Samantha landed squarely on the altar but her momentum nearly took her right off the other side. For one quick, desperate moment, electricity had been channeled through the spear and into her muscles, which twitched spasmodically a few times while ignoring her commands to grab onto the altar's smooth glass surface. At the last possible moment, her body again chose to obey her, and she gripped the edges of the altar hard with her fingers while her legs swung over and came within an inch of the sigil-packed surface of the floor below.
Scrambling onto the precarious perch of the altar, she squatted down and looked at the wonder of the glowing Crystal so close by. It had only been a voice in her head before, a distant savior who had shown her the way out of captivity and had gifted her with the spear head that would become a tool of Chaos.
And yet the thing before her did not sing with Chaos, but with Order. Not the pointless Order of the obsidian stronghold and the mindless soldiers forced into servitude for the Lord Vilsen, but something beautiful and comforting. This was the calm that tamed chaotic energies and made them safe.
You turned the swamp into the peaceful forest I knew before, Samantha thought to herself, the realization spiking through her. The Order of this place doesn't need you. The Chaos of the swamp does.
"I will return you to your rightful home," she said out loud and reached her hand gently to pull the beautiful clear stone from the glassy surface it was embedded in.
"You will do no such thing," a raspy voice said from outside the doorway.
Samantha looked up in surprise, so taken up by the beautiful thing in her hands that she had not heard the man approach.
He looked the worse for wear, his left arm held tightly to his side as though it pained him. Red dripped from scratches on his face and neck and stained the rich black of his uniform in several places. His expression looked strained and his skin more pale than usual. But still he held his sword firmly in his right hand and the steel in his eyes sparked with hate.
"You hurt yourself?" Samantha asked him.
"I had a nice trap set up for you, but it worked well enough against your monsters."
"I have your pretty gem."
He shrugged, then winced. "Only momentarily. I like my chances better, being on the outside of this door."
He stepped aside for a moment and then gestured. Three of his soldiers came into view. At his command, one stepped calmly into the room, only to be sent into a fit of twitching and convulsing as its feet touched the sigils. A second soldier stepped across the back of the first before landing on the clear floor and succumbing to the same electrified forces. The third calmly walked across the backs of the others and retrieved the Chaos Spear with a quick motion before turning and rejoining its master in the hallway outside the room, hauling the corpses of its compatriots back as it did so.
Lord Vilsen returned to standing in the doorway.
"Seems like you've lost your easy way out." Smugness emanated from his set jaw and slight smile.
Samantha settled herself more comfortably on the altar's surface, cradling the Crystal in her hands like a baby.
"I wonder," she said, her gaze meeting his directly, "what do you do now that your pet sorcerer is monster food? Seems to me that your army got a lot smaller, thanks to my monsters. I'm sure a few are left, but what's left of your great mission to enslave the world?"
The smugness changed to annoyance.
"There are other sorcerers in this world. You may have delayed my ultimate plans, but you have not stopped them. Once I have your body, I will cut you into tiny pieces and burn each one to ash. Then I will throw them into the winds atop Mount Herschkill. That should occupy you for a good long while. Even if you do eventually come back, which I doubt even the strength of your power can pull off, by then it will be too late for everyone else in this world."
