Asrael was on his back- crawling away from the smoldering, crackling pyromancer approaching him from the front. How the man was still alive despite having stood in the center of the conflagrated ball was beyond any man’s wildest guesses. The bright-white streaks exuding from within his skin had faded, but not by much. It seemed the magical pressure had simply moved from inside of him to shape the air around his flesh. In his dim radiance, Asrael could see the heat come off of him in waves- rippling the air, where bright embers cracked what was left of his scorched clothing. His naked body revealed the depravities of the Inquisition and the many rituals of the Purging. He was nearly as scarred as Asrael, but with the vital difference of having naught to show for his scars- no magical effects to keep him alive for an eternity... All he had was a smooth crotch and a lifetime of pent-up torment.

But despite the numerous torments of old, the pyromancer grinned and enjoyed the sight of the wide-eyed, unsightly necromancer scuttling backwards on the floor. At his side- in the extremity of his leftside peripheral view, Asrael could see the two, frightened women struggling in the baking heat of their oversized oven... their tomb.

“Run!” Asrael demanded, but neither of the two budged. Neda only fumbled with something at her back- forcing Asrael to repeat himself: “Run, you foolish harlot! Do not-” Neda produced the two daggers and held them up as Bartholomew had taught her to. Petrus threw her a sideways glance and continued to grin at her, as if challenging her to approach. With hesitant steps... she did. Asrael looked up at the madwoman standing between him and the pyromancer- stalwartly raising the daggers towards the powerful magus. He hobbled up to his feet and grunted over to drag her back a pace and shout:

“I will kill you, myself, if you continue to disobey me-” Neda struggled against his hand and nearly elbowed him in the chin. The stubborn wench remained in place and did her best not to reveal the tremor in her knees as she eyed the walking, threatening inferno.

“No, I can do it. Bartholomew’s been teaching me-” Petrus tired of the waiting. He raised his right hand towards them and demanded: “I will give you one last chance, fiends! Submit to the Inquisition or I will sear you all to your bones!” Asrael had little time. The foolish girl had put herself in harm’s way- sabotaging his carefully construed last-resort plan. But at this range, neither could freely escape the ball of crackling fire building in his hand... “Fine. Then you will be the first- perhaps then, your friends will see reason!” He shouted at Neda.

Next thing the wildling girl knew, she soared through the air- having suffered from Asrael’s monstrous, undead strength. Petrus launched the ball of fire forward on a collision trajectory for the girl and Asrael thought:... He would have to try.

Asrael gathered as much magic as his core could muster and forced it into his right hand. In the span of less than a second, his already brimming flesh was pushed to the point of bursting- glowing with green, unaffined magic. Next, he stepped in front of the ball of flame and expelled the magic through his comparatively pathetic magical pores. Neda and Ellie both watched in horror as Asrael’s hand exploded in the collision of their energy- a tug-of-war that Asrael inevitably lost, all played out in less than the blink of an eye. The entire tunnel lit up with blinding green, orange, white and red as Asrael’s right arm dissolved into a boiling shower of vaporized tissues and bone. From his elbow down, his arm had been burnt cleanly off, save for a charred protrusion of his antebrachial ossa.

The agony was indescribable- the disintegration of his flesh, the subsequent shower of boiling fat and interstitium, the pain of having lost one of his two, own appendages. He roared and fell to the ground with a sickening click of his bared bones to the cavern floor- sending another fierce jolt of pain up his arm.

Petrus loomed over Asrael- laughing heartily at the sight of the struggling, screaming man. Blisters had formed across the necromancer's face from where the boiling blood had struck him. The heathen Ungodly had suffered his just reward- no... this was but the beginning of his punishment. He deserved much more for his choice to turn away from the Empire and live his life in the shadows- surrounded by the Demonic beings that had assaulted this servant of the Inquisition’s will. The pathetic wretch fell to his back to behold the glory of the empowered pyromancer whose mere presence was enough to make the air nearly unbreathable. The taste of his scorched, dead flesh hung in the air as Asrael turned to crawl backwards- toward the frozen, disbelieving wildling still on her back.

Neda watched in horror as the grinning pyromancer caught up to the crawling, desperate necromancer- stepping over the thin line of unseen blood on the stone floor. Once inside the bloody circle, Asrael picked up the pace until he had reached his tremoring, terror-stricken apprentice cowering behind the rock. He turned towards Ellie to shout: “Empower it- now!” The numbing veil of panic disappeared as she heard his command. She dropped down to her fours and touched the bloody rune by her feet and for the first time in her life: she empowered her own spell.

Extending her magic past her fingertips, she could feel her very soul connect to the rune- expanding her consciousness to see into the circle she had drawn across the corridor. From the circle, her magic coalesced along the runes- transforming, squirming, shaking before finally: it activated in full. Asrael used the last of his strength to launch himself off to the side- free of the barely-visible border. Petrus only barely had time to register the flash of profound brown surrounding his feet, before the rock beneath him exploded in a perfectly, circular pattern- as if cut by an invisible, impossibly strong and sharp blade. Ellie forced yet more magic into the rune- cracking it across, this time. Then in another direction- then another one. Before Petrus could understand he had even walked into the trap, it was sprung.

The powerful, heavy rocks cracked and slammed against one-another. His feet disappeared beyond shattered fragments, where the tremoring stones began to consume his legs- smashing his bones asunder with every movement. He attempted to leap forwards and barely managed to reach the carved edge, only to have his fingers broken by the necromancer’s heel. The bright-white pyromancer’s body slipped between the crushing, tremoring boulders to be swallowed deeper down into the murderous pit.

As Petrus’ glow faded, the trio were left in total darkness- silent and disbelieving. Neda quickly rose to her feet, but before she could take another step forward, Asrael turned over his shoulder to shoot her a furious glare and shout: “Leave!” She froze as she heard the anger in his voice. It had been weeks since she had seen this side of him- that spiteful, bitter Asrael she thought she had left behind that night in the tavern. Gripping his arm, he turned to glare at the exhausted Eleanor next.

“Both of you! Get out!” Neda felt the weight of the world crash down at her shoulders as Ellie shot up and began staggering towards her. Asrael bent down and with his one, remaining hand grabbed a torch from just before the pit and threw it over his shoulder, narrowly missing Neda with the tired, burnt wood.

“I-I’m sorry-” Neda began, only for him to repeat: “Leave!” With the full might of his lungs and throat. Ellie- ever the obedient student, grabbed Neda by her arm and broke her from her stupor by dragging her down into the darkness, where the two disappeared back towards the tavern- leaving Asrael in the blackness of the tunnel to look down at the stump of what had once been his lower arm... alone in his misery.