When Emiri had described the Mist before, her words had not come of her own volition. It had been how she felt. The darkness was dangerous.

And now that it manifested before them, the word 'dangerous' had clearly underestimated it.

As they rode in the elevator, she felt her vision blur slightly. Was she going to collapse? She didn't know what it was--no, that was a lie, she knew exactly what it was, but her head felt so foggy and clouded that her thoughts had been scrambled. Simon's body was revealed to them, as was Vincent. She couldn't help but lightly freeze up at the sight of this man, though for one reason or another, he let them through. Ironically enough, as she had hoped, once they reached Simon the darkness did in fact get out of Jaakuna--albeit unwillingly and by Jaakuna's own hand.

And then [i]it[/i] appeared.

Emiri wasn't quite sure what had happened, and by the time she realized what was going on, she was on her knees, holding Jaakuna. She blinked, not even remembering how she got there, though when she looked she saw it before them. 

----------

"[b]What IS that?[/b]" Nadeline asked, her voice somewhere in between curiosity and worriedness.

The walk through Draklor had been mysteriously without any resistance. Grant didn't like it at all. They had been careful, but seeing as how there were literally no guards or soldiers around, they had proceeded rather quickly. Everything was more than fine, in fact it was too good to be true. He half expected to stumble onto the group at any minute, but something just wasn't right with all this. Nadeline thought the same, though the absence of resistance just made her feel uneasy. If the others were here, did they draw the enemy's attention? Had they been captured? She just didn't know, and it wasn't easy not to consider the possibility as they walked. No news was better than bad news, right?

She thought so, at least until they discovered the darkened corpse with a hole in it.

The princess dared not to get near it, though Grant wasn't too keen on getting close either. It was highly disturbing, though he was slightly more concerned on [i]what[/i] did it rather than the how. A monster? A person? Who or what could it be? For the first time in a very long time, Grant actually looked and felt nervous. He managed to get a grip on himself, however, if only because Nadeline cast him a look. She managed to stay steady, though she would admit that this disturbed her deeply. She let out a small yelp as a very small burst of magic emitted from Grant's left hand, clearly having been on edge.

"[b]What was that?[/b]" She asked him, looking immediately at the corpse.

"[b]The others are in trouble.[/b]" Grant stated, clenching his fist as the magic dissipated into the air. "[b]They're directly above us. Let's hurry.[/b]"

The trio continued through the laboratory, now running seeing as they weren't going to be meeting resistance. The further they went up, they would see the remains of the battles the others gone through. Nadeline noticed Emiri's arrows in some of them, as well as traces of Savayna's magic. Yet their friends were nowhere to be found. Grant on the other hand noticed that the same dark power had been used on these soldiers. That meant that whatever it was, it didn't attack Jaakuna, Emiri or Savayna. As far as he knew, Savayna couldn't do anything like that, leaving the possibility to Jaakuna or Emiri, though he knew for a fact Emiri had no talent for any magic besides Time based ones. That left Jaakuna, but there was also the possibility of someone else with them.

Once they reached the final elevator, Nadeline felt her head buzzing as they surfaced. She wanted to credit it to the height, but something felt...off. She looked at Grant and Wesley, who no doubt felt the same. They braced themselves as the elevator doors opened. "[b]What the actual fuck...?[/b]" Grant spoke, clearly surprised by the scene ahead of him.