I woke to a bleak scene indeed: flagstones laden in moss that stretched off to a dark horizon where the darkened corridor shambled beyond my sight. Trembling, my fingers rasped against the filthy stone as I heaved myself upright, rising with the ominous slowness of a molten primordial dragging itself from the earthen depths.

Gasping, I sagged against the wall, slowly taking in the walls, the texture of stone beneath my fingers rough as a fighter's many times sundered bones. This was the Pthumerian labyrinth. Somehow, the madness had seized me, and cast my unwilling frame here. As surely as any who bows before the hangman's noose, I was sent here to perish. The Darkness loathed me, and the Flame knew of my betrayal. My only ally in all this had been severed, and I knew better than to hope for his miraculous return.

Clawing and scraping at my throat, a roar of fury burst from my lips, accompanied by a volcanic surge of heat. No, the Flame had not forsaken me. I was merely too far to feel its warmth; a shivering servant with hands outstretched toward his master's fire, thrust beyond its ring of light, bent and shuddering in the darkness. I screamed again, flame surging through my veins, glowing through my cloak. Fire rolled out from my soles, encircling my feet as with furious purpose I strode, crossing the corridor and with a fist of flame wreathed steel, shattered the bronze door, turning it into a shower of pale dust that bathed the surprised creatures beyond. Pale and emaciated, they nonetheless surged toward me with eyes that blazed and claws that shone. I was unimpressed.

Casually, a dealt a backhand that sundered their heads from their shoulders, and in the same instant ground their spines to sand. Ahead, stood a gate of wrought iron bracketed by two kneeling statues who bore lanterns alight with lavender flame. A puzzle of some sort, I was certain. My fist turned the gate into a cascade of rent metal like the jagged blood of an elemental of stone. Ahead, loomed the lord of this realm; a giant whose back bristled with candles that clung to the hilts of embedded daggers. His every thunderous step sent fresh tongues of blood eagerly licking along his protruding ribs, and each breath rasped with the hollow peal of agony. He raised arms that ended in scythes - which turned back along his forearms, their tips near his elbow and half a arms' span from his clawed hands - and bellowed in challenge. I stoked the Cinder, and matched his fury.