If there was one thing, one thing Olin Frampt truly loved beyond himself, it was magic. To feel the energies of the gods dance at his fingertips. To feel the grandiocosmic design shift to his will.

And this, this was true magic.

His fingers danced and interlocked in complex knots to draw spellwork in the air. As each glyph was completed it drifted free of his hands, joining the sea of arcane designs drifting around him. A miniature galaxy of golden light surrounded Olin and he rose from it like a creator god forging a new universe.

His hair blew up in phantoms roars of wind. Lightning burst from the burning skygrist and crackled around his outstretched hands, his crimson cape billowing backwards. Sweat drooled down his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot.

Absolutely nothing could be allowed to go wrong.

As the final design was set in place, they began to rotate, pulling smaller runes out of thin air. They expanded outwards, forming a ring that encircled the brass bell.

A calm swept through the room. Even the crackling of the skygrist as it sent lightning-bolt fingers to scrape over the bell’s surface seemed subdued. The light dimmed. Thousands of tiny motes of Mana flickered into being in the air, slowly drawing towards the bell.

And then the silence was broken.

With a crash and a tinkle of glass, the crate of skygrist toppled over.

Things were going… well…

Technically, I had succeeded in drawing the Eyeblight’s attention away from Adamant. Technically I could claim absolute victory. But I will admit it. My plan had counted on the Eyeblight being less… incomprehensible. I had expected some kind of arcane guard dog. Instead, I was being chased down an endless hallway by a storm of hands with eyes.

Blood. I needed a drop of blood.

The hawk dove at my command, slashing open the fingertips that reached from the endless hollow doorways. Nothing. Not a solitary drop. Her talons sunk in to the back of the hand and mauled the pallid skin and there was nothing, not a hint of red to the wounds she cut. It was if the hands were formed from clay instead of flesh.

The bird leapt backwards in a flutter of wings as the hands retaliated, scuttling over one another like a pack of five-limbed spiders to clutch and grasp at the air where she had been. But she had dove back to far. From the opposite door an arm shot out.

Greasy, yellow fingernails sunk into her flesh. Lifeless grey fingers wrapped around her delicate body.

And we were pulled back into the dark.

The light of the doorway shrunk away above us. We were plummeting into a black, endless abyss. Far beneath us, the Eyeblight moved through the darkness.

A ring of hands stretched outwards a cluster of staring eyes, like the petals of an absurd flower. More trailed away beneath, an endless tangle of reaching arms and grasping fingers, making the creature look like an immense grey jellyfish.

In a way, I’ll admit, it was so horrifying it became beautiful.

We were reeled in towards its mouth, hidden among the hanging arms, a circular orifice lined with yellow teeth. The hawk kicked her wings in frantic desperation, struggled valiantly, but it was no use, no use at all. I dropped from her beak in the second before she was gone, with a snap of teeth and a crunch of flesh that sent feathers raining down alongside me.

A gross, decaying hand seized me.

Alright.

I’ll admit it.

This was no longer going according to plan. A slimy, scum-frothed eye stared at me as I was hauled up to be eaten. Out of spite, out of desperation, I tried the last thing I could.

There was nothing here for me to shape but the silver of my own ring. I took it and crushed the beautiful craftsmanship, the elegantly wrought details, into a crude weapon.

And I shoved a needle made of my own ‘flesh’ into the beast’s staring eye. Ichor and vitreous fluid burst out as I made the silver extend from my Core and stretch to pierce the yellow pupil of that hateful eye.

Blood welled up. A single drop fell down the silver span of the needle towards me.

Lightning scythed through the laboratory. Several mages were already on the floor, cut down by the thrashing and serpentine coils of brilliant blue that filled the room. It leapt unpredictably, pouring out without end from the broken crate and the exposed shards of skygrist.

Olin alone still stood in the circle. He ripped fistfuls of golden letters from the heavens as blood ran from his eyes and nose. Spellwork curled over his flesh, leaving hideous burns where it touched him, and lightning crackled around his fingers. Alone he tried to hold the workings of the spell together. His amulets and protective wards held off the worst of the chaos as he put his blood and tears into maintaining the ritual.

The only sin is failure. He repeated to himself, a manic smile on his face, despite everything.

A smile, because above the brass bell, an illusionary tree had begun to bloom. It’s bark was lined with golden characters and its branches danced with green fire instead of leaves. It was the Tree of Life, an omen of the gods.

Behind him, unnoticed in the confusion, Adamant had jumped down from the table. Unafraid of the lightning he had waded into the dirt spilled from the broken jars. With each step he pulled the earth into his own being, growing taller, broader. In moments he was two feet tall, then three. He marched towards Olin from behind as the crowd fled from the burning skygrist.

Olin was sinking to his knees, his legs failing as thunder and lightning shrouded him in billows of stinging sparks, his protective wards holding back less and less of the electric energy that blasted against him as he stood at the front of the storm.

Adamant clasped his hands together and lifted them overhead to deliver a single hammering blow.

And then came the single command. STOP.

The great stone tablet descended as I fell from the Eyeblight’s hands.

Under the Gods' Sight, you two have entered into Contract.

State your terms.

I shuddered as I felt my mind and the Eyeblight’s meld together. Its thoughts were alien, unnerving. It pushed against my consciousness with a wave of incomprehensible hunger. Images of fangs tearing at flesh, of claws sinking into skin, of biting and chewing and swallowing all filled my mind, making me want to retch as I sank into a sea of blood and teeth.

I pushed back.

Thoughts of my Dungeon flooded out of my mind; I drew on the deep satisfaction of digging myself deeper into the earth, of layering my domain with traps. With the deep fierce pride I felt in Aurum, in Argent, Adamant, even Izzis. The endless itch to invent a new and creatively deadly layer of defense. The overwhelming power of shaping raw Mana into life.

I threw all of these things up like a blazing wall of feeling and passion and watched the Eyeblight’s hunger tear it apart. I will eat you. It thought. Eat you eat you eat you.

I had been able to defeat Izzis because his mind was weak, distractible. The Eyeblight was dumb but single-minded. Hunger alone ruled its thoughts and that hunger was all-consuming here in the realm of mental combat.

But I could turn that strength against itself. I could fight smart and hold my own, if not win.

And in the end my contribution to the contract came down to a single all-important word. THEN.

Between the Eyeblight of Olin Frampt and the Nameless One

This Contract Shall Be Sacred:

The Eyeblight shall devour Olin Frampt

THEN the Eyeblight shall eat the Nameless One.

As the tablet faded out, the Eyeblight seized me again. It carried me in its bloody hand as it rose for the light pouring through the doorway that floated in the darkness.

We poured through, out of its dimensional pocket and into the real world. Screams and shrieks and booms of thunder echoed through the hallways. In the real world, the Eyeblight was smaller. Scarcely taller than a man, it couldn’t float but had to crawl on its many arms through the hallway. The way it moved was hideous, spider-like, a confusion of limbs that left hundreds of scratch marks in the walls as its filthy nails clawed at them.

Outside of the dimensional pocket, I could again sense my minions. I saw Argent, waiting atop Trivelin’s head as the man hesitated outside the Institute, afraid of the metal guards that stood by the door. I saw Adamant, poised to strike Olin down. STOP I ordered.

Whatever ritual had begun, it had to finish. For Aurum’s sake. The idea of him being trapped halfway through whatever transformation Olin intended was worse than whatever the consequences of the ritual might be.

The Eyeblight burst through towards the open doors of Olin’s laboratory. An unfortunate assistant was caught in the oncoming wave of hands and dragged towards its mouth, messily torn apart.

It shot straight for Olin as he knelt, still trying to hold the spellwork together.

I gave an order I never thought I’d have to. SAVE HIM. My life and Aurum’s life counted on Olin surviving, at least until the ritual was done.

Adamant, ever dutiful, didn’t flinch in the sight of the oncoming abomination. He only paused to pick up a blazing shard of skygrist, letting the electric bolts wrap around his clenched fist. As the Eyeblight swept towards him, he stepped forward, delivering a lightning-wreathed punch to the abomination’s core.

Oh fuck it.

Who could plan for this?