There stood an elegant woman, 5'4, relatively tight clothing bond using a belt at her waists, black and rather functional for either a mage or an assassin moving in the deepest darkest nights, the surroundings were empty halls of dark metal illuminated from no specific source, some parts of the ancient creature rusting from the sheer age.
On the other hand the girl had orange eyes, glowing powerful, white teeth that seemed to go a few too many back into her head as she began speaking, the hood of her outfit, long and covering almost everything let down, giving her even more of an assassin-like look as she floated slightly off the ground.
She stood there without talking for fifteen seconds, looking with a mocking grin at Avere who had instantly pulled his weapon, as in his hands formed into fists, to fight her before she began talking, not even caring that she was about to perhaps be attacked very soon.
"Hello again." said the elegant and weirdly beautiful woman, Avere almost instinctively realizing who the person in front of him truly was, who Cades was trying to appear as, something he longed to turn Leyk into very soon, be it that he had a feeling the orange eyes would have to wait a bit becuase of the new vampirism.
"Why are you here?" asked Avere, his heart slightly racing at the possibilities of what might be going wrong in his mind at this very second.
"Don't worry too much" he laughed as the female body took on the seating lotus position in the middle of the air, floating around him and changing size to being a total of about three foot tall, not big enough to really count as what many would call normal.
"I am simply finished inside your mind..." he took a small break..." at least for the next few months, the glue I basically put on your self is a bit fragile if I may be honest..." another break, " it is not a normal thing for anyone to have to do something like what I have done." he finished for now.
"Then why did you call me away?" Avere asked, almost annoyed, turning away just for her to instantly appear in front of him with a sly smile, as if hiding a droplet of being sorry for him.
"Leyk became the centre of attention all over, didn't he?" Cades, wearing the female body, asked, waving her head back, the dancing long hair making a spiel of it all and hitting Avere in the face, albeit they simply went through it because they were mere illusions right now.
They looked into the air and seemed to think while straining their mind to the fullest extend.
"He does tend to become something akin to the main character, but I must ask" they looked at Avere once more, a bit of pity hidden deep within the young man, " how do you feel about that? How is it that he is so far beyond you? Don't you want to ask him? And yet, I know, you fear him in many a way more than you'd ever want to admit" he paused, " even to yourself." he added with a wry smile that looked like the smile of a tired mother of three after a long day at work when her youngest just gave her a hand-drawn painting.
"I don't really think so..." Avere said, simply lying to himself, being keenly aware of that fact, but unable to do anything about his yearning for it to be false, Cades in the female body nodding knowingly, indeed knowing everything he was feeling, quickly continuing her weird way of speaking.
"Well" they shrugged their rather thin shoulders, " I guess they do have a way with acting and talking that makes many take a liking to them..." they paused once more, looking at Avere.
"Of course there is also there appearance, but you don't really have to be all that envious if you just ask him to teach you about the one thing you are better at than him.." she smiled fiercely, " don't you?"
"I won't ask him anything." said Avere, angrier than before for some reason, his heart heavy, refusing to listen to Leyk and the other's if they said much of anyth-
"You are manipulating me... aren't you?" asked Avere, the apathy finally kicking in.
"It was worth a try..." said Cades, causing Avere to quickly turn around and start walking away, the female body dispersing into shards of light and quickly becoming one with the walls of light, fading after a few short moments.
"But still, despite wanting someone to listen to what I want, I got to admit, it would be pretty wise to ask Leyk for help with intent, he figured it out before you, don't let him get much more of a head start than he already has." whispered a female voice, deep inside Avere's mind, something about it being wrong, his heart feeling a bit heavy, almost refusing to act as his body wanted to.
Avere took a right turn, a left turn, another left turn, he went up, he went down, he walked for over a hour, but still he hadn't reached his goal, at some point he had even believed to have crossed paths with one specific formation of magma cracks in the walls, something that rarely appeared in here, Cades remaining silent for most of the time until his voice resounded once more, now clearly audible, even on the outside.
"You know, I am aware of the way back, right?" the voice resounded, a hint of both mockery and grave amusement hidden not that deep.
"I don't want your help" said Avere, aloud, just as well as Cades who seemed to be growing ever so slightly more influential on reality with the growing annoyance of Avere and his own time spent here.
"I'll still give it to you." said Cades
"So listen up..." he began helping Avere find the way back to the meeting room or whatever it was truly called, Lawrence having mentioned it before, but back then almost everyone had barely been able to record what he'd been talking about, mostly just talks about how it was too big, how it was mostly just show and useless in practice and such, things that had made the artificer inside him quite mad if he was honest.