From Rook's hands spilled the material that his body was made of now. He shaped it swiftly, raising a towering wall that held back the advancing flow, buying precious minutes.
Rook leaped and stood atop his volcanic stone wall, arms crossed, watching the lava churn below. Lava rose relentlessly, lapping at the barrier's edges. In moments, it would crest and spill over the top, continuing its relentless surge.
Without hesitation, Rook jumped over the wall and dove straight into the lava.
The heat was beyond anything natural. Even transformed into living basalt, his body protested the intense heat as he submerged completely.
He pushed deeper, swimming through the molten rock with powerful strokes, searching for the source of the leakage.
It only took four agonizing minutes but he found it, fractures in the tunnel walls, fissures where the black swans had destabilized the geothermal structure. Lava poured through them like blood from open wounds.
