Once I gave Oliver the cue to proceed, he swept his hand and the dome around us split apart into cascading sand, just as expected.
He held a Terris affinity, a deviant one, in fact, attuned to sand rather than plain earth, which made it considerably harder to control given the fineness of the particles.
The moment the dome dispersed, we saw them. Around ten figures encircled us, all masked, all armed, and none of them looking particularly interested in conversation.
They weren't joking around, were they?
I glanced briefly around. Both ends of the passage had been sealed off, rocks and collapsed building rubble blocking any straightforward escape. We could jump, of course, leap high enough to clear it, but that would leave us exposed and give them a clean angle to strike us down.
The best solution was to cut through them.
"Arrows!"
Oliver's warning rang out sharp.
Five of them were perched on the rooftops on either side of us, bows drawn and ready.
