The second most dangerous prisoner of the Bastille didn't warrant his own tower, but he was guarded far more heavily than any other. Of course, the long years and slow hollowing had made the gaolers lax in their watch. Slumped against the walls as they were, they could hardly put up a fight as the pair of Lords swept the room. The cell door was open. Should the prisoner have escaped his confinement, the bars would have only shielded him from the guards.

No ordinary prison could have held such a dangerous individual. The only way to keep him bound was to seal his immense power, and the easiest means of doing that was to turn him to stone. The classically attractive man stood frozen in the doorway, a defiant smirk on his face. A hood hung over his head, an attached vizard covering the upper part of his face, and a meticulously-groomed beard covered the lower part. In his hand was the most powerful staff a sorcerer had ever used.

Lex drew a short bit of petrified wood from one of his belt pouches. With a bit of effort, he snapped it in two and waved the ends in the statue's face. The pungent scent of primordial Flame awakened the man as it had awakened the stone dragons so long ago, and he staggered against the wall. He waved the prophet away and slowly forced himself standing.

"Still a bit stiff, I'm afraid," the sorcerer chuckled confidently. "I must thank you, young-"

He stopped and stared, first at Lex, then at Safiya.

"-no, Old Ones!" he laughed all the harder. "I am Straid. A wandering sorcerer of sorts."

"And with King Alvis of Olaphis, you slew the so-called Ancient Dragon."

"Very good! As expected of an Old One! Yes, Alvis invited me to Olaphis to deal with a number of problems, one of which purported to be a primordial dragon. An obvious fraud! My spells were as effective against it as against a common animal! Soul power, even as great as mine, would have been little more than a nuisance against a true dragon!"

"Okay, great. I wasn't sure if that was going to still be true after Aldia went and basically stole your role in the plot."

"What plot? Was this Aldia my successor in the Olaphis court?"

Lex threw his arms up and made a floundering gesture.

"Weeeeell, I don't usually say this because it confuses people, but I figure you'll get it. I'm actually from another world entirely, where this world is a piece of interactive fiction. Your role in it was greatly reduced due to a total rewrite of the plot midway through, and your role of the sorcerer who experiments on dragons was taken over by Aldia. Or maybe he was supposed to be a recurrence of you. Or maybe originally, you were supposed to be the guy who made all of the Old Iron King's golems-that-aren't-called-golems-because-Vendrick-trademarked-the-word. You know, since the god of invention used dragon bones to power his golems."

"I knew it! The madness has overcome you! I'll-" Safiya hissed, clutching her sword.

Straid rubbed his chin thoughtfully but quickly interrupted, "Hold! Mad or not, this is the most interesting story I've heard in a long while. Let him continue."

Lex relaxed but sidled away from the Sinner. She hissed through her teeth and gripped her sword all the tighter.

"No, that was pretty much it," the prophet continued hesitantly. "As an addendum, I was originally pulled from my world to the distant past, where I trampled all over the canon order of events, so this sequel shouldn't have happened to begin with."

"You don't look on all of us for being mere characters acting out a script?" Straid said pointedly.

"I can't; my wife is taller than me. More seriously, it's been said that if it's possible for a universe to be simulated, it's most likely that you're also in a simulation. Turtles all the way down, as the saying goes. Though I hate to imagine what sort of boring person would create my original world."

Straid had been smiling the whole time, but now he threw his head back and laughed.

"Very good! Very good indeed!

Safiya snorted and rubbed her missing eye.

"I have no desire to restart my adventuring days," the sorcerer continued, "but should you ever need assistance, I shall endeavor to assist you. I will remain here for now. The isolated surroundings are an ideal place to experiment. Bring me peculiar souls, and I will show you their true worth! Besides," he smirked, "I wouldn't dream of getting between you lovebirds."

"Oh, god, no. Safiya is the recurrence of my mother-in-law. And my wife has a bigger butt anyway."

"I haven't the faintest interest in a half-mad, carnally-minded braggart."

"I am the only priest of the dark god of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I'm not half as decadent as I ought to be. Anyway! Straid, I was actually coming to see if you wanted to help fight another fake dragon. Mainly because he's coated in invisible acid or some other nonsense, and I don't have a spare sword or anything."

The Sinner crossed her arms and walked to the other side of the room to calm herself down.

"Hmm. Perhaps," Straid said, rubbing his lip. "What manner of soul does the beast have?"

Lex groaned and grinned awkwardly.

"You can't turn it into anything. I'd have to take it to Ornifex, who'd turn it into a duplicate of the spear stuck in its chest."

"What?!" the legendary sorcerer exploded. "Now I'll have to go, just to see for myself! There cannot possibly be a soul from which I can derive nothing!"

Fortunately, there was a bonfire right next to him, in the center of the cell. Lex lit it, Safiya rejoined them, and they were back in the depths of the Sanctum City in mere moments.

"Well! I am suitably impressed!" Straid said as they stepped out of the fire. "You must teach me this magic! I'll trade for it!"

"I learned it in the past from an unfathomable sacred artifact which in the present is inexplicably lying broken in some guy's basement. But honestly, it's probably just a feature of the bonfires now. Nobody knows about it because everyone who did lived forever ago. I'll explain how it works when we're done, and then you can try it."

"Such a thing was hidden in plain sight? What purpose do those Keepers serve if not to keep such important knowledge about the bonfires?"

"Miyazaki digs helpless chicks. In-setting? Oral histories are a crapshoot."

"Heh. Very true."

"Can you not hurry?" the Sinner grumbled. "True, such a beast endangers what people may live in this land, but the Chaos threatens all. I do not relish these distractions."

"Well, actually, we're fine," Lex said, shrugging as he turned to face her. "As a function of the Flame being a stand-in for the concept of Law-slash-Yang-slash-Apollo, as it fades, so too do the rules of the universe cease to hold sway. Time is no longer strictly linear. Rather, as the Dark-slash-Chaos-slash-Yin-slash-Dionysian forces begin to take hold, the chronology shifts to a more event-driven model. Though this precedent was undoubtedly set in one of Moorcock's earlier works, it's most easily apparent in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, as well as in a meta sense, the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, which has been stuck in the beginning of the 13th Black Crusade indefinitely in real time."

Straid had quickly begun to take notes on a bit of parchment using a hastily-constructed charcoal pencil. Safiya blanched and struggled to find her voice.

"You… weren't a fool?"

"You're being awfully judgmental for someone who sat around moping instead of using their unholy powers for good."

She ground her teeth instead of replying, so Lex pressed through the fog. They entered a worn courtyard lined with columns and ringed with stalagmites. Lex ran his Gold-Hemmed Black Talisman along the side of his blade. The air all around the sword rippled into a frenzy, and the rings along its back jingled ceaselessly. The prophet pointed his sonic weapon straight ahead.

"Rush him! Before he can get off the ground!"

The dragon had lain slumbering at the far end of the courtyard, obscured by the shadow of the stalagmites. All the racket had caused it to awaken, and now it roared and kicked up dust. It reared up on its hind legs and blew its rotten red-green flame overhead. The Sinner's long legs served her well, and she had crossed the field in a flash with long, loping strides. The prophet wasn't far behind, skating on blades of flame.

As the melee-oriented Lords took position on either side, the legendary sorcerer of Olaphis raised his crystal staff and flared up an enormous aura of soul force. Light burst from the focusing crystal, and as the dragon lunged forward to break out of the corner in which it had found itself, it rammed straight into a massive rush of souls. Though it was resistant to magic, the sheer brute force of the attack drove it back. Safiya dashed back toward it, her bare feet slapping on the stone with enough force to shatter the tiles that weren't already in pieces. As she came upon the beast, she wheeled through the air smashing her sword against the beast's jagged flesh with brute force alone.

"Louder! LOUDER!"

Lex raised his sonic-empowered sword and shook it so that the rings jangled louder and louder. With one final jerk, he took the weapon in both hands and smashed it against the ground. The resulting bass pulse was an invisible wave of utter destruction. The fragile, corroded stonework of the sanctum cracked and shattered. The pillars throughout the courtyard crumbled, and the dragon, directly in the blast's path, stumbled backward as its scales began to rattle out.

Straid quickly strafed the beast and unleashed a whirling vortex of souls into its side. Tongues of flame licked its flank as Safiya struck again and again. Her sword's edge was dulled from smashing at the poisonous stone scales, but now each hit sent them spraying away. Chaos flame leapt along the length of the blade, eating into the wounds with a power far more insidious than any mere poison.

The dragon roared in anguish and twisted away. It shot into the air with a single wingbeat and began to circle the courtyard. Green-black fire rained down as a stream of acrid death. The Lords hurried out of the way with their incredible speed, but Straid merely stamped the butt of his staff into the ground. A shimmering diamond-shaped barrier formed around him, and the toxic flames simply rolled over it.

The pair of warriors kept at the ready, dodging streams of wretched flame or explosive poison as the dragon flew overhead. Straid couldn't keep up his shield indefinitely, so when the opportunity came, he swiftly made his way to the walled edge of the arena, where the beast's attacks rarely hit. All three remained tensed, waiting for the dragon to land. Only, it never did. Five minutes passed, then ten.

Both their weapon enchantments and their patience had long expired before the dragon dipped in the air. It dive-bombed the Lords, and they leapt to either side, chasing it as it swept across the arena. Instead of landing, however, it veered upward and began circling again.

"Okay, screw this," Lex sighed. "Safiya, fastball special."

"I beg your pardon?" the Sinner said absently, hesitant to break her focus.

"Throw me at it. Throw me like a short, angry, hairy, immortal Canadian."

The dragon swept through with its fire breath again, forcing them to lazily dodge. The priestess sighed.

"Fine."

She quickly crossed the distance between them and grabbed the prophet by his lean waist. He curled into a ball, and as the dragon began to wheel around in the air, she began to spin as well. As it rushed toward them, the Sinner threw with the strength of Lords, firing a pulse of red-pink Chaos energy from her palm as she let go. The shorter Chaos Lord hurtled through the air before striking the stone beast right on the nose.

"Argahdfllf! My shoulder!"

Lex bounced, spinning over the dragon's head. Before it got away, he slung a vine at it, rooting the parasitic plant deep in the crags of the beast's shattered flesh. He began to hum faintly as he reeled himself in.

"Luhn-Silvar, Hortator!"

The dragon lashed its tail wildly as he grabbed hold. His own strength wasn't enough to keep him on the creature's back, but lava dripped from his fingertips, burning handholds into the stone.

"Azura'm Gah'amer!"

Now the beast bucked wildly through the air, whipping its whole body with the strength of its mighty wings. Lex had quickly reached the base of the tail. Duran Durandal was resonating with the song and shimmering with power. The high priest of the god of music slowly drove the keening blade of his holy sword through the cracked flesh.

"Panthi-Seht, Sharmat-Dra!"

The dragon had become desperate, and the loss of its tail made its course all the more unstable. It smashed into the stalagmites surrounding the courtyard in an attempt to crush the prophet. The vine Lex had planted in the beast's flesh had grown into a web of climbing ivy that threatened to cover the whole creature. Each time the drake neared the rocks, he simply flung himself out of the way.

"Gahjuli Nerevar!"

In its panic, the dragon veered too low, and Safiya sprinted up a stone pillar to grab it by its throat. It struggled, but the Sinner's bear hug was no less powerful than the sealing manacles hanging about her wrist, now released. The drake choked and coughed poison as the extra weight dragged it toward the ground.

"Osuhn almese sut ohm yalif sul devahr…"

As the dragon carved a crater through the courtyard, Straid unleashed a hail of miniature soul spears. They arced up and over the beast's body, shredding its wings so that it couldn't take flight again.

"Nerevar!"

Lex stood atop the beast's back, gripping Yorgh's slagged spear. Lava dripped down the length of the shaft, burning away the corroded outer layer. The high priest of the god of pain and pleasure jerked the pole back and forth, running the tip through the dragon's breast.

"Right, so, one last thing. Did you become a dragon through Havel's covenant?"

The stone drake writhed madly and tried to stagger away, hissing and spitting without intelligence.

"Good enough for me. Who wants the kill?"

"Heh, how kind of you-" Straid began sarcastically.

Abruptly, Safiya flexed and snapped the dragon's neck.

"If you have time for glory-hounding, then you have time to explain what you know of this world. We have much of which to speak, now that I know you are no fool."