There was no making the exit before the beast arrived.

Quartes looked from the exit of the hall to the Dragon that moved through the air.  Born aloft on the strange weight of the space, the creature glided effortlessly between the floating platforms.  The shafts of light illuminated it at intervals, each revealing a fragment of the beast, and each only brightening the red glow of the fire that marked the Dragon’s maw.  Casting a look back to the exit, Quartes turned and jumped.  The slow arc of his movement seemed to drag on him.  Behind the Dragon’s maw opened, and a roar shook the whole of the hall, dust knocked loose and floating about in slowly growing clouds.

The Dragon stretched forward with with it’s forward claws, a membrane stretching back the hind limbs that helped to carry the monster.  Along it’s torso were sacks, inflating and deflating as the Dragon deftly made its way around the floating platforms, even rising at times to sail around them as the sacks bulged.  The fragility of the wings and the sacks were belayed by what resided on face and forward features of the Dragon.  Long scales, like a bristling of daggers, lined the Dragon’s forward limbs and all along its skull and part way down its neck.  Silvery in color, they cast a glittering star field of lights across the hall as the Dragon passed through each beam of light, broken only by a few signs of past battle that marred the scales.

The Dragon ended its roar and reared back, the red of its maw flashing as a ball of flame shot forward.  Quartes had hit a new platform now, the length of his travel giving him time to prepare.  A pouch from his belt he upturned and out fell the Shards of Lehn.  The fireball grew closer, brightening the platform in the rolling crimson of its heat.  To his hand Quartes drew the Hilt Shard and the broken remnants of the weapons leapt to life.  Cackling with lightning between the, the blue Shards formed in a line in an echo of the blade that was once whole.  Swinging the shattered blade in a wide arc, the Landian struck out as the fireball neared.  Lightning flashed and thunder boomed as blue met red, the fireball exploding outwards.  It’s flames sputtering as they splashed back and out along platforms and the walls of the Hall.

In the fading glow of those fires, azure arcs were joined by a pair of glowing peridots.  Quartes’ eyes glowing as he watched the Dragon of Serijo near.  The beast landed, the stone platform drifting down and twisting under the Dragon’s weight and impact as it struck several of the smaller platforms, breaking about the remnants of a statue and rattling chains.  Crimson flames lined the Dragon’s maw once more as it claws scraped along stone and it brought Quartes back into the center of its vision.  Lifting it’s head upwards, it bellowed flames into the ceiling, another ear splitting rear accompanying the display of its might.

Quartes shifted the Hilt Shard into both of his hands.  Behind him was the passage that had brought him to the hall.  The Dragon of Serijo looked small enough to be able to slip into it but the confines would offset its mobility, spare the Landian from the slow float from one platform to the next…

The Dragon ended its display of power and in the sudden silence he heard the other sounds arise.  Scrapes of stone, hissing and screeches, all noises he had stopped at the smallest hint of over the last few days coming now in a cacophony.  Rushing out of the passage and gathering along the edge of the landing were a trio of lesser dragonkin.  Scrambling on all fours, large eyes fixed on him, the Kerc’s claws scratched at the rock as they each gave a growl.  The sound was joined as more of the lesser beasts appeared from other passages.

Looking back to the Dragon the creature’s flaming maw was agape, rows of sharpened teeth revealed in what could only be a smile.  It’s legs tense and the Dragon launched once more into the lightened air.  The gathering Kercs joined in, jumping from the landings onto the platforms throughout the hall.

Quartes took a breath and cast his eyes to the landing passage which would lead him back towards the Great Hall and the road out of the mountains.

A fight to the goal then.

The Landian ran and jumped, taking himself on a path perpendicular from the Dragon as it glided through the hall.  A Kerc, quick on the uptake, lunged up to follow him but met lightning arcing between two of the Shards, the beast floating through the air as charred husk.  Distracted by the attack, Quartes was unprepared for the sudden crash as something collided with him.  The membranes between its limbs angled, the Dragon of Serijo hit the Landian.  Arcs of lightning struck the creature, hurting it enough to cause a flinch that meant its maw miss Quartes and instead he collided with its shoulder.  He felt the cuts from the razor scales, tried to reorient himself as he spun and collided with the underside of a platform.  His momentum absorbing into the rock, Quartes set his feet and pushed off before he fell away.

The Dragon, angling its leathery wings once more, curved about before it had even landed on another platform.  Stone crashed and broke as the platform shifted but the Dragon lifted its head and spat fire, hitting the underside of the platform Quartes had just pushed off from.  The Landian landed and immediately launched himself again, knees protesting the sudden change as he sought space from his assailants.

More Kercs had joined the fray though.  A trio of them converging on him.  Lightning arc catching two but the other landed on the far side of the platform from Quartes and launched forward at him.  The Hilt Shard fended off its maw, but its momentum carried forward and the pair tumbled from the platform.  The old sword came to his left hand and Quartes plunged it deep into the Kerc’s neck as they floated through the air.

Twisting and setting his boots against the creature, Quartes pushed back upwards.  He caught the broken torso of a statue and set his feet back to stone, the Shards of Lehn gathering about the Hilt Shard once more.  Above, and several platforms away, the Dragon of Serijo roared down at him.  The Kercs joined in, spitting and hissing their lesser fury.

Mobility was his problem.  The lightness of the hall increased how far he could jump, but that time in the air left him vulnerable to the Dragon with both its range and the wings that let it move in flight.  The lightning of the Shards, even his own blade, could easily handle the Kercs but only a focused attack would truly harm the Dragon.  Something the open confines would not readily give him.

The roaring had ended.  The Kercs were on the move, leaping ever closer to his platform.  Quartes watched the flaming maw of the Dragon, the beast’s eyes waiting for him to make a move.  Wiping off the old sword and sheathing it, Quartes gathered up most of the circling Shards.  With two lunging strides to build speed he burst upwards.  His path put a platform between him and the Dragon for a moment and as he floated Quartes flung out the Shards, the blue metal spinning off about the Hall.  A few collided with a Kerc, the flash of lightning killing the lesser dragonkin.  Bounced off the stone of a platform, or continued spinning on in the lightness of the space.

The Hilt Shard clutched in both hands, Quartes landed.  A glance showed a group of Kercs nearing.  The Dragon had shifted platforms, putting itself to the side of the direct path to the passage out of the Hall.  A temptation to draw him into his death.  Quartes lunged into the nearing Kercs, a flash of lightning ending the trio.  Spinning, the Landian looked to the Dragon and then to the passage that would lead him further on his trek and pushed.  The room shook once more as the Dragon roared roar before it darted forth into the air.

It would reach him before he touched down on the platform, something clear to the beast as it’s flaming maw grew wide.  Which was when the lightning arced across the room, from one scattered Shard to another.  It cackled before the monster, near enough to scorch flesh and painful enough for it to angle away.  Quartes made his landing, looking over his shoulder long enough to see the Dragon right itself, repositioning out of line of the lightning to strike from a different direction.  No sooner had it launch that another pair of Shards connected in lightning and thunder resounded about the hall.  The Dragon diverted once more, Quartes readied himself and jumped towards his goal.

So passed the next two jumps, the Dragon roaring now in frustration.  Many of the Kercs dying as they tried to make their own interceptions only to be scattered or slain in a flash of lightning.  a kernel of optimism had grown in Quartes when the crimson glow snuffed it out.

The Landian turned as the fireball neared, struck out with the Hilt Shard but with only a few Shards still circling about him, he lacked the power and reach of before.  The exploding flames cast him sideways, flinging into the open space of the hall.  His hand cast about purchase but the stone platforms were out of reach, but a rattle of chain slapped against his arm.  He grabbed onto it, the chain cast aside by the explosion but still fixed to its platform.  His movement shifted into a tight arc, the chain hanging down below its platform with his weight.

Swinging with the chain, Quartes reoriented him, gaze casting about the Dragon even as he pulled himself upwards.  He found the beast still watching him, maw opening with another burst of flame.  With a grunt, Quartes flung himself up the chain, rushing up its length now as the fire flew past and he landed back on a platform.  The Dragon was preparing another bombardment.  The passage out of the hall was still several jumps away.  Quartes set himself and faced the Dragon of Serijo.

“Sisters spare me,” the Landian sighed as the Dragon let forth the fireball and Quartes, bracing for a moment, pushed of towards it.  He lashed out with the Hilt Shard and there met an explosion once more.  He vision full of spots, his form spinning, it was only when he hit the wall that he could realize his gambit had worked.  He shoved himself downwards, boots touching the landing, the passage out of the hall at his back.

The Dragon’s roar rose in earsplitting anger, its form tensing as it stared down the Landian and waited.  Quartes sighed once more, knowing what would come next.  He lifted the Hilt Shard of Lehn and from where they had been left scattered across the Hall the Shards all begun to spun back towards him.  The Dragon waited a moment and then launched itself towards Quartes.  The Landian had already kicked back into the passage way.  The Dragon would follow him in, and while the confines gave him a chance of landing a blow to end it, it was not a fight he desired.

Each Shard found itself before the Hilt, lightning cackling as it once more formed the echo of the blade it once was.  The last found its place as the Dragon of Serijo hit the landing and without a pause lunged into the passage, maw agape in preparation for more fire.  Landing, Quartes pushed himself straight up and thrust the sword up into the stone.  Flaring red in the slots it cut into the underbelly of the mountain, the Landian took Hilt in both hand, braced his boots against the roof and pulled.

The stone broke with a crack that dwarfed any roared the Dragon had issued.

Even in the lightness of the hall offered no reprieve as the the unfathomable weight of the mountain crashed down.  Darkness consumed the space as the passage back to the hall collapsed, cutting off the glow of the shafts of the light and the red flame of the Dragon alike.  The floor hitting his shoulders, Quartes clawed his way down the passage, stones threatening to bury him, rocks falling upon his form.  Finally, the fall of the stone subsided, the rumble of the mountain quieted and Quartes law in the dark waiting, watching the pale green glow about him faded as his eyes grew dim and waiting to see if a crimson flame would replace.

The darkness held and the Landian took a heavy breath.

A collapsed path had led him this way.  This destruction he made meant that there would be no way back under the mountain.  He had severed the Halls of Falden in to and could only now go forward.

The blue light cackled to life as he lifted the Hilt Shard.  He took a moment to account for all the Shards.  Then, dust and pebbles falling from his form, Quartes kicked off down the passage, to the Grand Hall of Falden.