Carson worked feverishly, ignoring the chaos below with an intense focus he’d found unachievable in the real world. A crack akin to a lightning strike flashed in his periphery and thumped his chest like a drum–he ignored it too.

He couldn’t do anything about the fight. This insane plan was on him–they were as good as dead if he didn’t come through.

The weave was more complicated than he'd expected. Said more accurately; it had to be more complex because of his channels.

From the start, he’d been aided by an odd gut feeling that must have been his Presence attribute at work. Though it, he sensed the weave would need to be folded back onto itself to have the necessary power. At first, this sensation was confusing, but he stayed with it, remembering Erramir’s warning to head these feelings. And in little time, he got the idea.

The weave still centered on his core energy, but instead of a single braid bound at the end, he needed to triple the length of the weave by folding it back on itself twice. The fold was the most challenging part, but he was astounded to find his focus allowed him to accurately track each stand as they all reversed course and the whole weave inverted.

His elemental strands had a maximum diameter and density, limited by his channel capacity. And his soul energy core had a maximum length, so the folds were the only way to increase the total essence within the weave. From what he could tell, all weaves were governed by this principle rule: the more potent the cast, the more volume of essence ran through his channels.

This would be easier and less taxing to his essence channels if his soul strand was longer, but this was the first time it was an issue; he hadn't even considered it before.

Even if he'd had the foresight to realize it was a potential issue, Carson had no idea what he could have done to improve it. So, tripling the total weave length was his only option. Hopefully, it would be enough.

After he grasped the folding concept, the actual weave design had gone faster than expected. His intuition, aided by the essential energy's gentle guidance, had allowed Carson to proceed with minimal mistakes and only two failed attempts. Now it was just repetition–a lot of repetition.

He was vaguely aware of the evil-essence-driven monstrosity racing past his perch and continuing down the canyon in the background.

As he made the second fold and started on the third layer encasing the first two, he realized something interesting. The strands in this outer layer would be significantly longer than those it enveloped.

Being wrapped around the first two, the third layer would have a greater diameter, so they would naturally be longer. The effect wasn’t as noticeable on the second layer, and he’d overlooked it; now it was obvious.

As he laced lines of essence together, a smile creased his face. This spell was going to pack enough raw force to obliterate a tank. Carson began to chuckle quietly. “They’re gonna looove this shit." He finished the weave and excitedly brought the elemental strings together to form the binding.

Then, the canyon screamed–his brain burned.

It was like someone cut open the top of his skull and dumped in rock salt. He gripped his head, and he sprang to his feet, every cell urging him to run.

Another part of him knew that was wrong, but the fear was irresistible. After a few backsteps, he turned to give in to the primal terror.

A small slice of awareness broke through, and he grabbed onto it. He had to stay here.

Still, the terror wouldn't be ignored, and he moved toward the ascending ramp, pacifying it, all the while clinging to the thin thread of rational thought.

No, no, no, no. Carson mentally fought the impulse, but it was useless. Then trained instincts kicked in–he dug into his toolbox and pulled out his panic wrench.

He allowed his body to do what it needed and focused on inhaling breath at the crown of his head, running it down his back, turning it under his pelvis, then exhaling it up his chest and back out at the crown.

He was ascending the ramp now, not running but moving with urgency. That was fine. Carson kept his attention on his panic-wrench technique and could feel the tool working–calming energy was gathering in his mind.

Slowly, his focus overcame the irrational fear, and his panic subsided. Carson stopped. He spun about, finding himself halfway to the sixth floor. The canyon was quiet. He couldn't see the orb, his friends, or the source of the scream. He could sense them somewhere outside of the canyon to his left but not too far away, and their health bars were green. The fight wasn't lost yet.

“FUCK!” Carson bit off as memory returned. His whole weave had collapsed. He felt into his doublet, hoping that the nearly complete spell had been sufficient for his spellbook and Elven armor to record it.

The spell focus wasn’t there. "Frazikkin Fukkel nuts!"

He took off down the ramp, reaching his spot on the railing in no time, and settled back down cross-legged.

Carson gathered essential air with a bit of earth, bound the simple weave, and stuck it into his ears. Everything grew deadly silent. He’d just have to rely upon catching motion in his peripheral vision to know when they were back. They’ll be back; of course. They’ll be back.

As he dropped into his focus zone, a little idea niggled at him. This was a powerful spell; it would absolutely be sufficient to overload his essence channels. Could he take this opportunity to advance his Conductor affinity?

“Val!” Erramir screamed at his terror-stricken friend. Her eyes were saucers; they darted to him and then back down the tunnel. He reached for her, but she bolted away from him too quickly. At least she was running in the right direction, he consoled himself as he took off after her.

The scream had affected them both. But his spidey-sense had intervened to save him once again.

In the instant before the noise struck, he’d unthinkingly switched from boosting his agility to enhancing his healing. The mindless terror debuff had gripped him, but only for a breath as the healing boost cleansed it. Instinctual horror might be more accurate–labeling it a fear effect just fell short.

Freed, he switched back to augmenting his agility. Val only had level 1 Presence, no healing boost–so she ran, and he chased her.

The orb’s faint grinding grew louder as it rounded into the tunnel behind them. Instantly the sound filled the air, magnified by the long narrow tunnel, confusing his perception of how far back the metallic monster was.

“Val! Snap out of it!” he yelled. “Val!” She shook her head, beginning to slow, and he caught up. Putting a hand on her upper back, Erramir pushed her to keep her running. “Don’t stop. We still need to find a place to double back.”

Her eyes were wide, but she gave him a shaky nod, and they sped back up.

A look over his shoulder showed that the orb was well behind them and seemed to be moving a bit more slowly; if anything, they were pulling ahead. Erramir felt a bit of relief at that. “We need to figure a way to get back past it. I think a small cavern would be ideal, but even a side passage might work.”

Val nodded silently, he could tell she was still suffering from the effects of the scream, but it was fading. At least she was regaining control of her breath; that would help.

“Err,” she said a moment later. “What the hell happened?” A questioning look at Val told Erramir that she was serious; she didn’t remember.

“It was a sonic attack, like the famished elemental, but different and more powerful. We’ll talk about it later. Right now, focus on surviving so we can have that talk.”

“Right.” She replied with a curt head nod. “Looking for a turn-around. On it.”

Valerie felt like she was emerging from a drug-induced sleep. One dominated by a nightmare of being chased by a black phantom. Nothing else existed in her recent memory, just the terror of the phantom.

Virg said reassuringly. He sent the feeling of a small hand clasping hers.

Something in Valerie let loose, a dam of emotion burst, and she started crying. She let the emotion roll, running and crying. Val didn’t really even know why, but something about that little hand was just too much. she sent.

came his reply.

Erramir was more than a little shocked when Valerie burst into tears. It was so out of character and inappropriate for the situation that he put some distance between them–just in case. But Val kept on running–running and crying.

She was really crying too, sobbing even, with a snotty nose and making little wailing noises. The display scared him almost as much as the orb did, mostly because he had no idea why she was in total meltdown.

One thing was evident, Val wasn’t going to be much help in this condition.

Hesitantly, he addressed her, “Val? Is ahh... something wrong? Are you okay?” Even asking that much, he could feel his pulse quicken; something about her raw, unfiltered emotions made him nervous.

She just nodded and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. Then kept crying.

Erramir accepted the response and decided to focus on the problem of the orb. Ahead he detected a change in the tunnel. Did it end? No, it opened up... a cavern. Perfect! “There’s a cavern ahead. I need you to run into the middle and taunt the orb. Can you do that?”

She responded with another nod and a stuttering sniffle.

“Okay, good. I’m going to try and disable it. But if it doesn’t work, I need you to run back to Carson. Don’t try and fight it with me, understand?”

He looked at her, and she nodded. “If we both die, this is for nothing. You’ll need to get back and help him. Find a way to get the thing to stay still; Carson should be ready to smash it.” She nodded again, and it seemed like her emotions were settling.

They burst into the cavern. It wasn't that big, maybe fifty feet across, smaller than Erramir would have liked–it would have to be enough.

Val ran to the center and turned back to face the entrance while he went right, pulled his two-handed sword, and leaned into the wall.

The hilt buzzed in his hands, and Erramir nearly dropped the weapon in surprise. Fortunately, he managed to suppress a yelp that might have tipped the orb off to his ambush.

The scripted blade's cutting edge came alive with a bluish glow. Well, hello there. Erramir thought as an evil grin came over his face. I knew I saw something in that elemental fight.

Moving the sword about, wisps of power trailed off the trailing side while the leading edge flared slightly. Ohhh, helll yeah. Come on, big boy,he taunted mentally.

The sound of grinding loomed closer–his attention snapped back to the cave. Val was dead center in the roughly circular room. She’s too close, he realized and waved her to back up more. The cavern was just too small; she’d be within striking distance of the plasma arms where she was.

Val saw and took several steps back. As she did, her crying faded entirely, and her eyes gained a determined, vicious look. That was the Val Erramir needed. He felt tremendous relief to have her back. This plan might work out after all.

Erramir slowed his breathing and activated Predator’s Steps, dropping into Stealth and arming his sneak attack bonus.

The grinding noise grew louder and slower. The orb was being cautious. Damn thing’s smart, he realized again. A moment later, its matte silver shape rolled in.

A circle of five steel petals separated and hissed open, right in front of Erramir. Val screamed. It was an animalistic noise, and he silently applauded her distraction.

The steel behemoth cleared the opening, and its arms emerged, plasma sparking to life and beginning to pop and sizzle menacingly. Erramir waited for the gap to widen just a bit more–then he stuck like a viper.

His sword blasted down, contacting half a foot above the arm opening. It split the steel shell, sliced through some spinning mechanism, parted a cable, cleaved the plasma arm off, and rent a three-foot gash below the hole before embedding in the ground–Erramir barely felt a hint of resistance.

The plasma arc winked out as the arm fell to the ground, and whatever he’d cut inside started to whistle and emit a metallic grating. It sounded like a tea kettle with a bad transmission.

Erramir jerked his weapon free as the orb flew away toward the other side of the cavern. Val bolted and was passing him by into the tunnel before the machine even crossed the gap.

“Nice Hit!” she yelled.

He followed her out, running at three-quarter speed as he looked back at the machine. It slammed into the far wall of the cavern, wobbling oddly as things within started screeching and clacking while the whistling rose to a scream. For half an instant, he contemplated turning back to try and finish it.

Then the thing steadied itself. The noises didn’t stop, but Erramir ditched the idea, turned forward, and ran for all he was worth, catching up to Val in a half dozen strides.

He was smiling when she looked over at him, and a grin split her face at the sight of his. “That was awesome,” he said, unable to contain his glee.

“Damn right!” she agreed. “You cut right through it! What kind of sword is that anyway?”

Erramir laughed. “I have no idea. But it started glowing just now!” He was giddy about the development. “I love this thing!” he held the blade up for her to see the wispy energy that floated from it.

Behind them, the horrible noises ceased. Looking back, Erramir watched as the sphere moved to its detached arm. Coils of violet energy snaked out of the iris opening, lifting the appendage off the ground.

“Nooo… seriously?” The tendrils pulled the severed end into its body, and bright sparking flashed.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Val said in disbelief, watching the same thing, then meeting Erramir's eyes and sharing a fearful look. Passing between them unsaid was the desperate hope that their gambit wouldn't be for nothing.

They kept running, looking back every few seconds to monitor the orb’s progress in repairing itself. The sight faded from Erramir’s view first, and a few seconds later, it was beyond the limit of Val’s vision too.

They poured on the speed, desperately focused on getting back to Carson. Hopefully, their mage would have a spell to could kill the metal monstrosity.