Roger suddenly exploded into motion, his speed and agility incomparable to how they were when he was still a human. There was something in the air, an aura around him that was not quite like the magic we are all used to, but something otherworldly like only the dungeon can do. He was a monster now, and I could see that Liff’s fear was nourishing him because when he howled and she shrunk away, he seemed to do the opposite, growing bigger and stronger and looming over even me.

  I raised an Earth Wall to stop his advance, but he smashed through it as if it wasn’t there. The dust got into my eyes as I charged at him, meeting his own mad dash, Stone Skin flowing over my body to make a powerful exoskeleton. I felt its familiar cold weight around me, but my confidence wavered when I peppered the monster with Earth Shards that had the same underwhelming effect as the Earth Wall, not even slowing him down.

  With my Stone Manipulation, I used the environment to my advantage, though, and soon we were hitting each other with our powerful limbs, sending shockwaves through the room.

  He lifted me up, trying to slam me on a steel table. Even as I was falling, I retaliated with a punch to the face that rattled my own bones and knocked out some of his sharp teeth, but the monster recovered quickly and I was dunked with enough force to shatter the table and several of the stone plates protecting me. Then the monster snarled and pounced, spittle flying from teeth that were regrowing quickly.

  I rolled hard to the side, feeling the strain on my already aching body, using another Earth Wall not to block but to propel myself upwards. Its magic felt brittle, like the last one, because it was not made of true Stone but flimsy Earth that didn’t resonate with my element. Same with the Earth Shards: they lacked the density and power of the magic I wanted to command, but I had to use everything in my arsenal or I would lose.

  The fight went on. We destroyed much of the room in the process, gouges of claws in the concrete walls, smashed consoles that threw up fitful showers of sparks, dangling wires and the scent of blood. But while I accumulated wound after wound, the monster was able to shrug off most of the damage. My body was breaking down and not healing–Michael had tried to give me a healing spell but it didn’t resonate with my being, my inner soul at all, and it got rejected.

  I thought overwhelming defense and attack would make up for it, but now against a superior enemy I realize the folly of my thinking. Endurance has its limits when the enemy is stronger, faster, more durable than you–and can regenerate. This was the bio-lab all over again, feeling my body break down, the icy cold breath of death on my neck.

  I took a clawed punch to the gut while I was thinking about depressing past things, moping over my own inability to do anything. The pain came quicker than my mind could process the blurring motion as the claws pierced my defenses. It was like liquid fire poured in my veins, and I snarled back at the monster, descending into animalistic tendencies myself.

  There was no help for me here. So what if I let myself go wild? I raised another Earth Wall, but did not use it to escape this time. I went the wrong way, surprising the monster and using the opening to pepper it with kicks and punches. I was growing weak by the second, though.

  My skills, my magic, they were also fading. The Stone Skin had been stretched thin to cover its failing parts, plates and joints falling into heaps of inanimate rock, filling the room with spent magic. I felt like I was staring at the crumbling road ahead of me again, like I felt when I entered this second floor and faced the beginning of the challenge. I was losing faith in myself, I realized, going out with a bang but not believing I would make it out alive.

  At the same time, a distant part of my mind was immersed in the raw physicality of the battle. The rush of blood in my ears was like a faint song of power. The adrenaline, the power, the fight. They called to me, to a primal part of my being I thought buried long ago, the one that craved battle, that thrived on struggle. And so I struggled, concentrating on it while fighting, each blow to my face distracting me from the flow of battle as memories of my own impotence resurfaced.

  I grit my teeth. I was descending down the spiral again. Snarling, meeting the monster’s roar with one of my own, I decided that I was going to be a hero, for Liff, or die trying. There was no time for half measures, she was right behind me and I was the only thing that could save her from the monster. As the power of the body faded, I began to latch onto the song of blood in my ears with the power of my mind instead.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  The song became an orchestra, deafening. The booming drums of this song were made of Stone itself, the brass was rock and the strings were flowing rivers of cold, black magma. Molten stone that was also just Stone, not fire nor any other adulteration of elements.

  The next time I called for my magic, the music was so loud that I couldn’t hear the battle anymore, the breaking of glass around me, the sound of electricity from the smashed components on the tables. It rose and rose and I let myself be directed by whoever conducted this orchestra until…

  [Earth Wall] -> [Stone Wall]

  [Earth Shard] -> [Stone Shard]

  I felt a surge of power: cold, heavy, immense. Like the very foundations of the mountains. Something was changing within me, but I didn’t have time to investigate. Instead with my empowered abilities I managed to turn the tide of the battle. It lasted for all of two minutes before my body began to grow weak again. I started bleeding, the stone skin protecting me flaking off in big chunks that were stained red. I felt several bones break.

  My ribs flared and hurt from a punch I didn’t manage to deflect, making breathing hard. One knee barely supported my weight, I had to limp over to the monster who instead kept pouncing and jumping around. One of my shoulders was dislocated.

  When the monster charged again, I decided to meet him in one last show of defiance. There was nothing left, no tricks, no magic, no clever ploys. Opening my arms, I was going to meet the charge head on, and then blast him with all I could.

  Liff had been crying the whole time, hidden behind a wrecked console. Her sobs were pathetic, and they made my heart bleed. But there was nothing I could do.

  Or so I thought. I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.

  As the monster jumped at me for the final assault, one that would see me dead and remove the last obstacle before the abomination still calling itself Roger could get to Liff, the little girl suddenly stood up. Her face was a mess of tears, red eyes and unkempt hair but right now she looked determined, moved by powers beyond her own, radiant and shining.

  “Stop!” she yelled with all the power of a little girl. “You are just a bad wolf and I command the witch to stop you!”

  There was a moment of utter, preternatural silence. For a moment, it was as if the words Liff had spoken had some sort of power behind them, for the wolf stopped and looked around in what looked like frightened panic. Perhaps Liff was right, and this was nothing but a wolf like that of a storybook, and little girls could call upon the power of witches to come to their aid, and wolves were nothing more than unruly familiars to the witches, who could punish them and pull on their leash.

  Several seconds passed. Nothing was happening. Then the moment broke when suddenly howls of laughter pierced the air.

  “You thought…” the wolf howled, Roger’s animal mouth making the words barely intelligible. “You thought the witch was here? Hahahahah! She can’t hear you. She can’t help–”

  But then another voice cut through even his powerful bellows. It was a woman, but mechanical like iron itself was speaking. I felt it, in my bones, in my magic, the metal of this woman an estranged relative to my Stone.

  “W.I.T.C.H. AI online. Standby. Primary administrator status…”

  There was a moment of silence again, much heavier than before now that things beyond our control had been set in motion.

  “Primary administrator: Dr. Avus Thorne. Status: vital signs negative–Deceased. Assessing secondary administrator status: Subject designation Roger Peterson. Status: Biological and neurological parameters critically divergent from baseline. Compromised...”

  A translucent wall appeared around Roger, reminding me of the dome around the OA’s headquarters that even now Michael was trying to replicate.

  “Chain of command integrity: Null. Authority protocols compromised. Emergency directive activated: Safeguard LANDFALL assets. Recognized single viable survivor from LANDFALL program parameters: Subject designation Liff.”

  “Witch!” Liff shouted, pointing, the tip of her finger a magic wand. “Stop the bad wolf!”

  The shield around Roger suddenly constricted, losing volume and forcing the wolf into awkward shapes to avoid being crushed. Then a jolt passed through the whole room, a power surge that made the electric lights flicker as several broken screen struggled to come online. The voice of the witch tried to speak again, but it was distorted and fading.

  The screens died, and the lights darkened. The shield flickered, then vanished for a split second.

  The wolf was ready for it, now free and furious beyond any sense or reason.

  The wolf pounced on Liff.