### 283

The speedy use of your elemental skill saves your equipment and clothing from going up in flames. You are able to tread a difficult path along the crumbling edge of this rent, and then pass through the fire-blackened breach in the fortress wall. When you come to the end of the fissure and the dust clears, your heart sinks like a stone. Another wall looms before you.

This second barrier has only recently been constructed to shield the stronghold’s inner buildings from the fiery heat of the fissure. Its rough-hewn blocks offer many handholds to assist a climb, but the dry stone and mortar crumble under the slightest pressure. Your first attempt to scale the wall comes to an abrupt end when a toehold collapses and you fall backwards to the ground: lose 1 ENDURANCE point.

If you possess Kai-alchemy, turn to 221.

If you do not, turn to 144.