Aoife and Felix have moved themselves to the row behind Greyson, more than likely to ensure that any initial healing can be dealt with in a burst, allowing Orynn to drop back a row if needed and then Felix can then move forward to take his place.
Greyson grunts in satisfaction as they continue to move forward, the corridor bending hard to the right only a few meters after their entry point.
If he wasn't mistaken, this should have led to the former workshop area. When he was younger it was populated by craftsmen and smithies that burned constantly in order to fulfil a neverending stream of orders for new and ever more inventive torture devices, as well as anything else that his father could use to control his subjects in ways that even the most twisted of minds would have blanched at.
The only problem was, it didn't smell like a workshop anymore, and that set Greyson on edge as he pushed forward regardless and then pulled to a stop suddenly as out of the recesses that used to hold the forges, came the massive frames of lumbering flesh bound constructs.
Many of them were still tethered by chains to the wall behind them, but that didn't make them any less dangerous.
They raced towards the closest one without another moment's hesitation, and Greyson tried not to count how many lives had been lost to make this one aberration. The smell was distracting as it belched bile and puss towards them, making even the most battle hardened among them gag and retch as the foul smelling fluid cascaded over them.
Aoife froze momentarily, staring up at the horrors that loomed in front of them. It wasn't the smell, it was more the fact that it wasn't just one body. Each construct was built from several, fused and reshaped into a single mass with parts of faces still recognisable and stitched onto parts of the body as if they were nothing more than a piece of cloth in a patchwork quilt.
The limbs didn't match and the more she looked at it, the more the different energies of each species that was stitched together so crudely screamed at her to free them and to put them to rest.
She covered her ears as her eyes widened and she could feel herself shaking, until a hand gripped her shoulder and she was turned away from them, pulled into a wall of muscle as she was led back through the bodies that pushed forward to engage the horrors.
"Aoife, listen to me! I'm here!" Felix yelled above the noise of battle, his voice managing to break through the high pitched screaming of the magick that begged for salvation and pulled at her very soul.
"You...you can't hear that?" She murmured as she stared at him wide eyed.
"Hear what, Aoife? Tell me! Let me help you!"
"It's them...it's their lives…fragments all bound into one and forced to bend to a shape that they don't want to be in!" Aoife wailed frantically, the pressure in her head increasing to an agonising level and she beat her fists on the sides of her head, desperate for anything to relieve the pain..
"Orynn!" Felix yelled and instantly he turned, his panicked chirrup audible above the fighting as he pushed his way through to them.
"Aoife..what is it?!" He asked urgently, his eyes darting around them as Felix stood helplessly by her side. He knew that he couldn't help her with this, only another magick user could and there was no one better placed than Orynn, as much as he hated to admit it..
"You don't hear that?! The screaming? The pain?"
Orynn stared at her in confusion, unsure what to do to help. He couldn't hear anything..only the sounds of battle, no screaming, not at the level that would affect him this way at least.
He reached for her tentatively, flicking his eyes to Felix to ask for his permission and after a quick nod, he grasped both of Aoife's hands in his own and closed his eyes, searching for her magick with his own.
He felt it before his magick connected with hers, the pure terror and despair so overwhelming that it brought tears to his eyes. Without breaking the connection he pushed further with his magick, asking it gently to tell him what was wrong and how he could fix it but there were no answers, only a vague sense that this was more than the wrong magick that was feeding into her emotions.
"Aoife…I don't know what's happening, but I can't find it. Tell me how I can fix it…" and then, without any warning, it was as if time stood still around them.
"Your soul is fractured, young one.." a voice older than time itself settled over them and they both stiffened instantly, darting glances around them as they realised that everyone seemed to be fighting in slow motion around them.
"I…I know, but the screaming…" Aoife stammered bewildered as the pressure was lifted instantly.
"It is your own soul that screams alongside theirs," the voice answered, "For now I will free you from this burden but it comes at a cost. After this, I will not help again and you must endure."
"What cost?" Ornn snarled, the spines that sat where his hair should be stiffening in warning, but the voice didn't answer, instead it focused its attention on Aoife again.
"After all of this is over, you must find me Aoife…both of you."
"How can we find you if we don't know who you are?!" Orynn hissed angrily and their reply was nothing more than a dark chuckle and a sentence that faded away into the sounds of battle as time caught up with them again.
"You knew me once before, little dragon and you should remember that games and bargains are two of my favourite things..."
And then they were back in the midst of the fighting, with no one but Aoife and Orynn any the wiser about what they had just experienced.