The passage beyond the doors narrowed rapidly, shrinking down to be just wide enough for two men to walk shoulder to shoulder – and unfortunately, that space was already occupied by a row of six guards that were only a few feet away. For a change, the Djinn wore matching sets of armor, sporting a full kit of boiled leather covered in metal plates that was coupled with a helmet that covered everything but their eyes. They each carried short but stout boar spears, whose wide blades were supplanted by twin, barbed lugs.

The guards were startled when the party surged through the doors, but despite their initial surprise, their response was swift and orderly. Squaring their shoulders side by side, they lowered their spears and charged. Their stride was even and steady, their steps in perfect lock with each other.

Jasper had no time to summon a spell, and as the guards closed the handful of feet between them, he realized he was about to be shishkabobed.

A second later, he was sharply tossed to the side, his shoulder cracking painfully against the wall, as Nesu shoved himself into the space between Jasper and the guards.

“Sicya addār!” the warrior cried as he tore the black kite shield from his shoulders. His arms moving in a blur, Nesu swung the shield into position a fraction of a second before the guards’ spears would have skewered him and the metal rang like a gong as the spears’ heads rebounded uselessly off it. Seizing the momentum, the warrior swung his sword straight for the closest guard’s neck, but the Djinn diverted the blow with the shaft of his spear, and Nesu was forced to quickly retreat back behind the shield’s protection.

The guards surged forward, pressing the attack and Nēs̆u staggered beneath the heft of their blows, but he was not alone in the fight. Springing into action, the party fired a motley mixture of arrows, wind blades, and fiery orbs over his head.

The guards’ plated leather was strong enough to blunt a few blows, but it was never intended to withstand a hail of fire. Within seconds, the armor was beginning to disintegrate and Jasper pressed their advantage. Extending his arm past Nesu’s shield, he cast Scourge of Despair at the closest guard, who already sported a bloody wound on his side.

The man tried to block the blow with his spear, but the spectral whip simply spiraled around the spear's shaft and lashed deep into his flesh. The man staggered back as the blood began to gush out faster, but that was the least of his concerns.

The angry shouts of the mountain Djinn shifted to a higher pitch as three hungry ghosts manifested them. The specters' claws tore deep into the exposed flesh, rending and tearing with glee, and what little order the S̆addu'â possessed collapsed in an instant as their weapons passed uselessly through their attackers.

Willing to sacrifice their compadres, the two in the back turned to flee, thundering down the hall as fast as their legs could carry them. It wasn't fast enough. One fell to his knees as Executioner’s Arrow removed his head, while the other’s steps faltered, then stopped, as Purge rendered its judgment. As suddenly as the battle had begun, it was over.

Dropping the spell he had been about to cast, Jasper leaned against the wall and gingerly rubbed the shoulder Nēs̆u had crushed. He frowned, feeling surprisingly let down by the brief battle. “Not that I’m complaining – but don’t these guys seem kind of weak?”

The Sicyan warrior slid the shield back over his shoulders before nodding his head. " Their attacks were pitiful,” he agreed. “Their strikes showed some skill, but they lacked the power to execute them. New recruits perhaps.”

"Who cares?" Tsia pushed past the others impatiently. “Come on, let’s go – the scouts have got to be close,” and Jasper and Nēs̆u turned to follow her, picking their way past the collapsed corpses.

But Ihra lingered a moment longer, a frown marring her face. Setting her bow against the wall, she bent down and examined the bodies. “They were pretty weak,” she muttered to herself as she struggled to yank off one of their helmets. Jasper had his back to her, but he turned around when he heard her gasp. “Selene’s grace – they’re just kids!”

Black, shaggy hair spilled over her lap as she cradled the fallen body, but he could see clearly what she meant. The body was the size of an adult, but the face that stared up at them, eyes wide and sightless, certainly looked childish. The features were rounded and soft, the cheeks displaying none of the hard, angular set that the adult Saddu’a he had seen possessed. The strangeness of the face was further magnified by the strange purplish striations that streaked from cheek to cheek, almost like the marbling on a rock.

Jasper looked away quickly. “Some people just look young, Ihra. Let’s go.”

She ignored him and pulled at the helmet of the next one. More wide, innocent eyes stared back, framed by gentle curls and soft, chubby cheeks that would have made a cherub jealous. “These look like children, Jasper...though, they have the body of adults.”

“That would explain the weakness of their attacks,” Nesu observed.

“But…how?” Jasper protested, feeling a bit sick in the stomach. It was easy to kill the mountain Djinn, so long as one believed they were wicked barbarians with a predilection for all sorts of unsavory acts. But discovering the enemies you just killed might be children was a bit unsettling. Purge worked though, he reassured himself.

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Nēs̆u suddenly glanced at the floor. "Did you feel that? I thought-" his words were unceremoniously cut off as the floor beneath them vanished.

Jasper slammed hard against the wall. His momentum was enough to toss him in the opposite direction, where he promptly ricocheted off the other wall. Bramble’s Crown, he managed to gasp out as he was bounced back and forth between the narrow chasm, and the protective armor spread across his skin. It did little to stop the enormous bruises that were quickly covering him from head to toe, but at least it kept the blood in.

Then, as suddenly as the fall began, it came to a stop. In truth, the fall likely should have killed them. If the rocky ground below them had only stayed solid, Jasper likely would have splatted across the dirt like a bug on a windshield, but the stone liquefied beneath them. It still hurt like hell – as anyone who’s done a high dive into water can attest – but it kept them alive. His screams were cut off as the wave of liquid stone flooded his mouth, and he choked on it. Coughing and spluttering, his body feeling like one giant bruise, Jasper dragged himself out of the unnatural mud.

“What the-“ He descended into a fit of coughing as he bent over and heaved out a mouthful of the silty mixture. Then he froze as his mind suddenly caught up to the reality of their situation. Floors don’t just evaporate. There's a stone mage here.

His head snapped up and his gaze swept across the room, searching for their foe. He saw the rest of his party first. Nesu and Tsia were scrambling out of the mud on his right, while on his left, a deer was struggling to free itself from the muck. Jasper dimly registered that Ihra must have been hurt badly to trigger the transformation, but everything else faded away as he spotted their foe.

The party had fallen into a cavern. Dim lights flickered around its edges, and carefully curated stalactites and stalagmites had been joined into stately pillars that swept from floor to ceiling. The whole place was as large as an amphitheater, but one thing dominated the space.

In the center of the cavern was what could only be called a shrine. The stalactite pillars had been layered so closely together that they had practically merged into one, forming a canopy that vaguely looked like a pile of melted wax. And there, occupying a stony throne beneath it, sat a man.

No, not a man, Jasper quickly corrected himself. The man’s skin was a pale white that on closer inspection appeared to be stone. The pure white was marbled by the same angry purple streaks that had marred the dead Djinn, and his eyes glowed a deep violet.

Jasper could barely breathe as the details of Nēs̆u’s story flashed through his mind again, but after a few, tense breaths, he began to doubt himself. There was no sign of movement at all, not even the rhythmic rise and fall of breath required for life. Movement registered in the corner of his eye, and his heart skipped a beat until he realized it was simply a rather bedraggled pair of humans and a mud-soaked deer coming to join him.

“Do you think that thing's what your sergeant fought?” he whispered to Nēs̆u.

A grim look passed over the Sicyan’s face. “Must be,” he grunted. “Only a truly powerful mage could collapse the whole floor.”

The four stood frozen in place, an oppressive silence hanging between them as they observed the statue. They were afraid to move, afraid to antagonize the powerful being that sat before them, and each second that passed moved so slowly it might as well have been an eternity, but the statue didn’t budge an inch.

Jasper wrinkled his brow. What is it waiting for? As the seconds turned to minutes, the doubts started to creep in. Were we just spooked by the story? The thought of being held hostage by an actual statue was both absurd and a little pathetic, but as he shared a glance with his friends, he could see the same doubt reflected there.

Ever impetuous, Tsia was the first to move. Straightening up, she meticulously shook the drying mud off her skirts, dragging the task out longer than necessary as she worked up her nerve. But when the last cloud of dust had settled, she stepped forward hesitantly. Her footsteps echoed ominously in the giant cavern as she walked toward the limestone throne, but there was no reaction from the man of stone.

The others began to follow her, slowly at first, and then picking up the pace as they got closer to the throne. Still a few dozen feet ahead of them, Tsia began to stray from her path as her eyes focused on a spot in the corner of the cavern.

“Tsia, be careful. You’re not your mother,” Nesu hissed, as he tore his shield free of its clasps. She rolled her eyes, but her hands began to faintly glow as she summoned her essence and a moment later, a small cyclone of wind sprung into place around her.

“There, happy?” She snapped back. Not giving the warrior time to respond, Tsia pointed her hand toward the left corner. It was draped in a darkness so thick that Jasper couldn’t see anything, but a faint breeze from that direction brushed across his cheeks. The air was cold and damp, but it smelled reasonably fresh. “I think there’s an exit over there,” she started to say.

A cracking sound filled the hall, and they all froze, looking for its source. Jasper saw it at the last second – an unnaturally large stalactite had broken free from its base and, like the spear of an angry god, it thrust down with reckless hatred for all in its path. “Tsia-“

His cry of warning came too late. The tip of the stalactite collided with her shield and the cyclone rose to meet it. The wind and stone fought for a second, but gravity's force was too great for her shield to resist. The spell exploded in a flurry of winds that flung both Tsia and the stalactite across the room. It saved her life - the projectile landed a few feet away from her, but as the stalactite collided with the floor, the limestone exploded into a shower of shards that pelted her like a medieval shrapnel grenade, drawing blood from a dozen different places.

The cavern shuddered as if an earthquake sought to rend it in two. A cracking sound filled the cavern, and Jasper looked up to see a half dozen more stalactites drop from the ceiling - one aimed straight at him, and another headed towards Tsia who, stunned by the force of the blow, hadn't stirred from her spot. He dashed forward, leaving the one aimed at him behind, as he raced the other to Tsia. He arrived a fraction of a second first; dragging her free, he managed to turn his back to the thing before it too exploded in shards that tore at his back. Ignoring the pain, he scooped up her and spun on his heels, desperately searching for the exit Tsia had pointed out. Where was it?

His eyes passed over the throne, then darted back.

It was empty.

Crap.