Teri McLaren
roar from the water dungeon as Krota sailed at him like a javelin. Trying to duck her strike, he fell against the nearest column, dislodging a delicate elven skull from its place deep in the wall. Rotapan, coming right behind him, broke into another coughing fit from the exertion of the short chase, his grip on the staff failing as he doubled over again. The staff clanged down the marble steps, and Krota recoiled herself. Yob snatched Rotapan away just as the snake struck again with the force of a war hammer, bashing her head into the bone wall and leaving herself limp, stupefied, and powerless just long enough for them to roll the rest of the way down the stairs.
"You goblin-hearted fool!" cried Rotapan, oblivious to the fact that Yob had saved his life. "Where is my staff?"
Yob looked up the stairs, thinking that he had seen it as he tumbled down. But the staircase was empty.
For about three more seconds.
A low rumble began to shake the ground beneath them. Then something fell from the topmost stair of the temple. It was the elven skull. It landed near Rotapan's foot and bounced several inches up in the air. Yob picked it up, reverently brushing the sand from the slanted eye sockets.
"Sorry, Overking. I'll put it back." He began to climb back up to replace the skull when the rumble grew much louder and a strange, hollow music descended upon them as the top seven stories of Rotapan's temple began to drift slowly down in a cacophonous heap.
Their eyes upon the collapsing temple, they did not see Og reach from under Krota's pot and snatch up the staff and vault over them to safety as hundreds of bones rained in a sharp, hollow melody down behind him.
From her vantage point on a cliff high above the temple, Riolla patted at her brow and adjusted her hood.