It was his purpose, he reminded himself, even though as he passed through the ranks of the staring-eyed dead that he briefly considered joining them himself in death from exhaustion. This was the greatest undertaking of his existence, to determine why this place had gotten so far, and what was driving the corruption to reach further and further outward as though it intended to devour the entire world.
Finally, he stumbled back out through the wooden door that led to the street and slammed it behind him, rattling the panes in the shattered out windows of the building that he stood beneath. The sun seemed impossibly bright after the session he had spent deep beneath the earth. He squinted his eyes and still they were overwhelmed by the brightness, and he was forced to squeeze them closed as he drew in breath after breath of fresh air at last, though the cold burned his lips, his tongue and his chest as he gasped as though he were a fish pulled from its pond.
After some time, he found that he was able to open his eyes again without immediately being forced to close them again. The sun still seemed too bright, and the colors of the world seemed strange and distant to him, but he knew that those would return in time. Once he could see his feet and the cobblestones before him again, he began to make his way back through the streets of the low quarter, trying to recall his path from before without becoming too lost.
Despite his best efforts, he sound found that he was hopelessly lost in the mazelike streets of the city. He recognized no landmarks, and he had been too intent on his path previously to leave a trail of crumbs or markings for himself. He could not find a single person on the streets – they had apparently all come together in a single area to huddle together in these miserable times, for which he could not blame them, but it did make it difficult to ask for directions.
Simply collapsing would have, quite literally, gotten him nowhere, so rather than give up and sit on an abandoned step he continued to wander, half in a blinded haze, through the streets, simply hoping that he might come upon the font chapel or a single building that he recognized.
At last, his salvation came on the wind.
"Master Arbiter!" called out a familiar voice. The boy. Mikel.
"Here!" D'Arden croaked, and it seemed to him that his voice belonged to someone else entirely. "I'm here!"
Footsteps approaching. Sensing that there was finally another human being nearby, D'Arden collapsed onto one knee. That strike to take down the fel wolf had drained him more than he realized, and he felt his head spinning about him. The darkness was once again closing in on him, but this was not the oppressive darkness that had surrounded him in the cellar, but instead a comforting, warm blackness that offered him solace in its embrace.
"Master Arbiter!" the boy's voice said again. He was nearby now, rushing to D'Arden's side. He felt a warm hand on his shoulder and fought to stay conscious. Another hand supported him, kept him from simply falling into the dust to lie there.
With that strength beside him to bolster him, D'Arden fought back the unconsciousness that threatened to engulf him. Slowly his vision returned, and he looked into the concerned eyes of the young soldier that had led him here, to the place of his first real victory in this impossible fight.
"Thank you," D'Arden gasped. "You found me."
"It's been hours," Mikel said. "I came back to the font chapel, just like you said, but you weren't there. What happened?"
"I found the source of the corruption here," D'Arden said. "It was all centered in a selfish wolf, that should have been using the power to expand his influence, but instead all he cared about was drawing inward and building his power, luring his victims to him and holing up within the earth. His mistakes are our triumph, Mikel. The wolf is gone, defeated by its own base instincts, and we can now purify the font here in the low quarter." He paused for a moment and looked around them. "Where are we?"
Mikel pointed along the road to an ancient stone gate that was crumbling and nearly fallen inward. "That's the Old City, down that road there. Nobody's lived there for decades. It's all abandoned now, ever since they built the new city here. You're by Calessa's south gate."
He had wandered far then, D'Arden supposed. He reached out, and the boy grasped his hand firmly, helping him get to his feet. Though he still felt dizzy, he no longer felt as though he might collapse at a moment's notice. The thought of victory drove him onward now.
"We must go back to the font chapel near your home," D'Arden said. "Lead me there, Mikel. We must get there immediately."
The boy nodded, not questioning the urgency in his tone for a moment. D'Arden could not follow a single one of the turns they made through the streets, but Mikel seemed to know every side alley and every street as though they belonged to him. Having grown up in this part of the city, he reflected, the boy probably had played in these streets as a child, which would of course explain why he knew them so well.
After what seemed like an eternity, they arrived before the door of the font chapel once more. D'Arden stared at it as though it were his sole salvation. This was his chance, his only chance, and it was a slim one. It had already been some time since he'd defeated the wolf down in the chamber beneath the earth. It was only a matter of time before the demon realized that his minion was gone and no longer siphoning power from this font, and sent in something to clean up the mess.
"Stand back, lad," D'Arden said, waving one hand at the boy. Mikel dutifully backed up several paces. "Now, don't come following me, no matter what you hear in there, do you understand?"
"I understand," Mikel said.
"Good," the Arbiter said. He brought the key out of his pocket and once more unlocked the heavy door that kept the radiant energy within. As quickly as possible, he opened the door, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.
There was still corruption flowing in the manna here, but he could feel that its influence had faded. The demon that lived here in Calessa had obviously been counting on its lupine minion to take control of this area and its power, but instead the wolf had lingered in its lair, merely taking what it needed in order to survive and build its power. It was a fatal mistake that he could not afford to repeat; once he had built up his power here just enough, he would need to make his next move quickly in order to catch the enemy as unaware as possible.
Once more he plunged his hands into the pool of light, and stiffened. The power surging through him, combined with his exhaustion, was almost more than he could bear. He had used a lot of energy defeating the fel wolf, and now purifying the font was nearly too much for him. He felt the pull of the manna tug at his soul, at his flesh, persuading him to join it and give up his life to become one with the earth. He fought against that urge, resisted its siren call. Instead he flooded the font with what pure energy remained from his trance, pouring all of it into the river in the hopes that what he carried within him would be enough to cleanse the font fully, so that he might then immediately begin drawing power from it to sustain himself.
It was agony; the tug on his soul became nearly too much to resist. He cried out in pain, in ecstasy, they blended together and his mind began to meld with the earth and become one with the flow and he could feel the power shining out of his eyes…
The heavy thunk behind him of the door opening snapped him back to consciousness. He heard the squealing of the hinges behind him, and he turned around to face whatever new threat had come to him, now interrupting this most crucial work. He drew his sword off his back…
He came face-to-face with the wide-eyed stare of the young soldier.
"Master Arbiter, I…" the boy stiffened immediately. The power was still radiating from D'Arden, so strong he thought it must be shining through his very flesh. Mikel cried out in pain and collapsed to the ground as the energy washed over him. He began screaming, sobbing as the light from the manna began to twist his flesh.