‘Have you seen anything like this?’ The Duke looked at his guests.
‘Unfortunately not.’ Gizel was disgusted, but she tried to hide the emotions that had slipped out of her control. ‘I've encountered many... of these filthy things, but nothing like this.’ She looked away as if the mere sight of the shards caused her pain.
Darius watched the elf for a moment, wondering if he should say something to her, but decided that it would only make her feel worse. The mage turned his gaze back to the object. Fortunately for him, he rarely had to deal with matters related to black magicians. Even more rarely did he encounter corrupted artefacts; in fact, he had only seen it once before.
That dark magic catalyst had been destroyed during an attack by several battle mages of the Azure Guard on a dark wizard who was trying to resist them. The damaged artefact exploded, engulfing its user and everything around him. Fortunately, the attack had been carried out from a distance.
Black magic was not within Bleist's area of expertise, so he decided to focus on something more familiar. Although the markings on the surface were partially distorted, he was able to read some of them.
‘It's an activation rune,’ he muttered under his breath. He didn't dare touch the remains of the artefact, so he walked around it, trying to look at the fragments from all angles. ‘The incantation in its classic version... A bit archaic.‘ He lit a small light, focusing its rays on the surface of the warped object. ’The figure is rather human, although the lavender jade...'
‘Does that mean anything to you, Darius?’ Von Konlah seemed to expect a lot from them.
‘Similar figurines were once left in the tombs of powerful elven mages.’ Bleist combed his hair thoughtfully. ‘Three or four millennia ago. Back then, they were made of bone or crystal. However, jade... would rather indicate an origin from the Far East.’
‘It's not a funerary statue.’ Gizel tried not to look at the object. ‘They always depicted a seated figure, and this one
