The notes ended there, Nevin found. Flipping further and further in showed nothing further written in the pages , just blank sheets that had been destroyed with age and mildew. He sank down into the chair and stared blankly at the journal. He closed his eyes and sent up a silent prayer, hoping that whatever poor soul had been writing in this book had managed to escape from what was apparently the descent into madness of their employer. Or, in the worst case, that they had rejoined the Great Flow, and that the next cycle of life would treat them better than this one had.
Slowly he stood up, gripping the torch tight, and closed the book. He didn’t know if anyone else would ever venture here, but this book was an important relic of the place, telling of the fall of the master of the place, and he would leave it for the next traveler, explorer to find when they went through this place on their own. For now - it would remain here, a grim cliffhanger on the writer’s fate. He took a deep breath and slipped out of the servant’s quarters, and looked down the hall towards the entrance.
It would be easy, he knew. So easy to leave, get out of this place now. Leave it behind, get back into the sunshine and out of the unnatural chill that still hung round him despite the torch burning in his hand. Just a few steps away, and he could get away from the madness that had consumed the mysterious man who had once controlled the place. The Alchemist exhaled mightily and shook his head. That wasn’t possible - those notes had mentioned a primer on Alchemy, and it was apparently the last of the three subjects that the demented owner of this place had been working on learning which meant that he doubted it was just herbal alchemy. No, this seemed to be a primer on magical Alchemy - which meant Nevin needed to find the primer.
So further in he would go, exploring the ruins of this place. Whatever was here, he needed to learn it and further himself - and possibly put an end to an abomination of alchemy. The study and usage of alchemy he didn’t mind at all - he himself made some rather unusual things - but causing some kind of explosion? Not cleaning up afterwards - that was inexcusable. Though he was a bit interested in what had been done to cause the explosion - was that alchemy? Or one of the other branches of magic?
A chill ran along his skin as he thought about the other two subjects that had been mentioned in the notebook. Necromancy wasn’t something he cared much about - it would be hypocritical for him to be upset about something that was considered dark magic considering what blood magic normally fell under the classification as. But the Fae? That was an entirely different matter.
The Fae were dangerous from everything Nevin had ever heard and studied. After the issues with Fenn and his strange request, Nevin had gone off on a studying rampage, trying to figure out everything he could about the enigmatic beings. And what he had learned was almost universally categorized as:
Don’t fuck with them.
Deals with them were always in their favor if you didn’t have some kind of obscene advantage over the beings. They’d hide information, set up situations with schemes far beyond what mortals could comprehend, use magicks that only the best mortal mages could hope to match. But. They would be bound by deals they made, so if you could find a way to get them to agree to something, you could trust that they would adhere to the letter of the bargain, if not the spirit.
Was that what had happened here? Had the master of the tower, in his desperation to evade whatever was coming for him - the coughing of blood sounded like an illness, or age possibly - was he dying - made a deal with a Fae? And that deal had come back to bite him, in a rather spectacularly destructive way? It would make sense, especially with the twisted reality outside - the Fae were notorious for not dealing with the real world the same way that others did, and slipping between worlds with far more ease than most mortals could ever manage. He took a deep breath, and looked around the end of the hallway.
The stairway up - and he could see a couple of floors above - and the hatch leading down into a presumed basement. He hesitated - and decided to use some acidic substances to melt the lock before continuing upwards, to see what was above him first. The basement could come last, after he’d seen what had happened in the damaged areas above. So up he went, climbing the stairs as he headed upwards.
