The halls down the cathedral grew darker in atmosphere. The deeper they went in, the harder it became for Sabirah to keep her mind clear. It was almost as if something was keeping her from remaining peaceful in thought, wanting to torment her until she got out. She couldn't help but agree with the 'getting out' part. Idly, she followed the group around, a hand in her satchel petting the curious feline. Though blind, it seemed to act as if it could very well see its surroundings. How endearing. She would have to keep a close eye on it if she wanted to learn anything from it.
They stopped, coming upon another abandoned corpse. This one, however, seems fresh, the blood was still oozing out of their wounds and the organs were out, scattered as if something had tried to salvage what they could before retreating. The trail of blood was visible still, Sabirah noticed. She was sure the others did too.
"I don't think Malthael would have gone any further, Urzael." Whispered Ramma, afraid she may attract the attention of Risen. Urzael, sensing her worry, scoffed and nudged the corpse with his foot, grunting in disgust.
"We might find deeper clues in the next floors."
"Urzael, if these abominations have been here for as long as we speculate them to have, then Malthael would have left as soon as possible." Countered Ramma, her light blue wings flaring a little. Like the other maidens, she was on edge about the Cathedral. Something just wasn't right here; the demonic presence lingered and grew stronger the deeper they went. It was probably influencing the lieutenant. Urzael growled lowly, his grip on his sword tightening.
"Alright, we'll split up." Instant protests.
"Split up?! That's a death sentence!" Some maidens exclaimed in surprise, while some, who, much like Sabirah was, wanted to get out as fast as possible, agreed with Urzael's choice.
"In teams of two. Our rendezvous point is there and we'll only cover this floor. If there is any danger, feel free to use spells to dispatch of the threat. Now go! The sooner we cover this place, the sooner we can leave." And the sooner he got to take a break from their whining.
Sabirah blinked, her sharp wings perking down. This was unlike Urzael; someone was definitely messing with them all. She watched as they split, Urzael being among the first to walk off along with another. Those that lingered around a little longer did not stray far; in fear that they could get lost. The maiden sighed quietly and lifted herself in the air, sending the unfortunate corpse one last glance before joining Ramma's side. The other glanced at Sabirah and chuckled, voice low.
"Just you and me, huh?" Sabirah nodded.
"Come on then. I don't know what's going on through that moron's head but I want out of this place and fast." The female would growl, approaching the nearby flight of stairs and left Sabirah alone for a short moment to think. This... wasn't the Ramma she knew, yet she agreed with her. The cat peeked its head out of the satchel and turned its head around, ears perked before it retreated back into the bag. Odd, but alright.
"Sabirah! Come on." Echoed Ramma's voice, snapping the maiden of wisdom out of her train of thoughts. Of course, she almost left Ramma all alone. Quickly walking to the flight of stairs, Sabirah glided down towards her colleague, landing by her side. Her gaze was instantly directed to a sort of fountain. She spared a questioning look to the blue winged maiden, who only hummed in curiosity. Ramma lowered her wings down and dimmed their light, taking cautious steps towards the fountain; her sounds luckily muffled by the dusty red carpet underneath their feet.
The liquid glowed red, it stood out remarkably against the dull colors of the ruined Cathedral.
"What is that...?" Inquired Ramma, finally daring to grow closer. Without looking, she beckoned Sabirah closer and kept gazing into the thickened liquid, mesmerized at the thought of what it could be and be used for. Sabirah's wings folded closer to her body as she too got closer to the fountain of stone. The liquid was indeed thick, thicker than water and essence, that was sure, yet lighter than the tar blood of daemons. Ramma spoke, her wings perking up with interest. She almost felt compelled to touch the liquid.
"It's very magically altered... it's like someone took Lady Auriel's healing capabilities, made them weak enough for a mortal to handle and then infused it magically so it could heal almost instantly on the spot." She explained, her light blue wings brightening at the thought of her theory being true. "But I still can't figure out what type of liquid this is..." she trailed off, letting Sabirah to her thoughts.
She had many. None were good.
The liquid was red. Red and thick. Blood. Except it couldn't be blood, no magical creature, whether fiend or not, ever bled in red. This was mortal blood. But it couldn't be; mortals had no magic in them, only the Nephalem did. The liquid still hadn't dried, thus was recent- unless one of the spells used on it kept it from ever spoiling and drying. Her wings flared and twitched. A frown. Sabirah didn't know what to think, her mind was jumbled and she couldn't find the correct answer. Or even something remotely close to the correct answer.
"Maybe it is Malthael's doing!" Ramma theorized, reaching into her own satchel to pull out a vial. Sabirah squinted and remained still. Until, well,
Ramma dipped the vial into the liquid. The mute maiden jolted in surprise, wings flared and panic evident, written in her very posture. If she could talk, and oh did she wish she could talk, she would have been yelling her song out. Violently, she grabbed Ramma's wrist that held the vial and yanked it away from the fountain, pushing the female back as Sabirah got in between her and the fountain.
"Sabirah, what in the Blazing Hells are you doing?!" A glare was the maiden's reply.
"Master could have done this, do you realize that?!" Sabirah kept glaring, her wings blocking all sight of the fountain and red liquid residing off of it.
"So, what if Malthael didn't do this? We could examine it and identify the spells used to make it- either way, this is a win-win situation!" Ramma contested as she gently twirled the content of the vial around whilst making sure none of it would spill before, she closed it carefully, taking out a small piece of cloth to wrap around it.
"I appreciate the concern, Sabirah, but you are doing too much." Grumbled the angel, gently placing the covered vial back in the satchel as she muttered under her breath a few things about being overprotective and how it gets annoying fast. Sabirah, still skeptic about the whole situation, slowly folded her wings and lowered their flare, dimming down the light they gave off. How Ramma could annoy her sometimes.
Take a vow, they said. They will respect you, they said.
Tsch. What lies.
With tensions high and frustrations further developed, the two maidens continued over to the other flight of stairs. This time, this one led back up to the floor they had been on. My, this had been a rather small balcony trip. At least, she estimated it to be a balcony. Sabirah approached the stone railing and placed a gauntleted hand on it, feeling the rock around a bit. It was recent to her, but she could only imagine it to be old to the mortals that knew of it. She lifted her hand off of it and inspected the dust that clung to the metal of her gauntlet. Definitely old. Such amounts of dust could only have formed in a short time if the ceiling had caved in. And since she saw no signs of such a thing having happened in this area, she would continue believing that this place was very dirty. The mute maiden peeked over the stone railing and down at the abyss down below, her silver wings almost shuddering at how dark it was. Even with the torches lit around her, she still couldn't make out if this cathedral even had a bottom floor or an end. Simply gazing down below felt... creepy. Ugh.
As she was about to rejoin Ramma up the stairs, Sabirah stopped.
There was chanting. It was faint, but she definitely could hear it. The cat seemed to be able to do so too, seeing as it poked its head back out of the satchel with its ears yet again perked up. She looked down at the cat with doubt in her eyes. It wasn't the atmosphere of the sunken cathedral making her hear this, right? Oh, she hoped so. Sabirah listened for a few moments longer before the faint chanting stopped abruptly.
And a scream of agony tore through the silence like a knife cutting through flesh.
That was her cue to get the Hell out of there. No more curiosity, no more bad feelings, she wanted out of this cursed place as soon as possible.
Jumping in the air, Sabirah gripped the strap to the satchel tightly and flew up the stairs, ignoring the bodies of unfortunate farmers she flew by as she rejoined Ramma, who seemed to have not noticed her absence at all. Odd. Quite rudely, the maiden of wisdom pushed the head of the cat back in the satchel, ignoring the future attitude she would get from it. Ramma came to a stop in front of a locked gate, her hands on her hips.
"Hmm... a dead end." She looked over at Sabirah expectantly. Said maiden only raised her hands up in the air in an 'I did nothing' manner. She could do nothing too, not unless she decided to break the gates down with a spell. But in a place like this, such an action could only attract copious amounts of trouble.
"Well... since there was nothing else in this hallway, let's go back. I'll tell Urzael of what we found." Informed Ramma, who turned on her heel and began making her way back to the designated rendezvous point. Sabirah stuck close behind. The scream of pain kept replaying in her mind over and over again, almost making her ignore the small, muffled meow of the feline.
"Mrrow." Yeah. She couldn't agree more with you, bud. To her luck, the way back to the rendezvous point was much quicker than she had thought it to be. They were lucky that the Risen had decided to abandon the corpses they were feasting on prior to their entrance, she would have hated to have to fight fiends on a mission as urgent as this.
Urzael was there, along with half of the group. Ramma and Sabirah rejoined them. Soon the rest came back as well, and the report began, just like in Westmarch.
"Well?" Hummed Urzael.
"We found nothing but corpses." Reported Aracai.
"Here too. A few books and scrolls here and there, but nothing to link with Malthael." Ziziel spoke, almost disappointed at the fact that she hadn't found anything of use in their search.
"Sabirah and I, however, did find something of interest," begun Ramma, a hand sliding back down in her satchel to grab at the cloth containing the vial. She pulled the cloth back to show the liquid in the vial.
"Something magically altered, we were hoping to examine it when we get the time to see if it has any connection with Master Malthael." She said, wrapping the bottle back up and putting it back into the satchel. Urzael nodded, his wings fluttering.
"Good work. We'll take a break soon to analyze the clues we find. Now let us get the Hell out of here." For once, Sabirah couldn't agree more.
By the time the group had gone up the floors and gotten back to the surface level of the cathedral, the feeling of dread grew weaker; giving the followers of wisdom relief. What was more exciting, however, was that the rain had stopped and they were now allowed to continue their search. Each took to the sky one at a time, a few exclaiming how good it felt to stretch their wings after events as stressful as those.
Sabirah, however, sent the fallen cathedral one last uncertain and fearful glance. That scream would forever haunt her, she was certain of it. Her wings flapped, propelling herself closer to the group. After Urzael made sure the maidens were all there, he signaled them to follow him.
And so, they did.