Eldritch Guidance

“Tap, tap, tap,” the sound of footsteps getting louder as something was approaching.

Those footsteps echoed throughout the library, the weights they carried were heavy, almost unnaturally so. For the person making them was not someone of a stature that reflected the sound they made.

Sorin had stopped gloating at Alan and his friends, looking to see who was the one walking towards them.

From behind a bookshelf, walking out of the shadows and into the moonlight with his green shroom pack robes and brown hair, was Cid. He had a deadpan and uninterested expression, but there was an almost strange sense of confidence to him as he slowly walked toward the group of people gathered around Alan.

He eventually stopped walking, with some significant distance still between him and everyone. He then intensely examined each person there before his gaze fell upon Alan. His eyes slightly narrowed before falling back onto Sorin.

Sorin: “And who are you supposed to be?” he asked, curious about Cid's sudden appearance.

Cid: “I’m no one in particular.”

Sorin: “Tch,” he clicked his tongue in annoyance. “One of your friends that was hiding I assume,” he said while glaring at Jafar, who was slouching while being held up by the purple-haired undead girl named Loren.

Jafar just looked away from Sorin with his bruised face, afraid that he might get beaten again if he tried to say anything else.

Sorin: “No matter. I don’t know where you were hiding, but you should have kept hidden. Craig, drop her and deal with him for me. Oh, don’t bother taking him alive. I’m pissed now, so just kill him. A fungal student is useless anyways.” he said, referring to Cid by his college with a common insult used in the university.

Craig did as he was ordered and let go of Sere.

For a brief moment she was free, but then Sorin muttered something and arcane chains shot up from the ground beneath him and wrapped around Sere, restraining her. She tried to pull away, rattling the chains in the process, but she was completely bound to where she was.

She could feel the aether in her body being suppressed, and then recognized the spell Sorin was using on her was an advance binding spell. It was one design by the Grayscale college, specifically to seal away another mage’s magic and restrain their movements.

Cid stared down at Craig, not moving or expressing any emotion at his approach.

Craig casually walked towards Cid before turning into a full sprint, his speed enhanced by magic to inhuman levels. As he was dashing toward Cid, he muttered an incantation and mud formed and clung around his right hand. It then hardened into what kinda looked like a stone gauntlet with razor sharp spikes on the tip of the finger. He was preparing to swipe at Cid with his earth clawed hand.

Craig speed was enhanced with earth elemental force, while not as fast as if any other element was used, it still was capable of increasing speed beyond the human limit. But, magic that uses the earth element also usually makes things heavier. Craig was no exception to this rule and his weight had increased several times. As he was running towards Cid, the floor creaked below from each of his footsteps.

One of the floorboards he had stepped on couldn’t handle Craig's weight, combined with the force he was pressing on it, causing the wood to collapse beneath him. The nails on the opposite side of the floorboard popped out and the plank of wood flipped up to hit him square in the face. The wood smashed into pieces against Craig’s head and the undead lost his balance from the impact, causing him to flip his whole body 180 degrees into the air. He then landed on his head with enough force to crack his skull open, but it didn’t didn’t stop there. He was sprinting before he fell, so the momentum continued to carry him forward.

Craig slid across the floor with his now exposed gray-matter grinding against the ground, leaving a smear of blood in his wake. He slid towards Cid, who casually stepped to the side, as Craig continued past him. Eventually, a few feet away from Cid, his body stopped sliding. He just laid there limp, and unresponsive, likely now just a regular corpse based on the damage that could be seen.

Cid looked at the unresponsive Craig with disinterest before facing back toward Sorin. Clearly not surprised at what just happened.

Alan and his friends just stared at Cid, completely shocked at what they just saw.

“I-It’s just like with Edward…like…he knew.” Alan silently thought to himself.

Sorin couldn’t help but facepalm in frustration at what just happened.

Sorin: “Ughhhh. I know he was dumb when he was alive and dumber still as an undead, but really? Definitely the most useless of my undead. Loren! Drop the orange hair shit and deal with this!” he shouted towards the purple hair Grayscale student while pointing at Cid.

Loren dropped Jafar, who just collapsed onto the ground beside her. Jafar looked up to see Loren waving her hand around and a dozen balls of water began forming and floating in front of her. The balls of water changed their shape into that of a spike, and were then hardened as the water froze. A dozen shards of ice now floated in front of her, and with a flick of her hand, they were launched forward toward Cid.

The ice shards flew through the air, leaving a trail of misty condensation behind them. Cid didn’t move and just stood perfectly still as they came flying at him.

With the sound of a slight hiss as the ice shards cut through the air, every single shard missed, some flying by Cid's face by mere inches. The shards continued past him leaving a bunch of them embedded on the ground and in a nearby bookshelf behind Cid.

Sorin was left astonished that Cid was standing perfectly still, and yet, every one of Loren's ice shards had missed.

Sorin: “How the fuck did you miss him! Is your brain starting to rot like Craig? Deal with this already!” he yelled.

Loren gathered her aether and clapped her hands together before separating them and facing her palms forward. A giant sphere of water started to form in the air in front of her. It was the same attack that she had used against Alan and his friends earlier. The sphere of water continued to expand in size until it was about six and half feet (2 meters) wide. Everybody close to her could feel the immense amount of aether that was being put into this spell. Alan and Sere could tell that this attack would be even more intense than the one she used against them.

The giant floating ball of water, like a soap bubble, suddenly just popped. The water in the sphere completely vanished as a result. For the first time since Alan and his friends saw Loren, her deadpan expression finally changed. She looked shocked and surprised. She then unexpectedly, and slowly, fell forward, collapsing on the ground.

She fell not too far away from Alan. She had one eye open staring at him. Her complexion was becoming strange, it was rapidly turning as purple as her hair. It felt strange and unsettling for Alan as she stared at him.

Everyone waited for her to move, but she just laid there limp, similar to Craig.

It seemed she was dead. Sorin and everyone else there became confused.

Sorin: “W-what?” he said, while looking down at the purple-haired student.

Sorin recognized what was happening to Loren. It was a type of rapid necrosis caused by a bad application of necromantic magic. It was what was turning her flesh and skin purple, as it was rapidly beginning to rot. And, while he knew what was happening to his undead, he didn’t understand why. His living dead dolls were perfect in his mind, and didn’t believe that it was him applying necromancy poorly, yet she was still showing the signs that it was.

He stared intently at Loren before Sorin looked up at Cid, tilting his head slightly, looking confused.

Sorin: “It was you, wasn't it?” he said, concluding that Cid had something to do with what happened.

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Cid: “Actually, no. It wasn't me. It was all her. She miscast.”

Sorin: “Miscast?”

Cid: “Yeah. You know, when you miscast a spell there is a chance for an aether backlash, where the aether violently flows back into your aether veins from a failed spell. And, you and I know that’s normally not too big of a deal. Might just leave someone unable to use aether for a few minutes to an hour, but that’s only true for a LIVING person.”

Sorin: “If the aether flows back into the body like that, then it might affect the necromancy animating the dead. Empowering the necromancy magic and making it too strong and unstable, resulting in the magic collapsing,” he said, muttering to himself. “But…no. NO! That’s not possible! Even if she miscast, it doesn't necessarily result in aether backlash, that rarely happens. And, even if there was an aether backlash, that doesn't necessarily mean it would affect the necromancy animating her.”

Cid: “But it could, and it did.”

Sorin: “But… wait. How do you even know it was an aether backlash? That’s not something you can figure out by just looking.”

Cid just smiled as Sorin asked that question.

Cid: “Because everything that has happened was part of my design. Every action that I took and every thing that I moved into place was all for this moment. From my presence here, to the undead I removed publicly for all to see, to the accident that sent one of your undead to the hospital. Everything was to bring you here, trapped within my design.”

Upon hearing that, it took a few seconds for Sorin to process what Cid had just said.

Sorin: “It was you… you're the one who’s taking out my undead! WHY! AND, HOW IS ANY OF THIS HAPPENING!!” he yelled, frustrated by a feeling of a lack of control and an inability to understand what was happening before him.

Cid: “I already told you. Everything that I say and do is with purpose. It is part of the design. Even talking to you right now like this, is all meant to keep you standing exactly where you are.

Sorin: “Wha—” he briefly said, before he was interrupted by the sound of metal snapping.

Above Sorin was a giant cylindrical chandelier that was about fifteen feet in diameter (4.5 meter), weighing hundreds of pounds. The chains that were holding it aloft all snapped at once and it began to fall downward. Sorin looked up to see what the sound he heard was. He had time to gaze at the rapidly approaching glass and metal decoration, but was too surprised to react.

With a loud bang and shattering of glass, the giant chandelier fell on top of Sorin, forming a pile of shattered glass and bent metal with him completely buried underneath it. Blood immediately began to form and pool around the base of the fallen chandelier.

Alan, Sere, and Jafar were already shocked by the two undead being destroyed, and still further surprised by what had just happened to Sorin. A senior professor of the Grayscale collage, a highly respected mage of arcane law with mastery over incredibly powerful binding magic, someone of significant magical ability in the world of mages, dead by a chandelier falling on him.

Right after it happened, the chains binding Sere evaporated and crumbled into nothing. Without the caster channeling aether into the spell, it was undone.

Staring at the pile of glass and metal, Alan remembered the image he got from Marie’s machine. It was that of a skull that was smashed in on the forehead. He couldn’t help but feel that the skull was supposed to be Sorin, whose own skull was probably smashed open and crushed beneath that giant light fixture, just like in the picture.

Cris started to unsteadily rock back and forth, before collapsing right beside Alan.

Alan: “CRIS!!” he yelled out, as he desperately tried to crawl towards him.

The source of the magic animating Cris was Sorin, who was no longer alive. The necromancy holding Cris together was now gone, and Cris was becoming just a normal corpse.

Alan got a little closer, but the pain from his broken ribs was too intense and couldn’t move anymore. He was only a few feet away from him and desperately tried to reach out with his right hand.

Alan: “Please, Cris. Don’t die. I can't do it. I can’t keep our promise. I-it has to be you.” he said, as he teared up, recalling a promise they made to each other years ago.

Cris' slowly turned his head and stared at him blankly. His complexion was starting to turn as purple as Loren. Through whatever was left of the Sorin magic, he spoke.

Cris: “You’ll…be…fine…” he whispered with his final words, from what was left of his ego, as the last of the necromantic magic faded from his body.

Alan: “Please no! Sere! Please do something! Use your healing magic on him!” he begged with tears running down his face.

Sere was standing not too far away, looking at her friend Alan desperately trying to reach out to Cris. She didn’t say anything. She was completely focused on trying to hold back her tears. Seeing her friends like this was devastating, and she knew if she said a single word at this moment, she would break down.

She didn’t move or bother to act on Alan’s request to heal Cris, as she knew it wouldn’t work. Even if Sere was to muster up whatever aether she had left and try to heal Cris, healing magic can’t bring back the dead.

Jafar was off to the side, trying to get up, but was struggling to do so. The beating he received from Sorin had torn some muscle in his leg, making it hard to stand. He wanted to desperately go over to his friend and try to comfort him.

“Tap, tap, tap,” the sound of those familiar footsteps getting louder as Cid was approaching.

Everyone still there tuned to look at Cid, who they all had forgotten about for a brief moment.

Sere quickly regained her composure and stepped in front of friends, preparing to protect them. She was the only one that could fight and wasn't out of commission. While Cid killing Sorin was a blessing in a way for them, she knew it didn’t mean that Cid was friendly. What she had just seen only made Cid more mysterious, and his intention beyond comprehension for her.

She gathered what little aether she had and made a tiny ball of light, about the size of marble, in the palm of her hand.

Sere: “Stay back!” she yelled out.

Cid didn’t respond and just kept walking toward her.

Sere took aim and shot her spell forward. She intended to miss him, this was just meant to be a warning shot, but her spell didn’t even manage that. As the ball of light flew through the air, it faded away into nothingness, not even reaching half way towards Cid.

She didn’t have enough aether to cast a proper spell. Between healing her friend and the rushed barrier spell, she was running on near empty, and the attack spell she used didn’t have enough aether to sustain itself long enough to even get close to Cid.

Cid kept walking forward until he stopped just in front of Sere. He was only slightly taller than Sere, but it still felt like she was being looked down upon by a giant monster.

Cid: “You three and that corpse were not part of my design.” he said, referring to Cris as a corpse.

Sere: “W-what do you mean?”

Cid: “Three times now. Three times that you have evaded my design and have altered it. Once when you saved Edward,” he said while looking at Alan. “Second when you sneaked into my room,” he said as he looked at Jafar.“ And thirdly with your very presence here,“ he said while intensely staring right into Sere’s eyes.” So, what should I do with you now that you’ve seen what you have?”

Sere: “P-please let us go. W-we won’t say anything.” she said, sounding scared.

Sere recognized she had no hope against Cid right now. The comment about him knowing that they were in his room, implied he knew about their activities, meaning they can’t just say they ended up here by coincidence and hope he’ll let them go because of it. Then there was the fact he killed Sorin, a mage of impressive magical ability and might, not someone that could be easily beaten in a fight. If he can kill Sorin, then there is no way she would stand a chance, even if she has access to her regular amount of aether.

All the strange things that happened around Cid that kept all those attacks missing him, and causing Sorin and his undead to die, she still did not understand how Cid was doing any of this. There was no incantation or any fluctuation in aether from Cid when all that happened. She had no idea how to fight against this strange unseeable force that Cid seemed to command.

Cid: “Dead men tell no tales.”

Her face immediately turned pale.

“Oh light. Is this day I will return to you?” Sere thought to herself, preparing to face her and her friend's demise.

Cid: “But, scared men say anything, including lies. So, here’s what is going to happen. You are going to go talk to the university leadership and tell them everything you’ve learned about Sorin and his little necrotic fetish. You will tell them you were suspicious of Sorin due to the conversation he had with Pitter and started following him around, eventually following him into the library this night, where you were discovered and were forced into a fight. Against all odds, you managed to distract Sorin long enough to drop a chandelier on him. That is the story you will tell them, and you will not mention me at all, to them, or anyone. Do you understand?"

Sere swallowed her saliva and just slightly nodded.

Cid: “Good. You can take the credit for stopping him. Also, it should go without saying, but I will say it. If you tell anybody about me, I will know, and you will die.”

With that, Cid turned around and began walking away from Sere and her friends. Eventually, he was out of sight, but they could still hear the tapping sound of his footstep off in the distance. Once Cid got far away enough and Sere could no longer hear his footsteps, all the tension in her body released and she collapsed onto her knees.

Everyone still there felt the same as Sere. They had all come into a hairs length with death. The danger from Cid somehow felt more intense than what they felt with Sorin.

Eventually, Sere got back onto her feet and helped get her friends to the hospital.

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In the coming days, people would discover a dozen more high profile students that had all mysteriously collapsed and died, all of those who were secretly Sorin’s undead. With Sorin's death, the necromancy animating them was undone and those students turned back into normal corpses.

Alan and his friends did exactly what Cid told them to do, and told the heads of the university everything that they were supposed to say. The university leadership rushed in to handle the media storm this caused and tried to control the narrative. The head of the Arcane Eye collage, Lazarus Vaal, made a public statement and said they were doing everything to ensure students safety and were looking into this.

One of the ways the university managed the fall out of this event was to focus on Alan and his friends' role in it all. They played them up as heroes, hoping that it would help distract from the fact that one of their professors was using necromancy on their students.

Nothing would be said about Cid. Alan and his friend still vividly remembered his threat, and with what they had seen him do, were all too scared to say anything about him.