“Your classmates are waiting Chief’.”

The instructor goaded on.

Even so, a glyph of such complexity was difficult, even for the fully initiated.

Salbator turned to face the chamber’s marble gates.

Struggling to calm his breath, he inhaled slowly, closing his eyes and placing his index finger before his pounding chest.

At the end of his trembling hands, a tiny glint ignited from the tip of his nail and grew slowly into a round pebble.

Like the elegant streaks of a silk brush, he swept down the right. From one stroke his hand grew dim as it painted a bright arch.

His imagination envisioned a twin spark mirroring the movements of his strokes, but only flickers emerged as Salbator struggled to keep his arm steady.

The glowing spark grew intense as he swallowed air without cessation.

For a brief second his finger wavered, flaring and dying as he choked on his breath.

The opposing streaks blotched his rune as his hand missed its stroke.

*GASP*

A loud thud followed the wheezing cough.

Salbator writhed on the floor, with the warping symbol siphoning his energy, seizing to respond.

Faint sparkling mist evaporated from his collapsed body, siphoned by the pulsating glyph he’d failed to etch.

The hunched woman withdrew a braided lace hiding beneath the neck of her tunic.

Gripping the glossy stone draped at its end, holding her cane on the other, she placed the gem between the energy stream escaping from the child into the voracious runes.

Reacting with the resonating stone, the misaligned threads began winding, its now parallel threads danced in synchrony, tracing the opposing half of the forming glyph.

The completed emblem pulsated towards the doorway, its pearlescent waves molded to the gateways’ arched frame.

CLUNK!

Its large gates boomed as the rolling chains began clicking against their turning gears.

“Hmph”

The woman grunted with a smile.

SCREEEEEEEEEECH

Lazily they lumbered, filling the room with the deafening scrape of grinding stone.

“Ayayay…”

She sighed.

Somehow the doors could barely tread an inch, whereas before it would have been breached enough to allow passage for the entire class.

The hairline segmenting the doorway widened as slowly as the gates dredged along their groves.

Behind the opening gates, a faint outline of soldiers slipped between.

“THE UNANOOK!”

T’udze’s worried frown quickly brightened at the sight of the bear warriors running towards the opening gate.

“STOP!”

" STOP THE GATE!”

The troop of soldiers barked.

Their heavy furs made it difficult to run faster toward the opening gate.

“HSSSSSSSSRAAAAGH!”

A pair of broad frenzied claws burst through the narrow opening.

Its heavy coat gloved its body, and at the end of its arms, three sharp tusks jotted out from its dense hair.

The snarling beast swiped and scraped the resilient marble, cleaving slivers off the doorway.

“A VOLEWOLF!”

One of the children cheered.

“!-What?”

The elder woman gasped.

Her head spun into a panic.

“GuuGHhuGHh.”

Salbator wheezed from his asphyxiated lungs.

Her stare locked unto the doors.

From the small gap, the snout of a Volewolf crept along.

His fluffy mole head concealed its eyeless face.

Unfurling its tucked round ears from its temples, angling them at the slightest twitch.

Stepping back, it peered its maw through.

Sniff sniff

His Tentacle tipped nose whiffed the air, its worm-like fingers tasted the dividing gates.

“GrrrrRRRAAAAghh!”

Its sneering growls grimaced at the swirling mystic energies.

Opening his thick jaws it clamped at the marble, gnawing away the door’s engravings.

The doors ceased their movements, as the shimmering white mist dissipated, dropping the dense crystal flat on the floor.

Twisting his collapsed neck, Salbator scouts for his dawdling friends.

“Go Tuliqq..”

“Come on Tuliqq”

The gang clucked, pushing their smallest member to help the quaking boy.

“DON’T TOUCH HIM, TULIQQ!”

Their teacher warned.

CrrruuCH crUUUnCh

The titan snapped a chuck off from the punctured door. Reeling his body back, it slammed its stout body through the crumbling marble.

Landing inside the chambers, he swept the floor with his wriggling nose, its drool painting the tile.

As the Volewolf’s attention instantly drew towards the still fuming Exalation of Salbator.

Darting directly to the vulnerable child.

Woooooop

The elderly woman’s cane whistled as she swung it at the charging pup.

“SnnARRRrghhgl!”

It cried as its flailing arms clawed at the floor.

Finding a firm grip into the pavement, it launched itself back toward the crowd.

Its grinning mouth aimed at the downed child once more.

“Tuliqq….TULIQQ!”

She called the mesmerized boy.

“TULIQ’AT, GRAB HIS OTHER ARM!”

She ordered his friend, as she gripped T’udze’s hand.

The unflinching Volewolf snapped at the woman’s bare ankle, toppling her as it swiped at Tuliqq’s fingers shearing into his with its thick talons.

A web of black veins slithered beneath the split flesh, the tendrils crept along Tuliqq’s arm, spreading into his scalp.

Salbator’s body seized its Exalation.

“Tuliqq, get my Crystal-”

Turning and in disbelief, her voice seized at the sight of the poor boy’s mangled palm.

Her eyes scrambled to find someone.

Quickly she discerned the pasty mug of T’udze staring in disbelief.

“T’UDZE! Get the crystal boy!”

Her voice freeing him from his entrancement.

Snort Snort Snort

With its star nose wading through the air, its feelers pointing towards the horrified classmates, they stood back, clear from the savage thing.

Although its shape held many similarities with an Ursaverine, only it was small as an Amaroq pup.

GRRRRR

His eyeless snout turned towards the source saturating the atmosphere rank with energy.

CLANK!

Slamming his metalloid claws into the dirt, a discording pitch pierced through their temples.

The buzzing claws liquefied the cast marble, and with its stout body plunged through the pool of stone towards the precious necklace.

“AAAAAAAAAAH!”

“SCREEEEECH!”

“COOL!”

Excitement.

Panic.

A commotion broke the student’s ranks.

T’udze sprang like a deer sprinting for its life. Running towards the wayward crystal.

The Volewolf swam below him, liquefying the walkway as it tore through.

He broke his stride, avoiding the warping stone.

“ITS SOLID ENOUGH BOY!!!”

His teacher insulted.

Snatching up the enchanted cane, he plunged its end into the softened marble.

FLASH!

A crackling rushed across the beast’s tracks.

The solidifying floor erupted, flinging the Volewolf to the surface.

With the animal now disoriented, T’udze turned his attention to the crystal pendant.

HISSSSSS!

Finding his footing the monster chases after him.

Closing in on the pendant, the Volewolf leaps as T’udze dives in an attempt to reach it first.

The clouds of dust blinded the spectators.

Keeping his eyes clenched, he wriggled his fingers, clenching the edges of the stone in his grip.

A sense of relief briefly distracted him from the jaws chasing at his heels.

SNORT SNORT

He felt a soft flesh worm prodding his fingers.

A warm breath pressed against his arm as five of these tendrils stretched around her arm.

From the small grove of his wincing eyes, he could make out the furry snout of the Volewolf.

Pressing its writhing nose on T’udze’s forehead, then nudging his fist with a gentle caress.

“WHat.”

“WHy .”

“woah.”

The children muttered, astonished at the events.

the pale boy reached out to the monster.

Petting his paw, he seized the ringing claws to a still.

As the Volewolf continued to coerce open the boy’s grasp on the gem. clenched fist.

“Asedatzin?!…

boy..

get away from the titan, it could be sick.”

His instructor whispered loudly.

Salbator finally regained a semblance of consciousness, sobered up from the odd sight.

He could see the admiration in their faces, the class, even…his friends.

“EL-FAE…EL-OSER….EL-FAE…EL-OSER!”

He chanted, easily goading his classmates into the jeering.

“BAR-YEEEEELP!”

A pike of shaved dorsal pierced the Volewolf’s forearm.

His vibrating claws twitched and froze.

T’udze remained paralyzed in disbelief and could only hear the distant echoes of the surrounding Unanook guards

“Get the boy! Hes been infected!”

The silent class watched as Tuliqq seized on the floor, his head jolting back into the pavement.

FWOOOOM

A blinding flash seared through the cracked gate.

“What the -”

The old teacher watched as cylinders of light fell from the darkened skies.

An intense brightness blinded the class.

BOOOOOM

[Lithic Aegis]

Her mind reached out for her strewn staff.

Feeding her unrestrained power to the shining weapon, energy rushed below her, seeping into the surrounding masonry.

The stone acquired a subtle glow and began warping the slabs; forming a wall around the breached doorway, and enveloping whomever her power could reach in time.

CRACKKK

BOOOOM

Mounds of slush ice rushed into the chamber, mixed with dirt breaking through the magical walls.

Waves of the Unanook hunters.

Burying the scattered children under its flood.

The wizened teacher held her ground,

her flowing energy struggling under the weight of the catastrophe.