Malakor's Meltdown

The cacophony that erupted from the makeshift stage was, to put it mildly, an affront to all known auditory senses. Dr. Aris Thorne, clutching a pair of noise-cancelling earmuffs that had seen better days (and far less sonic warfare), winced. Beside him, Rexy Sterling, ever the professional, had somehow managed to fashion a fascinator out of a discarded pterodactyl feather and was glaring at the source of the auditory assault with the intensity of a thousand suns. Nibbles, perched precariously on Thorne’s shoulder, twitched his whiskers, his tiny paws clamped over his ears.

Malakor, however, was unraveling.

The sorcerer, who had moments before been radiating an aura of smug, ancient power, was now a quivering mess of robes and existential despair. His face, usually set in a mask of bored disdain, was contorted into a mask of pure, unadulterated agony. The opening strains of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” had done it. Bonnie Tyler’s gravelly vocals, amplified to stadium-rock levels, seemed to bore directly into his soul.