It took ages for the amphibian to climb, crawl, and hurry their way from the loamy hillside to the more established path towards real civilization and when they managed to reach the bottom of the palace, the next phase appeared as impossible as the last: climbing stairs that were, by virtue of being built for something much larger than themselves, towering in their own right. What might have only taken a human-sized creature a few minutes to ascend would require far more effort from the puny dart.

"Ack! Where's the accessibility? Hm?! What kind of place is this. Rude of 'em, if you ask me." Which nobody had, because nobody was here, because nobody was ever around. It was commonplace by now that Julian would have full conversations with themselves about the most mundane of things - it helped to pass the time. Taking on a serious 'stiff upper lip' kind of expression, they looked the first step up and down with stoic assessment.

Their legs bunched beneath them, and the gem set in their forehead gave a small glimmer... then, quick enough to spring up and become a ruddy blur, Julian bounced to the top of that first step. They landed with the smallest of plops and hurried to prepare another go.

That first bounce had been a good'un.

While preparing for a second, there came the smell of ozone, or something like it. This would be that precise moment in an anime where the protagonist might freeze, seeing a glint of energy out of the corner of one eye, and deftly dodge. Julian was not such a character; they did not know to look towards the heavens or to expect something as sudden nor as quick as a prismatic shock of magicka.

It was fortunate for Julian that they were so small; but even so, that bolt of prismatic power seemed to punch the stair beyond where they were preparing to bounce, and as they kicked off they felt the warmth of the light in the briefest of moments, as they leapt through it. When the frog landed it was with a much messier plop and the hammering of a very pitiful little heart.

"THE HECKLE?" Julian shouted as they gasped for air, although to another gembound it might've been more like a squeal. Their eyes flashed with magicka as it flowed through their body, collecting in their stone; sucking in that flash of light and any residual emanations from around them on the stairs, the lights go dark in a sphere of influence around the frogwitch. The resulting shadow takes on a form of its own.

As Julian mimes within the pit of shadow, the darkness swarms around them and rises up to contort as directed. The shape is that of a much larger frog and it appears to be standing up in a humanoid fashion, using both of its three-digit hands as binoculars as if that might help their vision at all (it didn't, but it would show that they were looking for something).

"Whazzat?! Who did that? Hrmm, some kinda preservation magic maybees. But, nah," The bolt of light had only happened on the second jump, which was odd if it was meant to dissuade creatures from touching the stairs at all. The shadowplay dropped to a hands-on-hips gesture in the next moment. Julian was perplexed.