The fog was rather unexpected. Kal did not remember there ever being a fog in the pit. The last time he visited, this place smelled like a cesspool of piss, shit and Suffering. Of course the vampires and dark elves were a lot more hygienic than that, but the state of the suffering was something that was quite prevalent in the sight of any one who looked at them.

But a fog, that was something new, this was something unknown and quite frankly this was something dangerous. Kal has never been in the business of underestimating his opponents, especially when he was dealing with creatures like vampires and dark elves who were once priced for the superior strategies on the battlefield. They were not invisible per say, but they quite had the colorful imagination according to history and could come up with ingenious ways just to survive.

As soon as the tunnel was fully excavated the fog seeped into it, the thing about this fog however is that there was no humidity felt, no change in weather, no moisture In the atmosphere and most definitely no cold. It just kept getting weirder and weirder.

Kal turned to Adein with a questioning look on his scaled face. After their last and quite unfortunate meeting, Adein has been actively trying to avoid Kal. Of course Kal couldn’t blame him, its hard to stand in the presence of creature you have been cursed to fear with all of your being. It took a while for the spell of true fear to wear off, but Adein got the message loud and clear, Kal Moro was not someone you could mess with. No matter how soft spoken and gentle he seemed.

“Do you have an explanation for this Adein. I don’t ever remember a time when there was fog in the pit, much less one so thick.”

Adein cleared his throat to answer and avoided Kal’s gaze as much as he could. He looked nothing like the fearsome torture machine a lot of people have come to know him as.

“I don’t remember a fog either. This is something new, and I think those bloody roaches have something to do with this. Best be careful.”

Kal shook his head in exasperation, he learnt nothing new, but that Adein was quite negligent as a warden. If his prisoners could conceal materials for creating a fog like this, then what else have they hidden from him.

Kal turned to his soldiers and rattled out a few words in their language. To an outsider the only thing they would be hearing was trembling hisses of different pitch. It had always been one of the main points that freaked people out about the Naga as a race. Though it was not only them as the gorgons and lamias also share the same language.

A scrappy looking Naga who was quite smaller than his almost seven foot tall, heavily muscled and tail length of about three and a half meters long, comrades. Walked out from among the group of Nagas with slow and steady gaits. This Naga here looked like a child, well a Naga child that is.

The Naga took a few steps to the mouth of the tunnel and then settled himself down wrapping his body in a coil as he closed his eyes to the coming fog. The Nagas were a race with a very strong and rather rigid inherent talent with magic. As such they are quite in tune to magical signatures, waves and essences.

But even among them, there are a select few that are so in tuned with magic they could sense it on a whole other deeper level than could be normally felt. The Nagas were not the only ones with such talented individuals. Every other race, even to the monsters and animals that roam Shearath has that 0.2 % of their population that could sense magic on a whole other different level.

They had different names in different languages, but the most accepted was censor. It was a layman term that was widely used, the council of light gave them a more official sounding name but no one ever used it. Even Kal had no idea what it was.

The young Naga began to breath deeply and it almost seemed as if he had fallen into a trance. His coils expanded and decreased according to the tempo of his breathing. His scales ruffled and pulled opened almost as if they were nasal cavities of their own and were helping him with his breathing.

Little specks of light began to appear on his body and they gathered to form intricate swirling tattoos that appeared all over his body. This was a sign of his class, the tattoos gave off a dark purple glow to show that that this Naga was a warlock, much like 80% of the Naga population.

Being a Censor was an inherent ability, they are classes that have skills which replicate the powers of a censor, but it can never be powerful enough to stand against the might of a natural born censor. Inherent abilities are very much different from class ability in the sense that usage of them have no time limit and could be used anytime.

Class abilities on the other hand, are derived from the system, from the very way itself. Due to how powerful they mostly tend to be, there are restrictions placed on them. Restraints on the amount of time such an ability can be used, a certain period of time when it can not be used, and a cost from your energy sources to use those abilities. This was a rather rigid rule that even weavers themselves were subjected to. Kal liked this rule though, it sort of evened the playing field.

The young naga opened his eyes and moved his frail looking body from where he was sitting in front of the tunnel mouth.

“Your Highness, I can not sense any magic signatures from the fog itself. But about twenty meters from here I was able to feel fluctuations in the fabrics of nature, what or whoever is causing the fog is standing right there. But that’s not all, there’s more than one person and they all seemed lined up side by side for a considerable distance going from the east to the west. I couldn’t sense past two hundred meters so I’m unable to give an accurate number on how many they are. Not to mention the signature is quite distinct, there’s enough life for me to think it’s a person but it felt rather stale. And with the fog obscuring our view we can’t really tell anything from here.”

Kal was a little bit irritated, magic was a completely unpredictable thing, and the fact that the vampires and dark elves have somehow gained access to it, has left a stone nestled in the pit of his stomach. Kal was about seventy to eighty percent sure of the censors readings, but still a certain degree of carefulness was required.

Kal motioned to three of his scouts, this guys have always been his vanguard and have scouted the battlefield for him countless of times over the past hundred years. Kal trusted them, and he knew they were one of the best in their respective fields. They were fearsome fighters, and even more fearsome warlocks.

Words were never actually needed to communicate amongst themselves, they had built a bond over countless battlefields and at the cost of the life and future of a lot people. They were brothers forged by war, and carnage.

The three Nagas slid into the fog as silently as possible, the low visibility made the sounds their body made on the floor extremely eerie. The low grinding sound from the contact with loose gravel gave a sense of impending doom. Kal was worried, his mind told him to trust in his men, but his instincts were tingling something fierce which prompted him to be really uneasy with the wait.

Seconds turned into minutes as Kal waited. He knew his scouts would be moving extremely slowly so as to properly access the terrain, but the time he had to wait was still very much grating on his nerves. He began to pace, his armored trunk made a screeching noise as it brushed the occasional rock, sometimes it even let off sparks. His men knew better and kept their distance, any thing could set him off at the moment and they were all not to keen on being on the receiving end of such a scenario.

The werewolves and human soldiers however could not keep quiet. They were not exactly making any noise per say, but their incessant whisperings and soft sounds was adding onto the irritation Kal was currently feeling. Not to mention those two human piece of crap weavers were hanging around. Kal repressed a shudder.

But it didn’t take long before the silence was broken. As Kal was about to snap at some unfortunate soul for making noise the sound of a huge explosion blew them off their feet. Well Nagas don’t have feet so it should be blew them of their trunks.

Kal’s ears were ringing, the point of explosion had to have been extremely close as the aftershock was strong enough to throw them off their feet. The tunnel let loose a few bits of rocks from its ceiling as its unstable nature was actually revealed.

Kal recovered rather quickly and gave orders to his men to gather around and take inventory amongst themselves, apart from a light headache they were all fine, short of a little dust on their equipment there was no physical harm done.

It took all of Kal’s willpower to not go rushing into the fog. He was a general so being impulsive was not a part of the character he had to portray to his men. But he couldn’t help but let out a soft curse, this damn fog was really a huge Inhibition to him and his men, advancing carelessly could get them hurt, not to mention he had no idea about the status of his scouts, any reckless movements could get them killed if they are not already dead.

He turned to the weavers and snarled at them.

“You better start pulling your weight around here gentlemen!, get rid of this fog and I can consider leaving you in one piece when this is all over.”

M looked like he wanted to argue or at least say something about Kal’s lack of respect. But his partner S pulled him back, averting what would have most probably been a diplomatic crisis.

Both weavers pulled out a staff from somewhere, and huddled together for a few minutes to whisper amongst themselves. No one really knew what they were saying, but after the were done the staffs they held in their hands began to glow a blood red color, at the crown of the staff was a crystal and if someone looked closely enough, they could see Runes moving around in the crystal like fishes in a sea.

The weavers handed their staffs to Kal briefly whispering that they needed it back and explaining the function of the weave they had just made. Then they scurried all the way to the back of the line hoping to put some distance between them and Kal.

Kal led the way with one of the staffs held in his hands while the other was held by a comrade of his. The staffs dispersed the fog in a radius of four meters. It was not much but it was enough for Kal to at least see where he was going. As he made his way down the cliff that opened up into the pit, he could not help the little palpitations and jumps his heart made.

Kal was a little surprised, was this fear or was this excitement. For a naga it was hard to tell, this was not his first time in the pit, but his arrival this time came with an extreme sense of foreboding. There was to many unknown variables and the fact that magic was now in play from a hand that was supposed to be incapable of wielding it in the first place was a cause for alarm.

But Kal welcomed a challenge, the vampires and dark elves are the supreme rulers of the night. While they were superior fighters with their agility, speed and strength. Not to mention vampires were so hard to kill. All these made them quite formidable even with the seal blocking access to the system and severely limiting their abilities.

But the Nagas were not to be underestimated either, they stood at the pinnacle of magical manipulation and understanding. If not for the fact that they were a race that craved destruction and war, the Nagas could have had a chance to be one if not the most intellectual of the races of Shearath when it came to the advancement and study of magic.

So yes he was walking into the unknown, but he was very sure of himself, not to mention he had a whole army behind him. While werewolves can not compare to vampires in strength, they were evenly matched in speed, not to mention if they shift their abilities are doubled at the cost of their mental clarity. They become savage beasts, on the battlefield and they were cards he would not hesitate to deploy.

And then he had humans behind him, a lot of them in fact. While they had no set or definite strength, this group of roaches are extremely resilient and adaptive not to mention they can Confidently claim to be the most Intelligent race in all of Shearath.

Kal made his way through the fog with the footfalls of the humanoids falling softly behind him. They were grouped in a tight formation of at least a dozen men, and they were spread with a distance of a few meters between each group. They moved this way to not give a definite target to their enemies and to leave enough leeway for escape should this whole thing go south.

After a while Kal got closer and deeper Into the fog. Its thickness had increased to such an extent that Kal would have swore he could touch it. The uncertainty it presented was even more encompassing the deeper they went prompting all of them to be on high alert.

After a few minutes of careful movements Kal was able to notice a shape ahead of him. Holding the staff with his left hand he silently cast a spell as a spear made of pure darkness materialized on his right hand. If anyone were to pay attention the would see that the darkness that made up the spear was moving and roiling, almost as if it was a river of snakes in constant motion.

When Kal got closer to the shape ahead of him his breath hitched in his throat. It was one of his scouts, but his body was frozen solid with the entire left part of his body blown to pieces. Kal had seen a lot of death in his almost one millennium of life, but he had never seen any thing like this. It was not brutal or stomach churning per say. But who would freeze a person solid then blow him up again. It was a really strange way to die, but all Kal could do was hope that his scout had not suffered before he passed on.

The other Nagas gathered around as they said their final goodbyes, as they turned to continue deeper Into the fog, the tell tale sound of two of the Nagas slipping was heard. Kal felt more than saw the explosion that followed next as he was blown of his feet and flung almost twenty meters away from what he could now clearly see was the edge of a ravine.

His body smashed down onto the ground with such force that he felt a few Ribs crack if not outright break. He was bleeding from the top of his head and his vision was impaired. His ears ringing and head pounding, he was able to see clearly for a while before the fog covered everything again.

A few of his soldiers were dead, the casualties only included his men since they were closer to the edge of the ravine due to them all wanting to pay their final respects to their fallen comrade. Their formation was in disarray and almost thirty percent of his soldiers were either Injured or dead. Some of them were now crystallized ice sculptures, some were actually even poisoned, while the others were in bits and pieces or missing a part of themselves.

Kal felt like a fool. A rookie mistake and he of all people just made it. He never made mistakes, never. But he had let his emotions get the best of him and had let his guard down, right in enemy territory. His stupidity had cost some of his men their lives and others their limbs. He had severely underestimated his opponents, it was quite obvious that someone among them was no longer sealed and was a very powerful magic user, or perhaps they had received help from someone. Just like with the collapse of the tunnels it seems like there truly was a third party involved in this conflict. But regardless if that was true or not, the enemy has already made the first move. It was time to make his.