It was a scene of absolute horror and bloodshed, the likes of which he had not seen matched before in a thousand years. Down stood in the middle of a forest clearing, rather he was floating a few inches off the ground for fear of permanently staining his boots with the refuse of human remains that littered the area.

Words alone could not describe what laid before him. The forms of men twisted and corrupted with such a way and shape and form that it could only come from the mind of a truly demented mind.

It was a mercy that some of the men before him were simply just massacred, their bodies still reminiscent of the human form no matter how ruined, others were not so lucky, it was as though their very being was changed. Some were similar to trees, their arms and legs pulled and twisted to demented length, while others were laid flat and wide on the ground like a rug of skin.

If his body was capable of doing so, he might have been brought to his knees with sickness. Unfortunately, his associate was not so blessed as he was at this moment.

At the edge of the clearing he could hear hearty heaves of the man’s lunch. Interspersed with groans of both pain and abject disgust. When he composed himself he came to Down’s side.

“A-Apologies Arch Mage Down, my nose is quite sensitive to smells.” The man said.

“There is no need for apologies Arch Mage Carrion, human expectations should not be placed on either of us.” Down said.

Carrion’s hand raised and between his vulpin claws erupted yellow light that rose to his fur covered face and engulfed it. A barrier to ward off the smell, thin enough that it would not interrupt his sight. Down knew however that such a barrier only lessened the smell rather than blocked it entirely, and the faint crocodile tears that fell from Carrion’s eyes told him he was right.

Back to the carnage, beyond the inch thick refuse Down could sense substantial trace amounts of mana in the area. Inexperienced mages had a habit of using vastly more mana than was required to perform their tasks. One of the marks of mastery was performing simple magical practices with perfect mana expenditure.

A strange note on this trace mana is that despite the volume, it seemed that there were only two sources. One incredibly minor source and another vastly more plentiful source. This would suggest that only two people at most used magic in this area.

Besides that, there were other signs of mystical energy in the area. There was the suggestion of both Necromantic and Conscientia. The former would explain the twisted perversion of flesh that rested below his feet, but such a practice has been banned and lost for centuries, much by his own hands.

The latter was possibly the only thing more surprising than Necromancy returning. Conscientic Energy is left when a Mental lifeform acts upon a place. To his best knowledge there were only 6 of these beings who were powerful enough to act on the physical plain, for one to be present here at this time could only mean it was somehow involved.

The sense he got of the Arch was the most concerning, that means that in some form there was an Arch mage, or less likely a High Magister, in the area. The only unaccounted Arch Mage for was Arch Mage White, and without knowing her capabilities himself he was left only with speculation.

Presence of the Arch, Necromancy, and Conscientia all in enough volume to be noticeable together implied that they were connected. None of the Arch mages to his knowledge have experience with necromancy beside himself, or at the very least not to this degree, and none of them are weak enough to allow themselves to be controlled by a Mental Lifeform. The only exception to his understanding is the new Arch Mage. By the testimony of Rapture and Ferdinand she is actually a novice mage. She wouldn’t have the necessary strength to resist a Mental Lifeform if it came to it. It wouldn’t explain the necromantic energy, but factoring that into the equation would present too many variables to consider.

Down looked to his associate, who wore a similarly grim expression to his own. He likely came to the same conclusion and was concerned.

“Should I put the Magisters on alert? This could spill out into a much worse situation than it already appears.” Carrion said.

“Not yet, we don’t have confirmation. Allow me to investigate something.” Down said.

He floated himself across the clearing towards the body of one man who was in remarkably good shape, it seemed that only the majority of his right side was missing rather then anything else.

Down drew his hands toward the man and a sickening black ooze fell from it, dripping onto the man and turning his pale dead skin into pure black. Within moments a restless spirit appeared above the body.

The spirit was roughly half the size of the body, and despite being quite upset about its situation, it understood what it was brought back for.

“Tell me, lost soul, what happened here?” Down asked.

“We were attacked, a male Mage and a female Medea, they asked us about some red haired mage that we had captured a few days before. The mage in our midst told them that she had escaped and we had no idea where they went. They weren’t pleased when the mage said that and the Medea…” The spirit said, stopping short.

Being forced to recollect the event was bad enough to distort and nearly shatter the spirit's soul. With some effort Down stabilized it enough to continue.

“What did she do?” Down asked.

“She spread some kind of miasma through the camp, men started falling left and right, others changed and started screaming like beasts. A few of us that tried to run were shot down by the mage. I was one of them that tried to run…”

“A Medea did this!?” Down said. That was plainly impossible, the Medea were very capable of doing such a thing, but that was through their own abilities. This was Necromancy. While Necromancy itself was not magic, it shared a common ancestor with magic and as such should be able to be used by the Medea. Though the spirit did not lie, it was unable to do so.

While this raised considerable concerns, it did cast some blame off of Arch Mage White. Not all, but at least he was sure she didn’t massacre dozens of men for no reason.

“She did, but she didn’t kill us at first. It seemed like she was doing something to the bodies of a few of us, then the mage stopped at her and she started slaughtering us again.”

“Can you be more specific?” Down asked.

“She fixated on one man, I didn’t know his name but he had this knife he loved like a child. He was the first to die.”

Down had put this spirit through enough torment by raising it, so it was time to let it go.

“To which of the afterlives do you wish to go?” Down asked.

“My mother believed in the word of The Goddess, I’d like to go wherever she went.” The Spirit said. With a nod and a snap of his fingers, the spirit was engulfed in golden light and disappeared.

“What’s the outlook?” Carrion asked.

“I don’t believe it was Arch Mage White who did this, but she was both here at some point and the target of whoever committed this terrible act. One of the perpetrators was a mage with a semblance of a conscience and a Medea who, through means I could not ascertain, was able to perform Necromancy.” Down said.

Carrion floated in silence for a moment, then he sighed. “Are you sure of this?” He asked.

“Spirits don’t lie.” Down said.

“Understood, what do you propose we do, the fact that we don't have another psychopath among the Arch Mages is a welcome one, but it still leaves us with an issue.” Carrion said.

“Agreed, our primary goal right now is to find Arch Mage White and make sure her safety is assured. This Mage and Medea pair are a serious concern as well, I must report this to my Magisters and I suggest you do the same.” Down said.

“What of the border, do you think it’s safe to keep it open while this is happening?” Carrier said.

“Do what you need to protect your people, and I will do the same. None other than us can be trusted to do that much.” Down said.

“I see… I guess I’ll leave you to it.” Carrion said, then he took off south in the direction of Skysea.

The night was cold and dark then, the moon was dark in the sky and the thin clouds in the sky from the season’s rain blotted out what little starlight there was. Sitting in the dark silence, the corpses of dozens of men below him, down wondered.

An undead man, a fracture in reality made flesh, a walking paradox.

The Arch Mages were an eclectic bunch, and it seemed their strangeness only grew as the centuries wore on. Never once in all his time did he feel as though a new Arch mage was more normal than the last. He wondered if it was all worth it in the end. The world spiraled to more extreme ends and both sides pulled against each other.

Maybe the mundane had a point, a man could be born with the potential to destroy a city, or a woman could be brought to reduce a camp of people into a carpet of flesh. Was it really worth keeping magic alive if it didn’t do the same thing for its users?

He wasn’t so shallow as to think it was something he could solve. Dead men had no place in politics and he was far from fresh blood. One day it would all fade away, most things did.

There was nothing left to be done.

-----

Carrion had made it to a local town just past the border of Skysea Adalay and was conversing when he felt a strange twinge of a feeling in the air. In a moment he knew what was going to happen. He yelled for whoever was still out in the dead of night to remain in their homes and rose to the sky. He looked north past the horizon and waited for what he knew was coming.

It started slowly in the distance, the sky across the border started to change in hue, from black to a dark, sinister purple. Then the noise came, an oozing sound that was the manifested sound of an opening wound, then the smell came, a noxious nothing that elicited the feeling of death and decay.

Then the force came.

A shockwave rippled through the area with unparalleled strength, waking the sleeping town and disturbing the world for hundreds of miles around. The clamber of thousands of screaming infants and rattled dogs echoed through the void of the sky around him.

Light erupted from behind the horizon, a beam of white light so bright that one might be forgiven for thinking the sun had released its light on that spot in particular. Even as he was, he could feel the radiance of the pillar of light. It burned away everything besides the life in him.

A long time ago, Arch Mage Down told Carrion of the origin of his name. The Arch had a special favor for names, and whatever name you were given birthed something inside you. In a sense it turned you into a manifestation of your name.

Down’s was very simple. As per his own words.

“What is dead should stay dead, what is down may never die.”