"Name," the guard muttered in a dull monotone.
"Firenze Fire-Frost."
"Profession."
"Alchemist and Wizard."
"Purpose in Kakonatos."
"To inspect the material Obsidian, by order of the Council."
"Enter," the guard replied, and pressed his hand into a soft foam-like black substance in a panel on the wall. The panel bleeped and the gates opened, the silver embellishment glittering with magic. Firenze took a deep breath and walked through, trying to keep a steady pace and not look too nervous. He got to the lower levels without trouble and opened the door to the obsidian room. The guard behind him motioned him to enter and he went inside. Firenze bent over the obsidian.
"It is… ticking…" Firenze said, his brow furrowing. "Can you hear it?" He stood still and the room went silent. The guard raised his eyebrows.
"I can't hear anything," he replied. Firenze gestured him over.
"Listen closely," the wizard told him. The guard bent over the obsidian just as the watch on his arm bleeped. He sighed and pressed a series of buttons, and the bleeping stopped. He bent over…
Thud! Firenze abruptly cracked the skull of the unsuspecting guard against the stone. His eyes rolled up into their sockets and he crumpled to the floor.
Firenze took a deep breath, massaged his forehead, and carefully raised a chunk of obsidian from the silvery panel of glass beneath it. As he thought, they had turned off the pressure pads while he worked. He slipped it into his satchel and pulled open the door, the oiled hinges swinging open silently. Ahead of him was the corridor.
He closed the door behind him and surveyed the corridor. Taking an apple from his pocket, he threw it into the space ahead of him. It fell to the floor without incident, and Firenze was about to start forward when it exploded into a mass of white pulp that splattered the walls. He gulped audibly. This would be more difficult than he expected.
Far above, in one of the spiralling towers of Kakonatos, a man sat at a desk, surrounded by monitors and technical equipment. He pressed a few buttons and brought up a picture of the obsidian room. As expected, the room was empty apart from the case – now open with a piece of obsidian missing – and the guard, crumpled at the base. He scanned the body and found there was still a heartbeat, though a weak one. His mouth curled into a smile. It was hardly surprising that the wizard left the man alive – the sensors in his watch would pick up the lack of pulse. The man tapped something on the keyboard and pressed a button on his headset. It crackled into life, connecting him with the main security team.
"Trouble," he said simply. The man on the other end swore and he could hear the tapping of the keyboard through the microphone.
"Look in the obsidian room," the man said, feigning nervousness. "You think the wizard did that?"
"Must've been. I knew we shouldn't have trusted that guy. He's a shady one, that wizard, always secretive and so," replied the security man, tap-tap-tapping away on the keyboard. Finally, the man heard a beep through the microphone and another swear from the security.
"Fire-Frost is approaching level -2 now... How did he get up there so fast?" the security man wondered. "Anyway, that's not important. Setting security levels in level -2 to maximum. I'm aiming to capture or wound, not kill... the Council will want a little talk with this one."
The man heard tapping again, and a satisfied sigh from the security man.
"He's stuck there. The moment he leaves those stairs, he's gonna be trapped like a rat in a cage."
The man smiled again, and pressed the button to turn off his headset. He rose from his chair, turned off the monitor and stepped into the lift to level -1 – the torture room. He had a feeling the Council would be in need of his... special talents.
Firenze reached the top of the stairs. His clothes were torn and ripped, singed and soaked, and he looked haggard and tired.
"Just two more levels," he muttered to himself. He checked his watch. He had one more minute before they would find out. He shouldered open the next door. There shouldn't have been any traps for about twenty metres, so he walked forward, his shoes clicking on the shining tile floor. He saw a faint sheen of white run over the walls, and tried to run backwards to avoid the attack coming, but too late. A flash of light blinded him momentarily and he was bodily flung into the air, and then hit the unrelenting tiles with a thud. He lay still, gathering his breath and strength, and tried pushing himself up with his hand. A wave of agonising pain washed over him and he collapsed on the ground again. Behind him, two burly men in overalls burst through the door and grabbed him by the arms. One of them smashed a fist into the side of Firenze's head and he went limp, knocked unconscious by the blow.
They dragged him unceremoniously through the door, into the lift and up to the next floor, and threw him into a dank cell. He lay there, among the dirt and mud, a broken man on his way to death.