Merci Posted November 17, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 17, 2012 [i]My name is Lord Elnaer. People call me insane, and maybe there is a truth to that. I adopted a false persona of insanity and eventually grew into it, losing my own reason. But there's no time for regrets now. [/i] [i]Once upon a time, I was a spoiled prince, who never listened to anyone. I would constantly demand food and entertainment, never respecting the effort put behind it or the troubles taken to create such a thing. But I was also a renegade, who liked to wander the gardens at night, sneaking out of my room to talk to the flowers. Of course, they never spoke back to me, though I'm certain they understood my words. Personally, I believe it was a miracle that my father did not put me down the very moment I disrespected him. For such self-control, I must commend him, and his efforts eventually succeeded. He sent me out of the castle I had been secluded within for years to observe the outside world, and observe it I did. The cruelty of the humans. Savage beasts constantly trying to raid the caravan, ignorantly abusing the power of magic for themselves, but at the time I tolerated them, like my brother and sister would soon tolerate them. After all, there was no true difference between vampire and human. The vampire has increased agility, power, perception, and knowledge, but the humans balance the scale by possessing magic, the power to bend the laws of nature and physics. That is, until I came across brutal bloodshed, proof of how cruel humans truly were. They exterminated a vampire village as our caravan passed by it, I managed to watch it all through my binoculars... Brutality that cannot ever be justified. Families tortured before their death, women and children included, powerless as the humans made nature itself turn against them. As soon as the royal guard sitting beside me in the caravan also noticed it, he quickly covered the window, to prevent me from seeing it. But I saw it. I know I did. That was the day I changed.[/i] [i]Do not get me wrong. I spent the years before attaining the throne searching for a way to get the humans off our beloved world peacefully. Perhaps the various relics of metal pods I found scattered around, whose power was fabled to take people into the sky and beyond. Unfortunately, even my best scientists couldn't reverse-engineer it, as it was both too advanced and too rusted to be of use to anyone. There was honestly no way to get humans off Lath.[/i] [i]Upon the untimely death of my father, which I can swear was not in fact my fault, I realized that I must act out my duty as Vampire Lord, that I AM vampirekind itself, and my decision is the decision of all vampires. [/i][i]From that day on, I dedicated myself to becoming someone even more evil than all of man, all humans and all vampires. I stopped talking to the flowers, and somewhere along the lines, I fused with the mask I wore and became so evil that I cannot ever bother myself to think about it. If I ever stopped to think, I would probably be horrified...well. In the past, anyway. [/i] [i]I have reached a point where there is no turning back, and [/i][i]that's why I chose to exterminate all humans, to effectively declare war on them. I honestly believe that Lath will be a better place without humans. Unlike us, who clearly evolved from 'something' belonging to this world, they have no prior origins. They're invaders, people who shouldn't belong here.[/i] [i]There was once a time on Lath where there was only trees. Trees dominated everything. [/i] [i]That is why, in order to exterminate any sort of invader, isn't it only natural that in order to solve this dilemma, I should return to the purest form of Lath? Trees?[/i] [i]I do this not for myself, but for the good of all vampirekind.[/i] ------------ The purple blood of vampires were scattered about everywhere. The throne room, a place detached from both the castle and reality itself, was soundproof. Had Niasa von Mira not been there to distract him, he may have entered during this carnage and...who knew what would've happened? In any case, twitching limps, torn white clothing of science coats and doctor's equipment, horrified heads within ever growing puddles of blood, and the remnants of a smashed table and whiteboard...was scattered about everywhere. "What....is this...." John muttered, horrified. [color=darkred]"Ah, so we finally meet, Fire. I've heard quite a bit about you."[/color] Lord Elnaer greeted, taking bottles of human blood out of a secret compartment within his golden throne, and.....smashing them all onto the grass of the throne room. Indeed, grass as red as blood grew everywhere, covering everything. Crimson vines had swarmed all over the walls and roof, twisted trees growing here and there. This place was big enough to be a cathedral. He himself looked different from his portraits. Same face, but more...green, more...elven, with pointy ears and extra-focused eyes. That and the fact that he had wooden bat wings growing behind him. "Fire?" John asked, assuming a battle stance. White flames quickly enveloped him, covering his skin, channeled throughout his sword and shield and armor and everything else. "I don't recall such a nickname." [color=darkred]"It's the nickname a legend gave you. You won't understand."[/color] The strange Vampire Lord laughed out, before continuing. [color=darkred]"[i]With blood, a bat hates all,[/i] eh? Well, that is certainly true. I am a bat, and there is nothing on this planet I cannot NOT hate. I hate humans for being savage, I hate vampires for being so unappreciative of the efforts I went through for them, I hate elves for disappearing, I hate trees for acting so mysteriously, I hate the air for being so thick at times....!"[/color] "You've gone mad." The Phoenix stated bluntly, cautiously approaching the monstrous being. It only shrugged in response. [color=darkred]"On the contrary, I think I've been cured of my madness."[/color] It replied, before letting its arms rise up into the air. [color=darkred]"I made this miniature forest here so I can put myself in tune with it. I can hear them now. I know what the grass is saying, I know what the vines whisper. Even nearby flowerpots, I can sense their patient longing for water, and they remember me. Now we can finally talk to each other. But they also say strange things, possibly because I forced them to feed on the blood of a hybrid. It took them a while, but they've finally accepted me. Now, they think I am some sort of a Venus flytrap, a plant with its own unique functions."[/color] "I don't know [i]who[/i] you are, but I'm putting an end to you [b]right here and now!"[/b] Tired of talking to this ridiculous 'bat', John charged forward. As the flames spread to his feet, the red grass below quickly ignited, and fire began to spread, quickly burning through everything...but then blocks of wood grew out of the ground, separating the white flames. It was apparent that they were thick and fireproof. [color=darkred]"[i]A mere legend to rise or fall![/i]"[/color] Elnaer chanted nonsensically, and with a flick of his hand, trees grew out of the ground to bind the golden warrior. Without a care, he just burned through them as if they were made of wax. By now, he had become more like a holy spirit of fire than a human. Indeed, any ordinary human should've been long dead by then. Indeed, any forest or grass field should've long burned out by then, catching fire...but it didn't. Although John burned through them, they did slow him down somewhat. As they did, the warped Vampire Lord began to change himself, his skin taking a browner color...wood? Yes, his entire body was turning into wood. Somehow, he planned on fighting fire with nature warped in blood... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gαr Posted November 18, 2012 Report Share Posted November 18, 2012 Ed hung around in the back of the attack force, wanting to avoid most forms of combat. Even though it went against his nature as a warrior, he wanted to save his blood lust for a fight for one more duel with Adrian. As soon as the main battled started, Ed snuck around to the side, not getting shot at by the gunners because of his dark clothes. Ed went through a side door, which was most likely used as an emergency exit, but he didn't really care. He went up several flights of stairs until he decided to stop, hoping it was the right floor. He nearly made it to the main hallway until he the sounds of a battle. A rather one-sided battle. Ed decided to follow the sounds until he came upon the battle, hoping to release a little steam. When he finally caught up to it, Ed came across a slew of bodies. Each one was mutilated by a different weapon. [i]Clarice[/i], Ed thought. Ed strolled through the bodies and eventually caught up with her. [i]As expected of her[/i], he thought as he viewed the slaughter behind her. Then he saw Adrian appear and confront the woman. Ed stopped and thought, [i]Clarice was originally supposed to fight Adrian and I kinda want to see these two monsters fight[/i]. He leaned against a pillar and crossed his his arms. [color=#800000]"Save me a piece of Adrian, would ya, Clarice!" [/color]Ed shouted to her. Then he mumbled to himself, [color=#800000]"If your capable of leaving behind a piece, you devil woman." [/color]He chuckled to himself and prepared for an enjoyable fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asriel Dreemurr Posted November 19, 2012 Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 Alexi noticed immediately the flood of magical energies into the region directly before him, centered around the guard who seemed to withstand his fiery breath for a few moments longer before dying screaming. The surge of energies before him prevented the scientist from simply rushing along further to rejoin the assault, and instead he removed his helm before stooping down within this stairwell to take a look at the stones. What he found astounded him. The stones had been broken down into dust to the point that the stability of this staircase was threatened by it and would have to be demolished before any serious repairs could be made. Deciding to more closely investigate, he tested his new body's conductive properties concerning magic to cast a simple detection spell. Immediately the entire region of the stairs before him came alight in a seething, multicolored glow. "Entropic magics!" Alexi exclaimed in a hushed voice, which had finally shifted from the dull mechanical tone of the automaton into the lighter, refined, almost melodic voice of the infamous doctor. His surprise vanished for a moment, and a simple conjuration technique brought a small coin purse into existence within one of his hands. This was soon filled with the dust and tucked inside of his armor for the purpose of study later on, Entropy magic was not one of the better understood schools. He soon rose to his feet again and replaced the helm upon his head, resolving that he needed to get inside the castle itself and that in the process he should probably bring down the stairwell he was in. His hands once more came alight as blazing metallic claws and were thrust into the walls surrounding him, melting away at the stone with ease and carving deep gouges. He then started sprinting up the stairs again, leaving molten gouges in the stone behind him. By the time he reached the top of the stairs and burst out back onto the roof of the wall, the structure upon which he was standing was beginning to buckle under its own weight. The force of him striking the side of it as he leaped off was enough to send it crashing to the ground beneath. His wings once more burst into being and he came swooping down [s]like batman[/s] from the heights. Below him the rebel forces were already gaining ground against the royal guards mounting their heroic last stand, and a blast of fire into the midst of royal forces was granted as a last piece of aid to his former comrades... Then he slammed, unintentionally, through a portion of the main castle wall that was less than structurally important and had to busy himself with climbing out of the pile of rubble which included what had been a VERY handsome set of potted plants upon an equally handsome oaken table. Fortunately for his dignity, he managed to climb out of that before anyone saw that he had buried himself and thus Alexi made his way towards one of the many sets of stairs leading towards the upper levels of the palace. However, he did so only to find himself face-to-face with a respected colleague of his and, as he did with all women he intended to flatter, he dropped into a bow which brought his torso parallel to his waist and his right arm across his stomach. "Doctor Azami Yamada," he began, rising from his bow at the last syllable of her surname, "What an unexpected pleasure it is to meet you under these less-than appropriate circumstances. Seems we've made a habit of running into one another with little time to catch up." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted November 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 [color=darkred]"What's the hurry, Fire?"[/color] The lost Vampire Lord asked him, forcing a large hollow tree to grow out of the ground right in the middle of John's advance, around him. It quickly hardened and trapped him within- but no, white flames simply melted through the wood that was mysteriously inflammable. Lord Elnaer's transformation had given him complete control over the miniature forest he had created within this throne room of his. What he had done was not only become a vampire-elf hybrid, he had completely synchronized himself with the 'spirit' born throughout it. Effectively, he was merely taking advantage of this synchronization. Normally all plants were contempt with each other and their lives, but this renegade...'plant'...was forcing them to feed on strange substances and grow at abnormal rates, while giving them an inflammable molecular structure. Of course, even a wood elf in ancient times couldn't have done such a feat, this was something granted from the blood of the hybrid Glan. [b]"Stop calling me that!"[/b] A wave of blazing white flames melted entirely through the tree, burning it to the ground despite its inflammable state. Red leaves fluttered about before sublimating in the air. The temperature had reached extreme heights, all the corpses had caught fire. It was a miracle the cathedral-size room could still hold itself together. It was a miracle that Lord Elnaer himself was still alive. Speaking of whom, burst out laughing. The wooden bat wings behind him began to flap, but there was absolutely no way they could make him fly. Suddenly, they began to melt, as if affected by John's flames. The golden figure's advance broke into a run. [color=darkred]"A mere legend to rise or fall!"[/color] Elnaer declared, and the two wings melted into a slime...which then materialized into the form of a wooden bow. A long, sharp arrow grew out of the ground like a plant, and he plucked it before pointing it at John with the bow. That bow was how he synchronized with the forest. Without it, he should become nothing more than a powerless vampire-elf hybrid who shouldn't even have access to his former energy-destroying powers any longer...yes. Unfortunately, this flawed transformation had entered Lord Elnaer incapable of energy manipulation any longer. By now, neither of them were human. Elnaer made of wood to the core, and white flames enveloping John so much that he should be dead. White flames, spiraling around him. It was a dangerous feat that was sure to kill him, but...he was still alive. He should be dead, but he was alive. In fact, white flames are extremely hard to create for any sorcerer of flames. It's not that they're hard to conjure, it's more than possible to accelerate particles to an extreme level, but it's that any sorcerer is bound to die. It's impractical, and the heat alone will melt away the flesh on the hand...if it's a small ball fired as a long-range attack. Now, wrap that human in fire. Why was he still alive? Elnaer shot the arrow, but despite turning into a spiraling gigantic tree all on its own, it melted away effortlessly, and had turned into smile before its point could penetrate through the human's face. This was a secret known only to John Alexander and his mother, but flames simply did not hurt him. It was more than an affinity, it was a...connection. Maybe he was descended from flame spirits or a flame god, maybe he was simply born with a strange defect, maybe fire itself likes him. Who knows? But the moment he discovered this, he began using it to his full advantage. The Phoenix was no sorcerer, he was just a guy who spammed fiery magic around him while he swung swords. He trained himself in combat, not in magic, but ended up being highly powerful anyway. If he truly wanted to, he could try and dig into the core of the planet Lath via burning at supernova into the ground and survive. That is, assuming he has enough spare mana for such a feat. Dozens and dozens of trees sprouted out of the ground, wrapping themselves around John's legs like gigantic snakes. Normally, a human's legs would've been crushed instantaneously, but no. This was different. Instead, the trees had to struggle against his fiery might, melting away but continuing to grow forth, relying on the massive storage of Elnaer's, Glan's, and all the scientists' and doctors' mana. ....[color=darkred]"What's the hurry, Fire?"[/color] The lost Vampire Lord asked him, forcing a large hollow tree to grow out of the ground right in the middle of John's advance, around him. It quickly hardened and trapped him within- but no, white flames simply melted through the wood that was mysteriously inflammable. Lord Elnaer's transformation had given him complete control over the miniature forest he had created within this throne room of his. What he had done was not only become a vampire-elf hybrid, he had completely synchronized himself with the 'spirit' born throughout it. Effectively, he was merely taking advantage of this synchronization. Normally all plants were contempt with each other and their lives, but this renegade...'plant'...was forcing them to feed on strange substances and grow at abnormal rates, while giving them an inflammable molecular structure. Of course, even a wood elf in ancient times couldn't have done such a feat, this was something granted from the blood of the hybrid Glan. [b]"Stop calling me that!"[/b] A wave of blazing white flames melted entirely through the tree, burning it to the ground despite its inflammable state. Red leaves fluttered about before sublimating in the air. The temperature had reached extreme heights, all the corpses had caught fire. It was a miracle the cathedral-size room could still hold itself together. It was a miracle that Lord Elnaer himself was still alive. Speaking of whom, burst out laughing. The wooden bat wings behind him began to flap, but there was absolutely no way they could make him fly. Suddenly, they began to melt, as if affected by John's flames. The golden figure's advance broke into a run. [color=darkred]"A mere legend to rise or fall!"[/color] Elnaer declared, and the two wings melted into a slime...which then materialized into the form of a wooden bow. A long, sharp arrow grew out of the ground like a plant, and he plucked it before pointing it at John with the bow. That bow was how he synchronized with the forest. Without it, he should become nothing more than a powerless vampire-elf hybrid who shouldn't even have access to his former energy-destroying powers any longer...yes. Unfortunately, this flawed transformation had entered Lord Elnaer incapable of energy manipulation any longer. By now, neither of them were human. Elnaer made of wood to the core, and white flames enveloping John so much that he should be dead. White flames, spiraling around him. It was a dangerous feat that was sure to kill him, but...he was still alive. He should be dead, but he was alive. In fact, white flames are extremely hard to create for any sorcerer of flames. It's not that they're hard to conjure, it's more than possible to accelerate particles to an extreme level, but it's that any sorcerer is bound to die. It's impractical, and the heat alone will melt away the flesh on the hand...if it's a small ball fired as a long-range attack. Now, wrap that human in fire. Why was he still alive? Elnaer shot the arrow, but despite turning into a spiraling gigantic tree all on its own, it melted away effortlessly, and had turned into smile before its point could penetrate through the human's face. This was a secret known only to John Alexander and his mother, but flames simply did not hurt him. It was more than an affinity, it was a...connection. Maybe he was descended from flame spirits or a flame god, maybe he was simply born with a strange defect, maybe fire itself likes him. Who knows? But the moment he discovered this, he began using it to his full advantage. The Phoenix was no sorcerer, he was just a guy who spammed fiery magic around him while he swung swords. He trained himself in combat, not in magic, but ended up being highly powerful anyway. If he truly wanted to, he could try and dig into the core of the planet Lath via burning at supernova into the ground and survive. That is, assuming he has enough spare mana for such a feat. Dozens and dozens of trees sprouted out of the ground, wrapping themselves around John's legs like gigantic snakes. Normally, a human's legs would've been crushed instantaneously, but no. This was different. Instead, the trees had to struggle against his fiery might, melting away but continuing to grow forth, relying on the massive storage of Elnaer's, Glan's, and all the scientists' and doctors' mana. .... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piercer of the Heavens Posted November 20, 2012 Report Share Posted November 20, 2012 "Don't worry about that." Luis responded with a smile. "It was the only thing you guys could do. I would have been dead weight." He then followed Feredir through the castle, making sure to stay close behind, as well as making sure Alsa kept up. While running through the halls Luis realized that they might run into some guards, but he only wanted to when necessary. So he decided to switch his armor. While running his clothes began to glow along with his daggers. The daggers' form then changed; his armor also morphed. After the armor and weapons had taken their shape they stopped glowing revealing his new [url="http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2010/356/8/4/84218738aa17ecc12a341503cc1a91bd-d3574f3.jpg"]armor[/url]. This armor, although providing little defense, was one of his most useful. It allowed him to use echo-location. So while running he constantly kept using it to make sure that they did not run into any enemies. When they did run into enemies he would use the decorated side of his weapon to only knock them unconscious, instead of stabbing them with the pointed side. "So, do you guys have any idea how to kill him." Luis asked. " Cause I'm pretty sure that he is expecting someone to attack him, so my surprise attack won't work anymore." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted November 20, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2012 Alsa nodded, and followed the elf and warrior upward. Having never seen Luis in actual combat before, the young vampire prince was stunned to see a human immobilize vampires effortlessly, even those of the royal force brigade, somehow being able to discern them coming before they even came close. Of course, he did vaguely recognize that the human's armor gave him the ability of echo-location, so maybe it wasn't all-talent. Or maybe it was. What exactly defined a talent? [color=red]"I don't know, but the three of us together should be enough to take him on."[/color] He replied to Luis, though he wasn't entirely certain. Plus, despite having trained with the elf, he was still much weaker than anyone else, dead weight even. [color=red]"The throne room is soundproof, perfectly blocking out the sound of war, but I'm guessing a royal guard has already informed him of the current situation..."[/color] -------------------- -[b]09:40[/b]- The doctor stopped in her tracks as a familiar person appeared out of nowhere. There were so many distractions, but then again, she was in the middle of a battlefield. So it was only natural. Slight surprise crossed her face, however, when he called her by her name and acted just as he used to...before fusing himself with that iron armor. Then a small smile curled up her lips, ever so slightly. [color=magenta]"Sa'lien, what a pleasant surprise."[/color] She greeted back, as if they were old colleagues, and they were in a way. She took a moment to look behind her. They were on the third floor hallway, far enough away. [color=magenta]"I see your little pet project succeeded. I bet you must be so proud of your achievement, and I do indeed commend you for it."[/color] She laughed at that, a cold, hollow laugh without any real emotion in it. Somehow, she seemed...different, than how she used to be the previous time they had met. [color=magenta]"But I must admit, I'm surprised to see you regained your memories. Your design explicitly implied to me that your memory lobe would be damaged-"[/color] she cut herself off, a frown crossing her face before being replaced by a sly smile once more. She let slip that she had seen his designs, somehow, but it didn't matter now. [color=magenta]"I assume you're on your way to meet the Vampire Lord, to kill him maybe?"[/color] She seemed calm at the suggestion, and shrugged, before taking a few more steps until she and the iron warmonger were but a few feet away. [color=#ee82ee]"Whether he succeeds and exterminates all humans, or fails and the era gets pushed into yet another alliance, I care not."[/color] Azami stated, quite clearly. That was something she definitely wouldn't have stated decades ago, since back then she had always been a hero herself, having been one of the main characters who ushered the world of Lath into a seventy-year peace. It was like she had changed completely, in a way, only reminiscent of her former self... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ListenToLife Posted November 21, 2012 Report Share Posted November 21, 2012 The rhythm of their fight, the beat they moved in, the dance they danced. It was a perfect balance. This person - this human non-the-less - matched him in every step he made. Instinct made them equals, and every move they made was perfectly countered by the other. As she striked him, he would move fluidly to dodge and counter it, at which point she would counter and they would return to start again. Even as he got a hit on her, she would've gain a hit on him, and they would still be equally matched. This was different from his fight with Ed; they had merely been a duo of professional swordsmen, fighting a trained battle. They moved with precision and experience, with little instinct and rhythm. This was far less controlled, far less civilised. Much more entertaining; which was why he ignored the calls of Ed from the corner. Now, as expected of one of the best swordsmen in vampiredom, this confused Adrian. How could a mere human match him? Sure, the puny guards on the walls he could imagine being taken down - they were nothing more than small fry; weaklings that were mere fodder and meat shields - but him? Such a thing was surely not possible! And a woman, no-less. But this was obviously no fluke. Even the first attack showed extreme skill, and even despite his confidence and easy evasion, he was still shocked by the attack. But nothing was going to shake him, and he had to correct this logical fallacy immediately. No human would defeat him. And he knew that he could win this. He grinned as he caught her rhythm, felt how she moved, and made for his strike, easily dipping into his attack. He expected her to bring her saber's to block his strike, and he would then drop the katana and slide to the side, striking with his other blade. But she managed to change her pace, and allowed him to strike. And managed to hit him hard, causing a large gash along his body, and punching it to cause more pain. While it didn't cause him too much pain or injury, this was his main shock. He leapt backwards, out of the way, and touched the wound, dropping his sword to the side. Lifting his hand from the gash, he merely stared at the blood, contemplating such an unusual sight. The fact that blood coated the Katana that laid on the floor mattered not to him, he had been injured. He looked up at Clarice with eyes wide, moving his vision from his blood coated hand to Clarice's face, now coated with his blood. "You....how...." He stuttered, before shaking his head and grabbing the edge of his cloak, throwing it to the ground. He then slowly unbutton his torn shirt, dumping that on the ground along with the two sheaths on his back, leaving him topless. "You're impressive, woman. I'll give you that. To hurt me, the King's right-hand...it is an incredulous feat." Adrian grinned and turned his back to the woman, watching her through the reflection on the window at the end of the hall. He chuckled and knelt down, grabbing the two sheaths on the floor. He stood up with them in his hands, and then tossed them into the air, grabbing the hilts of the blades as they came down, unsheathing them simply. "Now, I bet you're wondering why I have so many blades." Adrian said, chuckling to himself. He proceeded to throw the two blades in his hands to his sides, listening with satisfaction as they hit the wall and clattered onto the floor. He chuckled and then lowered himself to the floor, to pick up the blood stained sword. He lifted this to his mouth and licked the blood from the blade, sighing at the taste of fresh human. "So I'll show you the true power of a vampire, when he has reached the pinnacle of his strength." Adrian finished, raising his left hand so that it pointed at Clarice, open-palmed. As if on command, the two swords he had thrown to the floor flew from the ground, pointing blade first at Clarice. She dodged them effectively, but Adrian was too busy to note the expressions on her face as he rushed towards her, swinging the blade in his hand at the woman while the other swords turned and attacked from behind. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Feredir didn't need to turn to check if the other two were following him; he managed to feel it as Luis revealed his magick. A satisfied nod from Feredir - not towards Luis but more of a personal thing - was enough to indicate how Feredir felt about the magick use; the power emitted by Luis' armour change definitely increased Feredir's confidence, and he was sure that they could take on the Vampire lord as he had been. But his confidence was short-lived. The throne-room may have been sound-proof, but Feredir didn't need sound to know something was happening. While it was extremely dulled, and Feredir couldn't tell what was happening, he could feel the pure magick emanating from the room, feel the power that the leaders were releasing. And it was strong, probably stronger than Feredir himself was. He paused for a moment as he try to focus himself away from the strength of the magick, and locate where the throne room was, before setting off again, concentration and sadness on his face. There was too much blood-shed that day, and more was to come. They took very little time to arrive before the grand-doors to the throne room, and could feel the heat from the other side of the doors. The Phoenix was obviously an impressive character. The dark magick of the Vampire lord could be felt as well, probably by Luis and Alsa, and definitely by Feredir. They needed to get in there quick. But the extreme heat from the battle had caused the steel locks on the door to melt and block the door from opening. "This is gonna take a minute or two." Feredir explained, concentrating his magick on the door with his arm outstretched, attempting to reformulate the locks as they were delayed from intervening in the fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Love of Ghibli Posted November 22, 2012 Report Share Posted November 22, 2012 Clarice watched as the man took his shirt off. Not the most unpleasing sight to behold for a member of the bat people but the excessive amount of blades he wielded was slightly confusing. At this point it didn't matter she was going to have his head on a stick anyway so there was no need to fear those blades. Besides he couldn't carry them all to begin with. Unfortunate for her she was woefully incorrect. When Adrian shot his blades at Clarice with his mind needless to say her eyes did widen slightly but she was still able to dodge. She was able to use her dagger to hold off Adrian's onslaught for a while but she wasn't making any progress she was....on the defensive. Clarice's eye was twitching as she couldn't even attempt to get a stab in before being attacked from all angles thanks to his floating sword magic. It was one of the few times she felt powerless, but feeling like that would shame her family, her honor, and all of womendom. She immediately entered her last dodge which was a stark jump upward which led into a flip on the ceiling and with that She opened ripple to her side and brought forth a spear to thrust down upon Adrian. After a mighty push downward she thrust at Adrian but to no avail his telekinetic swords were there already acting as a paper shredder for her. Though she did push through it with much sacrifice meaning Adrian had to jump back again. Even after be slashed severely she was able to break through the stone floor and be launched down to a lower level. When the smoke cleared Clarice was on the other side of some massive crater heavy breathing and looking at Adrian with her blood just dripping from various parts of her body. Luckily that armor she was wearing kept her alive. There she was just looking at Adrian and his confident self. It was an insult to her pride. She wanted to savagely rip him to shreds but she couldn't in her current condition and not while fighting at this level. He had decided to turn up the intensity with his magic. With this little pause in the action she realized Ed was there. She rolled her eyes at the thought of another man watching her get beaten. It was just shame upon shame, it was the legendary "compounded shame." But what could she do? How could she come back against his floating sword technique. Then the answer came to her. Since everyone is revealing their tricks its about time that she showed off her secrets. [color=#ff8c00]You man in the corner![/color] she was referring to Ed as she totally forgot his name. [color=#ff8c00]You tell anyone about this and I'll kill you along with this Vampire right here and now.[/color] Her tone was much more confident as she was taking of what remained of her armor off revealing her massive breast that were held in place by what would be considered a dominatrix's bodice her sculpted female abs and well toned leg muscles flexing in the night. It would have been breathe taking had there not been so much blood. Her armor was no longer necessary it was now dead weight. As she twisted her head back and forth cracking her neck back and forth. It seems as if Adrian let this happen all along. Maybe it was the thrill of the challenge, the savagery, and the quite literally bloody good time. Though it was odd Clarice felt a similar attraction. [color=#ff8c00]The right hand of the king you say, how interesting maybe you know someone I'm looking for then, his name is Adrian. Apparently I'm supposed to be his female equivalent. Whatever. Maybe once you tell me who he is those will be you last dying words.[/color] Her confidence was pretty suffocating at this point its was almost as if she had resigned herself to victory with the use of her trump card. She extended her hand and with that a ripple opened, she stuck her hand inside and slowly pulled out the same scythe she used on the guards before. [color=#ff8c00]Congratulations vampire, I've never even showed this trick to John. Don't die too quickly."[/color] She entered what would seem to be a make shift racers stance with her scythe held high and she launched herself at this vampire. For all that boasting Adrian wouldn't notice anything immediately special its the same acceleration move she opened with. It was easy to just slash her with one of the floating swords. However when the sword came across Clarice as she was in the middle of her accelerated run, it seemed to go through her like a ghost. Adrian's natural inquisitive reaction was cut short as the scythe blade seemingly appeared to be at his neck. He blocked the attack but when he went for a counter his blade went through that Clarice like a ghost too. However his enhanced sense of smell triggered and he jumped forward which allowed him to dodge the finishing slash that came from above. This slash carried so much speed and momentum that clearly went through all of the stone and brick on the walls and floor. Clarice landed lightly smirking as if she was impressed by the fact that he was still alive. [color=#ff8c00]No one's ever been able to swing at one of my "breaks" before I didn't think vamps could see my ghost[/color]. She was being nebulous on purpose to play with the vampires mind. She blinked a couple of times though because mind games aren't like her...in fact upon further thought it was almost as if she was flirting. She shook her head to banish the thought and got back into combat mode. [color=#ff8c00]Round 2[/color] she said as she began. This time Adrian would watch very carefully at Clarice's movements she would swing her scythe, he would block but in that second blocking she would already be attacking again from a totally different angle. In addition to that these ghost she spoke of just kept popping up wherever she last attacked. The torrent of clangs and chimes of blades clashing was almost melodic. But every now and again Clarice would get a hit in on Adrian. It was amazing how this mortal man or all things keep up with her. It was at one moment Adrian began to understand her pattern. Even at extreme speed everyone had a pattern. So he braced himself for his counter attack and like clockwork he used his floating swords to block her attack and this time he knew where she would strike next so he thrust his sword expecting to take out and organ but then he saw it. He witnessed the ever so slight movement of Clarice's well sculpted torso to dodge his blade. Which then he then felt the unfortunate strong right come across his jaw. As this punch sent him into a wall it was a bittersweet moment. Sure he just took it to the chin but it revealed her technique. Its impossible to attack and dodge at the same time like that even with enhanced reflexes. Clarice's trick was pretty simple she was accelerating inside an acceleration. For explanation's sake let's delve a little further into Clarice's powers and how they are used. While her weapon storage ripples are pretty explanatory her speed is deceptively complex. The max speed of Clarice's magic is the speed of Lightning though she has only gone that fast four times in her entire life. The problem is that her accelerated speed is best used for moving in a straight line that way she can gradually build up speed and momentum not really used for fighting. Her accelerated speed also comes with odd danger of impact death. Meaning if she so much as trips on something she is most likely to die, this was discovered at a young age when she would repeatedly run around her parents house and just crash into walls. Luckily she's somewhat durable though the head trama could explain some of her behavior...maybe. As she grew older and more competitive she realized that it would be more practical to just concentrate her speed into individual parts of her body and to go relatively slow in actual combat (Mach 1). But then the thought hit her what if she could command her body to go faster at on a whim. Normally she has to stand still and slowly power up to reach a certain speed then she can hover around and fight at said speed. If anyone tried to attack her while she was powering up. Well she could simply cap of at whatever speed she was currently at and kill viciously. If she was able to boost herself while boosting though, that could provide some hilarious interactions. After she mastered the technique she realized the effect it had on people. To even trained human eyes she would appear psychic as she could stand still meters away from her opponent and slash downward. The a slash would appear on her opponents back and they would have no idea that she did several repeated burst to the opponent slash them and then made it back to her initial position. It was quite entertaining. To vampires they be able to see a blurred image of her in the direction of her initial acceleration. If anything it just made them look drunk. Adrian was derplicon levels above them to her understanding the ghost are just the eyes catching the frame rate of one acceleration to the next highest speed. Never before has Clarice met anyone who could see them, let alone swing at them, and top it all off still be able to read her movements this was just...interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted November 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 [color=maroon]"O- okay, princess...!"[/color] The young royal guard carried Niasa von Mira on his back, it was a bit like a piggyback ride and may have looked hilarious to anyone still there. But there was nobody. The servants by now had all taken shelter, while the royal guards had rushed to take care of some human intruder...and they're all dead by now, mutilated by a mysterious scythe, some sort of boogey monster having done all the work. The two of them reached the library room, which was now empty. All the shelves had been cleared out, all the torn pages burnt and disposed of. All those precious stories, all those books - both fictional and nonfictional - gone, forever. And whose fault was it? Lord Elnaer? No, had he been left alone, he would've caused a lot of structural damage but a lot of books will have survived. Instead, the one at fault was the elf...not that Aro knew that. For all he knew, it was just a result of another one of the Vampire Lord's tantrums. The shelves themselves had also mostly been moved away for other purposes, but some standing still remained, which may provide for (futile) cover. Still, the blaring destroyed hole in the middle of this empty room, leading back down into a secret prison, was hard to ignore. And at the back, left alone, was a chained iron door that led into the secret elven library which Niasa had earlier only managed to glimpse. A key in the shape of a elven letter was required. Vanir had one of these keys, but now he was too far away from the castle to be of practical use. --------- [color=darkred]"I must commend you, Fire, for making it this far!"[/color] It was impossible. While John had the ability to generate more and more fire around him without any risk to his own body, he didn't have infinite mana. Although he was technically capable of it, he didn't have sufficient mana to...for example, turn the entire planet into a sun. But it wouldn't be difficult for the Phoenix to annihilate all life on it, he could start forest fires and building fires effortlessly, and nothing could stand in his way. This throne room was supposed to burn. His plan had been simple; [i]'go into the throne room and burn everything, including the Vampire Lord, and then perhaps die as he falls down a floor or two'[/i]. It was meant to be that straightforward. He had never considered the possibility that Lord Elnaer would somehow have the ability to counter him. How was that even possible? This lost, insane person was fighting his white flames with WOOD, or nature. It was ridiculous, really. He was being fought back onto equal ground with someone backed up by a [i]forest[/i]. He was the Phoenix, the golden warrior who easily starts forest fires wherever he goes, but he was losing here. "SHUT UP ALREADY, GODDAMMIT...!" [color=darkred]"There is no god!"[/color] The wooden lord mocked, rather directly. The bow still in his arms, he fired another wooden arrow that turned into yet another gigantic tree midflight. [color=darkred]"There is only..."[/color] The blazing white flames approaching supernova, they burned even through Elnaer's trees, and now pretty much nothing could stop the figure engulfed within this fire, who broke off once more into a charge. As the flames kept on surging, the Vampire Lord's voice was drowned out in high-pitched cackling. John kept on running, and running, until he had finally reached his target. Then, he quickly assumed a stance with his sword, all the white flames around his body transferring into it, all that near-supernova destruction he was causing, all of it being condensed around the sword. As such intense heat couldn't possibly be condensed so thoroughly, it was instead lengthened around the sword. The result was a blade almost entirely composed of white fire, almost ten meters long, turning it into a weapon suitable for a god. Technically, what he was doing was burning up his own sword, replacing it with white flames so they take more or less the same shape. And then, the white flames that had already been all around him was simply transferred around this 'sword' to form some sort of sheath, extending it out using the same point as the lost sword. For a more experienced sorcerer of fire, this sort of shape may have been easier to maintain (granted they're immune to fire like John), but for John himself he could only keep this technique together for about five seconds. This was his ultimate attack, a [i]sword of the sun.[/i] Then, with one swing at full power, he cut through the wooden vampire, a huge yet sharp wave of fire destroying him- no, IT from its upper right shoulder and neck to the left side of its pelvis, also incinerating its heart in the process. The rest of the wooden body caught fire, white fire that acted like ordinary fire nevertheless. Its head, without a neck, fell to the ground, still with a mad expression on its face. The elven bow fell to the floor. John's godly weapon dispersed into ordinary orange flames, and the battlefield around them - the forest - had mostly turned into nothing more than ashes, fluttering about in the air. Only a few pitches of red grass still remained, mostly behind the golden throne itself...which had melted into something that somewhat resembled melting wax. He turned around and began to walk away, back to the entrance. The fires left behind began to die out. "I have felt neither warm nor cold in my entire life." He said to the corpse behind his back - could it still be called a corpse, those wooden remains? - on nothing more than a whim. "But right now, after saving Lath from your tyranny and insanity, I feel warm...in my heart." [b][center][i][color=darkred]Indeed you do.[/color][/i][/center][/b] Suddenly, something huge plunged through the Phoenix's chest. The golden warrior looked down, his armor majorly incinerated but still somewhat intact. Somewhat intact...? No, it had been shattered through like hammer to glass. And what was before him was a tree, a bloody tree, sticking out of his own chest. He had failed. His life fleeted away before his eyes. In his life, he hadn't achieved much. He did suppress quite a lot of rebellions and became famous as the Phoenix for that, but then again, anyone could've suppressed them. What had he done? He led a rebellion himself against the Vampire Lord, but here he was, falling in the most crucial part of all mankind. He trained his entire life, mastering his power over flames, becoming a powerful warrior, but he was NOTHING outside of that. The others, they had something to return to, a casual life. But for him, he had no such salvation, only the neverending desire for justice. Things may have been a lot different had Shanna, the only thing he had ever viewed as a personal future, returned from that mission. It was...too bad... John Alexander's head fell low. ------------------------ While the elf went to work with reformulating the lock, the vampire prince worked on destroying the lower part of the large door with a beam of energy in a style not unlike his brothers', as it had melted and stuck to the ground. Once he was done with the lower, he took in a sharp breath, letting his mana recover a bit, before doing the same at the top. The top was somewhat harder, being really high, but he managed to destroy through a sufficient amount to allow the door able to be pushed open without anymore interference. As the energy beams had incinerated through part of the door, and the heat from the other side somewhat damaging the soundproof part of the throne room, sounds inside could be heard. Surging flames, intense cackling, strangely mixed in with trees...but no sign of the Vampire Lord's colossal energy attacks at all. It didn't take half a brain to realize what sort of battle was going on beyond this door. Finally, it was opened, and they saw what laid beyond. They were too late. John's corpse fell to the floor as a tree wormed out of it, detached from the ground, roots high in the air and useless. Confused, Alsa used magic to lift it into the air and throw it near the corner, before witnessing the scene. Ashes filled the air, and covered the ground. There was red grass here and there, and more red grass was quickly growing out of the ground and out of the ashes...like baby phoenixes. It was growing especially intense where the golden warrior's body was, his puddle of blood and source of mana being absorbed. At the very back was a growing tree, with the wooden limbs and head of Elnaer plus wooden bat-wings 'stuck' to it, and being absorbed into it. [i][color=darkred]Brother, how nice of you to appear,[/i][/color] a voice said telepathically, directly into the minds of the trio. [i][color=darkred]And you, elf, I have much to thank you for. Without you, this will have all not been possible. And you, human, will have the privilege of the second of my extermination to die.[/color][/i] Lord Elnaer's consciousness was now mostly lost into the mind of the plants, but he somehow still remained. His memories were still there, but they were quickly fading away. The only thing that truly linked him to the world now was his desire for total human genocide. At first, it would appear to be dark magic. It was only natural, what with such twisted motives and appearances. But while that was half the truth, as the vampire's almost entirely lost Dark Elf genes had made this possible, the full truth was that this was abuse of forest magic, of 'spamming' and 'hacking the system' if you will. And somehow, strangely enough, a bit of Feredir's own mana was mixed into this monstrous tree entity. It was almost like a final boss, really. [color=red]"Brother, you-"[/color] Then without further warning, a single dark tree with red leaves sprouted out of the ground, between the Elnaer tree and the trio. And then the leaves detached from the tree and flew towards them, apparently as hard as metal...! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asriel Dreemurr Posted November 24, 2012 Report Share Posted November 24, 2012 Sa'lien, having that ever present attention to detail that had given him the title of doctor long before he earned it through education, picked up on the differences between how Azami had been and how she was now. Then again, anyone who had known her in the days of the war would recognize that she was so much colder now than she was then. Alexi suspected that she had changed beneath the skin into something akin to the monster he had often been accused of being. "Well, the intention was never to trap myself in a mechanical body," he began, deciding not to call to mind how she had known anything about the implications of his design, "Though I was prepared for this eventuality, and the final entry in my journal bore a memory-repairing spell. As for the madman, I do suppose he's undermined everything that the University worked to accomplish to deserve a death sentence." He expected some sort of vehement remark, perhaps even that she'd pull one of her famously lethal pistols on him but she didn't. She expressed carelessness as to the outcome, and that shocked Alexi into silence for a few moments. He was left staring at the woman who had originally inspired him to enter into the field of research and to leave his military past and the atrocities he had committed during his service behind. "As much as I would love to continued this conversation," he stated after a few moments of having been lost in thought, "It will have to wait for a while, perhaps over tea in my home. For now, it's time for Elnaer to learn how the 102[sup]nd[/sup] Nuevida Storm Trooper Brigade deals with treason." His oath stated and renewed, he did not even wait for Azami to respond to his invitation and bolted up the stairs which were soon to lead him to the throne room. He felt...something surging within him, and unbidden by his will the super-heated claws came to life not just on his hands but on his feet as well, and a metallic tail akin to those of the long extinct dragons burst into being behind him. His wings remained furled tightly against his back to avoid their collision with anything, and his now talon-like feet dug deep burning gouges into the floor he trod upon. In a few moments he came before the now opened doors to the throne room. What he saw before him surprised him, for a great many reasons. He had expected to see the signs of a pyromancer experiencing a fifth-level feedback event, which would have more or less left the entire contents of the throne room as little more than ash and left small puddles of molten stone everywhere. Though there were certainly signs of something having come near that, his practiced eyes told him that there had been no feed-back event. If there had been then there wouldn't be anything left in the room at all, least of all this mysterious red grass. It took the second-greatest living authority on elven magic, the first being Feredir, only a few moments to discern to some degree what Elnaer had wrought. And this wasn't something that he had an easy counter to, but he was going to give something a try. At the very moment that the tree had sprouted into life before the trio, the one they knew as Iron Dragon, looking much more like a dragon now and with the runes written in blood across his body pulsating with bright red and vibrant green light, hurled himself into the air towards it and unleashed a burst of incredibly potent toxin towards the tree. He didn't really know how the forest was going to react to it, this was just going to be trial and error, but he was certain this was the most potent toxin he was capable of producing. Meanwhile, the emerald egg-shaped stone which powered the construct began to pound like a war drum. It sent out vibrations that effected mana in the surrounding area in the same way that sound effected air and could thus be felt by anyone skilled enough to wield magic effectively. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted November 25, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 As the red leaves flew for Alsa and co, the vampire prince charged up an energy ball and threw it at them, and it exploded, taking them all out before they could slice through the trio. But then a somewhat familiar warmonger barged in. [color=red]"Iron-"[/color] Alsa began, but shut his mouth. The dragon that had just entered was surely their old friend...in fact, he was p the one who had allowed them to escape the prison in the first place, and fought off Adrian easily. He had left earlier to go visit the human camp, but then again, since they were currently launching an attack right here, it was only natural that he would be among them. So, maybe, just maybe, with his might combined with the others, the monstrosity that was his brother could be defeated. [color=darkred][i]Oh look, it's you,[/i][/color] Lord Elnaer's voice rang in the doctor dragon's head[i]. [/i][color=darkred][i]The pale imitation of an elven superweapon. But like all the other legends, you will have to fall this day.[/i][/color] The tree that had been attacking the trio died immediately under the harsh toxic gas, but was quickly replaced by many more that began to grow all throughout the throne room, each with the same deadly red leaves, and each metal-like leaf detached before darting straight forth towards the four people, mostly concentrated on Alexi... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piercer of the Heavens Posted November 25, 2012 Report Share Posted November 25, 2012 Once the door had been opened Luis was shocked at what he saw. The room was layered in ashes, and on the middle a warrior who was unknown to him. He laid lifeless on the floor, with Elnaer no where to be found. Only a tree that burst out of the ground, which shot red leaves at them. Luis though nothing of them until Alsa destroyed them and he figured out that they were indeed dangerous. With Alexi bursting in and destroying the tree, Luis had time to switch armor before the next barrage of attacks came. "This armor won't do" Luis said as he used his magic to switch [url="http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/193/a/a/commissh___genbu_by_mizaeltengu-d56povg.jpg"]armor[/url]. With that he spread his arms with an open plam, then what looked like giant semi-see-through turtle shells appeared to his sides. From the highest point they were 8 ft high and from the longest point it was6 ft across. He then did the same to his front and back. This allowed the warriors to take cover, although some of the attacks could still get through due to the shields being round and not allowing a perfect box to be formed.. "This won't hold for long." Luis told Alsa and Feredir as he saw that the leaves were stabbing into the shields. "I'm sorry, but his is the best I can think to do for now. This armor only allows me to conjure four shields at once. I wish i could be more help, but defending was never my strong point" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asriel Dreemurr Posted November 27, 2012 Report Share Posted November 27, 2012 "My name is not Iron." Alexi proclaimed this with total calm in his voice, and as he had done to protect his fellow prisoners in their original escape he created a barrier with his wings. Though this one was made by wrapping them tightly around himself into a sort of dome, and he hoped that the various iron-hard leaves would simply glance off of this shield he had created. Meanwhile, having seen that the toxin was so effective, and idea had come to his mind. While under the protection of his wing barrier, he began carving out what he had come to understand to be a magical diagram used by the elves. This one in particular involved the runes for grass, tree, wither, and decay surrounding a circle which was the outer portion of a large sigil which was designed to channel the mana of one who wished to use it into producing an effect over a wide area. He was fairly certain that this would only effect the plant life, and that is to say he was certain enough to use it while those that had become his brothers in bonds were in the room. [i]Well, time to see how this new body conducts mana.[/i]Once finished inscribing this diagram, he rose to his feet and briefly folded his wings behind him whilst holding his hands, now shifted back into hands from claws, in front of his chest in the standard position for gathering ones mana into a single place. Anyone with sufficient knowledge of elven magic would be able to recognize the sigil at his feet. "I am Doctor Alexi Sa'Lien, Formerly Captain Alexi Sa'Lien of His Majesty's Royal Nuevida Storm Troopers Brigade 102. Lord Elnaer, for the crimes against the peace between the human and vampiric races, I find you guilty of treason and thus sentence you to death!" As he had been saying this, he had noticed that this body of his was VASTLY superior to his mortal one in terms of magical conductivity. In his hands he could see the light of a larger amount of mana than he had ever been able to gather before held between his palms, and yet he did not feel the level of exhaustion he expected. This would require further investigation, but there were more pressing matters at hand. This being the case, he pried his hands apart from each other, producing a wildly arcing stream of mana between them, and thrust them towards the sigil. Whatever effect it would have was yet to be seen, and he'd certainly given those around him ample time to stop the casting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted November 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 28, 2012 [color=darkred][i]Who gave you such authority?[/i][/color] The voice of Lord Elnaer mocked telepathically, undertoned by the sound of leaves. [color=darkred][i]And can you honestly be called Alexi Sa'Lien, after your elven success?[/i][/color] The personality of the Vampire Lord was being absorbed more and more into the forest, being lost, but at the same time this meant a greater control over the growth of the trees and plants. In order to understand, imagine Lord Elnaer and the forest consciousness as E% and F% respectively, both of which together add up to a complete 100%. After John 'defeated' the vampire-elf hybrid, the F percentage grew higher to replace the lost E%, and thus F -> E. Because of this imbalance, it can only tilt further down, and eventually there would come a time when F equaled 100, and E equaled...but a mere zero. The consciousness - which can't properly be called 'Elnaer' at this point - noted the largely gathered amount of mana, conducted throughout the body, channeling throughout the sigil with such intensity that it could even match 'his' own gigantic supply of mana. Without hesitation, Feredir's bow suddenly floated off of the ground by itself, and fired dozens of sharp, crimson-petal flowers that grew alongside it. The flowers transformed into raw, life energy midflight, as twigs from Elnaer's own tree wrapped and attached themselves onto the bow like plant parasites. Essentially, he had weaponized the souls of the plants, and was using them as energy beams to blast away the Doctor, enough to penetrate through the humans' shield. At around the same time, more trees began to grow from the ground near Feredir and Alsa, at angles where the leaves could get through the turtle shells, but Alsa obliterated the leaves off of them before they could be fired at. [color=red]"We aren't getting anywhere just by standing here, Sir Feredir..."[/color] The vampire prince pointed out to his mentor. At the moment, they were trapped within the four turtle shells, one of which was about to be penetrated by Treenaer's life-energy attack, but surely the elf himself would know of a solution to this... right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asriel Dreemurr Posted December 1, 2012 Report Share Posted December 1, 2012 Alexi was so excited by the fact that he was honestly about to implement elven magic in combat, he always enjoyed using it and doing so in battle was particularly exhilarating. Unfortunately, he realized that even if he had noticed Elnaer's attempt at striking him down He probably wouldn't have been fast enough to avoid the attack. Still, he'd managed to get his hands close enough that the mana had started to arc into the seal and this particular seal was not the type to need to be charged to a certain level before activating. This one would just activate whenever the flow of mana into it was cut off, and so when the weaponized souls struck Alexi with enough force to tear him away from the diagram things really got interesting. Firstly, the doctor had been quite unceremoniously interrupted during his preparation to cast. This normally would not have meant more than a blinding flash of light and a deafening explosion...but he'd also been using a good bit more mana than normal. Fortunately it didn't result in a feedback event from the spell, runic magic simply didn't do that, but it did do something. The mana he had gathered into his hands erupted out in a way similar to if someone had built a Tesla Coil and kept charging it. Except instead of bolts of electricity firing everywhere...well...you get the idea. This reaction did throw Alexi with substantially more force than it might have without the added force from Elnaer's attack. Fortunately, for his friends, Elnaer's blast had sent him flying through the air with his back to the ground. Unfortunately for him...he hit the floor. HARD. The doctor had never been more glad to be unable to feel pain than at that exact moment...though given his short stay in the new body that wasn't really saying much. There were also the many bolts of raw mana shooting out and exploding more or less randomly throughout the room. And then there was the sigil. Not having absorbed more than a small portion of the mana he had intended to put into it, its effect was not quite so spectacular as it might have been. Still, the wave of what was essentially death magic went hurtling out in all directions from it. It didn't get even half-way to the walls of the throne room, but what plants were caught in the wave were sure to feel its effects. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted December 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 2, 2012 The bloody red grass around their feet and the trees about them died, all the ones surrounding the four people that dared to oppose the tree-turned Vampire Lord; a human assassin, a vampire prince, an elf out of time, and a thing attached to alien armor that wasn't even designed by himself. For about ten to twenty seconds, the assault had stopped, but noticably the Lord Elnaer tree had grown until it was half as tall as the cathedral-size throne room, and also noticably red grass was rapidly growing like a wave towards their feet, replacing all those that had been killed by the chaotic death magic. Once the red grass was beneath their feet, the trees would grow back up and launch more attacks with their red leaves. But this redundancy surely wouldn't last forever, soon the tree-forest-elf-vampire-whatever Lord would reveal a different trick. After all, how did he expect to wipe out humanity with this little amount of power that can't even decently get through the defense of four disorganized people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reinforce Posted December 3, 2012 Report Share Posted December 3, 2012 Lyon approached the library, having managed to follow the trail of Niasa and Aro this far, and walked inside. Bringing his hands down by his side, he started to draw water in, looking over the seemingly empty library as he did so. He noticed a door at the far end, with a lock on it and an elven letter he recognised on the lock, and brought his hands back up to rummage in his armour. Finding what he was looking for, he pulled out a key in the shape of the same elven letter, a key that he had found around Vanir's neck as he jabbed the spike into Vanir's heart the previous day, and carefully took the key as he did so. Still keeping his senses aware as to the area around him, he walked up to the iron door, skirting around the edge of the hole that led to what appeared to be a prison, before reaching the door. Bringing the key up, he placed it into the lock and, finding it to be a perfect fit, he turned the key, and watched as the chains fell away and the door slowly opened, to reveal the library within. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asriel Dreemurr Posted December 4, 2012 Report Share Posted December 4, 2012 Alexi had heard tales of the power of Elven weaponry, but this was just ridiculous. As soon as he'd seen that the bow had fired the energy blasts seemingly of its own accord he put two and two together. This whole bloody forest had sprung up on stone, in an environment never meant to sustain it, because of the power of that bow. It didn't change that this pseudo Elnaer forest was encroaching upon them with the intent of ending their lives. Alexi had no intentions of allowing to do that, and seeing as how this forest had withstood the blazing heat of summer he felt it only right to subject it to the freezing cold of winter. "We need to get that bow if we're to end this!" He shouted at the top of his lungs whilst he got to his feet. The construct turned himself, figuratively, into a wall between as many of the trees and his companions as he could. The war being waged outside of that nearly ruined throne room didn't even reach him, but the thought that all of the work the rebels had gone through being undone by one [i]thing[/i] that had once been their tyrannical lord inspired an emotion within him that the last resurgence of had lead to him being given a name by the human military forces. The Butcher of Allensburg. And that emotion was wrath. However, when in his younger years he would have drank deeply of the mind consuming power of his anger, he maintained his control. Emotions burn within, but can also turn icy. And so his did. This icy wrath within him kept the semi-draconic construct holding the line, and contributed to the force of will it took to let the icy power he was about to unleash well up within him. He did not feel pain, rather he felt that he was pushing the limits of his body to contain what was coming. It took nearly half a minute for him to build this power up, half a minute of holding the line and withstanding a barrage from the vampire lord that threatened to break his enchanted armor. He reached the point where he could contain the coming storm no longer, and thus opened his maw. The frozen wrath of Alexi Sa'Lien manifested in a nearly literal sense as an icy gale erupted so forcefully from his being that, despite sinking the claws upon his feet deep into the red grass and the stone beneath that, he was pushed back nearly to the point of running in to those behind him. To avoid doing so, he fell forward and sank the claws upon his hands in as well. What was to become of the plant life caught in the storm was yet to be seen, but "Iron Dragon" certainly seemed incredibly appropriate at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted December 5, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2012 [color=#ee82ee]"This room should lead us into my brother's...elven research library."[/color] Niasa said, taking out a key to open the locked door. She fumbled with her arms a bit, the lock somewhat rusted, but Aro helped her unlock it fully. The chains fell away automatically. [color=#ee82ee]"Vanir had one key, the other I've been keeping safe before I had left the castle. We should be safe in there."[/color] Once it was unlocked, the vampire princess limped in, with Aro supporting her. He had only temporarily stopped the bleeding in her leg, but the wound was still there and it would have to be treated soon. Vampires had a stronger resistance against infection than humans, but it could still be infected, and would worsen her condition after this human attack had ended. That wasn't any good, for who Aro thought would become the future Vampire Lord... He was confused upon entering. It wasn't a particular wide room, the size was comparable to a classroom actually, but lined with ancient, wooden shelves that didn't speak 'royalty' at all. It contained the full collection of Lord Elnaer's personal research into elves, the solution to his human genocide, but oddly enough, most of these were mere storybooks. There were also several really ancient books written in strange symbols, that looked like they might turn to dust if touched. And more of these strange symbols, elven letters, lined the walls. [color=#ee82ee]"My loyal Aro, please take care of my body for a moment." [/color]Niasa said upon locking the door again, the enchantments placed upon it automatically re-chaining it. She closed her eyes, and then her body lost balance, but Aro quickly caught it before it hit the floor. Another usefulness of using a shadow avatar was that it was intangible, and thus could be hidden within walls and used as a sort of scout. This was exactly what Niasa von Mira was doing right now, watching Lyon within her legendary shadow avatar, while hiding inside a wall with only two unnoticable black pupils visible outside of a wall. She cursed herself at the revelation that Lyon too had a key of his own...he must have stolen it from Vanir, the older brother of Aesir. As he placed the key in the lock, she swiftly returned back to her own body. [color=#ee82ee]"...Aro, I must thank you for your loyalty up until now."[/color] [color=maroon]"P- princess?"[/color] [color=#ee82ee]"But this is a battle between royals. In that corner over there, I remember seeing a storage room where some iron dragon armor was kept. Hide in it." [/color]She commanded. [color=maroon]"What?! B- but I can't-!"[/color] [color=#ee82ee]"This is a direct order. Don't disobey me. Please."[/color] Reluctantly, the young vampire royal guard headed towards the storage room, and hid inside of it. It was enchanted well enough to be impervious to anything like swords, like almost everything in this library. There was no way the Vampire Lord would ever have his precious research damaged. And inside that storage room was... Once he was gone, Niasa forced herself to stand up straight, ignoring the wound on her leg, and hid behind a book-covered shelf at the side of the room. Then, concentrating, a bow formed in her hands out of energy that acted as an extension of herself. Multiple arrows also appeared. Although they would soon dissipate back into useless energy, this was her specialty that nobody else - not even Elnaer himself - could do; converting energy into matter. [i]E=MC[sup]2[/sup][/i] The chains fell once more, and the reinforced door opened. As soon as they did, multiple arrows would come shooting at whoever came in, and then these arrows would disappear shortly afterwards. Then a feminine vampire figure would quickly retreat back behind a bookshelf...it could be any bookshelf. Some were vertical, some were horizontal, which made hiding easier. ------------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ListenToLife Posted December 5, 2012 Report Share Posted December 5, 2012 As Feredir finished the lock, and the door flew open, the elf merely stopped, shocked by the sight that had befallen him. The heat was nothing - his magic prevented him from feeling the blunt of the flames - but the sight and that 6th sense of the elves; both were bombarded with so much information that just disobeyed everything he thought he knew. The power that emanated from that room, from the open doors, was just so strong and so corrupt. Darkness everywhere. The others couldn't see it - of course they couldn't, they weren't Elven, nor had they spent his long years studying the magic of the world - but he thought he could see their faces grow slightly paler, despite the heat. The darkness, it got to them. They were magic-users, it would obviously affect them. Feredir merely walked slowly into the room, ignoring the hulk of steel that leapt past him and destroyed a tree that sprouted before them. He had felt him approach anyway; the pulsating beacon of mana that was his core allowed him to do that easily. No, instead he took one step, then another, and looked around with wide eyes at the destruction wrought by Elnaer. John's pyromancy had certainly done a lot of damage to the throne room, but Elnaer's destruction was much worse; albeit subtler. It could've been a peaceful scene if the plants were only included - at least to someone without much ability in magic. The trees, they called out in pain. An artificial forest, summoned by a mixture of powers. What sort of psycopath could've even thought to do this? The forests were possibly the most dangerous things on the planet; not even the strongest and wisest of Elven mages would even attempt to control it; dominating such a powerful thing was incredibly difficult, and the 'conqueror' would never come away unscathed. True, this false forest was only a fraction as powerful as a natural one - it had neither the experience nor magic of a true forest - but it was still far beyond the strength of any mortal being. For Elnaer to attempt to manipulate it - it was madness. It would, and was, consuming him. Feredir sighed and bowed his head at the forest, as if burdening all of the responsibility on his own shoulders. He had brought the use of Elven magic back to the world, and it was being used for such a cause as this. He needed to sort this out; he needed to make sure that his mistakes didn't cause the end of another race. The last of the elves, that was who he was. And that held some power in it. He didn't flinch not react much to Elnaer's taunts, aware that the mentality of Elnaer was slowly slipping away anyway. Not an emotion escaped from his mind, and he merely started to walk forward; purpose in his step. He took a powerful stride onto the grass covered floor, and the blood red ground shied away from him, revealing blood stained and blackened flagstones beneath. He was calm now, strong, and focussed. As Luis converted armour once again, producing a large defense, Feredir raised his arms over his head and removed the bow and a single arrow. His hands seemed to barely move for a moment, but within seconds he was holding the bow and the bow string was uttering a loud 'twang'. The arrow moved like a blurred, obviously aided by magic, as it tore through the red leaves like...well...leaves, and cracked the tree they had erupted out of. Noting that it had little effect, and that he had to get his own bow back if he wanted to assist more, he placed the bow back in it's quiver and instead focussed upon helping with the defence as Alexi posed his own attacks, rather deadly attacks as well. The sigil was one easily recognised by Feredir; he had been there during the development of such spells as that, and knew how to perform such magic himself. And he knew to duck under cover, placing his hands against Luis' armour defenses and producing a translucent hemi sphere to block the force. After being thrown backwards by his own spell, Alexi returned to the fray with another assault, and Feredir thought he'd lend a hand with this one. "I'll get the bow! It should be in its owner's hands if it is to be used properly." Feredir cried, running to the other side of Luis' shields, so that there was a sort of V between Alexi, Luis and himself. He then focussed his own magic and reached out to the corrupt forest, a dark and angered mind that forced itself at everything around it. It appeared to recognise Feredir, his mana was present in the system, and his Elven mind connected with the nature well. But it still rejected him. It assaulted him, but fearfully. And this was what he needed. He raised his arms beside him, causing a massive increase in the growth of the grass around him. At the same time, the Red colour of the grass faded, and it returned to the natural green of the forest. He thought of giving the lost form of Elnaer a lecture, but discarded the idea; it would be useless in this situation. Instead, he merely thrust his hands forward, causing the blades of grass to fly towards Elnaer in a storm of steel strength grass, following the icy gale of Alexi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reinforce Posted December 6, 2012 Report Share Posted December 6, 2012 Lyon watched as the chains holding the door collapsed away, before it started to swing open, revealing a small room akin to a classroom, with bookshelves scattered around the place. He didn't have much time to look around though, as he caught sight of a glimmer of energy before a swarm of arrows came shooting his way from further in the room. Cursing as he reacted, he brought his left hand up, the one that had continued to gather moisture as he moved to the door before, and used it to create a whirling funnel of water, to channel the arrows away from him, not having enough water collected at the time to create a whole wall of ice. The funnel worked better than he had expected too, taking all but one of the arrows, and spitting them out at the other end, back into the main room of the library. The first arrow fired managed to get through before the funnel was finished though, and managed to slice through the edge of his armour, enough to cut through the side of his arm as it continued on, before ending up in around the same area as the rest of the arrows. Once the hail of arrows was finished, he lowered the water and brought it down into a sphere, only to see that no-one remained to be seen in the library. He placed the key back into a pocket in his armour, before drawing his crossbow, and diverting about half of the water he had collected into an ice bolt ready for use. The rest he kept as water in his left hand, and kept gathering what he could from the rooms outside as he looked around the room, trying to find his target as he did so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Merci Posted December 6, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 6, 2012 Niasa, unlike Lyon, wasn't much of an expert when it came to actually combating others. It was just that she trampled over her enemies so easily, that she had never really had much of a challenge in her entire life. This meant that if she engaged in direct combat, she was sure to lose. But, there was one thing she was capable of, and that was sneakiness. Apart from the two Sai weapons hidden within her sleeves, she also had the advantage here, having experience in hiding from her brother's royal guards within the library...which that elf destroyed, but still. Also, luckily enough, she wasn't wearing a dress but peasant's clothes, having left the castle in disguise shortly before the humans attacked. This made it much easier for her to move around than while wearing that royal dress. Stealthily, she moved about the bookcases, dodging his range of sight every time. This was nothing, if he just looked around cluelessly like this, but he was also preparing himself more and more. This meant that the more time she wasted, the more Lyon grew stronger and prepared, and the harder it would be to take him down. If she was able to materialize a gun, this would've been over instantly. There would've been no time for him to dodge the bullet, and he would be dead by now. But the structure was too difficult for her to grasp compared to a knife or bow, so she had passed on ever attempting it. Deciding to attack now, she closed her eyes. [color=#ee82ee]"The throne doesn't belong to you!" [/color]Niasa's voice shouted behind Lyon. If he turned, he would see that it was only a shadow avatar, that quickly vanished. A split second later, the vampire princess appeared out behind a bookcase in the opposite direction and fired more arrows of energy from her bow, hoping that the shadow avatar had distracted him. Then, after firing them, she retreated back behind the same bookcase. It was like Elnaer purposely positioned the bookcases horizontal and vertical, with a height that matched the ceiling, to turn it into a maze. Despite the fact that the place was rather small compared to the gigantic (and empty) library room outside, it served to Niasa's advantage that she could easily duck from one to the other without being seen. But still...she was shooting blindly. If she wanted a clear hope of killing him, she would have to get closer. Or, he would have to get closer to her. Therefore, she stayed behind that same bookcase, a materialized bow at the ready. The moment he comes here while continuing to search for her, she would shoot him, and pierce through his heart. --------------- [color=darkred][i]You will all die,[/i][/color] a voice echoed telepathically into their minds, reminiscent of Lord Elnaer. His consciousness had almost been entirely absorbed, but several things still resisted, still attempted to swim near the surface. His ideals, his desires. At this point in the battle, the Vampire Lord was no more, but his will still remained in the forest. The tree near the end of the throne room, in front of the golden throne, was the only thing that remained unaffected when Feredir took control over it, giving it back its green properties. But the redness had to go somewhere, and the Elnaer tree quickly absorbed the hybrid blood into itself to prevent them from mixing in and being consumed by the chlorophyll. The Elnaer tree had by now grown to a height of seventy feet, then shooting up to over a hundred upon absorbing the hybrid blood. It didn't take more than a chainsaw to defeat the tree. As the icy gale and storm of steel-strength grass came flying at it, the tree could do nothing. Without the forest under its control to act as a defense, it could only prepare itself. The trunk was frozen solid by the gale, and tons of grass pelted it, chipping away bits of its wood, but it endured and tried to retake control of the forest, attacking Feredir's mind telepathically with random gibberish. Once the storm was over, cracks formed on the newly-created block of ice, before the branches of the tree managed to break through. Crimson leafy branches began to extend everywhere, one of them having two twigs that acted as a mechanism to fire thawed Feredir's bow. Noticably, all the twigs looked like bat wingg. Pointing it at the original owner, flowers were fired as arrows at him, breaking down into soul energy, turning into a beam of energy before reaching him. --------------- Unable to do anything in particular, Alsa could only stand and watch as the three powerhouses duked it out with the tree that was once his brother, but when the other two unleashed attacks in the form of hijacking the forest and an icy blizzard, he decided to join in. As the beam of energy came for Feredir, he countered it with a beam of his own, creating energy into a destructive force through magic. The two forces collided, opposing forces that surged against each other for a moment. Letting out a scream, he threw in whatever mana he had left, and miraculously managed to overpower the attack. The vampire prince's energy beam engulfed the other beam, and thus headed straight towards the source of the attack; the bow. The tree moved its branches quickly to protect itself, but the energy beam burned through them, and with that Feredir's bow dropped to the [i]green[/i] grassy ground. [color=red]"Now, Sir Feredir-!"[/color] He called out, hoping the elf would know how to retrieve it from such a distance. Once it was taken, although his brother's current state as a tree was irreversible, he would no longer have control over the forest that had been stopping them from attacking him directly this whole time. --------------- [b]10:00[/b] Ptonemely fought amongst his comrades, amongst the royal brigade force, as they continued to oppose the enemy forces. Despite the enemies' approximated number of about five-hundred-and-fifty in total, they had managed to fight off the majority. Bells had been rung across all the the city of Nuevida, calling for all the patrol guards to gather at the castle for support. It was brutal. All of their snipers and machinegunners had been taken out, and the enemy forces were continuing to wipe them out. At the same time, he had heard reported that multiple people - amongst them the Phoenix, the Black Lightning, a disinherited royal, a 'flying iron dragon', and the vampire princess apparently on a date - had all entered through the castle, and all contact with the royal guards inside had been lost. However, a lone female guard had managed to report to him that they were all decimated by the Black Lightning. As the commander of the royal guards, this was a really bad situation. Mysteriously there had been no word from the commander of the prison guards, Adrian, along with the fact that Niasa was inside the castle...and not only that, but Lord Elnaer himself hadn't shown up on the battlefield, where he would normally take glee in annihilating these attacking humans and betrayers. There had also been multiple sightings of fire and leaves in the throne room from outside the window by royal guards, which may explain his absence; he was fighting his own battle. He cursed himself for this current situation, running his blade through yet another vampire enemy. Such a thing was inconceivable. Their defense had been perfect, but how could it be ruined so effortlessly? At the moment, they're being trampled upon. [color=maroon]"DAMMIT!"[/color] He yelled out, taking his frustration out of a human sorcerer, surprising the human from behind with a blow that cracked his skull. But that had just been a lucky attack. Scattered about the battlefield, human sorcerers gave support to the main attacking force of the vampire rebels. The west, the east, and the south attacking forces had all blended into one sea of destruction, but miraculously they had still managed to keep anyone from entering the castle. He didn't know how many injured or dead there were yet, as it was impossible to count in the midst of this battlefield, but the enemy forces had obviously suffered the greater causality. Even though he was the commander, he couldn't tell which side was going to win. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Love of Ghibli Posted December 6, 2012 Report Share Posted December 6, 2012 There he was the prison guard whose name struck fear into the minds, hearts, and souls of the vampire in the kingdom of Lath. He was up against the taking a beating from a human and a female no doubt. Clearly she was a formidable foe but something more was disconcerting. It was her malice. Her intent to kill, her disregard for life...yes life. It was as though this woman's purpose in life was to take it away from others. Adrian calmly picked himself out of the impression his body made in the wall and looked at his opponent. Her chocolate skin blending her in to wall, her righteous afro that for some odd reason had not even remotely changed shape or looked disturbed, and finally there were those eyes not manic like a beast or insane like the high lord Elenaer in which he works for but some fine line between the two. Adrian knew that this might be the most important battle of his life and that there can be no holding back. Its not like he was holding back in the first place but everyone always has those subconscious thoughts of not trying to destroy one's surroundings in battle. Combatants just acknowledge that this is the location of a battle and this is where it shall be. But no more now there will be some structural damage to go along with this woman's carcass. "I've seen the secret to your trick woman, let's see how long you last now." With that he lunged at Clarice almost with the same speed she attempted on her first thrust but he not capable of such feats however his thrust was more...refined for lack of a better word. With his sword extended he made a quick stab for her abdomen, of course forcing Clarice to dodge. But that was futile Adrian had already planned for that dodge like an expert hunter making its prey move as they see fit and his flying swords were already attacking her new position. He watched her carefully as Clarice was now forced to use her accelerations to dodge all the blades. He would stare at her now, trying to train his eyes and elevate his senses to the point where he could naturally follow this human...nay superhuman's speed. To show how serious this fight had gotten after every dodge Clarice did to get past Elenaer's sword thrust his sword would make contact with the wall and it would go clean through it. After a while Ed, if he was still watching would see that there wall leading to the outer castle was crumbling. But that didn't matter to Adrian he was now on the offensive again and slowly but surely he was able to hone in on her breaks. It was with this intense focus and concentration he actually forgot about her floating question to look for the person named Adrian. Nevertheless the battle was on now. Clarice was still herself she did not tip to the point of insanity more like she was almost clairvoyant again. She listened to this almost dead vampire and snickered internally at the thought of some mortal seeing through her technique. It was a foolish thought, that initial thrust that forced her to accelerate was simply a fluke. She smiled and waited as he got up. Unfortunately Clarice saw that this vampire could walk behind all that talk. His well time thrust feint and follow-up attacks proved quite vexing. She noticed immediately how much power he was now putting into his attacks and that gave her a harsh realization. This vampire was stronger than her...well physically anyway. While that is actually a rather obvious fact that was it true about most high level vampire, Clarice never liked to think of it as such. She wasn't weaker more like mother nature chose to give Vampires a handicap. This was different though she saw a man demolish walls with just a mere slash (the fact that she does the same thing escapes her). She parried one of his sword slashes with her scythe and while she didn't falter under the intense pressure of the attack she could feel it and but she shook it off well and saw an opening to go in for a counter attack. Openings...hah! As if Adrian would make such rookie mistakes like having openings. This opening Clarice saw was just another one of his movements to get her within range. Adrian watched she fell for it. He dealt a sword thrust with his left hand directly at her face and while she dodge she kept going in and then it happened. Adrian curled his arm to where his forearm and sword were behind her head and he hugged. This sign of affection clearly through off Clarice's game. Her E cup breast pressed against his bare chest soaked in blood, Her cheeks were slightly read, she was...blushing. Adrian noticed all of these things and was slightly confused by the emotional turn this took. Thought it didn't matter when Clarice looked up to meet Adrian eye to eye, her face was only met with a skullbash! In shock she reeled back in pain out of his embrace but it was to late. Adrian followed-up with a left hook to Clarice's jaw line, a mean roundhouse kick to her breast, and finally a jump kick to her skull sending her flying. Adrian had thought he had won as this black abomination's body was flying down the hall he ran to follow the body as it skipped off the floor then he moved in to deliver what he thought would be the final slash and end this...but little did he know what he had unleashed. Adrian's katana came down but it was blocked quite abruptly by the scythe and Adrian could only watch in horror as Clarice was standing holding the scythe on the other end. There was so much force behind the attack and the guard that the floor could no longer handle it and collapsed on the combatants. As they were falling to the lower level Adrian was using his enhanced reflexes to jump on falling rubble and land safely. When he turned to see what had happened to his opponent he saw only death. Make no mistake Clarice wasn't dead in fact it was quite the opposite. When Adrian turned around he was see Clarice standing on the pile of cobblestone that marked the whole in the floor. Adrian could not clearly make her eyes, but he could feel them. Clarice's glare told stories, stories of her fallen victims, their tears, their suffering, their second lives as pies. With her scythe Adrian saw that he was now literally fighting death itself. Clarice on the other hand killed what was left of her heart seeing as for those milliseconds she opened her heart to another man and look what happened to her. This was no longer a fight or a duel. It was just question: "Who is going to die first?" Adrian entered his fighting stance as he was ready to take this embodiment of anti-life down. Clarice entered her make shift racer's stance and launched herself at Adrian. "I told you woman I already know this trick!" he exclaimed as he was somewhat catching her breaks an using he floating katanas accordingly. But then it happened after one break she just disappeared. His eyes didn't catch it at all for a second Adrian would have experienced fear. Fear from someone not named Lord Elenear, perish the thought. He was about to regroup his thought process when Clarice had revealed herself directly in front of him. [i]Odd[/i]...or at least that is what he wanted to think but he didn't have the time, sharp pains were encompassing his entire body as this black menace seemed to stand still deep slash came across the upper part of his chest. Another one on his right shoulder, another two on his thighs, a light one across his neck. Surely he would be dead if his enhanced sensory reflexes did not trigger every time the blade touched his pale skin. While he was under this motionless onslaught he saw that his opponent was starting to smirk. A smirk. "OH HEEELLLL NO!" Clarice was going for an accelerated thrust with her scythe to take the mans head clean off but Adrian made a cross with the katanas in his hands and blocked it dead center. The force was so immense that the floor directly behind Adrian was cracking. Luckily if the two combatants fell to the first floor next to the courtyard so there wouldn't be anymore falling. Adrian now furious with his pride besmirched replied with a cross slash to Clarice. She defended herself by holding her scythe vertically and took the attack. Her stance was firm but like her attack the force caused damage to the immediate surroundings. This back and forth of impact shots continued for almost an entire minute. Until Adrian used his floating katanas to lock Clarice's scythe in place which he then proceeded to kick her through a wall. He laughed as she wasn't able to hold on to the scythe as she went flying though now was not the time to let up. Clarice ended up outside in the courtyard where the initial assault had converged and while there were still little signs of conflict going on, factions trying to maintain and hold positions and what not. Everyone was now distracted by the malice of these two combatants weaker beings might have died at such a presence. With their Adrenaline pumping its almost as if neither of them could feel the pain that the other had dealt, but that didn't matter as long as the other drew breathe this was not over. A small crowd had formed what they thought would be a safe perimeter around the two as Adrian was giggling at the thought of fighting a Grim Reaper who doesn't have a scythe. Clarice stood up and opened a ripple and pulled what would be a cross between a long sword a machete. Adrian got back serious for a moment. All death aside this was probably a pretty enjoyable fight. The next second would almost come in slow motion. Clarice runs at Adrian at normal speed. He runs at her two but sends his floating Katanas to attack first. The katanas miss and end up killing two guards as Clarice accelerates to dodge, but now with a sword she is able to move more freely and change up rhythm than she would with a scythe. She burst into her acceleration montage attack again in which the ordinary vampires would only see her disappearing, but not Adrian he can see unfortunately his body is actually damaged so instead of doing the fool hardy thing and trying to keep up with this literal speed demon he just jumped out of the way into the crowd of meat shields. Naturally Clarice followed and while people were trying to flee they had neither the skill nor the speed to actually escape. After Clarice's first attack 7 vampires were killed. The crowd then learned a valuable lesson. Run...and while they did attempt such feats it was futile Clarice and Adrian took advantage of the space and were chasing each other around the courtyard constantly killing others in their pursuit to kill each other. Eventually their battle led to the drawbridge itself. They had inadvertently sealed off an escape route for the remaining opposing factions but that didn't matter to them. They were busy slashing the life out of each other. They both found each other out of breathe, panting, almost to the point of exhaustion. Clarice had clearly expended more energy than she was supposed to with all of her accelerations and while Adrian was good for the stamina the strain on his eyes and body for trying to keep with said accelerations were now taking their toll. Adrenaline can only keep you going for so long before your body just shuts down on you. But neither of these fighters were ready to let anything meager like physiology keep them from killing this other entity, Clarice new she had to gamble on a long shot trick that would normally prove certain victory but her physical and geological conditions were not particularly in her favor. Nevertheless it was time to go for it. Adrian looked at Clarice from the opposite end of the bridge and he readied to meet her blade once again. He had figured out her moves and surely he could end her before his body punked out him. They proceeded to run towards each other and he couldn't believe his eyes. Clarice had split into five other Clarice's! WHAT THE F**K!!" is all he could exclaim as these multiple women proceed to attack him from every angle much like his own swords did to her. He couldn't keep up with five opponents at this speed. Adrian had let a smile slip on his face [i]"And you were hiding something like this all this time woman?"[/i]he thought as he was doing what he could to keep his body from being torn to shreds. Maybe this was his time to die and if this was his last fight well it was a darn good one. But then on the brink of death a thought occurred to him. They're on a bridge she literally has to run directly past him to get to the other side. Her range of attacks are pretty limited. With this new found knowledge Adrian pushed his body to the limits and countered every blade. When countered every afterimage of Clarice had disappeared and the real one was forced to do a back flip and land some distance away from Adrian. That was Clarice's trump, Black Tempest, by maxing out her speed Clarice is able to make multiple afterimages of herself to confuse the enemy. The problem is that while this may appear simple Clarice likes to take it a step further and accelerate while she is in the process making her afterimages meaning that could cause more after images or in this case allow her after images to appears as full clones. Needless to say it does a tremendous strain on her body if she isn't in decent condition when she does it. Clarice was blinking heavily suffering from multiple cuts, multiple fractured bones, some organ damage...etc. She was about to black out and once more the bridge was giving way actually there was a massive slash mark down the center. The bridge couldn't hold either of them anymore, it was time to finish this with the final attack. Clarice braced her legs for the final attack and so did Adrian, their eyes met each other for what seem to be the last time and then time slowed down. The bridge slow fell apart and one could see Clarice's body descending from the horizon line but she launched herself directly at Adrian and broken into five Clarice's. Adrian was ready to reply, but when he tried to launch himself he froze. Actually his legs froze, the scythe slashes from before must have caused some nerve damage and he was loosing feeling in his legs. Even with time slowed down he didn't have a moment to spare. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH" he yelled angrily as his katanas shot directly at three of the Clarice clones making them disappear. Yes he still had his mind and he still had his arms, he used his left arm and sword to kill the forth Clarice, and he saw the glimmer of victory right in his grasp only one Clarice left. He took his right hand and thrust through that last Clarice's head and he was elated until it disappeared! In her last bit of logical thinking Clarice pulled an Adrian and used a feint. What Adrian didn't catch was when we he launched his three katanas at Clarice, Clarice dodged and pushed her body to an unknown limit and made one final afterimage. she the used Adrian's swords as a platform and jumped straight in the air ready to give him a downward slash. When the Clarice after image faded a tear almost came down Adrian's face as if he was capable of such a wimpy task and he looked up to see black death coming from above.[color=#ff8c00] DDDDDDDDDDDDIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!! [/color]was all that was said as what was actually about 5 seconds seemed like 5 minutes for this to happen Clarice swung her blade downward and Adrian knew gravity was on her side, life was good wasn't it. He flash backed to his time as prison warden, the people he made suffer, the freshness of human blood. He lived a good life and this was a glorious way to end it. "We had fun woman...didn't we?" was his last utterance as Clarice landed on the ground and prepared to deliver the final slash. Unfortunately the fates had something else in store Adrian and Clarice's eyes both widened immensely as they both witnessed Clarice seemed to be falling the second she touched the ground. Both of them were so fixated on each other that they didn't notice that Adrian was on the very edge of the drawbridge where a small patch of land before the massive hinges where the bridged laid. When Clarice touched the ground it was already pretty loose from having pieces of the bridge snag at before they fell over into the partially frozen poison moat of the abyss. It just needed one more nudged and Clarice was it. She had immediately lost her balance and could only look at Adrian's equally stunned face at this turn of events. It seemed the fall was deep and she fell into the darkness of night. Adrian almost fell back out of shock surly it wasn't the victory he was expecting but it was a victory nonetheless. He would spend the next seconds lost in thought trying to scroll his memory banks to see if that opponent, that human, that woman, that legend spoke her name. Distraught to find out she didn't he did remember the words of that young upstart swordsman whom he ignored earlier..."Clarice." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piercer of the Heavens Posted December 6, 2012 Report Share Posted December 6, 2012 After a few attacks by Alexi and Feredir, Luis realized that defense was useless. "Well if we are all attacking." Luis said when he saw Alsa attack as well. "I'll join too." With that his armor began to glow and take shape of another [url="http://th06.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/f/2011/267/c/5/beetle_armor_2_by_aotada-d4ar3ai.jpg"]armor[/url], the same went for his weapon. Once the transformation was done the shield dissipated, leaving no where to hide. Well it's not like there was much to start with. Luis, being a close combat attacker, ran toward the tree slashing branches, and dodging shot fired from the tree. His sword would send electrical currents through the branches burning them from the inside, at least that was his plan. Still the branches were too much, Luis could not defend and attack at the same time with all the branches and shots that were present. He was barely able to keep himself alive Luis still managed. That's when the bow was released from he tree, but as quickly as it was released the branched were all around it. "No!" Luis yelled realizing that getting the bow away wasn't that easy. "I need a better armor he mumbled to himself." He blinked, and once his eyes opened he wasn't in the room anymore. He was nowhere in fact. Only white empty space surrounded him. "It's time." a voice spoke into Luis' mind. "It's time you unlocked your full potential. Well more like your personal armor." The voice chuckled. "As I explained earlier, each person who uses your type of magic has their own personal armor, one that no one else has had, does have, or will have. For some reason though this personal armor isn't fair, some are stronger than others. In your case, you have on of the stronger armors. One that is blessed by the power of light." "What are you talking about. I know all the armors that I have, none of them are good enough to do much this battle." "Did I forget to mention that I determine when you are allowed to use such armor. And I say you are allowed to use it now, all i will say is that you will be of great help now." With that Luis blinked again, not saying that he wasn't blinking at all, and he was back in the room. His armor was shining and taking shape of a different armor. It was different though, usually when the armor is shining it is a dim shine, but this time... this time it was blindingly bright. When that glowing dissipated Luis stood there with a new [url="http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2010/217/6/5/65d1b0cc49c77347da0d733a4cd237b0.jpg"]armor[/url]. This armor looked so beautiful, almost as if it was made for mere decoration. The tree wouldn't give him time to do anything though. Branched attacked Luis, going into grab him to rip him apart, but as soon as they touched him they dissipated. "Banisher of Evil." Luis said. "An armor that was made to slay the darkness. One touch of the weapon, shield, or even armor will destroy evil. Something that you are made of. You are a new type of evil though, one that the evil of this world would be scared of. My armor may not be enough to defeat you, but it sure is enough to fights against you!" He told the Elnaer. Luis ran toward the bow cutting down the branches that began to get a hold of it. "I won't let you!" The branches continued a barrage of attacks toward Luis, only to be cut down. Within seconds shots began to be fired toward his direction. Perhaps he was finally recognized as a treat. "Too late!" He said as he blocked the shot with his shield. "Feredir, I think this is yours." Luis said as he kicked the bow to Elenar's feet. He then ran around the room, fighting of the branches that got in the way. "I know this wont kill you, but this is going to hurt." Luis said upon having a clear path to the tree. He then grabbed and threw his lance similar to how one would do with a javelin. The target was the tree, the place where the evil was coming from. The lance flew in a straight path, stabbing the tree going in about 3 ft. "Perfect." Luis complimented himself when he saw his lance hit. "Now guys, that should be enough to severely weaken him." Luis told the other three, but mostly directing it toward Feredir. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ListenToLife Posted December 7, 2012 Report Share Posted December 7, 2012 Feredir watched as the frosty gale froze the trunk of the head tree, and his own barrage of literal blades of grass took its toll on Elnaer, chipping slowly away from the main trunk. It would've done more damage, perhaps even penetrated past the armour-like bark of the tree; but alas, it was not to be. For, with much toll on his own body, Feredir had managed to grip the forest. His mind reached out to it, and it accepted him. The green of the grass around him spread out like wild-fire, converting the blood-red forest into a natural, glowing green - the colour of magic, some would say. Feredir smiled for a moment, satisfied with his work, before falling backwards, his eyes rising to watch the growth of the Elnaer tree; no longer the insane vampire lord. He seemed to fall in slow motion, but he cared little. He merely watched as the blood from the plants rushed from the forest and towards Elnaer, leaving the forest momentarily gray as the blood rushed from it, towards the darkened heart of this forest. The tree grew fast, rising to the roof of the throne room and taking up much of the area, accompanied by the smashing of windows and the creaking of the stone floor as branches tried to escape from the room, and the floor struggled to contain the weight of the forest and head tree. Feredir sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. He still had things to do, he still had to finish this. But for now, he needed a rest.... Or did he? The grass that had fleed from him, and the forest that had feared him, now rushed to his aid; the grass towered to ten foot around him, and trees sprung up beside him, hiding him from the view of his allies. He was caught on a throne of grass, roses and tulips sprouting up around his feet. The forest was now his ally, and it was healing him and restoring him. No-one could dominate a forest, but many an Elf had allied with one, and used its power as his own. Even Elnaer's mental assault was repelled, the nonsense of the crazed man attacking Feredir's mind. It was an intense attack, and had it been only Feredir fighting, in that state, he would've struggled and lost. But the Forest fought with him, and rejected Elnaer. The mind of a forest is a formidable thing, for each individual thing works as a whole. Many picture each tree as its own being, its own mind. But a forest is just one, ancient, powerful creature; and each tree is but a part of it. The whispers of a forest are naught but its own thoughts, that one can train to hear. And this forest didn't whisper, it shouted. Feredir heard Elnaer's thoughts fade and cry out as the Forest rejected him completely, and stood up with reknewed strength as the forest restored him. "Thank you." He muttered, as the grass shrunk back to its normal size, and the throne vanished from behind him. Feredir had a grin on his face instead, and he seemed even stronger than before. With a thankful nod to Alsa for saving him, Feredir looked down at his feet, where something dear to his heart lay. Everything became silent to him, and he was without words as he knelt down to retrieve that which was on the floor. He didn't touch it instantly, instead sitting down behind it and crossing his legs, as if in a meditive position. He smiled contentedly and closed his eyes, reaching out his mind to the bow, the blackened bow; corrupt by Elnaer's black magic. [i]Hello, old friend.[/i] Feredir thought, greeting the bow mentally as if it was alive. A small glow emitted from the object, and it hovered slightly of the ground, raising to eye level with Feredir. The blackness slowly eroded away as the bow lowered into Feredir's lap, and as the Elf's eyes opened, the Bow was clean. And beautiful. The bow, quiver and arrows on his back fell to the floor, disappearing into the floor and the forest and Feredir lifted the beautifully crafted weapon in front of him, and he began to sing quietly to it. As he did, it emitted a brighter glow now, and Feredir was ignorant of the battle around him, for his full magic was returning. He felt stronger than he had for millenia, and as he stood up, his face was bright, happy and confident. He needed no arrows, the bow was enough for him. He lifted the bow slowly to his face, closed one eye and slowly pulled taught the elven bow string, concentrating his vision on one of the branches near the top of the tree, most of it sticking out of the window. But inside was the root of the branch, thick as an ordinary tree trunk; wider than a human's body - obviously nothing compared to the main tree. But it didn't matter to Feredir. He merely released string, and a gust of wind filled the room. The magic was not as raw and powerful as Elnaer or Alexi, but it was more expertly controlled; it was precise and fluid - and almost beautiful to one fluent in magic. A faint, forest green beam of light erupted from the bow, instantly passing through the branch; and soon following it was the wind, visible in its strength. From the moment Feredir released the bow string, and the moment the tree branch came tumbling through the window to the outside world, landing upside down in the courtyard below, there wasn't even enough time to blink. But the magic could be felt throughout the throne room, and Feredir seemed confident now; turning to Alsa with a smile on his face. "We can do this." He muttered, walking towards his student and standing beside him. "Touch the bow, and just let its powers flow through you." Feredir told him, his voice now calm, serene and gentle. It was no longer the strict, tense and powerful voice he had once before; it was a voice of nature, and the forest spoke with him. He smiled at the boy, and raised the bow to him, allowing him to channel the full powers of an Elven mage. "This bow is blessed by the powers of myself and my mother; the powers of two High Elves, including a High Elf mage. Over 100 years, it became one of the greatest magical items of the Elven day, and its powers will aid you. Just touch." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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