Prologue 1

Hidden in a crevice carved into the side of a massive mountain, a man peers into a large polished mirror. his gazes peers past his reflection, sensing something on the other side.

Breathing heavily onto the mirror, the man wipes with a cloth and is greeted with his own reflection: a young face with golden eyes aged by stress, with a few gray hairs nestled in his chestnut hair.

Pulling out a phial of midnight ink, the man gently dips his cloth into the dark substance and paints on the mirror surface. Smooth lines trail behind his movements, esoteric glyphs and runes filling the borders. The entire mirror is soon plastered with occult symbols.

Taking a step back and closing his eyes, the wizard whisper a command, chanting in an occult language for a few minutes. The sigils before him begin to glow, but he stops, searching for a memory.

"Celestio noohms."

The voice emerged from his nearby familiar, a vantacat. His pitch-black fur absorbed all light, causing him to appear as though he was nothing more than a cat-shaped hole in reality. The feline's left eye was closed, while the other eye read a manuscript at his feet. "Then it's 'planetrae plana erd.'"

The wizard quickly nods in acknowledgement, finishing his spell and joining his familiar a few steps behind. The glyphs simmer with an otherworldly energy before turning into pools of darkness, slowly eating at the surface of the mirror. Very slowly.

"Thanks, Salem. Do you think that's enough ink?" The wizard asks his familiar.

"It seems to be working, Merlin." Salem answers, looking up towards the ceiling. "Are you ready to meet Him?"

The temple ceiling was dominated by a huge circular stained-glass window depicting a massive, eldritch eye gazing from above, whose pupil formed a keyhole. Dark tendrils slightly writhed just beyond the borders of the glass. A hypnotizing work of art.

"Alright." Merlin sighs, walking towards the temple nave, where an array of benches lie dormant and dusty. With a wave of his hand, a gust of fierce wind blows away the dust. He tosses his things onto the now clean bench and lies down on it, draping his wizard's hat over his eyes. "The spell will take an hour to complete. I'm taking a nap. Wake me if something happens."

He takes a deep breath, and lets out a slow exhale. Merlin's muscles relax all at once, the stress dripping from his body like water from a statue.

However, only a few seconds go by before he hears a voice call to him. "Master Merlin?"

Merlin's smile immediately fades, lifting the brim of his hat. Flapping just a foot above his chest was a blue eye with bat-like wings, keeping itself aloft. "A group is approaching the entrance."

The wizard presents his finger, adorned with a marble ring. The diamond resting upon its crown turns the Eye Spy into a mist of memories, willing its essence into the gem.

Hours of vigilance flow through Merlin's mind in the blink of an eye. A frozen cliff face, a bird perched in their nest, a group of four adventurers ascending a steep cliff face.

A lycanthropic figure confidently climbs the wall, a stout rope tied to his waist and following the lead of a woman with red horns jutting out of her forehead. On the other end of the rope, a man in heavy armor waits for the climb to be over, while a priestess clings to the wolf-man's back.

When the vision fades, Merlin rubs his eyes with one hand, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. "It's the Fine-landers."

"Oh." Salem grimaces, hopping up to the bench and rummaging around Merlin's bag. He pulls out a cat-sized pouch, strapping the container to his back. "Let's go. Pretending that they don't exist isn't going to accomplish anything."

"We could have done this days ago." Merlin stands up from the bench, pulling on the hems of his gloves.

Clapping his hands together, a long crystalline staff  bursts from Merlin's glove, as if by sleight of hand. One end of the staff sprawls out into a bush of many hands, ready to come alive at the wizard's demand. "Go ahead and set some traps. Get the fakes ready, too."

"Very well." Salem walks down the length of the temple, the shadows underneath his paws bending the light around him and turning the cat invisible.

Merlin lets go of the staff, letting it hover by his side while he uses his free hands to grab the rest of his equipment. A leather bandolier, the strap filled with an assortment of magical ammunition and runic sigils inscribed into the surface. Nestled snugly in its holster is a revolver, the arcane lights adorning its edges glowing in anticipation.

Lacing the bandolier around his waist and grabbing the revolver, he flips the cylinder open, revealing the empty cylinder within. Merlin's fingers twirl around a magical bullet, trying to decide how to fill the cylinder. "A few blast spells won't hurt..." He loads the gun with several bullets of electricity and fire, closing it with a satisfying click.

Flipping the revolver back into its holster, Merlin walks down towards the entrance to the entrance of the temple. A sapphire cloak slithers out from his pouch and flies around his shoulders, wrapping itself in a bocksten style, concealing one side of his body.

"Let's get this over with."

*****

"Alright, how about another one. Would you rather be stuck in a room with a dragon or an angel?"

The fiend-touched rogue sits on the edge of the cliff, waiting for her friends a few meters below. She peers down to her companions as the wolf man continues his climb with the priestess on his back, searching for his next hand-hold on the rocky terrain.

Still dangling from the rope wrapped around the wolf man's waist, the knight responds with a question. "What type of dragon is this? The answer would be simple if it were evil."

"It's a desert dragon, like Emnomirh."

"Oh." The knight responds, frowning in disgust. "Does this one also think he is a comedian?"

"Yes, but it's all dad jokes, and you HAVE to listen to him."

"... Why?" The knight says, seemingly staring at the heavens. As if to respond to his emotional turmoil, a piece of rubble loosens itself from the wall, bouncing off of his helmet with an echoing clang. "Thanks, Dhog."

"Is angel preachy?" Dhog the wolfman asks. For how little clothes he wears, he doesn't seem at all bothered by the blistering wind.

"Remember Man-God guy?"

Both men groan audibly in response.

"Woooow.." The red-skinned rogue smiles. "You guys would rather be squashed by a dragon than bear listening to an angel rambling?"

"Wha- is the room not big enough for us both?!" The knight huffs, trying to rotate himself so that he could yell at his roguish companion. "Ahlai!"

"Alright, Julius." Ahlai snickers, her forked tail flicking mischievously. "There's barely enough room in both scenarios. You're pressed up against each other but you're not being squished to death."

Dhog's ears stiffen at the scenario, his wagging tail bumping against the taught rope between him and Julius. "Is angel hot?"

"It's a guy angel."

"oh." The barbarian smacks his lips. At long last, he arrives at the top of the cliff-side, with the rogue helping him and his rider over the edge. Dhog gets to work on retrieving the last member of their party, a task that Ahlai allows him to handle by himself.

Metallic armor rattles against the uneven cliff surface while the knight is hauled over, lying limp and allowing himself to be dragged through the snow. "Can the angel and dragon annoy each other instead of me?" Julius asks, clambering to his feet and dusting snow off from his golden shoulder cape.

"Choose one, Julius."

"Fine. Angel."

"Dhog chooses dragon."

"And you, Luane?" Ahlai motions to the priestess with her tail as she climbs down Dhog's back.

Dusting off her robes, the human cleric rests a holy staff against her shoulder, freeing her hands to 'speak' in practiced motions and gestures that the knight translates. "Dragon. I like dad jokes."

"Nerd."

Suddenly, a wooden tune whistles with the wind. The party of adventurers looks away from the ledge they climbed up and approaches another behind them. They overlook a lengthy staircase leading down to a great stone bridge held aloft by giant stone wyrms, arcane patterns etched into the cobblestone. At the end was a gargantuan temple nestled in the alcove of the mountain, and yet it still loomed over the party.

The architecture of the temple was erratic, ancient and alien with depictions of eyes and secrets prominently displayed along the murals that decorate the outside walls. Giant obsidian columns hold the temple out of the foggy abyss below.

From almost every corner of the cavernous alcove, dozens of a Eye Spies begin to swarm the entrance, gathering around a singular humanoid figure wearing a sapphire cloak and hat. The swarm of eyes flow into the darkness of his cape, disappearing from reality.

Seeing the archmage they came for, the party immediately drops prone. Ahlai slowly crawls forward, trying to spy on the wizard from afar with a spyglass.

"Do you think he knows we're here?" Julius asks the rogue.

"... He's waving at me." The fiend-touched responds, squinting in confusion.

"Guess there's no use in hiding." The knight crawls away from the ledge and sits up out of view of their quarry. From within a pocket of his metal breastplate, Julius pulls out a few folded pieces of paper. "Remember, cast your spells and buffs in the order listed on your paper. We’ll distract him while Ahlai gets in position for a sneak attack."

As he hands the paper towards Luane, Julius receives an anxious look from the priestess."Look, the archbishop says that the gods demand his death. I mean, what sane person comes to a temple like this?!” He motions to the eldritch architecture nestled in the alcove. “Let’s just do this and go home.”

At the foot of the temple, Merlin watches a colorful display of lights and sounds from just beyond the ledge. Distant voices chant in an arcane tongue, a church bell tolls, the howl of a wolf ripples through the air for some reason. Putting his hands on his hips, a tired sigh escapes from the archmage’s lips.

After a full minute, three comets of light descend in an arc, crashing onto the bridge several dozen feet away. Julius and Luane seem to be brimming with divine power, while Dhog has been transformed into a hulking lycanthrope.

Merlin, however, reacts with subdued annoyance, his eyes emanating a soft glow. A subtle ability to analyze the magical boosts and buffs currently affecting the three in front of him.

"Merlin of Izoran." The knight speaks, his voice booming with a draconic inflection, a byproduct of his many magical and martial buffs. "Your true nature has been revealed to us by the gods! Your plans to sunder this reality with another Merging will not come to fruition!"

In response to the knight's proclamation, the wolf-man draws a battle axe from an extradimensional pouch, its blade made of a dark starmetal that seeps with a bloody ichor. Luane leans her staff forward as if to draw attention to the holy relic at its tip, the Bell of Kethys.

Lastly, Julius pulls the empty hilt of a sword from his belt and points it at Merlin. An explosion of golden light bursts from the sword-hilt, shaping itself into the blade of a longsword coated in flames. "Surrender, or face destruction!"

The archmage's expression shifts to one of surprise, motioning to the weapons wielded by the trio. "The sword's new. Did your last one break?" He says, absentmindedly grinding the toes of his boots against the floor behind him.

"... Yes." Julius brings the blade vertically, as if to show off its craftsmanship. "A holy weapon, made from the Myrrhnian's hard-light technology and the blessings of Archbishop Reginald."

"Well, it's technically not hard-light, and the hilt isn't even Myrrhnian tech." Merlin intercedes. "The technology is actually based on-"

"We are not here for lesson!" The wolf-man interrupts, pointing his weapon at the archmage. "Does wizard man surrender?!"

Merlin's hands drop to his sides, bouncing off of his thighs in resignation. He already knew that the purpose of this offer was to distract him. “No. You came here to fight, and the archbishop won’t allow you to return home without my head on a stick.”

The corner of Julius’ mouth twitches into a frown at the last remark, but Dhog is more than eager to get things going. He squeezes the handle of his axe, revealing a row of fanged teeth with his smile. “Good. King kept talking time short. It is fighting time!"

"Now!"

An invisible rogue lunges from behind the archmage, their poisoned blade aimed directly for the base of his skull. However, inches from making contact, Ahlai is suddenly engulfed an an explosion of magical dust, from the same spot where Merlin had dug his toes into the ground.

"You must think I was born yesterday." Merlin chuckles, a laughter born from frustration. He claps his hands together and spawns the staff of many hands, lowering it to the polymorphed rogue.

Dhog howls a rageful battle cry, leaping forward with booming footsteps and unwittingly setting off another magical trap. A massive glacier explodes from beneath his feet, taking up the entire width of the bridge and denying a straight line to the wizard.

The barbarian's uncanny senses give him enough warning to leap out of the way, but not enough warning to keep his left limbs from getting caught in the last moment. Dhog snarls, punching and chopping at the glacier to free himself and help Ahlai.

One of the many hands on Merlin's staff comes to life, wrapping its crystalline fingers around the frog. "I saw that backstab coming from a mile away!" Merlin moves his staff like a catapult, hucking the frog over the glacier and back towards her allies.

Julius drops his blade to catch his transformed ally, handing the slimy amphibian over to the cleric in hopes that she could reverse the spell. Focusing his attention back to the fight, Julius twists the handle of his sword and reshaping it into a bow of light and lightning.

He masterfully lets loose a volley of arrows towards the glacier anchoring Dhog in place, creating a clean crack through the entire structure, enough for the barbarian to free himself.

In a feat of strength and rage, Dhog digs his axe into the boulder itself, taking several powerful steps forward before tossing the glacier itself back towards Merlin.

"Dissss-" Merlin takes in a deep breath, his lungs glowing with chaotic energy. His staff glows with power, summoning two giant ethereal hands, cupping together like a megaphone. Air flows through his teeth, like a machine's hiss before bellowing out a powerful shout,  "PAEL!"

A tidal wave of sound and magic punches through the glacier like a hot knife through butter, hurtling down the length of the bridge and washing over the party like a tsunami. The adventurers shield themselves from the arcane shout, feeling the magic supporting them being washed away in the wave.

Shockingly, none of them were hurt by the effect, and yet...

"Our spells!" The knight exclaims in surprised upon realizing that all of their buffing magic was expelled in a single move. Even if the shout returned Ahlai to her normal self, she was without her boosts.

Surrounded by a field of treacherous ice shards, Merlin couldn't help but giggle with glee at his dispelling shout working flawlessly. Throwing up his cloak, a swarm of Eye Spies rush out of his shadow, circling the barbarian and knight in a disturbing cyclone.

"I'm going for him!" Ahlai pulls out a silver dagger from her belt of many knives, the hilt twinkling with an ethereal gem. The rogue slices the air with a vertical slash, opening a small, white rift in reality before jumping in.

Ahlai could barley hear the sounds of battle from within the ethereal plane. The shrieking of eye spies and a thundering smite rumbles as if they were a few rooms away. Her vision is blurred, looking through a cloudy pane of glass and heading for the blue shape that made up the archwizard.

The rogue positions herself behind Merlin, just out of his field of view, ready to cut herself back into physicality and attempt another sneak attack. "Nothing personal, 'King' Merlin. I'm just after your loot-"

Ahlai feels a soft paw pressing against her back, existing in the same plane, with a foreign voice speaking from behind her. "It's personal for me."

The paw explodes with a blast of pure force, shunting the rogue out of the ethereal plane and bouncing off of a wyrm statue. Ahlai reflexively tumbles to her feet, her head searching for what had struck her. "Is... Is that a cat?!"

Salem jumps out of the rift in reality next to Merlin, standing on his two hind-legs and pulling out a scroll from his cat-bag. His pupils are razor thin, green eyes filled with a piercing intellect.

The scroll burns up in his hands, leaving behind a bubbly residue in his paw. Forming a small circle with his 'fingers', Salem blows out a web-like cloud, expanding like a rolling sandstorm across the bridge and catching three of the four adventurers within its powerful strands.

The Eye Spies get caught in the web like flies, but they form a solid barrier around the knight and barbarian.

Julius groans, barely able to see past his nose. Twisting his hard-light weapon back into a flaming longsword. His foot slides against the cobblestone ground, gathering a cyclone of fire over his head before slamming it down towards the floor. The blast spreads out in a ring of inferno, clearing away both the web cloud and Eye Spies, although Dhog is singed in the process.

Flourishing his blade, Julius points the tip of his weapon at his enemy and rockets forward in a tunnel of fire. The knight is too fast for an ethereal hand to interpose itself, locking his blade with the tip of Merlin's staff while the tunnel of flames surrounds them both.

Merlin struggles to hold back Julius' blade, pulling back his staff and meeting the point of his attack with an arcane shield. The force of the inferno blows past him, watching his protection slowly beginning to crack away.

Julius grins, feeling the wizard's defenses beginning to falter under the might of his sword. However, he spots a strange marble ring on Merlin's finger, numbers spinning along the length of its band until a 2 is displayed in the diamond.

The slightest change of possibilities shifts Merlin's shield by a few degrees, allowing his blade to slide across the surface and bury itself into the bridge.

"What?!" Julius pries his weapon from the stony ground just in time to block Merlin's strike with his staff, a magical explosion of force sending the knight off the side of the bridge.

Trusting Julius to handle himself, Luane spews forth a chilling mist from her staff, freezing the air into a phalanx of icy spears. Thrusting the bell forward, the spears shoot out in a shredding flurry at the archmage only to be intercepted by an ethereal hand, icicles digging into the knuckles like a pincushion.

With both ghostly hands now wounded, Dhog and Ahlai rush forward and finish them off, exploding into a ghostly mist that is reabsorbed by the crystalline staff.

Before the two could press on their advantage, Salem hops forward and presses his paws against the ground. The stone tiles of the bridge shifts Dhog and Ahlai backwards like a treadmill, keeping them from ever making any progress forward.

From underneath the bridge, Julius rides upon the back of a massive eagle, each flap of its wings summoning a whirlwind of force. The knight aims his hard-light bow at Salem, letting down a rain of arrows.

The vantacat ends the spell and jumps behind Merlin for protection. The wizard quickly summons an arcane dome of force with a motion of his hand, the arrows bouncing harmlessly away.

The eagle underneath Julius fades away in a burning light, transforming into the golden cape adorning his shoulder.  When Julius lands back on the bridge, Luane's staff bellows with a ring of light, washing over the party as they advance once again.

Salem slams a paw onto the ground, spawning a ring of arcane runes that force the entire bridge to tremble. One of the pillars holding the bridge up begins to rise, breaking away from the rest of the bridge with a frightening speed.

However, before the duo could flee too far out of reach, a massive golden eagle rockets up from underneath the bridge, thin wisps of line contouring their flight. On its back, Julius knocks a strange arrow onto his hard-light bow and fires it.

The arrow stops a dozen feet away from the segmented bridge and creates a disk of light, where dozens upon dozens of bolts fire down upon Merlin and his familiar.

Ending his control over the bridge, the vantacat quickly jumps back behind Merlin. The wizard slams the butt of his staff on the ground, summoning a roaring tornado of wind around him to deflect the arrows away.

Julius clicks his tongue, commanding the flying mount to swoop towards his awaiting companions, snatching Ahlai and Dhog in its talons and carrying them up towards the enemy. “Luane! Be ready to catch us if we fall!”

Watching the eagle soar high above the misplaced platform, Merlin hands his staff to Salem and claps his hands together, summoning two ethereal gauntlets directly on his limbs. The staff shrinks in the vantacat's grip, perfectly sized for the familiar.

Positioning the group just a few feet from the roaring torrent of wind, the eagle disappears in a shift of light, transforming back into the golden cape adorning Julius' shoulder. The three land onto the precarious platform, weapons drawn and bull rush through the wind wall.

As the trio rush to engage the wizard, Merlin splits himself into a dozen illusory copies, each as identical and independent as the original. The platform is consumed by a disorienting dance of blades and magic, the party slashing at the many mirror doubles without every making contact with their true target while Merlin sneaks in thundering blows.

Turning invisible to avoid the clashing, Salem runs to the edge of the platform and hops off towards Luane who had summoned two celestial hawks. With an arcane whisper, the wind safely deposits the invisible vantacat onto the bridge, an idea forming in his mind.

Luane watches the platform above when Dhog and Julius willingly jump off of the ledge. Tapping her staff against the ground, the two hawks take off for the air and grab her allies' clothes, guiding them back to safety.

Ahlai's form crawls out of Luane's shadow, gently spooking the priestess as she rejoins her party. "Geez, has anyone landed a hit on him yet?"

"Dhog almost hit once or twice."

"The king has some sort of ring that makes people miss." Julius says, motioning to Luane. "Send the hawks to distract him while you heal-"

Suddenly, a slithering figure leaps high above the party, snatching one of the hawks out of the air and coiling around it, sending both falling down into the foggy abyss.

Turning in the direction the creature came from, the party see two more of the stone wyrms decorating the bridge coming to life, a yellow glint flashing in their eyes. One of the animated wyrms lunges forward with blinding speed, its pointed fangs clamping down on the barbarian's torso.

Dhog roars in pain and digs his heels into the floor, holding back the giant wyrm from pushing him off of the ledge. Wrapping his strong arms around the wyrm's muzzle, the barbarian begins wrestling and throwing the wyrm's weight around, slamming the serpent against the bridge.

Another wyrm hisses at Julius and wraps its massive coils around the knight, stone grinding and crushing his metal armor. His free arm swings ineffectively at the stone serpent's scales, unable to make a dent.

The final serpent coils up and dives for the priestess, intent on pushing her puny form off into the abyss. However, a devilish form manifests from her own shadow and yanks her into the darkness, making the wyrm miss and tumble off towards the abyss.

Luane reappears by the rogue's side, Ahlai's shadow still locking to the priestess and stretching out to connect with her allies who are still wrestling with their opponents. "Start buffing, I'll spread it to the others."

The priestess gives an affirmative nod and rings the bell atop of her staff. Its golden light shimmers, spreading from the priestess and Ahlai down the pathway of shadows like water trickling down a wet surface. Dhog and Julius surge with a divine reinforcement, their wounds and bruises healing rapidly.

Dhog, still grappling the writhing wyrm, lifts the creature's body into the air and slams it against the serpent coiling around Julius. The sound of stone colliding with stone booms and chips away at the monster's bodies, just enough for Julius to free himself from the bind.

The knight twists his weapon, turning his blade into a long hard-light spear. Despite his armor being bent and dented into an awkward shape, Julius steels himself and puts a vicious twist in his thrust, planting his spear deep into the stone wyrm's scales. The creature roars in pain as cracks appear along the length of its body, small shards of ice peeking through the gaps.

Luane raises her staff to cast again through the shadow link when a sudden blow to the side smacks her down to her knees.

Two giant paws formed from the same shadow as the vantacat loom over the priestess. Luane quickly throws up a holy shield to block another strike, a ripple of light traveling from the impact.

High above the battlefield on the suspended section of the bridge, Merlin watches the combat unfold, measuring and calculating geometric lines in his head. His feet effortlessly cling to the side of the structure like a spider, adjusting his cloak to get to a ring of coins attached to his belt, pulling a couple of disks shined to a mirror sheen, enchanted runes lining its edge. Merlin twirls the coins in between his fingers, dancing as if the ethereal gauntlets weren't on his hands before launching them forward with a quick flick. The wizard is in a steeled focus, watching the coins descend in a long arc towards the fray. Waiting... waiting...

Thunder booms and echoes in the cavernous alcove. A single bolt of lightning ricochets between the enchanted coins and burns through the four adventurers in its path. At the end when the bolt strikes the bridge itself, Merlin materializes in a flash of lightning next to Luane, a plume of smoke rising from the end of his revolver.

Wounded from the assailing of the wyrm and the lightning bolt, Julius torpedoes towards the wizard while Dhog is left to deal with both wyrms. The knight's spear slides across the surface of his arcane shield, watching the point of the revolver spin towards him.

Knowing that Luane would get caught as well, Julius parries the incoming lightning bolt down into the ground, absorbing the crackling element into his spear. "No more-!"

Merlin interrupts Julius with a closing jab, the force built up in his ethereal gauntlet sending his heavy body flying backwards, slamming into Luane and sandwiching her between himself and a pedestal that held a statue. The archmage points his revolver at the two, ready to send another bolt of lightning through them when he sees just how wounded and bloodied they were.

"Oh damn, how much health do you have left?"

The sentence leaves Merlin's mouth like a reflex, diverting his weapon to deflect Ahlai's opportunistic strike. The two shadowy paws take places by the archmage's side, aiding him in fending off the rogue's flurry of attacks. Merlin dodges and weaves between the quick strikes and thrusts, feeling a few of the edges glancing against his skin while the large paws bat away the truer attacks.

Finally using one stone wyrm to turn the other one into rubble, Dhog bends his body backwards to suplex the wyrm still sinking its teeth into him, its shadow looming directly over the archmage.

Merlin summons a quick gust of wind to create distance between himself and the rogue, his gaze landing on the wyrm's body falling towards him. Reactively, the wizard rubs his thumb along his ring, sending the numbers spiraling before the diamond settled on a ruby 1.

With a quick shifting of possibilities, Dhog instead slams the wyrm down on Ahlai, trapping her underneath a mass of stone and pain.

"Dhog!"

"I was aiming for wizard!"

Merlin lowers his revolver and observes the party while Dhog prepares to attack with the wyrm again. The adventurers have all suffered heavy damage, but were in the height of their battle mindset. The archmage flips the revolver back into its holster and releases a breath like a low hiss, his form flickering as he watches the stone wyrm heading for him like a whip. "Uuuuulll..."

Julius' metallic body slams into the wizard from behind, throwing him directly in the path of the incoming wyrm. Merlin bounces back from the strike and into the air. He halts his momentum with quick casting of a flying spell, floating a few dozen feet above the ground.

Stumbling out of the indent in the stone bridge that was created when Dhog slammed her with an animate statue, Ahlai crouches down and disappears into a spire of flames. The smell and sulfur and brimstone surrounds Merlin as Ahlai reappears behind him and sinks a needlepoint dagger into his spine.

The archmage gasps in pain, the air leaving his lungs from the blow, feeling a burning venom shooting through his nerves and paralyzing his body. Ahlai cries out in excitement, keeping the point locked in between his vertebrae. "I got him! I got him!"

A shadowy paw bats Ahlai away, spiking her to the ground and through the bridge's stone handrails. Ahlai twists her body like a cat to barely catch herself on the ledge, feet dangling over the fog filled chasm.

While one paw removes the dagger from Merlin's back, the other paw flies to slam against Ahlai, only for Julius to cleave through the shadow in one fell swing. Sword in his hands, the knight stands in front of the recovering rogue glaring at the archmage who glows with hellfire.

Three rays of the deepest flames burst from Merlin's palms, a scarlet inferno roaring with fire and power. Julius takes a high guard and slashes each missile out of the air, wrapping their hellish energy around the length of his blade. Circling the energy above his head, the knight swings and sends a flaming arc back towards his enemy.

Sparks flitter around Merlin's fingers as he prepares a counter spell, only for Dhog, reinforced by a divine flight, to chop a hard-light axe into the wizard's back with a shattering crunch. The double-bladed battle-axe, a different weapon than he was using until now, whirs with life. A hinge swings the other head of the axe around Merlin's torso and clamps down on his chest like a crab cracker, making sure he takes the full brunt of the incoming attack.

The wave of hellfire envelops the archmage, infernal heat scorching at his skin and cloak. Merlin tries to cast a spell with his hands locked to his side but he catches a fist to the mouth. The barbarian smile maliciously, a few embers clinging to his knuckles.

Salem leaps from ethereal paw to ethereal paw, charging his real paw with telekinetic force. Jumping up towards Merlin, the vantacat taps Dhog on the back, the spell spiking Dhog back down to the bridge. Clinging onto the archmage's cloak, Salem starts to scratch and gnaw at the hinge still keeping Merlin pinched, careful to avoid the hellish embers that still coat the wizard's body.

A divine ringing echoes from Luane's staff, its holy song slowly turning into a chorus of celestial voices, emanating from a ring of light appearing above Merlin and Salem. The voices make way to the building crackling of energy before a pillar of divine fire and light beam down. Both the flames of heaven and hell react with the other's presence, a spark growing into a powerful sphere of blazing annihilation.

Silence falls as nothing remains of the wizard or his familiar, broken by the sound of Dhog's charred weapon clattering against the ground. The ethereal paws pass away into mist, dissipating into the wind that follows.

"Is that it?" Ahlai asks as she climbs back onto the bridge, hiding behind Julius. "Did we do it?"

There is another pregnant moment of anticipation, the party watching the statues for signs of life or a counter-attack.

"... It seems like we did." Julius groans as he deactivates his weapon, rolling his sore shoulders.

"Finally!"

"Everything hurts."

The party all begin to stretch and tend to their equipment and wounds, magic or mundane. Dhog in particular just starts to lie face down on the ground, quietly awaiting his turn while Luane begins distributing healing spells.

"I've never seen fire explode like that." Ahlai says letting herself be enveloped by Luane's healing.

Luane opens her mouth to speak, perhaps for the first time in a long time. "I thin- woah."

The priestess' voices comes out like a file grinding against a rusty pipe, hoarse after months of not saying a word. The party all groan in surprise and Julius offers his waterskin to her. Luane smiles and takes the waterskin, taking a few sips and swishing the stale water in her mouth.

Once she was well treated, Ahlai moves to poke through the pile of ash and soot, searching for any treasure that might've survived. "I guess that vow of silence you took was really handy. Gave you the power to burn everything... including the loot."

After a while, the rogue discovers parts of a white marble ring in the ashes, destroyed beyond repair. She sneakily pockets the ring and stands up, clapping her hands free of soot. "Alright, let's go home and get paid."

"Really?" Julius asks Ahlai, pulling an orb from his bag, a pinkish mist swirling in its glass confines. "I'm not against leaving, but I thought you might've wanted to explore the temple."

"Merlin's a wizard." Ahlai shrugs, waiting for Luane to finish healing the barbarian lying down on the stone. "He would've grabbed anything of actual value in the temple, and all of his stuff got blasted away."

"A fair assessment." The knight looks upon the pile of soot. "Perhaps we should bring some ash with us as proof. Does anyone have a clean glove?"

"Oh! You should use the handkerchief that the princess gave you!" The rogue smiles, leaning against the knight. "Imagine returning her token with the ashes of her father's murderer! That is an immediate promotion to... I dunno, royal knight? Your own noble house?!"

Julius opens his mouth to protest dirtying the princess's token, but catches himself before he says anything. Wordlessly, the knight retrieves an embroidered handkerchief from his breastplate and kneels down, dirtying the token with the archmage's soot.

Quickly, he returns to his party now gathered, handing the orb to Ahlai. "You said you knew how to use this?"

"Yup!"

"Alright, then be careful. I imagine it's a delicate-"

Ahlai doesn't wait for Julius to finish his sentence, lifting the orb high above her head and throwing it to the ground while the others look on in terror. The glass sphere shatters and releases the mist of magic, a powerful enchantment that tornadoes around the party. In an instant, the gas implodes and whisks the four adventurers away, disappearing from the cavernous alcove.

A howling wind blows through the cavern, the ancient temple left empty once again.

After a minute of silence, a sapphire hat peeks up from underneath the bridge, scanning its surface to make sure it was clear. Merlin climbs back onto the stone like a spider, with Salem clinging on to his shoulder.

"Man, that's... that promotion is gonna be awkward when I return to the capital in a week."