The battle was won, but looking at the corpse, Leor felt anything but victorious. The Twisted monster wore a human face, of course it had also been a human once, a human girl. Worse still, Leor had been forced to awaken the sleeping consciousness inside of it. She had begged him for help, and instead of coming to her aid, he stabbed his sword through her skull. It would be difficult to forget the confused and betrayed look on her face as he struck her down.
It was Leor's first kill, and it was far more tragic than he had ever imagined. Up until that moment a part of him had still held on to childish dreams of his youth, of valiantly striking down defiled creatures with a smile on his face like some great hero. Those immature notions had died today. He did not feel like a hero, and he did not want to smile.
Leor returned his blade to its sheath before gently dropping to his knees, hands steepled in prayer.
"Eternal flame above, guide the fallen soul of this lost child back into your grace. Fill her soul with comfort and warmth, and let her take her place in the eternal realm of light. Voluntas Lucis."
Leor sketched a symbol in the air with his index and middle fingers to end his prayer. A straight line, from low to high, ending with a circle at the top, to symbolize the holy torch of light. Then he collected his willpower into a dutiful vigor, refusing to allow himself anymore pity for the horrors he had just endured.
Rising to his feet, Leor approached the corpse of his slain foe. The dull eyes of the human face almost seemed to follow him as he stepped forward, but he knew that it was only in his mind. He had felt the creature's death himself, earning a boon to his willpower. There was no faking that. He quickly brushed his fingers across the eyelids of the corpse before he began his search. Leor wasn't quite sure what he was looking for. He was lost and alone in a strange place. So, any piece of information, any small clue, might help him survive. Or at the very least, help him understand a bit more about the place that would be his grave.
Now that he was up close, Leor got a good look at the Twisted creature's body for the first time. What had appeared to be an amalgamation of many bodies at first, was in truth just the warped and twisted body of a single being. Still, it was strange. The body of most defiled creatures at least maintained some form of symmetry or structure behind their profane evolution. They were gruesome, sure, but they at least picked one form of gruesome and stuck with it. Some had scales, or feathers, but their whole body would bear a similar design.
This Twisted creature's body, however, seemed to change its design every few limbs, like it had grown bored, or forgotten its own body type. From humanlike appendages with claws, to reptile-like limbs covered in scales, to animalistic hooves, even a feathered bird's wing, though much too small to fly. An abominable mishmash of a Twisted centipede. Leor could only surmise it was one creature, however, because all the limbs had grown out naturally from the same torso. There were no marks or scarring from something like transplanted or stolen limbs.
Regardless, none of that mattered now. The Twisted creature was dead. What mattered now was survival. Leor made a second loop around the Twisted's corpse, searching for anything that might give him a clue about the people of this realm, or what had led to their demise, but it seemed like he would have no luck. Any clothes the former owner of this body might have been wearing when they fell to the defilement had long fallen away over time. There was nothing here but bloody meat and bone.
Letting out a quiet sigh, Leor was forced to surrender to his creeping suspicion that his search would be fruitless.
"I'm no good at investigative work… I need to find Alina. If I've got any hope of learning what in the blighted realms happened here. She's it."
Alina was the daughter of a wealthy family, a child prodigy of sorts, popular and beautiful. The type of person that always excelled in everything she had ever done. Learning to wield the will of the house of flame was no different. She had excelled tremendously. So much so, that she even unlocked a special talent on the day she first established her will. Every so often, a person was so gifted in the wielding of willpower that they became capable of all manner of miraculous things. Leor had not yet been so lucky as to develop such a talent, but Alina had done so as a student. It was almost unheard of.
On the day she emblazoned her first small ember of fiery will, it was discovered that Alina possessed the makings of an Oracle. A rare talent indeed. Even her will itself was special. By injecting it into an item or person, Alina could generate mystical revelations, containing knowledge far beyond what mundane investigative work could have ever revealed.
As long as she was still alive, her talent would lead them out of this dark nightmare. The last member of the group of three initiates who had entered the portal that day, Paul, was a simple and righteous young man. Not unlike Leor himself. If he was alive, Leor would find him. How to find them though?
"Well, this should be straightforward enough."
Paul and Alina would both be carrying tablets just the same as Leor's. The symbol of the house of flame was a powerful relic. Even without being imbued with willpower, it could be tracked over short distances by someone with pure intentions. The intentions were important, of course, because the symbols had a will of their own, they would not allow themselves to be used for nefarious purposes, or to lead an enemy right to your location.
"I'll need to borrow this, I hope you won't mind" Leor whispered, as he pulled a feather from the backside of the Twisted corpse. Injecting a bit of willpower in the item, Leor used it to sketch the symbol of the torch in the air like he had done during his prayer earlier. This time however, as soon as he finished drawing the circle at the top, he released the feather from his hand. As the feather slowly fell, Leor spoke loudly to the falling item.
"I am a sworn son of the house of flame, Leor! Guide me to the symbol of my faith! I beg you!"
Leor watched intently as the empowered feather swiftly glided towards the ground, floating this way and that in a clearly unnatural dance, as if uncertain where it wished to point him. The young man's brown began to furrow as he observed the unusual activity of the feather. He had practiced this trick in training many times, but never had he seen a feather behave so erratically.
As the feather fell closer to the ground, it began to twist and turn itself even more vigorously, until finally it landed in a most unusual fashion. Instead of pointing the way, the feather had balanced itself perfectly on its point, as if refusing to lead in any direction. Just as Leor was about to try again, the feather seemed to finally make up its mind, falling hard against the ground all at once, with a small burst of dusty dirt, as if its weight had increased a hundred fold.
An uneasy frown stretched across Leor's mouth as he looked down at the flattened feather. He had his direction, but the behavior of the feather was anything but assuring. In fact it was quite the opposite. Leor had half a mind to turn and run the other way. Hesitating for a moment, the young man tightly gripped his fingers around the handle of his sword as he bent down to collect the feather, considering his choices for a moment. Then he nodded his head firmly as he came to his conclusion.
"I mustn't falter. I'm already well aware how deadly my situation is. If there is to be any hope, Alina must be found." He whispered the words softly in a quiet attempt to reassure himself as he stared off through the thick fog of corruption towards where the feather had directed him. Thankfully, his path did not take him toward the ancient city. In fact it was just the opposite, leading him back toward the far side of the great hill where he had first awoken.
Leor was glad for this at least. He knew full well that the greatest horrors in this defiled realm would have made their home in that desolate place, his intuition and training both pointed to that fact. Resting his free hand on his sword hilt, Leor held his torch up high before him as he made his way back up the hillside. It might have looked foolish to display such a bright beacon to the entire corrupted world, but the fact was that Leor could not have travelled far without it, the corrupted fog was just too thick. At the very least, Leor kept the amount of willpower he was feeding the torch to a minimum, just enough to lead him through the darkness without drawing the attention of every cursed creature nearby.