Tusk roared again, and the weight of its furious aura caused many of the weaker banshees far above to simply drop from the sky, stone dead, the smoky darkness that covered their bodies dissipating to leave the childlike corpse behind.

Leon stood in front of Tusk’s monolith, surrounded by ice wraiths, knowing that he had to move now if he wanted to live. So that’s exactly what he did; he leaped into the air, catching himself with his power, as he pulled his gear into his soul realm and transformed into his Thunderbird form. In the same breath, he conjured the invisibility ring he’d made for this form and activated it, fading from view.

He was fortunate that Tusk had taken the ice wraith’s attention, otherwise, they might’ve interfered. As it was, Tusk’s entrance had the entire horde but those closest to Leon’s former position turned to face it, and even they didn’t get in his way. So, as soon as he was invisible, Leon began tearing off toward the nearest of Tusk’s carved walls.

He’d barely flapped his wings once when a gust of wind blew through the cavern—wind itself, let alone a gust so strong, wasn’t present underground, so Leon knew exactly who that gust had come from. Indeed, the gust began to swirl about, and banshees began to fall by the dozens from above, even as they shrieked and attempted to do something about Tusk’s magic. But it was like a mortal screaming at the tides to halt, and Tusk slithered through the air a little closer, summoning a cyclone that tore through the banshees with great ease.

The ice wraiths on the cavern floor began to summon their magics, but Leon, in his Thunderbird form and with more lightning flowing through his body than blood, reached his target tunnel before anything else happened, and he flew as fast as he could right in. Not too far away was an illusory veil, which he crashed through with as much speed as he could manage in the winding tunnels, and everything behind him vanished, leaving nothing but the impression of more tunnels to his magic senses.

But he could still feel the ground shake and the magic around him reacting to the massive concentrations and expressions of power he’d left behind. The air grew colder as the ice wraiths did their thing, only for all the air around him to be sucked back toward the cavern, and then be expelled, giving him something of an expected speed boost which he struggled to control—clearly, Tusk wasn’t going easy on the ice wraiths who’d trespassed into its tributaries’ territory, and right onto one of its altars.

Leon knew that Tusk was going to win that fight. The ice wraiths had a tremendous amount of force with them, with hundreds of seventh-tier and dozens of eighth-tier wraiths, along with their massive gathering of banshees, but they only had one ninth-tier wraith, and Leon couldn’t see them taking on the tenth-tier tusk even with all of that, not with what Tusk had already demonstrated to him earlier. That meant he had a limited amount of time to get to the carved wall and get through before Tusk could respond. Less, if Tusk allowed the wraiths to flee.

Fortunately, with his lightning magic, Leon was incredibly fast, and he reached the nearest carved wall in a matter of minutes. He was miles away by this point, but could still feel the battle taking place back in that cavern. He briefly wondered just what he might find if he were to go back after the battle was over, but after a quick shake of his head, he put that thought out of his mind and focused on the task at hand.

First, he tossed a spell down on the ground—or more accurately, conjured it in the air and slammed it into the ground with his talons—and felt the faintest of light screens go up, spanning the entirety of the tunnel right in front of the carved wall. Any creature of sufficient power or size passing through the screen would break it, and alert him—hopefully, he couldn’t be entirely sure the enchantment would work so far underground and with so many disparate magics flowing through the environment.

Then, he reached into the carved wall with his magic power and did as he had done several days before. In but a moment, he was on the other side of the wall, and he tossed down another alarm spell. With those in place, he was confident he would be warned when Tusk inevitably won the fight with the ice wraiths and returned to the lower tunnels.

In that case, he tossed down a few more trap spells, intending to slow the monster down and possibly collapse the tunnel if he could. It would take quite a bit of effort, though, so he assumed it would fail, and possibly only anger the tenth-tier beast even more than it already might be, but he ignored his doubts and tossed down a few more traps.

Then, without further ado, he flew onward, his magic senses filling the tunnel and all ahead of him.

Unfortunately, ‘all ahead of him’ turned out to be about a hundred feet, despite his physical eyes telling him otherwise; there was some kind of ancient enchantment at play that was interfering with his magic senses, preventing him from using them to scout ahead.

‘Frustrating, but I can work around this,’ Leon confidently thought. His eyes were sharp, and though his sense of smell had weakened considerably in his avian form, he could still hear quite well, and quite acutely sensed the changes in the magic around him.

However, he was still taken a little off-guard when he turned a corner in the tunnel as it delved deeper into the earth and found the tunnel rapidly shrinking until it reached a plain stone wall about twice as tall as Leon, with a regular-sized door set in it.

Leon had to practically stop mid-air, but he managed to not crash and landed in front of the door. A moment later, he was back in his human form, fully armed and armored.

The door was locked tightly both physically and magically, but Leon was able to coax it open in a matter of seconds with an ancient ‘open’ rune, indicating that the enchantments holding the door closed were modern rather than ancient. That seemed a little odd given the ubiquity of ancient runes before now, but he wasn’t going to question his good luck.

The other side of the door revealed the atrium of a spectacular underground palace, though one that felt a little constricted and uncomfortable to Leon’s tastes given the lack of windows or illusion enchantments that might simulate the outdoors.

Beautiful furniture was everywhere, the floor was polished black granite, and fur rugs made from all kinds of powerful beasts were abundant. Ornate weapons and silkgrass banners depicting various wild animals adorned the walls, and just in the atrium alone, Leon counted half a dozen hearths.

And yet, not a single soul to enjoy this splendor to be seen. The palace was empty, quiet, and with the lack of magic lanterns, quite dark. The hearths were lit, but given the size of the atrium and the open halls beyond, the firelight didn’t reach quite as far as it needed to. The palace was as oppressive to Leon’s sensibilities as it was opulent.

Leon afforded himself only a second to take all of this in before he charged onward. Even here, with all the magic in the walls ensuring the place was comfortable and habitable, Leon could feel the omnipresent charge of the Iron Needle calling him onward, growing ever stronger the closer he got to it.

He raced through halls too large for any but the most egotistic human to build, through rooms that, despite having human-sized furniture, were enormous, more than enough for Tusk to fly through comfortably, and past scenes of opulence and luxury that they wouldn’t have been out of place in the palace at Ilion or Evergold. Yet Leon was single-minded, focused entirely on finding the Iron Needle and getting out before Tusk could come home.

Even then, in the back of his mind, it seemed fairly obvious that Tusk was, at least some of the time, assuming human form, but he never speculated as to why, or any other questions related to it. As far as he was concerned, he was trespassing in Tusk’s home, and he just wanted to grab the Needle and leave.

The only time he ever reconsidered that desire, as weak as that reconsideration may have been, was when he passed by a chamber filled with soft light and sparkling metal. He paused as he ran past and shuffled back, his mouth hanging open as he beheld the piles of gold and silver ingots and coins that lay almost obsessively arranged on hundreds of tables in the long hall, the jewels arranged in like piles, every color of the rainbow represented by some gleaming or sparkling gemstone. While Leon had little eye for art, the paintings and statues that lined the walls were clearly well-made by experienced artists and many of differing styles leading Leon to think that they’d been done by different artists and weren’t simply the product of Tusk itself.

He wanted to continue to the Iron Needle, but there was something within him that demanded he take all he now surveyed. Every shiny he wanted in his soul realm, every gem from the smallest amethyst to the largest diamond taken, all down to the grain of gold dust. It was with great willpower that he ripped himself away from the hall.

‘I am no thief,’ Leon repeated to himself over and over again. His instincts screamed at him to go back, but his resolve was strengthened immeasurably when he heard a loud pinging sound resound through his helmet, followed almost immediately by another—his alarms on both sides of the carved wall had been tripped, leading him to believe that Tusk had already finished with the ice wraiths and was now speeding his way.

He didn’t hear his other traps go off, but he had confidence that they did. Instead, he focused on following the lightning magic he could sense, and from the way it had grown stronger, he thought he was drawing quite close to his destination. He proceeded, his form becoming enshrouded in darkness once more as he activated his invisibility enchantment.

And then he opened a door at the end of a long, tall hallway, lined on both sides by ornate columns of black quartz intricately carved with images of various beasts all bowing to Tusk—or some other individual of the same species—and was met with an aura of lightning magic so intense that he could almost taste it. The palatial walls gave way to rough-cut stone, and he found himself standing in another natural-seeming tunnel.

Leon projected his magic senses forward and realized that this short tunnel intersected with the rift carved by the Iron Needle’s impact, and a few thousand feet down the tunnel to his right was the first carved wall that he’d hit on the way down.

To the left, the tunnel went much deeper, but Leon almost hesitated to continue. The last time he was here, he hadn’t seen them, but now that he was deeper, he saw the rift walls lined with dozens of skulls of varying size, all of Tusk’s species. Many were much, much smaller than Tusk’s, and a few were even larger than its was. Some were small enough that Leon thought them to be examples of juveniles of Tusk’s species. He saw no other bones, however, and the skulls were lined up along the wall on simple stone plinths that had been specially built for them, if the fact that their sizes matched those of the skulls were any indication.

‘Seems I found their graveyard…’ Leon thought as he slapped down another alarm spell and continued onward, giving the skulls a few more curious glances as he passed them by. ‘Or something like one, anyway…’

It was curious to him that they were left here, along the path to the Iron Needle, and that one was outside of the wall—the largest skull of the collection, at that. A few of the skulls even looked like they were burned by lightning, though all seemed intact as far as he could tell. None were smashed or damaged aside from the fractal, spiraling lightning burns that those few sported.

He hadn’t stopped moving, but he was thrown out of his musings when he sensed a deep killing intent backed by Tusk’s powerful aura growing dangerously close. He was still invisible, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He was already moving quickly, but he began running as fast as he could maintain down the rift to the Iron Needle’s resting place.

The charge grew stronger and stronger the further he went, and faster than it had anywhere else in the cave system. This power wrapped around his body, entered his body as he breathed, and almost seemed to whisper in his ear. It was a sweet sound, but all Leon could understand was a plea for him to continue.

As he did, the walls grew darker, though not with darkness magic. Instead, he could smell the ionized air, the tell-tale stench of lightning, indicating the walls had been burned black. The ground grew softer and sandier; Leon imagined the power of the Needle had shattered many of the stones in the rift.

Even further down the rift, the ground became broken up more and more with twisting columns of black crystal that Leon recognized as fossilized lightning: sand that had been melted by a lightning strike and solidified into crystals, resembling frozen lightning.

They were beautiful, humming with lightning magic that had Leon’s blood singing. In fact, as he passed below one, a bolt of lightning shot out of it to score the already-blackened ceiling, the bright yellow-white nearly blinding Leon for a moment even as the rift shook with the sound of thunder.

If Leon hadn’t been trying to avoid attention until this point, he would’ve jumped in uncontained joy at the sight and the sensation of such power. Despite being a lightning mage, Leon could practically feel his blood vibrating in his veins and his hair standing on end.

But all of that was nearly forgotten when a human figure sprinted through the door to Tusk’s palace, leaped into the air, and twisted back into Tusk’s shape.

“SMALL RAT!” Tusk boomed, its voice echoing down the rift, its aura shattering several of the closer columns of fulgurite—though not, Leon noticed, the skulls of its dead race.

Leon slowed down, trying to remain inconspicuous even with his invisibility, but he proceeded onward anyway.

“THOU SHALT PROCEED NO FURTHER!” Tusk roared, and like the rift was breathing out, a tremendous gust of wind came from deeper within, a gust so powerful that Leon was forced to stop and brace against it to not be carried away. Unfortunately, his shroud of invisibility was torn apart, leaving him exposed to Tusk’s wrath.

Immediately, Leon felt Tusk’s power constrict around him, but in the same moment, his rage spiked. He wasn’t going to be captured and humiliated again, thrown away like old trash at best, slaughtered like a pig at worst. Instead, he breathed in, absorbing the lightning magic that inundated the tunnel, and let loose with all the lightning magic he had within him at once.

His body seemed to explode with silver-blue lightning, all of it directed in Tusk’s general direction. The wave of lightning passed over the many columns of black crystalline fulgurite, causing each of them to discharge the lightning magic they had contained within themselves, adding to Leon’s massive strike. At the same time, thunder rocked the tunnel, dust and sand fell from the ceiling, and for a moment, Leon felt like the ceiling was about to come crashing down.

But the ceiling held, and Leon’s powerful strike hit Tusk, sending the creature flying back and so knocking it off balance that it lost control of its power for a moment.

Without hesitation, Leon leaped into the air and began flying, using all of his power to force himself down into the rift. He couldn’t see the bottom, there being what seemed like another infuriating wall another mile or so down there, but Leon pushed all of his power into moving as quickly as he could.

“THOU SHALT DIE, THEN, SMALL RAT!” Tusk roared as it righted itself in the air, and Leon felt the air around him constrict again, but with his distance, it was weaker. Changing magic from lightning to wind, Leon managed to power through these restraints and keep going.

Tusk roared again, and this time, Leon sensed a massive attack building behind him. Without even looking, he concentrated all the lightning within him and seized control of the considerable lightning magic around him, and directed it all behind him. Almost instinctively, he formed the magic into the rough shape of a bird of prey, demanding that it go and stop Tusk. Acting semi-autonomously, this formed power was launched back just as Tusk’s gale came howling down into the rift.

Leon’s power rose to meet it, gathering power as it passed by the dozens of twisting fulgurite columns, and when it hit Tusk’s gale, it felt like some cosmic giant had grasped the tunnel and shook it with all its might. Rocks fell from the ceiling, Tusk roared in frustration, and Leon ignored it all and kept descending.

The tunnel remained largely intact, but Leon noted with some satisfaction that Tusk had slowed considerably as it pursued him over the fulgurite columns; and for good reason, it turned out, as when the tenth-tier beast strayed too close to one, it exploded in a shower of lightning, bathing the monster in yellow-white lightning and causing it to shriek in pain.

Leon could sense the power contained within the fulgurite column, and didn’t envy Tusk getting hit with it one bit, even if he were jealous of that power.

When he came close enough to the deep wall in the rift to see details, he noted that it wasn’t carved with the likeness of animals, not even some image of Tusk or its ancestors. Instead, it was almost entirely featureless, lacking even a door. Judging by its surroundings, it was a relatively recent addition, which Leon assumed was meant to either secure the Iron Needle or contain it.

He leaned a little more towards the former when Tusk practically exploded in anger, screaming so loudly that Leon wouldn’t have been surprised if his family heard it all the way back in Occulara, “THAT SHARD IS MINE!!! THOU SHALT NOT STEAL IT, SMALL RAT!”

“THE IRON NEEDLE BELONGS TO MY CLAN!” Leon shouted back. “AND IT WILL BE OURS AGAIN!” To punctuate his declaration, Leon slammed into the wall, sensing few enchantments within it. He concentrated on the idea of ‘open’ to mean breaking through a lock, smashing through an obstruction, crashing through a wall, and then slammed an ‘open’ spell upon the wall, backing it up with all the power he could bring to bear.

The wall held admirably, but as Leon’s silver-blue lightning burned its surface black, and as his ‘open’ spell undid the magics within it, it cracked. Leon smashed his armored fist against it again, and the stone softened and crumbled. A third time Leon hit it, and then a fourth, each time hitting it with another ‘open’ rune. And with that, a hole just big enough for him to squeeze through opened.

Tusk screeched in unabated fury as Leon slid through the opening, pursuing him with a spike of sharp air. Leon, however, whispered to the tau pearl, and a shield of light blocked Tusk’s strike. Tusk’s power instead helped Leon squeeze through the hole, hurling him into the tunnel beyond, almost choked completely with long, twisting, root-like columns of crystalline fulgurite, sparkling in the light of contained lightning and the lightning that still danced over Leon’s body. So filled was the tunnel with the substance that Leon had to almost halt to find a way through it all.

Fortunately, Tusk seemed unwilling to follow him past that wall, and the choked tunnel was short. Leon shimmied past the twisted fulgurite columns, ignoring Tusk’s threatening, indignant roars, and entered the chamber just beyond the tunnel.

And, finally, after more than a month since he left home, after weeks spent wandering these tunnels, and after Tusk’s best attempts to stop him, Leon laid his eyes upon the Iron Needle.