They put some distance between themselves after that. He let Alleria rest and recover; by her own assessment, she claimed she'd be at full strength after another day's rest. He showed her the source of water he'd found, a short walk down one of the corridors branching off from the hall, which was thankfully trap-free, after which she promptly curled herself into a ball beside their packs and stopped talking.

That left him with nothing else to do but continue putting himself through the motions with his sword and contemplating all that had happened. He felt guilty about prodding Alleria in uncomfortable places, so to speak, regardless of whether the outcome had been positive or not in the grand scheme of things.

That was petty, plain and simple, and completely inexcusable for an Angelica.

They really were starting to grind on each other, after days, maybe even weeks, with only each other for company. He'd even considered whether they were compatible enough for… friendship? Companionship, even. And without Velandus around to act as an intermediary, they were all the worse for it.

His thoughts drifted to the old man. He hoped he'd got out of Tathlani undetected, and if he knew what was best for him, he'd be leagues south or west or north of… wherever they were. He really did… no, the two of them attracted trouble like a bear poking at a bee's hive. Was it fate? Deific punishment? Or just plain bad luck?

He lowered his sword. This wasn't doing it for him. He'd inspected the room, or at least tried his best to, so he was reasonably confident it wasn't trapped. And unlike the corridors they had been stumbling through, he did not see any reason for this place to be trapped.

"A great gathering hall, statues of their Gods." He swept his gaze around, "Symmetrical lines of rubble here, here, and over there. Add to it the symbol that led us here, yes, if I wasn't sure before, I am now."

A centre of worship for these ancient… snake-people? Something like that. And at the core of their religion, or what had been the core, stood three Gods, immortalised twice over in stone. He couldn't read either script beneath them, but he remembered.

Vivendiass, Lord of Nothing.

"Lathtar, God of the Void."

Yserama, Lady of Life.

"Mayare, Goddess of the Light.

Dassmurath, the Destroyer.

"Fr-Frandwil, God of the Abyss."

He choked out the last words but refused to look at the statue. Not again. And nervous that it might elicit a similar response, he avoided the statue of Vivendiass as w ell. Which naturally meant that only one remained.

"Yserama."

It didn't exactly roll off his tongue. Hers was the most well-kept statue, though how they'd crafted it in her image was just as interesting as the name they'd given her. Her spear, Shimpuria, or the Lighthold, was the first thing you'd notice she held in her hand, though time had chipped away the tip until only the shaft remained, so you'd be forgiven if you mistook it for a walking stick.

She was distinctively humanoid, with long flowing hair and a thin, even sharp face. Even if he stood on the pedestal beside her, she would be double his height. Interestingly though…

He walked around the statue to get a look at the back. "No wings," he muttered. He wasn't sure why he assumed they'd be there in some shape or form, perhaps because, as Angelica, they were said to be made in her image. Lesser, naturally, but of the same cloth, of the Light itself.

He wished, wished so hard that his heart ached, that he could dissect each mistake these people had made, point out every error in her image and correct it. As it was, these long-dead serpents were closer to her than even he was. The thought threatened to break him to his core.

Taking deep breaths, he lowered himself until he was kneeling beneath the statue.

His mind was foggy; it had been for days. A lot of the time, it was something he could deal with in the same way one might deal with lingering fatigue or a lack of sleep. Both of which he was dealing with at the same time. But other times it became unbearable, suffocating. When he looked upon the statue of the Dark God. In the middle of the 'night' or whenever it was they were sleeping, he'd wake with a start and feel a… presence around him that screamed of wrongness, of Darkness.

Even now, it was there, watching, waiting, no matter what Alleria said. So he breathed. In and out. In and out.

The Light came to him, and his mana took form as tiny balls between his palms. The balls lit up, becoming spheres of Light that he willed to spin around, dancing between his hands, brighter than any stars and more… real than the light of the crystals above them.

As if reacting to his thoughts, the motes of Light shifted together until he was staring at a snake, slithering through the air. That snake twirled in the air before forming a set of short, curled horns. Finally, the Light became a claw, a twisted hand, then a twin set of eyes staring intently at him.

He sighed and released his mana, letting the Light drift away. Without it, though, the room felt empty; bright and visible, and yet somehow lightless. In a way, despite the two bodies within it, it felt lifeless.

Hm.

He looked up at the statue of Yserama, whom they named Lady of Life. Maybe it did fit, in a way. He'd never considered what another culture might see in Mayare, and whether even her domain of Light would be considered, or how highly it might be placed. From what he knew, the Florainians and the Church of the Light were the closest to her true form, or what she was at her core. Of course, what he knew was very little anyway.

He turned and looked at- no, not that statue, he wasn't sure he could bear it. He crossed over the landing until he was standing before the statue of Vivendiass, Lord of Nothing. His form was crumbling, barely left in one piece and by far the worst of the three. He was stooped over, hooded, and in his hands held his great tome, [NAME], from which, it was said, he learned and deciphered truths even the other Gods knew not.

Thankfully, he didn't feel the same wrongness when he looked upon the God of the Void. If the Light and the Abyss were the Absolute Powers placed in direct opposition to one another, then the Void was something else entirely. The Power that stood against both.

Absolute Nothing.

It made him feel uneasy, sure, but in the same way the thought of impending danger made you feel uneasy, rather than the 'unease' of a spear at your throat.

"How did they do it?" he asked himself, running his hands over the Athniuthian, written onto stone. "Three Gods, no, not even that, three Gods who are absolute antitheses of one another. Derumani, Clathitarie, Steminarie, it's like they didn't care. Light, Void, Abyss, they're all here."

It boggled him; it was completely inconceivable. Even two of them together made no sense, but to have all three?

"What did they see in them, all three of them?" He began turning in a circle, passing by each of the statues, though only daring to look at two. "Three Gods. Three Powers. Three Absolute forces of Andwelm, all in opposition to one another. That's all they have in common; otherwise, they are completely different, done to the last detail."

Absolute Light. Absolute Darkness. Absolute Nothing. Balancing the three of them…

Balance? Was that it? Their way of maintaining balance was to put all three of these opposing forces together and to worship them as such.

He was rambling to himself; no doubt Alleria, if she were awake, would think that he had finally lost it completely.

"Vivendiass, the Lord of Nothing. That's the most self-explanatory; it lines up pretty well with Lathtar and the Void. And at a glance, it is strange to primarily correlate Yserama with life instead of the Light, but if you took Dassmurath into account…"

The Destroyer. If one brought life, one took it. It was a dichotomy he assumed would have been rightfully allocated to the Gods of Death and Nature, but if you treated these three as a closed system, per se, then it made sense.

"And Vivendiass is what comes after. Nothing."

It worked when you looked at it like that, but there was something nagging at the back of his mind, telling him that he was missing something. He half-hoped Alleria would wake up and help him; she seemed much better informed and a more avid consumer of knowledge than him.

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Then again, this isn't common knowledge so much as it is theology. And she seems less inclined in that regard.

"But is it balanced? Not in a theological or philosophical sense, but in a literal one. Between the three, could you achieve balance?"

Twinkles of Light formed in his hand, coming so quickly and naturally to him that he barely noticed he'd done it. Mapping themselves to his mind, they formed a circle of Light in the air. He stared at it.

"Balance. If there were two, it would be simple, balancing them together like a set of scales, but with three… with three, we have a problem."

It was coming to him now. The circle in the air shimmered, then split itself into exactly three parts.

He breathed out. "Of course. It's like splitting a pie three ways; there will always be that tiny sliver that everyone wants, or else one side gets more than the others."

The Light dissipated until he was staring at that last sliver, the last piece of the metaphorical pie. And it left him with more questions than answers.

"How did they do it? If there was meant to be balance here, how did they achieve it with only these three?" He rubbed his chin. "What am I missing?"

He descended from the landing and went to the walls, the walls covered in the best-kept murals and engravings they'd found so far. Alleria had given a rather alarming look to a giant, nine-headed snake there, but he barely gave it a second glance. Instead, he looked at what came before it, and with all the training of an amnesiac, tried to decipher what they meant.

What stood out to him first, and what had also from the beginning, was the snake-like Humans. Humans with snake heads, Humans with snake tails, Humans with… scales of some kind? There were a lot of them, but after countless hours staring at them, being his only form of entertainment, he was able to distinguish some differences.

For example, if several variations of these people were ever put on the same section of wall, the snake-headed Humans would always be first, without exception. This, he concluded, meant that they must have been the first of this race, if he was trying to put a timeline to things. Be it from Creation himself at the beginning of Andwelm, or in some other manner, these were the Firstborn.

But at some point, something changed. There were a second group of snake-people, this time with a snakelike half beneath the torso and a Human upper body. Initially, he'd assumed they were the same breed, but biologically, it didn't make sense.

"If we're talking just in terms of reproductive systems… it would be like a snake being born from a beaver."

As if to confirm his point, there were several points on the walls where these Secondborn could be seen being born from eggs. And he'd never seen any of the sort when it came to the first group, thankfully.

"All the more reason to call it out, if they went out of their way to show that these Secondborn hatch from eggs, making them very different to the Firstborn."

This all made sense once he'd thought about it. His conclusions were sound, and there was enough evidence to support them, as Alleria would say.

Which was exactly why he gritted his teeth in irritation when he gazed upon the third group of snake-people, who possessed traits inherited from both the first and second groups, with art, more art than any of the others combined, showing distinct intermingling between them. Distinct, graphic intermingling that he wished beyond anything else wasn't so prolific and well-documented.

"And then there's this."

A small mural, near the back of the room and in a portion of the wall he certainly wouldn't have used. Hidden beneath the shadow of the landing where the statues were, so much so that he had to create a ball of Light to see it properly.

It was a simple diagram that confirmed his theories. The Firstborn, beside the Second and the Third, with one last figure etched on at the end. The smallest, and by far the most Human. In fact, they looked almost entirely Human, and he had to lean in so close his nose was almost touching it to see the thinnest etchings of scales.

Something had happened near the end of their civilisation, some devolution of their species that he might spend more time looking into.

"Interesting, of course, but not what I am looking for. I'm still missing something."

He passed one of the murals showing the Secondborn being hatched from eggs, running his hands gently over the wall. Then he felt something and paused, turning back. His hand had run above the eggs and felt an etching in the surface. He squinted at the spot and rubbed away some of the dirt. His eyes widened.

It was a magic circle, or at least a representation of one. And when he checked another mural on the other side of the room, he found it had a similar carving on it.

"It's not one off. Right, so there was some sort of magic involved in… what, their birth? Their creation?"

And so started his search for instances of magic written onto the walls, of which there were startling few. He thought there might be at least some, in the same way there were recordings of great battles they'd won, moments of heroism lost to the sands of time, but no, instances of actual magic happening were so hard to find, he had to actually take a break and have a drink of water before he continued.

When he did find one or two, they were so similar he had to double-check them multiple times to be sure.

Large snakes, and this time they were actual snakes, infusing magic or mana into giant stones.

They might be representations of mana stones? That's not how they work, though.

He was reminded once again of the strange magic this place held. Magic that lasted the test of time, fuelled by the crystals. These records seemed to show these snakes creating these spells.

The snakes themselves were quite common in the hall and even in the other corridors. He remembered an encounter with one carving beside a perfectly cylindrical hole leading into the darkness. Back then, he'd questioned if they'd even existed to begin with.

Not anymore. Too many things were lining up; the only moments were magic was recorded were when it was done by these snakes, and when they were carved onto the walls, it was always above the other snake-Humans. Frankly, they were almost like Gods in their depictions.

"They were some sort of noble class. Perhaps their overlords or kings."

The type of magic they were performing was what drew his eye, though. It was hard to tell, but the images of chains rising from the ground to bind their enemies, and the rather grotesque ways it interacted with the Human body, brought him to the same conclusion over and over again. What sort of magic did that? What sort of magic did he know from experience that they dabbled with?

He swallowed the bile rising in his throat.

"Blood magic. Evil Magic"

Evil Magic was used in some way or form to create the Secondborn. Blood magic in their traps, in their wars.

What did he know about blood magic? Enough to know it wasn't something you dabbled with, and was evil, no matter what Alleria argued. If it weren't for the healer in Fordain, he would still be sporting scars from his last encounter with it.

That they would meddle with it at all was beyond him. To worship Yserama and practice such a profane art was antithetical to his beliefs. It boggled him almost as much as their striving for what he only assumed to be balance within their religion. For a culture in which he saw such sorrow and glory in their destruction…

He blinked. Without realising it, his feet had been moving him with a mind of their own. He stepped back onto the landing and stood in the centre, under the gaze of the three statues as they held their vigil.

It also brought into question his theories. Or rather, led him along a line of inquiry with a conclusion that rattled him. That he wanted to reject despite the urgings of his mind. As well as a way to test it. If he had the confidence to do it. Or the stupidity.

He shouldn't have cared this much. Maybe the wear of weeks had finally got to him. Maybe it was the looks on the faces of the Carathiliar, worshippers of the God of Chaos, looking as Human as any other. He remembered drawing his blade to defend Flugh with only a split-second's hesitation.

"How do they do it?"

How did they worship these three in equal capacity? No, more than that. How did they live beneath the hand of the Dark God, the God of Nothing, the Chaotic God? How?

He pulled his hunting knife out and stared at the blade, which was getting blunter and blunter from cutting at roots and vines.

"If this doesn't work, Alleria's never going to let me forget it." He paused. "And if it works, she might very well kill me."

He drew in a deep breath. He pressed the knife against his palm and gritted his teeth against the sharp pain. Then he felt the cold trickle of blood and saw a few drops fall, hitting the stone ground beneath him.

He pulled the knife away and grimaced. He'd give it a few seconds, no more than ten, before he gave up. He certainly wasn't going to be cutting himself even more than he had-

His vision filled with colour. Mana filled the area, dancing around him like a thousand lights. He heard something creaking, echoing through the halls that had been quiet save for their heartbeats. He looked around for the mana crystal, the source where they'd stored or locked the spell done, then froze.

Slowly, painfully, he tilted his head up and looked at the giant amalgamation of crystals. The source of their light.

Of course.

The white light that had nearly blinded them shifted, then changed. It bled before his eyes, first from one point, then another. It turned yellow, then orange, then red. And finally, crimson. And all he thought was-

What the world could do with that many mana crystals.

The creaking grew louder, louder, and louder until it was deafening. He felt the ground shake beneath him, and he backed away, right before the centre of the landing split. All around him, he saw the signs of blood magic. Great chains heaved through the opening, crimson residue crept like smoke.

"Danadrian!"

He spun around, and Alleria was there, shaking his shoulders. "Wrath and Ruin, what did you do?"

Her sword was drawn and shining in her grip. By her own admission, she couldn't have seen the mana, but regardless, she seemed poised to stab it, if that was even possible. She began to edge forward, sword raised, before she faltered. Her eyes grew wide.

"What- What is that?"

Where the ground had split, the chains something out to replace it.

A fourth statue rose, this one entirely untouched by time and the marching of Ages. But the moment Danadrian saw the twisted face, the trident held high, the face and body split between man and snake, he felt sick to the stomach. Not because of his cut. Not because he'd been wrong.

But because he'd been right.

He looked into the eyes of the God of Evil, the last sliver of the pie that held balance to these long-dead snake-people and wished it weren't true. And he regretted that nagging curiosity that had led him here, even as he watched the mana burst across the red-lit room, passing down the countless corridors and ruined rooms like an oncoming wave.

Passing the group of Talradian Demon Hunters, led by their ruffled leader, who'd taken days to calm down from near-spitting anger to simple wrath and determination. They all flinched as the cloud of mana barrelled through them, even knocking some of them back. Keleiva gritted her teeth and ordered them to march on. They were close.

Passing the Demon, walking by himself in the darkness of the dungeon with only a torch for company, with one hand permanently held at his waist. And he didn't see the mana but felt a shift in the air and smelled blood on it. He grimaced and began to walk faster.

And finally ending with the Demon Hunter General, who saw the signs of blood magic, even there, as his company scrambled about, asking questions and sticking their heads down corridors. One of them cautioned against it, reminded them of the three they'd already lost to the damned traps in this place.

Brakenus resisted the urge to reach into his pocket.

"Foreign magic of the fallen serpentine."

He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in.

"Pick up the pace."

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