The market

[Maero]

Sarah and Tiff rejoined the others with no more questions, and were silent as they waited for Alex to return, frightened of what they had just seen, Sarah especially.

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The Anvils fell straight through the dead zones without a hitch, but despite their size and weight, the golems were hardly shaken. Mages as a whole tended to be clever, and teleportation was not an uncommon spell. If D or Alex were going to do something, it would have to be something that only a few mages could do or think up, since few made it past Arkuru's Golems.

When he left to find Arkurus, he would find no trace at all of the swordsman...unless he attempt to search the ambient magics around him. In them he would fine a trail of red, strange magic, magic that D, if he was old enough to know it, he would not have known for several hundreds of years, and even then it would be strange to see it once more, because it was a power that belonged to no mage or swordsman.

But it was thin and weak, probably residue from Arkurus's traveling, and identifying it would not be an easy task, and one that D would not have time for. Following the trail he would be led into the dungeons, where all the slaves were currently locked up, and yet he would be drawn deeper and deeper and deeper still, until finally he entered a long hallway, and at the end of it, a circular room made of smooth white marble and featureless walls. Once inside, the roof of the long hallway, the entire roof, would collapse down like a gate, sealing him behind a ridiculous amount of stone. And on the opposite side of the room he would find Arkurus, waiting, watching, holding his sword down at an angle, just beneath Zane's neck.

Zane himself looked barely conscious and still bleeding, he would not last the night without medical attention, and even with it he would need magical assistance to live through it. His bloody eye was closed while his other was half open and glazed over. He wore the tatters of his armor still, and each breath he took was hard and labored.

"I see you have arrived, oh master of magic, oh great Lucifer Iblis." He spread his free arm out as he gave and exaggerated bow. "I must admit, I never thought things would run so smoothly, so perfectly." He licked his unhuman lips and looked up once more, staring at the master of magic with a hunger that was not there before, that had been hidden. "You have no clue how long I have waited for this, great demon of the arts, master of magic, lord of the arcane, king of feasts."