"Are you ready?" Annika asked. The image she held in her mind was exactly how the room had appeared while Engel had illuminated it. Idetica, like Prana Bindu, was entirely a mental discipline and so wan't contained by the warding circle Engel had scribed. In her minds  eye she could see the dimly lit interior of the church. Judging by the lack of light she assumed it was some subterranean part of the palace, possibly intended for use during a siege during Gwenneyth's often unsettled past. Using the sound of Mobian's voice she had been able to reason out where he was chained, atop another sarcophagus inside a small alcove down the nave towards where she presumed the door was. That information would have been useless in and of itself, but as the Pancreator willed it, there was a large bronze candelabra, intended to hold a sacred flame in front of the alcove. It was covered in verdigris, ancient and forgotten but it might afford them a chance to escape this place.

"As I will ever be," Mobian replied, his tone letting her know that he was less than thrilled to be accepting her help, even if it was his only option at the moment. Annika carefully worked her boot against the edge of the sarcophagus she lay upon. By slow degrees she was able to work it down her foot so that it hung from her toes.

"Now," she called and flicked the boot off her toes. It arched through the air, tumbling end over end before striking the candelabra. To Annika's eyes it was still pitch darkness but there was a scrape of metal as the candelabra toppled and then a grunt as it struck Mobian. Chains rattled as he grabbed for the bronze before it could slip to the floor.

"Got it," he called after what seemed like an age. There was a protracted period of rattling and then the guttural sound of a man straining under pressure. Finally there came a tearing sound and what she imagined to be a grunt of pain that would have been a scream in a normal person. Chain slithered to the ground like a metallic serpent and then she heard heavy boots hit the floor. Suddenly she could see a faint light cast from a pair of narrowed eyes as Mobian stepped out of the alcove, he turned and looked at her and she felt her soul shiver away from his burning gaze.

"The Pancreator's gaze pierces the lies of our hearts," Mobian quoted from the Omega Gospel. The Avestii were not without their own Theurgy but somehow it seemed strange to think of Mobian as employing them. He came towards her and she saw a large dark bruise discouraging his left eye as well as pressure cut welling blood above his eyebrow. Even taken by surprise Mobian had evidently put up quite a fight. He paused at the edge of the circle around her and scowled.

"I should leave..." he began but at the same instant his eyes flicked behind her towards the altar. Mobian opened his mouth in a choked scream and then staggered forward, falling across her heavily convulsing and with froth bubbling from his lips. The light in his eyes vanished and she was plunged back into darkness but the warding circle was broken. She caught Mobian's twitching form as best she could and began to whisper a litany of shielding. Mobian seemed to steady his body going limp but his breathing steady. She shuddered to think of what hung in the darkness that could affect a hardened Temple Avestii so. It seemed to loom behind her like some malign demon. She shuddered. She was still chained and Mobian's unconscious form was pressing down on her, but at least the warding circle was broken. That was something she could work with.