With a grunt, Cheyenne faced the portal rift head-on. Just another training session, halfling. That’s all this is. She shook out her hands and bounced a little on the balls of her feet. Let’s go, Nimlothar.
When she thought of the glowing purple seed, a sharper burst of tingling magic spread from her core. She took a deep breath and watched the tentacles waving above her. Here we go.
A third tentacle shot from between the two and headed toward the halfling’s chest. Cheyenne shouted and moved without thinking, throwing her hand out like she meant to swipe away a thick cobweb. A screech burst from the portal as the third tendril jerked in the same direction as the halfling’s arm. The thing ripped apart at the center, spraying black fluid everywhere as the end of the severed tentacle flew into the forest.
“Okay…” Cheyenne paced slowly in front of the other tentacles, which were whipping back and forth madly. “Bring it.”
The tentacles stopped their wild flapping, stiffened, and bent at an angle before slamming down to spear the earth with pointed tips. She took a few steps back and caught a glimpse of glowing red eyes from within the shimmering wall of black portal light. Two more crackling spheres hurtled from her hands into the center of those blurry red eyes, and the tentacles that were barbed legs now rose to slam back into the ground again. Then the thing emerging from the in-between pulled itself across the grass.
Leg after spike-tipped leg slammed into the dirt. The blurred red eyes solidified as a roiling, shifting face broke free from the portal. Two gaping mouths opened one right after the other, displaying two rows of fangs each and dripping with a slime Cheyenne couldn’t bring herself to look at.
She blasted the nightmarish creature again and again with her energy spheres, stepping slowly backward across the grass. A shadow loomed over her from behind the portal wall, then a thick, snaking tail with a curved bulb and a sharp, glistening tip sailed through the air toward her.
Cheyenne darted aside again and sent more attacks crashing into the huge tip of that hard-shelled tail. Great, now there are scorpions.
The tail tugged itself free from where the stinger had lodged in the ground, spraying dirt and grass in every direction. Then it struck out toward her, and the halfling shoved it aside with both hands this time. The creature’s body lurched sideways. One of the legs still speared into the soil broke free with a crunch, and the thing screeched again.
Next trial ability. Use it.
She thought of the Nimlothar seed again and used that fresh burst of magical energy to pull her hands away from each other. The nightmare-scorpion shivered and split down the middle, one gaping red mouth tearing in half, but the two thicker tentacles bursting through the portal wall from either side of the thing’s twitching body wiped the halfling’s smirk off her face.
Cheyenne blasted one with a black sphere as the other wrapped around both her thighs. No barbs this time, but it squeezed tightly enough to make her cry out. She clamped her hands around the tentacle and summoned up more black energy, but the second tentacle cracked against her hands like a metal rod.
“Ah!” The halfling jerked her hands away, her legs and hips aching from the growing pressure. The second tentacle whipped around her torso and both arms, pinning them to her sides.
“Fuck you!” Cheyenne struggled against the tightening grip as the pulsing black tentacles squeezed, sliding farther around her. She pressed her palms against the underside of the nasty appendage pinning her arms down and almost managed to summon more spheres. Barbs shot from the tentacles beneath her hands, slicing through her palms, and all she could do was roar and jerk her hands away.
The nightmarish creature rose on newly sprouted legs, lurching and dragging itself out of the newest Border portal in Bianca Summerlin’s backyard. Two more pairs of glowing red eyes shimmered behind the wall, blinking slowly at her as the tentacles lifted Cheyenne slowly from the ground.
She grunted, gritting her teeth, and tensed every muscle against the increasing pressure. Her breath came in short gasps and she clenched her hands into fists, ignoring the searing sting of her pierced palms. I’m not going out like this. No fucking way.
The ground trembled again as the rest of the tentacled scorpion-beast shoved itself through the portal opening. Then the thing lifted itself onto thick, squat back legs and opened the split Cheyenne had ripped in its body into another red mouth. Pulling its tentacles back toward itself, the thing squeezed the halfling even tighter and started to pull her toward the rows of razor-sharp teeth in that gaping mouth.
The halfling couldn’t breathe. She could barely move. She closed her eyes and focused on the image of the glowing Nimlothar seed as she remembered it. I’m not done.
Black tongues of flame burst to life across the half-drow’s skin. The creature shrieked and lifted her back into the air, but it was too late. When L’zar Verdys’ daughter opened her eyes, their golden glow was replaced by a black light even stronger than that coming from the ripped portal. Black fire burned around her eyes, and as her lungs screamed for air, Cheyenne gave herself over to the drow magic coursing through her.
The flames covering her erupted into one massive, churning ball of dark light. They consumed the tentacles squeezing the life out of Cheyenne, racing down the undulating flesh of the in-between nightmare until there was nothing left. The tentacles crumbled into ash, and still the halfling was suspended in the air at the center of drow fire.
Cheyenne pulled a searing gasp of breath into her empty lungs and screamed.
The flames burst away from her, streaming toward the screeching beast and blowing it away in glittering fragments of black shell and charred remains. Every piece of the thing that
