed onto a small elevation: "Friends, today a terrible event occurred, and I understand that you all would like to be alone with your grief, but we must act – if we do nothing now, it will be too late. To some extent, I am also to blame for this incident: I left the walls of the academy, succumbing to the provocation of a dark mage – I shouldn't have done that, and I admit my guilt. But now... now we must respond to our enemy. Our friends must be avenged!". Then the archmage began to talk about an old stone castle, where, as he believed, the dark mage resided.
- It is your fault! You and only you! - Lizard exclaimed indignantly - because you knew that Neira was taken by a dark mage, but did nothing!
- I just did what I thought was right.
- Now you say that it will be too late if we don't hurry, but why didn't you hurry earlier?! If we had started searching for the mage immediately after Neira was kidnapped, we would not only have saved her life, but also the lives of the students who died today! - Lizard continued shouting at Magnus
- You are behaving inappropriately. Remember who you are talking to! - The archmage clearly wasn't going to tolerate insults directed at him…
Waking up, Verwolka found herself in a small, dark room. Fire magic helped her orient herself in the darkness, then she used it to burn through the lock on the thick wooden door. As the girl correctly noted, the corridors were arranged like a labyrinth, and if it was difficult for her to find her way while lighting her path, imagine how those wandering in the darkness felt... Verwolka had to go around all the rooms to understand where she had already been and where not. One room attracted her special attention: apparently, this was an old torture chamber (the girl knew something about it). Here one could see an iron maiden, a Spanish boot, and much more (based on the condition of the equipment, one could tell that they hadn't been used for hundreds of years). There was also someone’s skeleton here, cut into many pieces, and above it on the wall was an inscription: "drowning in her lust, even after death she did not see the light." Verwolka decided to leave this room as soon as possible.
The next time she walked down the same corridor, she heard footsteps. Extinguishing the flame, the girl waited. The steps became closer, her heart froze in her chest.
This person turned out to be Vegtam, who was also looking for a way out. Unlike Verwolka, he could only rely on his senses.
Suddenly, a sinister voice echoed throughout the corridor: "the inability to distinguish illusion from reality ends in futile and foolish attempts to find a way out where there is none". Even the necromancer was taken aback by what he heard, as he couldn't believe that his mind had succumbed to another's magic...
The argument near the ruins of the burned academy continued. A strong, unstable flame raged in the hands of the enraged Lizard; he was ready to unleash all his fury on the archmage, but the other survivors intervened, arguing that now they needed to think about how to defeat the enemy, not settle scores.
- Very well, you are right. But God knows, I will incinerate that bastard.
It was decided to set off at dawn, and until then, everyone would benefit from some rest.
Verwolka woke up on a dirty road under the moonlight. To her surprise, she found that she could not use her magical abilities…