This was not how it was supposed to go. Ferro jumps back, dodging the strike of a swinging saber aimed at his neck. The woman with the sword advances faster than the mix of magicians and trained guards that trail after her. She holds herself erect, the saber jabbing forward in precise patterns, the tip always aiming for some vital point on his body.

Despite the confusion raging through the battlefield that the palace grounds have become, the forces of the city are recovering. He knows it to be the 4th army to blame; they weren't meant to be here. If they had been dealing only with the 5th, their own summoned demons might have finished the fight. Everything Sigrid told him about the duke's house guards had pointed to them being largely incapable, a show of force and magic large enough that it could win fights without needing any blood to be shed. By all accounts, there were only a few capable among their number.

The professional adventurers were another story. They proved their ability to kill monsters at Maidenlake. But they were supposed to have left. Why were they still here? Why had they come back? Had someone let something slip?

The woman with the saber oversteps. Her toe lands on a broken board, the splintered wood making her foot slide a few inches forward as she plants her weight. Both of their eyes widen in surprise at the mistake. The way the confidence drains from her face, replaced with a mix of anger and anticipation, recontextualizes the past half minute for Ferro. He plants his foot, changing motion too fast for her to follow, intending to dash forward and seize the initiative.

An invisible ripple of force over him makes him pause. He remembers feeling that brush of power: it is the same thing Sigrid has, the same thing that red-head used against him in the sewers. He braces.

The ground around him ripples as if made into water for an instant, and as fingers of stone begin to rise around him, aiming to bind him, Ferro catches sight of the magician standing behind the woman with the saber. The fingers of stone become rings, squeezing him tight, holding him still and in place. The saber-wielder dashes forward, the edge of her blade taking on a lavender light as she stabs forward.

A line of hot fire cuts across Ferro's cheek. His gangly hair lies across his face, only one eye able to peek through the strands to see the edge of the sword stabbing into a bit of stone to the side of his head. Blood leaves a trail down his face, but he watches his opponent, wanting to see the final expression.

Confusion is written across her face: first at how he was able to move in the final moment, at how the bindings of stone released him just before she could plunge forward. Then the pain enters. She grimaces, first annoyed at her eyes for shedding a tear, and then confused again as the pain does not go away. The woman finds the source, looking down, her eyes widening as she finds five long and jagged blades growing from the stone, stabbing through her body. Her hand falls away from the pommel of the sword, fingers weakly grasping at the blades running her through. Finally, she looks up again, confusion giving way to sadness, and life finally fading to a dull blankness, the light gone from her eyes.

Ferro reaches forward, feeling something indescribable on the tips of his fingers, and lifts the tear from her cheek, the moisture collecting on the bed of his thumb. The stone and the woman collapse in the next second, falling in a clatter of noise to the ground. Though she lay at his feet, he still feels something in his hand, some lingering sentiment he can grasp.

His eyes roll, falling upon the magician standing five paces behind her. The magician's mouth is open, as if he wanted to tell Ferro something, but instead of words, he gapes like a fish. Before he can resummon any sense of courage, a dark lens slides over his open eyes. The magician panics, turning, casting his hand out toward Lumina, who had approached from his right. The ground in front of him ripples, seeming to turn to water just like it had a moment before, pillars of stone snapping up from the earth to strike at her. Lumina proves too fast for the moving earth, jumping away before she can be cornered.

Somehow, the magician senses Ferro's attack before it can strike, his head turning toward the flung sword he just released. It doesn't matter; the blade still sinks into his neck all the same, almost decapitating the man before he can summon some kind of response. Yet, Ferro watches on, feeling something in the air recede at the man's death. He keeps his senses open, wary of more enemies that might come to his patch of the battleground, but still, he ponders it.

"Tan says he needs you," Lumina tells him as she runs past. People recoil in her wake, looking about with blind eyes, their individual combats disrupted in the moment of her passing. For many, that single moment proves fatal.

Ferro finds Tan among the chaos, keeping a wary eye out for anyone approaching the group of demons he has delved into for safety. Just as Sigrid predicted, none of the creatures attack the coven, though Ferro has no clue as to why. Overhead, the sky has become a confused mess of abominations flying about, swarming anything that stands out like a school of carnivorous fish.

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"Needed me?" Ferro asks.

Tanalious shakes his head, motioning over his shoulder to where Dal lingers, bundles up.

The boy looks up at Ferro, a smile on his face. "It is gone," Dal tells him. "The sickness. It's gone."

Ferro nods, cutting the boy free from Dal. "Then that means you did your job," he tells him. "Now, help keep the rest of us safe here." He turns his attention to Tan. "I suppose that means you should get going."

Tanalious nods, dipping his hand into his pocket, a screen of yellow light opening in front of him. "Anything I should tell her?" he asks.

"Tell her that we are surviving here, but we are all ready to leave as soon as possible."

"That's the plan." Tanalious steps into the light, vanishing.

"Now." Ferro turns and looks at Dal, noting how quickly life seems to be coming back to his features. "Why don't you show these people what it is you can do?"

"Guard the crystal," Athemia tells me, stepping in front of me.

"That is your job." With a gesture, three of the spears sail forward, seeking the writhing body behind the spilled crates.

The monster moves like a shadow, scrambling up the side of the wall as the spears close with it, skittering away. I push my aura back out to encompass the room, straining against the tension that erupts in my mind. It is so much harder now to push it away, as if my very soul is afraid to go too far from me.

My control over the spears begins to fail by the time they reach the end of the room. Two crash noisily into the wall, bouncing away, while the last bursts into a shower of sand. The monster continues to climb across the vertical panel, its clawed fingers scratching the paneling as it moves like an insect.

When it turns its head down toward us, I see a blankness in its eye that I don't expect, a vacancy of thought. Its head snaps to the side, focus moves to the crystal in the center of the chamber.

Athemia is the first to move, heavy boots pounding against the floor as she races back toward the crystal. As if her movement triggers the monster, it leaps from the wall toward the glowing stone, the metal panel warping and falling away from the pressure of its leap. Athemia has no chance to make it in time, not that she needs to.

I meet it halfway, in the air. Our bodies collide ten feet above the floor. My fingers tangle into the hair left on its head and the ruined clothing it wears, my aura collapsing in on me once more. The magnified weight of the monster buckles the floor as we land.

Agony stabs through me. Lying atop the grotesque creature, pinning its humanlike hand to the floor, I feel the extended claws of its other arm tear through my stomach. The pain is far worse than the last time it stabbed me as the mana coursing through my body begins to implode, turning to magma running through my pathways. Spittle drips between my teeth as I grab its wrist, pinning the claws inside my body, holding it still.

My vision swims as the magic running through my body begins to turn against me. There is a will behind the creature's magic, a will that seeks to conquer the very energies my soul pours forth. The will behind the power is insidious, evil, undeniable, but I have long experience pitting my will against this kind of magic.

Slowly, I force the burning power flowing through my channels to calm, force the power to vacate the channels around the claws, divert it away. The burning begins to calm, the monster's potency subverted.

Black sand flows around me in wisps of rattling clouds as I hold the monster pinned to the ground. Athemia moves toward us, raising her hammer high, but the look I throw her makes her back away. This monster is mine. It belongs to me.

The streams of sand strike like snakes, stabbing into the monster I hold to the ground, dust pulling away from gold to sink into its body. The monster thrashes beneath me, but my power over it only grows, and despite its struggles, I keep its hands pinned, my blood running down the enamel of its arm. The struggles grow weaker as my dust permeates its being, sinking into the materia that constitutes its body, giving me power over its body. Finally, when it can no longer struggle, when it can no longer move even a finger, I pull myself off its claws.

My feet stumble as I take two steps away, my vision of the chamber coming more from my soul presence than from my eyes. I press my hand over the bleeding gash in my stomach, my body shaking as it begins to knit itself back together once more. The mana pathways are the worst of the damage, requiring conscious effort to put right.

When I can stand, when I can see with my own eyes again, I stare down at the creature held paralyzed on the ground. There is a moment, just before the end, where I see something like intelligence in its eye, an emotion like fear. This time, I don't hesitate. I call upon my magic, pushing dragonfire into the dust bonded to the monster's body, and the power answers my call immediately.

The monster burst into flame. Held as it is, it does not scream, does not squirm or wriggle. Orange light blossoms in the underground chamber, a flash of heat following the sudden conflagration, and whatever foul life once animated the monster soon vanishes.

My heel hits one of the large metal coils running along the floor, and I fall back to sit upon it. A hiss escapes my mouth as I look down at my newest wound; it is taking a while to fix itself. The light of dragonfire in my vision turns everything else blurry. The pyre shows no signs of going out anytime soon.

"One down."

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