The deafening clamor of the bells reverberated, rattling the grit beneath Ignas's teeth. Each shriek was a fresh lash, urging him faster, even as the fog-heavy air seemed to thicken, pressing against his lungs. He cleared the winding service corridors with desperate speed, his boots skidding on slick, condensation-laden flagstones. The distant screams of freshmen mingled with the guttural roars of something massive, something too close. He burst through a reinforced oak door, splinters flying from the ancient frame. The sight before him was an inversion of the Gintaras Citadel’s usual grim order. The Great Hall, a cavernous space usually filled with the hushed murmurs of study and the clink of alchemical apparatus, was a maelstrom of chaos and death. Lanterns had been ripped from their sconces, casting long, dancing shadows that distorted the scene further. The polished obsidian floor was slick with a shimmering, viscous ichor, reflecting the frenzied combat. A half-dozen Carrion-Gargoyles, their leathery wings tearing at the air, swooped through the high arches, their beaks snapping at petrified students. Beneath them, hulking carrion-crawlers, all mutated bone and sinew, rampaged through the rows of overturned desks, their multi-jointed legs scuttling across splintered wood. Rasa. He scanned the carnage, his ribs tightening over shallow breaths. Then he saw her, huddled with a cluster of terrified freshmen behind an overturned lecture dais, Saule shielding them with a shimmering, hastily erected arcane barrier. The barrier flickered, straining under the onslaught of a particularly large beast that hammered against it, its calcified skull cracking the air. Domantas was there too, not fighting, but pinned motionless against a pillar, staring blankly as a gargoyle snatched a struggling student from mere feet away. From the Grand Balcony, high above the chaos, Director Valdas stood, bathed in the sickly green glow of the Hall’s remaining ward-lights. He was flanked by two cloaked figures, their faces obscured by deep hoods. A cruel, knowing smile stretched across Valdas’s lips, visible even from the floor below. His voice, amplified by some unseen spell, boomed with chilling clarity. “Behold, younglings!” Valdas’s words cut through the cacophony. “The price of your existence! Zaltys demands sustenance, and you, my dear initiates, are the purest offerings.” He raised both hands, his eyes gleaming with a manic zeal. “Your screams, your terror, your very life force… it all feeds the slumbering god. A necessary sacrifice for the Citadel’s continued prosperity!” Ignas felt a familiar, searing heat bloom in his chest – the precursor to his overprotective rage. He was close enough now to see the fear etched on Rasa’s face, the desperate resolve on Saule’s. The brute shattered Saule’s barrier, its clawed limb reaching for Rasa. Valdas’s hands began to glow with a sickly violet energy, tendrils of darkness coiling around his forearms. “Now, perish! For the glory of Zaltys!” From his outstretched palms, an expanse of necrotic energy, thick and suffocating as a shroud, erupted. It wasn’t a bolt, or a beam, but a tsunami of pure, unmaking force, sweeping across the Great Hall with terrifying speed. The air crackled, the remaining ward-lights flickered and died, plunging the Hall into near darkness, illuminated only by the grim violet discharge. Students not already engaged with beasts screamed, throwing up futile, desperate shields. Even the monstrous creatures recoiled, their primordial instincts warning them of the overwhelming power. Domantas whimpered, pressing himself further into the pillar, unable to even look. The wave of death-magic surged towards Rasa and Saule, who stood frozen, their faces illuminated by the approaching devastation. Ignas didn't hesitate. He didn't even yell. His incompetent freshman disguise, so carefully cultivated, dissolved in a single breath. He stepped in front of Rasa and Saule, positioning himself squarely in the path of Valdas's apocalyptic blast. From his worn tunic, he casually produced a single, reinforced glass vial, no bigger than his thumb, and held it up. The vial seemed utterly insignificant against the backdrop of the swirling, midnight-dark oblivion. The necrotic wave, an unstoppable force meant to extinguish all life in its path, slammed into the unassuming glass. It didn’t explode. It didn’t shatter. Instead, with a soft, almost imperceptible hiss, the entirety of Valdas’s devastating magic – the room-clearing force, the death-dealing essence – was drawn into the small vial. The dark energy swirled within the confines of the glass, condensing into a miniature, self-contained maelstrom, trapped and inert. The Great Hall went utterly silent. The monstrous roars ceased. The frantic screams died in throats. Even the frantic scuttling of the bone-beasts halted. All eyes, human and monstrous alike, fixed on the absurdly calm figure holding the glass vial. Valdas, his arms still outstretched, his face contorted in a sneer of triumph that had suddenly frozen in place, stared down from the balcony. His mouth hung slightly open, petrified by a display he could not comprehend. The two cloaked figures beside him took a collective, involuntary step back. Ignas casually tilted the vial, watching the captured death-magic slosh harmlessly within. He then plucked a small, corked stopper from his pocket, and with an audible *pop*, sealed the swirling purple essence inside. He slipped the vial back into his tunic, then slowly, deliberately, raised his head. His gaze, no longer the vacant stare of a bumbling freshman, met Valdas’s from across the ravaged hall. His voice, low and laced with an icy promise, carried clearly in the absolute silence. “You shouldn’t have touched my sister.”

The Glass Vial