You have entered the abyssal sanctum

Chase could barely contain his excitement at the message that appeared in his mind. He forced himself not to beam as he entered the dungeon trying and quite possibly failing at holding himself in a casual manner.

Chase and the rest of the party continued onward until Lilly, in a panic, told the party to stop. The rest of the party gave her an odd look until she walked to the front of the party and inspected the ground. After a few seconds of inspection, Lilly knelt down and struck the ground in front of her with the butt of a dagger, shattering the thin layer of rock hiding a pitfall with jagged spikes at the bottom. They spent another fifteen minutes breaking more of the stone and judging the distance before carefully jumping over. After that encounter the party moved a little slower, the thought of falling onto those gut wrenching spikes still fresh in their mind.

After two more pitfalls and an hour and a half of walking they made it to a large cavernous room. The party continued onwards slowly until a rabid looking raccoon came charging out of the bushes. Tessa flew into action charging the creature and lunging out with her sword. The raccoon hopped to the left of the sword and charged Lilly. Jace conjured a small ball of lightning and threw it at the raccoon. The lightning ball sailed over the raccoon, whose charge was finally stopped by one of Lilly’s knives in its face. She gave Tessa and Jace disapproving looks before gesturing that they continue. They didn’t make it five meters before a rat was charging toward them. Tessa managed to impale the bloated thing which after a bit of shrill screeching squelched off her sword dead.

Sanctus was overjoyed at the fact that there were so many humans entering its dungeon. Ever since the bright humans left its dungeon, there had almost always been at least one team of adventurers running around. The constant trickle of souls from unlucky adventurers allowed Sanctus to expand faster. It was at the point that Sanctus had nearly the entirety of the third floor hollowed out.

When Sanctus looked at the creatures that entered into its dungeon it originally just categorized them by how bright they were, but recently Sanctus thought about it further and decided that the colors of the souls might mean something. As Sanctus watched, it discovered that the color of souls represented their affinities and the sharper the lines and patterns of the soul the stronger the affinity. This left Sanctus with a realization and a question. Most creatures were a rainbow of colors with most of the affinities being too weak to actually be usable. The exception to this rule were the colors black and white which were only within specific individuals. These colors were easy to identify as holy and profane, thanks to Markus and Cetrial. What had Sanctus confused was the fact it didn’t Sanctus see either of these when it looked at itself?

Sanctus once again turned its attention inward, looking at its own soul. Sanctus’s soul was a bit different than most. The first difference was the mass of souls that orbited around it. Sanctus chalked this up to the fact that it was a dungeon core. The second difference was that Sanctus’s soul perfectly fit its body. The final difference however was the most shocking to Sanctus. It’s soul didn’t have the same kind of consistency as all of the other souls it had seen. Where most souls looked like colorful lights, sanctuses looked nearly indistinguishable from gold, not golden light mind you, but cold metal. There was no glow coming from the metal and if Sanctus could not sense the fact it was a soul Sanctus would have assumed it to be ordinary metal. Sanctus scand everything in its dungeon desperately looking for something similar before finally stopping on Ceto. The octopus’s soul had noticeable red and yellow as well as a flicker of black, but this is not what Sanctus focused on. There was a tiny coiling strand of silver similar to sanctus’s own gold in the octopuses soul. It was as if there was a tiny silver string drifting in its soul. Sanctus studied it for a while, but in the end it just got frustrated, turned its attention to the newly hollowed out third floor that it needed to fill.

Sanctus grumbled in frustration, it wasn’t sure what it wanted to do with this floor and after mulling over it decided that it would figure it out after summoning a general for the floor. So With that for the third time in its life Sanctus threw a strand outward allowing for the celestial beings to see its call. It didn’t take long for a being cloaked in pure shadow to appear before Sanctus.

The being spoke in a dark soothing whisper, “Hello my name is Erebus and I wish to answer your call. I am a greater demon with a pure umbral affinity and I believe that I would be an excellent fit for your third floor.”

“How do you know that you would be on my third floor?” Sanctus asked nervously.

“Saw you from beyond. I have been waiting for your call.”

Sanctus was nervous for a moment, but when it listened to its instincts it knew that this demon did not wish to harm it and that it would be a powerful general for its floor. With that confirmation Sanctus let the pact take form.

You have formed a pact with the Erebus

The moment those words faded Erebus walked over to the small box Sanctus had been given by the bright adventurers.

Erebus picked up the box, turned it over and then whispered, “Open please.” Sanctus heard the sound of a soft click and the box popped open Erebus scooped out a cracked orb. The moment this happened Sanctus felt the dungeon lurch, tremble, and a blinding soul appeared in front of Erebus.

It was so bright that Sanctus could barely look at it.

“Hello Cet,” Erebus said in his soft whisper.

“Careful worm, lest I eat you.” the soul replied angrily.

Erebus laughed, “You don’t exactly have time for that do you.” Erebus asked, holding out the sphere, “Go on, be a good boy and complete your purpose in life.”

The soul of Cet growled, but walked over and touched the orb. With a flash of light Cet’s soul disappeared and Sanctus felt sick as dozens of the souls that orbited it were pulled into the sphere. With a loud crack a shard of the orb cracked off and rancid yellow liquid seeped onto the floor. Erebus pulled other shards off and unceremoniously poured the rest of the liquid on the ground. Inside of the egg was a sickly looking lizard.

Erebus shook his head, “What a waste. They kept it in that box for far too long. If you want to save what’s left of it I will help.” Sanctus’s mind reeled, but desperately grasped at the words the demon spoke. Quickly Sanctus pulled mana from the demon standing in front of it. Mentally prodding and searching for a way to save it. Finally becoming desperate when the soul of the creature left its body Sanctus wove a web around it. Sanctus pushed the soul back into the creature quickly before the web could fade. Then Sanctus used a human blueprint to fix certain damaged mana paths. Sanctus briefly wondered why the humans had correlating mana paths before refocusing on the task at hand. The creature’s body grew in front of them churning and oozing until only bones remained. Sanctus had a moment of panic before a message appeared in its mind.

You have acquired the title phylactery

Chase desperately gripped a stalactite as the dungeon shook. The earthquake lasted barely a minute before stopping. When it ended Tessa asked them all if they were okay, to which they responded in the affirmative. Chase was just marveling at how lucky they were not to have had a stalagmite fall on them when a wave of mana knocked the party off their feet.

Tessa woke from unconsciousness an unknown amount of time later. She crawled toward the nearest member of her party, her ears ringing and her vision blurry. She shook Chase desperately hoping the slippery feeling on her fingertips wasn’t blood. Tessa felt movement and sighed in relief as Chase slowly woke up. As Tessa’s vision cleared she saw Jace and Lilly already getting to their feet. The party pulled themselves up and stumbled back through the dungeon. As they made their way out of the dungeon they passed the corpses of two groups of adventurers. When they finally made it to the surface night had already fallen. They slowly made their way down the mountain and into the town in a daze. Or maybe they were carried down the mountain? Tessa didn’t know. Her eyes closed and when she opened them again she could feel a cold cloth pressed over her eyes. She heard words being spoken above her but the ringing in her ears didn’t let her hear most of what was being said.

Then she heard a new voice, “Those… kids…. Mana poisoning… bad… might… survival is unlikely.”

A sharp pain raked her body. It felt like something chopping her apart and putting her back together. Iron flooded her mouth and began seeping out of it. With one final agonizing spike of pain the ringing in her ears stopped. She could hear the voice again, but clearer this time.

“That girl sure is something isn’t she? Do you think she knows what she did? Oh I think she’s awake. Sorry young one, you need to sleep.”

Tessa felt a soft hand press against her forehand and she felt herself slip into unconsciousness once again.

Julien looked at the girl sleeping in front of him before turning back to Sidney, “Poor girl.”

“She saved their lives,” Sidney replied, “But she also nearly sentenced them to a fate worse than death. We should just kill the girl and get this over with. She used forbidden magic.”

Julien nodded slowly, “That’s what we should do, but she probably doesn’t even know about the affinity ,no pun intended but psychomancy mana generally has a mind of its own.”

Sidney sighed, “Place a mana seal on her, and we can pretend we don’t know anything about this. If they ask about the seal we say it was to prevent further mana poisoning.”

Julien nodded and then set to work.

Erebus smiled under his cloak of shadow, everything was going splendidly and he didn’t even have to kill that many demons to answer the call. There had been two others that the system had seen as more compatible candidates for Sanctus call, but it hadn’t been hard for him to fix that. This was the most interesting dungeon to pop up in a few millennia and it was a place safe from those that would like to see him dead. Sanctus was the perfect pantheon. The demons and angels in this dungeon would eventually stand above all the rest and Erebus wasn’t about to let the chance to be one of them pass him by. The foolish gods that thought Erebus was finished would soon realize their mistake. But it was already too late he had made the pact. The foolish gods may not remember the sword that now pretended to be a dungeon, but Erebus did. He was not so easily distracted by the dual affinities. He touched his cheek, his fingers brushing against a scar, how could he ever forget the sword that gave it to him? He looked at the blade with fondness, that ancient sword had won wars and slayed kings, “To think, the very blade that spelled my downfall would be the cause of my rise.”