Chapter Text
Sonar sits against the bed frame watching the sky out of the window and robert lays on his stomach next to him and yawns “we have a job to do tomorrow…”
Sonar hums and pets roberts head “what job did you pick?”
“The one about the shroud sighting”
Sonar looks at robert in surprise and his hand stills in his hair “are you sure? I mean i know you wouldn’t pick something the group can’t handle but..”
“Its just a scouting mission, we’re just seeing if he’s actually still alive in the dungeon” robert says as he turns his head to the side and kisses sonars side, “we’ll be fine”
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Sonar and the team, consisting of robert, sonar, invisigal, waterboy, punch-up, and malevola continue walking through the halls of the dungeon, with the mages’ familiar charms clinking with every step along side malevola and punch-ups armor clinking and clanking until they walk into the clearing of the floor, giant columns stretching up against the walls as if holding up the floor above.
None of them noticed invisigal stopping until she interrupted the silence with an apology, causing everyones head to turn to her in confusion until they hear a high pitched thrill and a choked cough from the front
They turn to the front breaths catching in their throats as they see robert sway with a hole in his chest and shaded arms come out of shadows to pull him in, they try to rush to him, missing invisigal run into the same shadows pulling robert in, catching a glance of a haunting red mask as several shadowed lackeys pour into the trap from every crevasse and corner until robert is gone with courtney and shroud.
Sonar stares at the droplets of blood left where robert was standing, piles of lackluster shadow configurations around them as they pant and wheeze in exhaustion from their fight, arms trembling and fists clenching as he fights the urge to just shift and rampage till he finds robert and tears shroud in two, he doesn’t care if the old fuck rivals the lord of the dungeon in strength, he’ll beat the bastard black and blue
Herman and malevola start to try to heal everyone, the mage and cleric trying not to spare a glance at roberts blood on the floor, but he heard herm breath in a shaky inhale and mumble something about the defensive magic robert always kept up unless something took his mind off it
Sonar never cared for magic until he met malevola and then robert, he preferred doing things by hand, why learn to cast a spell to open locks if he could just as easily open it with a lock pick or something else, plus his curse didn’t give him a good introduction to magic
He understood the basics that robert taught him, he never used it but he learned just to see roberts smile and to hear his praise, even if what sonar could do he himself could to it one hundred times better, robert would still praise him to try to keep his interest up
He heard a portal open up and distant screams of the damned ring out from it, he didnt want to leave without robert, but he let malevona steer him away from the droplets and they step in front of the guilds front desk with chase greeting them gruffly until he notices the lack of robert and the attitude around them
“What?- wheres robert?”
Victor glares at the floor and he feels his claws dig into his palms as he hears the other team members run up and greet them, chad coming up and greeting herman and the rest of the team noticing everyone’s attitude, with the couples of the group trying to comfort their partners that went as malvona explains what happened as blazer comes in halfway through and being recapped
Victor felt his bones twitch and rattle under his skin, he shouldn’t be here, he felt his eyes water as he trembles, he tries to remember roberts warmth from last night, how his hair felt in between his fingers as he carded through it, but all he can think of is how he went pale and choked on the blood bubbling up in his pierced chest, how he stumbled back into the hands forcibly taking him away from them- from HIM
malevona wrapped him in her arms, and despite the coldness of her armor he felt her warmth, he didn’t know what to do, he barely listened to blazer saying they’ll search for him tomorrow, barely registered laying in the same bed he was lastnight as he stared at the ceiling of the guilds dorm as he fell asleep
•~•~•~•
“Good job invisibitch, if you didn’t distract him he probably would’ve deflected the shitty beam!” Toxic said as he slapped her back as if they were best fucking friends and were laughing at an inside joke
She stared down at shroud as he worked on an magic circle drawn with a mix of Phoenix blood and a bit of beef’s blood, the tiny familiar stuck in a cage after being summoned and staring dumbly at Roberts body in the center of the thing, with runes from the same mixture drawn on his body. She felt like puking from the shear guilt she felt staring down at his body and shuddered in disgust at the mistreatment of beef
A mages familiar was so intricately intertwined with the wielders soul, it was theorized that if you wanted to revive a mage, that their familiar was to be used since they stay even after the mages death and held onto their soul, it was never worked on though, shockingly no one wanted to die just to try something that wouldn’t even work, and there was a chance of the worst sin to happen… monsterization.
Tainting with the body and soul to make it something unnatural and disgusting, at least that’s what the magic schools say, with their stuck up mages that’ll probably never be put in a position where they won’t be cushy in the court of a king or in the hands of a wealthy elite even if they’re supposed to be making powerful mages, most are just prissy little shits
Toxic continued talking but she didn’t listen, she was just watching shroud until he looked up at them and on cue toxic stopped talking
“Come down, bring the extra ingredients”
As they placed the phoenix meat and feathers around Roberts body along with the other ingredients, she wondered if he went to the same prissy schools most mages did, he certainly didn’t act like it though, he acted more like a fighter and artificer more than a mage and artificer
She stepped back as the circle began crackling dully and shroud placed the heart on top of roberts chest and stepped out
“Now… for the fun part”
She looked down at the circle instead of the body of her friend “are you sure it’s going to work in our favor? Even if it works he’s going to be-“
“A beast, shroud knows that invisibitch, thats why he has that control monster shit on speed dial. Why do you even want him though shroud?”
She heard shroud tsk in annoyance “cause he knows where his stupid fucking father put the mecha-man and astral pulse, plus if he’s on our side then we have a mage near my level, even if he’s useless as an artificer after he’s turned”
After shrouds done talking the blood starts bubbling and lifting up like sticky tendrils with sparks twinkling and pulling them around the shit in the center, balling up and the low shrills move onto high pitched shrieks as the magic works its wonders, the blood peeling off like wrapping paper and joining the tendrils as they wrap around and squeeze everything together with sickening pops and cracks of bones from the force
Visi turns to leave and shakily pushes the doors open and closes the door and slides down against it with her legs pulled against her chest.