Nina watched as the thrown blades clattered against the crystal wall. Two of the knives fell harmlessly to the ground, but the rest found purchase in the diamond-hard surface, kicking up a cloud of faintly glowing dust.

Gen laughed, spreading his arms wide to show he was unharmed. His ‘wounds’ from where the knives had passed through him were nothing more than swirling lines of shadow that were slowly beginning to close.

“Tssk, Tssk,” he said. “I thought a Reech would have been better trained. Here I went through all this trouble and you fall for parlor tricks … so disappointing.”

Nina used both hands to swing her massive saber defensively, some instinct warning her that she was being distracted. Reflexes honed by years of training saved her. The clink of metal echoed through the chamber as several long, black needles were deflected and left embedded in the wall to Nina’s right.

“Give me the boy,” Gen said, “and this all ends. I’d love to play some more … but we really don’t have the time.”

Nina looked down at the shaking floor. The vibrations had grown strong enough that her toes were becoming numb and the rumbling had was beginning to drown out all other noise.

“I’ll never —” Nina shouted, her words brought short by a stabbing pain in her leg.

She cast her eyes down at the unarmored limb and found a small black needle peeking through her clothes and the skintight jumpsuit she generally wore under her armor. It was much smaller than the others she had deflected and nearly invisible in the fading light. She could feel pain radiating from the puncture, as her entire leg began to throb with nearly unbearable levels of pain.

“An old trick,” the assassin smiles. “You didn’t think I’d reveal myself if I wasn’t prepared, did you?”

Nina merely grunted, a sheen of glowing white forming around her. The light slowly solidified into brightly polished armor as she spun her blade around her like a propeller, blindly slashing at the shadows. She’d been caught off guard once, no reason to prolong the mistake.

“Those won’t help you,” Gen said, as Nina began to down another red vial. “Even if you had a real healer, that leg will be useless for hours. Basilisk venom is a hell of a poison.”

Nina balanced on a single leg as she lifted and extended the other. Her face paled as she realized she was slowly losing all feeling in the punctured leg. Even the pain had retreated into a dull ache. The limb was growing stiff and heavy, soon it would be nothing but a stone anchor tethering her to the ground.

She flexed it experimentally and it still responded. She wasn’t sure how much time she had left, but even with the potion and her stats it wouldn’t be more than a few minutes until the effects were complete.

“Neat trick,” she said. “but you’re forgetting one thing …”

Gen laughed as his illusion slowly disappeared, leaving behind the faint smell of sulfur. His voice seemed to come from everywhere at the same time as if the assassin was whispering with a hundred voices.

“Oh, and what might that be?”

A blade appeared at Nina’s back, but she was already spinning and managed to turn it away with the gauntlet on her left hand. A black line marred the surface of her armor, green fumes rising as the metal bubbled and distorted. She ignored the acid, even as it began to eat through the metal and drip onto her skin.

Instead, she stabbed behind her and spun her blade in a wide arc. She found no resistance, but she heard the faint sounds of boots landing on the hard, crystal surface. The assassin had dodged but hadn’t been able to completely hide his landing. When Lina attacked the area, however, she was met with nothing but she found only empty space.

I can’t see him, Nina thought, but he’s there. Toying with me.

“Still think I’m forgetting something? Just tell me where the boy is.”

“You forgot,” Nina yelled, raising her blade above her head, “that light will always drive out the shadows.”

Nina’s blade exploded into a wave of light that refracted across the crystal surface of the narrow passage. The blinding light was reflected a thousand times until even through her closed eyelids Nina could see nothing but white.

As her eyes blinked open, a faceted gem in the pommel of her saber crumbled into dust. She was burning through wealth faster than even she could afford. It was worth it, Nina thought, as she caught sight of the assassin. He was hiding in the shadows of the far corner, his fingers still rubbing at his eyes.

Anger roared up in Nina, followed by an incredible urge to make the assassin suffer, but she had trained for this situation and knew what to do. She ran. She ran upwards and ignored everything behind her. To fight is to live, she remembered, not to kill.

She repeated those words as a child. The lessons of a man long gone, if only her uncle were still here …

Nina focused on putting one foot in front of the other, even as her injured leg grew heavier and stiffer. Just a little more. The assassin was fast, but no amount of speed could make up the disparity in strength. Nina could cover a dozen yards in a single step. Hopefully, it would be enough.

Please … please be waiting for me.

She was conflicted, however. She didn’t want things to end this way but if she kept running she would lead Gen straight towards George. Would Max wait? she thought. He seemed the type to wait till the last second, Nina had already written him off as the hero type … but she had insisted he protect the child first.

Either way, she couldn’t let the assassin know there was a way out. Nina still had one option, however. She could use the one thing that had kept her alive this long. The thing that made her special. The one part of her family she had yet to cast aside. Wealth.

Nina sighed, dismissing her saber as another javelin appeared in her left hand. It was identical to the one she had used on the crystal lizard, and it was the last she had. In her other hand, she held a golden statue of an Eagle.

She threw the Eagle upwards where it began to shimmer and grow larger. With her newly freed hand, she grasped the other end of the javelin and split it in two. Rather than cutting a straight line through everything, as it had with the lizard, the javelin exploded into thousands of arcs that leaped and twisted from each end of the broken weapon.

The white-hot bolts cut through the pale gloom like a thousand flashing daggers. They branched and forked until nearly everything within a hundred-foot cone was consumed. The crystal floor glowed and crackled where the lighting had polished it.

Had it been enough?

Nina’s smile dropped fell as she heard the familiar laugh. It seemed less confident, however. Forced and hiding a wheeze. She’d injured the man, or he was a better actor than Nina gave him credit for.

She didn’t wait to find out, though, instead she ripped her belt, and its many pouches, from her waist and threw it into the air where it was snatched by a giant, golden eagle. Another heirloom lost, she thought with a sigh.

“Run George,” she yelled. “Don’t look back!”

The Eagle immediately flew upwards, seeking the sky through one of the cracks that were beginning to appear in the roof. Nina could see none large enough for it to fly through, but she suspected that there must be a way out or else the spiders would have fled elsewhere.

Hopefully, the assassin would make the same connection.

As the bird disappeared from her vision, the vibrations increased, and large, geode-like blocks began to fall, smashing around Nina in a rain of bone-crushing projectiles. The cavern immediately brightened as large gaps appeared in the ceiling to reveal the sky. For a moment, she could see a golden speck against an overcast sky.

Good. Let them chase it.

Nina dodged a falling block, ending with her on one knee after sliding across the smooth surface. As more of the roof fell, the debris began to fracture the floor creating long chains of branching cracks. A barrage of crystals fell into the floor in front of Nina, causing a long fissure that had appeared to widen and fall open.

The crack continued to grow as the vibrations and falling debris split it open further. Nina could barely stand up due to the shaking, and she noticed a growing downward slant as if the entire tree were beginning to tilt. There was no time left.

Her only choice was to move forward and hope Max had waited. She wasn’t used to hoping her orders had been ignored.

The assassin appeared on the other side of the growing chasm, finally dropping his illusions and stealth. He was still grinning, his mouth twisted into an unnaturally thin line drawn from ear to ear.

“Ah, I regret we must end things here,” Gen yelled. “I may not have had all my fun, but I’ll have to content myself with having stained my knives with Reech blood.”

“You won’t get him,” Nina said calmly. Her voice was low, but she knew the assassin could hear her even over the roar of the collapsing dungeon.

“Oh, my dear, dear girl … we already do. My entire quad and a full detachment of soldiers are outside this crumbling tree. They’ll have your bird, and the boy, in a matter of minutes … but you? You die here. It seems a tomb fitting of your stature, no?”

“You haven’t won yet,” Nina roared.

She ignored the assassin as she turned and ran towards Max and George. Ancestors, please let them be there. The quiet cackling of the assassin faded as she heard his footsteps echo through the cavern. At last, he had given up on stealth as he fled the crumbling tree.