A pillar of stone rose from the bottom of the lake, lifting Ver Dilen above the water's surface. The limbs pounded and hit and kicked, but they never got within an inch of his flesh. He uprooted his enemy in front of him to discover it was Sindre.
"Well played," Ver Dilen said, coughing up the last of the poison. The world slowly shifted back into place. The light fell on his smiling expression as his lips and the rest of his flesh grew back. He tightened his meaty fingers around Sindre's brittle neck.
Sindre hissed and thrashed about like a cornered animal, yet not a ripple of emotion surfaced on her freckled face. She coiled her limbs around Ver Dilen's arm, tightening her grip until a soft, metallic screech echoed through the ruin.
Ver Dilen shook his head in disgust. "Did you lose your mind just because your acid didn't kill me?" he asked. "That's just sad, even if this is an act. Have some dignity!"
Sindre stuck out her tongue and wrapped tighter around Ver Dilen's arm, until her limbs bent at unnatural angles. The feral glint in her eyes warned of a mental breaking point.
Ver Dilen almost pitied her. Almost. 'I established fear. Now's time for fairness,' he thought, looking at her unsightly state. He used his free hand and lightly struck his chest, resulting in a metallic clank. "Acid was brilliant. Unfortunately, I should have told you that the win-condition was cracking an invisible suit of armor I'd put on before we started. Acid was just a bad match-"
Ver Dilen paused, watching in shock as Sindre bit into his gantlet.
"Enough!" Ver Dilen roared, throwing her into the ground, however forgetting to hold back his strength. He couldn't help it.
Wilhelm's arrogance was evident in his decision to leave Sindre to fight a Cardinal alone, as if she were a mere deadweight. By placing the responsibility and blame on her shoulders, he seemed to be setting her up as a scapegoat for his own impending failure.
Ver Dilen clenched his teeth. 'That's no way for a hero to act,' he thought. When he was done with Sindre, he planned on beating Wilhelm into a bloody pulp.
A bone chilling crunch snapped Ver Dilen out of his rage as he felt Sindre's neck snap. Her emotionless eyes stared up at the light, already glazed over.
Ver Dilen looked at her sorry state and kneeled down. 'Today just keeps on getting better,' he thought mournfully. He swallowed his saliva, called upon his mana, and a radiant light stretched out over Sindre.
Sindre's face remained pale and emotionless.
Ver Dilen's face twisted in dismay. He let out a long sigh and muttered to himself, "Ver Dilen, you fool, you've actually killed a girl. Not even the merciful goddess is going to forgive you for this."
A sudden crack made him leap to his feet. Sindre's body peeled open, revealing an entanglement of snakes and a strange, cracked orb.
Feeling both relieved and a bit humiliated, Ver Dilen instinctively condensed life essence around his legs to find the real Sindre, yet hesitated. 'I need to be fair. Someone their strength couldn't have reacted in time,' he reminded himself, not budging from the spot.
The snakes eagerly pounced upon their prey, hissing and biting and constricting. Meanwhile, bright blue lights burst from the broken orb, reflected off the surface of the water, and flooded Ver Dilen's vision.
Ver Dilen opened his eyes within a pitch blackness, quickly discovering that not even magic could illuminate it. 'Teleported again?' His intuition discarded the thought, feeling the same stone underfoot and breathing in the same, mildewed air. More likely it was a magical darkness.
Just as Ver Dilen grasped the nature of the spell, a sudden blow slammed into his breastplate, the force sliding his feet to the platform's edge. He cursed, feeling a thin, feathered stick poking out of his breastplate - an arrow.
The arrowhead struck Ver Dilen's breastplate at a good angle; it hadn't pierced the armor. He was either lucky or the shooter couldn't see through the darkness. A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek.
The platform he'd made was like a stone pillar to get out of the water, but it put him in the center of a vast, open chamber. Fighting the instinct to rip the snakes off his body, Ver Dilen instead condensed life essence around his ears and waited.
The next arrow came within a second of the initial impact, whistling and, most troubling, echoing. Countless caverns worked together to distort the whistling's distance.
Ver Dilen took a chance, reached out, and felt the shaft pass through his fingers. His breastplate gave a low cry as the impact warped its shape. Ver Dilen snarled and literally tore the snakes away, drenching his robe with blood and carnage.
Yet another arrow whistled through the darkness and, although free from the snakes, Ver Dilen didn't step aside, confidently snatching the arrow up with a smirk. "Found you," he said as he leapt towards the source.
Emerging from the ruin's black depths, Sindre could have hidden herself within any of countless cavern openings, seemingly like an endless hallway under the faint sunlight. Ver Dilen caught the edge of the nearest cave entrance, clutching the arrow tight. With life essence condensed around his ears, his bloodshot eyes narrowed at two particular cave entrances. 'Shoot me one more time. I dare you,' he thought. 'I haven't heard you move. I know you're still here.'
Blood dripped off Ver Dilen's feet and into the clear water below, each drop dissolving as their ripples faded into still silence. Five minutes passed. Ver Dilen remained coiled like a snake, ready to strike at the slightest twitch.
A distant, wooden snap called for Ver Dilen's attention, except it came far, far above his head. He frowned and leapt to the next cavern entrance upwards. 'What's Wilhelm been doing this whole time?' he thought.
The cavern's nature made narrowing down noises to their source difficult, yet Ver Dilen was confident that the noises came from atop the tree judging by the rustling of twigs and leaves. He waited for a moment, wondering if he'd imagined it, but another rustling sound confirmed that something or someone was at the top of the tree.
Ver Dilen frowned. If Sindre wasn't a deadweight and if Wilhelm wasn't an incompetent hero, what was he doing out there? Ver Dilen never prided himself on his intellect, especially with his looks, but experience warned him of an oversight, a dangerous one at that.
A fourth arrow whistled out of the cavern to Ver Dilen's immediate left, which he caught. Life essence condensing around his legs, he charged towards its source. 'Why does this feel like another trap,' he thought.
"Wilhelm is coming any minute to help me kick your ass!" Sindre's jeering voice echoed from far down the cavern, past Ver Dilen, up the ruin, emerging through the ruin's opening, and echoing throughout the forest.
Wilhelm kneeled atop the tallest tree in the forest canopy, the same tree which housed the ruin, with a white, flaming aura. He took a deep breath and steeled himself. 'I need to borrow your strength,' he thought.
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