Why did people always find it so easy to trust others, even if experience told them it was unwise? Uriel didn’t trust this situation, or their apparent saviour, but judging by the way everyone felt the need to chastise him it seemed the others did. The lack of speech he could buy, even if it was a lie it was just being used as a convenient excuse not to give answers; but he wouldn’t so easily believe that this stranger had chosen to save them for entirely altruistic reasons. He was powerful enough to break into this prison as well as having the knowledge to do so, as well as having some means of resurrecting and controlling the abomination that continued to stalk the room. The how, the why and the where of their imprisonment was something Uriel wanted to get to the bottom of, no doubt, but the why of their rescue was perhaps a more pressing matter.

Nobody ever did anything for free. They always had a reason. No doubt when they finally got out of this hell hole this stranger would turn around and demand something of them.

People weren’t any different no matter where you went.

At least it seemed like others were starting to come around to the idea that they weren’t where they thought they were. The doctor had an idea and, crazy as it sounded, Uriel believed it. [color=ed1c24]“A big black tower fell out of the sky and started pouring out monster like that thing over there into the capital. I don’t know where it came from or what happened after that; everyone died pretty quickly.”[/color] A power that could travel to other worlds, huh? Did that mean other worlds out there in the stars like the astronomers said or some other plane of existing like the Church and Ignis talked about?

The quiet guy, the one Uriel kept forgetting about, spoke up next, talking about his world and then bombarding a few of them with questions. Uriel grimaced at the probing nature of the conversation, especially him asking about how magic worked in Uriel’s world. His magic… what had happened to him wasn’t something he ever liked to think about if he could avoid it which he rarely could, given the presence of a certain annoying little prick that was still mysteriously absent. Even if it wasn’t a point of contention with him he wouldn’t have appreciated being asked to spill his secrets like that; he certainly wasn’t about to tell everyone about any weaknesses he had.

[color=ed1c24]“You ask too many questions, too quickly.”[/color] Letting out a sigh, Uriel decided he might as well give some vague answers to appease the crowd. [color=ed1c24]“There is no way for a person to cast magic in my world without giving something up, or having something taken away from them. Magic users are all the same, they made the same deal and gained the same weaknesses from it, but their magic is always unique to them. Magic can’t turn against you but it can… it can run out of control. And that deal… you’re beholden to it, you can’t reverse it… and you can’t escape it. Trying to break the deal is a very bad idea.”[/color]

Uriel went quiet. He’d said more than he’d intended and given away more than was wise. Hopefully the others wouldn’t notice his reaction to his own words; they’d brought up more memories than he’d thought they would.

Before he could linger on those memories too long the stranger spoke up again, apparently confirming the doctor’s theory with his broken way of speaking before urging them towards the exit again. Then he walked over to the table and began writing something in the blood on the table, despite his apparent discomfort at doing so. Despite his disgust at the gore the stranger, Ahnciel, was quite verbose with his writing; the gist of it was that there was a gate somewhere nearby.

When he was done writing, recoiling from the table and hurrying to shake the blood from his hands, Uriel quickly walked over to one of the nearby beds and pulled off one of the blood-stained sheets. Moving back to the table he threw the sheet over the message and scrubbed it away, the dirty sheet not so much removing the congealed blood as shifting it around, but it sufficed to erase the writing. [color=ed1c24]“Someone go grab those two from the storeroom, we’ve wasted enough time. Let’s get moving.”[/color]