Chapter Seventy-Nine: Headache

My eyes flew open and I bolted upright.

Jesus, I just had the craziest dream…

I blinked twice, and my vision refocused. I was lying on a feather mattress. On a rocky floor. In what appeared to be a cave. Oil lamps hung from the stalactites, providing most of the light. Were it not for those lamps, everything would be pitch dark. The cave was a small and spherical chamber – roughly twenty or so feet in diameter.

I was not alone. There were five Dwarves sharing this chamber with me. They were all unconscious, resting in cots of their own.

There was a healer tending to the other wounded. She noticed me sitting up and hurried to my side. "You must not exert yourself," she kept saying. "Please remain in bed."

I looked her square in the eye and told her, "Nope."

And that was that.

I floated up from the bed and brushed past the nurse, exiting the small cave. I drifted into a dimly-lit tunnel. There were other small caverns branching off from this tunnel – several of them were illuminated by oil lamps, but not all. This particular sub-system of caves appeared to be serving as an infirmary.

Where the fuck am I? These tunnels and caverns seemed familiar. But unless we were underneath Mount Goldmont, there was no basis for that feeling.

The tunnel opened up into a much larger cavern. This one could have easily held ten football fields at its widest point. Everywhere I looked, there were tents of varying sizes and shapes. A bustling shantytown. It was not quiet, either - the cavern was nearly echoing with thousands of voices. The Dwarves here had certainly fallen upon hard times, yet that seemed to have no bearing on their outspoken nature.

Savory aromas tantalized my olfactories. Cooking fires dotted the camp, tendrils of smoke curling up into the air. I noticed the top of the cavern was very hazy – all that smoke was accumulating without any wind to disperse it. If ventilation was not addressed soon, these Dwarves would run into problems.

I spotted a circular tent, larger than all the others, which looked promising. It was located in the center of the shantytown, which made it even more promising. There were guards stationed outside the entrance flaps, but they let me pass. Perks of being sprite companion to the Sylph.

There was a large table in the center of this tent. Around it sat a small group of older, grayer-haired Dwarves conversing with each other in quiet conversation. From the snippets and snatches of conversation I was picking up, they seemed to be hashing out logistics. Food distribution, oil rationing for the lamps, an inventory of medical supplies, and reports from soldiers sent to recon the deeper tunnels for subterranean lakes.

I ignored them. I had eyes only for the Dwarf sitting at the opposite end of the table. He wore a black and gold greatcoat. Violet eyes. Closely-trimmed beard. Coal-black hair. Yep, that was Bob, alright. Robert Blackthorne V, Lord of Goldmont Fiefdom. It'd been a little while since I'd seen him last, but he recognized me instantly. Not surprising – sprites are difficult individuals to forget. We tend to leave lasting impressions.

"Sprite!" the Lord of Goldmont bellowed heartily, rising from his chair. He took his leave from the table, allowing the elders to continue working out the details of whatever it was they were planning. "I feared you would never wake up! It eases the mind seeing you in restored health. How are you feeling?"

"Shitty. Where's Cass?" I got right to the point. Cass was nowhere to be found, and this troubled me.

"The Sylph is gone."

I swear my eye almost twitched. "What?"

"You mistake my meaning, Sprite," Blackthorne clarified. "She is very much alive. I mean she has left." He rose from the table, gesturing for the elders to continue without him. They resumed. He made his way around the table, holding out a hand towards the entrance flaps as he approached. "Come, let us discuss these matters outside. Council is convening – we should not disrupt the proceedings."

The Dwarven lord escorted me out of the tent. I glanced up, once again, at the cavern ceiling. "You're gonna have to do something about all those cooking fires," I said to Bob. "Looks like you'll be breathing smoke if that goes on too long."

"One singular link in a mile-long chain of problems we are currently working through," Robert Blackthorne admitted. For a moment, he sounded like the weariest Dwarf on the planet. Then the moment passed and he straightened his posture. "As you may have observed, already, we are currently occupying the cavern system underneath Mount Goldmont." I gave myself a mental high-five. I'd been right about my location. "This was the only viable haven for the exodus."

That last bit caught my attention. "Exodus?" I echoed.

"Yes, exodus," Blackthorne repeated himself. "While you slept, the Sylph assisted me in evacuating the population of the entire fief – including you – to the safety of these caverns. The mountain is our only defense against Derse's warships."

"That's…quite a feat. Um. Wow. How long have I been out?"

"Today marks a week."

"Holy fuckmuffins, a week? I've been unconscious for a whole week?" I nearly exploded. The details of my dream were slipping, falling away, yet… Had it really been a week? That meant Cass was on her way to Anubis this very moment. She might've even found him, already. Time to go. "I'm leaving," I declared, my mind made up.

"Are you certain that is wise, Sprite?" Blackthorne asked me. "You have hardly returned to full strength."

"Seven days of sleep is enough for now," I replied. "Goodbye, Bob. It was good seeing you again."

Blackthorne looked like he wanted to argue, but he chose not to. I suppose you could say he knew me too well. Instead, he raised a hand in farewell. "I see there is no changing your mind." The Lord of Goldmont clasped fists with me. Quietly, he said to me, "The exodus would have failed had you and the Sylph not cleared the wyrm nests beforehand. We will not forget."

I launched myself into the air and spread my wings, rapidly gaining altitude with each beat. Within seconds I was shooting down the long auxiliary entrance tunnel. It was the same tunnel Cass and I used to gain entry to this mountain the first time we'd come here. Remember? Back when we were on glorified exterminator duty? Last time it took us hours to get from one end of the tunnel to the other, but today I managed to close the distance in about ten minutes. Travelling solo was much faster for me.

I shot out of the western face of Mount Goldmont, unknowingly flinging myself headlong into the gale-force winds of the perfect storm that was raging outside. Rain was everywhere, zipping in all directions. It bit at my face, stinging wherever it hit. Thunder was growling at me continuously. The moments of silence in between thunderclaps were abysmally brief.

God damn it all. This storm was fucking loud. It was giving me a headache.

I fought to keep control over where I was flying, but the winds kept changing on me. The air currents were acting like they were at a fucking homecoming dance. Everything was a hot sweaty mess.

The rain was becoming a big problem for my visibility. Fortunately, I'd learned a thing or two from my experiences on the Land of Rain and Rivers. I took a deep breath and invoked Force, focusing on maintaining a convex energy field in front of me. I called it my rain-shield. This served to deflect most of the rain droplets, protecting my eyes and face.

My heart leaped into my throat when lightning seared across my path, creating a momentary connection across two storm clouds. I flew through the valley between those two clouds barely a second later, jagged splotches of color burned into my retinas.

I could still smell the ozone.

The resulting thunderclap caused my ears to pop. The sound quite literally slammed into me on all sides. It felt like getting punched, only everywhere at once. My concentration was ruined. Pain stabbed through my head. I dropped like a stone for a few moments, losing nearly a hundred feet in altitude before I gained my senses and reasserted my flight.

Well, that was that. No more storm-diving.

I shot myself straight up into the sky, piercing right through the storm clouds. When I burst free, I released the breath I didn't even know I was holding. The shift was almost shocking. It was still windy, up here, but the wind was not quite so chaotic. The air currents were following their normal patterns. Skaia was visible above the clouds. It small dot of gently blazing light trailing its way westward. It was impossible to make out any of the details of Skaia at this distance, but when I looked closely I could pick up a bluish tint to the light.

In the far distance, way off to the east, I spotted one of the Dersite warships. It was holding position above the storm clouds. These storms appeared to be putting the invasion on hold. Were I fishing for silver linings, that would be my greatest catch.

Thankfully, the warship could not see me. I don't think I could take on a warship all by myself – we're not all Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die Hard. For those who have not seen this movie, Bruce Willis takes on a fighter jet and wins. The man is invincible. He…

Oh Jesus, Bruce Willis…

Rest in peace, Bruce Willis.

Wow. They're all dead, you know? Isn't that...funny? I guess not. I'm not laughing.

Think about it, though. When you're one of the last living members of your species, first you comprehend that everyone else is dead. Then you comprehend that this means all your favorite celebrities. ALL your favorite celebrities. Like Sean Connery. He's dead right now. And Morgan Freeman? He's dead too. Neil Patrick Harris is dead. Jack Black is dead. Nicolas Cage is probably dead. Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart are both dead. Angela Lansbury is dead.

Betty White? Dead.

Every time I thought of another awesome famous person, I could hear the fucking death knell in the background.

Joan Rivers, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Williams. Dead, dead, and-

Enough.

I held my westward course, trying my best not to think of anymore dead people. Which was hard. So many dead people to think of.

The storms did not abate.

I flew for over an hour. At least, I think it was an hour. Easy to lose track of time, up here. I could 'see the light' when Cass's tower of stacked duplicated houses finally came into view. The storms raged on, roiling in all directions as far as I could see. And since my prototyping, I could see pretty damn far. This probably saved my life.

When I first spotted the massive swarm of wyrms and basilisks hanging in the sky around the houses – and, by extension, when they first noticed me – I was still pretty far away and therefore had plenty of time to react. There were easily over a thousand of the creatures. They were not attacking the house – they were merely waiting.

Before any of those underlings could react, I folded my wings and sent myself into a steep dive. I plunged back into the clouds, bracing myself against the buffeting winds. The gusts threatened to blow me off course, but I had proper momentum this time. Gravity was on my side. The charged moisture of the storm clouds pressed in on me. I could barely see my own hands in front of my face. My avian-flavored instincts quickly took the reins, allowing me to intuitively 'feel' my way around the currents.

All the same, eagle senses or no eagle senses, storm winds were unpredictable. I think it was a miracle in of itself that I managed to reach Cass's house-tower at all, let alone land without braining myself. It was certainly not a graceful landing – I plowed sideways into the balcony railing. Ow. That one was gonna leave a bruise. Ow.

I grabbed the balcony railing before the wind could snatch me away, folding my wings and pulling myself over to the door. It took a lot of strength to open the door against the wind, but I managed, hurling myself inside. The wind slammed the door shut behind me. I rested on my back, my chest heaving as I fought to regain my breath. Christ on wonder bread, that was close...

I sat up and looked around, getting my bearings. I recognized the space I was in as the upstairs hallway of the Galavis residence. Although I've never been inside Cass's house, before, I'd seen the interior enough times to know the layout. No, not because I was creeping. I'd been Cass's server player, remember? I'm the one who helped her into the Medium. I'm also the one who built this tower of copied and pasted house-duplicates in the first place.

That felt like a lifetime ago. When the world was ending and life was simpler.

I took the stairs down to the front hall. There was an imp gnawing into one of the sofas in the adjacent parlor. It whipped around to face me, bared two rows of pointed teeth in a feral snarl. Then it pounced at me, flying through the air, claws outstretched.

I used Force to snap its neck. The imp's little body fell with a quiet thud.

There was a square hole in the floor. A ladder sat within the opening, leading down into the upstairs hallway of the house beneath this one. There was a second imp scurrying up the ladder, attracted by hearing the demise of its friend. I snapped its neck, too. Then I shimmied down the ladder.

Gunfire broke out. Out of reflex, I tucked myself into a ball and dove for cover, rolling out of the upstairs hallway into one of the bedrooms. The gunfire continued. I regained my senses, realized that the shooting was actually coming from below. At least several houses below this one. It had to be Cass's M16. She was nearby.

I glanced over to the nearest window and considered jumping out and flying several houses down. I decided against it, though. I could barely see anything through the window – everything was gray and dark. The window itself was subjected to a bombardment of rainwater. Only surges of lightning could be seen through the streaked glass.

So instead, I hurried downstairs and found the kitchen. I rummaged around through the cabinets until I found what I was looking for – pots and pans. I grabbed a sturdy-looking pan. Then I found a metal spoon in one of the cookware drawers. That was all I needed.

I started banging the spoon against the pan, screaming at the top of my lungs. I tromped around the kitchen in circles, making as much noise as possible. Having trouble thinking of anything specific to shout, I resorted to screaming the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner. The idea was to attract as many underlings as I possibly could.

And it worked. Boy, did it work.

Within seconds, I could hear skittering, growling, and hissing coming from the parlor. Imps were surging up the ladder from the house beneath this one. They dropped into the upstairs hallway, too – imps from several houses above me were able to hear my racket, even over the howling wind.

I threw the pan at the first imp to charge into the room. It bounced off the creature's skull with a dull clang. The imp did not get back up. I drew my sprite-matter sword and rushed forward to intercept the rest of the imps. Sometimes it was best to take the initiative. Not always, but sometimes. Now was one of those times. I fared better against large numbers of enemies when I had momentum to work with.

I beheaded the second imp with a single clean stroke. I tried to do the same for a third imp, but I was too slow – the imp pounced me, latching onto my sword arm with its teeth. That hurt. A lot. I let out a pained yelp and threw myself into a sharp spin, swinging the orally-fixated imp around and slamming it into the wall. The orally-fixated imp squealed in pain, jarred to the core by the impact. It sprang back up to its feet and skittered away from me, bounding across the room and leaping through one of the windows. The shattered glass was blown inward by the winds outside, but none of the shards hit me.

The parlor was assaulted by the wind and the stray rain droplets it carried. I had to keep my wings tightly folded, otherwise they'd catch the wind and I'd get blown off-balance. In a close-quarters fight with underlings, losing my balance would result in a permanent vacation to my own personal afterlife.

I turned away from the window in time to see no less than five imps flying through the air at me, all of them mid-pounce. Jesus H, these little shits love pouncing. Sliding into reaction, I lowered my sword and thrust my free hand forward. The imps were met in mid-air by a blunt arc of energy which I projected forward at a rather high speed. The results were not pretty. I'm just glad I didn't get any of the blood spatter on me.

I was allowed a momentary reprieve by the pulping of those five less-than-lucky imps, but I kept right on moving. I extended my sword and lunged, impaling a surprised imp through its stomach. One of the impaled imp's friends took exception to that. It bared its teeth and claws, launching itself into the air. I ducked down low to the ground, dodging Pouncing Imp.

Pouncing Imp sailed overhead, missing me and plowing headfirst into the wall. It left a sizable indent.

More imps streamed into the room, but that was not what worried me. What worried me were the booming footsteps approaching from above, heavy enough to send tremors through the floor. Ogres.

Time to move.

I yanked my sword free, ignoring the squelch. I straightened back up. Pouncing Imp, freshly recovered from its recent failure, came flying at me a second time. I jumped to the side. Pouncing Imp missed again, this time striking the coffee table in the middle of the room. It was reduced to splinters.

I jumped down through the hole in the floor connecting this house with the one below. I didn't bother using the ladder. The upstairs hallway of this house was rather choked with imps, as well, with more surging up the stairs from the first floor. Fortunately, I happened to be a mostly-weightless energy being, so I just flew right over the tide, hugging the hallway ceiling.

Once I reached the stairs, I dropped back to the floor. I sent a powerful blast of concentrated flame down the hallway, incinerating all of the underlings unfortunate enough to be crowded in there. The mistake here was leaving my side open to attack from the stairs. Teeth suddenly sank into my left side.

Another fucking imp had latched on with its teeth, trying to tear a chunk of me away. The momentum of the imp's leap threw me off-balance and sent me tumbling down the stairs. I bowled over several more imps along the way, landing in a heap at the bottom. Before the world had even stopped spinning, I looped an arm around the neck of the imp who was biting me. I squeezed until I felt a crunch.

I took another deep breath, pretty much forcing the air down my throat. Fuck. I'm getting my ass kicked. Didn't I used to be better than this? Perhaps I should have followed the healer's advice and stayed in bed. Fuck.

Okay.

Get up, Adam!

Energy sparked through my body. I sprang up from the ground, leaving a luminous crimson bloodstain on the landing. There were more imps waiting for me on the ground floor of this house, perhaps a dozen. They all rushed me at once. I felt the Force Aspect humming deep within me, aching to be released.

Anger blossomed in my gut and I screamed at the charging imps. "ENOUGH!"

The explosion destroyed all the furniture in the room and shattered all the windows. The imps were all blasted off their feet. They struck the walls before crumpling, unconscious, onto the floor. One of the little shits actually got its head lodged in the ceiling. It dangled there, legs kicking uselessly.

I blinked several times, surprised at the destruction I'd caused. Whoops.

For the briefest of moments, the room was quiet. The respite was short-lived, but I enjoyed all three of the seconds for which it lasted. Then an ogre came roaring out of the upstairs hallway, bringing the respite to an abrupt end.

Fortunately for me, Cass chose that very moment to emerge through the opening in the floor from the house below. Her sleeves were rolled up to her shoulders. Her skin was riddled with cuts, scrapes, bruises, and a few deeper lacerations. She must have gotten swiped by the imps quite a few times already. The blood dripping down the side of her head seemed to agree.

For a moment, the three of us were comically frozen – Cass on the ladder, Ogre at the top of the stairs, and little old me sandwiched in the middle. Then we snapped back into movement. The ogre charged, Cass aimed her rifle, and I hit the fucking dirt. Cass opened fire, squeezing off a quick burst.

The gunfire roared over my head, catching the ogre about halfway down the stairs. The three white energy bolts drilled through the ogre's chest, but they did not bring it down. It faltered, coughing up blood. Then it kept right on coming.

"The head! Go for the head!" I yelled. "Headshot, Cass! Headshot!"

Cass's next three-round burst tore through the ogre's throat. Close enough. It pitched forward, tumbling down the stairs. The ogre's corpse dissolved as it tumbled down the steps, landing in a heap of build grist at the bottom of the stairs.

I stared blankly at the pile of grist. I looked up at Cass, then back down to the grist. "Nice shot," I told her.

"Thanks," she replied, taking a moment to recharge her rifle. She smiled at me. "And thanks for waking up. You had me worried."

I floated over to Cass and gave her a great big hug. God, I needed more hugs in my life. "What, did you think I was gonna let you stroll into Anubis's Palace all by yourself?"

"No, but I was still worried."

"Glad you're okay." I leaned in close. I wanted to kiss her, but she pulled away before I could. That confused me. "Um… Sorry, I thought we… Since the beach, I thought we… Aren't we…?"

"Adam, I…" Cass looked like she had something to say, but couldn't quite find the right words to say it. "Please, let's just focus on getting to my Seventh Gate. Now isn't the time to talk."

Holy shit, that was awkward. So very, very awkward. That was also when the imps chose to return. Over a dozen of them poured out of the upstairs hallway, even more behind. I've never been so glad to see imps.

Okay. Focus.

With Cass and me fighting together, we stood more of a chance against the waves of underlings. I could only imagine how the hell Cass had managed to get this far by herself. We carved a path upwards through the tower of house-duplicates. Twenty minutes (and four lacerations) later, we passed the Sixth Gate. The imps showed no signs of stopping. In fact, the waves were getting denser and denser.

We were above the storm, now. The howl of the wind had quieted and there was no longer any rain pulverizing the outside of the houses. Skaialight now peeked in through the windows.

This was ridiculous. Every time I blasted a group of imps out of our way, dozens more would pour in to fill the gap. Cass and I had to keep moving constantly – we were outrunning the imps pursuing us from below every bit as much as we were hacking our way through the underlings ahead. Fucking ridiculous.

The only real silver lining was the relative absence of ogres. We hadn't run into too many more of those hulking underlings, thank fucking god.

"Was it this bad at the bottom?!" I asked Cass as we made our way upstairs to the second-story hallway. I had to shout in order to be heard over the ruckus of her alchemized M16, coupled with the underlings' howls and screeches.

"No!" Cass yelled back. She sank to a knee, laying down suppressing fire on the imps who were attempting to swarm up the stairs behind us. "It was pretty tame at the bottom! It just keeps getting worse the higher I go!"

An imp skittering across the ceiling dropped to the floor in front of me, claws outstretched and teeth bared. I kicked it in the stomach, sending it flying down to the opposite end of the hallway. I used the Force Aspect to clear a path to the ladder connecting this house with the one above. While Cass covered the stairs, I grabbed the bottom rungs of the ladder.

More imps appeared at the top of the ladder. They started to drop down, but I did not allow them the chance. I thrust my fists upwards, sending twin jets of flame roiling up the ladder, incinerating the imps who'd jumped through the opening. Those who did not jump were blasted away from the top of the ladder, likely singed for their trouble.

I scampered up the ladder, poking my head through the opening.

The first thing I saw were the six or seven imps who I'd burned with my fire attack. They were curled up, licking their wounds. I almost felt sorry for them. Almost. The second thing I saw were the ogres. There were five of the hulking, tusked underlings in this house, all clumped around the ladder, waiting for me to emerge.

Five. Fucking. Ogres.

No. Nope. Not today. Fucking no.

Before the ogres could even react, I let go of the ladder and plummeted back into the upstairs hallway below. I rushed back down the hallway to get Cass. She was still covering the stairs. As I approached, she glanced at me over her shoulder. "Adam, what-?"

Whatever she was about to ask was suddenly cut off when I barreled into her, flinging my arms around her torso, flaring my wings, launching myself forward into the air over the stairs. The ogres stormed the upstairs hallway, but we were already airborne. Hurtling towards a wall, actually. I quickly used Force to disintegrate the wall before we slammed into it.

I did not release my Aspect. Not quite yet. Instead, I focused it on myself, forming the convex rain-shield. I gave several powerful wing beats. Beats that had all of my strength behind them. I shot upwards, rapidly gaining altitude.

Below me, the thunderclouds churned. They were an angry dark gray, occasionally shot through with dull flashes of internal lightning. They stretched to the horizon in all directions. Above me, the masses of wyrms and banshees swarmed around the houses at the very top of the tower. They reminded me of the chaotic swirl of snow in a snowglobe immediately after it is shaken.

This time I was ready. I knew exactly what I was gonna do. I was all warmed up from the frenzied indoor melee – the fire was begging to be released. I breathed deeply, bringing acute awareness to my rain-shield. It was still humming around me. I'd maintained its integrity unconsciously, out of sheer habit, even after I'd sheltered myself from the storm. It was instinctive. Now, I simply elaborated upon it. I gave myself a moment to feel the entirety of the invisible energy field, mapping out the curves, contours, and perimeters. Then I altered its shape. I widened the base circle of the shield to form a ring of energy around me with a radius of roughly nine feet.

Once I had a stable ring, I directed all my focus to the front-most point at the 'apex' of the rain-shield. When I found it, I projected the focus point upward, extending the rain-shield into a cone-shaped force field. Then I gave the Force cone some energy and caused it to start spinning rapidly. This caused it to explode with fire. My heart jumped into my fucking stomach. FUCK. I didn't expect that to happen. Holy shit. The fire flared at the base of the cone. It spiraled up along the spinning cone towards the focus point.

I snapped into focus, reinforcing the inside surface of the cone. This kept any of the fire from roaring into our faces. A vein pulsed in my temple. My head started to throb. This was taking more energy to maintain than I anticipated, but it was working. I'd just created a fire drill. And not the annoying kind. I mean a literal drill made out of fire. It was amazing. And it was giving me a headache.

If the wyrms and banshees hadn't noticed me before, they sure as fuck noticed me now. At first I could not see them. They threw themselves into my fire drill and were immolated for their trouble. More were singed, but repulsed by the Force Aspect before they were consumed. The rest veered away from the fire, giving me a wide birth. They were the smart ones.

The smart underlings shot past me. Or, rather, I shot past them. I was ascending much faster than they were diving.

I could see them beneath me, where the flames from the ring merely trailed away. They flapped their wings madly, arresting their downward momentum and rising back up in pursuit. I couldn't afford to let them catch up – it was taking all my concentration to maintain the fire drill, let alone engaging in aerial combat.

I think Cass was screaming the whole time. It was hard to tell over all the noise. The fire drill was loud. And hot. Ridiculously hot. Yes, sprites can indeed sweat, and right now I felt like I was drowning. The ring of flames, at the base of the Force cone, was barely twenty feet in diameter. That left us with a little over nine feet of space between us and the fire in all directions.

You know that blast of hot, dry air that engulfs you when you open the oven door? I was living it, right now. Full-body oven experience.

Fuck. This isn't working. Fuck. Too fucking hot. This isn't gonna work. Fuck.

We're gonna fucking suffocate in here.

No, Adam. Make it bigger.

I took a deep breath and gave the fire drill more energy. Rather than increasing its rate of spinning, I dumped the new energy into broadening the base ring. The diameter of the fire drill stretched to nearly thirty feet, lessening the intensity of the close flames.

The heat relaxed to a more bearable level. Then I lost control of the drill.

It was crumpling, folding in on itself.

FUCK.

The focus point.

Of course. The focus point at the tip of the fire drill was too close – when I broadened the base of the vortex, I'd forgotten to extend the focus point to compensate for the change in angle. I wanted to slap myself on the forehead for the oversight, but that would have fatally ruined my concentration. I extended the focus point, elongating the fire drill to its idea proportion.

That hurt, too.

The fire drill took a lot of energy to maintain. The increase in size was straining my limits. All the muscles in my body were aching. My head throbbed. Fuck. Maybe Cass had some Advil in her sylladex. I hoped so. I needed one.

I'm never making a fire drill again. Fuck this.

Cass's houses whizzed on by. We were ascending very quickly. So fast, in fact, that I missed the house at the top of the tower. I looked up for a second to check on the integrity of the fire drill, and then back down to see the topmost Galavis residence getting smaller and smaller beneath me.

My vision fixated on the glowing epicycloid portal hanging in the air about ten feet above the topmost house's roof. Cass's Seventh Gate. Through it lay a one-way trip to visit Anubis. The Denizen of LOTAD. Was I excited? Absolutely not. However, the alternative was staying here, which made the decision to proceed a very easy one.

I let go. The fire drill, the Force Aspect, my momentum – I let it all dissipate. Just let it all go. Except Cass. I didn't let go of Cass. That would've sucked.

I kept my arms tightly cinched around Cass's torso as we fell. The underlings below, the ones we'd blasted ahead of, surged up to meet us. I sent two blasts of flame past my wisp and Cass's feet, scattering those wyrms and banshees that were closest. I didn't burn any of them, but they were afraid of my fire and easily scattered by it. I didn't need them dead; I just needed them out of the fucking way.

The Seventh Gate rushed up to meet us. We plunged through.

Everything went white.

The wind was gone. The thunderstorms were gone. The underlings, blissfully gone.

For a moment, I felt incredibly dizzy. Nausea clenched at my stomach. This happened every time I experienced one form of teleportation or another. Perhaps I'm allergic to instantaneous travel. I've never thrown up, but this time I came very close. Thankfully, the white light subsided a moment later, and the nausea along with it.

My headache from that stupid fire drill remained.

I opened my eyes to one of the most bizarre sights I've seen in a long while.

We were underground. The Seventh Gate dumped us in a gigantic cavern.

And when I say gigantic, I mean fucking gigantic. No exaggeration. This cavern was probably spacious enough to fit a small city. The walls were glowing. They were covered in crystals. Luminous amethyst crystal formations. They glowed brightly, emitting a gentle, but powerful violet light. Bright enough to illuminate the entire space.

I released Cass. Her knees wobbled, but she was able to keep steady. "You alright?" I asked her. She nodded yes. She did not seem capable of speech just yet. Understandable. She'd just rocketed through a fire-breathing underling infested sky at ridiculous speeds with my death grip serving as her only safeguard against plummeting thousands of feet to a bloody mess.

Sometimes I think I take my ability to fly for granted.

My gaze was immediately drawn to the distant pale light emanating from the center of the cavern.

A white pyramid rose from the crystal thicket. The surfaces of the pyramid were perfectly flat planes. They caught the amethyst light, yet still managed to retain their white hue. Emblazoned on each side of the pyramid was a black spiral with a white hole in the center.

That symbol set off fireworks in my head. I'd never seen it before, but my sprite knowledge recognized it and connected the appropriate synapses. Death. That was the symbol for the Death Aspect. We were definitely in Anubis's neck of the woods.

I groaned quietly, pressing two fingers to my left temple, tenderly massaging the throbbing muscles. Getting a jolt of sprite knowledge had not done wonders for my headache.

I turned to Cass, who was staring, slack-jawed, at the pyramid. "You have any Advil in your sylladex?" I asked her.

Cass silently shook her head no. Still not quite capable of speech. And no Advil.

I exhaled a resigned breath. I'd have to deal with this headache the old fashioned way. Riding it out one wave at a time.