A slew of screeches erupted behind them following the sound of the rock's detonation. Urishval looked behind him again to see the damage: a cloud of dark mist filled the area where numerous creatures were slain, but more filed into that place and continued the chase.

The second rock-turned-bomb had the same effect, destroyed numerous shades, but barely slowing them down. They were chipping away at the number making chase, but simultaneously doing themselves little good. After all, more just kept coming. It was likely that they'd exhaust themselves running by the time they put any significant dent in that number. Not that they needed to fight all of them at once. That wasn't the issue. If they could just get the shades off of their backs for a moment, they could get to the field, break it, and be gone. Fighting the shades wasn't necessary, and just a generally bad idea, considering the dangers.

The problem, however, was that the shades had no obstacles. When a torrent of shades were destroyed, more filled in to replace them, and though they were slowed by a fraction of a second, it wasn't enough to provide them enough space do anything to the barrier even if they had gotten there. As it was, the shades were simply climbing up to the path and using it to move. Like the two operatives, the shades were having an easier time on the path than they did on the rocks.

"Do you think you could collapse the mountainside here?" Urishval called out, pointing to the side, where the mountain had practically a ninety degree angle up.

The idea was simple: collapse more of the mountainside over the path in order to make the path behind them impossible to use by the shades. Since it took them more time to cross over rocks, the horde of darkness behind them would have difficulty moving as a wave over the rubble.

"I can try," he replied, but he wasn't terribly confident. Unlike the glyphs he drew at the top of the mountain with his mana pen, those that he imprinted with his palm were much smaller. For glyphs such as the Glyph of Banishment it didn't make much of a difference, but with the Glyph of Eruption the smaller size meant it'd be less effective.

His only hope was that the avalanches had damaged the cliff enough that it could collapse, though on the opposite end of the spectrum it was also possible for him to create a fissure large enough that it extended up to them and buried them as well if it was loose enough.

Only one way to find out. As he ran he began to rapidly slap the cliff face beside him, trying to make up a lack in power with sheer numbers. After a minute or so of doing that, he suddenly stopped placing glyphs and increased his pace.

Simultaneously he activated the glyphs, hoping that with that many of them he could do some damage even if they weren't too powerful.

And low and behold, the cliff-side trembled with the simultaneous eruptions. Holes were blown out of the bottom of the cliff, and the already weakened earth groaned as pressure forced it to give way, and the first thing Urishval and Eilert heard following the eruptions was tumbling rock. Another rock slide, pounding down upon the path from above and expanding--

--expanding?

Urishval glanced behind him again, assessing the situation. It worked. The path immediately behind them was shut down, encased in collapsed earth and thick clouds of darkness. The shades were going to have trouble getting over that, which left them in a fair position for tactically assessing the next issue. Just as soon as Urishval was about to mention something about it, he caught something out of the corner of his eyes. The cliff was still falling. The destruction was--

--expanding!

They were well into the cloud of debris by then, so close to the area of the field that they'd have been able to taste it, were it not for the massive cloud of debris, that is. The dirt still kicked up in the air from the initial avalanche still lingered, and it was unlikely that it would ever stop. By this juncture, it was next to impossible to see much more than twenty feet ahead of them, if only because of the dust kicked up from the second avalanche.

This allowed them to see the cliff above, and the boulders that were beginning to fall in front of them. Urishval came to an immediate halt as soon as one struck the path directly in front of him, shattering instantly. More were coming--more were falling, and it just so happened that the portions before them were crumbling as much as the portions behind them.

Shit, shit, shit!

Eilert was greatly surprised when the destruction he caused extended in front of them as well. "Perhaps I overdid it," he understated. The cliff must have been weaker than he thought, and now they were in just as much danger as the shades, and with the debris already falling in front of them as well as behind them, they had nowhere to go except...

Except down, he silently concluded. "Follow me!" he shouted, giving Urishval's sleeve a tug in case he couldn't be heard over the calamity around them.

Heading toward the opposite end of the road, he gulped in a single moment of hesitation--this was the most reckless thing he'd ever done by a long shot, but even if he enhanced their abilities with glyphs there was no way they'd survive if they stayed on the road.

He lightly stepped over the edge, bracing himself with his legs and trying to keep himself in a controlled slide. He was more or less successful, but the chances of him surviving the tumble would be less and less the further he had to go.

"What . . .?" Urishval whispered to himself as he quickly came to the side of the road with Eilert. "This is . . ."

A complete leap of faith . . .

But it was superior to the alternative. Their other option was to stand around in an avalanche and hope not to die, when death was essentially inevitable for them. Eilert was the first to take the leap of faith, leaving Urishval hesitating a bit. This seemed . . . a bit crazy, but the thought of other alternatives completely left his mind as soon as he felt the wind causing by a boulder crushing immediately behind him. That was more than enough to convince him of the idea.

Urishval, too, started the slide down the hill, bracing himself with his legs just the same, and flipping the energy-forged blade in order to hold it under-handed, making it easier just in case . . .

. . . the hill were to contain a sudden drop.

There was no stopping themselves once they had momentum, and no vegetation was left rooted after the first avalanche--nothing to grab onto. The men would be dumped, dropped down a ninety degree slope with nothing to grab onto and no real concept of what was waiting for them at the bottom, or how far the bottom even was. Urishval's leg caught on a side of rock jutting out of the steep slope, which sent him tumbling, rather than a straight fall--and similar was likely to happen to Eilert.

This is much steeper than I anticipated. If nothing else, Eilert was eerily calm as he skidded down--if all else failed, he could activate his strength glyph to give him enough power to find a handhold and stop, and hopefully grab Urishval as well.

Alas, as he was close to flat against the slope he had no way of knowing there was a sudden drop off until he was already in mid air. He managed to keep himself from screaming, but if Urishval caught a glimpse of him he'd notice a look of absolute panic on the face of the normally inexpressive Orange Enigma.

There was no stopping this fall--and it was definitely a fall now. Not a single glyph in his repertoire would work; even if he increased his strength now, if he grabbed something he'd likely tear his arm off.

Truthfully, though, it was difficult even to think, especially as one of his flailing arms hit the cliff face, causing roaring pain to shoot through it but even worse sending him tumbling end over end.

As the world dissolved into a whirling blur to him, he could no longer hold back a cry of alarm. There wasn't anything he could do at this point--whether he lived or died (and the later was seeming very, very likely) was all up to fate now.

Urishval let out a cry of alarm, too. Holding back a shout or a cry while they tumbled down the mountainside was just impossible. Urishval tried to cling to his weapon, though, trying to keep it stable as he flopped horizontally. Eilert had it lucky; he was somersaulting; Urishval was rolling down on his side, and at a falling pace, that created much more pain and difficulty . . .

First, there was a stopping pain. Then, darkness overwhelmed both men. It was unclear whether they had passed through an amount of shades thick enough that individual features could not be discerned, or they had hit rock bottom and temporarily lost consciousness. With the chaos of descending the mountainside, both were very likely possibilities, though one would seem much, much more likely once Eilert opened his eyes again.

They were on flat ground again. Eilert would find himself laying on his chest, with the side of his face planted in the dirt, and quite a bit of blood matting his hair down to his head on that side. Behind him stood a cliff side, a complete ninety degree drop that extended up into a fifty degree slope. There was no wonder behind their inability to keep themselves from falling; they had gone down a slope that became progressively steeper with each fraction of a mile. How far they had fallen, though, was an impossible variable to check. Where they were, the sky was nothing more than a fog of dust and dirt.

Around Eilert, there was nothing more than flat rock, but he would find it difficult to see. They were somewhere deep in the mass of dirt instilled fog . . .

Urishval was in much worse shape than Eilert, though. The orange enigma would find him not too far away, laying upon his side. Only his chest was moving. He was still alive, but clearly unconscious. If Eilert could move, Urishval would just be dead weight to carry around. There didn't seem to be any shades nearby whatsoever, though, and as their dark bodies would have been visible even through the thick cloud of dust obscuring everything beyond six feet of themselves, that much was evident.

There was something in the distance, though: something . . . glowing--a shimmering form of azure off into the fog of debris.

Am I...alive? He was laying face down on the ground, unable to see for more than a few feet in front of him. Most might wonder if they were in Heaven or Hell instead, but for Eilert there would be no afterlife. If he died he'd just cease to exist (or so it was assumed) and that would be that. The fact that he was still aware of anything at all meant he survived.

The scientific part of his mind wondered how, but the more practical part of him didn't much care and instead tried to get him to focus. Wait, where's Urishval?

Slowly, agonizingly he rolled over and pulled himself upright, and he felt something trickle in his eyes and cause them to sting. Blinking rapidly he wiped them with his hand, only for it to come away damp. He stared at the red liquid covering his hand for a moment before realizing that he was bleeding. A lot. And from his head.

Through dust and blurry eyes he spotted a dark figure laying motionless on the ground. Realizing it must be his companion, he crawled over to him, praying that he was as fortunate as he'd been.

He was not, but he was still alive, something to be grateful for. He was unconscious, though, and seemed to have greater injures than he'd sustained. He probably wouldn't be up anytime soon.

I need to heal him. I should send him back, too. He withdrew the mana pen from his (thankfully secure) pocket, but as he was unable to draw the precise lines required for the glyphs. His arms were shaking too much, and he was too dizzy.

For a minute he stood there numbly, unsure of what to do next. He glanced upwards, but couldn't see the sky beyond the dust. It was odd, though--with the amount of destruction he'd caused, there should have been boulders tumbling down around them, and if he'd been out for any length of time shades should have found them as well. But there was no sign of either. And if they'd just hit the ground there wouldn't be anything left of them but paste. So what saved them?

It was around then that he noticed a faint azure glow through the dust. I guess I better see what that is. He climbed to his feet, still disoriented from his fall and wounds, and staggered towards the source, hoping that whatever it was wasn't hostile--he wasn't in much condition to defend himself.

Just ahead, through the thick cloud of dirt, the azure light beckoned Eilert. It was the only suitable direction to follow. The confusion of pain and complete lack of knowledge of the surrounding area was enough to ensure that any normal man would have been reduced to a state of hopelessness--if a normal man could even survive such a fall. Truth be told, they were enigmas; they weren't normal. They could survive quite a bit more than a normal person could. There was seemingly no real explanation about the lack of debris settling, however.

The path was flat and stretched out all around him, as if Eilert were standing on the ground, not a mountain. Few stones littered the area, and even fewer boulders could be seen--of what could be seen, of course. He could very well have been on an infinite plain, and he'd never know. The dirt and dust in the air was just too thick, and Eilert would find that just being within it was pain in of itself: breathing too deeply would cause inevitable coughing fits, as dirt entered the lungs and the body rejected it.

The azure light was not of excessive distance from them, but while injured, it may have seemed like the distance was veritably miles, especially after massive head trauma. With depth perception weakened, the walk may have felt like it was going to take forever . . .

But it was there; the light was there, right before him, inevitably found. A half-crushed boulder, broken from impact, stood straight up amongst a series of smaller rocks dotted around it. It was the source of the light--or, rather, it contained the source of the light.

The stones served as a makeshift stand, that which something extremely lightweight had tumbled into and remained somewhat propped up against. A blade, essentially lacking a hand-guard, comprised of raw power--energy that could barely contain itself, flickering its shape sporadically and blinking in and out in some portions. The blade Urishval had summoned--still active, but weakened without support.

And just ahead of it, the dust was collecting, gathering--piling up layer after layer, caking itself onto a surface. The surface was high, wide--presumably for miles on end. From the limited perspective that the dirt allowed, it looked endless. It was as if the dirt and debris had met and collected upon the glass of a snowglobe, incapable of entering its domain . . .

I'd really hoped I wouldn't have to feel like this again. Just walking was difficult and he moved at an extremely slow pace. Breathing wasn't easy either, thanks to the amount of dust in the air. Several times he had to stop as a fit of coughing overcame him, and once he even collapsed from it.

He hated it. It reminded him too much of the times he'd spent fighting his disease, when every day had been a battle against his body, one he'd inevitably lose. But the fact that he'd felt this way before allowed him to overcome it, and gave him the determination to press forward.

Finally he reached the source of the azure glow--a blade lay propped against some rocks. Nor ordinary one at that: it flickered and faded in various places as its power waned. He recognized it instantly. The drowning blade. It was the magic sword Urishval had been using; he must have dropped it at some point during the fall.

It was a dangerous thing, and Eilert was hesitant even to touch it. For all he knew it would fry him if he tried to pick it up. But in his current state he couldn't defend himself with his own abilities, so he had no choice but to take a risk with someone else's.

Tentatively he reached out for the hilt, and as he wrapped his hand around it he was struck by a familiar feeling. The sword--it felt the same as his mana pen. It was continually drawing on the mana around it to sustain its form. That was why it hadn't faded when Urishval lost consciousness.

If that's the case, then even I should be able to use it. He was about to head back to find and defend Urishval when he noticed something else--up ahead, dust gathered in an unusual way. It was thick and compressed around an area, as though it were resting up against something, but there was clearly nothing there.

The barrier...! The reason they were even down here. He needed to take it out--there was no telling how long before something noticed him, and he wasn't certain even with the sword he could adequately defend himself.

He walked until he was within a few yards of it, and attempted to set himself in what he thought was a fighting stance as best as he could. He was still weak and dizzy, but the magic sword didn't care about that; so long as it had mana to draw on, it would retain its form and power.

Here goes. He raised the drowning blade high over his head, holding it there for a moment as he steeled himself for whatever was to come before swinging downward. All in all, it was hardly a good stroke--even in his best condition Eilert had no idea how to wield a blade, let alone in his current state.

But the magic still took effect. An invisible wave of destruction shot out from it, spreading in front of him and crashing into a wide portion of the barrier. Unknowingly, Eilert's mistake was in thinking that not knowing how to use it would make it's power weaker, and for most magic that would be true. With this particular brand of magic, though, the problem was not making the magic more powerful, but rather controlling it. Every swing made with the sword by an untrained hand would result in catastrophic destruction, and this was no exception.

The barrier didn't stand a chance--this was a power far above it, and it shattered instantly under this force. The blast actually went through it, visible by the way it razed the ground in its path. He had no way of telling just how far it went.

It also had the affect of blowing away all the nearby dust, allowing him to breathe clean air for the first time since coming around. Unfortunately, it would also allow anything in the barrier (if there was anything left) to see him quite easily...

The barrier's chances were nil. The overwhelming force drowned out its stability and bore a hole straight through. From the hole left behind, large enough that Eilert could have simply walked through it without ducking, cracks from en masse; the dirt and debris settled were scattered from around the laceration, leaving every inch of the "wound" visible. Cracks webbed up and around, spreading up further and further. Each new advancement for the degradation spouted dirt like smoke through its growing injury, leaving the crack visible with each inch they quickly gained.

And when the barrier fell, it had the look of shards--a soundless shattered as it fell apart and littered the earth with emptiness. Each shard faded moments before it struck the ground, leaving nothing more than a dust cloud of increased size in its wake.

It wasn't more than a second following that the blade procured by Eilert began to flicker. In and out it faded, dancing wildly all the same, as it lost the energy needed to hold form, let alone be used for battle. With a burst of azure light, it was gone, leaving behind specks and fragments of flickering azure, scattered around Eilert like a lifeless fireflies, flickering and dancing through the air, illuminating the space further than the clouds of dust and dirt originally allowed.

Their impromptu mission was over; the barrier was down, and it was likely that those within were already experiencing the hell of the enigmas' counterattack.

It's done.

The barrier shattered from the force of blow, and Eilert had no intention of sticking around to find out what was creating it. If his enemies hadn't noticed him before, they certainly did now, and he could not defend Urishval from an entire army.

Especially as the blade in his hand that allowed him to commit so much destruction faded from his hands. What he'd done had apparently used up the last of its power.

As quickly as his tired body could move he hurried back to Urishval. He was losing strength, but he'd gained enough clarity back to draw his glyphs. Without hesitation he began to draw the Glyph of Teleportation, the most complex glyph he knew.

He was fortunately uninterrupted, and it wasn't long at all before the Enigmas at the top would notice a glyph near them light up with an orange glow, and in the midst of it appeared Eilert carrying Urishval, injured but alive.

There was nothing but a mess at the mountain's peek; a wreck of a defensive line, throwing together what they had left to push back an assault, which had only recently turned into a counter-assault with what power they had left. What minimal power they had left . . .

Sephia was down for the count, sitting upon the ground, huddled over, panting. She couldn't do it anymore. Her hood was down, too; the red headed young woman with blue eyes staring at the ground, her hands placed upon it before her, determination on her face, while every muscle tried to commands to move, and every muscle failed. Other operatives were in similar conditions, while a few remained at the ledge, including Icsorue, throwing whatever they could. Without a telekinetic, they couldn't deflect anything as an attack, but they could throw what powers they had down, and stay low to avoid the bombardment. Ice, fire, lightning--it was all pouring down the mountain with minimal aim. They had nothing to aim at, just the cloud of dust--they could just hope to strike something.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Icsorue caught the image of a returning couple of operatives--and she was immediately on the run for them. She ducked down , glancing up once to catch the image of another large boulder, passing just feet over her head, to strike the temple once again. There were numerous openings within the front of the fortress, now--collapsed walls that had given way and caved in. The main entrance had completely caved in by that point, unable to be used even to walk in, while other holes could be squeezed through.

"Eilert!" she cried as she reached him, her voice desperate, angry . . . relieved. "Oh my God, oI thought ya were dead!!"

She'd have hugged him if he wasn't carrying Urishval.

"Not quite yet." Though if he didn't close the wound on his head soon, that might change. It didn't seem to be too serious, but if kept on bleeding.

He gave Icsorue a half-smile before carrying Urishval over to one of the healing glyphs he'd placed in advance. It wouldn't restore their lost energy, but it would close their wounds.

Orange light enveloped the two of them, causing him to close his eyes as the magic did its task. After a few moments it faded, leaving the two Enigmas looking tired (and Urishval still unconscious) but otherwise fine.

"How long were we gone?" he asked as he took inventory of what was going on around him. His allies definitely seemed a bit worse for wear, and the temple was taking quite a bit of damage. Even given their lengthy climb down, it seemed like more time had passed...he wondered just how long he'd been out of it.

In the end, Icsorue's mixed feelings all fell into concern, and even though Eilert was able to half-smile at her, she could only look at him with worry. He and Urishval were both beat to hell, and while they could get themselves repaired, they couldn't restore all the energy they lost, and were likely going to take wounds even easier in the future, if the enemies were to progress up to the peak . . .

She followed him to the glyph, and sat on one knee nearby, watching him set Urishval down, and take in the healing for the both of them. Icsorue hadn't needed to use one of those yet--not many of them did, and those that had were complete accidents. Icsorue accidentally detonating a stone too late, pieces hitting another operative--something which had her feeling terrible after the fact, but nothing she could control.

"Hours. It's at least been foive hours since ya left!" replied Icsorue, "God . . . I troied to get contact you, but all oI got was the wind blowin' . . . just . . . just wot the hell happened down there?"

. . . which explained why the debris had stopped settling by the time Eilert opened his eyes following the fall . . .