One by one, the mystic sconces illuminating the chamber blinked out, plunging them into darkness, and the pressure continued to increase. With a grunt, Jasper was forced to his knees, unable to stand beneath the unseen weight pressing down on him. His knees groaned, his elbows buckled, and he struggled to keep from being plastered to the ground. From what he could see, the others weren't doing much better, with only Ihra able to remain upright - though, from the palsy in her limbs, Jasper doubted she could maintain it much longer.

After a tortorous minute, the pressure slowly receded, and as it ebbed, the enchanted orbs began to flicker with life once more. Jasper bolted to his feet, searching the darkness for their attacker. The blue flames cast long shadows against the wall, shadows that seemed almost to move with a mind of their own, but Jasper barely noticed them. Instead, his eyes were glued on the massive statue of Lord Ishka – or rather, where the statue of Ishka had been.

No longer did Lord Ishka raise his hand in benediction, for the golden throne sat empty. Pressure exploded behind him, and Jasper threw himself to the ground on instinct. Pain rippled through the back of his skull as something sharp grazed him, but he was spared the brunt of the blow. He rolled to his feet and half-ran, half-dove toward the questionable cover of one of the stone pillars as a second attack shot toward him. This time he saw it – a shower of golden stars thrown by something incomprehensible.

The statue of Lord Ishka, which before would not have looked out of place in a Hindu temple, now could have passed as a Salvador Dali original. Large chunks parts of the body were still almost perfectly preserved, but other sections had dissolved into liquid gold or even a yellowish haze which moved in complete defiance of all known physics. There was nothing to hold it together, nothing that should have allowed it to move, but the creature flung itself toward Jasper with a howl of rage emanating from a partially dissolved jaw.

A sudden burst of intuition told Jasper the pillar wouldn’t hold and he bolted a second before Ishka’s remnant smashed into it. The column shattered like glass, and a hail of shards lacerated his back as he ran. The force almost sent him to the ground, but he kept his balance, and twisting around, fired off Fiery Shackles.

It was a waste of essence. Ishka didn’t even notice the shackles that sprung around his ankles, tearing through them as if they were made of wax paper. Instead, ten more golden stars leapt to his fingertips and tore toward Jasper.

Jasper had nowhere to hide, but a column of wind sent the stars spinning off course and a metallic clink echoed a moment later as two arrows thudded into his torso. One, hitting one of the best-preserved parts, bounced off uselessly, while the second got stuck in the swirling liquid. The arrows did nothing to the remnant, however, which bolted toward Jasper with another incomprehensible scream.

Jasper’s essence dipped well below the halfway point as he cast Spectral Wings, and took off running. A spasm rippled down his back as the shadowy wings emerged, and he leapt into the air. He made it above five feet before a burning metal hand wrapped around his ankle. Then, he was on the ground, his face smushed against the pavement stones.

With a flick of his wrist, Ishka tossed him in the air and slammed him back down against the floor. Bones crunched, and he felt liquid dripping down his face. Cries filled the air behind him, and the hand holding his ankle suddenly went slack, before dropping to the ground with a plop. It was hard for his addled brain to keep its focus, but he somehow managed to cast Circle of Forgiveness.

Black spots danced across his vision as the spectral wings lifted him into the air, but Jasper ignored them; for now, he was healed enough to carry on and he couldn’t afford to waste essence. Tsia had managed to distract Ishka for a moment, but her blows had yet to do any significant damage to the undead lord – even the hand that she had severed had already regrown.

He hesitated for a single second, as his mind raced through his options. Hand of Judgement wasn’t available yet – he’d used it up in the fight against the Djinn commander – but there was another spell he had yet to use, and even better, it required no essence. Maṣṣartu, he muttered quietly.

The shadows twisted beside him, as the darkness and light, the air and stone, pulled together into solid form. Though humanoid in shape, the guardian that materialized beside him was noticeably inhuman. Its skin matched Jasper’s in color, its legs and arms seemed a bit out of proportion, its fingers were thin and attenuated, and its height was a good three feet above Jasper’s. The most unusual differences though were from the shoulders up. The creature had not a scrap of hair on its scalp and where its eyes should have been were nothing but pools of darkness.

The creature’s manifestation had not gone unnoticed. With another angry screech, the remnant of Ishka switched its attention from Tsia back to Jasper. Its hands joined together at the tips of its fingers and an orb of blue flame ignited between them. The blue orb shot toward Jasper and in the space of just a few feet expanded till it was the size of a small car.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He darted up into the air, above the spell’s trajectory, but it altered course to follow him. He flew faster, casting Flame Charge as he flew, and the strange white flames billowed behind him as he dove down toward Ishka’s remnant, with the orb in hot pursuit.

He shot past Ishka, scoring a glancing blow with his glaive, and, as he had planned, the orb also collided with the creature. But the orb did not harm its master. It phased through Ishka and continued its pursuit on the other side, slowly but surely catching up to him. He shot higher in the air, executing a tight pirouette to face the orb, but the maṣṣartu got to it first.

A thin beam of white light flashed from the ground to the orb in a single wide arc and sliced it in half. A bolt of lightning followed as Tsia once again tried to get the thing’s attention, and Jasper dove again, this time catching Ishka from behind. Propelled by the force of his dive, the glaive cut deep this time, sinking into the fractured, melting rib cage until it hit the solid metal of the remnant’s breastplate.

Ishka spun around, backhanding him, and the glaive was ripped out of his hands as Jasper was sent flying backward. Ishka turned to charge after him, but a red arrow sunk into the creature’s chest, rapidly expanding into a burning blade, at the same time as a beam of white light hit from the other side.

With a flaring of his wings, Jasper surged forward and a stream of burning orbs raced toward the monster as he cast Shooting Star.

Beset on all sides, Ishka did something Jasper hadn’t expected – he ran. With a sudden burst of speed, the half-melted monstrosity bulldozed straight through the weakest member of their party, Erin, and raced toward the empty golden throne.

There was a stunned moment of pause, and then the four charged after him, collectively reaching the same realization – there was something in the throne the creature wanted.

Still borne aloft by Spectral Wings, Jasper outstripped them all. Ishka was only halfway up the winding staircase when Jasper reached him and, grabbing hold of the glaive still embedded in his back, used all the force of his momentum to slam the remnant into the wall. He was staggered a second later as a wave of golden stars burst from Ishka’s hands and punched through his armor like it wasn’t there, but he’d bought time for the others to catch up.

A column of wind roared past him, plastering Ishka against the wall, while Ihra, shoving him aside, stabbed Aphora’s misericorde into the wound already created by the glaive. Ignoring the wounds, Ishka’s hands joined together again, a blue ball of flame igniting in the space between, and Jasper swung the freed glaive down at his hands. The blade sliced through Ishka’s wrists, stopping the spell before it was completed, but also causing it to go haywire.

A wave of blue fire rippled outward, shoving them a few steps back, and Ishka took the opportunity to escape, racing further up the stairs. With each step he took, the mangled nubs grew longer, and as the fingers reformed, blue fire began to flicker once again.

Jasper darted after him, the spectral wings beating with a languid flourish quite at odds with their actual speed, but someone else beat him to it.

The maṣṣartu stood between Ishka and the throne. For a brief moment, the dark hall flared as bright as day as a thin, focused beam of light punched straight through the remnant’s chest. With a slight swivel of its wrists, the maṣṣartu wiggled the beam back and forth, bisecting its torso.

Ishka’s arms and legs twitched as the separated halves of his body fell to the ground and Jasper pounced on them, afraid that the creature would somehow mend himself. His instincts proved correct. Already tendrils of liquid gold had begun to stretch between the halves, pulling them back together. He cut through the new growth and joined by the others, the party hacked and slashed at Ishka’s body until finally whatever energy was holding it together was exhausted.

“Well, that was closer than expected,” Jasper sighed, leaning hard on the glaive. His ribs were cracked again, he was missing large chunks of flesh on his scalp, and one hand was swollen twice its usual size from broken bones, but he was all but out of essence and not willing to expend the last little bit and suffer the consequences of essence deprivation. Instead, he rooted in his bag for a potion, keeping a wary eye on the body, just in case it decided to back for round two.

He grimaced as he downed the sickly sweet liquid, and his eyes swept back over the scene of the battle. The stately hall was a mess. The floor was hidden beneath piles of broken bones, twisted timbers, and the rotting corpses of the guardians, and Ishka’s statue lay shattered on the podium before them. They’d won by the skin of their teeth and, frankly, he wasn’t sure if it was even worth it.

He saw the Djinn woman on the far side of the hall, with the little girl plastered to her side, and waved them over. They had to wait for the two to pick their way through the wreckage and up the winding stairs.

She’d seen the fight, so she knew what had happened with Ishka’s statue, but she stared at the broken wreckage in horror nonetheless. “Will we- will we even be able to receive a heritage now?” she stammered.

“I don’t know,” Jasper admitted, “but there’s one way to find out.”

Her face was strained with anxiety as she looked down at her daughter, suddenly uncertain if she was willing to risk testing the broken statue, but someone else made the decision for her. Wriggling out of her grasp, the daughter darted forward, not toward the broken statue, but toward the empty throne. Her arms were barely tall enough to reach the bottom of the seat, but she pulled herself up and over, collapsing in the center of the chair, and as she did, a halo of blue fire rose to greet her. The fire billowed around her for a few seconds, touching but not consuming.

When the flames died down, she hopped off the throne with a beaming smile. “Mommy – I got a box!”

Well, at least someone's happy