Her voice is cut off by the sound of breaking bones that rattles through my body. A sense of weightlessness overtakes me before the pain even registers. My body crashes into the east wall, the worked stone breaking beneath me as my shoulder and black slam into it. All the air in my body rushes away from me, a choked gasp escaping my lips.

The world is night, an empty dark. Crumbling stone falls on top of me, loose pebbles knocked loose by my collision with the wall. Panic. My soul presence explodes into life once more, pressing down harshly on everything around me, my awareness expanding with it. I rest inside a hole broken into the wall, a drizzle of stone and dust still falling atop me. Then, I see the twisted wreckage of my right arm, the limb bent in all the wrong ways. That is when the pain hits.

I shudder in a breath, my left arm gripping the broken right, fingers digging into my flesh as it starts to knit itself back together. An awful whine escapes my lips as bones snap and sew together.

Yul'Mari stands in the water, not having moved an inch from where she was when she hit me, her left fist having grown to the size of a large dog. The fingers wriggle, swollen, looking as if muscle has been stitched atop her skin. She smiles at me, a wild look in her eyes.

"Wasn't sure you would follow me down," Yul says, but it isn't her voice that escapes her lips, but that of a man's. The flesh of her face begins to sag, giving away and falling from her body, a different face peeking out beneath as her entire body roils, transforming. In less than a second, a man stands where she just had, wrapped in the soaked silks she had been wearing, a manic look on his face as he stares right at me through the dark.

"You aren't Yul," I manage, my voice coming cracked.

I task Galea with identifying the man, my mind a whir of questions and half-formed plans. This is deeply wrong. I need to get out of here. A window appears above the head of the man.

Jadis Kelp

I have seen him before, twice before. As if summoned by the memory, two more people enter the range of my soul presence, stepping into the sea of red and gold as they approach the chamber from another direction. Through it all, Priscilla stands in the middle of the chamber, shivering and hugging herself.

"I was told you were perceptive," Jadis says. "That is the whole trouble, isn't it."

The other two stop near the entrances to the room, Galea marking each of them with a name, though it reveals very little. However, I recognize the lanky youth at the far entrance, his loose, blonde hair falling down the sides of his face as he wades closer through the water with a dispassionate look on his face, the one who introduced himself as Ferro. The other is a woman, her face strange beneath the hood she wears, looking as if her skin is stretched tight to her bones without any muscle in between, her lips so receded that her open mouth constantly exposes her teeth.

"Tougher than you look, Ms. Devardem," the one called Ferro says, continuing to approach. "I said that you would be. Morello thought different."

Jadis, or is it Morello, clicks his tongue. "There's work to get done."

"Yes," the third, the woman named Kessa, says.

Several things happen together.

I leap out of the hole in the wall, my body has mostly healed in the few seconds, six orbs of black sand spiraling into life behind me as I dash sideways, glowing fire giving light to the underground room. A ball of fire flings out from my hand, aimed at the man who had been impersonating Yul, but he is already gone before the fire can leave my fingers. The water on the ground rushes apart in the wake of his movement, his legs having grown impossibly muscled in the blink of an eye, naked muscle wrapping around his limbs and squeezing down. He dodges my ball of fire like it is a cloud of blown smoke, the room itself shuddering beneath the forceful step he uses to hurl himself at me.

Time almost stands still, the lethality in the man's movements so great that I dive into the battle fever more deeply than ever before. Life-saving energies slip from my fingers, grains of sand discarded into the ocean for a moment of understanding. The two of us seem to float in the air, looking back at each other, his fist wreathing itself in lairs upon lairs of muscle as it swells. I won't survive another hit.

The fist descends faster than any attack the termite king ever showed. Less than a foot from my face, it crashes into a massive vault door made of gold. From the other side of the collision, the echoing noise of flesh of metal rattles my teeth inside my skull, the water all around us vaporized and forced away to reveal stone that hasn't seen the open air in a century.

My globes of black sand are already racing forward, blazing energy growing inside them as they collapse on the other side of the vault door, preparing to detonate with as much violent energy as I can push into them. I am not even spared the time to attack. My expanded awareness shows the other man, Ferro, behind me, moving almost as fast as the shape-changer.

The skinny man slaps the water still flying through the air, the droplets refusing to splatter against his hand, instead becoming solid and rushing back at me. The drops of water change mid-air, turning into three dozen iron swords rushing at me in a wall of pointed death.

Two draconic wings made metallic by the steel affix running through them sprout from my back, spreading wide as the line of swords crash against their scales. The weight of the assault striking me mid-air forces my balance sideways, making me tilt and presenting an opening for a fraction of a second. The third attack never comes.

Six explosions of dragonfire erupt on the other side of my vault door, the sound even worse than the attack I just stopped before, the blast of air rushing along beside it rupturing my eardrums for a moment. My feet splash into the water, and I wheel about with a forceful flap of the heavy wings on my back, bending away from the grasping hand of Ferro aimed at my face. My knee catches him in the gut, driving the breath out of him as he is forced into the ceiling overhead.

I make distance, hopping back as I condense the full force of my soul presence on the room, my mind working as hard as it can to find a path forward. That is when my awareness falls on the last of the unexpected trio.

The last stand in the middle of the room, her hand speared through the chest of Priscilla, long and pointed nails painted red with the noblewoman's blood. Priscilla's feet dangle in the air, toes skimming the surface of the water, a look of shock on her face. Then, the woman's eyes slide to the side, landing on me.

Ferro falls from the roof, a rain of debris following him down as he crouches in the water, his body shaking as he looks up at me, the beginnings of a smile on his face. A shifting groan comes from the other side of my vault door as the last, Morello, steps from the smoke and ruin of my detonating sand, his body swollen with layers upon layers of grafted muscle that is burnt away in places.

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A moment passes, the only sound or movement the lapping of the disturbed water as it slaps against the walls. The pressure of my soul presence continues to build as I pull my awareness in to encompass only the room, the aura growing more dense and pushing down on these people. The woman seems most affected by it, her legs shifting to accommodate the increased weight, but none of them are pushed down completely.

I seize the initiative. My staff appears in my hand, spraying fire at the woman in a roar as I pull every last bit of black sand I have accumulated from my vault. A wagon's worth of gold mixed with the strange black dust splashes into the water around me, three full-length spears flying through the air at Morello.

The hulking monster of a man raises his arms to block his face, the striking spears of sand digging into the backs of his arms, only managing to penetrate a scant few inches. The look of glee on the man's face turns sour as the spears start to glow with fire, preparing to detonate.

Ferro and Kessa rush at me, the woman's clothing burning beneath the attention of my dragonfire. She dives through it, heedless of the fire, her hand shooting forward, long nails aiming for my throat. Her eyes are dull and blind, burned up in the fire by the time she makes it through. The butt of my staff turns about, thudding into her temple as a wave of black sand erupts from the water in front of Ferro to create some kind of wall. My staff cracks into the woman's head, the feeling of breaking bone shaking through the weapon as she is driven away from me.

I am so caught up in deterring the woman that I almost miss Ferro's attack. Instead of being stopped by the wall of rising sand, he dives forward, his hand plunging into the sand. A screech, magical feedback, scratches my brain, my authority over the black sand challenged and overwhelmed in an instant. A part of it changes, becoming a huge blade of iron that pushes out of the wall, cutting straight through the back of Kessa on its path to impale me. My deep investment in speed allows me to turn the fatal wound into grievous injury, my shoulder dipping back so that the point of the blade only catches my collarbone instead of pushing through my heart.

My spidersilk shirt buckles beneath the blade, the magical material seeming to offer no protection against the dull sword as it stabs into me, the weight behind it driving me back and off the point as it continues to push forward. I fall, fetid water swallowing me up for a moment as the twelve-foot long sword continues to shoot over me, thudding into the far wall and sticking.

Launched spears of black sand detonate, washing the room above the water in orange conflagration, lighting up the room. I am above the water in the next moment, but my attacks have only stopped two for a bare instant.

Ferro presses forward, the slight smile on his face turned into manic glee as he rushes me with an iron sword that emanates pure menace. He swings, the sword coming down, seeming to suck up the increased weight of my soul presence to aid its slash. The moonsilver staff meets it, the collision of the two weapons driving me down onto a knee that shatters against the stone. I don't even have time to cry out in pain as the man is already turning, moving to swing his sword at me again, aiming for my already injured shoulder.

My wing rushes forward, slapping the side of his blade like a shield, throwing his strike off target enough for me to bring my other hand up, the mageblade in my grip pointed at his throat. He is faster. Instead of retreating to dodge, Ferro dips forward, taking a cut along his cheek in exchange for changing the grip on his blade. He brings the sword around, my other wing already moving to intercept. At the last moment before I can block him, he bounces back, a well-placed foot moving him only slightly, his sword whipping down and cutting inside of my wing. The edge of his blade meets my mageblade, the two weapons scratching against each other for a moment before we are forced apart.

The man keeps coming on, the movements of his blade only growing faster and more precise the more her attacks. I pepper into the exchange what I can, managing to leave superficial wounds, but even those few strikes shrink in number as the desperate melee speeds up in tempo. An awful thought blooms in my mind as I witness the speed and ferocity building. There is no practiced skill in the movements this man shows, no thought-out plans, or style. It is as if I am made witness to this man's first true fight, slowly being overwhelmed by his eager violence.

A low swing forces me into an awkward position. My wing comes up, anticipating his next attack. The edge of the wing slices into him, the scales showing an edge to them I hadn't let be known before. A line of hot blood splashes against my face as the blade of my wing cuts through Ferro's chest, pushing him back a step.

The melee faulters, pausing as he grips the wound in his chest, staring at me through the dark while I shudder in a breath. The smile on the man's face never falters. His bloody hand snakes forward, flecks of blood flung straight at me, growing midair into stabbing swords.

My wings come forward, shielding me from the attack. Not even the first of the swords manages to strike uselessly against the hardened scales before an unimaginable pain scours through me. I cough up spit, my entire body seizing as it feels like I've been run through by a burning poker. Then I see her, Kessa, standing behind me, her hand plunged into my back to the wrist.

The pathways of mana inside my body ignite at the woman's touch; my mana turns to lava inside my own body, burning and attacking me. A third of my mana erupts inside of me. Blood splashes from my lips as I scream, blood vessels throughout my body rupturing. If not for my insanely high recovery, that single strike would have killed me. The feeling of molten iron pumping through my body with each struggling beat of my heart almost makes me wish I had died.

A spear of black sand striking from the water behind me catches Kessa, lifting her away and throwing her against the far wall, but the damage is light as she managed to catch the point in her free hand before it could stab through her guts. Ferro doesn't let up, moving forward with alacrity, swinging at my wings with his blade. Pushing my awareness to its max, I see the last of the three Morello, pulling himself out of the water, his body a scar of burnt flesh, but still moving.

My wings wrap around me, protecting me from the onslaught of Ferro's swings as I call all of my black sand back to me. Ferro is forced away by the rush of sand, encapsulating me like a sphere of darkness, my body left inside a small cavity inside the shield. I pant in the dark, sweat mixing with blood as I struggle to find a solution, something that will give me enough time to escape.

I see them outside my shell of black sand, Ferro and Kessa jumping forward on the attack as Morello's body rebuilds itself with conscious effort. I dump a massive portion of my remaining mana into a desperate gambit, the entire shell of black sand shining with ominous orange light. Surprise registers on the eyes of the two attackers in the instant before the room turns into an explosion of devouring flames.

My awareness turns white in the wake of the explosion, the concussive force enough to bruise my brain even inside my protective shell. For a moment, I am alone in the dark, listening to the muffled splash beyond my protection as slabs of stone fall from overhead, splashing into the water. The sound of my heart pounding away overrules it all. My hands won't stop shaking as bruises begin to turn red and swollen beneath the skin, the utter destruction wrought on my mana pathways almost enough to make my blood vessels rupture entirely.

I still need to move. I still need to get out of here.

A sudden pain lances through my mind, a tension as domineering energy rips control of my black sand from me. The point of a blade stabs in toward me, the tip pushing against one wing wrapped protectively around myself.

My mind rebels against the intrusion, the very bedrock of my soul revolting against the very idea that someone else might be able to seize control of my sand. The transformation stops partway through, the blade of an iron sword trying to dig through the barrier of sand, pushing against the tide of my will in an attempt to strike me dead.

Another clash of magic cuts through my concentration as another spot on the shell of black sand tries to form into a sword. I almost lose it then, my focus splitting in multiple directions, stopping the formation of the blade through sheer force of will. More and more points on the shell light up, each new addition adding to the strain of my mind as I arrest dozens of swords from forming. I realize what is happening far too late to stop it, and all of my energy is poured toward stopping the swords striking at me from all directions.

The clash pauses after a moment, eighty-three points along the sphere of black sand around me, trying to turn into swords. I grit my teeth, sneering at the dark around me, trying to push outward with everything I have. The stalemate lasts for a moment before I find a wall of iron encasing my shell of black sand, a dome of swords trying to be born within my protective wall.

My terror at the realization causes my concentration to slip. The point of a sword strikes up from below, born in the moment of my inattention. The meat of my left thigh is run through, impaled on the end of the sword as it continues to try and grow. My lip bleeds as I bite down on it, pushing with all my will against the swords trying to be born around me.

Again, I try to push out with my black sand, but the wall of stabbing iron surrounds me. Fear tries to manifest in my mind, but I can't allow it. All of my focus is bent to stopping the swords from manifesting, the part of my mind shrieking at the slowly approaching death locked away, pushed back. But I can't keep understanding from dawning.

Outside the shell of my black sand, beyond the layer of iron encapsulating me totally, three monsters in human guise stare at the ball of iron before them, none moving to attack any further. Why would they need to? I am locked inside an iron maiden. An instant of inattention from me means death. All they have to do is wait.

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