But the conversation was going to have to wait. Their little battle with the mage had been far from silent and the ambush had been sprung. As Jasper finished speaking, shouts echoed from the direction of the grotto that the room branched off, the voices of at least a dozen or more men.

Racing to the door, Ihra peeked her head around the corner and quickly withdrew. “It’s that captain,” she spat angrily, “and a bunch of the guard.”

“I don’t suppose they’re here to help us round up the bad guys,” Jasper asked rhetorically.

“Their weapons are drawn,” she responded grimly.

“That’s what I figured.” His gaze drifted over to the Djinn, who was still curled up in pain, and their captive whose previously frantic squirming had been replaced with smug satisfaction. “Any chance you know of another way out of here? Maybe a second secret tunnel for the ultra-paranoid?”

“No,” the Djinn stopped moaning long enough to reply. “There-there’s only one tunnel that I’ve seen. That or the front door.”

“And they’re blocking our access to both,” Jasper sighed. The shouts were growing closer quickly and he knew they were running out of time. Guess we’re going to have to fight our way out. He started preparing a spell as he headed for the door but froze with his hand on the handle as the seed of an idea took root.

Spinning around, he fixed his eyes on the section of the ceiling Erin had collapsed. A mixture of dirt and rock clung precariously to the edges of the new void, but there were also glimpses of wood - not the mere twisting of gnarled roots, but the sort of straight, milled planks used for construction. There must be a room directly above us.

“Any chance you can jury-rig a way up?” He asked Erin, pointing out the planks of lumber above them.

“I’ll try.” A loud creaking filled the room as the scout pulled on the exposed wood, followed by a shower of dirt and rubble. Jasper and Ihra hastened to pull the bound mage out of the way as more stones rained down into the small meeting room, but Erin didn’t pause.

The long wooden planks stretched and bent like they were in a Salvador Dali painting, dripping down the walls until they formed a steep but climbable slope.

The growing volume of the voices told them there was no time to dally. Springing into action, Ihra tossed the bound mage over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes and bounded up the narrow pathway Erin had formed. Jasper and Erin followed close behind, supporting Nas̆ru between them.

As soon as they reached the top, Erin dropped Nas̆ru and began to pull the wood back up. He’d only close the hole halfway when the room’s door flung open, swinging with enough force to slam into the wall. The familiar face of Captain S̆ams̆ātnu was the first through the door with a ruby-skinned Djinn in a long, green tunic close on his heels.

“They’re getting away,” he roared. To his credit, the captain was a man of action. Without a moment’s hesitation, he charged toward the still-open hole in the ceiling, and planting a foot on the broken table leapt toward them, but Jasper wasn’t caught napping. As the captain’s foot trailed above the service of the table, flaming shackles sprang from the floor and clamped around his ankles. The crack of breaking bones filled the room as his momentum was abruptly stopped, and he was yanked back to the ground.

The green-robed Djinn reacted promptly; with a flick of his hand, a ball of fire up roared straight toward Erin, but the scout was too engrossed in trying to close the hole to notice the approaching danger. Jasper called out in warning, but Ihra reached him faster, yanking him to the side a moment before the ball rocketed through the hole and buried itself into the wooden rafters of the ceiling. Jasper cast Fiery Shackles again, binding the captain and the mage in the center of the room, and preventing more of the guards from forcing their way through, while Erin tried once more to close the hole.

The wood surged forward, knitting back together in a fraction of a second, only to come to a sudden halt when less than half a foot remained open. With a pained cry, Erin fell to the ground, clutching at his head, despite the lack of any visible wound.

Jasper knew, though, all too well what had harmed him. “Damn it, he ran out of essence.”

With a victorious cry, the captain freed himself from Jasper's shackles and leaping up onto the table, began beating at the partially closed gap in the floor. Though the wood resisted his blows at first, the cracking and splintering sound echoing through the room told Jasper it wouldn’t last long. We can’t keep stalling them here forever, he realized. Even if he caught them glued to the floor with his fiery shackles, sooner or later he'd run out of essence and more guards would likely show up. We've got to run for it.

“You get the mage, I get Nas̆ru?” He shouted to Ihra.

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With a curt nod, she retrieved their prisoner while he ran over to Nas̆ru, who had been painstakingly across the floor.

He grabbed the Djinn by the collar and forced him to meet his eyes. “If I heal you, are you going to run?”

“N-no!” The man stammered out, but his eyes darted nervously to the small hole, where the captain had managed to stick an arm. With a growl of irritation, Jasper spun around and fired off a round Shooting Stars. The arm disappeared back through the hole as a flurry of small explosions ricocheted around the room, igniting a handful of small fires in the opulent furniture and curtains, but Jasper ignored the damage to focus on the Djinn. “If you run, I’ll kill you - understand?” He warned.

“I'm not going to run,” Nas̆ru snapped. “After this fiasco, they’re just going to kill me, so heal me already."

Jasper cast Circle of Forgiveness twice and, yanking the man to his feet, shoved him toward the exit. Ihra had already raced off with the mage slung over her shoulder, but there was one more member of his team left.

He noted idly the room they had found themselves in as he ran toward the scout. A stately poster bed occupied one side of the chamber, draped in plush furs and thick, green blankets. The left wall was entirely dedicated to bookcases, though its contents were in grave danger. Unlike the capital city, where most buildings were made of stone, everything in the room seemed to be made of old, dry wood that had ignited from the spills they’d exchanged. The smoke swirled across the floor, already thick enough to begin obscure parts of the room, but Jasper didn’t need to see him to know where the scout had fallen.

He raced over to the scout, stamping viciously on the captain’s hand as he passed, and skidded to a stop beside Erin. The man had curled up on the ground, clutching his head with both hands and with his eyes firmly closed, no doubt in agony from completely guttering out his essence.

Jasper didn’t bother casting a healing spell on him. While he had another tried to use the spell to heal essence deprivation, he knew from past experience that healing potions did little to soothe such pain, so he doubted it would make a difference. Instead, he scooped the scout up and ran toward the exit.

As he left the room, the sound of splintering wood was accompanied by another angry yell, and he ducked his head instinctively as another fireball whistled past him. The only damage the spell did was to the walls of the house, which burst into flames as he hurried out of the room and into the hall.

The hall was mostly full of closed doors, but about halfway down, Jasper spied an open arch and he angled toward it. He sped through the arch, which led somewhere he hadn’t expected - the manor’s interior courtyard.

The courtyard was a complete contrast to the austere exterior. A full-fledged jungle thrived beneath a protective glass roof, complete with towering trees and small, chattering monkeys. The builders had even magicked up a trickling stream, which wound its way back and forth the enclosed space before disappearing into nothingness.

Nas̆ru was only a few paces ahead of him and, digging deep, Jasper managed to pull abreast of the man, though his limbs were shaking with the effort - Nas̆ru was a warrior, after all, rather than a mage like him. “Do you know-” he cut off, gasping for air, “the way out?”

The man raised his arm and pointed at the sun above them. “That’s west, and the manor faces east, so straight ahead.”

It was hard to trust the Djinn, but with no sign of Ihra, he didn’t have many other options. He took two more steps before a fireball hit him in the back.

It was pure luck that the ball missed Erin’s head, which was hanging over Jasper’s shoulder. Neither was spared from the force of the blow, though, which sent Jasper skidding across the pavement. He somehow managed to turn the skid into a controlled roll and, landing on his hands and feet, took off again. He cursed as a second fireball landed just behind him, and cast a wild glance over his shoulder.

S̆ams̆ātnu and the green-robed mage were less than thirty feet away. A few of the guard trailed behind them, though their number seemed to have thinned since the basement.

Another fireball neared completion as the mage lifted his hand and Jasper knew they weren’t getting out of there without a fight.

He pivoted hard and dropped to his knees in time to let the spell whistle overhead. He let Erin tumble to the ground as he tried to cast a spell to counter the mage, but someone else got there first.

As he hadn’t seen her when he entered the courtyard, Jasper had assumed Ihra had run on ahead, but she suddenly burst out of the thick foliage beside the mage. Aphora’s silver dagger gleamed in her hand as she slashed it across the Djinn’s throat. A ribbon of blood followed the swish of her blade as she followed it up with a blow aimed at the captain’s back.

It should have been impossible to parry the strike, but the captain was higher-leveled than they had expected. Her blow was deflected upward, slicing the air just above his shoulder, as he delivered a strike of his own. She cried out in pain as his sword passed through the gap between her arm and her torso, digging into both, but unfortunately failing to strike anything vital.

Ignoring the pain, she clamped around the sword and refused to let go. He yanked harder, blood pooling out as the sword slid in his direction but she held firm, struggling against his other hand to dig her dagger into his neck.

Preoccupied with their struggle, the captain didn’t see Jasper cast his spell. Seraph’s Burst. He didn’t see the surging mass of flesh and iron wings that rocketed toward him. He was baffled when Ihra suddenly let him withdraw the sword and dropped to her knees before him. A moment later he was flying through the air, razor-sharp feathers tearing at his flesh as Jasper held onto him for dear life.

The captain was still alive when they landed in the thick jungle undergrowth and his strength was far above Jasper’s. The Djinn quickly wrapped his hands around Jasper’s neck and began to squeeze, screaming incoherently, but he had forgotten one little thing - Jasper was a mage.

Through flickering vision, Jasper punched the man in the face and delivered his spell right into the Djinn’s open mouth. Shooting Star.

The captain’s head exploded like an overripe tomato, splattering all over his face and up his nose. Gross.