Chapter Notes: The Carceri portrayed here bears little resemblance to any book-published version in existence, but it's pretty terrible all the same. Keinan really just wants to get back to his horses and his kid sister. (A battle story.)

Part the First: What Came
(or, Why Not to Leave Warlocks Around Your Ancestral Weapons)

Only the barest edge of the storm giant's kick catches him, but it still blows him off his feet and across the courtyard. He rolls to a stop, his breath whistling in his chest, god, god, it hurts, but there's no way out but forward, so he plants his trembling arms beneath him and pushes himself back to his feet just as Helen lands beside him.

"Still up for more?" she asks, shooting him a look as she flips back her ponytail. She reaches out and squeezes his elbow, a fleeting touch. "Let's do it again. I've almost got it."

Still breathless, he nods, and breaks into a run, back into the fray. Quick, quick, it needs to be quick, because Lorena can only survive distracting the cloud giant for so much longer. Outpacing him, Helen races back towards the storm giant, leaping at the last second as it begins to swing its massive sword.

From below, a strike to its chin—the Comet Hammer carries her up, far over the giant's head, and she twists in the air with a skill far beyond the rudimentary martial arts she'd known all of two days ago. From above, a blow to its shoulder, and the Hammer jerks her onward; she catches its elbow on the way past, swings herself around as lightly as a maiden at a maypole, and drives her last attack into the bone of the giant's wrist.

It bellows, fingers going slack, and swats at her, but the Hammer's already pulling her away, and the sword clangs to the ground with a roar like cavalry at full gallop, and—

Keinan throws himself flat to avoid the backhanded swipe, and rolls to the side, finally, finally slapping a hand down across the immense surface of the blade. The colors begin to shift as he glares at it, storm-cloud gray darkening to black, the inlaid blue handle staining red. Mine, he thinks at it ferociously. Somewhere between his ears and the hair on the back of his neck, he can feel the thing that's been watching him since they arrived in Carceri chortle. Good choice, it says in a lilting hiss at the back of his mind, and the sense of possession solidifies into certain ownership, a pact between him and the weapon and the voice in his head.

He closes his hand, and the sword vanishes, tucked into the back of his mind like his memories of home. The giant's mouth falls open, a great blue cavern, and Keinan balls his hands into fists to hide his shaking at the size of its dull teeth.

"What have you done?!" it demands, its voice rattling against the walls of the prison. "Where is it? What have you done with my father's sword?!" Its hand rises, and Keinan pushes himself up and backward and—

—and straight into Helen's arms, as she zips by behind him, just barely pulling him away from the new crater the giant's fist leaves in the courtyard.

"Ready?" she asks, and despite everything, she's grinning, tight and angry. "Grab on."

He hugs her around the shoulders and nods. He feels her catch her breath and bounce on her toes, testing his weight, before she mutters, just to herself, "Okay, Helen. One, and two, and—"

She whirls the Comet Hammer overhead again, and this close, he can feel the magic surge out of it, crackling over her orihalcum hand and raising a frisson of response down his metal-laced spine, the phylacteries of Zalivance humming with response to the proximity of other enchantments.

The world drops out from beneath him as the Hammer pulls them skyward, and Helen wraps her free arm around his back, tucking herself into a roll, pulling the both of them into a spiraling twist, and his stomach lurches with the spinning, and at the top of the arc, she yells, "Now!"

They release each other in the same moment.

Wind whistles in his ears as gravity takes him. Below him, the giant's enormous white head begins to crane backwards, its eyes tracking Helen. Its forehead spreads out under Keinan like a chalk field. He raises his hands in matching arcs, then snaps them forward, fingers contorting in signs he learned in some dream he doesn't remember having.

The air splits with a furious roar, a snarling blast of sound and burst of brimstone smell. In the back of Keinan's head, the demon shrieks with laughter.

The sword reforms.

Where before it was sapphire blue and chill gray, it now cuts a red and black swathe in the sky, licks of fire emblazoned down the blade. A whorl of pipes the color of charcoal form the pommel; they rumble beneath Keinan's hands and belch black smoke, hot to the touch even through the protection of the ifrit's belt.

The giant looks up. Its eyes widen.

Keinan rides the sword down.

(Notes: The conceit of the first game was a one-nighter dungeon run where the difficulty was scaled such that the party leveled up with every encounter, to end when the party either hit level twenty or the desperate, sleep-deprived players found a loophole in the plot to bail earlier. Among other tweaks to the 5th Edition rule set, some of the class abilities took less time to work or refreshed faster, leading to the above maneuver.)