Gail gave a grin at Tian Di's words, despite her sudden pallor. Maybe he was just oblivious, or he was just putting up a front, but his positivity in a room that had otherwise gone ice cold was... out of place, to say the very least.
"My pleasure." He said. "See you around!"
...And with that, he was gone. Lao watched his back all the while, as though silently willing him to burst into flame - a feat not at all beyond his powers, for that matter... But no robed assassins slinked out in his wake. Instead, the Archbishop simply snapped his fingers, and two of his attendants stepped forward. Tian Di was hurriedly ushered into a waiting limousine, which pulled away from the restaurant with a squeal of burning rubber.
Lao was unusually quiet the entire way back. Not one word escaped his lips, as he simply looked out the window, deep in thought, as though he were trying to remember something. No chiding, nor threats, nor any kind of punishment seemed imminant. Not even her attempts at conversation would have roused more than a slight glance. After a short, uncomfortable ride, she was similarly quickly hurried back to her room... Perhaps, it seemed, to await her fate.
She may have been surprised, then, to be quietly informed by a hooded aide an hour later, that her priviliges had been extended - and that she was now welcome to visit the city without an escort for up to two hours at a time in the evening. No reason was given for the sudden change - but perhaps Lao would rather she be out under whatever watch he devised than sneaking away of her own accord?
Regardless, it seemed the leash about her neck had grown slightly looser...
***
That evening, Lao paced the halls of the Forbidden City... Alone. His footsteps echoed off the polished floors, and the candle-lit braziers cast flickering shadows across his olive skin and somber, chiseled features. Reliefs of Chinese guardian spirits leered at him from over ledges and the corners of pillars as he passed them by, jeering with extended tongues, bulging eyes, and curved fangs, their paint chipped and weather-worn - yet, rendering them no less fearsome. He paid them little heed. His thoughts were on the events that had transpired earlier that day... and while he quietly blamed himself for it, for perhaps having been overtly restrictive of the girl's freedom, Tian Di was not what was bothering him at this precise moment.
At length, he turned a corner down a dusty hallway, his seemingly directionless meandering having taken new meaning as he sought to quash a nagging suspicion. Passing a hand over a hidden seal, the floor before him suddenly rippled, and segmented, like a great serpent - extending down into the darkness, morphing into a flight of stairs. It took him down, down, deep into the black depths of the City, where nothing good or kind dared dwell, and he could almost feel the breath of their dark master curdling in the smoky clouds gathering about his feet. As the candlelight faded, smothered by the blackness, he flexed his palm, and a sphere of ethereal flame pulsed into life at his murmered incantation, suspending itself above his outstretched hand, illuminating cracked, ruined walls rippled with a cruel, loathsome ivy unlike any seen on the surface.
The reliefs remained a constant feature as he made his way ever deeper, but now... They were of a different, vile sort, and even he refrained from meeting any of their gazes, for no-one was immune to the depthless appetite of Volkruss, and even its effigies were infused with a portion of the being's insatiable appetite for souls. Horns, claws, teeth and tendrils mixed together in yawning, gently gnashing clumps that lingered on the edge of reality at their anchored posts, appendages grasping and snapping, desperately seeking the warmth of a living thing... the best watchdogs, he thought mildly, that one could ever have.
After some time of wandering what would have been to most an inescapable labyrinth, he came upon a seemingly featureless wall of pale, ebon-laced jade. Undeterred, Lao moved his hand across it's surface, speaking in ancient tongues the three rites of entry, to unbind the three seals to the three barriers before him... And after a tense moment, they slid aside, granting him entry.
Within was a sight few had ever laid eyes on - and even fewer that lived to tell of it afterwards.
The great vault of the Forbidden City, the Archive of the Cult, stretched out before Lao as he trod over its flickering, ebon-hued tiles. It was ancient beyond imagining, dark green stone walls mixing with cracked, ruined remains of temple architecture, a sprawling lair that was a cross between a cave, a laboratory, an armory, and a library, lit by the baleful soulfires of hovering familiars that drifted to and fro, guiding the way for those that entered. Here, the cult kept its most precious tools, treasures, and acquisitions. Time itself slowed to a crawl, preserving all within its boundary, and the magic that created this effect was as old as the City itself, its origins had been lost to time, making it an irreplaceable resource.
Rows of bookshelves carved of obsidian and marked with runes of power held chained tomes, each secured to its dedicated spot tightly. Closer inspection would reveal that these shook against their restraints as a source of prana, no matter how meager, drew near, the blasphemous words inscribed on their pages desperate to be spoken, and unleashed upon the world.
Clear cases contained similarly restrained arcane instruments that hurt the eyes to behold, steeped so deep in foul curses and stained with blood that they corroded the very souls of those they touched, and Lao noted as he passed them that some of the fictures already needed replacing as their protective runes eroded under the raw power of these devices - a task he could not denote to some low ranking acolyte, but to a senior, specialized member of their order.
Lao had spent much time here, in the vault - often cleaning up the mess of another, less cautious magus - and to even handle some of its contents was to tempt one's own ruination... But, today, his interest was not in any arcane lore, nor any tools of malevolence.
Instead, he made his way to a comparatively mild quarter of the archive, relatively untouched by the creeping corrosion that ravaged the other, to where stacks of otherwise ordinary volumes and scrolls had been placed in a vast, wooden receptacle. He ran his fingers across the wood, counting under his breath the amount of berths, until they came across a familiar sensation. He reached into a berth slightly above his head, and produced a yellowed fabric scroll, approximately four feet tall, rolled in a lilting bundle.
Nothing in here, he knew, had seen the light of day for thousands upon thousands of years. Of this, he was certain...
...And yet.
Without any hesitation, he gently unfurled the scroll, spreading it before him as a familiar hovered close, its bright blue lantern illuminating the article.
It was a traditional chinese painting - albeit, one done with materials that seemed quite abnormal. They rippled slightly against the canvas, bringing its contents to life in a fashion that could not even be matched by mordern holographic technolgy. Upon it, a battle was playing out between two sides.
One side was descending from the heavens, their heads ringed with golden arches, and their faces hidden by strange, four-eyed masks. While most were large, some were smaller, with wings sprouting from their backs, delivering arcs of light that cut through those hapless enough to be in their path, as the very sun itself rained down destruction.
The other... Was far more cosmopolitan, yet familiar to those with even a passing interest in Chinese mythology. A white tiger, a red phoenix, a blue dragon, a green turtle - railed against the heavenly force, tearing the wings from their forms, even as the radiant light tore at their frames. Other monsters were there as well too - creatures carved of alabaster, a fish, a tiger, a bird, and an apelike demon with horrible, grinning face...
Each side was accompanied by its own force of human servants, detailed painstakingly by the artist, whose attention to such comparatively small things would have been commendable - but it was not that which caught Lao's attention, as he finally confirmed his suspicions.
Sure enough, featured prominently was a man in his spitting image... One with long, dark hair and flowing white robes, standing atop an azure serpent.
