The party found themselves back at the entrance of the Temple of the Jade Serpent, a landmark Mori had found herself all too familiar with since her escape at night. Halvor led the way to the North Wing, the Fountain of the Everseeing.

 

“There appears to be something weird about this place,” the vrykul began, “perhaps we should discuss before we approach the big fish man.” He placed the injured soldiers down in the hallway, and Tolkar did the same with the human and orc in his arms.

 

Sahtra ignored Halvor and continued striding towards the entrance to the Fountain.

 

“Death man, I strongly suggest you come back.” The vrykul was cross.

 

“I refuse.” Sahtra declared. He thirsted for a fight.

 

Halvor did not trust the death knight and his intentions. Without warning, he grabbed Sahtra by the arm and with sheer force dragged him back to the group as the death knight swore. The human’s blue eyes glowed with rage at the vrykul.

 

“I believe we ought to negotiate with the jinyu,” spoke the tauren. “Violence is not always the answer.” Tolkar shot a look at the fuming death knight.

 

“I agree,” spoke Halvor. “Let us talk to big fish man.”

 

The warrior, shaman, and death knight stepped out of the hallway and stood at the top of stairs, overlooking the main interior of the fountain. In it stood the water speaker Wise Mari, muttering to himself incoherently as the water surrounding him released hostile shadows. Halvor attempted to communicate with the jinyu.

 

“Greetings, fish man. Can you hear us?”

 

Wise Mari did not respond and continued his strange muttering, the words spoken so quickly that they could not be deciphered.

 

“I don’t know if he is friend anymore,” whispered Halvor to Tolkar. He eyed the jinyu cautiously.

 

“Let me try speaking to him,” replied the tauren, who had once met with Wise Mari to discuss aspects of water speaking, “maybe he’ll recognize me—”

 

“The waters whisper to me. Enemies approach.” The jinyu warned. He appeared to see the travelers but ignored them and closed his eyes. Wise Mari continued muttering to himself in broken fragments of speech.

 

The death knight had lost his patience and wanted to proceed with the fight. There would be no negotiations, wasn’t it obvious? He marched through the first ring of water, pointed the cursed axe Shin’ka at the jinyu, and called out:

 

“Listen, you overgrown koi fish! You will either cooperate with us or die.”

 

Halvor and Tolkar attempted to silence Sahtra but it was too late. They now had the full attention of Wise Mari, who took the insult as an act of aggression. He raised his arms and summoned two water elementals at the foot of the fountain.

 

“You dare to disturb these waters? You will drown!”

 

Sahtra grinned. It was finally time for battle. Those fools wasted too much precious time, he thought to himself, they were only delaying the inevitable.

 

“Fiend of death,” cried out the jinyu, sending a sharp bolt of water at Sahtra, “you shall taste my wrath first!”

 

The death knight inched to the left just in time for the bolt to come crashing down where he had stood moments earlier, the impact leaving a dent in the marble floor.

 

“Keep him busy!” Meechi yelled out as she started crafting a special potion. Tolkar unleashed a chain of lightning upon the water elementals which instantly vaporized them. The obstacles removed, Halvor jumped across the pool of water and landed several feet away from the fountain upon which the waterspeaker stood.

 

“Hey mister,” Meechi called out to Halvor as she threw a potion at his back, the glass breaking instantly, “would you mind getting bigger for me? Though I don’t really think that’s possible—” The vulpera fell silent as she watched the vrykul grow to twice his normal height, now at a grand total of sixteen feet tall. Halvor looked over his body, stretching his arms and legs as if testing his new limbs for compatibility.

 

“WHOA! You’re really big!” The alchemist studied her creation and nodded to herself, satisfied.

 

The jinyu was unfazed by Halvor’s rapid growth, and that would prove to be in error. Mumbling to himself, he raised before him an immense wall of water like an unending waterfall. “Immense” was a relative term, however, and the jinyu realized too late that his barrier was ineffective against the massive vrykul reaching over it.

 

Halvor, sixteen feet tall, bent over and picked the jinyu, who was barely more than one-third his height, with ease. The vrykul held him high and remembered, for a brief moment, that day fifteen years ago.

 

“Folks, he has done it once again! The Tideskorn wonder from Stormheim has taken the pig skin all the way across the field for another score! With this play, Halvor has surpassed the previous rushing record set by Skognik. What a thrilling game it has been so far!”

 

Halvor, age eighteen, stood proudly at the end of the field of grass, breathing heavily as he recovered from his hundred-yard run. He looked around the stadium, the spectators a blur but their voices clear and in unison.

 

“SPIKE! SPIKE! SPIKE! SPIKE!”

 

The young vrykul raised the pig skin above his head for a few moments, then thrust it at the ground, watching the pointed ball bounce violently back up and away into the spectating audience. A young boy caught the pig skin and held it proudly. Halvor subsequently raised his hand in a fist and basked in the cheers of the crowd. It was his day to celebrate.

 

“HAL-VOR! HAL-VOR! HAL-VOR!”

 

“HALVOR!”

 

The vrykul, age thirty-three, blinked and looked at the ground in front of him. There lay not a pig skin but Wise Mari, who had just been plunged into the ground from twenty feet above. The jinyu lay on the ground, barely conscious, his limbs trembling but unable to move.

 

“UNDEAD! ATTACK HIM!” Mori called out, and her summons obeyed, striking the jinyu with their respective weapons, two swords and a spear. The young necromancer held her hands at eye level and drained the life essence from the jinyu, using it to revitalize her own being. His skin dried up and cracked at the spots where the green energy oozed out, drifting towards her thin, outstretched fingers.

 

Sahtra decided to take advantage of the disabled jinyu and swung his cursed axe. Unfortunately for him, however, he had lost his composure at the sight of the creature being sent to the ground crashing and had not yet recovered from his fit of laughter, so the axe missed its mark. This will not do, he told himself, and took a moment to stand straight and clear his throat. The death knight grinned once more to get any remaining desire to laugh out of his system, then nodded to himself, satisfied. He turned back towards Wise Mari and struck again, landing the hit cleanly this time.

 

The shaman had placed a flametongue totem beside him in the meantime. “This should do it,” Tolkar called out, and let out a yell as rays of fire shot out from his palms and towards the jinyu, accompanied by several rays from his totem. The flames engulfed the jinyu, and moments later, Wise Mari fell to the ground, his scorched, lifeless body lying face down on the stone floor. The travelers watched a cloud of black aura leave the jinyu and dissipate.

 

“He has finally been cleansed from the sha,” explained the shaman, “now he can rest in peace.” Tolkar turned away from the Fountain and headed towards the exit of the northern wing, and the others followed.