Within the dimness, the Wise One meditated. The Psychics had long since been imprisoned in the Castle somewhere, in a great room of their Ancestors. No Psychic ability remained, it had long been dispelled. They had gone from the highest intellect to the lowest degenerate.
The Wise One read the empty walls, seeking to find an answer his knowledge could not, but could not find the origins of the Castles. He knew one thing: the races mentioned in the Books had the Castles built for them, possibly by the Architects, and the Engineers had constructed the three Artifacts: the Sphere he held in his dead grip, and the Books.
Upon the walls he used his energy to carve a warning, in the language of the Earthen people. From the early few first days, among deceit our people believed. Fathers of us deceived us and we had not Ancestors. He had not wrote in this language before, but then he felt a cold subconscious picking at his own, and he began to write a clear warning.
"It is taken me. It is using me. It is eaten me. I felt Its touch, and it consumed me. Death will slay with wings, whoever disturbs it. What is dead will never die, and they will rise up from the open maw of the Void. Beware."
The Beings were just puppets; one species under a superior energy. He had not seen many other species, except the Winged. He knew he could remove the strings from the puppet, but he could not win against the hands. Unless he tied the hands together...He turned to look at the Altar, the cone-shaped structure.
An Altar to what?
Revenant in his decision, the Wise One ascended the stairs, sword in his right hand, Sphere in his left. The light bounced off the obsidian Sphere, casting a fraction of brighter light into the room. They had breached the ramparts and bastions, and were surging toward the Altar Room. "Degenerates." The Wise One murmured, feeling no pity for the demons.
His eyes shut as he began threading his curse through the Castle, outwards to the other two structures.
Hordes of black swarmed into the Altar Room, forming into ranks. The temperature in the room began to drop drastically.
The Wise One began whispering, and then speaking out loud, in the very language of his enemy, the room shaking with every syllable. The Mindworm stirred.
The Wise One was yelling the words, as the ranks of Beings advanced, intelligence returned to them.
"Ew etorw eseth snalp koot eth redro eth erutcetihcra dna dewollof meth ot eth dne litnu eth sreag dnuorg dloc dna sseltneler ereth saw on esrorem. Ew dah enon ew tpek no thiw on ecart fo a terger I reven was yna doolb on lous rof eth ybod. A loac ni eth yks gnihcraes rof eth nwad rof eth tsal emit. Tor Ereh Rof Ytinrete."
Everything froze. And then several voices at once yelled "No." Every Being seemed to slump, the glow in their eyes dying out like a candle. Even the Wise One fell. There was no Presence. Everything seemed locked in, inside of the Sphere.
He realised something there and then; he had locked even his thoughts and memories in the Sphere, along with the origins, the evil, everything. The line that had stood between him and the mass around him had now gone.
And now I am just as animal as they are.
All around him, the Beings' eyes reignited with a new intent: to kill anything inside the Castle. A chorus of feral snarls and growls arose and bounced among the empty ramparts as they all rose up to their full height. Some had turned on each other, but others stood motionless: their blind pupils resting on the figure at the top of the Altar.
The Wise One slowly looked up, his light brown irises gone. His once intelligent gaze was now blinding white and he clutched the hilt of his sword with unnatural strength. Inside his head, whispers came and faded away, but there was no presence there. An insane grin descended on his features, his teeth as white as his eyes.
Masses advanced, black against the grey emptiness, and his left hand closed around the hilt of his sword. He began to laugh, slowly.
Sigil stood at the top of a massive set of stairs, facing the pedestal, a green Book in his hands. He slowly placed the Book on the pedestal, and stood back. We are leaderless, what do we do? His gaze drifted up to the hole in the ceiling, to the grey sky beyond. He noted how pointless the stairs were, as they did not reach the ceiling.
The Wise One was slashing mindlessly through thousand of Beings, falling deeper and deeper into an endless hell. Fresh blood run down the Altar, down the stairs, and headless bodies fell, blood spilling from their horrific wounds. More Beings took their place, their growls deep and harsh. Some jumped on the animalistic figure that had become of the Wise One, but he just threw them off and hacked into them as they crawled along the cold bloodstained ground. The sword seemed to shatter as it hit the ground and the Wise One bared his teeth as he lifted one Being up in a chokehold, crushing the throat.
Sigil came out of the vision with a start, and nearly fell backwards as Yusai kicked open the doors. "A figure is coming."Yusai said, in a clipped tone. Sigil brought the bow off his shoulder and put an arrow to it. His eyes were narrow. Yusai was silent, the light making his eyes look a lot lighter than they actually were.
"It is not walking as one of the enemies would." Yusai said, his mind on something else. "I think it is Empyrean." He added after a moment. Sigil jumped down the stairs, skipping eight at a time. He joined Locksley at the door and watched the incoming figure. His eagle-vision picked out Empyrean's features. "He looks to be in a bad way. Whatever was in the other Castle must have been extremely powerful to suppress." Sigil mused.
Sigil's pupils seemed to expand as he caught sight of a crowd of swarming black beginning to pursue Empyrean. "They are here." Sigil said, putting three arrows to his bow. Empyrean was at the stairs at the bottom of the rocky plateau. He took them three at a time, and got to the top. A simple rope bridge spanned the gap between the outcrop and the main body of the plateau.
Below him raged a river of lava, but he did not look down as he sprinted across. A flash of lightning lit his eyes as he turned to watch the river of lava suddenly flare, taking out the stairs, and pouring onto Beings below. Flesh and bone melted in the burning maw of the orange liquid rock.
"Greetings." Yusai said, nodding to Empyrean. That moment, the remaining Beings swarmed up over the edge of the outcrop, climbing up. "Go." Sigil said, raising his bow and firing. Three Beings fell dead as the arrows punched through their skulls. The remaining Beings snarled viciously and began charging towards the chasm. "They will not get across." Empyrean said. He pulled the sabre-like weapon out of the sheath and held it two-handed.
The Beings jumped across the chasm, seeming to float across it. A hail of Sigil's arrows pierced them as they jumped, thunder rolling through the firmaments and lightning hitting a nearby mountain. Beings fell into the lava below, but others landed and charged them. "Go!" Sigil yelled. Empyrean grabbed him and he and Yusai retreated into the Castle, slamming the doors shut.