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Froe--characters All of theauns; giants ooden clubs; a wo a staff lit with fire; a ht on his robotic horse; a sunpyre and his brood of white lions; the fighting priest of Grendelin; and countless others They charged in for behind someone as obviously their leader

It was a woman Tall and powerful, decked out in all kinds of futuristic, glea arripped a thick cylinder with spinning blades on the end In another, a shaft of pure blue light, pulsing as if ready to fire In yet another, ahole at one end And the fourth ar barrel that looked exactly like a cannon from ancient wars

As she ran, bricks appeared beneath her, one after the other, fored atop their own surfaces--flat bearass Their battle cries filled the air and their eyes shone with anger

Michael took it all in, in what could only have been a few est sights he’d ever seen He thought that it really did slow, as if the progra itself, this cesspool of countless destroyed virtual lands, wanted to witness the spectacle Michael’s friends were still beside hiish, as if they were flies trapped innoise, everything ripped back to full speed

The warriors rushed in Fro and snapping, slithering and pouncing, blacker-than-black for along on theirthem was only a few dozen feet away from Michael and his friends, and she yelled at the top of her lungs, a sound like crushing rocks and boo thunder

"Out of the way, pips! It’s not your day to die!"

Who were these people? Where had they come from?

Instinct took over Michael before his rabbed both of his friends, pulled them close And then he reached out and scra on some deep level what he’d once done in the Hallowed Ravine Everything around him was a fabrication, a visual manifestation of sequenced letters and nu Bryson, Sarah, and hiht

He and his friends suddenly catapulted to the sky, three huht and darkness crashed into each other below like two out-of-control freight trains

Michael stopped their flight several hundred feet above the clashing battle, suspended in the ethereal world of goop His hts, backed by a fierce rush of adrenaline through his body

Sarah looked at him almost as if she were afraid Of him

"I just did what she tolddoard

A couple of stragglers had separated fro streak of blackness with yellow eyes, the other a bulkyat Michael and his friends, flying fast