Sarah stared at Adara's smug smile feeling vulnerable, she wasn't normally into mature women, but something about Adara had just drew her in.

Focusing Sarah shook her head and closed her eyes, this was an obvious attempt to distract her from more important matters, it wasn't as strong as before but still distracting.

Sarah had questions and she wanted them answered, the memory of what she just went through firmed her resolve, she clenched her teeth and almost snarled in anger.

Glaring at her, Adara's friendly aura dimmed and a worried look came over Adara's otherwise lovely face, soon it transformed once more.

"What happened?" Furious, Adara's eyes lit with inner fire, the white turned a terrifying pitch of black a herald of death.

The look frightened her and Sarah took a step back, bone-chilling fear surged everywhere and everything took on a dark deathly sinister look.

Waves of menacing darkness echoed from Adara's presence, and Sarah felt tiny gazing upon a true overwhelming power, it was like staring down her Death itself, it overwhelmed everything.

Sarah stumbled unto the floor and her breath stopped, she couldn't breathe, she was drew and drew, but it never came.

Dying, her lungs refused to pull air, somehow she was dragging herself on the floor, away from ~That~.

Suddenly the overwhelming pressure ceased and Sarah drooped like a puppet with it's strings cut, when she came to, she was cradled in warm tender arms.

"Breathe darling, breathe, I'm sorry. Please breathe." Adara's lovely visage looked down at her with worry, perhaps even imagined desperation.

It took a moment for Sarah to draw her first full breathe in what seemed like an eternity.

Her body gave up and she went slack with relief, the feel of Adara's arms brought about nostalgia.

She drifted for a while, basking on the close feel for a while, Adara's whispered words relaxed her, everything would be alright........just like before.

Her eyes snapped open and her daze ended.

'What was that?!' Sarah looked about confused, those thoughts weren't her own.

Sarah pushed away from Adara's arms, whom let go with a forlorn expression written on her face.

Sarah stood and looked about for an instant, Adara looked on the verge of tears.

Sarah couldn't stand the look, she ran away from everything.

From Adara.

A choked wail followed and it tore at Sarah's heart.

*****

Coming to herself Sarah realized she was in a desolate landscape.

Surrounded by solely ash, Sarah breathed, the ash drifted into her lungs, which yielded no discomfort.

If anything it felt natural, it felt comfortable, the thought widened her eyes.

She stumbled forward drunkenly, till she landed on the ground.

'What's happening?' Sarah desperately scanned everywhere.

The wind decline to answer, save for a single breeze which sent ash to her face.

Irritably wiping her face Sarah blinked for a split-second, that was all it took.

Adara stood before her, dressed just as before in her tight fitting clothes.

The sight almost sent her running for the nonexistent hills and Sarah took a deep breathe.

"Let's get back inside. I still need to teach you." Adara was skirting the issue, she spoke as if Sarah was made of spun glass.

Sarah considered her options quickly and scanned the desolate horizon.

She nodded emptily after a while, that would be for the best, she didn't want to spend hours lost here.

Adara led the way and by the time the got back to Adara's residence Sarah had calmed down somewhat.

They sat on chairs, facing each other.

"What just happened?" Sarah held a permanent frown on her face, she wasn't in the mood for games.

"I unleashed my aura accidentally and frightened you. You then ran out on me." Adara sported a regretful expression.

"Not that. I felt weird." Sarah fumed inwardly.

"That is what aura does." Adara nodded.

Sarah stared at her eyes searching, something wasn't being said and Sarah wasn't sure she even wanted to know.

Inwardly she let her anger flush out, it was clouding her judgment, she needed to approach this objectively.

They both sat there in awkward silence, Sarah deduced Adara wouldn't speak on the subject after a few inquiries.

Sarah sighed, it seemed everything of interest was off topic, she was hardly in the mood to learn as well.

"What's my next power." Sarah shook her head, she wanted some more time to consider her options.

"Avatar of fire. It'll let you summon an avatar which can launch attacks. So long as you keep up the connection and feed it power." Adara looked at the floor.

Once more silence reigned and Sarah was about to ask about the process.

"I need to know when I can contact you. As you grow stronger you'll need more guidance." Adara broke the silence before her.

A quick thought and Sarah nodded, they came to the arrangement to get in contact every night.

Sarah would need to be sure of her safety.

"The avatar comes from within you." Adara explained.

Sarah focused on paying attention.

"It can take any shape, but it will be an extension of yourself, similar to an arm or leg. It will obey your commands. It will however dissolve once you cut the connection." Adara demonstrated.

A ball of fire emerged from Adara, as it left her hands it took on a rough blazing humanoid figure.

Adara waved, the avatar produced fire-balls and juggled them about like performer.

"It will make fighting much easier, it can stay behind and fight while you retreat or fire spells alongside you, increasing your casting speed." Adara's eyes met her for an instant, she nodded.

******

Jess looked about the weird but lovely hallway, she was deadly afraid, she felt her previous decision was made in haste.

Still nothing to do about it now, she sighed and walked in what she hoped was forward, the hallway was decorated with morbid art.

A distinct painting catches her eye, shadows pour forth from a black sun, it half obscured the moon which is blood red, very creepy.

Another work is a statue-replica of what seems two headless slaves of opposite sex holding each other on the floor, that one sent alarms ringing in her head.

She was in some sort futuristic spooky Halloween castle, it was well tended but clearly lacking life, not a tree, beast or person in sight of the colorful walls.

Modern glass windows of poured grey light from the ceiling, but the actual light source was impossible to see through the glass.

The dark-grey walls expertly swallowed light, though everything was visibly it cast a bleak mood upon the entire place, the walls themselves seemed to expensively imitate cobblestone, but Jessica could see it was something else, stone couldn't be so perfect and wouldn't normally fit with the place..

'All I need is the flicking lights....' Jessica's eyes scanned every nook and cranny of the hallway as she took step after step on the red carpet floor, very slowly.

Cool air floated atop the floor, tiny slits on the lower wall emitted it in a light stream, it constantly gave Jessica goosebumps as it favored artificially ventilated air.

Soon she caught sight of a solid double door entrance, it looked made of solid metal with inbuilt handles, they didn't stick out of the door.

As she approached the entrance automatically parted open by the middle, quietly sliding into the sides of wall, Jessica stood there staring at them.

She gazed through the entrance and saw a figure awaiting a top a throne, lazily sprawled on it, one hand was raised idly moving and holding something aloft.

Behind the figure the empty night reflected crowded lights in the distance, far far up from the sky.

Jessica felt vulnerable, the platform was as huge, but held no railings, she could just fall off and die.

"Enter. I might never age, but I have more interesting things to do than to waste it tasting your bland fears." The voice was eerie, it felt as if it spoke right behind her and was clearly masculine.

Jessica gave a great squeak and jumped, she looked behind her and nothing was there.

Tentatively she turned to look at the figure on the throne.

"Yes, it is I." It gave bored sigh, and yet sounded right behind her.

That voice was messing with her head, her breathing quickened.

"Oh, hurry up will you? Your fear is evident, if misplaced, I won't kill you without reason. Actually I can't even do it if I wanted to. Stupid restrictions and rules you know." The figure sat up and beckoned her forward with his free hand.

That didn't help calm her down, Jessica stood there for what was perhaps half a minute.

"Really? No spine. Pleh, I've seen rebellious worms with more spines, still I suppose they lost them after I was through with them. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The voice broke down into a psychopath's hysterical laughter.

That was it, that was the final straw, Jessica turned and bolted the other way.

A sudden gush of wind blew against her, pushing her like a powerful underwater current.

It lifted her off her feet and carried her neatly in front of the throne, then it pressed her against the floor on her knees.

She tried to move, but was locked in place by invisible chains.

Magic it had to be magic, strangely she could move her head and she lifted it to gaze upon her captor.

"Well. At least you can look me in the eye." The man's terrible dark eyes froze her in place, the whites were slate surrounding both his black iris'.

She couldn't look at those eyes, she turned to observe everything else.

One hand was busy a small black sphere floating inches above his moving fingers, five smaller marble-like spheres rotated around the middle in a lazy circle, each was a different color.

That was significant somehow, Jessica knew it, one marble was a blaze of fire, another looked like frozen ice, the next was a semi-visible tornado, the other resembled Alex's healing bolt and the final was solid iron.

The brief glimpse of his face had revealed his moppy black hair which sprawled messily to his shoulders, it was course and uncombed as if he cared little for grooming.

Even his features had been a thin-shred over average, perhaps a pinch more but he clearly didn't put any effort into himself.

His extra-large black clothes looked expensive and post-modern smooth synthetic fiber, it was single piece which should have fit snugly on the owner, yet he was clearly a size too small and it hung from his figure.

Jewels and gold hung off him in excess, he sported at least three chains with jewels hanging on them, seven random fingers held black-jeweled rings.

His skin was an unhealthy shade of snow-white, it belonged in a morgue, his mouth was a thin unamused frown, he looked young perhaps sixteen but Jessica knew he was much older, all the guides the others spoke of were older than they seemed including Myru.

All in all, in Jessica's opinion, throwing in his tribal tattoo that spilled slightly from his neck, he screamed overly rich Gothic slob, not that she would say that to his face.

"You're thinking something bad about me." The man's tone sounded amused, and his frown quirked into a slight smirk before withering away again.

Jessica quickly looked to the floor, she'd thought she had kept her face controlled, at least enough to look neutral.

"No one looks away from me. UP!" The words were an imperial command.

Invisible hands gripped Jessica's face and drew them to his eye level.

His eye's were pitiless and cold, it drove shivers through her, she wanted to run away screaming.

She was sure she was about to die and be eaten, probably raped or dismembered.

She didn't want to die, this was her final mistake of her soon to be extinguished life, she couldn't even close her eyes in terror.

His eye's scanned her as they debated the best way to torture and flay her alive.

"Not much to look at are you?" The man's voice was neutral and his eyes grew bored.

Jessica blinked, the invisible chains around her ceased suddenly and she lay there like an idiot.

"Myru told me to expect you, didn't say much except to remind you of her warning, whatever that means. Now there's a woman that moves the blood." The man shrugged and a wicked smile crossed his face.

'Warning?' Jessica blinked and clicked that it was perhaps the one about offending powerful people.

Once more she reminded herself this was not someone she wanted offended.

Still this asshole was rubbing her nerves with his casual insults, she bottled it all up easily with a healthy dose of fear and paranoia.

She stilled her face and did her best.

"Just thought of something bad about me again. You're trying too hard, give up, nobody can lie. Not to me." He threw that out casually and without inflection upon his voice.

"Are you reading my mind?" Jessica suppressed a frown and tried hard to keep her voice steady, that was a massive invasion of privacy.

"What would you do, even if I was? You people, really, we're here helping for free and all you do is cry, bitch and moan. I'd have already killed over half of everyone I've met if I could." The man rolled his eyes and held his head on his free hand.

Jessica carefully tried to measure her breathe, this guy was talking about murder like an after-thought.

He hadn't even changed his tone, nor sounded joking, his cold voice re-ignited her fears and she gulped.

"No. I am not reading your mind, at least not with any PSI power I possess, I'm naturally just that good at reading peoples emotions. Now let's begin." The man straightened up.

"Begin?" Jessica blinked, her fear made her forgot why she was even here.

"Yeah your here for something right? Out with it. Ask away. This shit has gotten old quick." He leaned back unto his throne.

Jessica's mind kicked into gear as she tried to decipher his words.

Everyone else had said their guides just gave them new powers by offering, at least that was how everyone spoke of it.

This guy seemed to expect her to beg him for it, yeah, hell would freeze before that happened.

Perhaps she was going about this wrong, maybe she just had to steer the conversation in that direction and then he'd offer.

'Wasn't he supposed to guide me?' Jessica looked up, from the floor.

"You're a weird kind of stupid aren't you?" The man shook his head and snapped the fingers on his free hand.

"WHAT?!" The response jumped from her lips without thought.

Thin hard hands grabbed hold of her from both sides and dragged her upwards.

She turned to look, expecting solely the wind, what she saw drew forth a gut-wrenching scream.

Bones! Two men made of bones were holding her, even as she struggled against them.

She screamed to the sky, suddenly she choked and could speak no more.

"Damnnnnnnn bitch. So you're a screamer eh?" The man looked at her frowning.

Seconds passed and the room was still, she could breathe through her nose, but her mouth felt as if a rag had been stuffed into it.

For a full minute the man looked at her impassively.

"Hear what. I'm feeling generous. Especially since Myru decided to take your side. Who knows maybe you've got some potential bottled up somewhere. Doubt it, but I've been surprised before. So, what I'm going to do, is I'm going to let you speak. You'll ask me nicely for power and off you go to your merry little shit-adventure. Got it?" The man waited.

Jessica tried to say something, but nothing came out.

"Nod." The man suggested.

Jessica nodded, her eyes begun to tear up.

"Good." The man snapped his fingers and she could speak again.

Jessica tried to remain silent as a few tears ran down her cheeks.

"Well?" The man sounded impatient.

"....please, give me power...." Jessica blinked away her tears, the skeletons held her arms.

"Good. Not so bad was it? Normally I'd have you grovel at my feet for a few hours you know? I'm sick of looking at you though." The man beckoned his bejeweled hands forward.

The skeletons obediently dragged her forward close enough for him to touch, she flinched and tried to look away, but kept silent.

"Now. Normally this is taught by imagery. Stirring your desire and letting your spirit do the work--" The man was explaining, but Jessica had a question.

Opening her mouth to ask, she was cut off.

"Quiet." His tone was deadly serious.

She shut up.

"Good. Now as I was saying, my ears didn't appreciate your screams, so I'm going to take a bit of revenge." The man smiled evilly.

Jessica stirred, but she couldn't speak again and the skeletons held her in place.

"Feel free. Try to scream. This will hurt. A lot." The man's grin bore all his teeth.

He stretched his hand forward, Jessica trembled.