Zeta gently put the shuttle down not far outside the city limits of Albion. She ignored what her sensors were telling her and focused on Sonic and Fiona. The blue smoke that had surrounded Sonic was almost completely gone now but left glowing blue runes inscribed on his skin. After a moment even those disappeared and he let loose a heavy sigh.
"Are you alright, Sonic?" she asked worriedly.
"I've had better days," he said, cracking his neck. "That should be the last of the energy to syphon off. How're her vitals holding?" Zeta brought up one of the screens.
"Fiona is fine now," she replied. "She's actually been stable for some time. You could have stopped just after we left the storm."
"Couldn't take that chance," Sonic said as he stood. As if on cue Fiona's eyes fluttered open and she muttered something incoherent. "Morning, sunshine."
"Bite me," she replied groggily. "What happened?"
"The short version is I saved your life and Zeta landed us without incident," he explained, handing her a water bottle. Fiona pushed him for more details. "Alright if you insist. I did my Magan thing by absorbing and then expelling the energy. Of course, once we left the storm then the bulk of the spell just kinda gave out. You still had a lot of leftover energy to get rid of but you should be okay now. How're you feeling?"
"I've had worse hangovers," Fiona answered as she finished off the bottle. "I know what you want to ask and trust me after all this I know you deserve answers."
"Want, yes. Pushing, no," Sonic said and handed her a second water. "Listen, I'm the last person to demand answers from someone so when we have time and you wanna tell me then we can do this. Until then we need to find out what's doing this."
"One thing, though," Fiona said as she got off the cot. "That creature that attacked us is called a Phantom. They're about as deadly as they come and they can't be killed. Thankfully most of them only last a day or two."
"Most of them?"
"That one that attacked us looked like it'd been hanging around for a couple weeks." A look of concern crossed Sonic's face. "Yeah, I've never heard of these things doing that. There's a lot about the sorcery around here that doesn't make a lick of sense."
Sonic took a moment to gather his thoughts before saying, "I take it the reason you're telling me is that you expect to run into more of them," to which Fiona nodded. "Well it's nice to have a heads up for once. Anyway, we should get going before it gets much darker." They grabbed their gear and suited up for the cold. When they stepped out of the shuttle Sonic felt the cold wind bite all the way down to his bones. Fiona wasn't any better off so they ran into the city, hoping the buildings would at least make things bearable. They both turned on their flashlights as they passed the first line of buildings. Albion reminded Sonic more and more of Old Mobotropolis except for the utter desolation.
"Restik wanted help from here?" Fiona asked, breaking the silence. "It looks like this place was abandoned centuries ago."
"No way they're that out of touch," Sonic replied. "Still, from the look of things I'd have to agree." He looked around, shining his light into some of the windows before squatting to scoop some snow up. Fiona asked him what was wrong and he replied, "I'm not sure. Other than all the obvious things something seems off. I can normally feel the land's energy but not here. It's like the whole place is dead." As the wind picked up they hurried into what was once a store. Sonic rubbed his arms, trying to get the blood flowing again, as Fiona looked around.
"Some of these are recent expiration dates," she said as she looked at some of the shelved items. "If you were abandoning your home wouldn't you take everything you can, especially food?" she asked and Sonic joined her, trying to figure everything out.
"Something tells me we aren't going to get answers just standing here," he said. "Zeta, were you able to get a scan of the city on our way in?"
"I was, Sonic," Zeta said as a holographic map appeared on the cashier's counter. "Based on the patterns you two have been looking for I based my scan on finding something similar." Red lines forming the sorcery array appeared inside the city. "Unlike the others this one does not encompass the entire city."
"Great, just when we were starting to figure things out," Sonic muttered. "So what's at these points?"
"I was not able to get a definite answer while we were in flight but they seemed to be pillars of some kind. They are nearly a mile tall and at least a hundred feet in diameter."
"Somehow I doubt that the city built them," Sonic said, shutting down the hologram. "Let's take another look around, see if there are any supplies we can scrounge up." As Fiona gave the store a once over Sonic wandered upstairs into what looked like a living area. His flashlight fell onto a chair and he swore under his breath. Seated there was the dried frozen husk of what was once an echidna. "And I thought things couldn't get any worse," he muttered.
"Anything up there?" Fiona shouted.
"Yeah but nothing good," Sonic replied as he headed down the steps. "Whatever drained the land drained the people too."
"You mean..."
"Yeah." Fiona's hand came up to her mouth, trying to hold back anything coming up. "Let's check these pillars out. I want to know what's going on here."
The wind outside had barely died down but Sonic wrapped the wind around them and used shunpo to get them across the city. He'd gotten much better in the time since he'd learned it and only took about a hundred steps until they were next to the pillar. Sonic was barely surprised to see it was made of ice but a bit more to see a door leading inside. They went in to what they quickly saw had been a power station and a large grate in the floor giving off a soft orange glow. Fiona stood near it to feel heat coming up and called Sonic over.
"I've heard of this," Sonic told her. "Geothermal power. They must use it to power the city and keep it warm. Still, it's doing a pretty bang-up job considering how much snow and ice is out there." They went over to the monitors where Sonic could see that the tunnels for the power were deep, deeper than he thought physically possible. "Just how far down did they go?"
"Geothermal usually comes from naturally occurring hot springs, right?" Fiona asked and Sonic shrugged.
"I'm no expert but that sounds right," he said. "Because where you have hot springs you have something to heat the water." He placed his hand on the ground and closed his eyes. "But I don't feel any heat in this part of the planet. It's almost like they were getting their heat from underneath the crust."
"That's crazy and impossible," Fiona told him. "Seriously, nothing about this place makes a lick of sense." Her light fell on a door on the far side of the room. As she got closer she felt the air get significantly colder until it was unbearable. "Sonic, can you feel anything from that door?"
"It's cold as hell," he stated and Fiona rolled her eyes.
"To elaborate, Sonic, my sensors stop at -250 degrees Fahrenheit," Zeta piped in, a mixture of confusion and awe in her voice. "Those same sensors are showing that the door is at least that cold. It could very easily be significantly colder." Fiona's eyes narrowed in worry as she headed back outside.
"Apparently that's a bad thing," Sonic said as he glanced back at her. "I don't see anything special about it that would make it do that. Do you think we could break it down?"
"Anything that comes close to the door would freeze almost instantly and shatter upon impact," Zeta told him. "However, something with significant mass and velocity may be able to destroy the door as well."
"So something big, heavy and fast moving?" Sonic asked and the computer confirmed. "Good to know."
"Don't bother," Fiona said as she reentered the building. "I wanted to take another look at the pillar and happened to see energy flowing in and out of it. Sonic this thing is like a giant antenna. It's sending and receiving energy and is probably what's controlling the storm around the Northern Territory."
"That whole remote array thing you were talking about when we first found these patterns?" Sonic asked and the fox nodded. "Great, just freaking great. I suppose there's some kinda force field preventing us from leaving in the meantime, right?" Now Fiona was surprised and was ready to ask how he knew until he interrupted her. "Just a lucky guess. Besides, it would be our luck for this to happen. And let me guess: Destroying the pillar includes the base which is going to be insanely difficult to pull off?"
"And likely not just one but at least two," Fiona added impressed. "You're starting to catch on pretty quick why sorcery is so dangerous. What's at the center of the pattern?" Sonic brought up the map and looked it over.
"Not really sure," he answered, "but if I had to guess based on this I would say a temple or a church. How's the weather out there?"
"Passable," Fiona said, "but I don't know how long that'll last. If we're gonna go we should go now." Sonic closed Zeta up and picked up his flashlight as they headed back into the night, slowly working their way through an abandoned city.
Zeta kept them on track to the center of the array but after an hour they were still nowhere close. What worried Sonic more than how long it was taking was the fact that Fiona appeared to be in the same kind of pain as before. When they stopped to warm up Sonic asked and she rolled her sleeve up. The tattoos had already covered her arm and were beginning to spread onto her torso.
"We're too far into the array to turn back," Fiona told him as she covered herself. "We can either find out together what's going on or run away. Either way I'm probably not getting out of the city alive." Sonic grimaced but he knew she was right. Still, as they trekked through Albion he held her hand trying to bleed off some of the energy poisoning her body.
It was another two hours before they finally reached the center of the array. Like Sonic had said it was a temple though neither of them knew to who or what. What caught their attention was a pile of snow on the temple steps that was much larger than the others. Sonic brushed the snow away and muttered a curse. Fiona's free hand covered her mouth as she stared at the desiccated corpse. She helped Sonic clear the rest of the body revealing that whoever this was had been wearing a suit. Sonic reached into the jacket, cringing as he did so, and pulled a card case out of the pocket. He popped it open before showing it to Fiona.
"Where have we seen this name before?" he asked rhetorically. Fiona sighed and Sonic shut the case. "What was a prospector doing all the way up here?" Before Fiona could answer the door of the temple opened slightly, enough for a female echidna to stick her head out.
"There are other survivors?" she asked excitedly. "Please, you need to come inside right away before they get you." Sonic was about to ask what 'they' were when he heard a familiar growling behind them. He turned to see the familiar form of at least seven phantoms stepping out of the shadows. He leapt up the stairs, dragging a very surprised Fiona with him, and the echidna opened the doors so they could pass. The moment she closed and locked the doors the phantoms slammed into them, beating and clawing for a few seconds before retreating. "You are very lucky to have gotten this far without being attacked," she said, lowering her hood. "But I'm afraid you're trapped here as well."
"I take it the guy outside tried leaving," Sonic asked and the woman nodded. "Well, we appreciate the help but we need to...!" Fiona let go of Sonic's hand and collapsed onto the ground. Her markings were pulsing as they visibly moved closer to the top of her head, even managing to burn through her shirt and jacket. "Fiona!"
"She's turning into one of them," the echidna stated, kneeling down next to Fiona. "Please, allow me to help her. I am a priestess after all." Sonic nodded and she placed her hands on Fiona's side. She then began to trace light blue symbols over her black markings. As she finished each symbol the markings slowed down, eventually retreating as they were absorbed by the priestess' spell. The priestess then drew a circle of symbols on the left side of Fiona's stomach and the fox sighed with content. "There. That should last you a few days until we either die of dehydration or those things break in and kill us."
"You're very pessimistic for a priestess," Sonic commented. "Still, thanks for helping her. I'm Sonic."
"Tikal," she said, taking his extended hand. "Truth be told I'm just a priestess-in-training but I'm happy I was able to help. I have a change of clothes if you'd like, young lady."
"I'd like that, thank you," Fiona said as she stood up. "Exhibitionism is fine in warm weather but a big no-no in sub-zero temps." Tikal led Fiona to the back of the temple while Sonic looked around. There were a handful of other survivors, most of them human but a few others were echidnas.
"Excuse me, mister," a timid voice said from behind him. Sonic turned to see a teenage boy with brown hair. "Tikal said you came from the outside. Is there any chance you've seen my father? Is he alive?" Sonic handed him the card case.
"This woudn't happen to be his, would it?" he asked and the boy nodded, tears forming in his eyes. "My condolences. What's your name?"
"Nathaniel," he answered, wiping the tears away. "My father is...was the owner of Neptan Prospecting."
"So you're the ones we've been following," Sonic told him. "The fox and I are from Xenodome and somehow ended up in your father's wake. Business must be booming if he was looking to expand this much." Nathaniel nodded before excusing himself, still clutching tightly to his father's cards. Sonic felt bad for the kid but there was nothing more he could do. Besides, he still had a job to do here.
"Any chance you guys know what happened here?" he asked the other echidnas who glanced at each other before answering him.
"Shouldn't a Guardian be able to figure that out on his own?" one of them asked raising an eyebrow. "This is an act of sorcery. Someone is trying to drain our people of their power not to mention the atrocity they've done to the land."
"Yeah, we figured out awhile back it was sorcery," Sonic said, "but what happened here in Albion? This place looks like no one's lived here in centuries."
"Another effect of the sorcery poisoning this place," the echidna answered. "Your friend is lucky Tikal is experienced in handling this sort of thing. The phantoms are not to be trifled with."
"We were already attacked by one before we got here," Sonic agreed. "Fiona told me a little about them but why doesn't it seem to affect me? Or you guys for that matter?"
"Think of it like a sorcery overdose," another echidna said. "It can take decades for it to affect the humans but eventually it will. Mobians are the only other ones vulnerable to it since their bodies cannot expel energy."
"That would imply that the echidnas here are Magan," Sonic guessed and the others nodded. "And that's why I'm fine. So this array is meant to drain the land and people of their energy but for what purpose?"
"To feed the sorcerer's hunger," Tikal explained as she and Fiona returned. "Any sorcerer that could cast a spell like this would be immensely powerful and would require energy on a massive scale to sustain his existence."
"Which explains why Mogul never did anything like this," Fiona said. "He had the Emerald feeding him for the longest time. A spell of this magnitude would keep a sorcerer sated for a while."
"Are we talking weeks or months?" Tikal shook her head.
"Centuries at least," she said much to Sonic's surprise. "I know that you have many questions but we are about to begin service. You may join us if you like." The echidnas went towards the altar at the back of the temple as did the humans, much to the surprise of Sonic and Fiona.
"Something seem off here?" Sonic asked her and she nodded.
"If the array is meant to feed off of them then why aren't they affected here?" she said. "We're at the center of the spell. The effects should be strongest here, not the weakest."
"Did you recognize any of that scribble the priestess used?" Fiona shook her head. "Okay, do you know what she meant by 'feeding the sorcerer's hunger'?"
"If I remember right most sorcerers increased their power by absorbing the life force from fallen enemies," she explained. "In other words they devour their souls. Doing it on a small scale is less noticeable so what I can't figure out why this guy would take the chance of wiping out an entire city."
"My guess is that this particular sorcerer isn't worried about subtlety," Sonic muttered as he tried to access Zeta's files. The computer on his arm was lifeless, completely drained of power. "Figures. Right when we need her help the batteries are dead. We might as well get comfy. With those phantoms outside we aren't going anywhere fast."