Dark tendrils - no, hands with abnormally long, wispy fingers reached out and curled around his body. Panting from terror, he looked towards Kentor who stood shaking behind Helaf. Ral reached out desperately as more dark hands and tendrils of fingers flowed out of the Gate to draw him in.

“My prize,” a voice hissed from the darkness.

Ral’s muscles screamed as he tried to pull himself away. He found he had leverage against rock not covered with the strange black fire. His poor battered shoulder gave out and most of his body was dragged into the darkness. For one terrifying moment his head was pulled in and he opened his eyes to see…

Swirling masses of tendrils, amongst them shapes that resemble body parts. Some eyeballs, some hands, some feet. It squirmed and pulsated like some diseased life form and it stretched indefinitely as far as Ral could see. Tendrils undulated near his face, then exploded into a mouth that screamed at him.

A voice not from the disembodied mouth that just formed echoed faintly. “Give me my prize,” it whispered.

Was this the god? This mass of madness? Desperately, he pulled back towards reality. Helaf and his men have crowded near the Gate, weapons forward to force him back through. More tendrils wrapped around him and he hauled parts of it out. Taken aback, Helaf and his men took a step back. Kentor let out a terrified screech as Ral roared and forced his arm out of the Gate, pulling through a mess of writhing tendrils that formed into an unsettling bouquet of eyes.

Kentor scrambled as if meaning to run away, hand clutching the front of his shirt with a death grip. Then Ral clearly heard something give a loud ‘crack,’ like a piece of wood snapping in half. Immediately the merchant doubled over and his flesh began turning unnaturally white and smooth.

“He fucking broke it!” Helaf shouted. Kentor burst out of his clothing and the newly formed Unseeing screeched its disharmony. Ral quickly used the new distraction to reach to the closest man and plunged his hand into his tunic, blindly scrabbling at whatever talisman they would have hidden there.

Helaf cursed, swinging his sword to stop Ral. It narrowly missed his wrist. Ral was gaining increasing leverage out of the Gate and he could nearly pull a leg out now.

“Cut his head off,” Helaf screamed. But the man Ral targeted stumbled back and the Unseeing that was Kentor pounced and attacked him, tearing his head off before he could regain balance. The other man tried to save him, taking the fight down the stairs of the scaffolding. Helaf swore and swung his attention back to Ral.

“My prize!” the voice in the Gate hissed.

“Your Final Solution is the prize,” Helaf said. “Not this… half breed!”

Then without further discussion, the man marched over to Ral still half stuck in the Gate. Ral was positioned nearly face down such that he could claw at the scaffolding platform and the stone sides next to the dark opening of the Gate to escape, leaving his back exposed and perfectly posed to have his head lopped off. He wasn’t even able to dodge with the Gate’s tendrils wrapped tightly around him and if he blocked, they would immediately drag him back. Helaf reared up, weapon gleaming in the late afternoon sun, the corner of Ral’s eye barely registering the glint.

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A long staff whistled through the air and speared Helaf. It was tipped at both ends with metal, the end that ran through the man pointed as a wicked dagger. Without missing a beat, Ral grabbed the staff end just within reach. Shocked, Helaf dropped his sword to try wrenching the staff out of him, but fell backwards and the momentum pulled Ral out of the Gate.

Ral scrambled back from the Gate, away from the searching tendrils still reaching for him. He turned, ready to fight Helaf in case whatever cursed magic that protected him also let him survive a staff through his body.

Instead he saw Rask.

His clothes were different now, of course, and his hair longer. But he was exactly as Ral remembered him. Rask had another staff in his hand, the metal tips stained with blood. Before Helaf could react, the sharp metal tip buried into his neck and Rask deftly pulled out the first staff with his other hand.

“Now what sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into,” Rask asked, a smile crinkling the edges of his eyes.

Ral almost forgot how to speak. He was so shocked seeing his old guardian just standing there. “I… Rask…”

The last of Helaf’s men, having disposed of the Unseeing that Kentor turned into, reappeared from the stairs and straightened into an uneasy stance.

“He has something that cancels manus abilities,” Ral quickly told the freerunner.

“Well then it’s a good thing we outnumber him then.” Rask threw over the cleaner staff and kept the one that had been through Helaf. “Unless you’ve already forgotten everything I’ve taught you.”

Ral opened his mouth to protest: it had nothing to do with staff fighting or whether or not he remembered any of it. Helaf and his men had protection around other people’s abilities - wouldn’t that render the freerunner’s staff techniques all useless? Most of the moves involved activating the runes on the staff to shorten, lengthen or to create a sharp edge at the metal tips to deal a slicing or piercing blow.

Helaf’s last surviving man launched at Rask who was able to deflect a blow with the bloodied staff, blocking it from his flank. Ral watched as the staff disappeared to stagger the attacker and then reappear for Rask to deal a devastating blow right at his opponent’s face. The man fell to the wooden platform unconscious or dead, Ral couldn’t tell.

Ral scowled at the staff in his hands, the runes gleaming as he twisted it around to look at them. It seemed that runes were the exception to their ‘protection’.

“Hm. Didn’t even need your help.” Rask shot him a look and a half grin.

The voice returned from the Gate, both men whipping their attention to it. The words came out garbled and all Ral could make out were several angry ‘no’s’ like a child throwing a tantrum over a missing toy. Now that he was free of distractions, he focused on reaching the Great Solvent. Whatever was inside the Gate must have known what he was doing as more tendrils squirmed out of the dark circle of fire. He heard Rask swear and move in place to defend him, but they stood far enough so that the tendrils couldn’t touch them.

“What in sun’s name is that,” Rask muttered. He stood next to Ral now and Ral realized they were now the same height. Has it been that long since they last saw each other? Ral shook his head and returned to the task at hand. He handed his staff back to Rask, who collapsed it and stashed it away.

Find the solute. Grasp it. Squeeze. Kill it. The solute escaped his grasp twice and he had to feel around like a blind man before he finally took a hold of it and forced it apart and it shattered like glass. The Gate closed, leaving behind only the dried horse blood and a giant scorch mark where the dark fire used to be.

With a tension headache forming at the focus needed to close the gate, Ral blearily turned to see the freerunner stare at him, a stunned expression on his face.

“Sun’s mercy, you have a lot to tell me, don’t you, Ral?”

Ral felt like laughing and crying at the same time. “Rask, you have no fucking idea.”