Rosemallow leaned back on her throne, shaping the stone to conform to her legs and back.
“Just like old times, eh?” she said to one of the many spiders she had displaced from the great stone edifice. “I don’t know why I didn’t come back sooner.”
Of course, she knew perfectly well. Eskallia had beguiled her. No, she thought, not beguiled. Captivated. Eskallia had awoken something deep within her and swept her along, as she had so many others, and Rosemallow had never looked back. The Labyrinth had languished, a forgotten toy of childhood, a symbol of all that had been outgrown.
With Eskallia gone for any foreseeable future, Rosemallow had found her thoughts drifting back to her old life more and more. Not that there was any desire for her to pick up where she had left off, nothing like that. Just a feeling of nostalgia, or perhaps the sense that by returning to her past, she could find answers to the gaping void in her present. When the idea had come to her to use the Labyrinth for the students, it had seemed an elegant way to kill two birds with one stone. Previously, she would have been… embarrassed wasn’t exactly the right word. Ashamed?
It was a foreign concept, but in this new chapter of her existence, post-Eskallia, it seemed that she was ready to confront her past in new ways.
Memories are strange things, she thought. I wish Ani was here.
Rosemallow was rarely introspective. Contemplation, to her, was usually just a way to put off real action. Still, one of the contradictions of her Way was that struggle did not always manifest externally, that its fundamental nature was to turn on itself. Blindly charging from one conflict to another became too easy, thoughtless effort turned into its own kind of misguided compliance. Looking back over the years, Rosemallow could see much of her growth was oriented around the struggle against her fundamental nature. Peace was the ultimate struggle for one such as her.
With a snort at her own pretension, she turned her energy to continuing her inventory of the Labyrinth, using her connection to the rock itself to scry within.
“Termites!?” she bellowed, causing several nearby spiders to curl protectively as their webs shook from the vibrations of her exclamation. “No, no, no. Unacceptable!”
Building the Labyrinth had been the work of centuries, or so her memories told her. Her motivations for doing so were… fuzzy at best. Something to do with the dawning awareness that she could feed off the suffering of others, and that prolonging that suffering, creating a larder, as it were, might be a good way to go.
She had stocked that larder with every creature and person she could capture, traveling for weeks at a time in search of new and unique specimens. Most had died within days, hours even, of their introduction. Others had thrived, finding or defining their own niche in the bare, continuous halls of her ever expanding creation. Over the decades, she would sometimes get bored and experiment with new ideas, new ways to suit her goals of inflicting misery on the inhabitants without killing them.
It was through that process that she refined her own path, finding that in some ways, the pain and suffering were less important than the struggle itself. She also discovered that the struggles of those who entered the Labyrinth voluntarily, whether driven by noble intentions or greed, were far more satisfying than the random beasts and sentients she captured. She still remembered that first group of adventurers, who had actually needed to dig underground to force their entrance, intent on rescuing some random princess she had picked up on a sweep through a human kingdom.
Their noble struggle had been delicious.
Twice, she had been defeated, and once, upon respawning, she had found the entire labyrinth cleared, its tunnels collapsed in places. Undeterred, she had rebuilt, deeper and bigger than ever, and in the process realized that her own struggles could be just as savory. She had grown her earth magic to new heights, reinforcing the walls with such strength that even a master earth mage might need years to collapse them. So to find a colony of Rock Termites nesting within her walls, feeding upon their earth mana as the enchantments slowly faded... that was beyond infuriating.
She sighed. It was hardly the first disappointment she had found over the past hours. So many beautiful traps destroyed, so many golems defective. On the other hand, the life forms had pleasantly surprised her, termites notwithstanding. She found it telling that where rock and mechanism failed, life flourished. She couldn’t begin to catalog how many unique creatures she had already discovered.
Periodically, she checked on the agonizingly slow progress of her students.
Lets see now, where have they gotten to… oh, they finally made it through that glowing fungus stuff. That should be near that little group of kobolds that...huh. What the hell are those things?
Rosemallow had allowed several groups of humanoids to establish themselves within the Labyrinth. Well, allowed was probably the wrong word. Forced was more accurate, she supposed. Though she had even gone so far as to create little hidden chambers for them to shelter in, so that she wouldn’t need to go to the trouble of repopulating them every time a powerful group of adventurers came through. They were far from the toughest beings, but their battles and struggles served as entertainment and nourishment both, back in the day.
When she had abandoned the Labyrinth, she hadn’t given them a second thought, which in hindsight wasn’t very nice. Still, nothing was stopping them from making their way through and out.
Well, nothing beyond miles and miles of traps, vicious beasts and golems. Oh well, at least they had each other. Looks like they’ve become one big, unhappy family. Let’s see, what did I have in there… goblins are gone, kobolds too. I’m pretty sure there were still some humans hanging on when I left, but I think those orcs had already died off. Maybe I’ll make it a little easier for them to leave after this. Wait...what’s that?
Something was definitely not the way she had left it. Even accounting for decay and evolution, there were several times since her return that Rosemallow had gotten the strong feeling someone, or multiple someones, had been messing with her creation over the years. Strange hints of what she thought might be shadow mana where everywhere. At first she had put it down to the last party to make through, Eskallia’s party, which had included, well, Shadow.
Shadow mana wasn’t really her thing, so she couldn’t be sure if it would really persist that long. By its very nature, it was extremely difficult to perceive, so she didn’t know how much there was, just that there was more than she expected.
This wasn’t shadow mana though. This was something else entirely.
“Well, well,” she said to the spider. “I wonder what they’re going to make of that?”
***
After taking care of Lowly, Lilijoy and her friends restarted their journey down the dark corridor. Lilijoy had planned on watching him for a few minutes, to make sure that he wasn’t panicking too badly, but the small Labyrinthian seemed to have fallen asleep almost the instant he arrived, curling up into a scaled ball on the floor of the cavern. She figured it was either catatonia from too much stress, some kind of limitation to her Trial Space, or a reaction to the unfamiliar sugars from the apple he still held pressed against his lips.
I guess that would make me the wicked queen. Well, Skria, anyway. At least it didn’t rot when we gave it to him. I’m thinking at you here, Archon.
Whatever the cause, there was no point in watching him sleep, not when they felt a certain urgency to follow after the fleeing Labyrinthians before they were able to set an ambush, or something of that nature. Looking down the seemingly endless stretch of rectangular space, Lilijoy had a hard time imagining how an ambush might work. Of course, even with her senses working overtime, she couldn’t really see that far, perhaps thirty meters at the far edge of her echolocation. If the Labyrinthians had any kind of decent missile weapon, Jessila’s glowing vial, recently renewed, would make a perfect target.
Lilijoy thought the odds of that were low. She could imagine, in theory, making a bow or crossbow out of bodily materials, but she didn’t think it would be possible to make one that would be particularly dangerous. Slings would be more likely, but then the best ammunition available for that would be bone, which really couldn’t hurt them, except maybe Skria.
It was Skria’s presence which made her the most confident though. Air magic in such confined spaces was quite devastating. If they really wanted to, it would probably be possible to wipe out the entire group of Labyrinthians without even seeing it happen.
It wasn’t long at all before something began to reflect back to her from up ahead, some kind of clutter across the hall. “Something’s ahead,” she cautioned the others.
They were all as ready as they could be, so there was nothing to do but continue. After another twenty feet, Lilijoy saw that the area in front of them was covered with… well, she wasn’t sure. At first it just looked a jumble of shapes and outlines, lumps and flat sheets at a variety of angles. After a few more steps, she realized she was looking at… no, she still couldn’t tell. Possibly some type of housing structures, or tents. Some were fixed to the walls and ceiling, by what means Lilijoy couldn’t imagine. Others were free standing, amorphous blobs of skin and string stretched across bones.
The closer they got, the more disturbed they felt. It was one thing to understand that the Labyrinthians used the materials of their own bodies for crafting, but another to see the flattened and stretched skins of faces and hands stitched together like a horrifying Escher print. It was a disordered warren of skin and bone.
“Are they in there?” Skria whispered.
“Maybe, at least a few of them,” Lilijoy replied with a Stealth whisper. “Some of them look just a little warmer than others. I think they’re hiding from us.”
“It’s not a very good hiding place.”
“Kind of obvious,” Jess added.
Lilijoy could only shrug. It probably seemed reasonable to the Labyrinthians. Or they were too terrified to think straight. She motioned for the others to follow, and began to pick her way through the connected structures, avoiding any she thought might be inhabited. As they progressed, she marveled at the sheer number of skins used to construct the misshapen tents, many of which only rose a few feet above the floor. She wondered what impulse led to their creation in the absence of a need for shelter, if the Labyrinthians were fulfilling some burrowing instinct by building snug tunnels and chambers within the hard walls.
That, and many other questions went unanswered as they moved carefully among the remains of generations of Labyrinthians, doing their best to avoid touching anything. A few times, Jessila lifted Lilijoy over irregular tubes that ran across the entire corridor before stepping gingerly over them herself. Though it seemed eternal, it was only a matter of minutes until they met a sort of wall, composed of hundreds of ribbons of stretched… well, it was difficult to know for sure, but Lilijoy assumed it could only be gut, a demented intestinal spider web. A rough, round doorway, more a hole really, was located at the bottom center, fringed by rough bone dolls that dangled and spun.
The girls looked at one another in the eerie bluish light of Jessila’s vial.
“Someone came through here,” Lilijoy observed.
Even as she spoke, the a dark yellow light in the area beyond the wall began to glow, casting them in bands of pale shadows from the translucent mesh. Lilijoy could see two Labyrinthians beyond now, kneeling at either side of the passage, holding their arms over some kind of glowing pot.
“I guess we should go in?” Skria said, her voice trembling just a bit.
Lilijoy stepped through, scanning for any details she might have missed from the other side. The space was bare, other than the bowed Labyrinthians and their lights. It only took her a moment to understand that the pots were, predictably enough, skulls, and that the Labyrinthians were holding their arms over them so that blood from deep cuts would drip into them. The familiar yellow light stimulated by the falling blood could only be from the fungal growth of the previous hall, she realized. On the other side of the chamber was another wall, this one of stretched skin and bones, with a door in its center blocked by dangling lengths of… something Lilijoy didn’t care to identify.
Behind her, Jessila stooped through the rounded entrance, Skria clinging to her back and peeking over one shoulder.
“This is horrible,” Skria murmured as she took in the scene.
“No,” Lilijoy replied. “I’m pretty sure Horrible is what happens next.”
The kneeling Labyrinthians didn’t move at all when they spoke, though Lilijoy could see an outstretched hand trembling. Without further speech, the girls moved through the room, doing their best to stay composed in the surreal and disturbing setting. Lilijoy hesitated before the curtained exit, trying to sense what lay beyond, as well as postponing the inevitable contact with the long strips of former flesh hanging in front of her. The air beyond was much cooler, almost cold.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Here now,” chided a voice from within. “Why be shy?”
It was a male voice, a little gruff, but with an underlying melody, a hint of unplaceable accent, the kind of voice one might hear on the street in Academy Town.
“Be ready,” Lilijoy Stealth whispered.
A chortle came from the other side. “Don’t be so nervous,” he said. “I haven’t had real company for ages. I’m so looking forward to hearing what the outside world has become.”
“Who are you?” Skria called.
There was a pause, then mumbling. “Names, names. That’s right...” His voice grew stronger. “Well, there was a time when others called me Shiver. It’s not a nice name, but it should do. And who might you be, with your young voices and suspicious natures?”
“We just want to pass through, we don’t want any trouble,” Lilijoy said.
“Trouble? Would it be trouble to talk to an old exile, trapped in this vicious place? Many generations it has been, at the least,” Shiver said. “No company but these miserable creatures. No way back and no way forward. Tell me, does the sun still shine out there, or did I dream it?”
“Are you… an adventurer? Have you been trapped this whole time?” Skria asked.
There was another pause. “Trapped, abandoned, forgotten. All of those things. And now you join me.”
Lilijoy and the others exchanged glances, not liking the poorly concealed glee in the man’s voice. “Why haven’t you escaped?” Lilijoy asked.
“Oh, I tried. Many times I tried, until I lost my taste for death and pain and reliving the same nightmare over and over. The last time I was reborn, the trap between the first and second halls broke down as I escaped it. I’ve not dared to attempt the depths since, fearing I would be trapped for eternity in barren darkness, without even those pitiful creatures to… keep me company.”
“I don’t like this at all,” Skria whispered.
Lilijoy didn’t reply. The man’s story made a certain amount of sense. What didn’t make sense at all was why they were still talking through a curtain of skin. Of course, there was also the fact that he obviously ruled over the Labyrinthians sadistically, or at least tyrannically.
“Why don’t you come out here to talk to us?” she invited.
“Wouldn’t that be great! Unfortunately, I’m not very, what’s the word? Ambulatory. That’s it, ambulatory.” His voice changed, adopting the hissing gutturals of the Labyrinthians. “Go! Prepare the entryway for our guests, you wicked thing.”
There followed a thump and then the sound of something sliding across the stone floor. This repeated several times, approaching the other side of the curtain of dangling strips. Lilijoy saw a scaled hand reach through at the very bottom, where the ribbons of skin rested haphazardly on the stone and pull them to one side to reveal a wrinkled Labyrinthian face looking up at them through clouded eyes. Cold air poured through the newly created gap, carrying with it the scent of old blood and a faint miasma of corruption.
“Don’t mind my servant. The cold makes them slow and even more dull, if that’s possible. Please, enter. I’m so eager to meet you.”
The feeling was not mutual. Lilijoy couldn’t help but think that the best course of action might be to forego this awkward introduction and proceed to the inevitable conflict. It was strange, she reflected, that some sense of social normality was holding her back, that and the fact that it would be foolish to charge in blindly to an environment controlled by the enemy.
So instead, we’ll walk in meekly? I don’t think so.
She gave the others a significant look and gestured with the evil knife. Jess waved her ironwood club in return and Skria nodded, already focused on preparing a spell to unleash. Then she strode through the curtain, stepping over the unfortunate servant.
The first thing she noticed, could not help but notice, was that the servant, in place of his lower legs, had a misshapen block of dark ice. Immediately after that, the cold and corruption hit her, assaulting her nose and throat with bitter copper. Jessila grunted as if she had been punched in the gut and Skria restrained a gag, shaking herself to bring her fur on end.
“I apologize for the unique atmosphere,” Shiver said.
The walls and floor were coated in thick frost, and Lilijoy could now see why Shiver had not come to greet them. He sat, half encased in a throne of dark ice, surrounded by faceted pillars of the same.
“I’m sure you have questions,” he continued. “I’ve had my share of struggles over the years, but I found my own way to persist, to fend off the madness of this place. You can judge me when you have done as much.”
His words were measured, his voice rational, but Lilijoy could see the corruption oozing from his eyes and rolling down his face, sinking into the cold, dense air.
“Dhrowgos,” she said. Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t quite right. The dhrowgos she had encountered in Quimea’s torture garden were not rational beings. They had been entirely consumed with the need to inflict trauma matching their own.
Shiver chuckled mechanically. “Not quite. Can’t you see it?” he gestured broadly. “I have arrested the progress with this little array. I’m quite proud of it, really.”
Shiver himself was pale and emaciated, with only patches of gray hair left on his scalp. His bare skin was streaked with reddish brown, which led Lilijoy to an unfortunate conclusion.
“This is all blood, isn’t it?” she said, looking over the various frozen structures.
“Well, water alone would be a terrible medium,” he said with a smirk. “Tell me, what brings three youngsters to this horrible place? Surely girls of your age should be escorted by beings of significance in your explorations.”
Now I get it, Lilijoy thought. He wants to make sure no one will come looking for us if we disappear. Do we tell him about…
“Our Master brought us here,” Jessila said.
“I see,” said Shiver. “Growth through adversity, eh? Hmm,” he tapped long fingers on his sunken cheek. “You know that there is no escape, right? That your master has abandoned you? Perhaps he became tired of playing nursemaid, or possibly he was paid to dispose of you in one of the few places the tempered can be imprisoned. Beyond me are creatures and obstacles that delight in inflicting horrible torment, that will maim your bodies and cripple your soul, inflicting injuries from which there is no recovery. Look at me.”
Lilijoy’s eyes followed his gesture to his lower body. She had assumed that his feet were embedded in the blood ice, but now she could see that they terminated abruptly, mid-calf.
“Do you think I was always like this?” he continued. “This is your fate, to be maimed and corrupted.”
He’s really laying it on thick, Lilijoy thought.
“You don’t think…” Skria whispered. Her voice was soft and fearful.
“Yes!” said Shiver. “Whatever excuse, whatever story was used to bring you to this place, it was all lies. What you think you know, what truths you cling to are as distant as your memory of the sun.”
Lilijoy knew better than to let his words get to her, but a tiny part of her felt a creeping doubt anyway, the same part that had noticed just how little the universe seemed to care about her. Eskallia, Mooster, Guardian, all of them had agendas that she didn’t or couldn’t understand. Why not Rosemallow? Of course, she didn’t believe they had been abandoned, but the entirely separate question of how much they would suffer, or whether Rosemallow might allow them to wander within the Labyrinth ‘for their own good’ for far longer than they might desire, that began to eat at her a bit more actively.
“Bullshit!” Jessila bellowed. She leveled her ironwood club at Shiver. “You know nothing except fear.”
Her outburst surprised everybody, especially Skria, who became briefly airborne. Even Shiver flinched before he pulled himself up and responded.
“I don’t deny it. What else is there in a place like this? You fight it, and that is admirable, but your momentum is not even close to powerful enough to sustain you. Your foundation is weak, crumbling with every word, child. You are not even strong enough to pass by me, unless I allow it. Even then, it would only be so that you might drag yourself before me a second time with more respect.”
He gestured, and the gurgling, rushing sound of water could be heard from the dark hall far behind his throne. “Can you hear what is coming for you now?” he asked. “I rule this area. All the flesh, all the blood is mine to dispose of as I wish. Fear that!”
Lilijoy used Scan as she leapt into action.
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Barton Whisk, Human
Level 38
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It wasn’t terribly helpful, though it seemed to confirm the man’s words about not being dhrowgos, as well as confirming that they were in for a tough battle. She thought quickly, running through as many scenarios as she could. Sending him to respawn could cause even worse problems in the future, but attempting to run past him would leave him even better prepared to intercept them, should they respawn later.
He’s a water mage, among other things. Good with ice. He’s been holed up down here feeding off the fears of the Labyrinthians, or something along those lines. He said the array was to arrest the process of becoming dhrowgos, though there’s no way to know if he was telling the truth. So which outcome is least bad?
Her body was already in motion as she thought, running to the nearest blood obelisk. The beginnings of the conflict moved glacially, as they always did, allowing Lilijoy to see the actions of her party. Skria unleashed the spell she had prepared, and Lilijoy could see the brief look of panic dawning on the man’s face as the air in front of her hands swirled and roiled before moving to engulf him. He gestured frantically, and pulled a globe of dark ice around his head.
Jess was a bit slower, still lifting her feet in the first steps of her charge, confident that Skria could keep the poison gas away from her as she moved to close with the seated enemy. The first trickles of dark fluid were flooding forth from behind the throne, covering the frosted stone floor with rivulets of dark red, and her second footfall sent droplets of what could only be blood splashing in all directions.
It was only a moment before Lilijoy reached her goal. Ahead of her she could see a great dark wave cresting behind the throne.
How could he have so much blood on hand? she wondered briefly as she reached out to the obelisk with one hand and pushed, flipping her trial-sight to a nearby cavern to spare Lowly from having hundreds of pounds of frozen blood dropped on his sleeping form. The obelisk refused to be moved by her diamond energy anyway. She could feel her efforts being dispersed throughout the array, the energy not sufficient to move the entire structure.
Well, it was a nice thought. Who knows whether it would have helped anyway.
She abandoned the effort and brought out her sling. Jessila’s footsteps became heavy, splashing blood in every direction, while Skria maintained focus on her spell, hovering in mid air. What happened next was painful to watch as it unfolded in slow motion for Lilijoy. Even as she began to twirl the sling, intent on shattering the dome of ice over Shiver’s head, the ice of the throne flowed into long spikes, intercepting Jessila’s charge. Her momentum carried her through them in a cascade of shattered fragments, but Lilijoy could see that at least one had hit home, penetrating deep into her friend’s body.
The wave of blood that had been cresting behind the throne released abruptly into a torrent of, for Lilijoy, knee-height fluid, as if Shiver had lost control of the spell driving it. She even thought she heard a muffled oath from behind his diver’s dome of ice. Still, Jessila’s forward progress was brought to a painful halt, and she was left to smash aside the remaining ice spikes with her club, even as more shot forth.
A whistle and crack sounded as Lilijoy’s sling stone found the air, leaving behind a spiderweb of cracks on Shiver’s protective dome but failing to create the hole she had intended. It was disappointing, but not unexpected, and she was already stowing her sling and moving in when the blood around her ankles began to freeze.
It was her first battle with a true water mage, but she could see the danger in an instant. She pushed her body to move as fast as possible in Flash, straining to keep her feet from sinking into the rapidly hardening blood slush. She approached the asymmetrical field of spikes protecting Shiver, moving past Jess, weaving among the old broken spines. New spines sprouted and grew, but they were far too slow to intercept her nimble movements. For a second, it was almost as if Shiver was creating a moving jungle-gym for her to play on, and she swung and scrambled, watching new spikes emerge with a sense of calm detachment.
Then she was to his body, holding her breath against the caustic sting of Skria’s spell. She could see he had reinforced the dome of ice over his head, and rendered it clear as well, could follow his widening eyes as they followed her approach. She didn’t bother with the ice covering, instead launching a Qi strike at his unprotected body as she flew past.
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Qi Strike does 25 damage
Barton Whisk 117/142
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So he’s a bit of a glass cannon, for his level anyway, she thought as she caught a still growing spike and used it to swing herself back towards her partly immobile opponent. She couldn’t help but let a tiny smile slip as she twisted in mid-air and struck toward his chest. She wasn’t fond of violence for its own sake, but she relished the sheer exhilaration of moving and dancing in a state of total focus. Only a tiny strand of her consciousness remained Outside, as she devoted more and more of her mentality to the physical chess of combat.
Her next strike was intercepted by a sheet of ice that sprung around Shiver’s body, though it shattered in the process. She could see his eyes darting back and forth, his lips moving as he attempted to juggle multiple spells. He didn’t look like he was having nearly as much fun as she was. All of the dark and disgusting qualities of the setting, the blood, the vile feeling of the miasma still trickling from Shiver’s body, all of that faded into the background.
Until she saw a thin smile cross Shiver’s lips and felt an involuntary chill pass through her body. Behind her, she saw a claw of blood ice reach down from the ceiling and grab Skria, squeezing her while it plunged her to the half frozen floor of blood. At the same time a thick cylinder of clear ice rose around him, furnishing protection from a mighty blow from Jessila’s club. The impact’s rebound half spun the large girl and did little more than send a few chips flying.
“Not bad at all!” the man called, barely audible through his protection. “But now it’s time to resume our conversation. Unless you think your friend can breathe blood?”
The claw of ice was holding Skria pinned to the floor. While her face was above the frozen blood, Lilijoy could see rivulets of red liquid flowing up her fur, slowly forming a liquid cover over the terrified girl’s face.
“You know,” the man said conversationally, if loudly, “It’s really quite simple for me to send this Labyrinthian… juice… into her airways. Don’t you think she’s scared right now? I think I can almost hear her tiny little heart pounding from here.”
Horrible. He really is horrible, was all Lilijoy could think.
Jessila turned and ran from the chamber, tearing the skin curtain as she went.
“Can’t bear to watch, eh?” Shiver called after her. “I don’t blame you. They’re never quite the same when they are reborn, you know.” He turned his attention to Lilijoy. “Don’t you think it’s fair? She wanted to send her poisoned air into my lungs while I sat here, nearly helpless. Now I can show her what it feels like!”
Lilijoy started a countdown in her head. The hall was completely straight, the floor solid. She opened her Trial Space, and forced her vision there to move so quickly it was almost instantaneous.
Five. Four.
She could already feel a tremor with her Earthen Sense. She pulled a handful of thick mud forth and threw it.
Three. Another handful hit the ice shield, joining the first, dripping down directly in front of Shiver’s face.
“Now that’s just petty,” he started to say.
Two. Two last handfuls flew, and she was already on her way to Skria’s side. She knew she couldn’t supply the air that her friend was missing, but that wasn’t the crucial detail at this point. She reached Skria just as the curtain, along with the majority of the wall of stretched skin and bones, blew apart. The frozen blood slush on the floor seemed to part, and Lilijoy felt her soul vortex spin and hum, even as she watched Jessila’s face, distorted with effort and speed, watched her powerful limbs pump. She almost felt that there was no way the coming moment could be as satisfying as this frozen moment of anticipation.
One.
She was wrong.
The ice shield shattered like a dropped pane of candied sugar, and much of the following impact was lost in a cloud of instant snow. Still, Lilijoy could see just enough to notice how long hours of training had paid off, how Jessila’s timing with her mighty fist was perfection itself, striking with the full force of her Juggernaut -increased mass. The question of whether it was wise to send Shiver to respawn was now moot in the face of absolute certainty, as parts of him spiraled and spun through the air, cutting paths through the gently floating crystals.
He never saw it coming, Lilijoy thought with satisfaction.
“How’s that for momentum?” Jessila asked the shattered throne.