The Amphitheater of Anguish: From Beyond!

The elements are patient. That’s what most forget.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, pal,” Gurgthock called down. “You might be overmatched here. This next one is a being from the elemental planes! I don’t even know what’s gonna show up in that arena!”

The air grew heavy with anticipation.

“Do you feel that, folks? The air is crackling with energy! That can only mean one thing…”

Duke Singen materialized in a roar of flame that turned the frozen sand to glass beneath his feet.

“I’ll melt the flesh off your bones!”

Of all the elements, fire is perhaps the most honest. It wants what it wants, and what it wants is to consume. The Duke blazed before us, a lord of living flame whose presence raised blisters on exposed skin. The first wave of heat hit like opening an oven door, an oven the size of the arena.

My companions spread wide. Gabe layered protective wards, holy light shimmering across our skin like a second set of armor against the heat. Briee backed to the arena’s edge, the farthest point she could reach and still put arrows into something that had no flesh to pierce. Mardagan stood his ground beside me, golden light radiating from his hammer in answer to the Duke’s fire.

Deajavu circled, looking for an opening. Getting close to living flame with two short blades is a particular kind of courage.

I watched for the rhythm of the flames, those brief moments between surges when the fire had to draw breath.

“To burn my kingdom, you can’t use fire! Come my servants, I am not ready to retire!”

Lesser fire spirits materialized, dancing through the arena.

“Call in the clowns!” Gurgthock shouted over the crackling flames. “It’s turned into a circus in there!”

Mardagan turned from the Duke and consecrated the ground beneath the spirits, holy fire meeting elemental fire and winning. Briee’s arrows scattered the rest while Deajavu and I kept the Duke occupied. Each time he flared bright to strike, I was already moving.

You can’t kill fire. But you can smother it.

Gabe’s light hammered into the Duke’s core, not healing now but something else entirely, holy power that unmade where fire only consumed. Mardagan joined him, both channeling at once, and the Duke’s flames dimmed and sputtered. The rogue pulled back with singed armor and no eyebrows, but the damage was done.

I brought the mace down into the dimming center. For one heartbeat, the flames guttered. Duke Singen collapsed into ember and ash, leaving nothing but scorched sand and the smell of burning.

“Unbelievable! I thought this whole place was going to explode when it first appeared!” Wodin said.

Deajavu patted out a smoldering spot on his leathers. “What’s next?”

Gurgthock grinned down at us. A tuskarr, apparently. Fighting from a dark place.

The elemental was ash and the arena still smoking. Gurgthock had a tuskarr waiting in the wings in The Amphitheater of Anguish: Tuskarrmageddon!