After watching Solus struggle to crawl on the floor and hearing her whimpers, the mage sighed in relief. He took his hand off the alarm and called a colleague for help.
"Xannon, I need a hand here. Some rookie must have gone overboard on their first procedure and made the specimen unable to walk." He whispered to not let the supervisor overhear.
"Again? How can they always f.u.c.k up? Do you need a mop or just a stretcher?"
"The stretcher will do. She has yet to relieve her bowels on the floor. Let's find the idiot who treated her and let them deal with their mess." The mage said.
"She? As in cute?" Xannon's interest was piqued.
"Sort of. She's really short and a bit overweight." At those words, Solus's fear was replaced by rage, but it only lasted for an instant.
"Good gods, Grem, what's wrong with her hair?" Xannon asked while pointing at the many elemental streaks.
Merfolk had bright colored hair by nature, making the mage think that Solus was a merfolk in her land form that had been experimented upon with Body Sculpting.
"Beats me. My guess is that some young rich idiot must have sent her here to make her suit his kinks but the procedure messed up with her head in more than one way." Grem said with a shrug.
The two mages lifted Solus without any kindness, one from the legs and the other from the shoulders, leaving her flabbergasted.
'What the heck? I'm supposed to weigh a lot due to my tower half, or at least that's how it worked for my energy body. Am I really that weak?' Solus whipped her arm at the man behind her.
Usually, even such a clumsy attack would have been so strong that it would turn him into a pulp, but now he barely noticed it.
"Shit, she is having spasms. Better check what kind of damage that moron did to her before it becomes permanent. If we lose a healthy female again, the entire department will get in trouble." Grem strapped her hands, feet, and neck, paralyzing Solus.
She tried to shapeshift as she did in her stone form, but nothing happened. Then, she struggled to get free, but the restraints were too strong. For the first time in her life, Solus felt completely helpless.
Even after being captured by Nalear, she had still retained all of her abilities. Now, instead, even if she used Spirit Magic to escape, her own body was her true enemy.
What point Warping away had if she could barely look around with her head? Be it flight or dimensional magic, all she would achieve by using them was to alert the entire city of the presence of enemies.
'At least thanks to Leegaain's pin I understand what they are saying. I must play along.' Solus's fear and confusion were sincere, giving the two mages no reason to doubt her acting.
"Poor things. She has no idea where she is or what is going to happen to her. Do you think she has feelings?" Xennon asked.
"Don't mistake base instinct for sentience. Merfolk are just animals compared to us." Grem said. "They are a relic of the past doomed to extinction. We're doing them a favor by easing the process and putting their worthless lives to use."
Solus tried to gain control of her limbs, looking at her hands while she flexed them to understand how mind and body were linked. It was then that she realized to be n.a.k.e.d. Between the shock of having her body back and of being as helpless as a child, she had forgotten that outside the tower she needed more than will to cover herself.
Fear and shame turned into terror when she understood to have been completely exposed the entire time and that any attempt to resist one of the men that considered her nothing more than livestock would blow her cover.
'Keep calm. If they really wanted to hurt you, they would have already done it. Focus on your arms and weave a few spells just to stay on the safe side. At least magic doesn't need me to-' Terror turned into horror as the mages pushed the stretcher inside the same room where Khalia had been lobotomized.
Gren positioned her in the middle of the room while Xennon started to activate the arrays.
'Gods, no! If they use a diagnostic spell on me, just by looking at my life force they'll find out that I'm not a merfolk. On top of that, I've no idea how those goddamn arrays might interact with me and no intention to find out.'
A small burst of Spirit Magic freed Solus while two air blades cut at the two mages' necks. She remembered Rem saying that beheading them was the only way to kill the inhabitants of Kolga.
The spell worked and blood sprayed everywhere, but the cuts were too clean, allowing the wounds to heal in the blink of an eye.
'Focus, Solus. You should have remembered about how their regenerating ability and how it weakened Lith's spells. I need to get mean!' Solus cursed herself while Hushing the room.
The two mages tried to scream, but not a sound escaped. Then, she unleashed several Plague Arrows, but the light energy coursing through the two men neutralized the Arrows before they could deal any damage.
She tried to use Spirit Magic to tear them apart and fire magic to cauterize the wounds, keeping them from healing properly, yet no matter how ghastly the damage, the two mages always recovered.
Solus was at her wits' end, trying to find a spell powerful enough to kill that would also not expose her presence. No matter how much she racked her brain, only tier four and five spells came to her mind.
If not for Spirit Magic holding them against the wall, Grem and Xennon would have managed to sound the alarm.
Suddenly, a Warp Steps opened inside the room and the merfolk version of Vastor needed just a glance to understand what was happening. Or better, the main source of Solus's distress.
Lith had no idea what purpose the room had nor how she had gotten her body back, but there wasn't enough time even for a mind link. Someone might be already looking for the two mages and Lith needed to clear every trace of their passage.
'Judging by Solus's desperation, she already tried and failed to get rid of them with magic. Rem said to behead them and my strength is more than enough to rip their heads off.' The short legs of Lith's disguise forced him to float to grab at the mages' necks.
He had filled his hands with the darkness from several Plague Arrows, to turn the heads into ashes as soon as decapitation neutralized the effects of the Forbidden Sun. Yet his flawless plan failed him.
Lith had assumed that the Forbidden Magic granting the citizens of Kolga worked akin to Odi technology rather than to trolls. Only Solus was aware of how the Forbidden Sun kept people young by turning them into unliving.
Creatures that fed of the light element and that had been stripped of most of their darkness, keeping just enough to preserve their natural balance. The moment Lith touched their necks, the sudden flow of darkness magic created a link between the three of them.
