Heln nodded, though he didn't look okay at all. His face was paler than Bel had ever seen it. Rhyss was already up, dagger out, staring at the doorway.
"So, it keeps us from getting out." Bel bit her lip, hard. She didn't like the feel of the globe. It was smooth and featureless, but she couldn't help but feel that it was hostile. She wasn't sure if it would do anything unless they tried to go through the door. "Maybe it's a helpful guide to get us home. Or we could try smashing through this white stuff, looks significantly less sturdy without the… glowing."
Rhyss stamped her foot down and a cloud of dust puffed up around her boot. She charged up her dagger and it was only a shout from Bel that kept her from getting her hand taken off when a blade of light shot from the orb. Rhyss barely managed to keep the light from slamming into her ribs, but it knocked the dagger from her hand to clatter to the floor. The light then oozed around the dagger and retracted back into the orb with it, the metal dissolving inside of it.
"It took my dagger." Rhyss shook her empty hand.
"And nearly stabbed you to death so let's call it lucky," Bel told her. "Okay. No magic. Okay. Now what?"
"Get back behind one of the stones." Rhyss suggested. Heln stumbled a bit, but Bel wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him along until he was walking normally.
"I think that's the power core," Heln's eyes were a little too wide. "It's hard to explain, even through my shields it feels like the constructs but… fuller, I guess."
"Well, hey, one mystery solved, they were coming from a giant menacing room and an ugly, angry teapot." Bel patted Heln's shoulder, gently. "Great job, team, a fantastic effort with amazing results, now let's go home."
The orb shot across the room towards them with astonishing speed, shifting as it moved. By the time it reached them, maybe a second later, it had four powerful limbs and huge, translucent bat wings. Its head looked like a combination of a wild boar and a nightmare, all tusk and horn.
Bel was moving before it landed. It barely missed them with a slash, claws sparking against the stone where they had just been. Rhyss had to grab both Bel and Heln and yank them away from a head butt that would have ended up with one of them gored. The hooves on its back feet rang like bells, but otherwise it didn't make a sound.
It was a light construct this time, made entirely of magic. Bel had read about them, but they had been deemed impossible to make, the power involved would take several Ihalins and the conflicting magic wouldn't possibly be stable enough.
Her teachers and textbooks were apparently very, very wrong.
It charged again. Rhyss and Heln went one way and she went the other. It whirled at Rhyss, nearly catching her with its claws. Its long tail whipped into Heln and he hit the floor.
The construct got so close Bel could see the shimmer of magical script across its glimmering green surface. It looked like glass full of glowing vapor. It would have been beautiful if it weren't in a horrifying shape that was trying to kill her.
Rhyss yelled and Bel yelped, falling to the floor and rolling before the hooves could touch her. When she sat back up she was dizzy, but the adrenaline helped her roll to the side and scramble back to one of the floating stones. She crawled underneath and the construct crashed into it above her.
The magic in the stone reacted with a loud boom. The construct staggered back, lopsided, the arm and wing that had hit the stone inflating to almost comical proportions. The stone cracked, the pieces groaning together before one of them slid down and hit the floor. The remaining piece still glowed. The inside was hollow, a mess of magical script, tangled threads swirling along the inside.
The construct wheeled away, trying to absorb the new magic. Bel was left standing, horrified, that she had managed to aid in the destruction of one of the stones.
"Bel! Come on!"
Rhyss and Heln were at the exit. Bel knew she needed to move, but it was as if everything was happening slowly, every detail jumping out at her. The light construct shook its head. The magic it had absorbed made its entire body larger, the vapor swirling faster within the glass cage.
Even if they made it out of the exit and ran down the stairs without breaking their necks, they would never outrun it. They had been ridiculously lucky just to get this far. It would never stop, it would never tire and there was absolutely nothing they could do to fight it.
The best they could do was somehow get back past the dragon and into the room with the trees.
If Rhyss wasn't going to lay down and die, then Bel wasn't going to even dream of it. She dashed across the room and they were all out the doorway before it recovered. The three of them hurled themselves down the stairs, only Heln's light stick keeping them from careening into the dark spaces where the stone didn't match up. The light bounced wildly in his hand, throwing dizzying shadows across the tunnel walls and ceiling. She heard a crash in the doorway behind them.
"How do I kill it?!"
She wasn't sure how Rhyss found the breath to ask, and she had no idea how she did the same to reply. "You can't! Our only hope is to get to the trees and hope we can hide!"
They all knew how impossible that was, but no one stopped, even as it bounded down the steps after them, a crash of bells and stone punctuating each landing, getting closer with every step.
They got to the landing and turned to follow the stairs, the construct smashing into the wall just behind them.
Rhyss stopped.
Bel
