The circle of red around the edge of the platform glowed and flared a bright crimson.

Daniel's eyes widened.

He bolted for the edge of the platform, covering his soles in ice as he slid and skated his way across the expanse. 

Too soon, too late.

As he reached the edge the flame ring exploded beneath him, the fire and searing flames scorching his entire body. As he covered his face with his arms he kept on running, falling face first off the edge of the platform, his clothes and fur on fire as he plummeted the distance to the floor, impacting with a dull thud. Almost immediately he stood back up, exercising his ice powers as he flash froze himself in a thin layer of ice to douse the flames. The damage had been done, however; the extreme searing heat had shorn off a lot of his clothes, singed his fur and burned his flesh in places. Stuff that would heal slowly; wounds made with magic healed a lot slower than regular physical wounds. It pierced through his elemental self like a dagger. Though thankfully not as severe as he had thought, this wouldn't go away until he finished the fight or had some sort of miracle happen.

From his position beneath the platform, he could see it glowing slightly with the sheer heat. Weary and wounded as he was, he had an idea. The stone like this, upon extreme heating, would expand, theoretically. And, with liberal application of cold, would instantly contract and severely weaken, he would hope.

He trudged to the bottom of the platform, leaning against the central strut to rest while he let his ice magic expand through the platform, the icy cold spreading up through the strut and into the platform itself, dropping its temperature significantly fast. No doubt Metz would feel his feet grow chilly and cold air build from beneath him as Daniel did this, though since the mage was still trapped in his stone cell, he couldn't see where he was.

A single flake of ash began to descend from the ceiling, from where Metz's fires had scorched it in a towering inferno. Then another, more and more peeled away from the ceiling of the chamber, drifting down onto the battlefield like snow.