“Metzalaatla Akalikalat at your service.” Metz smiled, weaving his spell with a practiced ease, the time he needed was granted to him by his foe’s arguably justified caution, though if he had been casting a bolt his hesitancy would have been his downfall. Metz supposed it gave him something of an advantage off-world that his spells were weaved in such a complex manner, on his own world most spells could be recognised by the hand movements he was completing at that very moment. Other than that though, there were few outward signs of what he was doing, and memorizing hand signs in a few moments could usually be considered beyond most opponents. Then again, his opponent was anything but natural, maybe he could tell that he was not replicating the movements from earlier that brought forth the bolt. Anything was possible, Metz concluded, nodding at his foe and taking one last dramatic step into what suddenly became his earth circle.

“And, gone.” He muttered, the rock hurtling up around him after bursting up through the sandy layer. Like before, he created what was essentially a rock cocoon about five inches thick, this time with a pointed roof. The pillar itself only stretched up to eight feet tall and four feet wide, making it something of a squat rectangular shape in the otherwise unblemished earth. Metz stood inside the pillar in complete darkness, falling with his back against the side as the mana rushed out of him with a final burst. His fatigue came to him then, with the stinging sensation of the minor wound to his arm and the bruising aching pain from his chest. He sighed heavily and felt the odd pressure on his back, which with a start he recognised as his backpack. He had forgotten all about it in his strange new surroundings and had neglected to discard it earlier, probably attributing in part to why he couldn’t catch Shin when he needed to.

“Oh well.” He muttered, shaking off his wet backpack and finding his supplies inside relatively untouched. He quickly wrapped up his forearm with a bandage and drank sparingly from his water bottle, sighing to himself as he realised he had yet to really make any head-way with his foe. Hitting him with a bolt had barely singed him, despite probably dislocating his shoulder in their collision he’d hardly slowed down, even with a knife in the shoulder he was outrunning the dejected mage. It was always depressing fighting for one’s life, but in this particular scenario he couldn’t help but feel like the fight was a little hollow.

“Just remember what you’re fighting for Metz old boy.” He said to himself reassuringly, standing up in the darkness and leaving his backpack at his feet. Metz decided it would be prudent first to see where his friend had gotten to in his relatively brief minute of isolation. He grabbed the remaining pure mana vial at his belt and downed it in one, feeling his strength return and the oppressive weight lifting from his shoulders. “Wait a second, how the hell am I seeing anything right now?” He said aloud in confusion, not realising that he had unconsciously swapped his vision capacity to see in the complete darkness. “This must be some alien effect, hopefully it passes when I activate my magical eye.” He debated with himself, patiently weaving the slightly complicated spell that granted him magical sight.