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It nearly worked. It would have worked if he hadn’t turned around in his constant sweep for trouble. As it was she was almost on top of him when he spotted her charging at him. His surprise hindered his ability to get out of the way. He managed to dodge her attack for the most part, but she managed to get a second shot in as she flew past him and catch it across one shoulder with the hammer.

The Kithreian shrieked as if it had been stuck by acid and leapt backwards in a blur of motion.

Ophelia could see why. Her blow had barely touched him but the hammer had raised an extremely raw looking welt where it had brushed his skin – and it was spreading. Obviously the key had known what it was doing when it chose this weapon.

The Kithreian clutched his shoulder and howled something in a language Ophelia didn’t recognise but which sounded oddly familiar. He turned back to face her properly. Once it did he seemed taken aback at the sight of her.

“A human? He seemed amused and incredulous in equal measure. “Who’d be foolish enough to send a human to fight one of us?” He glanced at the hammer and his eyes widened. “And who would give her such a powerful toy? That’s much to dangerous for a human child to be playing with.” It let out a peel of laughter.

Ophelia advantage of his distration to attack him while his guard was down. She didn’t try to cover the distance between them. He would recover before she got there and leave her attack in the dust. Instead she pointed the hammer and concenntrated.  A storm of sharp pointed shards of rock crystal burst from the head and flew at him.

The attack saturated the area in front of her, shredding bushes and trees for several feet around her opponent. Once again he was fast enough to dodge all but the edges of her attack. He shot up into the air but shrieked as his feet were lacerated by the blast. Well at least he wouldn’t be landing any time soon.

He looked down at her with slightly less contempt. “Who taught you to use that?” He raised his his hand and a blast of wind with the force of a thousand knives flew at her. She only got out of the way by ising the Key to teleport behind him, throwing another shard as she did. This one caught it square in the centre of his back. He screamed again as silver blood socked his robes.

“Yes!” Ophelia cheered, then sobered as she that while the shard had left a huge gash in his back he was still moving, albeit somewhat slower. “This thing is really tough.”

“What are you?” He demanded as he whirled to face her again. “You look human. You feel human. But a human shouldn’t be able to get here or be as skilled as you are!”

“I assure you I am human.” Ophelia took advantage of his pause to launch another attack.

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