“Beren!” Jocasta screamed as she stumbled through the cloud of stinging dust towards where he beast and monk had impacted the ground. It was impossible to think that anyone could have survived such an impact but her mind refused to countenance the possibility. The whole place stank of bacon grease, ancient dust, and the vile admixture of fluids and burned flesh of the creature had given off in its last few seconds of life. Jocasta reached the head of the beast and began to furiously tug at the tumbled wreckage of masonry. Still animated by her spell, the dragonflies also began to work, picking up tiny pebbles and tossing them aside in a whir of wings.

 “Lass…” Otar said gently, “he fought bravely but…” Jocasta whirled on the dwarf, eyes blazing. She thrust a fingertip into his chest like he point of a spear.
 
“No!” she snapped, “you morons wanted this fight for your honor or whatever.” Jocasta made an expansive gesture to encompass the devastation all around them.



“When we could have just left and been fine. I helped you as a favor so now…you will help me dig,” she snapped punctuating each word with a thrust of her finger to Otar’s chest that sent the stocky dwarf stumbling backwards in retreat. The priest dropped his weapon and grabbed a stone, pulling it free. The other dwarves took his example and within moments an orderly excavation was underway. The dwarves were clearly naturals at the work, picking stones in a way that prevented a cave in. Jocasta wracked her brain for a spell that could help, but found nothing. Instead the dragonflies crawled into he interstices of the stone seeking pockets beneath. After a few moments one of the little constructs emerged, carrying a few grains of a fine white sand. Jocasta scowled at the little golem but Otar’s sucked in breath prevented it. He shouted something in Dwarven and the party redoubled its efforts, pulling stones free in a virtual frenzy until they exposed a strangely rectangular face of compact white sand. It was apparently moist enough to stay together although that didn’t explain how it was withstanding the tons of weight atop it.
 
“What in the name of the …” Jocasta began.

 “A Casting,” Otar pronounced as though this made everything clear. With a muttered prayer he reached out and the sand retreated from his hand as though blow by he wind. It opened to reveal a cavity in which Beren lay, unconscious but whole. There were several inches of space to spare in all directions but it was obvious the monk  lay in a larger than life hollow that mirrored the dimensions of his own body. Jocasta, her antiquarian interest returning with the sight of an apparently alive Beren thrust her head into the space, trying to map it with her mind. It looked ‘like’ Beren’s body but it wasn’t, it was proportionally shorter and thicker and the negative space that would have been a space had a definite beard. Otar and Radsvir reached in and seized Beren by the ankles, dragging him out of the space.
 
“Why doesn’t it collapse?” Jocasta asked aloud, reaching out to touch the sand. It was yielding beneath her fingertips but flowed back into position the moment she withdrew the digits.
 
“It wont collapse until the statue is cast,” Otar supplied with monumental unhelpfulness.
 
“I never thought I’d live to see such a thing, and for a human,” Varin said in a voice intermingled with pain and awe. Jocasta turned to look at him and noticed blood bubbling at his lips, one pupil blown in a bloodshot eye. The dwarf sat heavily and began to cough, spraying blood onto he arm he used to shield his face.