Author Roy's Corner

In the midst of a vicious tornado, containing so much sand one could barely see their own hands, floated the Temple of Erosion. Normally it'd be quite the chore to get inside the temple, as one had to traverse the ever shifting pieces of the Glass Bridge, chained magically onto it's float course around the Temple, but thankfully the Priests of Erosion kept a much less bothersome secret path into the temple. So it was that Ceallach Cassarah, who could be vaguely defined as a "mercenary type of person", entered the Temple directly from the back room of the Rainbow Shard Club with his Star Imp companion in tow. Casting his gaze around the dimly lit place, following after a man literally robed in Sand, he noted the state of decay and erosion in the walls. Only made sense, he supposed, since they worship an Erosion God.

"This planet is crazy." The Star Imp, Aea, sniffed from behind him in order to hold back a sneeze. "Sand this, sand that. Always sand! Whats good about sand anyways? Not like Stars, all bright and pretty..."

"Like you can talk, Aea." Ceallach replied smoothly. "All star imps do is obsess about Stars. Even your magic is based on it."

"At least Stars are worth obsessing." Aea grumbled, sneezing lightly due to the sheer amount of sand.

"All we need to do is make sure this ritual of theirs goes right and we're out." Ceallach offered, getting a grumpy nod from the Star Imp. "Good."

Any further discussion was interrupted by the passageway opening up into a triangular room, the ceiling of which vanished in the darkness, where several more sand-robed figures stood in a large triangle. Settling up against one of the walls, having an eye on all the enterances into the room, Ceallach let the Priests get to work praying or summoning their god or whatever inane nonsense they were up to. The priests started waving their hands about and speaking in some grating speech, immediately losing focus on their surroundings. They sure did look stupid doing that, in his opinion. The chanting continued, only occasionally interrupted by a small sneeze from the increasingly more annoyed Aea, and would continue for some time if all went according to plan.

Pinkel sighed as she sifted through the "treasures" in the ancient sand temple's catacombs. Everything was made of sand, glass, or glass with sand inside of it. It'd been fairly easy getting in; she knew that a place so impossibly guarded had to have some sort of alternative passage or some sort for the actual owners of the place to get in, and had decided that she'd just wait for the group of priests to show up and light the way. After seeing how they did it, she quickly moved to follow them, watching carefully for traps and the like. Once inside, she made her way down the hall to the right, looking for the obvious vault where they'd be keeping their precious relics.

Only thing was... it was all made of either glass or sand. Her goggles told her that they were all magical in nature, but they were certainly... bland in design. Baubles and nothing more, to be sure, worthy of being sold only to someone with a sand fetish.

So where was she going to find the real goods? Temples like this had to have something big that they were tying down...

She sighed as she stood up and inspected the items in each of her four hands. An hourglass, a glass grail, a glass sword, and a small pouch that was spilling sand from its pores endlessly. If anything, the pouch seemed to be the most valuable since it had some sort of infinity spell on it, but all it did was make sand.

"Hmm..." She held dropped the other things and they clattered on the floor. The pouch was held shut by a drawstring and nothing more, but something about it nagged at her.

She lowered her goggles onto her eyes and looked it over.

"Hmm..."

The young thief pulled the pouch open and looked inside. Unsurprisingly, she saw sand inside. Strange though, was the fact that the sand had stopped leaking out...

She emptied the pouch of sand and then closed it again, and waited.

Nothing happened.

Her goggles told her the magic was still there, but there was still no sand pouring out.

"Strange thing," She muttered. "I'll figure it out." She popped it into her pocket and then turned and looked the rest of the room over, then sighed, running her upper left arm through her hair.  "Back to the trash pile. Damned sand people," She muttered.

"Are you sure we'll find a cure here, Kryte? I mean, this temple looks like it would hold more curses than it would cures." The young, armored female inquired, glancing around the old ruin. It was only a rumor they heard from the nearby town. The townsfolk said that whenever they had problems, they would come to this old temple and somehow, the issue would be resolved. Whether it was magic that did it, or just luck, no one really knew.

"There could be a cure here, Adyna. It's better to check, then to not to. Best case we get a cure. Worst is that we lose some time." Kryte Aseca offered his traveling companion, shrugging to himself. He flipped over a stone slab, searching for anything. Maybe a clue. They really didn't know what they were looking for in the first place, so it really wouldn't help them much. Suddenly, a sock appeared on his left hand, and he sighed to himself, not wanting to hear the whiny, high-pitched voice of him for a long time. If ever again.

"I've told you already how to cure yourselves! So why do you keep searching for a cure when you already have one?" Came the voice of the one once referred to as Master Hanes. Kryte only shook his head, tiredly looking away in hopes of finding something else to focus on.

"Yes, we told you how to end it." Came the haughty female voice from a skull that had just appeared on one of Adyna's armored shoulder. Both warriors notably cringed when the looked, old memories coming back to haunt their minds once more.

"O-oh no. Not this again. We can't trust anything you two say anymore." Adyna stated, following the swordsman's example and trying to occupy herself with something that wasn't the two representations of their swords' sealed souls.

"Why can't you dear? Haven't we gone through a lot together?"

"Yeah, and you two didn't do much to hide your real goals either!" Kryte yelled, his rarely shown anger coming through. Though, that ended quickly, as he didn't have the energy to stay that way. "I can't even sleep all that well without fearing you two will take control of our bodies again." As it had turned out, Kryte and Adyna had to take turns being awake during the night, to prevent the two spirits from enacting their goals. Clearly, Kryte had the later shift, lasting from halfway through the night until now. Kryte walked onto the alter that was further into the chamber they were in, and glanced around, though he was finding absolutely nothing that looked like it would help.

"I told you, you two are wasting your time" Came Hane's high-pitched voice again. Kryte only stared down at the puppet, his tired eyes once again finding their focus again.

"Don't force me to use that ability again. Who knows how long it will take you to come back from it. Sure I'll probably destroy this temple, but at least I'll be rid of you for a few days. I can do without a weapon." Kryte said, forcing a confident smile on his face as he bluffed to the sock puppet. Surprisingly, it had worked, and the sock faded away from his arm. Suddenly the lines on the altar began to light up, as unknown magic began to activate. The swordsman could only manage an unintelligible "Huh?" before being engulfed in the bright light of the altar's magic.

"Kryte!!" Adyna yelled, before watching her companion disappear before her eyes.

"Well, that sure puts a damper on our plans..." The skull said, before sighing.

"Oh shut up."

( - )

"Huh?" The blue-haired swordsman said, rubbing his eyes with one of his hands. Nope, still not where he remembered he was. Clearly the fact that there was sand everywhere said that much. The temple he was in wasn't even in the desert. And then there were these guys standing around him wearing...were those robes of sand? Man that had to really uncomfortable. The few times he had gotten sand his boots had not been a fun time.

"Umm....Hanes, where are we?" He asked, looking at his left hand. Still there was no sock, and so it seemed Hanes was still in hiding. Just great.

Ceallach knew for a fact that magic was real, he dealt with it everyday ranging from some enchantment on the surroundings to Aea's abilities. However, he still couldn't help but be surprised when the Sand Priests, who he had all but marked off as incompetent sand zealots that paid well, actually summoned something with their annoying chanting and frankly embarrassing movements. The light started small at first, predictably being a sand-like yellow color, merely lighting up in a variety of runes within the area defined by the chanting Sand Priests. This got both his and the Star Imps companion, the latter of which ceased sneezing for the moment, as they prepared for a potentially bad outcome. Chances were unlikely, as he was still skeptical that the Sand Priests could actually summon a powerful monster, much less an Erosion God.

Normally magical rituals like this weren't too dangerous, at worst one of the chanters explodes in a magical fireball or something. However, there had been the odd occasion Ceallach had been witness to. A long story made short, he was reluctant to take anymore jobs from Chaos Cultists looking for a bodyguard encase whatever Insanity Creature they summoned decided to eat them. That entire outfit had been irreparably ruined, not to mention staining his hair a light strawberry. Hadn't even been all that good of a fight once he stuck a spear in the things eye anyways.

The sand-colored runes grew brighter, condensing into a mass of light. The Sand Priests stopped chanting, as well as moving their arms around, as they finished their part of the ritual. Everything would pretty much take care of itself. A few of the Priests preemptively started to kneel on the floor, heads bowed to the growing light, in expectation of the Erosion God. The light reached a critical point, glowing at it's brightest before shattering apart and washing away like glowing magical grains of sand sent flying through the air. In it's place was a man with blue hair and a very confused expression on his face. Ceallach let out a sigh, lowering his guard - Aea doing the same with a snort of amusement.

"Idiots summoned some poor guy instead, probably in the middle of his weekly shopping too." The Star Imp muttered just loud enough for him to hear. The man certainly had to agree with that estimate.

"Welcome, God of Erosion." One of the priests covered in sand said, bowing down. "We have waited for this day to come. The day in which you would lead us in the great fight against the Sandites!"

"The what?" Kryte questioned, rubbing his head. This was weird, really weird. If only that guy Ahote were here, he'd totally know what was going on. "What's a Sandite?"

"The Sandites are our people's ancient enemy. We have called you here so you can erode their city and cast them into the terrible Sandcean to their deaths. Surely that would only require a small amount of your vast power of erosion!" Another priest said, standing up from his kneeling position.

"Okay, that's nice..." Kryte started, realizing that they thought he was a god or something. "But I'm not this god you think I am. I'm just a swordsman from the plains. A very tired swordsman that needs sleep." He yawned, looking around the room some more. Maybe they would let him sleep a bit before sending him back to where he came. There was doubtfully any cure here.

"You...are not the God of Erosion?" The first sand covered priest asked. It seemed like he was doubting what he was saying.

"Yeah, I'm not." Kryte muttered. "Ah, there we go...A nice soft sandy spot on the floor." He then walked, ignoring the shocked looks on all of the priests faces as he focused in on his place to nap. Since Adyna wasn't here, he could afford to finally get some....well, decent sleep. Sleep was unfortunately never good anymore after certain incidents. Even Nightmares didn't seem so bad now that he was this tired.

"You...you..." The priest paused, tightening his fists as he stared at the swordsman that had ruined their plans so. They had cast that spell perfectly! Right down to ever last exaggerated hand movement!

"Mercenary! Kill this fool! He shames us all with his presence. He is no God of Erosion!" The priest demanded, turning to the man they had hired. They had planed on having the Erosion God kill him and his imp too, so they wouldn't have had to pay, but maybe the two warriors would end up killing each other. Or they could distract each other enough so he and his fellow priests could send them both into the great Sandcean.

Pinkel looked up at an elaborate alter appraisingly as she approached it. There were six thin columns that rose towards the ceiling, arranged in a half circle, with the ones closer to the center taller than the others. Inside the half circle was a glowing rune of some sort that made a complete circle within the columns. She approached it and frowned as she looked it over. Something about it seemed... familiar, but she couldn't... she couldn't place what it was.

"I've never... seen this before..." She muttered as she looked it over with narrowed eyes.

There was suddenly a flash, and she could see it. A monstrous figure that stood on four legs and had a short, animalistic snout-face with long incisors that stuck out of its mouth. The creature roared down at her with a great deal of menace and-

It was over just as suddenly as it began. She instantly took a step back, alarm rushing over her.

"What the hell was that?!" She cried out, looking around, bewilderment plain on her face. "Is that thing here?"

She frowned, not seeing another moving thing in the vast chamber, and, satisfied, shook her head and went back to what she'd been doing. She looked over at the altar again and blinked; those floating, yellow gems hadn't been there the first time she'd looked at it...

She walked over to it and inspected it. Only one of the floating gems was yellow; the other two were either orangeish-red or transparent.  The three gems were floating around in a circle formation, equidistant from one another.

She lowered her goggles onto her eyes and looked them over-

And was blinded.

"Ack!" She quickly removed the goggles and then rubbed her eyes, then stared the gems over. "Hmmm... that's... probably best left alone. A shame, they look valuable."

With that, she shrugged and turned, walking away from the Altar. As she looked around, she noticed that the alter seemed to be set inside of a larger version of itself - she was now facing six much larger stone pillars, and, now that she looked, the ground seemed to have the same rune -

When she reached the center of the runic circle, there was a sudden burst of light and she quickly raised all four of her arms to block her face.

The ground began to shake heavily and sand fell from the ceiling and started to cloud up around her.

"Damn, it's a trap!" She quickly looked around for a way out, and started running towards the side, when suddenly the walls of the runic circle on the floor shot up towards the ceiling. There was a sudden, glow of light rising up towards the ceiling from the floor and she was blinded again.

When the light faded, she quickly looked around and noticed that she was in a room full of people. There were several sand priests, and apparently two mercenaries, hired to protect them from whatever.

Not only that, but she noticed that altar from below and its larger half had joined her in the room, only the altar had grown in size to match the other half of the circle, as had the three floating stones. The three, now man-sized floating stones began to spin around in a circle, faster, faster, and faster, before lightning and sand started to flow around the room with a violent wind. Pinkel fought to stand up and held her arms up to protect her face as she looked over at the gems and noticed a small, growing sphere of black energy growing in the center. A malevolent energy, blacker than midnight and more chaotic than a raging newborn star cluster nebula flowed out from the sphere in a spiral.

"GROAAWWRRRWRRRRRR!!!!"

Pinkel nearly lost control over her bodily functions as she heard the soul splitting roar. Suddenly, the face of the creature she'd seen before poked out from the sphere and glared at all of those present before letting loose another roar.

"RAWWWWRRGGGGGRRGGGG!!!!"

The sphere quickly began to grow in size and the creature started reaching out of the sphere. She turned to run and there was an explosion of energy that knocked her off of her feet. As she tried to stand, there was yet another shockwave, more powerful, more deafening than the last.

Finally, she turned to look up as the powerful winds became even stronger, pushing her away from the sphere before there was one final shockwave of pressure that bore down on her and the black sphere exploded, leaving one menacing monster standing in its center.

The creature had odd markings up and down its body. It was a somewhat cat-like quadraped, with a small head and large upper torso and smaller hind end. The monster had metallic armor over its silver, red, and gold body,  and its eyes glowed with a terrible, terrible menace.

The creature growled, and the entire room vibrated with its fervor.

"FOOLISH MORTALS. YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU HAVE STIRRED. KNOW TERROR, FOR I, FJUMVNDOLR THE VORACIOUS, HAVE COME TO DEVOUR YOUR FLESHLING BODIES AND SOULS." The creature roared once more at an intense volume and raised one massive paw before slamming it into the ground, sending a shockwave around the room. It stood up on its hind-legs and held up a hand, and an equally imposing blade appeared in its grip by magic.

Pinkel was already crawling towards what appeared to be the nearest exit on all six of her limbs, at a rapid, rapid speed.

Ceallach sighed again when the Sand Priests did a flying pirouette off the handle and stuck the landing firmly on the crazy side of the line, ranting and ordering the hired body guard to kill the blue-haired man they had stupidly summoned. Hefting up his spear and shield with only the most mild amount of reluctance, it wasn't like he had any particular reason to kill the guy after all, he figured he might as well get down to business. Aea also prepared, getting ready to aid the fight if need be using her magical abilities. Normally he didn't really like having her help when it was one on one, or even one on two, but he figured that having the better allies was a part of being the stronger being and thus allowed her to help him when he actually needed it. He wasn't blindingly stupid with pride, after all.

That is, he fully intended to get down to business. However, a bright light formed in the center of the room that took his attention. When it faded, several crystals and some girl had appeared, the former beginning to spin and cause a big, dangerous mess of lightning and sand and wind. Another light appeared, black this time, that grew until a loud roar sounded in sync with some sort of monster pulling itself free from the black light. The creature caused several booms that shook the room, derailing any thoughts of sticking around just as violently as a brick wall stopped most things. Unfortunately from the sound and look of it, the beast wasn't one of the things a brick wall could stop. In fact, the big show of strength it was putting out was unfortunately indicative of a creature that could easily tear down the goddamn walls. He really, really hoped it wasn't actually going to tear down the goddamn walls. Monsters he could fight, but thousands of pounds of stone and sand crashing down on his head was a bit beyond his power to do anything about. He took note of the girl quickly crawling her way towards the doorway on the far end of the room, before another roar sounded out and a massive blade smashed through the doorway in a giant horizontal slice.

This, as the stone was made of sand like everything else on this godforsaken planet, kicked up a lot of dust as the doorway was ripped apart and several stones were sent flying across the room. One of the Sand Priests was unfortunate enough to be in the way, one of the pointier stones impaling him in the forehead and dropping him with only the start of a cry of surprise. The other Sand Priests managed to freak out enough to make up for that particular ones lack of ability to do so, some merely acting surprised while others attempted to flee the room. One however was exceptionally stupid, and approached the still-clearing dust cloud while channeling magical energy between his hands.

"How dare you defile this temple!" The priest yelled, raising his hands in front of him and letting loose a massive blast of pressurized sand into the dust cloud.

"Oh, he's so dead..." Aea muttered, shaking her head at the stupidity. Ceallach nodded his agreement, tactically deciding to wait for whatever it was to emerge before attempting to attack it in order to get a better grip on what the hell was going on.

Just as Aea predicted, a massive claw-covered paw-like hand reached out from the dust cloud and wrapped around the Sand Priest, crushing the man in it's grip with a sickening snapping squelch before pulling the corpse back behind the veil of sand. Unpleasant, and discouraging as far as Ceallach was concerned, sounds followed a few moments later.

"Oh shit, that thing is huuuuuuuge!" Aea gaped, managing to get over the sudden appearance of the beast in order to do so, the short Star Imp feeling all the shorter as the obscured outline of the massive beast slowly became more and more visible as the dust settled. He was starting to get the feeling that he was either going to REALLY not enjoy this, or have the time of his life. It was always hard to tell which it would end up being. Aea was the same way, though much less calm about it. To be expected though, as Space Imps in general never really were big on a lot of the "restraint" concepts other races employed.

Hopefully this would just be another example of why they should stop taking jobs from religious zealots, instead of the site of their likely scattered remains...

Seeing the door slashed to bits miliseconds before she could get through it, Pinkel leapt away from it and looked up at it in surprise. She turned around and looked the room over, the sounds of a grisly death making their way to her ears and she winced.

'Okay, the way I see it,' She thought, looking the room over, 'I've got about forty seconds before that thing is done making breakfast, lunch, and dinner out of sand priests and mercenaries and who knows how many before this place falls apart completely. Thirty seconds to dig through this mess, or find another exit.'

She quickly looked around the room and found, to her dismay, that the only other exit was on the opposite side of the monolithic room - behind Mr. Voracious, which was definitely not the direction she wanted to go. That left digging.

She quickly started digging through the sand that was once a door with all four of her arms, sending a solid stream of sand behind her. Not a moment later, as the sounds of bones crunching and a man's fading shrieks reached her ears, she disappeared behind the sand.

A moment later she popped out on the other side of the door and continued digging her way through until she was free.

Back in the summoning room, Fjumvndolr was nearly finished with its bite-sized treats. It grabbed one of the fleeing, terrified sand priests by the leg and tossed it straight up into the air, then opened its mouth. The priest fell into its gullet and was swallowed instantly, the sounds of his screams vanishing.

"DELICIOUS. MORTAL FLESH IS ALWAYS BEST WITH COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF TERROR TO LIVEN THE FLAVOR." It reached down and grabbed three or four priests in its free hand and started stuffing its mouth with them as quickly as possible.

The sand was pretty damn comfortable actually, despite it being a little itchy. Kryte had slept one worse conditions before. Much worse conditions. Still, it was rather hard to fall asleep in any location with all that screaming going on. Geez, didn't these guys have any manors? It was like they had completely forgotten he was there!

He propped an eye open, looking to see what all the screams of terror and wails of pain were all about. Unfortunately the only thing he saw was the sandy wall right in front of his face, made with sand bricks. That was something he might have to ask about. Later. Flipping over, he watched tiredly as the group of priests was grabbed by a mighty big paw thing. They were lifted up rather quickly and then pushed into that large mouth with the crazy sharp teeth. He watched as they were swallowed immediately as the mouth closed. The Swordsman sighed, sitting up and rubbing his head before glancing at his left hand.

"Master Hanes, what do you think we should do?" He asked the hand.

"Ah, so I'm 'Master' again am I? Seems you only use that when you need me!" The Sock puppet taunted, chuckling with high-pitched delight.

"Well, now isn't the time to be enemies. That thing is clearly more worrisome than my mistrust of you. Besides, if I die, you'll be stuck as a sword again."

"Fine fine, 'Master Hanes' it is then. But as for him," Hane's paused, turning to look at the large monster. "I don't know. I never faced a being like him in my time."

"I see, well..." a slight smile formed on Kryte's face, his eyes beginning to focus in on his target. "Let's go!" He charged forward, his right hand pulling his rusty sword out of his sheath. Hopefully he would be fast enough to keep out of the creature's grasp.

Fjumvndolr swatted the charging young man out of the way with an absent claw and turned back to his feast of sand priests.

"WAIT YOUR TURN, FOOL. I MUST DEVOUR THESE DELICIOUS PRIESTS FIRST!" The monster grabbed one particular screaming man and, without ceremony, pulled the man apart at the stomach. Before the man's screams could even cease, it brought the torso, with organs hanging, to its mouth, and sucked the juice and organs into its mouth, promptly ending the man's pained cries. "THESE MORTALS ARE PARTICULARLY DELECTABLE. PERHAPS I SHALL SAVE SOME FOR THE LARDER."

"That thing seems like it's pretty strong to me, Ceal." Aea muttered, the mercenary pair keeping off to the side, out of the attention of the monster that was currently snatching up Sand Priests like they were nothing - Even batting the blue haired man off to the side without a second thought. The Star Imp wasn't a coward, and was more than willing to scrap with anyone she had a reasonable chance of beating with a little work and some magic, but giant demonic monsters like this one tended to be on the list of things most people would probably lose against.

"Probably not something we could fight head-on, at least." The blonde mercenary nodded, motioning for his companion to edge towards the remaining doorway with him.

The pair kept their distance as much as possible, attempting to blend into the sand-wall background by not making sudden or attention-grabbing movements, while the creature continued to snatch up the few remaining Sand Priests left. This was a fairly hard task to accomplish when one had bright yellow hair and was clothed in oddly pristine white clothing - Considering all the sand - against a dark yellow to dark brown background. Aea may have had an easier time of it due to being considerably smaller, were it not for her outfit. Space Imps being fairly weird in the first place, each family having their own eccentricities, the Star Imp was clothed in a black cloth body suit of sorts that was patterned with brightly colored stars. If it was the bright white of Ceallach's clothing, or the variously colored stars of Aea's, probably would only ever be known to the beast itself - And nobody would really care to interview it on the matter, if it would even wait long enough to see what you wanted before eating you, so it was effectively a mystery.

Regardless of the cause,  Fjumvndolr The Voracious caught a glance of color moving in the corner of his eye and curiously paused in his slaughtering of the Sand Priests - There was only one or two left anyways, and they'd be easy enough to fetch for storing in the larder - to look that way. Fjumvndolr's eyes lit up with even more evil glee,  if such a thing were possible, at the sight of the easily recognizable form of a Space Imp. Space Imp's, you see, were easily notable thanks to their prehensile tails and comical pointy ears - Which were also prehensile, and often being a few inches taller than their head -  having cosmic-themed tips. Star Imps, specifically, have Star-Shaped tips, as one would expect. So it was that Fjumvndolr spotted the tell-tail signs of one of his more favorite foods sneaking off, and swiftly acted to prevent it from escaping. Faster than one would expect it to be able to, the monster let out a delighted roar and it's sword came cleaving through the wall - Forcing Ceallach and Ara to dive opposite directions in order to avoid the unexpected assault.

"A SPACE IMP, OF ALL THINGS!" Fjumvndolr laughed as it pried the sword loose from the sandy stone and stared down at the considerably smaller Star Imp. "PERHAPS THE GODS ARE NOT TOO TERRIBLE AFTER ALL, FOR SUCH A DELICIOUS SNACK TO PRESENT ITSELF SO SOON AFTER MY ARRIVAL!"

The Star Imp, clearly terrified by his size and power, pressed up against the stone wall. This caused another hideous laugh to sound, and the monster reached out a claw to snatch up the little morsel. The white-clothed human with the puny spear and shield fled out of his line of sight, and the Star Imp was apparently gibbering to itself in fear while it's ears twitched wildly. Unexpectedly, however, a bright light shone from the floor between the two. Caught by surprise, Fjumvndolr looked down just in time to receive a blast of Star Fire to the face. It barely hurt the powerful demon, simply resulting in a brief moment of flash blindness that soon resolved itself, but that was enough. In the instant of being blinded, to it's dismay, the Star Imp had up and vanished. What there was, however, was the lingering traces of magic on the ground in a runic pattern as well as one etched into the wall the prey had been pressed up against. Recognizing that he'd been tricked, Fjumvndolr let out a roar of frustration that shook the walls.

Meanwhile, Ceallach was swiftly making his way down the hallway after making it to the exit, pausing as a blue light appeared on a wall as he approached. Just as soon as it had appeared, his long-time companion tumbled backwards out of it into a sprawled heap on the sandy floor, the portal vanishing immediately after. Hopping to her feet, Aea breathed a sigh of relief on noting she had successfully managed to end up where she had wanted, although was a bit dismayed over the frayed and smoking state of her clothing. It was only to be expected, however, when one used the power of stars to get things done. Almost everything about Star Magic involved heat or fire in some manner. But at least she wasn't actually on fire this time.

"Why you don't simply learn a normal teleportation spell, I don't know." The mercenary shook his head.

"It wouldn't be a problem if you'd just cough up the money for a heat-negating enchantment!" Aea retorted, trying to smooth out some of the more frayed parts.

"Buy it yourself, instead of all those outfits." Ceallach countered.

"Clothes for Space Imps are hard to find! I have to get everything tailored, so it's hard to save up!"

"Then just get something ordinary."

"Says the guy who refuses to wear any color other than white!"

Any further debate was cut off as another demonic roar resounded through the building, reminding the bickering mercenaries that there was in fact a giant monster just a hallway down from them.

Kryte groaned to himself, shaking his head viciously to get back into focus. To think he would be thrown off in such a backhanded fashion. That was rather annoying. He hadn't made a mistake like that since he had gone up against that jerk Lunk and his crew of thieves. Kryte soon was once again standing, his legs bent as he waited to see what the big demon would do. It was rather frustrating though, despite how he tried to keep balanced, the sand beneath him was not willing to cooperate, and kept shifting.

The Demon let off a loud roar, and all he could do is stand and stare, fear gripping him so much that he could not move a muscle. Just what was this thing?

"Now is not the time to be frightened, Kryte," said Hanes, the white sock puppet watched the monster eat the last of the priests that were in the temple. "He's out of easier targets. We're probably next. So what will you do Kryte? Fight or Run?"

"What would you do master?" Kryte asked, a slight smile forming as he heard the high-pitched chuckle of the sock-puppet master.

"What would I do? Heh, I would fight until I would know for sure I would win or not."

"That's what I was thinking!" Kryte yelled, taking a step forward into the sand before pushing down with enough force to lift him off the ground. However, his foot slipped in the sand as the sand did not like to ever be cooperative for Kryte, and so his intended back flip turned out to launch him face first into the hard sand column behind him. He it the pillar hard, and fell to the floor. He laid there for a few moments, seemingly unconscious until a flash of light emitted from the sock puppet, which had just disappeared. Suddenly the swordsman was once again on his feat, seemingly trying to find his center of balance again.

"How you could manage to knock yourself out after that display of determination, I'll never know," A deeper voice came from Kryte's mouth. Not much had changed about the man, but now his once blue hair was pure white. "But it seems it's up to me to make sure we get through this. You owe me for this, Kryte. It's just too bad you won't be awake to witness this."

"HAHAHA! THAT WAS AN INCREDIBLE DISPLAY, HUMAN!" Fjumvndolr commended the man, clapping his over-sized claws together in his amusement. "IF YOU FIGHT ME LIKE THAT, I WON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT KILLING YOU! YOU WILL KILL YOUSELF! HAHAHAHAHA! "

"Oh don't worry, I'm much better at killing than he is." The swordsman said, grinning while gripping his rusted sword in his left hand, which began to glow with an eerie light. "This may not be my body, but, It should work rather well for now" And with that said, the image of Kryte seemed to freeze in place, seeming to be transparent. Instantly more Kryte's seemed to appear, getting closer and closer to the demon, while the ones in the rear began to disappear. Soon there were fifteen somewhat transparent images of Kryte, each in a different attacking pose, surrounding the demon.

"W-WHAT IS GOING ON!" The monster cried out, getting no answer. Instead he began to feel several slashes across his body, sometimes seeing a streak of the eerie light of that sword slashing at him. Suddenly there were even more images of the white-haired swordsman around him. Some of them were even in the air, and they were disappearing soon after they appeared. Even though he attacked the images, they just disappeared as if no one was even there. He couldn't even keep up. However, the attacks were barely hurting him. They only felt like shallow scratches on his godly body.

"HAHAHAHA! YOU THINK THIS CAN HURT ME? YOU ARE ONLY DELAYI-" The monster was cut off as the swordsman cut at his mouth. In an instant, all the images were gone, and the swordsman stood a few feet away, breathing heavily.

"I see, this body can't quite handle that much huh? It seems I overestimated his body a bit." The white-haired swordsman commented to himself. "Well, it seems it is time for me to take my leave. Goodbye!" He yelled, running as fast as his body would take him. He couldn't defeat the monster by himself, and there was no way he could afford to let Kryte die now. He still needed to work more on this body before the ritual came. He also had to make his way back to wherever his chosen one was at.

"GROAWERRAWGG! NO ONE MAKES A FOOL OF FJUMVNDOLR THE VORACIOUSLY HUNGRY!" There was another roar and the creature suddenly bound towards a wall, and... simply burst through, since it had all the strength of a sand castle compared to it.

Pinkel sighed as she stood up and stared out at the raging sandnado that was keeping the temple safe from intruders... and also locking her in with that god-demon monster thing.

"GNAT, SHOW YOURSELF, THAT THE GREAT FJUMVNDOLR MAY CRUSH YOU, AND I WILL BE SURE TO DEVOUR YOU QUICKLY."

Pinkel simply turned and started running towards the sandnado without a second thought, being sure to lower her goggles and cover her mouth with a piece of cloth. The intense winds full of sand rubbed up against her angrily with all the force and heat of... a really fierce sandnado.

Almost ten seconds in and her skin was almost completely raw, but that was much better than being digested by some kind of monster from the abyss.
Ten more seconds later and she was through the sandnado, and much worse for the wear. Sand in her hair, clothes, shoes, and even some had gotten into her goggles. It was on her skin, which was now raw everywhere and hurting like hell. There was sand in her ears and nose, her buttcrack and between her toes, sand in her fingernails and sand in her bellybutton. She was really starting to get tired of all of this Roy damned sand.

Ceallach and Aea had, on hearing the roaring and the sound of a wall being crashed down, picked up the pace and were on their way out when a white blur shot past.

"What the..." Aea muttered, the Star Imp and her companion slowing to a stop. The blur skidded to a halt, some loose sand getting kicked up in the process, not far in front of them. Both mercenaries blinked in surprise, recognizing the man that had been accidentally summoned by the Sand Priests right before that big monster appeared. He was panting, as if he'd run a marathon, but otherwise seemed to be in pretty good shape for getting slapped into a wall. Well, his hair was white now for some reason. Some, probably magical, reason that was not all that important considering the situation.

"Keep moving." Ceallach stated after his initial surprise wore off, picking up his swift pace once more. He tilted his head to acknowledge the formerly blue haired man as he passed him, offering a small comment. "There's safety in numbers, if you can keep up."

Aea scrambled after Ceallach, having actually been left behind on various things - Thankfully not important things, such as taking too long with some trivial task, as his patience in vital things was a bit longer lasting. As she also passed the strange man, she gave a cheerful comment, not even bothering to prevent Ceallach from overhearing it. "He's mostly talk. He'll only leave you behind if you annoy him too much."

The White-headed swordsman nodded. "I see..." With that he followed behind the other two, not entirely sure if it was the best idea. But it was better than being eaten. It was unfortunate though, this body was not up to his qualifications just yet. He had been far too hasty in his attempts to take over earlier than he should have, as his ability was too much for Kryte's mortal body to handle. It had been a long while since he had actually felt the pain of exhaustion. But he knew he needed to keep pushing to get out of this situation, and get back to Adyna and his love.

"By the way...where are we? After being summoned to this temple from those ruins, I doubt I will be able to figure out how to get back so easily." The man said, in wonder. He had never seen a temple made of sand in his life time. And yet, it seemed so well built, even though sand should not have been able to support the weight of the sand roof and the sand walls. In fact, it should just be a desert!

He gasped for breath, feeling that the exhaustion of that last technique was catching up to him. And they weren't even running that fast. The technique probably took up most of his energy. No wonder Kryte always needed to eat.

"And how long till we are out of here?"

Fjumvndolr roared in delight as he felt the priests in his belly digesting. His strength was returning after all of these long eons! He could only return to his perfect form with the help up a multitude of virginal sacrifices, but hell, he hadn't felt this good since the Beginning of Ages!

"WHERE ARE YOU, TASTY MORSELS? FJUMVNDOLR CAN NO LONGER WAIT TO DINE ON YOUR SUCCULENT FLESH." As the creature said this, it crashed through more walls until it was finally outside of the temple.

There! Three little creatures, trying to escape!

"DELICIOUS, DELICIOUS MORTALS! MY BELLY CALLS TO YOU!"

"The Land of Sand and Wind, but most people these days call it Sandwind." Aea explained briefly as they walked through the hallways of the Sand Temple, sneezing lightly once more and adding a grumbled comment. "Sand Hell, more like it. Stupid sand."

"This path should take us safely through the storm, and back to the Rainbow Shard Club." Ceallach interrupted, indicating the glass bridge within view from the now visible exit on turning a corner. The entire Sand Temple was surrounded by Glass Bridges, but only one of them was the true way in, as the storm was a bit weaker there. Sure, you could get in from the others, but the sand-filled tornado would do a fair bit of damage. Some of the bridges were the hangouts of various Sand Creatures, as well, though it was mostly Wild Sand Dogs.

Outside, the wind whipped around them roughly and blew small amounts of sand around, but that was extremely tame compared to the ever-present Sand Tornado. Any relief on reaching the Glass Bridge was cut short, however, as a rumbling sound forewarned the creature they were fleeing from crashing through one of the walls nearby. Rather than waste time gawking and getting eaten, Ceallach made a break for the Glass Bridge.

"Move! Across the bridge!" The white clad mercenary shouted, Aea scrambling after him - Being smaller, she had to run twice as hard just to keep up with the longer strides of her companion.

Fjumvndolr licked its chops as it started after them, tongue lolling out of its mouth. The creature was not at all slowed by the fact that the only way after them was by running on the small glass bridge that they were moving towards.

"NOW NOW, DON'T RUN, TASTY MORSELS. THERE ARE FAR WORSE FATES THAN PASSING THROUGH THE GREAT FJUMVNDOLR'S BOWELS. YOU SHOULD BE HONORED THAT I DO NOT SIMPLY BANISH YOU TO THE VOID OF NFESTR KADUS. THOSE DIRTY MIND FLAYERS HAVE SIMPLY HAVE NO SENSE OF FINESSE."

The Swordsman ran as hard as he could, given his exhaustion, and started to cross the bridge. If this kept up, he wouldn't be able to do much more than crawl.

"Is there anything we can do to stop its advances? Like maybe shatter this glass bridge?" He asked, still holding his sword tightly. If he let go, both he and Kryte would be done for. Why did Kryte have to knock himself out at a time like this? They'd be much better off if both of them were there. Besides, as far as monsters go, this one was definitely one of the weirdest. He wouldn't allow himself to be eaten by the likes of him.

"On the other side of the bridge is a... Well, it's some magic shit! It'll take us to the backroom of the Rainbow Shard Club. I don't think Hungry over there can fit!" Ceallach shouted, leading the way as all three made their way onto the Glass Bridge.

However, Fjumvndolr wasn't going to make escaping so easy. With a quick bend of it's powerful legs, the monster hurled itself up and through the air - Unbothered by the high winds above the Glass Bridge - and landed in their way in the middle. The bridge, surprisingly, held together from the impact of the landing. What didn't hold together, unfortunately, were the chains holding it in place. The force of the beasts landing caused the chains on one side to crack and shatter apart, resulting in the bridge beginning to tilt. The other chains weren't able to hold the bridge, however, so instead of turning into a slippery glass slope into the sand far below, the entire bridge began to fall.

"Shiiiiiit!" Aea yelled in surprise, just barely heavy enough to prevent from floating off the bridge entirely as it plummeted. Ceallach let out similar sentiments, nearly falling to the glass floor of the bridge from loss of balance - But managed to right his footing before actually doing so.

As the Glass Bridge fell, it entered into the fiercest part of the Sand Tornado - Close to the bottom. The magical winds swept it up, lifting it higher and deeper into the tornado itself. Thankfully, the magic preventing the wind from seriously effecting those on the bridge was still in place, or they all might have been in a worse situation. Not that it could get much worse, being trapped on a piece of glass with a demon while flying through the air on a Everlasting Tornado.

"HAHAHA! WHAT A PATHETIC BRIDGE! UNABLE TO EVEN STAND AGAINST THIS PUNY STORM!" Fjumvndolr cackled in amusement, raising it's sword up to it's shoulder. "A DECENT EFFORT FOR SUCH PATHETIC MORTALS, BUT NOW YOU CANNOT RUN ANYMORE!"

The swordsman bent his knees, doing his best to keep balanced. It wasn't very easy, that was for sure. Definitely wasn't going to last long this way. Stupid monster. Spinning his sword around, it glowed briefly before he stabbed it into the glass platform, noting that glass didn't seem to be effected much besides the fact that his sword was now lodged in it. Not even any cracking much.

Suddenly a blue sock puppet appeared on his right hand. He almost had the urge to laugh loudly. In fact he did. He laughed boldly and loudly, not even worrying about the situation he was in. It was just so funny.

"No, it is not funny, Hanes. How come I'm a puppet now!?" The puppet asked, a higher-pitched version of Kryte came. That only got the white haired swordsman to laugh even more. He was losing grip on the sword too while it was happening.

"Just switch back with me. I'm back now." In a flash, Kryte was back to normal, his hair once again a navy blue, and a white sock puppet on his left hand. The man glanced over to the guy with the spear, and the smaller creature trying to balance on the glass platforms.

"You guys have any brilliant ideas?" He asked, somehow he had gotten the memories from Hanes about what had happened after he had been knocked out. It was rather strange. Still, they needed to do something about that monster before it ate them all. He might have to resort to that technique, despite how Hanes would hate it.

Pinkel cursed as the bridge suddenly went up into the air. She'd thought she'd made it through to the other side, but the sandnado had just thinned out, instead, leaving her stranded on what was now the closest thing to the word "Death Trap" that she'd ever been in.

"SO... HOW SHOULD I DO THIS? THE THREE OF YOU HAVE SUCH A DELECTABLE SCENT... AND YES, I KNOW YOU'RE THERE, GIRL."

The pink haired teen went white as sheet and looked up at the creature from her place at the very end of the bridge.

She'd been... so close. So close.

That meant she had no choice. If she was going to have to stand and fight... she'd need to let him out...

And then she reached into her shirt and pulled out a small bottle. Inside was the sleeping figure of a handsome man.

She opened the bottle and dumped it on the ground. He fell down on his face and then groaned sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

"Ugh... what time is it?"

"It's time for you to get me out of here!" She said. "You're a fairy or something, right? Use some magic!"

Melanthe looked up at the crazy girl who'd captured him in a bottle sometime the night before.

"Are you crazy? Why would I help you?" He shook his head and stood up. "Besides, I'm not a magic type. I'm a warrior type! Even if the guild laws say I have to help you if you can catch me, I'm not really capable of magicking you out of here," He said, looking around. "Where are we, anyway?"

Pinkel sank down to her knees and held her face. That was it. Unless she jumped off and learned how to fly, she was going to become that thing's poop.

"Hey, what's with that giant monster over there, anyway? Is there a fight to be had or something?" Melanthe asked, floating up before her. "I did say I'm a warrior type, you know."

"Just do whatever you can," She sighed.

"Right, Gotcha," Melanthe said before a Miniature Great-Axe appeared in his grasp, by magic. Then he disappeared.

When Fjumvndolr's left eye suddenly splattered, having been cut in half, the creature screamed and then held up a hand to its face. Though it was already rapidly regenerating, the pain left it incredibly angry and ready to maim and eat whatever had just done that to it.

"WHAT THE FUCK? WHO DARES SO COWARDLY ATTACK ME?!"

"This went from bad to worst pretty damn fast..." Ceallach sighed, readying his spear and shield. He tilted his head to glance down at his Star Imp companion, giving a surprisingly light-hearted comment and ignoring the once-more blue haired man. "Aea, this is the last time we accept a job from a magical cult, alright?"

Aea blinked, but nodded with a grin. "Goons don't even pay all that well anyways."

"Well then, lets wrap this disaster up." The blonde mercenary stated, a suddenly incredibly serious demeanor replacing the almost casual one that had been displayed moments ago.

Without further delay or a hint of hesitation, Ceallach bolted forward. The demon say him coming quite easily, and swung it's sword in a horizontal sweep across the bridge at him. The mercenary jumped over the blade with surprising agility, and to surprising heights - Reaching eye-level at the apex of his jump with the demon. Pulling his spear back, as if to throw it, a white light began to gather in the crystal blade of the weapon. The demon's blade arm still out wide, having just completed the missed swing, it reached out with it's free hand to interrupt whatever attack the puny human was planning.

Just as the clawed paw moved to close around him, the white light gathering in the crystal-bladed spear shone brightly, obscuring Ceallach's form. An instant later, the entire light suddenly burst into motion at incredible speeds, shooting at a downward angle and escaping Fjumvndolr's grasp. The bolt of white light struck down into the beasts lower torso, the light exploding outward on impact. The demon roared in pain from the searing light, Ceallach taking the opportunity to bounce off of the creature to get some distance and landing with a deft roll back near Aea.

Unfortunately, the attack seemed to have only dealt burns to the impossibly powerful beast, which quickly began to heal.

"THAT IS IT!" Fjumvndolr roared in rage. "I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS ANY LONGER!"

Sadly for The Voracious Ones pride, this was stated just in time for a yellow blast of intense heat to strike it - the same area as the regenerating burns - resulting in another pained roar. This had a little more effect, but the damage quickly regenerated as the searing light wore off.

"Damn, he's too tough for that." Aea grumbled, slightly discouraged by the monsters apparent invincibility.

"RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR!" Fjumvndolr roared, shaking the glass bridge from the sheer force of the creatures rage, fully recovered from the mild injuries. It seemed all they had done was manage to severely piss it off.

"Well...It looks like we are getting no where with this." Kryte said, sighing. "Any ideas Hanes?

"Well. We could do 'That'" Hane's offered in his high-pitched voice.

"Which 'That' are you talking about? We have like...Five!" Kryte yelled, still holding onto the sword as they all flew around on the glass platform.

"That 'that'!" Hanes said. It was quite clear he was snickering at this point. Just goes to show that he had absolutely nothing to fear.

"That doesn't help any you stupid sock puppet." Kryte sighed, wishing he could slap a palm to his face, but unfortunately both hands were too busy holding on to the stuck sword.

Melanthe flitted away from the beast as he appraised it with an expert eye.

Fjumvndolr was mid-roar of rage from the last attack, and raising a paw/claw/thing with which to crush one of the two men standing before it.

"Uh-oh," he muttered when the thing's limb impacted the glass bridge with enough force to shatter it near instantly. Chunks of glass flew around wildly, and he quickly flew over to his 'client' and grabbed her by the shirt, then started flying towards the edge of the bridge. The force of the sandnado kept everything moving upwards, however, leaving them in what looked like a free-fall, but they were actually still moving up.

And then they emerged from the top of the sandnado, into an area that looked like a small sand lake, with a large harbor at the edge, an ocean of stars and planets littering the distance. Men and women at the harbor all turned to look at the sounds of something popping out from beneath the sand, and instead of a ship or boat or flying whale or whatever they were expecting, they instead laid eyes on the glass bridge halves, Fjumvndolr, and three people, one of which appeared to be mysteriously hanging in the air by her shirt.

"Get me out of here!" Pinkel whisper-yelled, looking up at the small fairy.

"What? But I've gotta fight that thing," He said.

"Get. Me. Out. Of. Here! Now!"

Melanthe sighed and shrugged, then started flying away, the little girl in hand.

"SO YOU THINK TO TAKE ON FJUMVNDOLR," The massive creature growled. "KNOW THAT THIS IS A MISTAKE, AND SHALL BE YOUR LAST."

And then, the beast held its claws up above its head, and foul, eldritch energies began to gather between its palms. Like the black sphere of nightmares that preluded Fjumvndolr's own arrival, the sphere grew and grew, and soon, the howling of creatures not from that world could be heard. The dark energies coalesced into a sphere, and bestial monstrosities began pouring out of it all around them, in a spiral.

"MY SERVANTS. DEVOUR EVERY MORTAL IN THIS HARBOR. LEAVE NONE ALIVE."