Verdan's eyes flew open as he inhaled sharply, and he instinctively cringed from the expected pain. The same pain that had haunted his every waking moment for what seemed like untold ages. After a few heartbeats of numbness, he realised it wasn't coming.

Every time he woke from stasis, he cast his stasis spell once more, sending him back into the magical stasis he'd devised. He couldn't even remember how many times he'd cast the spell, how many years he'd slept away here in his hideaway. Still, there was no pain, and that made it all worth it.

A smile crept across his face as he dared breathe once more, the stale air making him cough and splutter.

'Aer,' he intoned as he made a soft throwing motion with his right hand and focused on the concept of a fresh breeze.

Immediately, he felt a slight drain on his energy reserves as a soft breeze filled the chamber he was in, ruffling his hair and freshening the air. It was a minor spell, one that used only a single word of power and a straightforward concept, but it was still the first spell he'd been able to cast without being in agonising pain for a long, long time.

Verdan sat up and simply breathed in the air for a few minutes, enjoying his freedom from the curse that had driven him to this extreme solution. In truth, he hadn't known this would work. The stasis spell he used was one he created himself, but even so, it was inaccurate enough that he didn't know how long each casting lasted.

For an average person, such an open-ended spell would be worthless. For a man suffering under a death curse of a powerful hex witch, a curse that was designed to torture, open-ended oblivion had been quite appealing, really. In some ways, it was only due to the sadistic nature of the curse that he'd survived. If it had started at full strength, he would have never been able to finish creating the spell. Instead, it had started weak, gaining in power each day and causing more and more pain until he couldn't take it any more.

The war had been in full swing when Verdan had been cursed, and he couldn't help but wonder how long he'd slept and what he would find when he emerged once more.

It didn't really matter to him which side won. It wasn't like there was much difference between the two sides. One was led by a Wizard-King and one by a Wizard-Emperor. One was new and different, the other as old as records began. It was more a matter of siding with friends and family than the political aspect for someone at his power level.

Verdan was a simple mage. He wanted to do his own thing and not be beholden to any larger powers. Hopefully, the war was over, and he could finally get a chance to claim some land somewhere and kick back for a few years. The thought of relaxing and retiring from everything for a few years was an enticing one, but first, he needed to get up off the floor.

'Okay, enough woolgathering, up we go. Disir,' Verdan muttered to himself, pulling on the nearby wall to help him to his feet as he conjured a pale orb of light in the palm of his hand. The soft illumination revealed the room enough that he could look over the area that he'd slept so many years away in. Fifteen foot square, with a hidden entrance and some basic supplies, it was an emergency bolt-hole he'd made a few years earlier. Well, a few years before his first stasis spell anyway.

Shaking his head, Verdan rummaged through the storage box that held his supplies, retrieving a set of clothing to change into and his staff. Picking up the six-foot length of ebon wood, he put the soft orb of light atop its end, fixing it in place with an exertion of his will.

With the room lit up nicely, he started to get changed, shedding the loose robe he'd slept in. The new clothing wasn't anything special, just a tunic, loose trousers and a dark green cloak with a series of pockets on the interior. His favourite cloak had been ruined by a nasty acid attack just a few days before he'd been cursed, hardly enough time to replace it before he'd had to seal himself away.

While it wasn't a huge inconvenience for him, this new cloak didn't have any sigils on the interior, leaving him without one of his primary defences. It would also be a hard one to replace. He'd have to find the same enchanter if he wanted the same effects, and even then, it wasn't guaranteed.

Still, the war should have ended by now, and he doubted anyone would remember him. Verdan was a capable researcher and a decent fighter, but he was hardly an archmage or a prodigy.

Unfortunately, it was a similar situation with the staff. Verdan had broken the original one he'd had by killing the husband of the witch who'd cursed him. The man had been a powerful wizard himself, and though Verdan had won, it had been a closer call than he would have liked.

He'd then been cursed not long after that before he could get a replacement, which meant that he had only been able to store away his backup staff. An annoying issue, but not a huge problem. This equipment was only to get him to a town or a city. Once he was back in civilisation, he could buy proper replacements.

He had a small pouch of coins and gems in his cloak, enough to cover such an expense. It was all that was left of his life's savings. Verdan had done a lot of theoretical research on stasis spells, but getting the time and assistance needed to create a new ritual from scratch had been expensive.

A good mage was never out of work for long, though, so he had no concerns about getting more.

'Agora,' Verdan gestured to the door with his staff, visualising a door opening as he cast the spell.

A part of the wall that looked identical to the rest swung out and away from him, letting in both blinding sunlight and a very welcome breeze of crisp air. The light made Verdan blink blearily, and he stopped supplying the small grey orb at the top of his staff with magic, the magelight disappearing a moment later.

Walking forward with a touch of anticipation, Verdan emerged from his chamber and found himself standing on a stone ledge halfway up the side of a cliff that overlooked the endless blue of the ocean.

Squawking birds and the crash of waves against rock gave the whole sight a rather relaxing ambience, one only highlighted by the salty tang of the sea air.

It was almost a picturesque location, beautiful and pristine. The problem was that it wasn't the landscape he'd left behind.

He'd picked a nice cliff near the seaside fishing village that he'd been born in, but it hadn't been at the edge of the water. There should be somewhere around half a mile of landscape between this cliff and the water. Just how much had changed while he was asleep?

'Hefan raf,' Verdan intoned, using one of his favourite spells as he stepped off the edge of the cliff. Small bands of compressed air wrapped around his body as he slowly descended through the air, holding him aloft as he directed himself down to the narrow strip of land at the base of the cliff. The water lapped gently at the shore as his feet touched the ground, and despite the general anxiety he was feeling at the change, he couldn't help but smile at the pleasant scene before him.

The steady thump of the end of his staff hitting the rocky ground measured out his pace as he walked along the narrow shoreline and took the nearest path inland. He didn't recognise anything around here, nothing looked the same at all, but the path he'd found seemed well-trodden. Hopefully, it would lead somewhere. The best result would be civilisation of some description, but only time would tell.

Setting off down the path, Verdan eyed his surroundings, taking in as much as he could as he looked for any sort of landmark or similarity to what he remembered of the area. Nothing seemed quite right, though.

Verdan was starting to wonder just how long had he slept for. Every time he'd awoken, he'd cast the stasis spell again with every iota of magic he could command, but Verdan wasn't even certain how many times he'd done that. The whole experience was a blur.

A pulse of dark energy from somewhere to the north pulled him out of his musings on how long his spell may have lasted. Dropping into a fighting stance and raising his staff defensively on instinct, Verdan extended his awareness out into his surroundings, catching a second pulse as it rippled past him. North-east.

'Damn it all,' Verdan cursed as he set off a jog toward the source of energy. Despite the time that may have passed, he was still a representative of the Grym Imperium. His oaths as an Imperial Wizard bound him to investigate immediately. Dark magic was a temptress that seduced even petty dabblers further into depravity than they could possibly imagine. There weren't many duties that a wizard had to the empire, but dealing with dark magic was in the top few.

'Hast,' Verdan barked out as he started to pick up the pace, air whipping past him as his spell gave him more speed. Thankfully he'd not cast much since awakening. He could afford a small enhancement spell like this and still be able to throw some battle magic around if need be. There were benefits to being a generalist like Verdan, the main one, in this case, being that he had a wide range of spells and effects to draw on without forcing something to work.

Two more pulses of energy washed over him as he homed in on their source, each one making his hair stand on end and unsettling him a little bit more. There was no reason to be projecting energy like this, any wizard worth his salt would do exactly as Verdan was now. It only invited destruction. The implication that they could do something like this with impunity scared Verdan. Perhaps the Imperium had long since moved away from the area, though, that would explain it. Regardless, it didn't change his duty right now.

Rocky cliffs and bracken gave way to a light woodland as he closed in on the source of the magic, slowing his pace to a light jog while keeping his enhancement spell active. The main focus of the spell was his speed and endurance, but there was some carry over to reaction time as well, a useful bonus when going into a potentially hostile situation alone.

The dark magic was like a lodestone, drawing him in as the woods thickened, and he began to hear guttural chanting. The words were unknown, but the language was one he recognised as a variant on the infernal tongue. Abyssal speech mixed with dark magic usually meant ritual summoning, or sacrifice, for power or favour, sometimes both.

Slowing down to move as stealthily as he could through the undergrowth, Verdan soon found himself at the edge of a clearing filled with a vision straight out of one of his nightmares.

Several buildings were haphazardly constructed in the clearing, their odd angles and strange geometry marking them as something no human would build. Among the buildings were several dozen humanoid figures dancing around a central altar dominated by a blood-stained stone slab.

Verdan didn't need to see the fine details to know what he would see. This was a ritual sacrifice set up, one that he remembered well from the last time he encountered the Cyth. He'd only been an apprentice then, only able to fetch help to exterminate the creatures and rescue their captives. Not now, though, now he had the power to save anyone caught by these disgusting things.

The Cyth were creatures twisted and corrupted by the foul magics they practised, the unholy creatures they worshipped granting their blessings while leaving their mark on both their soul and flesh. There were countless types of Cyth, with new variants constantly developing.

What a Cyth worshipped and what they practised would shape the creature's current form, granting them more power over time as their form was suffused with abyssal energy.

Thankfully, it looked like all the creatures were Cyth Lai, with only one Cyth Bayne leading the ritual. A Bayne was a higher order of monstrosity that was capable of wielding the dark energies that filled it.

Usually, any Bayne would hide its presence for fear of being located by anyone searching for dark magic, let alone conduct a ritual like this without at least a dozen more like it backing it up. A Cyth Bayne had the same magical prowess as a wizard who was finishing their apprenticeship at the imperial academy. While that was nothing to sneeze at, it was also easy prey for a squad of guardsmen with proper backup.

Focusing on the current problem, Verdan took a moment to survey the clearing in more detail, noting the apparent age of the buildings and that only one of them had guards outside it. The guards were stationed off to one side, next to a dark patch of ground that could easily be an underground cell to keep prisoners. It would be in keeping with Cyth behaviour to throw their captives below ground and bring them up one by one to be sacrificed.

Given the fresh blood on the floor around the altar and the eagerness of the surrounding Cyth Lai, Verdan knew he couldn't wait any longer. It was time to act.