"Struggle?" Lith sneered. "I was saving my strength and making a few experiments. Finding a reverted monster is a rare opportunity. I just wanted to see what they were capable of."

Lith had learned enough about magic to know that as long as he understood the underlying principles of the so called "innate abilities", he could find a way to replicate them and add them to his a.r.s.enal.

"Experiments?" Ratpack echoed, swallowing a lump of saliva. The word brought to memory countless unpleasant experiences.

"Master and you peas in a pod."

"You have yet to answer my final question." Lith pushed the Gatekeeper"s tip against Ratpack"s throat.

"Why should I free your master? What use do I have for him?"

"Maybe you can slay all." Ratpack licked his lips again.

"Maybe you can break master"s device, but can you do both? You slay, but they return. The closer you get to the device the faster they return. Master can shut down device with one finger. Master is its master."

Ratpack made little sense, yet Lith considered he still had a point. If this master had been a quiet presence for so long, there was no reason for him to stir trouble, whereas the same couldn"t be said for his rebellious servants.

"Why should I waste time cracking locks and arrays if he can just pa.s.s through them with a flick of their switches? Also, exploring the whole complex would take me months while I have days at best before the army sends reinforcements to "help" me."

Lith couldn"t afford the underground lab to be discovered. The Kingdom would s.n.a.t.c.h the good stuff and leave him the crumbs.

"If this master is willing to compensate me for my troubles, I"ll get what I want without wasting my time. Otherwise, I can always kill or imprison him again and test my luck with the doors. First things first, though."

"Does this master of yours experiments on Abominations too? Is he the Master?" The t.i.tle was so trite that it was likely that they were two different people, but Lith preferred to be sure who he was about to deal with.

"Master experiments on anything." Ratpack sighed as even more bad memories resurfaced. Being undead didn"t mean being spared from pain.

"My Coward"s Cloak made from Abomination skin." His words made Lith open his eyes wide in surprise. As far as he knew, Abominations had no skin. He touched Ratpack"s clothes, using Invigoration to observe its pseudo core.

"I got it, but I"ll take some notes, just to be safe." Solus"s memory was peerless, but she could also access to Lith"s like it was a library. A messy and chaotic one, but after so many years, she knew her way.

"No, I mean, does he help Abominations? Does he work with them?" Lith tried to be clearer.

"No. Master helps only himself. Master works only with Ratpack. Me a.s.sistant." The creature said with a proud voice.

"Then make way." Lith nodded. "Be careful, we must move unnoticed. I want to avoid useless fights."

Ratpack knew the underground complex like the back of his hand, while Lith could detect enemies from afar with Life Vision. By putting together their resources, the duo quickly reached the lower levels of the lab.

Along the way, Lith asked Ratpack what the various signs meant to achieve a basic understanding of the ancient language. Just in case things with the master went sour and he had to explore on his own.

Ratpack was annoyed by his questions, but he didn"t dare to displease Lith. The creature needed the Ranger as much as he was afraid of him. Every time they were forced to fight, Lith would go all out, killing whole units of powerful monsters in the blink of an eye.

The moment the monsters realized to be under attack, they were already dead. Ratpack didn"t like the human because he reminded him too much of the master. Ratpack"s undead senses could hear Lith"s heart beating like they were just taking a stroll.

Even though they were surrounded from every side by enemies, there was no sweat on his body nor emotion in his movements. Walking to his side felt exactly like when he accompanied the master before his fall.

Ratpack had the impression of being a mouse riding on the back of a dragon.

When they reached the eight underground floor, the creature signaled Lith to stop.

"We arrived. Trouble is here." Ratpack pointed at the many reinforced doors along the corridors. Each room was bigger than those on the other floors and was enveloped by multiple unique arrays.

"What is stored in the lower levels?" Lith had expected the prison to be on the last floor since the deeper they got, the stronger the magical aura he detected became.

"Bad stuff. Horrible stuff." Ratpack shuddered.

"Master love experiments and hate failures. He always destroy failures, but some he can"t get rid of. Either because they don"t die or because too valuable. Those master stores below, where array keep them in another s.p.a.ce ready to collapse."

Thanks to all his questions about the road signs they had met along the way, Lith had understood what each floor was for.

The ground floor was a storage area for non magical equipment, the equivalent of a broom closet. The master"s living quarters took all the first underground floor, while the servants" quarters were on the second one.

Lith was amazed by how someone could be so conceited that he had taken for himself the same s.p.a.ce one thousand minions did. The third and fourth underground floors were the lab, the fifth was the ingredient deposit, the sixth was the treasury, and the seventh was a silver mine.

According to Ratpack, his master had chosen the Broken Spine as his residence because of the rich silver veins he had discovered. It was the only way to satisfy his need for the precious metal without the need for an external supplier.

"Is it normal for those doors to be opened?" Lith pointed at the unlocked door of some cells. He already knew the answer, since the owner of the lab was the kind of guy to keep even the cleaning products deposit tight shut.

"No." Ratpack hissed. "Dann"Kah and Yozmogh must have freed them. They desperate to seek help from those who could replace them."

"Solus, can you see what"s inside? Life Vision is blurred by all the locks and arrays enveloping the cells. The doors must be made of solid silver, because I"ve never seen so many spells stuffed inside a single object."

Lith would have loved to take a peek at their cores with Invigoration, but they were infused with too many deadly spells, and he already had too much to do. Lith had already planned to raid the treasury and the ingredient deposit before calling for backup if things went south.

"Sorry, but mana sense is useless here. The whole floor is so bright that is like staring into the sun. A whole army of Awakened could hide behind a corner and I wouldn"t even notice them. Those doors are… just wow."

Each one of the doors had a blue mana crystal the size of a fist at its four corners and a different magic circle formed by small purple mana crystals the size of a nut.