Obstacles.

So many obstacles. Distractions, fears, chains.

The last time he was in a situation quite like this had involved Esra trying to use Ice Magic, and Daniel had found himself upside-down, clutching to the underside of a giant thunder crow.

He had laid there, using his control over lightning to prevent himself from being electrocuted by the avian’s storm magic, staring at the ground far below, knowing he was a single slip up from falling into the sky.

The only thing worse than the fear of falling back to the earth is the fear of falling up and away.

Bizz. Buzz. Flash. Pop. Went the lights overhead and in the wall. The Dungeon seemed to struggle to make the different zones distinct as the walls rose higher.

The long-limbed metal creatures entered the room in force, and swarmed underneath the fifth ledge. Good that they were not trying to climb the ledge after him.

Time to get moving.

Feeling the ceiling crack and strain underneath his weight, Daniel spied the next ledge. The wall and the ceiling took turns striping across the next platform.

Time to move.

Controlling his movements, everything smooth and stable, Daniel rolled to his side, coiling his body so he was in the proper position. He inhaled, focusing on what he would need to do in his mind. He could see it clearly, he could imagine he had already done it.

The only thing left to do was do it. Just do it.

So the former Lordling launched forward, for one glorious second putting all his weight on his right leg and right hand, and springing forward and to the next ledge like a coiled spring. The ledge starting to break beneath him, but he had his momentum. He lurched forward, as dust and white chauky dirt plumed around him, and caught the next ledge and deftly pulled himself up and over and got his bearing.

Sixth ledge.

The jumble of long-limbed creatures beneath him shuffled until they were beneath the ledge upon which Daniel sat. Crafty buggers. If he fell, they would be upon him. But it was now quite a distance, and Daniel felt confident that he would have other worries should he fall from this height.

Daniel pushed back his ash blond hair, white chalky dust coated it a lighter hue. He overlooked where he had just come from. The previous ledge did not completely fall down, but it sagged and parts of it had completely collapsed.

The chaos beasts below now outnumbered the long-limbed creatures, and Daniel realized that they were different. Unlike the metal limbed creatures, they did not huttle beneath Daniel.

No. They began amassing around the first ledge, changing shapes until their many limbs started to grow stronger and longer.

Dangerous. That meant that the creatures understood enough to follow him, not just pool underneath him. Thinking mobs were so much harder to deal with than animated blobs of jelly that just went straight toward a person, regardless.

Time to put some distance between them, then. Daniel could see the twelfth ledge, and the door that led outside in the ceiling above.

He took to his feet, carefully. This ledge had chalky tiles, but around it was the slick carpet that supported his weight.

The next ledge was beige carpet. He remembered beige walls in the chamber where his gambit had failed. Where he had been replaced. Where he had been removed as the Heirling of the Red Sword. He leapt, but his jump was off center and he landed hard, despite the ease of the jump.

Fears crashed into him again as he stood on the seventh ledge. What would he do, once he left? With no allies, no true companions, and only a vague direction for what he thought was the moral and right thing to do…

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What could a former Lordling accomplish, against an entire wing of his faction? Against enemies that had been shown to go beyond and do the unthinkable.

Against Kane. Who had placed a knife to his chest and cut him.

As Daniel reached the eighty ledge, he felt the change in the air. The lights, which had been flickering, sputtered, then flash on, brighter and sharper. The other hordes, including the dread beasts working their way to the second platform, frozen and huddle to one side. The metal-limbed creatures snapped and cracked and froze, as though their spark of life had been withdrawn.

The smell of burnt embers wafted in the room, and Daniel realized that one of the more…dangerous entities had pursued him even after being scorched with the fire flower.

This was the thing that Daniel had tangled with near the beginning. The first that had taken the full concentrated power of the fire flower.

It should not be here. It was all but impossible.

Lordling Elswith had once used a fire-flower of similar quality to destroy a shadowkin beastking. Yes, it had been a young beastking, but the shadowkin still had yielded to the golden flames and perished, returning to the void and leaving a smoldering husk.

This entity should not be greater than such a creature.

Yet here it was.

Evidence of flame was still present. Scorched and snidged, a red cloak swirled around a hidden creature. But the areas that were not damaged were like mist and shadow woven into cloth, draping over some hidden creature beneath, the red glow of its eyes burning like a fire.

And then it moved. Swirling mist cloak as it bounded to the first platform, chaos beasts shivering and trembling as the entity’s feet struck the beige carpet. But the figure did not linger there long, but soon found its’ way onto the second platform.

It was fast!

Daniel cursed, and started again himself. The eighth platform was difficult, a row of the glass rods around it like a border, but Daniel identified a secure place for his feet.

Training returning, Daniel bound toward the ninth platform, already trying to find a safe way forward to the tenth.

He heard a crash, and knew without looking that the entity had just crossed the fifth platform, sending the rest to the ground in exchange for a single firm foothold to leap to the sixth platform.

It was swift and sure of foot!

Daniel leaped without looking, aware of the longer distance between the two platforms as the remaining ledges drew closer to the ceiling. Luck was with him, and even though some of the platform was the weak chalk tiles, the other was strong carpet.

Daniel could feel the entity behind him. And so he did the best thing he could do.

He leapt to the eleventh platform. The one made entirely of glass rods.

And he shattered them.

As his booted feet landed, he could feel the glass crack and fall apart. The lights went out of the ledge as the eleventh ledge broke. It would not provide enough stability for a solid jump. The ledge fell away completely, leaving raw jagged edges, and sending a mass of glass and darkness where the platform had once been.

But he wasn’t aiming for the glass ledge, but beyond it. With the small jump he took, he gained enough momentum to seize the wall. And this was not the yellowed paper wall, but a true stone wall of the Stable, with enough room for him to get a toe hold.

He didn’t stop, but used his small purchase in the wall to finish jumping right. He seized the ledge, finding it felt more like the true ledge of the Stable than the counterfeit ledge of the Dungeon. He pulled himself up, strength and resolve strong as he saw the entity stop on the tenth ledge.

He reached the twelfth platform, breathing hard. Sweat ran into his eyes again.

If the figure tried to follow him now, Daniel would use the last fire flower. Standing here, on the almost true and solid ledge of the Stable, he felt like he was almost out of range.

The entity regarded him, red cloak swirling.

The creature standing on the 10th platform looked at the gap between them. It was a bipedal creature, and a dark cloak surrounded itself, swirling like mist or a dream.

And it did the most terrifying thing it possibly could.

It spoke. It did not sound like a person, not a first, but rather the cutting shrill vowels glass breaking, the sharp consonants of wind ripping through trees during fierce storms, and the growling rumble of a dozen earthquakes.

And all of that together made its voice.

“Three fears live in you.”

It stood there, quivering as though speaking those five-words had been a monumental task. The red cloak about it swirled and shifted, though the cloth was mist before an upcoming storm.

Daniel swallowed. This was a creature more mighty than any of the hordes or mobs that had pursued him. The words of the blue Construct returned to his awareness. “Fears of self. Fears of failure. Fears of success.”

The swirling figured seemed somewhat pleased. The lights crackled and buzzed in time with its nod. “Yes.”

“I am the first fear.” It said, and its voice was already changing. From monstrous and elemental to something more recognizable.

Daniel clutched his final fire flower.

“If I had not found you, you may have exited through this door. But your fear is too heavy, and it has found you now.” The entity held out a key.

Daniel knew suddenly what that key was.

It was the key to the exit.

“To exit, all you must do is question an answer.”

“Question an answer?”

“Answers that are not understood are not answers at all. The question is needed to make sense of the solution.” Its voice was now young, solid, with the crisp accent of a well reared and educated Lordling.

“What is the question?”

“All I know is the answer.” The entity said, standing much too similarly to Daniel now “The Question must be found by you.”