Why? What could be so grand a thing to seal away? Surely it was just the office of the previous sect leader, sealed away so that nobody but the next leader could enter it.

Surely the sect couldn’t have lost access to the vast bulk of its secret knowledge in the wake of some internal power struggle, surely. Why Zel’s mind strayed in that particular direction, she knew not, and did not have the spare focus to mull over.

Her very being threatened to pull apart at the seams, the flame she had stoked was overwhelming.

Indeed it was overwhelming, so much so that Zefaris knew not what to do.

In the span of a mere few minutes, she had witnessed Zel go from calmly sitting there to hyperventilating, her body entirely cloaked in Fog. It had begun as the lines upon her skin becoming defined with the usual milky-white glow, slowly spreading out and becoming more detailed to display even hair-thin aether-veins that had never been visible.

Then, Fog began bleeding out of them, starting as thin threads lazily whipping about which thickened into veritable serpents that lashed Zel’s surroundings and whipped the air into a frenzy. With every passing moment the beast-slayer’s presence grew twice over, until eventually, she was enveloped in a violent cloak of volatile Fog that unsettlingly resembled a massive furred cape with dozens of serpents grafted to it.

A great antler protruded from her right brow, but it was wrong, both in shape and side. That wasn’t where the kinetic battery antler grew, and it was never this gnarled and branch-like.

Then the gestures began. Entranced and unnaturally smooth, driven by miniscule sparks of lightning. Zel’s fingers, hands, and arms all twisted and flowed in impossible ways, snapping into angles with seemingly no purpose, no rhyme or reason, until…

None of the gestures truly meant anything.

Their sole purpose was to help focus her mind, to help empty it of stray thoughts, and every stray thought she disposed of by translating it to a gesture, ritualistically redirecting it outward.

A four-line incantation, accompanied by four equally-intense impulses of aether through her vocal chords, each fuelled by one-quarter of the Essentia Gut’s contents. All the rest would be discharged into the composite seal through touch.

Having voided her mind of all errant thoughts, Zelsys finally slammed her palms against the door and invoked:

“I COMMAND THIS SEAL UNDONE,”

“NOT BY THE AUTHORITY OF MY POST,”

“BUT BY THE AUTHORITY OF STRENGTH!”

“NONE OF THIS SECT’S SECRETS MAY BE DENIED TO ME!”

One moment, an all-consuming deluge of power flowing outward, almost feeling like she was regurgitating her very soul through her hands.

The next, the blinding brightness of hundreds of seals shining brightly, turning to dust beneath her very fingers, leaving the memory of her act eternally burned into Zelsys. A name it demanded, and a name she gave.

Formless Butchery: Brute Unsealing

There was also the absence of something. Like whatever tiny piece had screamed out was… Not lost, but melted. There was no hole where it had been, but no distinct separate piece either.

Catching her breath, she looked away from the door, which was now covered in the burned outlines of myriad seals.

“I think… I think I just subsumed a stray soul fragment from someone who had once been part of the Black Horses,” she blurted out, trying to catch her breath after having fallen onto all fours.

She felt a third presence, and out of caution, she whipped around to see them, knowing full well she must’ve looked borderline rabid. It was a tall, young man in relatively modern, practical clothes, wearing a white apron over black dress pants and a dark green shirt, with black leather shoes. The way he held himself, his long straight hair, his grey eyes, and the presence of prominent pointy ears all betrayed his age, or at least the fact he was decisively not young.

And yet, he stood stone-still in the doorway, staring as his bare hands gripped the edges of a ceramic torte pan that contained some sort of orangish-brown uneven pie or perhaps cake.

“Wh-what have you done?” he asked in a hushed, disbelieving voice. Despite his words, it was clear the real question wasn’t what, but why or perhaps even how.

Zel sat up in a more proper manner facing the man, although she remained seated on the ground, reaching behind herself and holding up the deed for him to see.

“This is how,” she smugged, genuinely proud of what she’d just done, despite the fact she knew not what laid beyond the door. “...And a lot of aether.”

“You don’t say,” the chef chuckled disbelievingly, still looking at Zel as his expression slowly shifted from utter disbelief to befuddled amusement. He set the tin down on one of the relatively few benches in the room, one right up against the wall near the door, sitting down himself. He reached into the pocket of his apron and pulled out a ceramic plate decorated by blue floral patterns, then another, and another, lining them up on the bench before he pulled out three long-pronged forks, arranged them on the plates, and finally retrieved a bronze pie cutter.

Cutting up the pie and lifting individual slices onto plates, he continued speaking, “I take it that you’re to be the new sect leader, is that right? You would’ve had to get past Him, but that would certainly explain all the ruckus yesterday… Though not the music. Why the music?”

“Made a deal with the Kargarians,” said Zel.

That alone sufficed in making the chef emit an understanding “Ah.”

As for the cake, it was brown. Very, very brown, and soft enough that it just barely held its shape on the plate. From it wafted an exorbitantly strong aroma of cinnamon and pumpkin, alongside notes of nutmeg and butter.

The chef picked up two plates and just brought them over to the two women in turn. As he went he asked, “Since you had to fight Him to get in, and you even thought to undo the Old Seal, I take it you’re not of the Black Horse Family. Is that so?”