“And none of you brought it up even once because…” Zel trailed off.

“...They’re about as difficult to find as pre-war cultivators nowadays,” the blonde began explaining, simultaneously continuing to write more runes, though at a much slower pace. “They were one of our most powerful and overtly visible tools early in the war, so as you might expect, the factories making them were priority targets. Far as I’m aware no new Fog Cans were made after Stonog fell, at least not en-masse, and if you combine their usefulness and consumable nature, you get something that goes poof quickly.”

“I wonder if using those contributed to how quickly you two picked up Fog-breathing…” Zel pondered, at this point only waiting for Zef to finish the semicircle.

“Could be,” Zef nodded. “Heard a couple people got pretty nasty popcorn-lung from overusing them, but then again, I’ve heard of people’s lungs popping outright from trying to do a breathing technique that was beyond them... Right, it’s done, let’s see if these will respond to me. Even if they don’t, the glyph should help amplify your own output.”

Zef put away the chalk and, kneeling down inside the circle next to Zel, drew in a deep breath, placing her hands upon the door. After a brief moment of focus, she exhaled all at once and uttered one word: “...Break!”

Nothing.

She tried again, and once more, no response.

Zel sent an impulse of will just to be sure, and indeed, a seal burned up at her command. Even sending a half-hearted command got a visible response, one seal lighting up and then fading.

With a resigned sigh Zef got up, “That’s what I figured would be the case, they’re probably keyed to the deed or something. Want me to get you anything while you work on it? Something to drink maybe?”

“Maybe some water, can’t exactly ask you for citronade here,” Zel smiled, at which point Zef walked off.

With the sound of shoes softly clacking against massive floor tiles in her ears, Zelsys returned to her struggle against the great conglomerate seal. The glyphic semicircle did, indeed, respond to her efforts, what Fog she exhaled strangely recirculating within its confines and visibly slamming into the door in a sort of aftershock.

So it was that she struggled on, for minutes that soon turned to hours. A short while in, Zef brought her an ornamental pitcher with water alongside an equally ornamental chalice, watching for a short while before vanishing again.

Another hour and a half and no more than a tenth of the seal’s total surface gone, the distinct bitter citrus scent of citron and minty Viriditas slithered into her nostrils, though the citron was… Different. Strange, somehow, in a way she couldn’t pinpoint. In the next moment, the first pitcher was joined by another, Zef sitting down with a self-satisfied smile and a chalice of her own.

“Where-” Zel began, and was interrupted.

“Found the kitchens,” Zef said, taking a sip. “Also met the uh… Groundskeeper, you could say? Some middle-aged guy in old-timey robes with an equally old-timey broom, just sleeping upright ‘fore I woke him up.”

“...You didn’t just believe him, did you?” asked Zel.

Zef smirked, “I may be desensitized, but I’m not stupid. The uh… The Ankhezian chef convinced me, though, kept complaining about how he only agreed to stay inside ‘cause he thought the lockdown would’ve been over before now. Helped me find the viriditas and the citrons, too - turns out we’ve got an indoor garden here.”

“Thinkin’ about it, shouldn’t be all that surprising. This place couldn’t have been locked up for more than a few years, considering that the Black Horses joined the war only when it started looking grim.”

“Well, keep an eye out for both of them in case either tries catching me by surprise,” replied Zel, pouring herself some of the citronade, downing the chalice’s contents, and setting once more to her struggle. Despite the subtle differences, a breed of citron from ages past still tasted pretty much the same.

A simple idea had sparked in her mind, both simple and truly reckless, born not of impatience, but an equally simple logical conclusion. She would just need to send a stronger signal, to command the great conglomerate seal to dispel with a spiritual voice so resolute it could not conceivably defy her.

So it was that Zelsys took to carving paths towards the central seal, spending the next hour or so doing this, stripping away the seals in narrow channels layer by layer with the thought process that weakening the conglomerate as such would let her attack damage the central seal as opposed to grinding away at the bulk of the seal all at once. It could’ve very well been wrong, but she figured it was worth a try, and Zef’s curious seal-breaking glyph made it much easier to destroy the lesser component seals either way.

As she revealed the door’s actual surface, she found it to be made of - or at least, covered in - bronze. And, though not strange, what was strange was its reaction to being exposed. In mere seconds, the bronze surface grew tarnished, first turning rusty, then becoming covered in a layer of green oxide, which grew across it like moss in fast-motion.

She began gathering Aether, breath by breath, compressing it in her essentia gut until not an iota more could fit without threatening to spill out. Then, she gathered some more, willfully spreading it to suffuse every inch of her being and carefully weighing the growing strain to see if she could handle more.

...And inevitably, she kept going.

More. And more. And more.

More power.

More power.

She would annihilate this seal so thoroughly not a single speck of it would be left.

Something - or rather, someone - deep within the beast-slayer’s soul screamed out, the sole legacy of one particular donor within her gestalt being the overpowering demand to unearth whatever laid sealed within the depths of this Black Horse Family sect.