Page 117 of Found in Obscurity

Then it stopped.

Lorin opened his eyes again and there was a gaping hole in the ground in front of them, a flight of stone stairs leading down into the darkness.

Kit gasped and lurched forward, nearly tumbling down before Lorin caught him around the waist with a lunge.

“Wait,” he said, keeping Kit firmly against his chest.

“Lorin,” Kit said, struggling against Lorin’s hold, trying to get down the stairs and into the secret room. “I have to go. We have to get them.”

“I know,” Lorin said, looking down the stairs with a sharp gaze. “But I’m going first. To see if there’s anything else hidden that might help or hurt us.”

“But—”

“We’ve come too far. Too far for you to get reckless now. We have to do this right to help them.”

“Okay.” Kit breathed out, visibly trying to calm himself. Ellis shifted in the background, pulling his clothes on quickly. “Okay, yes, go first. Just…go.”

Lorin nodded and released Kit’s waist, walking over and taking the first step down into darkness. His skin crawled the deeper they went, a starkly opposite feeling to what he’d experienced stepping into the room in the library. Something had pervaded the very essence of this place, dark and perverted.

There were dim lights overhead as the stairs leveled out, and the stench of the room ahead was almost unbearable.

Taking the last step brought him face to face with a reality he wanted to refuse to believe existed. Cage upon cage and crate upon crate, stacked against the walls and each other. Bookcases had been shoved to the side to make way for them. Cauldrons and tables full of gruesome ingredients were dotted around. The room stretched beyond what Lorin could immediately see, and he had to wonder just how far it extended under the earth.

He realized in horror some cages were larger than others, but all of them were barely large enough to allow space for movement. And inside…shifters. Some in animal, some in human form.

Rattling their cages. Screaming at them. Crying out for help.

Lorin felt sick.

“I’ve been here before,” Kit whispered, and it broke something in Lorin not just to hear it, but toseeit. “I remember.”

“Keys,” Ellis said, clearly doing his best to keep his mind focused. “We need keys. Or a way to set them free.”

“I can try magic, but I don’t want to risk hurting anyone,” Lorin said, trying not to choke on his words. Honestly, he didn’t trust himself to do any sort of spell with how his mind was spinning and his hands were shaking.

Kit had already wandered away from him, turning the place inside out with jerky movements. Things crashed to the floor, but he paid them no mind, his head turning left and right, nose in the air whenever he caught scent of something.

Lorin joined the search, noticing from the corner of his eye Ellis walking over to the shifters and talking to some of them in low tones as they shrank away from what they deemed strangers.

Lorin sifted through the mess the coven had left around. They obviously hadn’t cared about organization or cleanliness. He spotted a few pathfinder books lying destroyed or in cinders, which made him think that the coven had been trying to find a way to access them. He hoped they hadn’t found it.

He flipped the cover of a book that had been left out on a pedestal, with scars on its face in the form of magical soot marks. His eyes caught and held on words that had been scrawled inside its surface.

To whom it may concern,

I have betrayed the calling of a pathfinder. I do not, necessarily, regret my motivation. Seeking power is an inherent need in people. Wanting more of it is natural. I do, however, regret my methods. Tying myself to this coven was a mistake. Their way lies not power, but pure madness.

If you found this note, I have hope that you’re a better person than I am. Help them. And don’t look for me. I don’t want to be found. I do give you my word, one pathfinder to another, that I will never attempt something like this again. If my word is worth anything anymore.

Good luck.

Lorin stared at the note in shock as the implications of it set in.

Not only had a pathfinder been partially responsible for what this coven had been doing and how it had been subjugating shifters, but it seemed to be in hope of gaining a shifter bond. Power, as they said.

Exactly what Lorin had.

The horror was hard to swallow. The guilt by association. There was a teetering line of morality he could now see in front of him clearly. Lorin realized that just because a calling was just, like he believed the pathfinder’s to be, didn’t mean that those who felt it were all inherently good.