The Whispering Beast didn't attack with claws. Not at first.

  It just hovered there, its stained-glass wings beating slowly against the sun, casting a kaleidoscopic shadow over the crystal plateau. It looked less like a biological creature and more like a cathedral window that had decided to learn how to hate.

  Then, it turned up the volume.

  The whispers in my head stopped being whispers. They became a roar.

  …Fraud…

  I dropped to one knee, clutching my head. The world tilted. The crystal floor beneath me seemed to turn transparent, revealing a drop of miles. I was falling. I was always falling.

  …You don't belong here, Kaelen. You're just a glorified guardsman playing hero. You led them here to die, just like you failed at the Citadel…

  I gritted my teeth. "Get out of my head."

  I forced my eyes open. I looked at the others.

  They were broken.

  Faelar was on his knees, screaming at a jagged rock formation.

  “I didn't take it! The gold was tainted, Father! I swear on the Anvil! I tried to hold the roof up!”

  He was sobbing, clutching the stone as if it were the boots of a dwarf king, reliving the collapse of his mine.

  Willow was curled into a ball, apologizing to the floor.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, the trees are dying... I couldn't stop the rot... I’m poison...” Her staff lay discarded, rolling away from her.

  And Liam...

  Liam was standing dangerously close to the edge of the plateau, staring into empty space with a rapturous, terrifying smile that didn't reach his eyes. He was reaching out, his fingers twitching as if counting unseen coins or caressing a face.

  “Serena?” he whispered, his voice dripping with longing and venom. “You came back? You have the cut? Give it here... don't you laugh at me...”

  He took a step toward the ledge. “Don't you walk away from me! I killed them for you!”

  I tried to move. Get up, I told myself. Save them.

  …Why bother? Let them fall. It’s safer. If they die, you don't have to lead them…

  My leg began to shake uncontrollably. Just a nervous tic, a vibration of pure terror.

  Nugget, who was currently the only member of the party not undergoing a traumatic mental breakdown, looked at my vibrating leg. To the chicken, it didn't look like fear. It looked like a worm.

  Nugget struck.

  PECK.

  He didn't just peck. He drove his beak into my shin, right through the greave gap, with the force of a hydraulic press.

  “GAH!”

  The sharp, blinding pain cut through the mental fog like a lightning bolt. The voice of the Beast shattered.

  I scrambled to my feet. The fear was still there, but the paralysis was gone. I sprinted to Liam, grabbing the back of his tunic just as his foot left the ledge.

  I yanked him back. He spun around, eyes wild, a dagger appearing in his hand.

  “She’s stealing the—”

  SMACK.

  I didn't hesitate. I backhanded him across the face with my gauntlet. It wasn't gentle. It was a tactical reset.

  Liam stumbled back, blinking. The hallucination of Serena vanished, replaced by the stinging reality of my strike.

  “Ow!” Liam shouted, clutching his jaw. “You hit me!”

  “You were walking off a cliff!” I roared. “Snap out of it! She’s not real!”

  I turned to Faelar. The dwarf was still weeping into the rock.

  “Faelar Stonefist!” I bellowed, using my command voice. “Stand up! The roof isn't falling! But if you don't pick up that axe, I’m going to throw it off the mountain!”

  “Bessie?” Faelar snapped his head up, eyes clearing instantly at the threat to his weapon. “Don't you touch her!”

  “Then use her!” I grabbed Willow by the collar and hauled her upright. “Willow! The trees are fine! We’re the ones about to die!”

  The Beast, realizing its psychological warfare had been interrupted by a chicken and a slap-fight, let out a shriek of annoyance.

  It flared its wings. The stained glass panels glowed with blinding intensity. It began to draw in sunlight, the air around it shimmering with heat.

  “Incoming!” Liam yelled, diving behind an obsidian pillar.

  We scrambled for cover just as the Beast unleashed hell.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Beams of concentrated solar energy erupted from its wings, slicing across the plateau. The crystal floor hissed and melted into glass slag where the beams touched.

  “We’re pinned!” Faelar shouted over the roar of searing light. “I can't hit it! It’s too high!”

  “It’s a solar lens!” Elmsworth shrieked, huddled in a ball behind the smallest rock available. “It’s refracting ambient light into a coherent thermal lance! We need to disrupt the refraction!”

  “Speak common, wizard!” I yelled, shielding my face from the heat.

  “Block the light! Mirror it!”

  “With what?” Liam demanded. “It’s melting the rocks!”

  Another beam sliced the top off our cover. We were seconds away from being cooked in our armor.

  Elmsworth fumbled for his wand. His hands were shaking so badly he nearly dropped it.

  “I... I have a spell! A defensive ward! Reflecto!”

  He popped up, eyes squeezed shut, and waved his wand frantically. But in his panic, his muscle memory betrayed him. He didn't cast a shield. He cast the spell he used every morning to keep his boots tidy.

  “PRESTIDIGITATION: POLISH!”

  A beam of blue magic shot out... and hit Nugget.

  Nugget, who had been busy eating a bug, suddenly underwent a transformation. His golden feathers, already lustrous, were instantly buffed to a mirror-sheen finish. He wasn't just a chicken anymore; he was a blindingly reflective disco ball of poultry.

  At that exact moment, the Beast fired a main battery laser directly at the bird.

  “Nugget, move!” Willow screamed.

  Nugget didn't move. He preened.

  The solar beam hit the chicken. But instead of vaporizing him, it bounced. The magically polished feathers acted like a perfect convex mirror array.

  The beam fractured into a dozen erratic rays of death, shooting off in every direction.

  ZAP. ZAP. ZAP.

  One beam took the top off a statue. Another singed Faelar’s beard. But three of them sliced cleanly through the thick, purple veins tethering the Beast to the temple roof.

  SNAP.

  The Beast shrieked—a sound of genuine shock—as its power source and flight stability were severed. It dropped out of the sky like a stone.

  We stared at the chicken. Nugget shook himself, the spell fading, and let out a confused cluck.

  “Did...” Faelar blinked. “Did the gnome just weaponize the bird?”

  “Calculated!” Elmsworth squeaked, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Refractive index... precisely as intended!”

  “It’s down!” I yelled, seizing the momentum. “Don't let it recover! Form up!”

  The Beast crashed onto the crystal plateau with a sound like shattering china. It thrashed, trying to right itself, its wings scraping against the ground.

  It scrambled backward, claws scrabbling on the smooth crystal floor. Then, it roared and charged to meet us.

  It was big. Heavy. And moving fast. A collision would crush us.

  “Slow it down!” Faelar yelled, raising his shield.

  “No!” I ordered. “Don't block it! Unbalance it!”

  I looked at Willow. “Willow! Remember the mountain slide? Do it! Grease the floor! Now!”

  Willow’s eyes went wide. She understood. She raised her staff, not aiming at the Beast, but at the path in front of it.

  “SLIPPERY SLIME!”

  A massive puddle of translucent, magical grease erupted right in front of the charging monster.

  The Beast hit the grease.

  Physics took the wheel. The massive construct lost all traction. It didn't stop; it drifted. Its legs went out from under it in a cartoonish splay, and it spun wildly, sliding past us at forty miles per hour.

  “Look out!” Liam dove to the left.

  The Beast drifted sideways, screeching across the crystal, and slammed face-first into a massive obsidian pillar.

  CRUNCH.

  The impact shook the entire mountain. The Beast slumped, dazed, stars practically circling its head.

  “Now!” I roared. “Finish it!”

  I sprinted toward the dazed monster, my spear leveled for the kill. I was the Commander. This was my moment.

  I launched the spear.

  It flew true, aiming for the cracked armor on the Beast’s neck.

  But at the last second, the Beast’s tail whipped around in a reflex spasm. It slapped the spear out of the air.

  CLANG.

  My weapon went spinning away, skidding across the crystal floor until it stopped twenty feet away, teetering on the edge of the cliff.

  I skidded to a halt, unarmed.

  The Beast shook off the stun. It saw me standing there, defenseless. It roared, mandibles clicking, and rose up, ready to strike.

  “Kaelen!” Liam shouted, too far away to help.

  I looked at the spear. I looked at the Beast.

  I didn't have time to run. I didn't have time to think. I just reached out.

  I remembered the feeling in the armory. The connection. The way the wood felt like my own bone.

  Come back, I thought. I’m not done with you.

  I snapped my hand open.

  There was a rush of cold wind. A tug in my gut.

  SNAP.

  The spear didn't just slide. It launched itself from the cliff edge. It flew through the air, handle-first, magnetized to my will.

  It slapped into my open palm with a stinging, solid impact that jarred my bones.

  The Beast lunged.

  I stepped inside its guard, the spear already moving as if it had never left my hand. I drove the point up, under the jaw, into the soft, pulsing light of its throat.

  SHUNK.

  I twisted the shaft.

  The Beast stiffened. Its eyes went wide. The light in its wings flickered and died. It collapsed, dead, its massive weight sliding off the spear tip.

  Silence descended on the plateau.

  I stood there, breathing hard, my hand throbbing where the spear had returned.

  Faelar walked up beside me. He looked at the dead Beast. He looked at my spear. He looked at the spot on the cliff where the spear had been a second ago.

  “Did...” Faelar whispered. “Did you just use the Force?”

  “I... I think so,” I breathed.

  Faelar looked at his axe. A look of intense concentration crossed his face.

  He drew his arm back and hurled Bessie at the corpse of the Beast.

  THUNK.

  The axe embedded itself in the monster’s shoulder.

  Faelar stood there. He held his hand out, palm open. He narrowed his eyes. He grunted with effort.

  “Come here, girl,” he whispered. “Come to papa. Fly!”

  Nothing happened. The axe remained stubbornly embedded in the dead monster.

  Faelar waited another second. He wiggled his fingers.

  Still nothing.

  “Oh, that is just unfair,” the dwarf grumbled. He walked over, put a foot on the Beast’s corpse, and yanked his axe free with a squelch. “Why does the stick come back but the axe doesn't? It’s favoritism, that’s what it is.”

  “It’s magnetism!” Elmsworth corrected, running over to examine the corpse. “Or perhaps telekinetic bonding! Kaelen, I must measure your midichlorian count immediately!”

  “Is it dead?” Willow asked, poking the Beast with her staff.

  The Beast dissolved. It didn't rot; it shattered into thousands of harmless shards of glass, leaving behind only a pile of dark dust and the item it had been guarding.

  Sitting on a small pedestal in the center of the ruins was a geometric stone, shaped like a dodecahedron. It pulsed with a soft, inner light.

  “The Prism Key,” Elmsworth breathed. “The entry token for the Celestial Vault.”

  “Shiny,” Liam said, reaching for it.

  “Bawk!”

  Nugget shot past Liam, aiming for the loot. He pecked at the pile of dust, found a loose piece of glowing sunstone crystal, and swallowed it whole.

  CRACK.

  The sound came from the floor.

  A hairline fracture zigzagged across the mirror-smooth crystal, racing toward the obsidian pillars like a lightning bolt made of bad news.

  “That doesn't sound good,” Faelar said.

  “Structural integrity is compromised!” Elmsworth squeaked. “The Beast was the load-bearing magical anchor! The glue is gone!”

  The ground gave a lurch. A low rumble vibrated through my boots.

  “We need to leave,” I said, grabbing the Prism Key. “Now.”

  I looked at the path we had climbed. A boulder the size of a carriage rolled past the entrance, obliterating the trail.

  “The trail is gone,” Liam noted calmly.

  I looked at the north face of the mountain. A steep, smooth slide of polished crystal that dropped for miles.

  “We slide,” I said.

  Faelar looked at the drop. Then he looked at his massive shield. A grin split his beard.

  “All aboard the Dwarf Express!”