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Nalun took one look at the light and cursed. He charged up the incline, scooping up Talik without breaking stride. At the top of the ridge, Nalun dropped the boy safely behind an outcrop of flowstone, then sprinted along a path leading around the valley's perimeter, howling and waving to draw his enemies' attention away from the growing slash of light.
"Hoy, lapdogs and mongrels!" he shouted. "You haven't won yet!" Arrows missed the nimble elf again and again as the Stronghold soldiers tried to put an end to his taunts.
Despite Nalun's attempted decoy, some soldiers and moggs noticed the bright light. The moggs stared dumbly at it, but the soldiers dropped their weapons and ran while shedding their heavy armor to outrace the growing light.
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"Parallax!" one of them shouted. "Out of my way, vermin! It's the parallax!" The soldier fell as one of Nalun's darts ended his shouting permanently.
The murderous troops and even their pet monster turned, eyes fixed on the miniature sun that glowed and rumbled on the valley floor. As one, they then started running for the ridge. Nalun slowed their retreat with anything he could grab and throw. Talik followed his example, and between the two of them they managed to keep their enemies from escaping the valley before the rumbling sun exploded.
A wave of blinding light swept across the valley floor and up its walls from one side to the other. Everything caught in the wave - the living, the dead, the landscape itself - was suffused and saturated in arcane energy.
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