Celestial Storm: Blazing Eye

Chapter Eight: Mummy Dust

As Nemafrien helped Uartiro to her feet, Kiftu ran into the building and was immediately attacked by several guards standing near the doors. Many of us from Celestial Storm had fought our way over to the doors too, and we made our way into the building since Kiftu was kind enough to blast a path through the guards for us.

Giontesh, Unaresiliona and Nemafrien were quick to run in as well, and they immediately began subduing the grunts that had been guarding the doors and the lobby.

Ketven, Besteg and Regdor were the first members of Celestial Storm to run into a powerful foe. They ran into their opponent just beyond the lobby. The ground around them turned to sand and wrapped around their legs.

"Ack! Some durned lump o' sandstone pulled one o'er on us!" Besteg cried.

"Not to worry, lads," Regdor said, "I'll right us. Just a moment..."

Regdor muttered something, and the sand grabbing them released its hold on them. Besteg spoke another brief incantation and the sand under them hardened to glass.

"There 'e is!" Ketven cried suddenly pointing a finger at a shadow lurking behind a support column.

Ketven barked out an incantation that made the support pillar bend over and slam downward at the shadow. The shadow jumped out into plain sight revealing itself to be a human with wild hair the color of sand and skin tanned a deep orange by the sun.

"Get 'im!" Besteg hooted.

The dwarf followed his own advice by quickly speaking an incantation that made the floor at the enemy mage's feet crack. Lava welled up from the crack in the ground and rapidly rose upward at the enemy mage. Redgor also barked out an incantation that made the sand they were standing in rise up and fly downward at the enemy mage. Ketven began chanting a longer and more complex incantation.

The enemy mage spun on his heel and sand swirled around him. He reappeared behind Ketven and blasted the dwarf with a scouring blast of sand. Ketven's spell died before the dwarf was even halfway through the long incantation. Ketven spun in a circle and fell onto his rump on the ground. Besteg and Regdor's spells hit one another and missed the mage entirely.

Regdor rounded on the mage and blasted at him again, but the man had already swirled away in another whirlwind of sand.

"Ketven!" Besteg hollered.

"Aye, I'm fine. Don't worry 'bout me. I only fell on me bum!" Ketven said quickly.

"'E's a sand shifter," Besteg observed as the enemy mage reappeared and attempted to blast Regdor with a spell that conjured forth coarse sand.

"Aye. I can see that, lad," said Regdor, "Concentrate on yer spells."

"You foolish grubs won't just blast me aside!" the sand shifter said haughtily.

Ketven sent a pillar of stone flying from its place as a support column at the sand shifter, who spun away with an easy grace that suggested that the man might have been an acrobat before he joined Mummy Dust. He blasted another spell at Ketven in response and managed to dodge a spell that conjured forth a dwarf made of magma at the same time.

Ketven rolled aside and jumped up behind the magma dwarf that Besteg had called forth. Regdor had been chanting an incantation, and the dwarf blasted a jet of sand at the sand shifter, who nearly bent over backwards to avoid getting blasted. The sand shifter jumped upright again, and Regdor's spell swung around in a loop to come at him again. The sand shifter spun again and disappeared.