What he supposed had once been an old man had now his face disfigured by agony. The eyes rolled back showing only the white.
The corpse had its veins turned of a bright blue, and they were bulging out, like they were going to burst open at any second.
When Arjîn touched the body to better examine it, the old man regained his senses, whimpering an almost silent prayer.
"Please… kill… me."
Arjîn jumped back from the surprise, instinctively activating Life Vision. Not only the old man was alive, but all the chained bodies, even in death, kept emitting a mana signature. Whatever had killed them was still active.
- "What in the gods' names has that madwoman done?" -
Arjîn stored the bodies, the royal mages would have a lot of explaining to do.
Then, he checked the old man again. He was clearly in a lot of pain, in no condition to be moved and Arjîn was no healer. He had only recently become an Awakened one, developing with true magic only the spells he was already apt to.
"I'm sorry, old man, but your body or those of your companions may hold the key to prevent a great disaster. The Kingdom honours your sacrifice."
Arjîn snapped his neck, giving him a painless death, but as soon as he did, the chains started blinking with magical energies.
Even without understanding how, he knew to have triggered some kind of alarm. Arjîn assessed that between the bodies and the boxes, he had gained enough. It was time to get out of there.
Unbeknownst to him, it wasn't an alarm, just like the room wasn't a prison. It was just another lab, with a different kind of guinea pigs. The chains had simply alerted the assistants that was time to collect the data.
Arjîn rushed all the way back using air fusion, slowing down only to avoid the traps. Suddenly, a man with a wizard attire and a couple of guards popped out of a corner, managing to sound the alarm the moment they spotted the intruder.
Cursing his bad luck, Arjîn darted forward, his stilettos made short work of the guards and the mage, that died before having the time to cast a single spell. More and more guards flooded the corridors, dying like ants under Arjîn's stilettos, their corpses piled up as fast as they arrived.
The alarm kept resounding in the building, forcing an assistant to alert his mistress.
"Mistress Hatorne, there is an intruder in the Kandria's lab." Her voice was full of panic.
"How far has he gone? What has he taken?" The old, hoarse voice was more annoyed than worried. They had disturbed her during a crucial point in her latest experiment.
"We don't know. He's about to come out from the underground lab. I don't know how long we will be able to stop him. Please, help us!"
"Help you? A bunch of incompetent, ungrateful idiots? You are all fired!"
Coirn Hatorne took out a glass pearl from her dimensional amulet, crushing it under her heel. A second later, a powerful but controlled explosion erupted from the underground lab, turning everything and everyone in a radius of five meters (16') from the shop into ashes.
Then she took her communicator amulet, informing her client.
"Lukart, old fart, I have good new and I have bad news. The bad news is that an intruder screwed up your little master plan. I had to destroy everything to prevent him from escaping."
"What's the good news?"
"I'm still not finished, you idiot. My old student, Professor Reflaar, had come to collect his order, and he is probably dead too. If I'm right, and I usually am, the intruder was sent here from the Queen.
The death of the Professor is ill timed, they will probably think he was one of your lapdogs. Also, I don't know if there was more than one intruder or what they have found out.
The last batch is either lost or in the enemy's hand, if I were you, I would make haste. If they find out their content, you'll fail even before you start."
Archmage Lukart's voice was full of anger and impatience, he would have buried alive that old hag years ago, if only he had the chance. But Hatorne was too smart and knew too much.
"I am still waiting for the good news." He roared.
"The lab was insured."