Consciousness returned to Reed in violent spasms, each muscle in his transformed body seizing as though electricity coursed through his veins. The taste of copper flooded his mouth—blood from where he had bitten through his own tongue. Around him, the sounds of falling stone and screaming goblins penetrated the fog of his mind. His vision cleared slowly, fragmented memories reassembling like shattered glass being forced back into a fractured frame.
"—need to move NOW!" Shivblade's voice cut through the chaos, her claws digging into his shoulder as she dragged him across the obsidian floor. "Reed! If you can hear me, WAKE UP!"
The pyramid chamber was collapsing. Massive sections of the ceiling had already given way, crushing two of their expedition members beneath tons of ancient stone. Through the widening breach above, something was descending—a writhing mass of darkness that seemed to devour the very light around it.
