Kun'nuk'kles picked it up, put it in the sack, and then looked around. The plateau was barren, aside from Sonya. There were no more shards of his crystal remaining. He was truly hopeless now. But there was no turning back. He would fight Chaos Cyan, wherever it was, and he would win, too. But what would happen afterward would be a problem. Sonya walked up to him, and asked, "How did you do that? According to my Ancestors, you must first kill the host that the Chaos Spirit possesses in order to Bind it! And then, it takes thirteen spells, in quick succession, to actually DO the Binding. Not only did you NOT kill it, you did Bound in one spell!"

"Simple enough answer…" Kun'nuk'kles murmured. "It wasn't possessing a living creature. The Chaos Spirits are just that; Spirits. They can move things, but not much. In order to possess a living creature, they simply have to move very small items. Possessing an inanimate object is infinitely harder. They would have to move the whole object or series of objects on their own. But Chaos Yellow had the Skill to do it. That's why my attacks weren't hurting it. But I only realized it when Absolute Zero passed through."

"I… see. But what about the spells? Why did that shard of crystal break when you cast with it? And why do you say 'Ak'kun leoht' at the beginning of every spell?"

"Oh, the spells? I don't need thirteen spells. I just need one. That's how good I am. But, seriously, I just studied the Thirteen Spells of Chaos Binding, and came up with a common factor. The shard broke when I cast because I didn't have a stabilizing agent, which would normally be a length of wood. Why else would I carry around that damn silly staff? If I didn't need it, I would only have had the crystal. And 'Ak'kun leoht' is an Invocation. It translates, roughly, into 'By Power and By Light'. Does that answer all of your questions?"

"Almost."

"Well? What else is bothering you?"

"If you can't cast spells anymore, how are we going to get down from here?"

Kun'nuk'kles blinked. "That's a good question…" he said slowly.