Amidst the intoxicating euphoria, Midnight experienced rising tension. Until now, her focus had been solely on the shadebeast, but now her senses shifted to the presence of witches. Midnight extended her darkness sense across the ice-covered cavern floor, sweeping, feeling, delving through the masses of ice and rock — witch runes lay etched below her, buried beneath layers of ice. They were carvings so vast that it required great distance to visually recognise them as witch carvings rather than random, natural crevasses.
Midnight could distinguish between the scripts of wizards and witches. While wizards relied on various languages, witches exclusively used Faramyr, which had reportedly remained unchanged since its inception. Wizards believed that the words themselves held inherent magic, something imbued through time. A single, immutable language facilitated many things, including the efforts of wizards to decipher witch runes. Yves had learned how to distinguish common words, and so did Midnight. She had developed not a literal but an intuitive understanding of Faramyr, likely through their bond. With most words, she felt their general intention, although some she could read on sight. Among them were runes representing various elements, as well as common spellcores. The cores Midnight identified below were for transgression barrier and gester, which had multiple translations in the languages of common peoples and wizards, including energy, spirit, life, presence, and gestalt. These cores were surrounded by several runes, including those for ice and snow.
In an instant, Midnight dashed off, surging across the icy cavern floor toward the southern wall. This cavern offered an exit. A way out of the mountain. The witch runes sealed the passage.
The sprites followed overhead, their whispers swelling into a deep murmur that reverberated from the grand cavern walls, echoing and swelling in deep tones as if sung not by two voices from above, but by two-hundred invisible spectators all around her.
Stay, little shadow
There are many things you still don’t know
There are witches you may fight
Wizards and beasts you may free
Come with us, dark beast
There are many more upon to feast
They walked these parts just yesternight
We’ll show you where they might be
Make the mountain your home, shadowbound
And we will reveal all that we found
Power to behold, unfathomable might
Secrets to unfold in the realms that none can see
You will return, darkness true
Don’t you hear the mountain calling for you?
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