Jace struck hard, fast and repetitively, using the illusion of himself he struck with lightning and air. He was able to catch one of the wizards by surprise and killed him with a bolt of lightning. However, both the kindred man and Kay’rin seemed to have realized he was using illusions to launch his sneak attacks from. Wincing, realizing his ruse was seen through already he changed his plans a little. This time he cast an illusion of himself attacking with a sword. The kindred man flinched a moment and Jace, who had been looking for that flinch combined the glyphs for fire, earth and pressure, and created an explosion under the feet of the kindred man.

The man was too slippery to kill like that of course, he vanished in a puff of smoke only to appear by the side of the hall, bloody but alive and unfortunately looking livid. Hustling toward the injured man, Jace sent another illusionary version of himself to attack with a sword, the man vanished attacking the back of the illusion mercilessly, as Jace’s real sword stabbed the kindred man in the back, parting through the pretty red armor and the flesh bellow like a knife through butter.

The sense of danger under his feet was growing greater, without the pressure of the kindred man, Kay’rin was still trying to collapse the island, he had no idea why she would do this, but the incredible power she was using to make it happen only increased by the moment. She was finishing off the last wizard who attacked her, as Jace finished the Kindred man, he wove an illusion quickly to hide and brought up a shield as she savagely attacked him.

This was the first time she actually managed an attack directly on him, and he was very worried that she had figured out how to see through the illusion already. Once that happened it would become a contest of strength and she simply was stronger than he was. Jace sped away from his shield, pouring all the power he could handle into keeping it up as long as possible.

The shield shattered, and he struck back with a blade of air and a lightning bolt. She didn’t even seem to notice either attack, her shield taking both blows without trouble. He really didn’t want to get into a full blown arm wrestling match, he’d just lose like that, so glancing at the ceiling he created another illusion of himself 40 feet to the north of his position, she hesitated and then attacked with a brutal ‘something’ that seemed to shatter space itself, openning rifts in reality, black cracks that made it seem like he was looking at the world through a window with a spiderweb of black cracks in it. The attack terrified Jace, he didn’t even know how to defend against something like that, thankfully it was directed at the illusionary version of him.

He needed her to move but she wasn’t even bothering to move. Without much else to do, he decided to launch the attack he meant to kill her with, early with her in the wrong position, he channeled and the roof, what was left of it, exploded, dropping a large chunk straight down toward him and Kay’rin, Jace, knowing it was coming, already was directing the huge multi-ton stones coming straight for him to the side. The shockwave from these giant pieces of stone hitting the ground made it feel like every bone in his body was just shattered, as the edge of a huge rock crashed against the shield he had formed, while he lost control of the pulse of the world.

His senses returned slowly, he felt like he was well enough all things considered and blinked his eyes clear of the dust, coughing hard, touching the pulse he could feel the magma was still seething under the island but he no longer felt the incredible flows of power from Kay’rin sustaining it. He started to try to stand up only to feel a sharp stab of pain from his left leg. Looking down he saw his left leg crushed under a multi-ton bolder stone. For some reason it actually didn’t hurt much. It didn’t feel like much of anything.

Verna was just about to attack the monstrous girl Kay’rin when the ceiling exploded, bringing down the massive dome. She quickly teleported to what appeared to be a safe spot. The crash was tremendous, and debris, sharp stone was thrown everywhere. She raised a quick shield protecting her from the mess. She waited for the dust to clear. There was no point rushing in blind. She learned her lesson on that. Checking carefully it seemed like the idiot girl had stopped her attempts to destroy the island. Though judging from what she could feel bellow her feet, it felt like she did enough damage to manage it eventually anyway.

She started quietly making her way forward, slowly. After all that noise it was eerily quiet in what remained of the building. She passed the area that Kay’rin was standing. She saw no sign of the stupid girl. Just a pile of rubble. She listened quietly for a long moment, she could hear breathing, then a low groan. It was probably Jace unless another man was caught up in this. She made her way in the direction Jace heard. She felt something being channeled and she heard a tremendous cracking noise, and felt the floor rumble. Something heavy was just shifted throwing up a lot of dust.

“Verna.” It was a weak voice. Worn out.

“Yes” She called back

“Can you find Sam’s body please? I… I don’t think I can look for her.”

The grief in Jace’s voice tugged at and open the fresh wounds in her heart. “Alright. Do you know where she might be?”

She was pretty close to him, so she could tell the strain in his voice. He was probably injured in this mess too. So she continued to move forward.

“In here. This building I think… Probably close to… the raised platform of marble. Unless… do you think they would take her outside… and hang her up as a warning? I don’t want her body desecrated…” His breathing was coming in pants.

She stepped out from behind a large stone and saw him lying on his back, sweat beaded on his brow, naked except for that sword belt. His left leg just below the knee looking like nothing more than ground meat. Judging by the blood flow, she could see his pulse in the blood spurting out of the leg, there was a tremendous amount of blood, if left alone he’s probably bleed out in a minute or two.

Cursing under her breath she rushed to his side. And placed a hand on his head. He would be crippled from this. She never heard of anyone fixing an injury like this. Regenerating a limb had been theorized possible with the melding of the glyphs regrowth and heal, but no one had managed it. Regrowth as a glyph never seemed to work no matter how you used it. Which meant it was far too profound for simple use, likely it could only be used in a magic circle.

So she used the glyph ‘heal’ to the best of her ability on him. The wound closed up leaving him without a lower leg.

He gave her a bitter smile then spoke again. “Please find Sam.”

She was worried to leave him alone like this… especially with the ground tremors steadily increasing. She tried to scry Sa’manatha’s location and realized the ward against scrying was still in place. Nodding her head toward Jace, rather than argue, she teleported back toward the middle of the ruined building. But not before leaving a tracer on Jace, she had a feeling they’d need to leave fast.

She flashed back and forth throughout the giant hall, looking for sign of Sa’manatha. She paused at the drying blood on one side of the stone platform. It was probably Sa’manatha’s, it wasn’t the same location she saw Jace or that other girl. Neither of them had bled this much either. She placed a hand on the blood and cast a "past sight." Her eyes were closed; this type of magic was difficult to wield. But immensely helpful in discovering past events to a limited basis. She could see some of Sa’manatha’s torture. She passed by that, unwilling to watch. Marching time forward she could see Sam, not moving, dangling from the board for a long time, before someone cut her down.

She cursed, the past view didn’t show her who did it. It looked like a mage cut the bindings, and then carried her off with some use of magic. She couldn’t tell if Sa’manatha was alive or dead either. Probably dead. As grim as it was to admit. The torment she faced would have been tough for most humans to survive. And she bore the mark of the moon. She would have been even less likely to survive this. She looked in the direction Sam was carried, and started moving in that direction.

She couldn’t remember who she saw on this side of the hall. She was so focused on Jace and Terani she barely spared a glance over here. She might have walked right past Sam’s corpse when she entered and didn’t even notice it.

She started searching that side of the hall, there was almost no signs of battle on this side. She found that curious. Why would a battle between all these mages stay away from this side of the hall? She paced back and forth, seeing no bodies. No blood either. It was curious. In all that chaos she doubted anyone not related to Sam would bother remove her corpse. Which meant she might have been hung outside as a warning?

Jace suggested it as if it was a common thing to do, though it wasn’t a practice of the kindred. Something from his world? Or had these humans started doing something new and revolting? She teleported outside to search for signs of Sa’manatha.

Jace stared at the ceiling, feeling like a puppet with its strings cut. He could still feel the ground trembling. It was a beautiful blue sky, showing the signs of turning to evening. It was a horrible and long day. He thought he should be more upset about the destroyed leg but really it only hurt when he tried to get up that one time. Probably was the feeling of him tearing the skin. Strangely he couldn’t make himself care about losing part of his body. Losing Sam was much more heartbreaking. Gritting his teeth, he sat up awkwardly. He was a little surprised at how hard it was to sit up. Losing the weight of just his lower leg changed everything about doing something so simple as sitting up.

He looked straight at the rock that caused the damage, and broke off a long part of it. It was simple transforming the segment of rock into the shape of a couple of crutches. He wasn’t sure how long to make them, but he had used crutches a number of times in the past. You couldn’t be as active a kid as he was and not need them at some point. So he left them too long then used them to help him stand up. Only when standing he started shortening them. The problem he was going to have was stone on stone wouldn’t stick anywhere near as nicely as rubbed feet like modern crutches have. Still, he was able to make his way over, after a fashion toward where he remembered his things were stashed.

Sure enough they had been damaged by some of the wild magic being cast. The armor was shattered, and half melted. Not that he would wear it now. The pants were good. As were the boots. Which struck him as funny for some reason. His pouch with his money was still untouched. He found that strange, he would have thought the money would have vanished the moment they stripped him. Maybe they never searched him? He created a chair out of the stone floor and sat down. Then put on his pants. This was also harder than he expected. He put on his one boot. Using the remains of the armor and some magic he created feet and pads for the crutches. They were leather not rubber, but he figured it would work better then leaving it stone. The ground was still rumbling. He looked the length of the hall toward the door he entered through and sighed. It would be a pain to hobble that.

He thought a long moment about different ways to get there. The easiest would be if he could teleport like some kindred. The problem was the nature of teleportation as he understood it was different from how the kindred did it. It wasn’t possible to teleport that quickly. Too many calculations had to be made to create the link between your current location and the distant location. Well, he didn’t have to use kindred teleportation. He was able to use normal.

Thinking a moment, he used air to carve out a teleportation circle. Then stood up, resting on the crutches he teleported straight to the entrance of the building.