The Archive I

"How is he?" Ammine asked, even though she already knows the answer.

"I can't feel anything from him," said Kies. He tried checking for pulses and found none. But then again, his race may not have something like that at all to begin with.

"Try checking his magic. I would do it myself but I exhausted all my magic," Ammine advised.

"How do I do that?" Kies had no idea how he was supposed to sense magic. The only thing he knew was a few wind spells and that's it.

"Magic reacts to magic. Focus on gathering your magic, then have some of it leak out of you to form an aura," Ammine explained to him. Kies didn't really understand it but he tried to do what Ammine told him to do. He concentrated his magic into his hands and then a light breeze started to blow from them.

"That's not it. You know what, give me your hand. It will be quicker this way." Kies wasn't sure what Ammine was going to do but gave her his hand anyway. Ammine placed her other hand on top of his hand and suddenly Kies felt a sharp pain at his fingertips. It felt as if his blood was being sucked out.

"What are you doing?" Kies demanded. He should've asked beforehand but it was a little late for that now.

"I'm taking some of your magic." Ammine continued to drain Kies's magic for the next few seconds and after she had taken a decent amount, she let go. She scooted a little closer to Tonahl and began to emit a thin aura of magic around her.

"He's gone," Ammine said, unsurprisingly. Even if Tonahl hadn't given them the heads up beforehand, she already knew that there was something wrong going on with him. She felt unusual amounts of magic pouring out of him continuously. She just didn't know what it was until he told them.

"Can't we try to give him more magic?" Ammine had revived Tonahl with her magic even if it was only for a brief moment. It would make sense that he could be revived again with more magic power.

"It won't work."

"What do you mean?"

"I can feel that his crystal has shattered. The crystal is essentially his life. All those years of forcibly infusing it with magic power instead of collecting it naturally must have damaged it severely," Ammine explained. She placed her hand over Tonahl's face and closed his eyes then got up. "What did he tell you before he died? It has to be something important."

"Archive."

"I'm presuming that he wants us, or more specifically, you to go there. Do you have any idea where it is?"

"How am I supposed to know that?" The ruins were huge and just because Kies was an Aeos, it does not mean that he knew where it was... or did he? "Wait, actually I think I know where it might be."

Kies wanted to bring Tonahl to the surface and bury but Ammine was against it. She explained that the body wouldn't decompose as it wasn't organic and that Kies could take the body if he wanted to once he learned how to swap between them.

The two walked out of the underground room and back into the surface. Luckily, the doors didn't close or they would've had trouble getting out. Kies wasn't sure if he was able to open doors by placing his hand on them as Tonahl had done.

Kies looked up at the sky and saw that the sky was still the same color as when they first arrived here. After a closer inspection, Kies saw that there was no sun or moon at all. Where or what exactly was this place?

"No time to waste, where is it?" Ammine asked.

Kies saw that Ammine was impatiently tapping the ground with her foot while crossing her arms. He never noticed before but demons, or maybe just Ammine, looked pretty much like a human. If you take away the horns and the wings, she would be exactly like a normal human with bluish-purple eyes and medium-length white hair.

Now that Kies thought of it, Ammine looked oddly similar to Nina. They had the same childlike face and the same colored eyes. Furthermore, they both wore their hair short and had many more identical features. The only differences were that Nina had brown hair and was shorter than him.

Ammine, on the other hand, was around half a foot taller than Kies even though Kies was on the taller side in terms of height for humans. Maybe demons were naturally taller? Well, that and also the fact that their personalities were completely different.

"What are you staring at my face for?" Ammine asked in the same monotone voice and indifferent face.

"Oh sorry, it's nothing. It's in there... hopefully?" Kies pointed at the broken tower where they had first met Tonahl.

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