Key of the Threshold Keeper

The Minotaur squares his shoulders in the torch glare, then hurls his axes aside. Golden light burns in his eyes as he turns on Talimaryl, one slow, forced step at a time.

His voice comes wrong, layered with the castle's cold will. The words echo off the stone, and the golden veins in the floor answer with a faint pulse.

The dragon's wings tense, then still. For the first time, surprise cuts across his predatory calm. Around Dax, the company tightens, unsure whether the Minotaur is ally, weapon, or warning.

The Minotaur lifts his chin toward the dragon, jaw clenched against the force driving him.

Dax lunges from the left and drives his sword across Talimaryl's guard, steel flashing through torchglare.

The blade bites. Talimaryl recoils with a hiss, wings snapping wide as golden sparks spit from the cut.

The dragon twists back, one claw pressed to the wound, while the floor's gold veins surge brighter under the blow.

Narbo braces in the rear, tattoos flaring, as the corridor shudders and the torches spit higher.

Robin’s arrows whip in from the side, a hard silver curtain that forces Talimaryl to twist behind his raised wing. Dax uses the opening, driving in with shield first and blade ready.

Steel bites twice along the dragon’s flank. Golden sparks spray across the broken floor, and the veins underfoot answer with a violent pulse.

Talimaryl inhales, chest swelling with furnace light. The Minotaur stiffens at the blast of heat, and the hall itself seems to hold its breath.

Golden fire floods out in a roaring sheet, but Dax’s press has already driven the dragon sideways, off balance and burning at the wound. The fire scorches the air above his shoulder instead of breaking his line.

Narbo surges a step forward through the shaking dust, tattoos blazing, while the Minotaur stands rigid with that strange, cold focus. Talimaryl’s wing buckles, and the dragon is left snarling in Dax’s reach.

Talimaryl’s wounded wing folds badly, but the dragon’s furnace-light swells again. Beneath the company, the golden veins split open and the castle’s sigil screams without sound.

The floor buckles between Dax and the dragon. A ring of black stone rises from the breach, engraved with the same witness-mark that once bound the Prince.

The Minotaur’s golden armor locks tight as invisible force drags him toward the ring. Narbo catches one horn and strains against it, boots grinding sparks from the stone.

Talimaryl bares his teeth as a second silhouette unfolds behind his wings, vast and antlered, its outline made from gold fire and crawling shadow. The torches die together.

Narbo wrenches his hammer free and swings with both hands. The blow smashes through the black stone ring, splitting the witness-mark in a burst of gold sparks.

The invisible pull vanishes. The Minotaur tears free of the broken circle, stumbling back as golden armor fragments fall away from his shoulders.

The shattered stones continue to glow. Behind Talimaryl, the vast antlered silhouette unfolds farther, its head rising above the dragon as darkness pours through the broken mark.

The torches remain dead. Gold fire crawls across the floor toward the widening shadow, while the freed Minotaur retrieves one axe and squares himself beside Narbo.

Stop the summoning