The climb toward the eastern ridge was steeper than Jack expected, a jagged path of black stone cutting through the endless crimson sky like a scar across reality itself.
Each step sent loose pebbles skittering down the cliff face, their echoes swallowed by the unnatural silence that seemed to press against his eardrums.
Ashen wind hissed through the narrow canyons, carrying with it the acrid scent of sulfur.
The constant crackle of his Static Orbs provided a steady accompaniment to his footsteps, twenty spheres of compressed lightning drifting in a slow, protective orbit around him.
Jack had been casting the spell repeatedly as he climbed, deploying new sets of orbs every few hundred meters along the trail behind him.
Each casting cost him 45 mana, and he'd lost count of how many times he'd used it. The orbs themselves required no ongoing energy once created, but the repeated castings had drained his reserves significantly.
