muh molten rock

It hit me with its trunk. I saw it coming at the last second and tried to dodge, but with what should have been impossible speed for something of its size, it hit me anyway and smacked me into a nearby cliff face.

Just to clarify, when I say it smacked me into a cliff face, I meant it smacked me into a cliff face. I pounded into the stone shelf with enough force that even Feather Fall couldn’t stop it completely and drove perhaps ten meters into the rock. Tons of stone broke and fell around me and I had to sink a hand into the rock beneath me to remain up right and see my opponent.

Its trunk lifted, dark shades of light gathering in its open mouth, and I was abruptly burning even as I was forced deeper into the stone. I called out to Suryasta and Levant even as I tried to stand, but I sank into molten rock as the crater my body had made melted around me. It rained down on me from above, showering me with fluid, and felt my skin glowing, trying to melt. My Elementals came to me call, forming a shield against the heat, ferrying the air to my lungs, but it was all I could do to heal myself repeatedly in the face of the onslaught.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, the attack came to a halt, leaving me half buried in molten stone. One of my arms was still raised in defense against the raining stone, shielding my eyes and mouth, but I had to bury the other up to the shoulder in the slowly flowing rock around me to grasp something solid and keep from sliding off the cliff.

I panted hard for a second or two, trying to keep my head above the stone, and then grit my teeth. That attack had hurt and I’d felt what it could have done to me—a week ago, I’d have died to that attack.

But that was a week ago.