[center][color=ff9900][h3]Týfurkh[/h3][/color][/center]

All Týfurkh could feel was his right knee collapsing due to a sudden kick from behind. The combination of pollen and dust sand had worked well enough for him to be unable to just shoot Smit from point blank range when the latter had slipped past the giant. Now Týfurkh could see the steps below him becoming bigger in his view rapidly, his great height allowing for his head to gain a lot of speed before the inevitable collission. He tried to counteract the fall with his free hand but still there was a considerable impact on his nose and forehead. Momentarily stunned, Týfurkh's body started rolling down the staircase until it reached the next intermediate level where the steps changed direction.

By the time Týfurkh was fully conscious again a nice little pool of blood had formed around him, causing some of the red liquid to drip from his hair and his face in general as he, slowly, tried to get back on his feet. He moved his fingertips to his nose only to retract them immediately when their touch triggered a surge of pain. Probably broken. Blinking, he looked up the staircase he had just come down, but Smit was nowhere to be seen anymore. Apparently he had already reached the top of the tower.

Speaking of which... Something was odd. Why was there so much light coming from the exit above ? When he had went up there the first time the roof had pretty much prevented sun or moon from doing anything. And then there was so much fine dust floating in the air and irritating his breathing again... It seemed that the ubiquitous layer of dust that had settled on the walls over time had just been disturbed and blown off the surface it had clung to. Týfurkh suspected that his own self hurtling down in an uncontrolled manner had caused enough wind to do this, so he didn't spend much more time on thinking about it. He followed his original intention of getting downstairs again, though quite a bit more slowly now and very cautious that noone could ambush him from behind.

The dust didn't get away. In fact it only became even more concentrated the closer he came to the main hall at the bottom of the tower. And then Týfurkh saw it, his facial expression instantly changing to something close to [i]please tell me this is not real![/i]: The bell had come down and buried itself in the stone floor, the broken remainders of the roof it had been hanging from decorating the crash site along with debris from an undetermined number of other wooden floors. Of course this could hardly be a very badly timed accident, but still this level of crazyness was an astonishing feat. Týfurkh rushed in closer was on the verge of shouting out for Karina, but stoppped dead in his tracks when he started hearing unfamiliar voices. A discussion seemed to go on and it didn't seem to be anyone of his own team debating what to do next.

Trying to act more cautiously, Týfurkh hid himself behind the next corner and continued listening. He needed to find out what the situation was while hoping that his appearance had not yet been discovered. He wasn't exactly good at stealth after all...