The giant’s change of tactics caught Enly’air off guard. Her conjured weapon wouldn’t serve her against its fall. She had no choice. She put her trust in Xir’ain and let the giant fall.

The hulking mass of metal and rot would find its fall suddenly stopped. One arm pressing against the massive bronze breastplate, the other behind her, tendrils of black water running from her arm to the floor of the tunnel and then outward in all directions, bracing her. Currents gathered from all ways crashed together around her black body, pushing upwards on the giant, holding it up. Her open palm touched the great slab of metal, and black tendrils spread across its surface like ivy, giving her hold.

Pushing her body, clad in the power of her master as it was, to breaking, Enly’air threw the giant over her head, slamming it against the wall of the tunnel upside down, its head now in front of her, feet knocking loose rock from the tunnel’s ceiling. The black ivy coated the intruder’s breastplate, and it continued growing, attaching to the wall as well, holding the giant there. It was as if an immense tree of the darkest black grew from Enly’air’s shoulder, pinning the giant where it was.

Without warning, the tunnel wall rippled, and six immense ribs of dark stone emerged from around the giant, curving outwards and then back inwards. The ribs pushed unheedingly through the black threads that choked the water, only finding resistance at the giant’s immense armor. They continued to push until the metal gave, tiny cracks looking like a spider’s work covering the surface of the armor.

Enly’air felt the pressure on her mind return, this time stronger than before as Xir’ain took over her body to use. The black-clad figure, so obviously feminine in shape, gained another layer of black water over it, filling in to closely match Xir’ain’s more masculine silhouette. The black eyes ignited into hearths of golden light, an image of Xir’ain’s own containing none of the deepness those held. 

“Creature, you spoke earlier,” he said, forming a shape out of the black water with a wave of his hand. “If you have any intelligence to speak of, I recommend you do so now.” He wrapped the black shape around the creature’s head once, twice, three times, covering a different eye with each wrapping. “And I recommend you do so quickly.” 

The Xir’ain fakery motioned with his hand, and a handful of black runners swam from farther down the tunnel. The giant wouldn’t be able to see them, but he would be able to feel them as their tails began hacking its body apart wherever its armor left its putrid flesh exposed. The runners wouldn’t bite. The loss of one of their own had shown them how to avoid the giant’s poison. They would avoid where the currents caused the blood to gather and make quick passes to cut its flesh. The runners were not like the eels; the runners learned from their mistakes.