With a final contemptuous laugh, the mage merged back into the swirling vortex of blood as Jasper rose to his feet. As he watched, the vortex stabilized into a massive, horseshoe-shaped arc, with a veil of raining blood at its center.

He stumbled to the parapet, his ears still ringing from the hideous screech that had driven him to his knees, and squinted at the veil. At first, he saw nothing, but as his eyes began to adjust, he saw a ruined city.

The crumbling towers and fallen walls could have been the result of some siege, but the empty harbor, turned a graveyard for the great galleys strewn across its empty basin, pointed to some unnatural end for the realm. And if there had been any doubt, the blackened sun above the city put those to rest.

A terrible dread settled on him as he stared at that sun, a primal fear that locked his limbs in place. He struggled vainly against the sun's power, a prisoner in his own body as the black sun seemed to grow in size, and then the hideous screech returned.

As one, the men on the wall fell to their knees, hands clasped above their ears as the bellow hit them. Some of the lower-leveled cried in pain as their bones snapped beneath the pressure. Jasper was not so easily damaged, but it drove him a step backward, breaking him free of the trance the black sun had imposed on him.

Circle of Forgiveness. He looked away for just a moment, casting the spell on the screaming men, and when he looked back, something had changed. The city and its sun were obscured as a massive claw poked through the portal and grabbed hold of its edge.

Despite the overcast day, its scales gleamed with a light of their own, a purple so dark it could almost be mistaken for black. Talons as long as a bus sprouted from the ends of its fingers, digging into the dirt as the claw began to pull on the arch.

The portal tore wider, its form collapsing and restabilising as a long, toothy snout forced its way through, followed by a pair of red, slitted eyes. Is that…a dragon?

Jasper watched in horror as the beast's serpentine body wriggled through the volatile vortex of blood. As more of the creature appeared, it became apparent that it wasn't exactly a dragon. It was longer and skinnier, with six legs and no wings, and a heavily feathered tail that ended in a spike. A cousin of a dragon, perhaps, rather than the true thing, but that hardly made it less impressive. The beast was massive, nearly two hundred feet in length, and surprisingly fast as it slithered out of the collapsing portal. How the hell are we supposed to kill that thing?

"Where did you round one of these bad boys up?"

He spun around as a hand slapped him on the back, his essence surging for a spell, but it was unnecessary. "Lord Imḫullu? Thank god!"

"No thanks necessary," the blonde giant grinned, "and Ivan's fine."

"Damn, I'm glad to see you, but I thought Tsia said you couldn't help us directly."

"Eh, I wasn't going to, but the wyrm changes things." The Sidhe shrugged distractedly. "The gods and I have an unspoken agreement - I stay on my side of the River and they stay on theirs, but it's not an actual contract. Granted, his Divine Radiance was pissed off when I interfered in Nahassinnu, but" his eyes stayed glued to the beast that had nearly finished crawling through the portal, "I don't think he'll complain about my help this time."

Jasper didn't entirely understand the dynamic between the Sidhe and the gods, but, right now, it didn't matter. "Either way, I'm glad you're here," he repeated. "So how the hell do we defeat this thing?"

The Sidhe eyed him speculatively. "How fast can you fly?"

"I don't know. I think I'm pretty fast, but it's not like the spell comes with a speedometer," Jasper shrugged.

"Think you're fast enough to stay out of that thing's jaws?"

"You want to use me as bait? I can help fight-"

"No offense, kid, but you can't. A few more years, another hundred or two levels and maybe - maybe - you'd have enough firepower to tickle the beast, but right now? I'd be surprised if you could even put a scratch in Big Boy's scales."

It was an unpleasant truth, but Jasper could tell Imhullu wasn't lying. "Fine, if that's the only way I can help, I'll do it."

"Good." He nearly lost his footing as the Sidhe slapped him on the back enthusiastically. "I can take down the wyrm but I need a little time to prep the spell. Distract it for, like, three minutes and I'll do the rest."

"Got it." Refreshing Spectral Wings, Jasper vaulted to the top of the parapet and threw himself over.

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Three minutes when you're waiting for the microwave to ding doesn't feel too long.

Three minutes when you're playing a video game pass so quickly you don't even notice them.

But three minutes, as Jasper surged forward, wings tucked in a tight dive as the wyrm's teeth nipped his calf, felt long enough to marry, have kids, and grow old.

"Damn it!" He half-screamed, half-bellowed in rage as the wyrm's fangs ripped off a chunk of his flesh. That was hardly the worst of the pain, though, as the creature's red hot fangs seared the rest of his leg to the texture of damn near leather despite his fire immunity.

The usually languid wings beat with an urgency he'd never seen before, but they were not fast enough to stay ahead of the cloud of flames that exploded out of the rampaging wyrm's mouth. His clothes were the first to succumb as the world disappeared in fire, and his hair followed quickly. His skin was next, cracking and splitting like mud in a desert, before he burst out of the torrent, his spectral wings thankfully untouched by the fire.

A shadow flickered above him, and he cast a spell on pure instinct. Seraph's Burst. The extra speed the spell gave rocketed him out of the way as the wyrm swiped its claw at him, but also made it nearly impossible to control his trajectory. His glaive bounced off the dark scales as he slammed into the creature's leg with enough force to jar every bone in his body.

Temporarily dazed, he plummeted toward the ground, regaining his senses just in time to pull up. By now, the entire field was ablaze, the wild grasses burning with a ferocity and heat beyond mere fire from the creature's breath, and his skin charred further as he skimmed the surface.

Circle of Forgiveness. He cast through gritted teeth, rolling to his side as the creature's fangs snapped perilously close to his heels. Come on, come on, come on. This time, he avoided the creature's fiery breath, rising into the sky in a tight, controlled spiral as he fought against his instincts - for the wyrm seemed to emanate terror in a manner quite similar to the Atrometos, an inexplicable feeling of dread that threatened to overwhelm all sense and commanded all fools to flee.

But no attacks hurtled toward him. As Jasper glanced down, he saw the wyrm surge toward the castle walls, its body undulating like a serpent, as it reared back its head and roared. The men on the walls collapsed, helpless as it reared up and a dull light gleamed in its throat.

With a curse, Jasper dove back down, screaming as loud as he could as he raked his glaive across the creature's snout. As the wyrm's eyes followed him, he flipped on his back and fired a stream of orbs at point-blank range. Soul Sear.

Imḫullu had been right; there was no sign of damage in the wyrm's wide, black eyes as the bright, silver explosions from his spell faded away, but he had caught its attention. Flame consumed him again as the beast turned from the wall to chase him.

But this time, Jasper wasn't caught by the edge of the flames. This time, he was trapped dead center in its blast.

He tumbled head over heels as the explosion drove him forward. There was no up or down, nothing but an endless sea of fire in which he was adrift. His skin cracked and charred, his vision darkened as his eyes succumbed to the ravenous flames, and his screams snuffed out as the very air in his lungs was vaporized. Then he hit the ground.

His body turned to jelly as the concussive force of the wyrm's blast drove him six feet into the earth, sending sprays of dirt into the earth that, ironically, ended up protecting him as the dirt crystallized into a fragile dome of glass beneath the wyrm's oppressive heat. For a moment, the flames receded, a moment of sheer agony as his scorched and broken fingers twitched with a spell. Circle of Forgiveness.

The spell wasn't enough to heal his damage, not by a long shot. He screamed in pain as bones clicked into place and pink skin resurfaced from beneath charred flesh, but as his vision returned, Jasper could see a single black eye of the wyrm peering down at him, full of hatred.

He tried to move as the head swooped down toward the fragile glass shell encasing him, but his limbs failed him, tried to cast another spell, but in his frenzied state of mind, the essence slipped away like sand through a sieve. Death bared its fangs - but then the world exploded with a different kind of light.

The wyrm reared back as a torrent of lightning descended from the heavens, endless waves of electric fury that cascaded down its purple scales, and amongst those bolts, Imhullu danced.

The weapons he held were unlike any Jasper had seen, twin crescents that blazed as bright as the sun and were just as deadly. Every strike drew, every blow crushed scales, but the wyrm was not done yet.

Fire rose to meet the lightning, a storm of flame and brimstone beyond even what it had thrown at Jasper, and Imhullu vanished from sight. Time flowed like mud as he waited for the Sidhe to reappear.

"Nasty little bugger, isn't it?" Jasper nearly leapt out of his skin as the Sidhe manifested beside him, an instinct he immediately regretted as his body screamed in agony.

"Geez, it really did a number on you," the man chuckled. "Here. Drink this and then skedaddle. The others need your help." Something hard hit his chest as Imḫullu vanished again, reappearing in a flash of light above the wrym's head. He blurred forward, raking his crescent weapons against the creature's eye until its bellows shook the ground.

Reluctantly, Jasper tore his eyes away from the spectacle and tore the cap off the bottle. Whatever the Sidhe had given him lacked the sickly sweetness of a normal healing potion, but the effects were much the same. As his limbs snapped back into place and charred flesh receded, he recast Spectral Wings and, with a single, lazy flap, burst through the glass dome.

The wyrm fell to the ground, not dead yet, but writhing in agony as he darted back toward the castle walls. While a part of him wanted to help Imhullu finish the beast off, he knew he couldn't really do anything to harm it and, besides, he had another task. What did he mean, 'the others need your help'? Don't tell me the mage opened another portal?

As he crested over the wall, Jasper was relieved to see there was no bloody arch or rampaging wyrm ahead - but that did not mean the situation was much better, judging from the number of mini-hulks swarming over the walls. Crap.

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