Lessons in Humility

Boy coughed, a ragged, painful sound that seemed to scrape against his very soul. The stench of ozone and something far more primal, something that smelled like burnt despair, clung to the air, thick and suffocating. He tasted blood, coppery and warm, on his tongue. The last thing he remembered was a cascade of obsidian claws, a shriek that vibrated through his bones, and then… darkness. Not the peaceful, starry kind of darkness he sometimes conjured for a good night’s sleep, but a jagged, tearing void that had almost swallowed him whole.

He was lying on something rough and cold. Stone, he guessed, his battered senses slowly coming back online. His body throbbed with a symphony of aches and pains, each breath a fresh reminder of the Shadow Maw’s brutal efficiency. He tried to wiggle his fingers, and a groan escaped his lips. They moved, thank goodness, but the sensation was like trying to operate a bag of overripe fruit.

"Well, that was… suboptimal," he muttered, the words barely a whisper. Suboptimal. That was putting it mildly. He’d gone into that fight with the swagger of a seasoned warrior, confident that his creation magic, his ability to whip up a sword or a shield faster than a goblin could steal your socks, would be more than enough. He’d pictured himself, cool and collected, a wink here, a dramatic flourish there, and then *poof*, beast defeated. Instead, he’d been treated like a particularly chewy piece of gristle.