Chapter 35: The Only Way

The entire room rotates, a strange sense of vertigo in our guts— except for Mato, for some reason. A pale, starved light claws its way through the sliding opened doorway. We ready ourselves, wielding our various weapons and implements as I frantically remember to tie that leather cord with the gems on it to my Pokin’ Stick.

We flinch as the room clicks into its final position, expecting something. Through the doorway we see a perfectly symmetrical pentagonal room. 2 sandstone pillars, so polished and white they seem almost marble, are visible at the far end of the chamber, through the door. Pale, rectangular lights are positioned on each of the pillars, and more alight, embedded in the floor. The floor itself is strangely carved, from what little I can see from my vantage point, but that's not what draws the eye.

At the dead center of the room is a sarcophagus. But in this magical realm, tens of thousands of years later, the Egyptians got a lot better at constructing them.

The sarcophagus floats, perfectly stable, 1.5 feet off the floor. It is made of solid gold, embedded with gemstones, and has a near perfect likeness of the mage pharaoh we had been seeing. If I squint, I think I almost see gossamer threads leading off of it, and into the floor.

None of us want to break the silence, but I believe most of us assume something is going to come out of that thing. Ominous as it is.

I run through my memory of the entry for this room in the journal. My future self had written that they had killed the mage, replaced it with a “beholder lich,” and filled the sarcophagus with “sick ass loot.” But, it didn't specify whether or not the beholder lich was in the sarcophagus or not.

What even is a beholder lich? I know it has something to do with eyes but, can it even fit inside the sarcophagus with all the loot in there?

Only one way to find out, I suppose.

I take a hesitant step forward, and it seems the group gained a bit more cohesion while I was conked out from mana poisoning, solidifying their roles, as they fall into position with practiced assumption. Mato takes point as scout, Demarcus backing him up just a few steps behind, while Izzy stays several feet further. I guess that makes me either rearguard or center.

I slide into place in front of Izzy and watch as Mato leans into the room, he peeks to the left, then turns his head to the right.

“Sh—!” He yells, ducking back into the room.

Before Mato can even finish cursing, a humming beam of jagged red light blasts into the doorway where Mato was standing, scorching stone as heat blooms into the room from the firey explosion.

“Ambush! The— what even is that thing?” Mato yells.

“Beholder lich!” I answer.

“Well it was waiting for us! We gotta get in there, we're cornered here.” He yells.

“I got this.” Demarcus says, assuredly, taking strides forward into the doorway.

“Wait!” Izzy yells from behind me.

Demarcus gets to the doorway, already stepping into a swing for something he assumed would be directly around the corner.

As soon as his leading leg steps through the threshold, a thin, piercing light of pale pink draws a line through the meat of his calf in a flash, and makes a hole straight through it— and the wall behind it.

He falls with a yell of pain, and Izzy snatches him by the neck. She strums a loud chord that reverberates the air, and seems to hang there like a wall, covering the right side of the door.

She peels out through the doorway, banking left into the larger chamber.

Mato shoulders Demarcus and follows suit as I charge in to guard their entry.

I turn to face the right, and see our foe through the vibrating [Wall of Sound].

Apparently, a beholder is just a big fucking eye. Dehydrated and dessicated eyelids flank it from the top and bottom as the round thing floats there, limbless except for several thin, veiny tendrils creakily extending from the back of it like optic nerves, but dry and bloodless. At the end of each of those tendrils is, yet again, an eye. Several dried and shriveled eyes surround it at the end of these tentacle-like nerves.

I recoil slightly at the disturbing sight of it.

The central eye, its main body, still has some— juice, for an unfortunate lack of a better term— though it is milky and clouded, like the eye of a blind person. The pupil is maybe three or four times the size of my head, dilated and wide as the faded grey-brown iris is relaxed. The beholder stares, not at me, but up and away, off into space. Its smaller secondary eyes, however, flit about. 2 of them are trained on me, 3 on my teammates behind me, and another 2 flicking their gazes around the room, for a total of 7. 5 seem to come from nearer the top, with 2 at its sides.

Each of the eyes has a different color from what I can see. The two trained on me are yellow and purple. The three on my teammates are pink, red, and greyish black. I can't tell what the two flicking about are in this second of observation, but I think I saw that one was also purple.

I hear Izzy yell from behind me.

“Cy!”

And take it as my cue to run.

I run backwards a step or two, then turn and haul towards the source of Izzy’s voice, stumbling as I feel the stone just in front of my feet be lifted slightly.

I trip and roll, and am yanked back behind a pillar before the entire pillar is rocked by a segment of the floor being thrown against it telekinetically.

Demarcus has one of his greaves undone and Mato is pulling back the thin, precise wound to drip healing potion deeper into it.

“What's the plan?” Izzy asks, crouching next to me.

“Not sure. Percolating on one. Currently, all I know is that you, specifically, should stay behind the pillar. Sound bounces.” I say.

That, and apparently Mato has to die for us to kill this thing.

I shake my head to erase that thought like an etch-a-sketch.

“Let's try a feint. Strike a chord and toss something out to the left, then I'll go right.” I offer.

Izzy nods, grabbing a piece of stone flaked off from the pillar, then stands and strikes the chord.

I wait a second after it reverberates to duck out from the pillar, [Stone Dart] already compressed between my hands.

I take a wide step, ready to send my spell flying with a point, and in the microsecond it takes for me to aim and fire, I see one of its eyestalks finish its spin and a blue shimmering shield appear, right before my spell ricochets off of it, uselessly, and its yellow eyestalk finish charging, and flash.

Then, I see white. Just white— as I am struck by lightning.

I feel myself go spinning back and hit the wall as I blink stars from my vision.

Demarcus pulls me back as I go crawling towards where I think the pillar was.

“You good?!”

“Huuugh.” Is all I respond, but if I can talk, I'm fine.

I got my bell absolutely rung, but I came out of that pretty clean for someone struck by lightning. Either my nerves are fried or I didn't really get electrocuted.

I blink and squint, my vision still nearly blinded from the light, and see a lichtenberg pattern of scorch marks on my frock coat, it having apparently tanked the hit for me.

“God I love this thing.”

“Well the feint obviously didn't work! Now what?!” Izzy yells.

“It was ready for me, I think it can see through the pillar.” I say, pulling myself back to my feet.

“Or it could hear us.” Mato suggests, digging through his bag.

“Do you see any ears on that thing? It's kinda got a motif going.” I remark, shooting the suggestion down, unfairly.

“Then again it's also floating so, magic bullshit is in play.”

Mato finds what he was digging for and pulls a tiny mirror from his bag, then uses it to peek around the pillar without exposing himself.

“That lightnin’ bolt came from its yella eye. The shield was blue, them pink n’ red beams came from the pink n’ red eyes. Each eye does somethin’ different.” Mato remarks as he examines the beholder safely from cover.

“Good eye Mato!” I shout.

Demarcus just nods, crouched and ready to go.

Izzy perks up, and quickly asks “which ones haven't we seen?”

“Black. And purple. It's got two purples.” Mato replies.

“No idea what those do, but black doesn't sound good.” Izzy remarks.

“None of them do. But hey, if pink went through armor and stone, why hasn't it shot through the pillar?” I say, and everyone instinctually ducks. Nothing comes.

“Maybe it's gotta recharge?” Demarcus offers.

“A bit too reliant on video game logic for me to be comfortable, but that's the best we've got.”

“New plan; we gotta bait out each of the eye blasts and then take it on. I think I can tank the lightning.” I say quickly enough that the words start spilling over each other.

“The red one felt like fire. I can do that one. Armor makes me fireproof if it's just for a second.” Demarcus says, strapping his greave back onto his leg.

“Pink seems like piercing. Has to be dodged. I think I'm fastest with my ring. That's me.” Izzy offers.

“Stay behind the pillar so it won't use the others on you. Dodge when we yell pink.” I say.

“We'll have to improvise on the purple and black. We're definitely running out of time. Red has to be recharged. D, go!”

Demarcus, needing no more prompting, grips his crowbar and charges around the corner. Mato and I follow shortly behind him just in time to see black tendrils of liquid shadow creep windingly out, slow, so must have been prefired. They impact against Demarcus’ head, and I horrifically hear the sound of them forcing their way down his throat and up his nose.

Demarcus goes stiff as a board, mid-stride, and begins toppling over before we see him begin to float an inch or two off the ground. I watch one of the purple eyestalks stay beaded on Demarcus as he floats, and then is summarily yeeted behind the beholder and into the far wall.

“D!” I yell.

The beholder tilts slightly, leaning its body in an upward diagonal, and Mato’s fired bolt whizzes past it.

The beholder quickly jerks to the right as I punch out 2 [Magic Missiles] in short succession. The large main eye still stares off into space, and none of the secondaries seem to be trained on me, except—

“Pink!” Mato yells.

I hear Izzy hit the deck behind the pillar, and I attempt to follow suit.

An unfortunately familiar feeling like being stabbed with a pencil shoots through my left arm, still pulling back from my punch as I attempt to somersault.

I cry out and immediately feel warm blood begin to pour from veins now unfinished and open. My somersault falters, and from the ground I pull my arm in to inspect. I can't quite see the wound through the blood, but there is a hole half the size of a dime through my coat and bicep.

The muscles of my left arm are shredded and useless, and despite my teeth-cracking clenched jaw, I roll onto my right and get back to standing.

I feel heat explode from afar and hear Mato cry out. I panickedly look for him as I run for cover behind one of the 5 pillars, hoping beyond hope that wasn't the end of him, and thankfully seeing him employing the stop, drop, and roll methodology to put out the flames coating his back and shawl.

Low and rhythmic strumming of an intro to some song begins to pick up from Izzy as I uncork a healing potion with my teeth and gasping, shakily and liberally pour it onto my left arm.

I can feel it fail to heal through completely, wincing at internal bleeding as I try to move the arm, so I chug down the rest to heal the insides.

The four of us are now scattered across the room, but as Izzy’s playing picks up speed into a driving, repetitive riff of low guitar, I feel determined.

It might not have been what we wanted, but we got 3 of the eyes out. We need to press the attack now before they can recharge.

The beholder floats there, its eye unmoved despite us surrounding it, and I see the yellow eyestalk begin to glow.

The yellow eye jaggedly points in a direction, I follow its glance and see nothing there while I run out to force it to respond to me. It ducks down before I finish my swing and the [Magic Missile] lances out, then I see the yellow eye flash and a bolt of lightning strike just past another pillar at the exact moment Demarcus peeled out from cover behind it.

Electricity arcs and dances across his metal armor as his limbs jerk, forcibly moved by foreign electrical signals racing through his muscles.

He clatters to the floor, and my heart skips as he doesn't move for a second, before he groans, rolls, and Izzy's playing picks up in time with his bellowing roar as he buckles down to [Push Through].

It's somehow keeping tabs on all of us simultaneously, predicting our actions and compensating.

My eye is suddenly drawn to Mato, as he frantically raises both his hands in c shapes, then clicks them together as he moves them forwards in a sweeping round path.

Somehow, I understand that to mean a pincer attack. Maybe it was the crab claws. I nod back at him and try to think of what attack to use. I run through my list of spells; [Stone Dart] made it use its shield, so that's a decent idea but— suddenly I have an idea.

“Alright, let's see if you can see through this.”

I begin collecting and compressing my [Stone Dart] spell, and feel [Simultaneous Sustain] kick in as I begin forming a [Minor Illusion] of the same stone dart atop it. The blue eyestalk begins to twirl, and I see almost a soapy film of magic beginning to form in its wake.

Mato gives the signal, and I send the illusion of my [Stone Dart] at the beholder.

The illusion hits the shield, uselessly, I look for an opening around wide shield, and am forced to fire my real [Stone Dart] at a suboptimal target of the purple eyestalk— which twitches the moment I make the decision to fire. I move to stop, but the built up magical pressure is too much and my spell fires off anyways.

And misses.

I look to see if Mato and Demarcus fared any better, only to see the purple eyestalks pointed in each of their directions.

I watch as the floor in front of Demarcus is torn up and lifted just as he steps upon it, making him do a painful split mid-sprint.

Mato’s is more subtle as I see him juke an incoming projectile. I squint, and realize the thing just thrown at him was his own bolt caught midair by the purple telekinetic eye.

“Oh Come on!” I yell, before Izzy doubles down on the hard driving rhythm she's playing, reminding me that this is the opportunity we planned for. It used all its eyes.

Quickly, almost panicked to not waste the opportunity, as the beholder swings that chunk of floor Demarcus once stood on, I shoot a [Firebolt]— which collides with the stone as it swings into place.

I try to form a [Magic Missile], and it dodges.

I begin forming a [Stone Dart], and the blue eyestalk begins to twirl. Though the magical film it creates is thin this time, and doesn't create a full circle.

The [Stone Dart] fires, and impacts hard against the side of the beholder lich’s lower eyelid. I cheer slightly at the first confirmed hit, then notice it didn't even blink at the impact.

My enthusiasm suddenly drops and my shoulders sag, before it returns as rage.

I form another [Stone Dart], and another, both shattering uselessly against the sides of the beholder, despite the fact that I can see them creating bloodless gashes in the mummified flesh.

The next [Stone Dart] is intercepted by the shield, which is a far faster recharge than anticipated, and I chance a glance at the other eyestalks to see Demarcus take an inferno to the chest and shake it off, and Mato take cover behind a pillar just in time for lightning to strike it.

I thankfully see the next in time to yell “pink!”

Unfortunately, not in enough time to prevent Izzy from screaming out as a thin pink beam pierces through her.

Or to notice the black, tar like tendrils snaking their way across the floor towards me, harder to see as the room darkens from lights broken in the fighting.

The liquid shadow quickly climbs my body without feeling, and— as I know what's coming— I dive to take cover before my limbs lock up.

The black magic creeps down my throat and nose and my body goes stiff as a stone, unable to even breathe or blink.

Paralyzed down to my toenails, I am unfortunately still able to feel the chunk of floor impacting hard against my hips, swung around after it’s finished being used as a shield against Demarcus.

Painfully, my limbs unlock mid-roll as I spatter against the floor, tossed like a barbie doll.

After I finish coughing and gasping, I heave myself back up as Izzy’s playing resumes— at least I know she's not dead.

Demarcus, Mato, and I exchange a desperate look as our tactics aren't working, and Mato signals for us to do one last attack from all sides. I nod.

The eyestalks continue to swivel about, none of them locked on us directly, but on where we will be or where they need to be to intercept our attacks or movements.

I begin to form a [Magic Missile], and it dodges.

[Firebolt], and a stone is suddenly swinging around.

[Stone Dart], and the shield comes out, even if it isn't charged.

“Come on!” I yell. “You're not even looking!”

I start trying to change it up faster, [Magic Missile], [Stone Dart], [Firebolt], [Firebolt] with [Minor Illusion]. Each one responded to pre-emptively and appropriately to negate my spells’ effects.

The pattern is strange, and I almost begin experimenting, beginning to summon a [Stone Dart] without the intention of ever actually firing it, and the blue eye never spins.

An idea begins fermenting as I stare at the side of that huge, milky eye at the center.

Not once did it stop staring into the middle distance, and I run through what the book said about it.

“After god knows how long it's been stuck in here without souls to feed on, and whatever was done to it to make it a part of the tutorial, it's got ultra alzheimers by now. These things are usually super intelligent. This one is not— but it can see just fine.”

It can see just fine. But… it's not seeing? That eye hasn't moved, and is almost definitely blind.

Then, it clicks. The reactive pre-emptive eyestalks, the fact that it hasn't ever looked at us directly, the fact that it saw our feint coming…

“Fucking time travel cryptic prophecy-ass bullshit!” I yell, tearing at my hair.

“It's blind but it can see! It's seeing the fucking future!”

I yell for Mato and Demarcus to retreat, and burnt and hounded, we scamper back to the pillar with Izzy.

Mato uses the mirror to watch for the piercing beam as Demarcus tends to Mato and Izzy’s wounds.

I quickly try to explain.

“It can see the future! It knows what we're about to do before we do it! But it's only instinctually reacting to them, it's not really thinking. I can hit it with [Stone Darts] when its shield is down.”

Izzy responds “how are we supposed to fight something that knows—”

“Pink!”

Mato yells and we all jump and jostle, bumping into one another as we try to dodge, before Demarcus cries out as the beam pierces through his thigh.

Mato scrambles to heal him and Izzy continues.

“Knows what we're gonna do, including where we're gonna dodge to?!”

“Well, we could try fucking around with probability, having attacks that have a random chance of going off or landing, therefore making the future muddy and uncertain. But I think there's a better solution.”

They wait patiently and silently, and Izzy rolls her eyes as she realizes I'm waiting to be asked.

“And that is?”

“Easy.” I say, steepling my fingers and breaking into an evil grin.

“We create a future where, no matter what it does, it's going to die.”

…

Demarcus and Mato hound the Alzheimer's-ridden beholder lich, the monster no longer seeing Izzy and I as threats, relegated as we are to trying to construct a contraption to allow me to hold the Pokin’ Stick, and the leather whip tied onto it, with one hand.

We hear the yell go out for the pink piercing beam and we tense, dropping to the floor.

I look up to find no one injured though.

I yell out.

“Did you manage to dodge it?!”

“Mato blocked it!” Demarcus shouts as he bounds between sections of the floor being torn up and lifted by the beholder.

“How?!” Izzy and I echo.

Mato rolls behind a pillar, only managing to delay the concussive ball of fire, that then changes targets and knocks Demarcus back towards the outer wall.

“Knife’s unbreakable!” Mato finally answers.

“God damn. Good shit Mato!” I yell back.

“Alright.” I say, holding up the Pokin' Stick with one arm, stabilized by rope tying it to my shoulder. “Go!” I give the signal to Izzy, and she sprints off with her guitar, and begins building into a roaring song that sounds like something from the Doom (2016) soundtrack.

“We’re good! Gotta hit this thing in quick succession! Mato first, then me, then D!”

I get nods from the others to start the coordinated attack, and we start getting in position. As far apart from each other as possible on 3 sides of this thing, making it harder for it to respond to all of us. At least one attack has to make it through.

Izzy's playing picks up, the driving beat putting us all in rhythm and dialing up the adrenaline in our veins until it hums. I watch the beholder closely, trying to keep track of each of its eyestalks, expecting the purple one to swing around to try and catch Mato’s bolt like it did before.

It doesn't.

Instead, I watch a foul glow alight within the yellow eye, while the paralysis and flaming eyes falteringly swing around to his position.

3 of its eyes begin to target him, and I am confused. What does it see in the future that would require all 3? It's overkill.

And that's it precisely. It's going to kill Mato. It probably even sees a future where we try to save him, and that's what the other eyes are for. If I try to stop it, try to save him, I'll likely die for the attempt—

But if I don't save him… it wastes 3 of its attacks. Demarcus and I will almost certainly kill it.

Let Mato die.

It's the only way.

I— promised I wouldn't. I'd like to say I'm a pragmatist but— I can't throw the guy under the bus after everything that’s happened.

The beholder’s eyes point towards Mato in this frozen second, and doesn't that already prove that I'm going to save him? That it sees the future in which I dive after him? Or am I already branched? I don't feel branched.

I'm overthinking this. This all boils down to a simple question; “Do I let Mato die just for a clear shot, and because a book told me to?”

I'm not sure I have an answer, but I have a reason.

I don't want to.

And that's good enough for me.

The stretched second snaps back into place and the sound of boots slaps against stone. I sprint, falteringly as I shuck the Pokin’ Stick harness to better run.

Fuck time and predestination, I do what I want.

I try to hold onto some uncertainty for an advantage, trying to take decisive action while my conscious brain stays indecisive. It feels like my brain short-circuits, and I stumble over nonsense at the tip of my tongue as time smears and I watch Mato glance at me in confusion.

“M— shi— fu— TIME!!”

Is the absolute nonsense that spills from my wire-crossed mouth as I dive in front of Mato.

The world goes white as lightning strikes first. My frock coat takes most of it, but the fingertips of that lichtenberg pattern makes its way through the pin-prick hole in the sleeve, not yet repaired from the coat's enchantments.

My arm seizes as it’s electrocuted, and I'm punched back into a solid mass of Mato. Before I even hit the floor, burning heat shoulderchecks my side as the explosive mass of fire bursts across Mato's head.

We hit the ground, and Mato quietly screams as he flails with his shawl, trying to kill the flames creeping along his greying hair.

I blink spots from my eyes and watch the black paralyzing shadows force their way into his melting nose, and Mato suddenly seizes up, mid-flail.

My breathing is heavy, but I try to focus on what I need to prioritize.

I strip off my magic coat in less than a heartbeat, and smother his head with it. I know from experience that he can't breathe while paralyzed so, he won't mind that.

He may mind the fact that I have to beat his burning head several times to make sure the flames go out.

I look over my shoulder to see the beholder smacking Demarcus out of the air with a loose stone again, but not before Demarcus manages to throw a handful of dirt and dust into the pink eyestalk. I watch as the pink eye writhes and blinks from Demarcus’ dirty hit and I grab Mato by the outstretched arm.

Arduously, I drag his heavy body back towards a nearby pillar, and pull my coat off his head.

The fabric peels off, and his face nearly comes with it.

I wince, and whisper “I am so sorry.” To him, thankful he's paralyzed and can't scream.

I start digging through my satchel, horrifically organized and hefty. I have to pull out and set aside about a dozen little bottles to find a healing potion, and by the time I have it Mato is trying not to writhe on the ground as he breathes in double time.

I recklessly pour the potion over his face, and see him begin to ease as I keep digging for more.

All I manage to find is half a bottle— my last. I help Mato drink it down as he begins to sit up, and see the last of his skin shift back into place. His skin is a bright red, raw and sensitive, looking like the top layer of the epidermis is just gone. The potion didn't regrow his eyebrows either.

Mato coughs, eyes wide, as the smell of burning hair permeates the air and I wriggle the coat back on.

“Ho— *hack*— holy shit.” Mato says, and my jaw drops at the first actual cuss I've heard from the codger.

“What now? Since that didn't work.” He asks.

I lean against the pillar, breathing heavy and massaging my electrocuted arm. I just think for a moment, trying not to dwell on the fact that I'm probably branched twice over now. A billion thoughts swirl and collide in my head, tripping over each other as I desperately try not to think about time and consequences.

“I— I don't know.” I say, quietly.

I look up to see Mato staring at me with— raw emotion on his raw face, and my trained and practiced subconscious defaults back to the safety of smug and flippant.

“Actually that probably would've worked. But there was some time fuckery afoot. I coulda let you die but— whatever. You owe me. Is the bottom. Line. Bottom line.” I stumble.

Mato just quirks a missing eyebrow.

“Doesn't matter. The tactic is probably still usable, just gotta—” I say, and lean back around the pillar to see my Pokin’ Stick 30 feet away on the floor.

“...fuck. Okay so we'll have to adapt. As many attacks at once but, like, confused and uncertain? I don't know man!” I shout, a bit of the frustration and overwhelmedness leaking out.

“It's alright, I don't understand but— maybe that helps?” He says, pulling out his knives and tossing aside his damaged crossbow.

I take a breath or two, deciding on [Magic Missile] as I can fire that faster, then shout across the room.

“Izzy! We're gonna need your help here!”

Her voice resounds from afar.

“I'm playing as hard as I can!”

“Can you do any attacks?!”

“I have [Disorienting Wail], but it's an eye! I don't think it even has ears!”

“Do you have anything not based around sound?!”

“I'm a [Bard]! What do you want me to do? Hit it with my guitar?!”

“If that's all you've got!”

Indignant silence is the only reply.

My head turns and I shout towards my next target.

“D! Gonna need you to bait out the telekinesis!”

A pained and whimpering groan from a crumpled pile against a wall lets me know he's on it.

I stand, and hear Mato stand behind me.

“Imma pound it with spells. My mana well is good enough that I can keep it up for a good long while. You just watch for an opening.” I say, and look back to see Mato nod.

The nameless look in his eyes makes me feel more certain that I was right, that there was no other way but to disregard the book, to defy prophecy.

“The only way”? Fuck that. I make my own future.

I stare into that big blind eye, the thing keeping it alive and letting it see the future, and I swear it shifts, staring back at me. I take my stance as Demarcus clatters against the wall again, and begin throwing out [Magic Missiles] like beads from a tits-man at Mardi Gras.

Shadow boxing, I throw out jab after jab, one-two punches turning into eight-nines, the beholder bobs and weaves around them like Muhammad Ali at his best, and I pick up the pace. It’s forced to summon its magical shield to defend against the sheer amount of magic filling the air, spells spattering against it like hail on a tin roof. I get into the groove, and mix it up throwing out a haymaker of a punch. I feel the mana drain take a far heavier toll from the punch— but still barely anything in my new mana well— and a thick bolt of magic, almost opaque at how dense it is, collides against the shield causing it to actually recoil from the impact.

I keep up the onslaught, digging deep into memories of lessons and street fights. The [Magic Missiles] keep coming, dozen after dozen, and I wind up throwing a left hook and barely register the flight path of my spell curving around the shield and forcing the demented monster to duck.

I hear a grumble from my right.

“Curveball. Good idea.”

A knife flies out from my right and I flinch, before doubling down on the shadow boxing to keep up the pressure. Mato’s hunting knife bounces off the shield, but light glints off of golden metal, and I see Mato’s second knife, the kukri, curved like a boomerang, go spinning towards the massive eye.

Metal pierces a calcified and desiccated eye, and I raise my arms to cheer as the beholder lich writhes, blinking, screaming without a mouth.

I am about to shout for joy when my body goes still, and I feel that black paralysis take hold.

I am forced to watch as fire and lightning barrel towards me, and Mato pulls me behind the pillar.

When I recover, the world is chaos.

Blinded, its main eye closed, the beholder flails about, firing its eyestalks with wild abandon, tearing the room apart. It seems its “cooldowns” on its eyes were mostly from age and weariness. Now, there is little to no reprieve between the explosions of light and heat, stone and metal.

Mato and I are forced to take cover, I chance a peek to see Demarcus eat an explosion of flame and keep running, before being brought to his knees by lightning.

But then I see something, and realize;

The music stopped playing a while ago.

Izzy ducks and dives between bolts, throwing walls of sound to interpose between her and the inky paralyzing tendrils. She rolls with her newfound dexterity, clutching her guitar to her chest to protect it, and I watch as she gets in close to the beholder, and takes a strong stance to swing from the hips.

Blinded by the knife, the beholder lich doesn’t see the future, and didn’t see this coming.

Then again— neither did I.

Izzy takes a wild arcing home-run swing with her guitar, and the back of the body impacts hard against the handle of Mato’s knife, driving it deep into the eye like a hammer to a nail.

All there is is the sound of breathing, settling stone, collapsing mummified flesh, and then quietus.

The monster lies on the floor, dead, and I can’t help but wonder if it saw this in its future, before the end.

But that slightly tragic thought is superseded by the more pressing;

The book lied to me.