Iahn reached an open canister. He crouched behind the stumplike protrusion, hiding from his adversaries, as he studied several pearl-stocked crossbows that hung within. He yanked the nearest from its mount and marveled. As finely fashioned as his other crossbow had been, before he'd lost it during the sea passage, this one was superior. Even more thrilling, the lower section of the unjacketed container held hundreds of bolt clips, each bolt lightly runed with magical vigor. He snatched a clip and worked the crank to load the crossbow. Smooth as silk. If he… A four-armed, human-sized insectoid with a mantis head hopped into view from around the canister. With its amulet shining malevolently on its chest, it directed a ribbon of darkness at Iahn. The vengeance taker screamed a syllable of warding, too late, and the ribbon found him. Pain seared his right leg. Iahn sighted along the crossbow at the creature's amulet and pulled the trigger. When the bolt struck the crystal, bolt and amulet were vaporized. The insectoid squealed and dropped, its legs and too many arms flailing madly before losing animation forever.

The vengeance taker allowed himself a nod of self-congratulation as he loaded another bolt.

Prince Monolith charged into the fray. His great strides propelled him past his slowly advancing smaller allies, through the forestlike maze of storage cylinders. Two mantis-men launched themselves at his legs, but he bowled through them without stopping, despite their speed and crystal-given strength. The earth lord ran at the emerald-skinned giant. It was the creature most likely to match its strength against his own elemental power. The prince had always wanted to test his strength against a storm… The giant's eyes sparked, and lightning sprouted from every nearby surface, each bolt skewering Prince Monolith. The electricity seared through his mineral nerves, locking him in place. He strained, threatened with his booming voice, and tried to call upon his power to move through stone, but the electricity held him caged. The pain crept toward intolerable.

Ususi spoke the words of a protective spell, and her sense of touch dulled as her skin protectively hardened. Monolith obscured her vision of Pandorym for a moment as he charged, but then her view was clear again. As terrifying as the force assembled before them was, her percipience allowed her to see that Pandorym's true strength lay beyond the portal it maintained in Deep Imaskar. Destroying the creature would cut the puppet strings of all the servitors it had transferred there. She saw Iahn take up a position on top of an unjacketed canister and fire his newfound weapon, one bolt after another. The others also advanced, but she couldn't take time to watch their progress. The wizard spoke a spell of wind, hoping to disperse or at least disturb Pandorym's cloudlike form, and so disrupt the portal into Deep Imaskar, but the entity held its form. If she couldn't close the portal, could she block it? Ususi spoke the short, sharp syllables that beckoned a solid magical wall. Before she could finish, a hail of serpentine, night-dark rays emerged from the creatures at the room's hub. Her eyes narrowed with concern as the shafts fell against her hardened skin… then she sighed. Her protective magic was diminished, but it held. The wizard finished her utterance. She felt nothingness coalesce toward solidity. Though normally invisible, this time she saw her wall take shape in her star-bright gaze. She thrust it into the portal Pandorym hid at its core. The plane of force slapped into place. Pandorym's vaporous emanation writhed and bucked. The entity didn't like the obstruction.

Immediately, she sensed her blockade come under attack. Pandorym sought to eject it. The wizard gasped and tightened the clamps of her arcane will more securely about her magical construction. Her spell-craft was tested nearly beyond its limit as she struggled to hold the wall in place. The portal at Pandorym's heart hazed, warped, and wavered, but held. She had hit on a workable strategy! If she could maintain the blockade, Pandorym's portal into Deep Imaskar would fail. Then she saw crystal-faced Shaddon Datharathi, back on his feet, running at her with the speed of a zephyr.

The pathetic man, utterly encased in his own folly, was Pandorym's perfect avatar. Bleeding cracks fractured his human carapace, and the radiance emanating from his mineral skin was dimmer than before.

Prince Monolith's initial strike had seen to that. Unfortunately, the man was still very much in the fight. Shaddon loosed a barrage of pitch-black tendrils from one outspread hand. Ususi sidestepped a handful, but several chewed into her stony skin, nearly exhausting its protection. She dared not relinquish her wall… but Shaddon advanced on her! Ususi muttered a prayer of thanks when the elf swordswoman intersected Shaddon's path. Kiril slashed with her sentient blade with a power equal to Shaddon's malevolent vitality. Shaddon's left hand and forearm sailed through the air, leaving a spray of blood and darkness. The Datharathi elder screamed, his voice suddenly quite human. Ususi sidled to the left, trying to maintain her line of sight with Pandorym and the gap in its defense. She sensed the intradimensional portal weakening. All she had to do was maintain her plug of force, and Deep Imaskar… what remained of it… would be saved.

Kiril maintained her two-handed grip on Angul's hilt as her foe's severed hand and forearm spun away. The crystal-encased human partially freed himself from Pandorym's control, enough to emit a pitiful scream. Too bad. Kiril took advantage of the distraction to plunge Angul directly into Shaddon's chest. Most opponents would have perished immediately upon receiving such a mortal blow. Violet light flared anew in Shaddon's eyes, and scything ribbons of darkness spewed from his mouth. Where the darkness touched the elf's flesh, they burned like ice and burrowed in. Angul shored up her will to ignore the pain. It was only skin deep, as yet. Mere pain couldn't hinder her righteous power. She pulled the Blade Cerulean free of Shaddon's chest, then swung it around in a neck-high arc. Shaddon's inhuman speed saved him from her first slash, and her second. Ribbons of darkness cut into her arm and leg. She felt nothing. Pain was a luxury. So was injury. Blood loss, shock, and dismemberment couldn't prevent her from accomplishing what Angul demanded. With her third swing, she decapitated the man. The body fell. Shaddon's head, free of its body, remained aloft, its virulent hate undiminished.

Warian's hair stood on end in response to the electrical storm near him. Blue-white bolts burned through the advancing earth lord… over and over. Prince Monolith was caught in a chain of lightning that pinned him for painful moments. Charred, smoking rubble blasted from the earth elemental's form like shrapnel, and Monolith yelled out, furious and hurt. The green-skinned giant was… some sort of titan? A storm giant? Something nearly godlike, Warian's subconscious gibbered. They couldn't face something like that! Could they? Could he? Warian clenched his prosthesis, and time floated down a slower path. Even the lightning encircling Monolith seemed to linger in its smoking trails. Warian moved toward the giant, dodging mantis-men and other horrors. Most did not see him, barely noticing his passing, while others tried to track what must have been a crazy blur. His dash ended with a magnificent punch to the giant's shin. He rotated his hips and shoulder into the punch as Zel had once taught him, transferring all the power of his arm into the knuckles of his prosthesis. Nothing happened. Warian allowed himself to fall back to normal speed. The giant's electrical cage winked out, and it grunted as its leg collapsed. The creature went down on one knee. Warian jumped away, nearly evading the giant's grasp. Greenish fingers closed around him, holding him, then squeezed. Even with the power of his prosthetic girding his strength and endurance, Warian gasped in pain.