Leo watched the skeleton, frozen behind his pillar. The undead creature clutched his shield to his chest, his teeth chattering like a frantic metronome.
"He's coming! By all the Gods of the System, he's coming!" yelped the skeleton. "He wants to turn my vertebrae into pan flutes!"
Leo turned his gaze to the massive archway at the entrance. A cloud of thick purple smoke, smelling of moldy humus, began to creep across the floor. Then a shrill melody—like a flute played by someone who had never seen one before—echoed through the corridors.
Suddenly, the Mage made his entrance.
He wasn't walking. He floated thirty centimeters above the ground, in the lotus position, but upside down. His clothes, once a majestic wizard's robe, were now a patchwork of potion stains and pieces of lichen. His eyes, wide open, did not focus on anything real. They seemed to follow invisible trajectories in the air, points of light that only he could perceive.
"I SEE YOU, CRYSTAL SNAKES!" shouted the Mage, brandishing a gnarled staff topped with a gem that pulsed with an unstable light. "STOP BITING THE COLORS!"
Leo frowned.
"Vark, explain this to me. Now."
"It's Barnaby, Master," sighed the advisor, covering his eyes with one hand. "Our magical artillery unit. Well... he was. Before discovering that Level 3 mushrooms have 'expansive' properties for the mind. He's on an astral journey. And usually, the return to earth is... explosive." "
Mage Barnaby suddenly stared at the pillar where the skeleton was hiding. A maniacal smile stretched across his chapped lips.
"You! Prince of Porcelain! You hide the secret of the Ultimate Blue in your ribs! Give it back to me!"
Barnaby pointed his staff. The gem glowed with a blinding light. Leo expected a fireball, a lightning bolt, something worthy of a demon lord.
Instead, a dozen frozen trout, stiff as justice, shot out of thin air and crashed onto the skeleton's shield with a metallic clang.
"HELP!" screamed the skeleton, collapsing under the weight of the frozen fish. "HE'S FISHING ME! MASTER, DO SOMETHING!"
Leo took a step forward. The aura of his Little Throne began to pulsate, casting a massive shadow over the delirious Mage.
"Enough," Leo thundered.
The Mage stopped floating. He slowly turned around in the air, finally coming to rest upright. His dilated eyes rested on Leo. Silence fell over the room, barely disturbed by the sound of a trout sliding across the stone floor.
Barnaby blinked, then his expression changed from delirium to an almost religious fascination. He floated closer until his nose was inches from Leo's armored chest.
"Oh..." murmured the Mage, his voice trembling. "Those contour lines... That saturation in the shadows... Master, you are not a demon. You are a high-definition rendering."
Leo paused, unsettled.
"What?"
"Your design is... perfect," Barnabé continued, tears in his eyes. "No pixels. No digital noise. Just pure... intention." "
It was then that a small movement in the skeleton's eye socket caught Leo's attention. A pink earthworm, wearing a tiny crystal monocle, poked its nose out.
"Yeah," said the worm in a drawling, aristocratic voice. "The boss's design is fine. But we're going to have a serious colorimetry problem if we keep those trout on the carpet. It's vulgar, Barnaby."
Leo looked at the Mage crying over his "visual perfection," the skeleton buried under fish, and the worm already beginning to criticize the decor.
"Vark," Leo said, grabbing his Grimoire. "Tell me we can get refunds on the staff."