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are…”
     
    He was cut off, when from above, rained the darkness that obscured the ceiling. It morphed into a floating shadow that swirled in a circle around us.  It jumped up and then dropped between us, and with a punch from extended tentacles that took a solid shape, which hit like rocks, shoved us each in different directions. Scion landed against a pillar. I hit the doors.
     
    The thing floated off toward the ceiling once more. I was barely up when Scion was on me, standing between me and it like a guard. It was collecting itself into a shapeless mass right in front of us as a billow of smoke. I tapped the door with my fist not sure how to open them. Thankfully, the rumble started and they began slowly creaking open.
     
    “Get out!” Scion yelled. “I’ll hold it off. It can’t be let out.”
     
    “What is it?” I screamed.
     
    Scion turned to face me. Confidence and youthful enthusiasm pricked at his demeanor, “I’m not sure, but this is the most fun I’ve had all day. We’ll beat it back, just like our ancestors!”
     
    Just then Scion turned to me. His eyes went wide after he jumped in front of me. I screamed and grabbed him as he slumped into my good arm. The creature had covered the distance between us, and formed the smoke-like tentacles into spears that pierced into Scion’s back and through his chest with a very real, and very sharp, cohesion.  The thing pulled back and disappeared into a far corner. It had retreated from me, but the damage had already been done.
     
    “It’s waiting for the right moment to escape.” Scion said through shallow breaths.
     
    I pulled Scion through the narrow crack, and tapped the door edge again, hoping that it would close. It began its slow shutting grumble, but the creature was speeding toward us. It would be out long before those slow doors sealed.
     
    I don’t know where he found the strength, but Scion shoved me out of the way, and with his orange Dragonstone grasped, he extended his hand, and produced a beam that lassoed itself around the shadowed figure.
     
    For the first time the once silent shadow made a sound. It was something between a screech that would shatter glass, and a howl that would wake the dead.
     
    I cheered as he held the thing in the orange energy grip. That was until I turned, and in horror, watched as pulses of the energy rolled across Scion and into the shard. Each wave took with it a year of his life. I stood helpless as Scion began to rapidly age in front of me. He hit his thirties within seconds, closer the doors moved, but he was graying at fifty. The power lessened, the creature inched closer to the opening. Scion fell to a knee and clutched the wound at his chest. He would lose it before the doors would close. I ran and tried to move the doors faster with my strength, but the searing pain in my own arm made it impossible when I exerted myself.
     
    I looked again, and Scion was a balding old man. From somewhere deep inside he pulled more power, and his old aging face became resolute with determination not to lose. He got what I could only describe as second wind. The creature was mostly through the doors as they started to shut on it. Scion gave one last push that caused the lasso to yank it almost all the way back in before it was sealed and the energy line cut. He collapsed to the ground with a final wheeze, as a small “droplet” of the being fell lifelessly to the ground in front of the closed gate. The rest of it had been sealed back in its prison.
     
    There was no getting to him fast enough. I knelt beside him, and raised the fragile old man, as gently as my metal arms would allow.
     
    My voice whimpered, but the deserving tears could not be shed, “Why?” I asked.
     
    The old man only had a few breaths in him. I understood now, what had happened to his brothers. Whoever wielded that shard had to sacrifice their own youth to tap into its power. They were a family of selfless protectors. He forced a withered