He turned to face the machine as it began to accelerate down the flaming barrier. Val jumped through the gap, and he followed as the heat engulfed him for the brief moment it took. On the other side, they moved several paces back, and the temperature dissipated. It didn’t radiate far, but up close, the fire was like a blast furnace. “Any ideas?”

“Something with your sword,” Val replied. “Virg is anxious to fight, but he can’t get through the shell.”

“Maybe we can lure it into the gap? Then I can cut it from behind?” Erramir said although he wasn’t sure how that was going to work.

“How’s that gonna work?” Val echoed his exact doubt.

“I don’t know, but we don’t have time to screw around.” He had another idea. “Can you jump the wall?”

“Yeah. But why? We've got the gap,” she replied as the orb began to close on them again, this time with its one undamaged plasma arm extended on the left, the side away from the flaming barrier.

“It’s smart, and it learns. I think it took your bait last time only to lure me out of hiding.” As he said this, Val realized the truth of it with a slow nod. He continued, “So, we need to confuse it.”

Erramir faced the oncoming metallic beast with sword raised. The orb slowed at his aggressive posture; it had also learned that his sword was a real threat.

“Next time around, I won’t shoot the gap,” he said as the orb crept into striking distance. “Go!” he called, but Val was already through, then he was diving through, intent on landing in a roll; he was getting good at rolling.

Midair, Erramir nearly panicked at how he’d roll without killing himself with his sword. He threw the four feet of steel forward and just barely managed to pull off his rolled landing.

Behind him, barely missing his disappearing feet, a plasma arc struck the stalagmite. Blue energy crackled, and red flames roared from the stone as if a bellows was suddenly fueling them. The arm recoiled from the impact.

"Woah! Those rocks hit back," Val said, noting that the fire hurt the construct.

Back on the same side as Carson, Erramir retrieved his blade. “This time, we’ll draw it just beyond the gap. Seeing us give up our easy escape path should make it commit. When I say, you jump over and double back to attack from behind. I should be able to deflect a couple of arm attacks, but you’ll have to be fast. You can hurt that arm, right?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “You think we can give it too much to think about? Maybe it won’t detect Carson’s attack?”

“Worth a shot, unless you’ve got a better idea.”

“Nope. Although, maybe I should distract it and you double back?”

“No. That won’t work,” he said with a head shake. “It’s afraid of my sword. I need to hold its attention.”

The orb was closing on them now; when it got close, they stepped back from the gap, seemingly trapping themselves. It slowed at their change in tactics but kept coming.

“Now!” Erramir called, and Val leaped. The arm raised to track her, but Erramir took a threatening step forward as if to strike, and it immediately refocused on him.

The hissing plasma came toward Erramir in a horizontal cleave, determined to drive him into the burning rock even if he blocked. Erramir had hoped for that. He dropped below the swing, sword angled above him to deflect.

The energies met, sparks flew and sizzled from the contact, and the force drove his knee into the stone.

He spun and struck toward the back of the plasma head, but the arm sprang away from the dark red fire as if burned, which he supposed it was.

His blade hit stone and cut into it. Erramir immediately jerked his sword free and darted toward the sphere. When a panel slid open right in front of him with a spinning disc of violet energy waiting, he almost sighed in resignation.

But he didn't. Instead, Erramir dove down and forward, rolling onto his back and hoping the disc didn’t have the same dexterity as the arms.

It flashed over his head, and he rotated his shoulders, levering his blade in a vertical path through the arm behind the rotating head. It cut clean, the violet plasma winked out, and a couple hundred pounds of spinning steel fell on his thighs.

“Arrrhhh!” The pain was horrible. The cutting head’s rotation tore into his greaves, sending steel plates, leather, and black scales flying in an instant before friction flung it into the wall of flaming spikes. It ricocheted viciously off the rock, slammed into the side of the orb, and disappeared through the gap.

Erramir was screwed, and he knew it. Something in his legs was crushed, and now they wouldn’t respond. Desperately, he hoped for a miracle as his accelerated healing kicked in.

He could hear the clear ringing of Val’s staff rapidly striking steel; that, at least, was good. This was it; they couldn’t hope to distract the orb more than this. Hopefully, Carson would take his shot.

A new noise started up, and Erramir’s gut screamed at him to move. Being that his legs were currently offline, he could only cringe at what sounded like the mechanical linkage in a chain drive revving up.

He didn’t have to wait long to see the source.

With a series of clangs, curved panels slid aside, opening a four-foot-wide gap in the bottom third of the orb.

Through the gap, past a whirring frenzy of metal, he could see Val’s face go pale.

Each side of the slot had a double row of broad, rough-looking teeth. It was hard to tell, as they rotated fast, but they looked flat, like molars, and Erramir thought the cogs were probably designed to crush rock. It was, however, quite clear that anything going in the front would not live to see the back.

Erramir readied his sword, and this time he did sigh. “Ahh fuck... this is gonna hurt.”

Carson looked on in horror as Erramir’s legs were crushed by the spinning disc. When the bottom half of the sphere opened to reveal some kind of demented meat grinder, that horror morphed to anger.

“Ohhh, helll no.” He gathered his energy and readied to cast. The orb wasn’t pinned in place, but if he didn’t act, Erramir was dead.

Then he saw it, a blockish droid of dark metal with little tank treads for legs. It looked like something designed to carry a tray of drinks on its flat head. Whatever it looked like–it was fast.

The little robot flew over the pipe like it wasn't even there, then rocketed through the gap in a flash, crossing the distance from door to orb in a heartbeat.

He watched in amazement as its various rectangular parts suddenly separated, whirling through the air into a semi-circular pattern and gathering around the base of the orb.

It’s wedging the mechanical fucker in place. Carson gaped, not really knowing what to think.

Judging from how the steel death ball had dismissively treated every other obstacle, he had no reason to believe little blocks could hold it.

Wait, that bot is from this place. Maybe…

He unleashed his last two spikes, then choked as his thread of soul essence snapped. The whole weave collapsed. He began to fall and let his knees buckle, dropping him to the ground.

He was totally spent, again.

This time felt very different though, he wasn't drained–he was on fire. His entire body, every muscle, felt like it had been overworked like never before. They burned with a deep ache, utterly devoid of strength. So much so that he could barely hold his head up.

The pain was near to claiming his consciousness, but he held on tenaciously... waiting... hoping desperately, that the little square robot knew something he didn’t.

The orb jerked–but didn’t move.

Stuck fast, it spasmed, single-arm flailing.

Two gigantic, flaming, hardened-stone spikes slammed home, one after another into the same spot, dead center.

Its metal shell was pierced by the first, and the second blasted through into the canyon floor, causing the first one to explode inside the orb. Bits of stone and metal erupted in a cloud from the impact point.

A notification icon blinked in the corner of his vision, but Carson ignored it and collapsed.

With a herculean effort, he pushed onto his back–where he laughed. It sounded shallow, the hacking laugh of people on the brink of death.

“It’s a gamme...” he mummbled, then blacked out.