Elaina stepped around the pillar and hugged close to it as best as she could. The powerful blast of water struck the stone where she had been just a moment before, splashing off of it harmlessly. Another volley of gunfire echoed through the chamber, letting the swordmage know that the creature’s attention was about to be divided yet again. Coming around the other side of the stone pillar, Elaina prepared herself to take advantage of the distraction. She was certain that if she could land a solid blow with the magic in her sword, she would do more damage than anything else had up to this point.

As she emerged from the other side, she caught sight of Ayotte finishing his volley before moving to reload. Instead of moving to attack, the sarglagon raised its tendrils and made a motion roughly similar to clenching a fist. A heavy, unclean magic pulsed from Ayotte, and the man suddenly froze in place, his eyes wide with horror. For a moment, Elaina couldn’t figure out what the effect of the spell had been. Then the water began to dribble from the man’s mouth as if he had been made into a low-flow fountain fixture. The fiend had conjured water directly into the merc’s lungs, leaving him unable to draw breath.

Ayotte panicked, dropping his weapon as he grasped his throat and attempted to cover his mouth. In his confused terror, he didn’t realize that the water was coming from inside instead of being forced down inside him. Elaina looked on in horror as the man resorted to beating his chest in a futile attempt to dislodge the fluid from his chest. With all the air in his lungs replaced with foul water, his life would be over within moments.

“Release him!” Elaina raged, unable to comprehend the level of terror the man was experiencing at that moment. Any one of the mercs working for the Orbonne company would likely not have thought twice to take her out under different circumstances, but the three here had worked together to help her. Elaina also had trouble justifying this kind of torturous end for anyone. It was monstrous.

Elaina had stupidly surrendered any element of surprise she may have had. One of the creature’s eyes looked over at her, and the thing made a gleefully defiant sound. Watching this man choke to death on the water the fiend had forced into his chest was exciting for the sarglagon. The thing was ecstatic. If Elaina moved to attack now, the devil could slap her out of the air long before she got into striking distance. As the two stared one another down, Ayotte’s last moments played out to the sound of feeble choking and sputtering before finally sliding down into the water, dead. What looked like an orgasmic shudder ran through the body of the fiend.

The sound of Resius’ chanting filled the chamber now, and the eyes of the fiend slowly shifted to look over at him, a delighted chuckle escaping its gaping toothy maw. It had the perfect idea of how to silence the occultist and thwart his spell. Elaina watched helplessly as it brought its writhing hand of tendrils up to once more work its unholy magic on Resius. Again, she felt the initiation of the magic, but somehow it failed to connect with its target. Elaina’s brows furrowed in confusion, and the fiend made an audible sound of frustration.

The swordmage shifted her gaze back to her friend, expecting to find that the spell’s effects had merely been delayed. Then she saw it. There was a slight shudder in the subtle movement of his body as he was chanting. It was as though he was repeating the same movements repeatedly in a continuous loop, but the loop was imperfect, skipping a second or two in the sequence. It was an illusion, and somehow she hadn’t seen through it. Which meant it was a damn good illusion. Though the echoing of the chamber made it impossible to say whether or not the sound of his voice was coming from that exact spot, the growing power of his spell originated from that general direction.

From behind the pillar nearest the illusion, Blackbarn emerged, flicking his staff outward to loose an apple-sized ball of lightning. Though it caught the fiend by surprise, the energy in the ball wasn’t nearly that of the stroke of lightning that had been hurled at it earlier. Instead, the wizard was forced to follow up the ball with a few more, spinning and swinging his staff quickly to make the origin point of each difficult to predict. Each of the balls that struck the wet hide of the sarglagon dispersed outward into small spider web formations of electricity that left behind thin angry burns. Elaina appreciated the effort, but without something that had a bit more punch, the wizard was just pissing the devil off.

While Blackbarn held the fiend's attention, Elaina slipped into the water and slogged her way toward Resius. As she neared him, she experienced a sensation like a double vision in the texture of a mirage. It had a dreamlike quality to it, with him being present in one spot as well as another a few feet behind it and to the right. If she had spent more time studying her magic, she might have known what specific manner of spell it was, but at this range, she was able to see through it like other illusions. He was close enough to the original that the spell felt like it was coming from it, but any attempt to strike would result in someone hitting the illusion. It was an interesting ploy, but it wouldn’t be helpful if the fiend changed its tactics back to turning the cistern into a choppy mess.

Behind her, the report of a rifle alerted her that Clark had finally managed to rejoin the fight. She turned, taking up a sentry position in front of her friend while he worked his ritual. Now the fiend would have to get through her to get to him. It was an imperfect plan, but one safeguard was better than none.

“Think you might want to hurry this up,” Elaina suggested as the sarglagon slapped the wizard with its tail, sending him crashing into the water a few feet to her left, “Not getting paid by the hour.”

Blackbarn searched frantically for his staff as he scrambled to his feet while the sarglagon honed in on Clark. But, instead of crossing the distance to get to him, the fiend conjured another of those pressurized blasts of water, sending the rifleman back into the water. Once there, the fiend made a motion with one arm as if pulling, and the water around Clark churned and moved toward the fiend as if by a strong current. There didn’t seem to be anything it couldn’t do with the water here. The Abyssals had been particularly cunning to place such a thing here as its guardian.

“It’s gonna kill him, Blackbarn,” Elaina warned urgently.

“I can’t find my fucking staff!” he cried, splashing around in the water as he searched. Elaina raised her sword to change the angle of the light for him. After a moment, they spotted the long wooden staff half floating in the water, but it was too late.

The sarglagon had Clark in its tendrils now, laughing sadistically as it began to violate him like it had Elaina. She knew that within seconds he wouldn’t have any more strength to struggle, then all the creature would have to do was drop him in the water and let him drown. Even if they struck it now, he would still be dropped into the water out of their reach.

Beside her, the wizard held his staff at the ready, but he hesitated, not wanting to risk hitting one of his own men with a spell. Clark produced a small vial from his belt, which only took a second for Elaina to recognize. The faint glow and the orange color were something she had seen some time ago in the hands of Anisha, the Alchemist. It was a potion of fireball.

“See you in hell,” Clark rasped as he squeezed down on the vial with the last of his fading strength.

Blackbarn lowered his staff, screaming at Clark in utter dismay, “Private, don’t you-!”

But it was too late. The spell was triggered as soon as the vial was cracked, engulfing both Clark and the fiendish creature holding him in an expanding sphere of flames. It extended out in every direction for about twenty feet, sizzling the water and instantly evaporating any moisture that had clung to the nearby pillars. A wave of hot air was pushed out in front of the flames in every direction, washing over the trio briefly as the flames slowly faded.

The sarglagon was completely unharmed.

“It’s... It’s not even singed,” Elaina stammered in disbelief.

“I tried to warn him,” the wizard’s hands trembled as they gripped the staff tighter, “sarglagons are immune to fire.”

“Fuck,” Elaina spat before looking back at Resius. The glowing markings of blood looked like they were beginning to sear his flesh. He even smelled like he was starting to cook, the light under his skin intensifying with every passing second, casting a strange silhouette of his bones from within. The power coming off of him wasn’t unlike the heat from the fireball a moment ago, albeit in a metaphysical sense.

“Resius?” her voice quavered, “You’re starting to scare me.”

“I’ve never felt anything like what he’s cooking up,” Blackbarn said, keeping his gaze fixed on the fiend as it discarded the charred remains of Clark and reoriented itself on them, “But it won’t do us any good if he doesn’t finish it.”

“You have any tricks left for this asshole?” Elaina whispered as she looked over at the devil, slowly bringing her sword back to the ready.

“Just a couple. We better make good use of them,” he answered skeptically.

“Any lightning?” she asked hopefully.

“Afraid not,” he shook his head, “might still be able to stall it for a few, though.”

“Alright, let’s have it then,” Elaina nodded toward the fiend advancing on them, but the wizard was already working his spell. Of course, Wizardry was a little different than her magic, but the three primary pieces Resius had explained to her were still there. Wizardry relied on it much more than many other forms of magic, with few wizards capable of eschewing even just one aspect of it. So when Blackbarn began to work his spell, the fiend was quick to silence him to interrupt it entirely.

With a wave of its tendrils, the sarglagon repeated the spell it had used to slay Ayotte. The wizard dropped his staff immediately as water began to dribble from his mouth and nose through the scarf he wore over his face. His eyes, wide with abject horror, shifted frantically to Elaina as if she might have an answer for him. His hands went to the scarf to pull it free and cover his mouth, just as Ayotte had done. Elaina grabbed his hands quickly to pull them away.

“No, don’t! The water is coming from inside,” she explained to the drowning man, “You’re just holding it in.”

The wizard looked down at his hands, tears streaming down his face to join the water. He didn’t know what to do, nor did Elaina. His lungs were filled with nothing but water. He couldn’t even take a breath to cough or attempt to expel the fluid. What she needed was some way to wring him out or make a little room for his lungs to do what they were supposed to do. The chanting grew. Resius sounded like he was bellowing now. The fiend advanced on them, seconds from annihilating all three of them.

“Resius,” she pleaded, “We’re out of time.”

Blackbarn continued to choke and gargle as the chanting reached a deafening crescendo, the light within the occultist becoming difficult to look at now.

“You’re going to kill yourself!” Elaina screamed over the chanting and rush of water coming at them, “Ryan!”

If her friend had been the dam holding back the vastness of a lake of magic, the spell’s completion was akin to the dam bursting. There wasn’t a crack that formed first; instead, it simply erupted all at once as if struck down by heaven itself. The power that exploded outward in every direction was old, ancient even, washing over and through everything, it touched. It felt like a mighty summer wind, but it might as well have been a hurricane of acid for the fiend. The outer layer of its flesh was stripped away instantly, carried off into the wind behind it. Then, with its forward momentum completely arrested, the sarglagon released an entire chorus of agonized screams from its gaping maw. The muscle and deeper tissue of the fiend crisped and turned to ash before it, too, was carried off into the light. The bones beneath blackened and crumbled, joining the rest as disintegrating dust.

Around Elaina, the water instantly cleared of the murk and filth within it. Where there had been endless rolling darkness in liquid form was now gleaming crystal-clear water. Motes of stray shimmering light danced across the surface, casting shadows in all directions. As the initial surge of light faded, Resius slumped forward, covered in terrible burns. Elaina held him up to prevent him from sliding into the water, one hand resting on the back of his head, which had been scorched free of hair.

“I got you,” Elaina whispered gently, dragging him through the water toward the base of the nearest pillar to place him up on it. She turned to look back at the wizard, who was no longer puking up filthy water but had not begun breathing again. Instead, his mouth gaped open and closed like a fish caught on land as his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fell forward into the water.

Giving a brief look back at Resius, Elaina threw herself into the water to retrieve the wizard. Enough people had perished at the hands of that monster; there didn’t need to be another. Scooping him out of the water with both arms, she rushed him back to the same pillar as Resius and laid him beside his burned body.

“Come on,” Elaina murmured, “You can’t trip at the finish line like this.”

The swordmage didn’t understand how, but the water being removed from inside him had not been immediately replaced with the air it had initially displaced. Elaina thumped on his chest with one hand, hoping it would jump-start something, but nothing happened.

“No, come on!” Elaina pleaded, crawling onto the stone beside him to press down on his chest. Perhaps all he needed was some air to help things along. The swordmage leaned down over the wizard and opened his mouth. Unsure it would work, Elaina pressed her mouth over his forming a seal as best as she could, and blew. She didn’t feel anything happening, but she also didn’t even know if she would. She’d felt some of the air from his nose when she’d breathed into him and considered maybe that was the problem. Taking a quick breath, she pressed her mouth to his once more, this time pinching his nose shut with two fingers, and breathed into him long and deep.

This time the response was almost instant as Blackbarn drew in a desperate gasping breath as his hands frantically reached out for anything he could get a hold of. In this case, it happened to be one of Elaina’s breasts. Before he could speak, he broke into a coughing fit, holding on to her for dear life. Elaina didn’t move, despite the mild discomfort of being groped. She was the only thing he could hold on to at that moment. When he finally managed to catch his breath, she pulled away slowly, brushing his hands off of herself as politely as she could manage.

“S-sorry,” the wizard coughed, “I didn’t mean-“

“It’s fine; you get that one for free,” Elaina said with a wry smirk, “Just don’t go telling anybody.”

Blackbarn waved a hand briefly before realizing where he was and how dramatically it had just changed, “Oh, wow. Absolutely incredible!”

“Yeah,” Elaina agreed, looking back over at Resius, who looked like he was still breathing at least, “He made good on his word.”

The wizard dragged himself into a sitting position, resting his back against the pillar. Without his hat and scarf, he looked roughly her age despite gray beginning to creep into his brown hair at the temples. He looked like he hadn’t seen a shave in a few days, and even the stubble had some gray in it. He slid the scarf off from around his neck and held it out to her, “For your uh,” he motioned across his chest vaguely.

“Breasts? Tits? Ta-tas?” Elaina said a little incredulously as she wrapped the scarf around her chest before tying it off. “What are you, twelve?”

The wizard spread his hands in a symbolic act of surrender. He wasn’t going to bother defending himself. Elaina’s attention shifted back to Resius as she scooted closer to him. She had nothing left to treat him with, no more potions. She thought back to how she had foolishly downed the two she’d had and started mentally kicking herself. She would have something to give him now if she’d just been a little smarter. Unfortunately, the best chance he had at making a recovery was back at camp.

“We have to get him out of here,” Elaina lamented.

“He in pretty bad shape?” Blackbarn asked, only glancing over briefly.

“Yeah,” she whispered, “Pretty bad. And there’s no way we’ll make it back the way we came with him like this. He and I only got this far because of him.”

“And I’m tapped,” the wizard added.

“And you’re tapped,” she repeated with a nod, “So I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

“Well,” Blackbarn considered, “We might be able to go out through the baths.”

Elaina turned, looking at him quizzically, “Baths? What are you talking about? There are no baths in the schematics.”

“They wouldn’t be,” the wizard shook his head, “Belias added them sometime after they settled in.”

She stared for a moment before looking out over the water, still sparkling with the light of dancing motes across its surface, “And it’s connected to here?”

“It is,” Blackbarn confirmed with a motion of his hand, indicating the direction, “That way.”

“Why didn’t you use that to come in?” she asked suspiciously.

“The sluice that feeds into the main vein can only be opened from this side,” he explained, “To ensure the way we came in remains the only way. Security precaution, I suppose.”

Elaina nodded in understanding, glancing over at Resius. It sounded much more preferable to take the exit, as Blackbarn suggested. The fact that the water was newly purified would reduce the risk considerably of his wounds festering.

“I won’t be able to carry the both of you,” Elaina said over to the wizard, her eyes not moving from her wounded friend.

“I should be able to manage,” Blackbarn sighed, “It’s only me walking out of here after all.”

The swordmage exhaled with a nod, “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”

“It’s quite the sentiment, coming from you,” he said appreciatively, “Considering there are standing orders to put you down within the company.”

Elaina’s eyes finally came off of her friend to turn and face the exhausted wizard, “Earlier, they said I had no idea who I had pissed off. I have to admit that it’s true. I don’t. Would you be willing to give me an idea?”

Blackbarn laughed once and nodded, “Sure,” he agreed, “Captain Karl Steinbach. Dieter was his last living son until he fucked with you, it seems.”

Elaina said nothing, staring quietly at a spot over the man’s shoulder for a moment, at nothing in particular. So the captain of the Orbonne company was Dieter’s father. That squared with how her luck seemed to go, at any rate. She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, “We should get going.”