Chapter Eleven: Would Have Been Better With David Bowie
"No..." Ellie said, hands on the wall, staring at the stone bricks. "Lloyd! Professor! Kratos!" She pounded on the wall, willing the stair case to slip back down.
"Colette," Genis said, "It's no use." He picked up the lantern and, facing away from her, cast a quick Fireball to light it, bathing them in light.
"How did this happen?" she demanded. "What's going on?"
'Don't worry,' Colette said. 'Just keep going right like Professor Raine said and you'll find the altar eventually. I'm sure they'll meet you there. It will be ok.'
'Ugh, Colette, why didn't you warn me there was a labyrinth?'
'Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew. I'm sorry.'
She sighed. "I guess we're on our own now."
"Yeah," Genis said.
"Well, just… I don't know, watch for booby traps or something."
"Duh."
Ellie was about to make a comment, but remembered she was supposed to be Colette. Argh, this was so frustrating! She and Colette were such opposite people. She had always considered herself a good actor, but if she had to pretend to be a whole different person twenty-four-seven she didn't know if she could keep it up.
They reached the top of the stairs and began walking along another passage. At the end, it became a T-intersection and they took the right path.
'I'm sorry I'm so different,' Colette said. 'I wish I wasn't such a burden on you.'
'Oh, Colette, it's not your fault. I like you just how you are. But… I wouldn't want to have to pretend to be anyone all the time. It's nothing against you.'
'Oh… ok. Um, I'll help you as well as I can, ok?'
They continued walking aimlessly for a while, always taking the right path, always looking at the floor for more dangerous tiles. It was unnerving that they hadn't found any, and Ellie didn't know if this meant they were getting close or if they were so far away from their goal no one bothered to booby trap this area. It was also uncomfortable walking with Genis. He was supposed to be her best friend, but she'd only known him for little over a week. So they walked in relative silence, with Ellie constantly glancing at him from the corner of her eye to see if he was suspicious.
Every now and then they came to another torch, and Genis used Fireball to light it. Pathways or staircases would rumble into existence, giant ancient gears creaking to shift the labyrinth around. Ellie thought about Raine, who was likely desperate to crack open the Seal and figure out how it was built.
"Hey, Colette," Genis said, "Are you feeling better?"
"Hm?"
"Well, you said you've been under a lot of stress lately. Are you feeling better now?"
"Ah, sort of. I still feel a bit... I don't know, unhinged? Like... I'm turning into an angel soon, so I guess I'm just trying to get everything out of life while I can until I lose my humanity."
"That makes sense," he said. "You're releasing the more adventurous personality that you kept cooped up for all those years with the priests."
"Uh... yeah, that sounds right."
"Well, I just want you to know that although you're... really, really different now, I still love you and I'll still go visit you all the time once you turn into an angel. Like Lloyd always says, you're still Colette, no matter what."
"Uh... yeah, right... I'm still Colette." She felt really guilty. Genis was talking to a total stranger and thought it was his best friend. She had basically stolen Colette's life, and now she was lying out her teeth to the girl's best friend. Plus, Genis was the only person in the party who didn't know that becoming an angel sucked. Should she tell him? He kind of deserved to know, didn't he? And Genis was really mature, he could handle it.
She opened her mouth to say something, but looked down at him. He was little. Twelve years old. The same age as Beth. Beth was just a little kid, just her annoying baby sister. She couldn't imagine her being here, taking Genis' place. If this was Beth, there was no way she'd tell. She wouldn't want her little sister knowing the painful truth about the angel transformation, and she wouldn't want anyone else telling her either. She could only imagine Raine felt the same way.
She'd let Genis take refuge in ignorance for now. Maybe it was the cowardly thing to do, and maybe it would be worse in the long run, but for now he'd be happier. She just said, "Thanks, Genis."
Snick. Ellie barely had time to think 'uh-oh' before the floor beneath her fell away, sending her hurtling into blackness. She landed with a crash in a dark tunnel, groaning and rubbing her butt as she shakily got to her feet. It was a long drop, but not deadly.
"Colette!" Genis called, and she looked up to see his head illuminated by their lantern, poking over the edge. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine!" God, what she wouldn't give to have wings right now. Turning into an angel may suck, but have wings would be pretty cool. Plus they glowed, so maybe it wouldn't be so dark and creepy down here. Save for the light filtering down from above, the tunnel was pitch black. She hadn't really been afraid of the dark since she was younger than Beth, but there was something incredibly unnerving about wiggling your hand in front of you face and being unable to see it. She was trapped down here, too. Trapped all alone in pitch darkness until Genis figured out how to get her out...
'Don't be afraid!' Colette said cheerily. 'The dark isn't scary because we're not alone down here!'
Her eyes widened and her blood ran cold. 'W-what?' Not alone down here...? Oh god, what else was down here? She felt like she could already hear something coming... wait, no, she could!
A shuffling sound, like something large and soft being dragged across the floor. A thumping. A sniffing. "Oh my god..." she whispered, squeezing her eyes closed. Please let it go away. Please let it be nothing. Please, please don't let it be a monster.
As she cowered in the dark, her mind flashed through every movie monster she'd ever seen, from the eponymous alien in Alien, to the demonic dogs in Ghostbusters, to countless other horrifying monsters and creatures drawn from her own imagination. She leaned against the wall, heart racing a mile a minute as her hands turned clammy and she took deep, shuddering breaths.
Whatever was coming was doing so slowly, the shuffling sound still too far off to figure out what it was. She wanted to run, but her body was too terrified to move. She even found herself praying to whatever deity would listen, even though she'd never been very religious. Please, just let it go away...
Thump. Oh god, something landed right in front of her! She screamed when she felt something touching her, grabbing her, shouting at her, until she realised it was just Genis. "Colette! Colette, calm down, it's just me!"
She took a few deep breaths and opened her eyes, relieved to see her friend standing in front of her, hands on her arms. His eyes were wide and fearful, light from the lantern on the floor eerily illuminating his face from below. "I'm sorry," she whispered, all the while straining her ears for sound of the oncoming threat. She felt stupid for freaking out and she wished Genis hadn't seen her like that.
"Are you ok?" Genis asked in a perfectly normal voice, sounding out of place in the eerie quiet of the tunnel below. She glanced to her right, hoping that with the lantern down here she'd see what was coming. The light wasn't strong enough to penetrate far enough, though.
"Genis," she whispered, "Sh! Don't you hear that?"
"Hear what?" he asked, wrinkling his brow but thankfully dropping to a whisper.
"Listen."
A few seconds later, his eyes widened and he froze, trembling a bit. "W-what is that sound?"
"I don't know! I'm scared!" It was a challenge to keep her frantic whisper below a shout, and this infuriated her. She wanted to be able to maintain her emotions, but she couldn't remember ever being more scared before. "What do we do?"
"Uh..." he glanced furtively over his shoulder towards the approaching sound. "I think we should run!" He grabbed the lantern and took her hand, and then the pair of them started sprinting down the hall as fast as possible, lantern light dancing erratically on the walls.
They weren't really paying attention to where they were going, and even though they'd set out intending to always go right they took passages at random as long as it would get them away from whatever horror lurked behind. Ellie had no idea if it had even been a threat at all or if was still following, but she was too scared to risk slowing down.
They stopped when the ground beneath their feet rumbled to motion. They froze, holding on to each other as their section of the path suddenly shifted upwards, once again whisking them away from where they were. "What the hell?" Ellie said, then immediately regretted it. Genis may have comforted her, but he was likely still suspicious when she swore. Argh, ok, work on that.
"We're moving again!" Genis said. Way to state the obvious, buddy. When they finally came to a halt in a brand new hallway, he said, "Do you think this was caused by the others lighting another torch?"
"But they must be really far away from us!"
"Well... maybe lighting a torch doesn't just move the passage next to it, but others throughout the labyrinth as well?"
"Maybe..." Oh, that was not good. Every time a torch was lit, the entire maze reorganized itself? How could they keep taking rights to reach the center if the rights suddenly became lefts? "Well, I guess we should keep going... nothing else we can do..." She was starting to get genuinely frightened that they'd never make it out. Already her stomach was grumbling a little, and she didn't know how much longer the lantern would last.
They walked on, occasionally taking staircases if they went right. Ellie's feet were sore and she was dog-tired, but stopping would do them much good. She'd stopped dwelling on the scary sound from before, and led herself to believe it really was behind them.
Snick.
Crap! That was the sound of a trap! But she didn't see anything coming, even as she and Genis scrambled back, looking around in panic. Her heart was pounding so fast she was barely aware of her surroundings. Where was the trap? Where were the spikes and saws swinging out of the wall and piranha pits?
"Do you hear something?" Genis asked after a long period of standing stock still
Ellie had been starting to calm down a bit, thinking maybe this trap was broken. At Genis' words, though, her ears jumped to attention. "Yes. It sounds like... hissing?" It reminded her of when they used Bunsen burners in Chemistry, a faint hissing, like air being let slowly out of a hole in a balloon. She didn't smell anything, though, so it wasn't a gas leak. Or at least, not a gas she could smell.
"Maybe it's something in a different area of the maze?" she suggested.
"Yeah, maybe," Genis said, eyes darting around suspiciously.
"We should keep moving and keep our eyes out in case that trap was just delayed," she said and they continued down the hall, trying to ignore the persistent hissing.
Fifteen minutes later, she'd stopped noticing the hissing sound. In fact, she'd stopped paying attention to everything. Her head felt fuzzy, and despite the fact that she now felt more relaxed than she had in a week, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was forgetting something. She couldn't think straight, but for some reason everything Genis said was hilarious.
"Where are we going, anyway?" Genis said, rubbing tears from his eyes after a long bout of laughter.
Ellie struggled to stifle her giggles. "Oh man, I have no idea. We really suck, huh?"
Genis snickered. "Yeah, we – ha-ha – we kind of do!"
Ellie laughed, but she couldn't shake an annoying ringing in her ear, as if a distant voice was struggling to say something. "We need to find someone," Ellie said, clutching her sides which ached from laughter. She couldn't stop laughing for some reason. Absolutely everything was hilarious. "We need to find…" This was important. Some small part of her mind was telling her it was important but she couldn't figure out why. "Will," she said, the name ringing true in her hazy mind.
Genis laughed. "Colette, there is no one called Will!"
She wrinkled her brow, then snorted. "You're right!" Was he? What was going on?
"You're right though," Genis said. "We're trying to find someone. I think it's Lloyd."
"Yeah…" She giggled. "Lloyd. It's such a weird name. Llooooooyd." Why were they trying to find Lloyd? "And Raine and Kratos."
"I don't think I like Kratos," Genis said, rubbing the sides of his head. "He's kind of supicious. I mean suspicious."
"Of course we can trust him," Ellie said, shaking her head to try and dislodge the ringing in her ears. Her eyes ached, like there was pressure in her skull. "He's Lloyd's dad."
Genis burst into laughter. "What, no he's not!"
"Is too!" Was she supposed to say that? Why did her head hurt so much? The pounding in her skull was almost worse than her aching muscles from laughing too much.
"My head hurts," Genis announced.
Ellie sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. "Mine does too."
Genis stumbled and would have fallen over if Ellie hadn't grabbed his arm. They both wobbled in place, and for some reason this made them start laughing again.
Between fits of laughter, Ellie said, "Do you – heh – you want – ha-ha- a piggyback ride?"
Genis attempted to stifle his giggles. "Y-yeah, ok."
She bent over so Genis could hop up on her back, but when he did, she wobbled and her head nearly split in half with a wave of pain and dizziness. They toppled over, landing on the floor in a pile, roaring with laughter. The dropped lantern rolled away, spilled oil spreading across the floor and bursting into flame.
They sat there laughing for several minutes, tears coming out of her eyes. Halfway through crying with laughter, she realized she had no idea what was going on, where she was, or even who she was. She was… Ella…? But then Genis called her Colette… What was going on…?
Genis yawned. "I don't feel very good."
"I – I don't either," she said, rubbing her eyes.
"Maybe we should just… stay here… and go to sleep."
"Yeah…" she said, leaning against the wall next to Genis. Sleep. That sounded good. They could go to sleep and maybe she wouldn't wake up so that her head wouldn't hurt anymore…
Hey, what was that sound? It sounded familiar. It sounded like… Will's dog. Like the sound she made when she thumped her tail across the patio. Where had that thought come from? She knew someone named Will, but everything seemed so blurry. Whatever the sound was, it was keeping her awake when she just wanted to go to sleep forever.
She squinted her eyes when she saw a glowing light. It must be a flashlight. Will's dog Molly had found a flashlight and was coming to rescue them. She stood up, ignoring the wave of dizziness and she started to walk forwards.
Of course, the light was more like... like fire. Yeah, like a fire. Not at all like the solid white beam of a flashlight. What was this? She wanted to touch it to see what it was. Molly was making a slithering sound now, like leather sliding over the floor.
"Molly!" Ellie called, ignoring the little voice in her head that told her that this couldn't possibly be Molly because… but she couldn't think of the answer. It was hidden behind the fuzzy ringing cloud in her brain.
She got closer to it, and a dull part of her mind registered that Molly didn't look like herself. She didn't even look like dog! She looked like a really funky floating cat with only two legs, its long tail dragging on the ground. It looked like… um… something she'd seen in a game. A smaller monster paired with a giant flaming cat? What was this?
"You aren't Molly," she said as it came closer, fiery red light emanating from it. It opened its mouth to reveal rows of very sharp, very shiny teeth.
On the ground beneath the creature, red runes glowed through the dim light. This was bad an instinctive part of her brain was saying. While her cognitive mind struggled to figure out what was going on, a primal instinct took over telling her to run away from this thing as fast as she could. Her whole body was shaking with dread even though she couldn't figure out what was wrong.
The magic circle disappeared, and several fireballs flew in her face. She shrieked and raised her arms in front of her face, screaming as her sleeves caught fire. She immediately dropped to the ground and rolled around, confused as to why the fire didn't even hurt. Her arms were clearly badly burned, but she just felt a vague tingling, a dull ache.
Still, it was enough to spark her into following those instincts. She turned and dashed back down the hall, passing Genis. He was almost totally unconscious, so she paused just long enough to stop and shake him awake. The scary thing was close behind them, and as soon as Genis caught sight of it his same instincts took over as well. Ellie grabbed the lantern and then they took off down the hall.
Raine clutched Will's arm suddenly as the floor beneath their feet moved, sinking into the ground as the walls rushed up past them. Even Kratos froze, one hand on his sword just in case. "What's going on?" Will asked, looking around in alarm. "We didn't light any torches!"
"Perhaps," Kratos said as they ground to a halt, "the Chosen and Genis have been lighting torches as well."
"I see," Raine said, letting go of his arm. "So lighting a torch doesn't move just one path, but paths throughout the labyrinth."
"So it would seem," Kratos said.
She frowned. "This is going to make navigation tricky."
"I don't care," Will said, clenching his fist. "As long as paths keep moving, that means Colette and Genis are still alive to move them. We should only be worrying when they stop."
"That is true," Raine said. "In any case, standing around here isn't going to get us anywhere." Will sighed as they took off again.
He missed Ellie. Hell, he missed Genis. Raine and Kratos were nice people and all, but they certainly weren't the most fun to be wandering around with. Kratos was silent, staring straight ahead, while Raine was constantly muttering to herself about how amazing and ancient this place was.
'I'm so bored,' Lloyd groaned. 'I've already been through here once, twice is no fun at all.'
'Gee, sorry about that. Hey, any more surprises coming up?'
'Um... I dunno. What don't you know?'
'...You do realise that's an incredibly pointless question, right?'
'Oh, yeah, I guess it is. Sorry. Well, I don't know. The next thing that really sucks is the Palmacosta Ranch. It's... it's horrible.'
'Lots of warp pads, right? And another maze?'
'Maze? No, not really. But it was really dangerous. There were Desians everywhere, we kind of ran through in a blind bloody haze, fighting our way to Magnius.' He faltered for a second. 'It was my first time really seeing Dad... man, it was awful. Every hallway had at least a few Desians, and Dad led the charge as we cut through them. Colette was a wreck.'
'Oh...' He hadn't really been looking forward to the ranch, but with this information he was positively dreading it.
"Lloyd!" Kratos suddenly shouted, grabbing him by the suspenders and yanking him back just as a spinning blade swiped down from the ceiling. "Pay attention!"
"S-sorry," he gasped, starring at the perfectly innocent stretch of floor that had nearly killed him.
"Don't let your guard down," Kratos snapped. "In any case, I believe we should turn around and take a different route."
"Wait," Will said as Kratos and Raine both started walking away. "As long as we don't step on the tile that activates this trap, this way is still safe, right? And wouldn't it make sense that it gets more dangerous the closer we get to our goal? So maybe if we seek out the traps and avoid them, that'll lead us closer to the center."
"That... actually makes a lot of sense," Raine said. "If the traps are designed to make coming through as difficult as possible, it makes sense that the closer we get to our destination the more dangerous it will become."
"Hm," was all Kratos said. Gosh, Kratos was such a linguistic genius.
Carefully watching the floor for the trigger, the trio avoided the trap and continued down the passage. They went up a flight of stairs when they came to it, and this time Will was paying enough attention to jump over the slightly different shaded stone. As much as he wanted to know what the trap was, he figured it was best to just let sleeping dogs lie.
'Dwarven Vow number 108!' Lloyd reminded him.
'Shut up, Lloyd.'
And so they walked some more. It was incredibly boring and Will thought back to the corn maze he and Ellie had gone to a few months before. They'd wandered around for nearly two hours, getting so hopelessly lost and ending up back at the beginning at least twice. They hadn't really cared, because it gave them two solid hours of not being bothered by anyone but the corn, which was vastly better than later going back to her house and trying to play Tales of Symphonia with her little sister constantly whining that they were taking up the GameCube. He thought of Ellie now, separated from him with only a little kid (who admittedly could use magic, but was still just a kid) hopelessly lost in a deadly maze. He had to find her.
Kratos suddenly stopped walking and Will crashed into his back. "Hey, what-"
"Sh. Something's coming."
Will froze, then pulled out his swords, ready for anything. He stood next to Kratos and looked ahead, not yet able to see or hear what Kratos' angel senses had picked up. Wait... now that he was trying, he could hear the pattering of footsteps.
"Wait. That's not... that can't be..." Running pell-mell towards them were Ellie and Genis, lantern swing crazily in Ellie's hand.
"Colette?" Raine said, watching them approach. "Genis?"
"Colette!" Will yelled when she saw them.
The pair slowed down when they reached the rest of the group and stared at them in confusion. "Colette?" Raine said, stepping forward slowly.
Ellie wrinkled her brow as she panted for breath. "W-what…? I know you…"
"Of course you know us," Will laughed.
Ellie gave him a frightened look, then rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. "Oh god, what's going on?"
"Um...Professor?" Will said, giving Raine a worried look. "What's wrong with them?"
"Did something happen, Genis?" Raine asked with a frown.
Genis contorted his face, struggling to remember. "Um… there was fire."
Will's eyes drifted to Ellie's arms and his stomach lurched as he saw the burns. "Colette! You're injured."
"Huh?" She dully looked down at her arms. "Oh. Huh."
This wasn't right. She shouldn't lose her sense of touch until Asgard, so there was no way this was ok. "Professor, I think something happened to them."
"I think so too," Raine said in a low voice.
Kratos' frown deepened. "I believe they may have encountered some gas in the labyrinth that has... rather addled their minds."
"We can fix it, right?" Will tried to keep the panic out of his voice as he looked up at Kratos.
Thankfully, Kratos nodded. "It will wear off with time, although if Miss Sage knows the correct healing technique that may be able to cure them faster."
Raine looked up. "Which spell do you think would work?"
"Do you know 'Dispel'?"
She nodded. "I believe so, though I haven't yet needed to use it. Colette, come here." Ellie slowly stumbled forward, confusion reigning across her face.
Raine carefully charged the spell, then said, "Dispel," holding her staff out to Ellie. Green light flowed out and wrapped around her, sparkling in a shimmering cloud of light. Ellie blinked a few times, then promptly closed her eyes and collapsed.
"Colette!" Will caught her in his arms in panic, afraid Raine had goofed up. A few seconds later, though, she opened her eyes and yawned, looking up at Will.
"Huh?" she said. "Wi-Lloyd. What are you doing here? Where's Genis?"
"He's fine," Raine said, grabbing his wrist and casting Dispel again. Just like Ellie, he fainted for a few seconds in Raine's arms before waking up, incredibly confused.
"So they're fine now?" Will asked Kratos, looking up at him while Ellie looked in alarm at the burned sleeves of her arms.
"Owwww," she moaned. "Oh, Martel, ow. Professor, can you-"
"First Aid."
"Thank you." She frowned. "My dress is ruined, though."
"I know how you feel," Will said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder at his own burnt and ripped back. "We'll fix it when we get to Triet."
"So what were you two running from?" Raine asked.
They both shrugged. "No idea," Genis said. "The last thing I remember is walking along, wondering if that sound we heard was a trap activating and a strange hissing."
"Gas," Kratos explained. He looked over his shoulder, back the direction they'd come. "In any case, if dangerous monsters are that way, then that's probably the way we should be going."
"Uh, why?" she asked as they started moving again. "Isn't that kind of dumb?"
Kratos just shrugged. "Lloyd thought it up. Have him explain."
"Lloyd?" Genis said. "You're trusting our lives in one of Lloyd's plans?"
"Shut up, Genis."
'Well, it's not like you have a good track record of good plans.'
'You shut up, too, Lloyd!'
They walked on in silence. Ellie spaced out, but she was probably talking to Colette. Will was just glad she was alright, and in her right mind again.
Of course, that wasn't to say their walk through the labyrinth had no more excitement. Raine, bringing up the rear, barely avoided becoming a pin cushion when a set of spears flew out of the wall, and Kratos up front managed to jump backward and crash into Will before spikes flew up from the floor. The traps were coming more steadily now, and Will could only hope this meant they were getting close to their goal.
Most disturbingly of all, they kept hearing a leathery thumping sound in the distance. Ellie and Genis recalled hearing it before, but they had no idea what it was. The sound seemed to come from all over, though. It was constantly in the distance behind them, and when they passed passages and openings they thought they could hear it from other directions as well.
Will was pretty hungry, too. It must be at least the evening by now, and he'd last eaten at breakfast. His stomach growled and clenched, but they couldn't stop for a meal with the monsters coming from the distance. By the sound of things, they were getting closer, too.
"Professor," Ellie said, looking nervously over her shoulder, "I think they're coming."
Everyone else looked back as well, and Will was terrified to see tiny pinpoints of light coming towards them: the glowing eyes of monsters. "Can we outrun them?" he asked breathlessly.
"It would not be wise to try and fight," Kratos said. "There may be many more of those creatures than we see right now, and the passages of the labyrinth are too narrow to try and successfully hold them off."
"What do we do?" Genis asked, trembling.
"I say we run," Will said. "We must be getting close, let's make a run for it."
Kratos nodded. "Follow me. We can't afford to get separated."
With that, they took off. Raine grabbed Genis' hand to make sure he didn't fall behind, and Will pumped his legs to run as fast as he could. Back in the real world, they ran the mile for PE about once a week. When he was younger, he used to try and imagine monster behind him to try and encourage himself to run faster. He'd always thought that it works, but now that he had the real deal at his heels, he realised that his imagination hadn't been nearly realistic enough.
Kratos was by far the fastest runner, and had more stamina to boot. Luckily he was aware of this and often checked over his shoulder to make sure he didn't get too far ahead, just as Will kept checking over his shoulder to watch the monsters' progression towards them. They took right turn after right turn, running until his lungs burned and his legs felt like Jell-O. They couldn't stop, though, because he knew that if they did he wouldn't be able to start up again.
Kratos swore as they came to a dead end. Will looked backwards in panic, seeing those horrible eyes drawing closer and closer, leathery thumping getting progressively louder. The wall they stopped at, though, had a torch! Maybe there was hope after all! Without waiting for Kratos to pull out his flint, Will stepped forward with the Sorcerer's Ring and lit the wick. He noticed that this stone border around this torch was slightly different, with Cruxis' emblem carved into the top. The labyrinth rumbled around them, and then the path they were on slowly started to rise.
They rose up and up, into a chamber with a high domed ceiling with intricate carvings, pillars lining the walls. In the middle of the room, the altar waited. He sighed in relief; they'd made it.
"This place was also built with magi-technology," Raine said, looking around with wide eyes. "Isn't it wonderful? Colette, when you're done, I wonder if we could stick around so I could examine this room further?"
"Uh, sure, Professor," Ellie said as they approached the altar. Reddish light began drifting upwards, and Will drew his swords, holding them confidently in front of him. He wasn't really that good at fighting, but hopefully he could just hold it off until Kratos finished it.
"Ah! What the-" Genis said as the room shook, and a pillar of fiery light erupted from the altar. Ready or not, here it comes.
