Instead, I infused my spell with jinsei and anchored it on the edge of the terrace. Stone spikes exploded from the face of the ledge and impaled the warped closest to Abi. The barbed defense shredded blubbery flesh and drove the repulsive creatures back. A moment’s thought expanded the deadly fence for yards to our left and right. Any monsters who wanted to climb up to us would leave their guts hanging on those rocky spines.
But my defensive spell didn’t protect Abi from the creatures already on our level that had surrounded him. They were slobbering all over his stony form and draining jinsei at an alarming rate.
“Give Abi some space!” I gathered a handful of dust and air aspects to launch grit into the eyes of my friend’s attackers. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do on short notice. If something didn’t change soon, I’d have to break the talisman and really cut loose.
And where was the backup I’d called for?
“Eric, give me room!” Clem shouted.
The instant our fiery friend jumped out of the fray, Clem whipped her body around and unleashed her new technique. A powerful whirlwind surrounded her. It swept the warped into its merciless current and flung them through the air. In the blink of an eye, Clem’s powerful tactic hurled a dozen of our enemies out over the ruins. They plunged into the darkness, their bodies splattering against rooftops and in the streets.
“Thanks,” Abi groaned as he let his discipline fall. He backed away from the barbed edge of the terrace, his face ashen, his eyes sunken in their sockets. His core was nearly empty, and his body looked withered.
“Restore your strength,” I said. “We’ve got a few seconds before they figure out how to get around the barbs I put up.”
While Clem’s whirlwind technique had kept the warped at bay while it lasted, she’d run out of jinsei to fuel it. Eric caught her under the arms as she collapsed backward. He set her back on her feet and looked into her eyes.
“Cycle,” he commanded. “Jace and I will hold them off while you two recover.”
“We’ve got this,” I said.
And then there was no more time for talking.
The warped exploded up the stairs in a mad tide as if they sensed it was their chance to overwhelm us. They didn’t bother going around the spikes. Those in the front hauled their bodies onto the barbed stones and impaled themselves to let their allies clamber over their corpses.
There were just too many of them. Without my Thief’s Shield technique and my fusion blade, I couldn’t destroy enough of them fast enough to save my friends. We’d come so far, only to have our threads snipped.
Our threads...
Eric unleashed a burning bolt into the horde, blasting the creatures at its heart into flaming shards. He followed it by jumping forward, unleashing a flurry of fiery punches that scorched the warpeds’ flesh without his fists touching them, then leaped back to my side.
“I hope you’ve got a plan,” Eric panted. “We’re about to be overrun.”
“Watch this,” I said and activated the Vision of the Design and Weaver of Fate disciplines.
I wasn’t sure if my idea would work, but there was nothing to lose by trying it and everything to gain.
The nearest warped lunged forward, its tentacles slashing at my legs. It’s beak-like mouth snapped with a ferocious clack, just missing my knee as I jumped back. For a moment, the creature was separated from the horde, and my technique had slowed time enough to let me breathe.
Perfect.
My serpents grabbed a drop of jinsei from my core and braided it into a sloppy tangle of black thread. It was an ugly mess, but that was all right. Neatness definitely didn’t count in this case.
With only a sliver of time left in my Vision of the Design technique, I stitched one end of the thread to the writhing substance of the warped creature in front of me. It was like sewing a block of Jell-O and wouldn’t last long. It would have to do.
As time lurched forward again, I completed my final stitch.
And tied the warped to the Grand Design.
The hideous beast flopped and flailed as sacred energy from the pattern that defined the world flowed through the stitches. It screeched, a horrible, ear-piercing sound that brought water to my eyes and made my ears ring. When that sacred energy flared inside the monster, every other hourglass eye turned on it.
“Back!” I shouted to Eric and took my own advice.
Dozens of warped surged over the bodies of those impaled on my makeshift fence. They threw themselves over the one I’d bound to the Design in a feeding frenzy. The simpleminded creatures had been able to sense us even through the talismans, but they were far more attracted to the sudden surge of sacred energy I’d forced into their little buddy.
Relief washed over me, but it was short-lived. The decoy I’d created was already shredded, and it wouldn’t be long before its gelatinous body disappeared down the gullets of the other warped. If we didn’t do something else soon, we were dead.
“Circle up!” I barked. “Follow my lead. We have to build a wall!”
Abi and Clem rejoined us, their faces lined with worry, eyes sunken from exhaustion. Their cores burned bright, though, and that was all that mattered.
Barbed spikes erupted from the floor in a narrow perimeter around us. They were only a few feet tall, though, not nearly enough to stop the flood of warped. I pushed myself to gather more aspects and willed my serpents to work faster and faster. I lost myself in the simple, meditative act of grabbing aspects, reshaping them, and adding them to the barricade in front of us. The wall grew taller by the second.
It just wasn’t enough.
A squidhead threw itself onto the spikes in
