Pirin and Myraden leapt to the edges of the hallway, dodging the charging wraith. Gray followed Pirin, and Kythen followed Myraden.

The wraith trundled down the center of the hallway, sprinting on the backs of its rocky knuckles. Wraiths didn’t have set forms, and this was no exception. Its rocky form swirled around, never sticking to one shape entirely. One moment, the rocks gave its arms spikes, and the next, the rocks formed smooth armour over its entire form. The only constant was the gorilla-like shape.

The wraith skittered a halt once it had passed them, then slowly turned about. Pirin drew his sword, and Myraden pulled her spear off her shoulder. The Familiars stayed side-by-side with their wizards.

“Have you fought a wraith before? Recently?” Myraden asked.

“I’ve fought plenty,” Pirin replied, widening his stance. He doubted he’d be able to hurt the wraith with his sword—he never had been able to much to a wraith before with physical weapons—but he held it to help deflect and defend himself.

His magic was always his greatest ally against wraiths.

He brought his hand up to his mask, feeling the warmth of the active runes. “Alright,” he whispered to Gray. “We just need to make it start to dissociate. Do enough damage and scatter it.”

I’m right behind you.

But Myraden lunged in first, swinging her spear. The silver spearhead smashed off a stone spike, then slapped harmlessly against the creature’s tight armour.

The Shattered Palm had been Pirin’s most effective tool against wraiths—most didn’t have eyes or a mind to mess with, and this was no exception—but he couldn’t employ it without deactivating his Reyad.

And he didn’t want to do that yet.

He and Gray backed away, letting Myraden fight the wraith in close quarters. He wouldn't have said the hallway was cramped or tight before, but with the wraith filling half of it, nearly all the way to the ceiling, there was much less room.

Kythen rammed the wraith’s arm with his crystal horns, smashing off another chunk of stone. Holding her arm out, Myraden filled her fist with blood-red Essence, then drove a heavy, powerful punch at the beast’s leg.

It took off a chunk of the creature’s leg, sending stone and dust scattering down the hallway.

She wound up for another punch, but the wraith swatted her away with one of its heavy forearms. She skidded along the hall back to Pirin’s side. With a breathy roar, the wraith flicked Kythen back as well. Bleating, he came to a halt just in front of them.

“That wraith has the equivalent power of a Catch or a Flare,” Myraden panted, pushing herself up. The stone wraith lowered its head and shook its arms out. “At least, from a frontal assault.”

“Together, we should add up to more than that,” Pirin said. “Hopefully.”

The wraith charged, this time swinging its arm at him. He held his sword up, deflecting the arm just enough that he and Gray could slip by next to the wall.

The wraith sprinted past, trying to catch Kythen in its rocky maw as it ran. The bloodhorn rolled, and Myraden pulled him away by his horns.

As the wraith sprinted past, Pirin focussed on its back. It concentrated most of its rocky armour and form on its arms and underbelly, protecting its perceived vulnerabilities the most. Pirin figured he wouldn’t be able to do much to it with a frontal assault, even with the Shattered Palm.

Two, three hits…he might take off a few good chunks, but he wouldn’t disperse it entirely. But if he hit it from behind…

Myraden seemed to have the same idea. She readied her spear and said, “I can distract it.”

Pirin snorted. “What, you don’t want to get on top of it?”

“Out of the two of us, only you have a double jump.”

Pirin narrowed his eyes. The wraith skittered to a halt again. He nodded. “Gray, ready? I’ll need some eyes to springboard a technique off of.”

I’ll be right behind you. Just like before. But maybe this time, I’ll do something useful!

Myraden led again, spinning her loose spearhead at her side. She said something to Kythen, then attacked from one side. Kythen lunged in from the other.

The wraith pounded its fists against the ground and charged again—there weren’t many options in a straight hallway.

This time, Myraden and Kythen backed away slowly, leading it on further down the tunnel. It swiped at them with its forearms, swinging back and forth. Its arms smashed into the wall, freeing chunks of stone. It sucked up the stone shards, adding them to its body to replace what it had lost.

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Pirin and Gray pressed themselves against the wall as the beast thrashed past, swinging its arms wildly. He ducked under a swipe. Gray pushed him to the floor with her wing, then fluttered to push away a spray of stone chunks.

As soon as the wraith lumbered past, Pirin crept up behind it. He targeted its back, where the clumps of stone weren’t as thick. He could blast apart its armour from the inside out.

With a Winged Kick, he launched himself up and forwards. Air gusted around his leg and blasted against his foot, flinging him higher than he’d have been able to jump normally. He turned his sword over and stabbed it into the wraith’s back—it wouldn’t do any damage, but it would help him hold on.

The wraith bellowed, then began to flail. It pushed its back up, as if trying to ram Pirin into the ceiling, but the ceiling was still too high.

Pirin held still for a moment, hoping that if he didn’t move, the wraith would forget about him. But the beast kept shaking side-to-side, trying to throw Pirin off—all while swiping wildly at Myraden and Kythen.

Too late to jump off? Gray asked. You could always try again, you know.

Pirin didn’t have time to respond. He pulled off his mask, deactivating his Reyad. As soon as he felt his channels knotting and his blood cooling, he looked back at Gray. In the faint red light of Myraden’s Tundra Veins, he caught a glimpse of Gray’s eyes. It was enough to prepare a Shattered Palm.

He purposely made his breathing technique shaky, forcing the Essence to destabilize faster and more violently.

Then he blasted it into the wraith’s back.

The Essence tore through its weaker back form. A pulse of pale blue light ripped through the wraith’s insides, blasting outwards. Rocks flew out in all directions.

But the wraith’s form remained firm, and Pirin’s hand screamed in spiritual pain.

He clenched his teeth and prepared another. He’d damaged it, and now he needed to finish the job.

One more Shattered Palm. He drove a blast of Essence into the back of the wraith, but this time, it was tinged with Gnatsnapper aspect—he’d run out of Essence not aspect-bent. The light was brown, with faint wisps of green.

With the sound of wings beating and feathers fluttering, fangs of Essence blasted outward, ripping the outer shell of the wraith to shreds and scattering its stones. It collapsed into a heap of rock with a swirling, man-sized tornado of pebbles at the center.

Myraden stomped forwards and swished her spear back and forth through the tornado until it was barely the size of her fist, then crushed it under her boot.

Pirin flourished his sword, then tucked it back into his sheath. “Are you alright?”

“I am fine.” Myraden brushed her hands together, wiping the dust off them. She had a few scrapes up her forearms, but nothing deep. But it was hard to tell with a proper wizard, whose blood was so thin. Anything looked worse than it was—and could be if it didn’t get patched. “You?”

“I’m good.” Pirin shook his arms out, then turned back down the hallway. “We caused a bit of a…commotion there. If the Saltsprays are still nearby, they might have heard that. With the falling rocks and booming and all…”

They continued along the tunnel. It turned a few more times before they reached the next intersection. They took a downwards-sloping path. As they ran, Pirin tried a few times to activate the Whisper Hitch. He managed it after his fifth try, generating an orb of Gray’s mind—purely for light.

Myraden dispelled her Tundra Veins and set to work. She ripped strips off the bottom of her gambeson and started wrapping her wrists with them.

“You need to get yourself some better armour,” Pirin said. “If we’re having to cauterize everything after every battle, you’re gonna be more scar than flesh.”

“I am melting as it is,” she said. “Sprites are adapted for the cold, not the tropics. I do not need anything heavier. Besides, when I advance to Flare, my enhanced body will manage my healing fast enough that I will not need to worry about cuts and scrapes.”

“But, Myraden, until then—”

“I am close to advancing,” she said. “I have been accumulating Essence and…in a few weeks, I should be ready.”

Pirin sighed. He should have known better than to argue with her—

But why should he have?

He shook his head. Just a feeling.

They turned another corner, then arrived in a large, hall-like room. Here, there were a few sputtering torches, left by the Saltsprays, which illuminated the walls and ten-storey high ceiling. The walls were barren save for rune-markings, and the floor was completely bare. On the opposite side of the hall, a spattering of bodies waited on the floor.

Pirin sprinted over, dispelling his Whisper Hitch. There was no need to maintain it now, not with the torches throwing their light all around.

He ran over to the bodies and felt for a pulse. There were five Saltspray workers in total, and they were all dead—freshly, by the looks of it. They had been loading an ornate tapestry into a crate, but had only gotten halfway.

Myraden pulled the tapestry up from the crate, holding it with only two fingers as if it was covered in some sort of grime she didn’t want to touch. She tossed it back down, then said, “The stone wraith killed them. Their heads are all bashed, or dismembered…or some other kind of blunt strike.”

It must have come through here before it encountered Myraden and Pirin.

“The deeper we go, the stronger the wraiths will be,” Myraden continued, nudging a body coldly with her foot. “Too deep, and we will not be able to win.”

“Why do you figure that?”

“The deeper we get, the closer we are to the Ichor flowing beneath the earth.” Myraden shrugged. “I am guessing that this…place was built on the convergence of two Ichor channels, hence the strong Eane fields.”

Pirin nodded, then put his hands on his hips and surveyed the rest of the hall. “This hall has gotta be a good landmark on the map. I’ll jot it down, then—”

“You slept two hours, at most,” Myraden said. “We will rest. If it pleases you, we may sleep on the other side of the hall, away from the bodies.”

“Sorry, yeah.” Pirin threw his arms down. “Adrenaline…and all that. Alright…I’ll find a good place to put my head down. Or, I’ll try…”