In the vast, snow-covered wilderness, two white-feathered polar chocobos dashed across the frozen plain, their plumage almost indistinguishable from the landscape around them.
Roland rode one of the snowy chocobos single-handedly, the other hand holding a rough map. His gaze alternated between the map and a nearby snow-covered mountain.
After matching several hidden cultist symbols, Roland confirmed that the small mountain ahead was indeed their destination. He tucked the map away decisively and urged his chocobo toward it.
Beside him, Hela silently followed, riding the second chocobo without a word.
Before long, they reached the base of the mountain and led the chocobos to a hidden spot, where they tied them securely.
Then, they opened their packs and took out weapons and supplies.
Roland pulled out a black longsword, several vials of alchemical potions, and over a dozen spell scrolls. Hela, besides drawing a similar black blade, took out a small pouch and fastened it steadily to her waist.
Once everything was prepared, Roland quickly laid down a basic warding formation around the chocobos a rudimentary alert array.
Then he looked into the snowy depths of the mountain and took the first step forward.
"Let's go."
Hearing his words, Hela nodded silently and followed close behind, clutching her sword.
Roland made his way up the mountain, following a narrow path carved by cultists, advancing deep into the snowy range without encountering any resistance.
Farther inside, dozens of cultists were gathered within a cavern, kneeling around a central altar and chanting prayers in unison, led by a priest atop the stone platform.
With each unified chant, wisps of murky gray-black vapors rose from the altar, drifting slowly into the air.
As the strange fumes continued to rise, the priest on the altar grew increasingly frenzied, twisting and writhing his body, dancing in spasms with no discernible rhythm.
Below the altar, the cultists' eyes gleamed with growing fanaticism, their expressions filled with madness.
As the black mist spread through the chamber, it enveloped the air completely. The cultists, still kneeling and chanting, inhaled deeply, their faces flushing crimson, expressions slipping into full-blown delirium.
Because nearly all of the cultists in this outpost had gathered in the cavern for the ritual, Roland and Hela encountered no resistance on their way to the cave's entrance.
Frowning slightly at the leaking fumes, Roland raised a simple magical shield to block the vapors. Hela, beside him, chose instead to hold her breath.
They stepped into the cavern.
The cultists now utterly consumed by madness after absorbing the black vapors had no idea that Roland and Hela had entered.
Roland swept his gaze over the interior and then made a few brief hand signals to Hela. She nodded in silent understanding and crept along the cavern wall, moving to block off the other exit.
Once Hela was in position, Roland made his move.
With a surge of mana, he cast a basic evocation spell a first-circle incantation that took less than three seconds to form.
Water elementals gathered at his command, condensing into liquid orbs that quietly settled at the feet of each cultist.
Then, with a second incantation, a wave of ice elementals surged into the chamber, forming a visible cold front.
Under the icy blast, the water at the cultists' feet instantly froze, locking them all in place.
Yet even frozen where they knelt, their faces remained feverish, their minds trapped in ecstatic delusion. Not a single one resisted.
Clang.
At that moment, the sound of weapons clashing echoed from Hela's side of the cave.
The priest, who had previously been on the altar, had somehow snapped out of the spell's reach and tried to escape. But as he fled toward the exit, he ran straight into Hela's waiting blade.
Caught off guard, the priest's strike was blocked with ease. Before he could react, Hela shoved him back, pivoted, and thrust her blade through his right shoulder with precise force.
The priest shrieked in pain.
In the same motion, Hela twisted her blade and severed the nerves in his arm, causing his right hand to go limp.
He lunged at her again, conjuring a sphere of dark energy in his remaining hand, but Hela simply raised her leg and kicked him hard in the chest, launching him across the cavern.
The priest flew through the air toward Roland, who was already calmly casting a spell.
Ten ice spikes materialized beside him in midair and shot forward in unison, targeting the priest mid-flight.
With no way to adjust his posture in the air, the priest's limbs and vital points were struck with surgical precision.
As his body contorted in pain, the unstable black energy in his hand detonated, tearing his arm apart in a bloody burst.
Then Roland lunged forward, seizing the priest's head with one hand and channeling a psychic shock straight into his unguarded mind.
Roland did not hold back.
The priest's consciousness shattered in an instant, leaving him a drooling husk.
In the Dark Elemental sub-plane, as long as the flesh remains intact and the soul untouched, mental function is irrelevant. Whether or not the subject is lucid doesn't matter.
With that, Roland discarded the now-vegetative priest like trash and stepped onto the altar. Hela silently sheathed her sword and moved to stand at the cave's entrance, waiting without a word.
Standing atop the altar, Roland swiftly prepared the sacrificial ritual.
In less than ten minutes, a familiar terror descended upon the chamber, swallowing the delirious cultists and the brain-dead priest alike along with their painstakingly built altar.
Most of these cultists were little more than common folk. A few had the level of apprentice mages, but none posed any real threat. The priest was only a first-circle mage himself slightly better, but still mediocre.
With a wave of his hand, Roland cleared the hall of the mind-altering vapors and pulled out the map again. He used a beast-hair brush to strike through the mark for this outpost.
"How many does that make?"
Hela walked over and asked quietly.
"Thirteen. There are eleven left."
Roland studied the map as he responded.
Because the cult's sacrificial rituals were clumsy and crude, they relied heavily on altars to function. As such, their activities tended to center around those locations.
Though Roland hadn't participated in the original main campaign where players assisted the Moon Elves in dismantling the cult, he had farmed the post-storyline dungeons dozens of times. He knew their secret signs, passphrases, and altar locations like the back of his hand.
That's why he could track them down so precisely.
"The next one's not far. Let's clear it out today before we rest."
He pointed to a nearby mark on the map.
"All right."
Hela nodded in agreement.
Moments later, a deafening rumble echoed through the mountains as the cult's excavated cavern collapsed behind them, buried once more under layers of earth.
Roland and Hela descended the mountain and mounted their chocobos once more, racing toward their next target.