Two Will powered torches quickly arose to light the room, held up high by Alina and Leor as the group gathered to discuss their next move.
"Curse it all! The Defiled Will inside her must have somehow sensed that its time had run out. These mutated Defiled are difficult to contend with, they're each much craftier than normal corrupted! " Drelk explained, as he led the group toward the damaged inscription panel.
The spiritual crystal that was meant to power the lighting had been smashed so hard that it destroyed the connections. It would take Drelk at least a few minutes to fix it. As he was working, Alina stepped forward to question him further about Rynn's strange condition.
"Drelk. What can you tell us about this mutated defilement that Rynn has been corrupted with?."
Drelk slightly shook his head as he pulled the pieces of broken crystal out of the wall. "It's the same as the creatures who stalk the plains at night. For some reason they are much stronger than normal Defiled, and their eyes all glow a terrible red. But luckily they can't stand the light. If not for that weakness, we couldn't survive in this mountain for long."
With that, he pressed a spare spirit crystal into the socket to test it, but only a few of the many overhead lights came back to life.
"Damn!" Drelk stomped his foot against the floor as he gave up attempting to repair the lights. "It's damaged worse than I imagined. I can't repair it in a short time. We're going to have to search for her in the darkness." Drelk wore a worried, almost fearful expression, rubbing his hands together as he spoke. "We've only got two torches, so Alina and Leor will each lead a group to search. Myself and Bone will go with Leor's group, the rest of you follow Alina. Be swift!"
With those words, the two groups spread out and began searching through the large underground workshop. Starting at both ends, they moved through one area after another, searching high and low for the escaped Rynn.
The Beasts ended up being each group's greatest weapon during the hunt. Bone especially, as a mighty Highblood, had much better senses than a human or elf could ever hope for. Bone turned his head from side to side, sniffing at the cold workshop air for a few moments before leading the group towards the area where the bodies were kept in a rush.
The team moved swiftly across the workshop, and as soon as the light from Leor's torch spread across the many tables holding the bodies, he caught sight of Rynn for the second time. She was on top of one of the tables, voraciously consuming the flesh of one of the dead Beasts.
The tiny dark elf child looked up at them with an angry hiss, before attempting to flee into the darkness once again. But this time Bone had her in his sights. The muscular ape launched himself into pursuit with a loud roar, running on all fours, his rippling muscles flexing with each leap forward as he chased the defiled girl through the warehouse.
Glass shattered and bookshelves fell as the tiny creatures did everything in her power to escape the mighty ape. Dashing under tables that were filled with experiments, and over tall shelves filled with hundreds of books. But Bone just barrelled through it all like a bulldozer, refusing to allow his prey to escape.
As they rounded the corner heading back toward the far side of the room, the tiny defiled girl tried to escape toward the walls. Hoping to climb up toward the ceiling out of reach of her pursuer. She jumped from table to table, swinging over a large barrel of supplies before launching herself into the air, clawed arms reaching out toward the wall as she sailed across the last few feet between her and her destination.
Just as the girl was about to reach the wall, a slender and furry black hand latched onto her ankle. Bone had only been pretending he couldn't keep up, as he chased the fleeing girl right into the arms of the tall female Beast. In one quick motion, the female beast whipped the child down out of the air, slamming her back into the floor with a heavy thud. Immediately pressing her foot against the defiled child's throat to hold her in place.
Drelk rushed over as quickly as his old bones could carry him, a flustered expression on his face as he saw the brutal way the Beasts had captured the child.
"That's enough, that's enough! Don't hurt her! Let me take it from here!" He begged, but as soon as he tried to lift the tiny elf out from under the female Beast's foot, the defiled child easily escaped his grasp, crawling around his back before sinking her sharp fangs into the side of his from behind face.
"Ahhhh!" Drelk flailed around helplessly as a massive chunk of flesh was torn from his face. The defiled child attempted to flee once again, launching herself off Drelk's shoulders toward the darkness, but Bone was ready for her.
A large meaty palm that nearly covered the child's entire body wrapped tightly around her waist, trapping her and putting an end to her chances of escape for good. The mighty Highbloods body was so strong, that the tiny Defiled elf couldn't even break his skin with her teeth. Though she still tried, gnawing with all her strength at the large knuckles in front of her face.
Alina quickly helped Drelk stop the bleeding from his wounded face. She tightly wrapped him up with a bandage from a nearby table, but the damage was quite gruesome. Rynn had bitten the top half of the old dark elf's ear off, along with a large patch of skin, exposing the white bone underneath. The tiny Defiled was starving, after all. Had she not stopped to take a bite out of Drelk, she might have managed to escape for a bit longer.
With the ugly wound bandaged up, the entire group circled around the struggling child. Bone held her tightly with one hand, and the other Beasts stepped forward to grab her face and arms, to prevent her from maiming anyone else.
The tiny Defiled creature was beginning to tremble and hiss as she stared at the nearby torches with fear. It seemed as if the light was almost painful to her.
"Let's not waste anymore time, everyone take out the spirit crystals that Leor gave you. We are going to attempt to clear the defilement in one overwhelming flood of Leor's Willpower. It's been decades since this child was corrupted, so who knows how deeply it had embedded itself in her spirit. If we don't completely overwhelm it, the corruption might quickly come back like a fungus that refuses to die." Alina explained as she took charge of the cleansing attempt.
The members of the group gathered around the enraged child, each holding out a small blue crystal in their hands. These were low grade spirit crystals. Drelk had plenty of crystals of higher grades, but giving Leor a high grade crystal was a waste of time. It would have taken the young initiate weeks of effort to fill a high grade crystal with his meager Willpower.
Everyone held a crystal except Leor. Since he was the source of the cleansing Will in the first place, he didn't need it. He simply placed his free hand against Rynn's shoulder.
Then, on the count of three, Alina gave the command. Six low grade spirit crystals full of Leor's Will, along with Leor's own recently recovered pool of Willpower instantly poured into the Defiled child like an explosion of righteous light. The light realm Will was a beautiful neon white as it could be seen covering Rynn's body.
Immediately the child began to seizure, and a powerful heat could be felt rising from her body, as if she was burning up. It was quite the unexpected reaction. After a few seconds, steam began to rise up off her skin, into the freezing air of the basement workshop.
"It must be because of the mutation. The defilement in her is unusually strong. Don't stop until you've used every drop of Will!" Leor shouted over the loud sound of Rynn's hissing and growling.
After a few minutes the crystals had all been emptied. Only Leor was left with a small amount of Will remaining in his chest, but he didn't hesitate to release every last drop for the sake of the child.
Finally his Willpower had also been exhausted, and he stepped back with the others. The child's trembling and struggling had finally ceased, now she was simply opening and closing her mouth slowly with a dazed look on her face. The bright red glow of her eyes hadn't faded, and her sharp teeth still glinted in the flickering light of the torches.
Not that a cleansing could ever remove such things. Once the defilement made changes to a person's body, it was permanent. So Rynn would have to learn to live with her teeth and eyes the way they were. But that was much better than living as a ravenous Defiled monster.
Soon enough, Rynn's eyelids became heavy and a look of exhaustion covered her tiny features. All at once, the child collapsed into a deep and unshakable sleep.
Alina stepped forward and placed her hand against Rynn's body, using her Willpower to search for any signs of corruption. But Leor could already tell that it had been a success. The awful stink of defilement had disappeared from the child entirely just a few moments earlier.
He already knew that they had achieved something great, saving an innocent child from the neverending curse of defilement.
After Alina finished her exhaustive inspection and shared the good news, the old dark elf collapsed into a shivering mess of tears once again. Bone quickly relaxed his tight grip on the child's body, handing her off to the tall female beside him who proceeded to snuggle Rynn against her chest like a baby.
Like that, the group slowly retreated from the dark and cold workshop, back into the fortress above.