Anad drove his blade into the back and between the ribs of the creature kneeling in pain on the ground. A twist to widen the gash as much as possible, blood gushing out, and then he was past and through the door of the strange stone building.

Whatever had gotten their attention was inside – and so was whatever seemed to be weakening them. The first one he’d found sprawled on the ground he’d taken the time to kill properly. The second wasn’t nearly so helpless, but it had been more interested in getting somewhere else than it had been in killing him. The third and fourth he’d settled on grievously wounding and letting them bleed out.

And now here I am – wherever here is.

At least two creatures he’d seen had gone in ahead of him, dozens more racing around outside, carving up the ground as they ran around on all fours in some kind of madness. They’d run up to the building, then keel back as if something hurt them, let out their bone-jarring shrieks, then continue to run around.

The ones that went in must be more stubborn, or just stronger, to resist whatever is holding the others back. Maybe it has something to do with that strange ringing?

Before he had a chance to even consider the answer to his own question, one of the creatures lunged at him in the narrow hall, spiked arms aiming to punch through his chest.

A step back followed by a quick one-two with his cane deflected the spikes harmlessly up and over his shoulders, a sharp downward cut severed the darting tongues, and then Anad was the one lunging in. Burying his blade to the hilt in the monster’s heart, it was in and out between beats, and then Anad ducked and spun under the outstretched arm. A crossover step back to get the right distance and he lashed out once, twice, three times in the blink of an eye to cut the thing’s hamstrings, carve open its midsection, and finally tear out its throat.

Messy business.

The bloodied monster toppled forward as Anad turned and sprinted down the hall, already engaging the next in line as the first hit the ground. Coming at the creature at a full run, it suddenly lurched to the side, arms coming up to its own head as if in pain, and Anad skidded to a stop and reset his feet. Distracted as it was, he could’ve gotten by, but that would’ve left a dangerous enemy right at his back, and he instead buried his sword in the creature’s exposed armpit.

Tip bursting out on the other side of its neck, Anad gave a twist, twist, pull, and then a river of blood followed his withdrawing blade as he quick-stepped back. The shock of the sudden assault seemed to override whatever was distracting the monster, and it turned its eyeless head in his direction – just in time for his sword to cut across its neck. The paper-thin blade barely left a mark until the monster turned its head to follow Anad’s movement, and then blood gushed out in a waterfall to paint its chest red.

Still, that wouldn’t be enough to stop it, or even really slow it down, so Anad stepped in with cane and sword working in unison. Crack, crack, the cane sounded as Anad double-thwacked the creature’s forehead. The blows didn’t break the seemingly indestructible bone, but they did stun the creature long enough for Anad to go to work on its midsection. By the time the thing came to its senses, Anad was already withdrawing while the thing’s internals spilled to the ground with a wet slosh.

That should be enough.

The thing reached weakly for him, but Anad simply turned and ran towards the next intersection. A third monster had rounded the corner away from him just as he’d engaged the second. If he could…

A monster came rocketing out of the side hallway, bent around a spinning pink ball of some kind of energy to slam into the wall and then grind along it. A long red stain trailed its path along the stone as its flesh got sand-papered off, before it finally collided with another wall hard enough to shake the building. The pink ball faded as soon as its momentum was lost, and the creature staggered forward, the white of bone showing through where the energy had ripped it apart.

“Careful with that!” a woman’s voice shouted from where the creature had come from. “You could’ve killed me!” A pause. “I don’t care if the odds were low!”

So, it’s not just monsters in here. Tel and his sorcerer friend? Was that pink ball her magic? Whatever, standing here won’t answer my questions.

Careful for any more flying creatures, Anad peeked around the corner then dashed out to lay into the back of another of the distracted monsters. Three of the things stood between him and a larger room, one sprawled on the ground where it must’ve ducked under its friend flying over, another at the doorway where something smacked it hard enough in the face to flip it over backwards, and the final one he stabbed repeatedly in the back.

In. Twist. Out. In. Yank. Out. In. Twist. Out. Falling deep into the Trance, Anad ripped garish wounds in the thing’s back before it sluggishly turned in his direction. Up, predictably, came one of the spiked arms, but Anad bolted in the other direction, kicking up and off the wall to leap over the creature while his sword worked over its shoulders and neck. Three more deep slashes criss-crossed it by the time he hit the floor, and an almost off-handed slash across its hamstrings brought it to the ground.

As it hit the stone on one side of him, Anad turned to where the other two had gotten tangled on the ground. Squirming and jostling with each other to be the first one up, Anad simply flipped his sword around in his hand, then drove it down through the back of the one on top. With a blade that would cut through almost anything, it easily shot through the first creature to impale the one underneath it as well, not to mention the floor.

Quick-stepping over a flailing leg, Anad pivoted around his sword, then jammed it to the side as if he were working a lever attached to the floor. More blood burst out of the creatures, and Anad retracted his sword and flipped it right-side-up again. Dancing around the monsters as they thrashed and bled, practically in slow motion thanks to the Trance, his blade was a blur, slashing and cutting, carving and maiming, until they moved no more.

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Is that all of them?

The sound of more fighting from the large room told him it wasn’t, and he dashed through the doorway, only to skid to a stop as his eyes settled on the multi-colored rip hanging in the air. Almost big enough to ride a horse through, with some kind of strange finger or… leg… or something longer than he was tall undulating through the air, it sent a shiver through his body just looking at it. Even more than that, something tickled at the back of his mind. Something… familiar.

Metal poles of some kind, chaos butterflies everywhere, a woman running in the air with a chain whip whirling around her body like it was a living thing as she fought a trio of monsters, and there across the room in front of a grandfather clock…

“Tel,” Anad said quietly, pushing aside the strange sense of familiarity to focus on the present. It really was him. After all these years. “Tel!” he shouted, but didn’t have time to see if his old friend heard him as one of the monsters came rushing at him from his right side.

Up came his sword to defend, but the thing jerked wildly as some kind of energy wave rolled out from the center of the room, sending the creature stumbling to the side and tripping over its own feet to hit the ground right in front of Anad.

What was that?

“Don’t just stand there! Make sure it doesn’t get back up,” the sorcerer shouted as she ran across the air in front of Anad, her chained weapon careening in wild angles to slam into the face of one of the monsters.

And how is she doing that?

There was enough chain in the air to reach from one end of the room to the other, but it was criss-crossing all over the place to create some kind of hanging puzzle that never stopped moving. And when the weighted end hit, a concussive force like a soap bubble popping threw her poor target halfway across the room.

“I know I’m impressive,” she said, running by again with her chain trailing. “But if you could…” she flipped in the air, the chain circling her body as she went to deflect a spiked arm, “…maybe help out…” she landed on nothing but dropped into a sweeping kick that collided with a monster’s face, “…that would be great!”

“Right,” Anad said, then sluggishly turned his sword toward the monster on the ground.

Why am I moving so slowly? Wait, the Trance? I lost it? How?

A question for later, he pulled hard on the ambient chaos energy around – there was plenty to go around – and let the Trance wash through him. His senses came alive, along with the pounding in his head from overusing the magic, and his muscles flexed as he lashed out at the thing on the ground in front of him. With the Trance, it’d never be able to move before he…

Another wave rolled out from the center of the room, washing over the creature and sending it into spasmed twitching, and suddenly Anad was moving like he was enveloped in mud.

Sching, his blade sparked across the stone floor as his muted reflexes couldn’t keep up with the thrashing monster.

That wave is…

A twisted-bone arm slammed into the side of his leg, taking his feet out from under him, and the world bent sideways before he crashed to the floor. “Oof,” he grunted, the air blasted from his lungs and his sword-arm curled awkwardly under him.

Blue and mottled, a foot stepped in front of Anad’s face, and without the Trance, he rolled backwards, barely in time as a spiked arm crunched into the stone floor. Another roll, another crunch from the other arm, and Anad pulled on the Trance while he lashed out with his blade and pushed himself up to one hand and his knees.

He’d lost his cane at some point, and the edge of his blade barely did more then draw blood as it hit the hard bone of the creature’s shins, but Anad was back on his feet. Up came his sword, wrist cocked for defence in lower-seven, and the blade angled across his body.

Wait for it…

The wave pulsed out from the center of the room – No, that’s not right. It’s from those metal poles ­­– and enveloped him, pulling at the Trance like it was caught in an undertow. This time, expecting it, Anad pulled hard right back, focusing all his concentration on keeping the magic in his body.

The wave from those poles is the same as the Trance – chaos purified into order. That’s why it’s taking the Trance with it when it passes. And if it’s the same, that means…

He lost it, and the Trance was pulled away from him hard enough to make him stagger to the side, the creature in front of him stumbling at the same time. In unison, like some kind of drunk slap-fight, the two feebly lashed out at each other, both disoriented and bereft of their usual strength. Neither blow came anywhere close to hitting home, but the flailing bought Anad the precious seconds he needed to take hold of the Trance.

Once again, his senses and muscles snapped into focus, though the consecutive change in perception had his head spinning, and he lunged in with two quick strikes before the monster could fully recover. Aim off as the world tilted, he first cut drew a long line of blood up the extended arm of the creature, but did little lasting damage, while his second raked uselessly across the side of its face.

Damnit, I can’t lose the Trance again.

Anad quick-stepped back, his usual fluid footwork almost tripping him up when his heel caught his rear leg as he executed a simple crossover step. Two more steps, wildly inelegant, and he had his feet solidly under him again, and his blade back up in a defensive posture.

Focus!

With the room slowed down around him – even the creature moving at a snail’s pace – Anad turned his attention to his own body. He felt the Trance flow through his veins with every beat of his racing heart. He tensed magic-powered muscles, savoring the control and burn of their use, and tasted the air. Power danced on his skin from the ambient chaos, like he was standing in an open field during a thunderstorm, while something foreign, cold and flat, tickled his nose.

This is my body. I control it.

Anad let out his breath, the vertigo exiting with it, and tightened his fingers on the hilt of his sword. The next wave should be…

Energy ballooned out of each of the metal poles, clear but for the way it displaced the hanging chaos as it moved. The creatures closest staggered back, with those hit by multiple bubbles suffering the worst – one’s head even exploded! – as the wave expanded.

This is it.

Instead of holding onto the Trance like he was preparing for a tug of war with the oncoming wave, Anad opened himself up to the energy. It was purified order, like what his sword did, which meant his body was trained to use it. All he had to do was let it in.

As the wave hit him, Anad breathed in the energy through his mouth, his nose, and even his skin. He opened every part of himself to the pure order, and strength flooded into his body. Every inch of him lit up with awareness and time slowed down to a complete stop, the room like a perfect, if chaotic, still-life all around.

More and more, like he could feel the individual threads of his tuxedo touching his skin, the exact pressure of his feet on the floor, every muscle in his fingers as he shifted his grip on his sword, his awareness of self expanded. He was, for one, perfect second, in complete control of his body, even the pressure of the air acting as another sense.

With power like this, I could…

Pain replaced sensation as the tuxedo’s material shifted, rubbing across his skin like sandpaper. Around his sword-hilt, his fingers squeezed tighter and tighter, skin whitening and joints stretching and on the verge of simply popping.

Sound rushed into his ears, all that he’d somehow ignored, but now a cacophonous boom that sent spikes of pain through the sides of his skull. The chaos butterflies that had been so small and dim now each glowed like the sun, their light making his eyes water, but his eyelids wouldn’t close!

Where his body had for a second been completely under his control, it was now completely out of his control.

The agony of overstimulation filled him from head to toe.

And then his heart stopped.