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Post by Remus on Oct 15, 2018 21:47:49 GMT -6
A good shot it was then! The Priests eyes had been shut as he focused his teleportation magic. Every ounce of his body felt like it was fit to burst as the cacophony of wild magic flowed through him. Pulsing currents of divine magic and arcane essence. If he hadn't known better, he'd have said he felt like his veins were aflame. His heart hammered within his chest and he felt the rumblings through the ground as constant reverberations reached them from the small literal army of hatch-lings and the colossal monstrosity of a hulking bael steadily made its way closer. He heard the snowy haired mistress of darkness at his side calling out to him, asking for them to relocate. With his magical preparation finished, Remus lifted Thyrus as e shouted abruptly to at-least warn her as blue light exuded a soft warmth around them and the seal flashed a searing brilliance outwards.
"I understand! Here we go!"
The seal erupted in a flash before they silently were whisked not just a few feet away. Not just a few yards but several. The old center of the town obstructing somewhat between them and the alley that was overwhelmed by the swarm. Though it would take only moments for them. The jump however was long enough to give them as much time as he could. He felt the drain of the teleportation hit him like a truck. His knee's wanted to buckle. He wanted to rest on Thyrus or remove the burden of his own weight from his weary limbs. Now however, was not that time. He hadn't just bought his new companion space and time. He'd bought himself time. He wasn't about to roll over and play dead while innocent people were in peril, and this unknown ally threw herself so fearlessly at death itself. Instead, he would at-least stand by her. He didn't need to know her intimately to know that he could at-least trust she would not abandon him for safety if he were to exert himself.
"Let me help.."
Remus lifted his left hand high as Thyrus fell down parallel to the ground within grip of his right hand, and behind him. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Gathering to him not just the essence previously accrued, but everything he could. Such essence that he felt warmth within his hand. He dug inwards. Every loved one. Every friend. Every smiling face he'd ever seen. The notion of them in danger. The desire to save them. It fueled that meek priests fire of courage. Until the dwindling spark of hope had erupted into a volatile inferno consuming every speck of fear until it swelled within his chest and threatened to rend his body asunder for lack of containment. That nova of courage bloomed externally. Light erupted from the priest with such intensity, power unshackled by his lack of restraint, and fear. So much so that a faint corona burned with holy brilliance around him as his limbs wailed in pain from the vast quantities of magic that his body was trying to house.
It was the only spell of offensive nature known to him, beyond the rather inferior bolts of light. As Nayru had once exclaimed however. Go big, or go home. Remus shouted from the strain and continued to call upon his holy magic unfettered. Without acknowledging the limitations that would bind him. If they survived, he was certainly going to feel this in the morning. The last time he'd felt such intense magical strain...
A drop of crimson stained the dirt road beneath him. Then a second. A trail of blood began to trickle down his left nostril as he hazardously drew upon every facet of power available. Until Ereshkigal was ready he would continue. He had a..semblance of an idea about limitations. Another lesson from Nayru however..had been breaking those limits. If he had any hope of protecting people like her, he'd have to push himself. If she was willing to for his sake, and then he would be for hers..and for everyone elses he could protect! Remus leveled his eyes towards the Baels. His temples throbbed. His hand burned. His robes were flailing wildly from the back-draft of manifesting energy, and Remus likely resembled a lighthouse beacon more than a person. Yet he felt, in that moment, such overwhelming courage and a singular desire to protect everyone he'd ever wanted to that he could only focus on drawing in more light. Pursed lips snarled a growl strained by a rather unique agony he was likely not going to be quick to relive. Ferocity, was new to him.
"I won't let you stand alone...and I'm not going to let anyone else be lost.."
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Post by Althea on Nov 3, 2018 11:04:00 GMT -6
If she survived this, she was going to either make teleportation illegal, or fun, Ereshkigal hadn't decided yet. The jarring sensation of being ripped through the world was just... weird and distracting. Unfortunately it was necessary given that neither of them had much in the wise of mobility, especially compared to the skittering hordes consuming the town. She wasn't really an expert on humans but even she could see the effect it was having on this priest guy, too.
But they were done teleporting now.
She could finally anchor herself properly.
Gravity curdled around her, around them, as the world cracked and churned around the pair; dust rising along with her hand as it rose, stretched out; her own dress flickering in a phantasmal wind as a tiny orb flickered to life in her hand, a fraction of a hole in reality that assailed all light in its vicinity - ripping it apart and consuming it whole as the curtains between this world and another fluttered at the edges of vision. Tantalizing and horrific in equal part. The orb in her palm growing from within, but also fed by a storm of wispy tendrils, flowing from outside of the world and from her; strands playing along the snowy skin of her arm, spiraling downward from the tears around them. Her voice, slowly rising; no words, only breath, volume. And yet the priest still burned, his light far from swallowed. Existing in the eye of a hurricane as an immutable pillar of certainty. In an odd way, it was... kind of comforting.
But the emotion welling in her was anything but; a mixture of sensations so vast, so intimately entwined, that not even Ereshkigal could identify them. Oh, she could mentally catalog some of them, using Althea's mind. She could feel the anger burning in her. The hatred and rage, burning as dark as Remus's light. Aimed at the beast that threatened her and those nearby. Aimed at the monster that had taken her own light so long ago. At herself, for being so naive, for failing her people so absolutely. Althea's anger burned just as hot; the hatred the mage refused to acknowledge or accept, corroding and consuming her from within.
The impotent rage - nurtured for millennia, aimed at everything, now a weapon focused only on one thing. The fear that had held her heart in icy clutches for so long; the knowledge of her failure, her inability to turn back time and fix her mistakes. Fragments of the love she could dimly remember holding for so many, the people she could have - should have? - fought to protect, rather than hiding in blissful naivete. Would violence have solved it? She wasn't sure. She didn't know. She couldn't know. But it was fuel for the fire nonetheless. Her knight in shining armor - betrayed? Dead? He had never come for her when she needed him most. But her feelings towards him had been no lie. The joy she but dimly remembered, an idyllic life cut short.
She had failed them all before. Time after time. One mistake after another. But the cycle ended here.
This time, she would succeed.
This time, she didn't hesitate.
This time, she would fight.
Her words tinged by determination she had never known in life, the hybrid Althea-Ereshkigal spoke. Calm and collected despite the vast tides of emotion flowing through her. Almost regal in the absolute certainty they held.
"This time, I will protect them."
As as she took a step forward, her foot grinding into the dust beneath her heel, light turned to night as the Nether erupted before her; a concentrated beam of Elder magic so intense that the world crumbled around it, ripped apart and drawn in by gravitic force as unyielding as it was merciless.
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Post by Remus on Nov 3, 2018 23:22:18 GMT -6
He'd fought along side comrades before. This felt..not different...but unique. He felt like he stood next to someone instead of behind them. He wasn't relying on Nayru's defensive superiority, or Duma's peerless bladework or Perun's strength. He was standing aside a partner on the forefront of battle. Even as the light grew ever more intense, he began to steady himself. His knee's pivoted and he quietly slid his left leg forwards as his right hand shifted behind him and upwards. The air swirled in such a rushing vortex that it felt as if he were ever encompassed by wind magic. The light bursting from him cast everything into shadow, and cave strange dimension and form to the shadows the snowy haired mistress of the nether had conjured forth. Perhaps in that moment, he couldn't help but quietly crack a smile. He'd often been concerned about enjoying combat. He'd been afraid that he would like hurting others. This was different however. All his life, all he'd ever wanted to do was be able to use his power to stand by another, and protect those he cared about. In this single moment it finally dawned on him that he was doing just that. Remus would've laughed, if he hadn't suppressed it almost instantly.
The light began to rapidly condense. All brilliance rushed into a smoldering corona that exuded from his palm as Remus let the aether pulse from his body. Until the ground tremored. He saw the female step forwards, and darkness burst like a tide. Almost instinctively, he moved as she did. Thrusting his palm forwards and releasing every ounce of energy that had burned within him. To such a point that he felt his veins burn hot like molten pools bubbling beneath his skin. Until he felt like the light was going to erupt through his eyes and burst from his mouth and obliterate his bones. The fetters of time and space wailed in protest as light and dark met. Yet they did not collide. Two entities simultaneously entwined in the all encompassing destination. The ground beneath the priest scorched as the colossal beam of magic roared with unrelenting force down that unfortunate lane. Creatures of shadow vanished into blinding light, reduced to ash or crushed within darkness's overwhelming grasp. Remus's expression was cast into overwhelming illumination from the radiance of his magic, but what caused him to nearly lose his focus for the most brief of moments wasn't the sight of devastation either spell wrought.
The beams met and traveled along one another. Torrents of near endless energy that had no doubt clashed in fabled battles across history met in an almost harmonious way. He could see the nether. See it. Shades of so many that he couldn't imagine how to describe it. It also allowed him to see the dimensions of his own attack. Light on its own faded out into dusty roads. Yet with shadow embracing it, took on form and depth. From a painting, to a sculpture. Where shadows danced in pure tides of destructive power in near uncontested intervals he saw not the source of all evil known to man. He saw umbral tones of violet and purple, pigmentation he could not yet begin to describe. Something that could not begin to exist in pure shadow, or pure light. The wail of the bael's brought his attention back for a moment longer as the priest condensed his palm. Gritting his teeth. Squaring his shoulders. His lungs near scorched as he sharply inhaled the burning air, internally roaring as he let out the energy with no hesitation. No restraint. A second surge causing the beam to erupt in an even greater intensity. Already, the strain screamed within his head in skull splitting agony. Yet he knew, from experience that he could endure this a few moments longer.
After all, this was not the worst he'd endured. He wasn't blocking Nayru's punch. Even if, it felt like he was channeling that same ferocity into the divine magic that splintered everything in sight. Remus didn't realize just how much he was grinning in that moment. Nor, how entirely fulfilled he felt.
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Post by Althea on Dec 4, 2018 20:02:24 GMT -6
As the twin rays of destruction combined they formed something perhaps greater than the sum of the parts; fundamentally opposed magics reacting with each other, consuming and reacting against each other more than the unfortunate existences in their path. For there was no wooden wall or skittering chitin in their path, only dust in the wind; foul creatures burnt and sundered, a tide of flesh rent asunder by a tide of magic.
The twilight storm blasted through the elder Bael as though it wasn't even there, shredding body and limb alike as the great creature fell like a puppet whose strings had been cut - dark magic warring with the dark magic that had animated it, light magic reacting and detonating against the the magic animating it. Each perhaps doing more damage than the beam itself ever had, hairline fractures of light and dark racing across its bulbous body in an endless procession of cacophonous color.
Its body bubbled for a moment, more liquid than flesh, and then exploded as the reserves of acid met the magical reaction, consumed by and furthering it as light and dark magic irreversibly expended themselves fighting for dominance - a blast of twilight energy and liquid death that cratered the earth and consumed the flimsy wood and stone of the nearest buildings on each side of it. Ereshkigal could feel her - Althea's - hand warping under the stress of the inhuman quantity of magic flowing through it, bracing it with her left hand, swinging the limb to the left to carve through what she could of the remaining smaller spiders but petering out quickly as the pain mounted and her connection to the Nether wavered - realizing that any longer would risk serious, permanent damage to her host body.
The blast abruptly stopped, and she found herself dropping as fast as the Bael had, hissing in agonized pain as the ugly black tendrils of her possession pulsed and bubbled across Althea's previously alabaster arm. Her knees buckling as fast as her legs, the fire in her veins too much to bear as she continued to drop, almost welcoming the dull pain of her forehead hitting the earth as she curled up.
The fight was over for her, one way or another. Either they had driven off the Baels or they would take her; there was no other path. For now, all she could do was hope, trying desperately to calm the flow of magic inside her, to pull herself back before she ruined or altered Althea's arm completely.
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Post by Remus on Sept 7, 2019 17:41:00 GMT -6
It was a sensation he'd never felt before. He felt as if the beam, the colossal ray of wildly destructive light rampaging in an endless torrent down that soon to be barren street, was an extension of his own senses purely from the weight and resistance he felt as his palm strained to remain outstretched. His vision blurred from the backwash of heat that crashed against him as his senses immediately washed away in the storm of magic. Not even for a moment, however, did the priest look away. Forcing himself to stare at the twin magics's devastation as they warped and twisted the air itself with their devastating presence. The priests fingers burned, his palm searing as if slowly a brand neared, and the length of his forearm felt like it was slowly beginning to sunder. As if the greatest of weights had been steadily set down upon his entire arm and his bones were slowly beginning to crack and break beneath the strain.
A brief dart of the eyes, and he was able to glance at the spiders along the side of the street still. The smaller ones, that is to say, that hadn't been instantly washed away in the scorch of twilight. Despite the need to grit his teeth and hiss in pain, the priest began to shift his upper body and guide the pulsating stream of holy magic so that it enveloped the creatures as well. Small scorch marks instantly washing over the buildings wall and stone surfaces before the Etrurian felt a small snap tear his thoughts away from the sense of danger, and towards the overwhelming instance of pain that caused his left hand's wrist to wildly fly downwards. There was a single, brief flash of light as the flow of divine magic exuding from the priest erupted briefly before vanishing entirely. Remus letting out a single startled "Oh" as his lips parted briefly while he glanced to his wrist and was washed out in that small blast of light.
Thyrus would've left his fingers, if he hadn't instinctively clutched it while he dropped to both his knee's. His left arm dropping with a somewhat limp flop down to his side. In a moment, that felt precariously familiar to him, he found himself nearly collapsing. The priests thoughts were numb. Numb enough that he didn't feel what was no doubt a terrible agony. The burnt skin visible on his left hand still exuding a small trail of smoke upwards, and a portion of his robe sleeve had been blown away in an instant. At this point, the only thing that kept him from falling was the single pale length of staff pressing against the ground as Thyrus held the priest propped upwards. His right arm coiled around it and forehead pressed to the center as the priests thoughts began to collect themselves and the reality of it all washing towards him. The crushing tsunami of fatigue that nearly knocked him back hit a moment later. Beads of sweat trailing in small paths, trickled down his temple, and forehead. Every few seconds a droplet fell from the tip of his nose, and Remus practically hugged himself to the staff as he felt the tingling heat begin to turn into a terrible burn along his arm.
He instantly glanced to the white haired woman laying at his side. His breathing quickened, and the priest inhaled sharply as he forced himself upwards as much as he could manage. A single leg lifting and planting heel first with his knee bent so he could still support his weight. His staff's central gem ignited as Remus carefully, slowly began to ebb magic outwards. In his current state it was barely enough to soothe even the faintest of pains. However the warmth of the sapphire light gave the mind another outlet to focus on, as he began to attempt and heal both his arm, and any potential unseen wounds the woman had. It was taking all he could manage however, not to shout in pain, while simply collapsing. His left hand felt as if, at any moment, it was going to be ripped apart and every inch screamed with a throbbing pain he'd never truly experienced. Words were, in that moment, beyond him.
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Post by Althea on Sept 22, 2019 19:18:47 GMT -6
The bit of Althea's mind still influencing her own found the situation ironic - this was her best, perhaps only chance she would ever have to live again. It would be quite easy to save herself, and if she was careful enough she could probably do it without even snuffing out the mage entirely. A body of her own once again. Not hers by birth, but hers nonetheless. Something that she could shape to channel her power freely. Unleashing her feelings and desires as she pleased, without any able to gainsay her. Mind and body alike free from the past to forge a new future.
And yet, aside from acknowledging the possibility, she didn't even consider it. She couldn't consider it. She wasn't sure Althea actually liked her all that much, the dark mage was pretty bitchy at the best of times, but - she had made a promise, and even if Althea didn't take it that seriously, she still wanted to keep it. She knew better than anyone what taking that path would entail. She had seen it, after all. Tasted the blood in her throat. Felt the knife in her back. Watched herself fall apart, claimed by her own power, all to sate the lust for power of someone she had trusted implicitly. And what had it led to? No one even knew what an Arum was. Her people were - gone. Everyone she had ever known, the faces she still mostly remembered and the ones that had become little more than blurs in faded memories, were long gone. She didn't want to become that. Ereshkigal didn't really know what she did want to be, but she knew what she couldn't be, and she wouldn't be that.
And - more than that, she wanted to see what Althea could. She had been called a natural genius with the Nether for as long as she could remember. Let the praise of her power go to her head. But she had never really... understood it on any level but emotional. It fed on her emotion, and so she gave it more than it could ever absorb. Althea could do things with it she didn't even know were possible. She could change what it was, not just how it looked, and she had all these dreams and ideas that Eresh didn't really understand, but living in someone's head made it real easy to understand that Althea believed in them. And she wanted to see it.
So she welcomed the pain. She had died already; a little more wouldn't hurt. She tried to focus on using the essence she had ripped out of that spider to steady herself, and when the warm light flowed through her she receded from it rather than fight it. It could fix Althea in ways she couldn't. Even if it caused the magic circuits to return back to their original state, before she had engorged them on so much magic they could begin to channel her power. And as she twitched on the ground, writhing in pain, Ereshkigal was - happy with her choice. She knew she had chosen right this time. Her delusions weren't worth ending anyone else's dreams. And as much as she had screwed everything up in the past... at least she had made some good decisions now.
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Post by Remus on Oct 3, 2019 10:43:03 GMT -6
At that point, Remus knew that there was only one thing to do.
It had taken most of his efforts to stay conscious. Even when he attempted to dredge himself a bit closer, he just had to stay conscious long enough to make sure . He had made that promise to himself, as they protected this village. No one else would die. That included her. Remus leaned slightly on Thyrus as he propped the staff on the ground, and began to pour what he had left into the magic that flowed outwards. The priest would not let her die. His mind began to haze, and the priest knew when he opened his eyes and saw his vision blur slightly, that he was almost at his limit. That would not stop him, though. It hadn't stopped him in Ilia, as he bled upon that hotel floor. It had not stopped him in Bern, as flames nearly engulfed his friends, nor when the gargoyles sought to rend his flesh. It had not stopped him when darkness itself had taken the form of death and come for them. It had not stopped him, when he'd seen Nayru fall and for an instant, thought she had died. The only thing that could stop him, was himself and he would not be beaten by himself.
" Ngh...Grrraah! "
The priest grunted as his face began to flush. A small crimson line began trailing down from his nose as the priest pushed past that limitation that had so often attempted to keep him in check, as he poured his entire being into finishing that mending spell. The blue aura ignited into a globe of warm healing magic that would engulf the fallen pale haired nether brandishing woman. It blossomed into a wellspring of rejuvenation, before fading out after a few seconds. It was also, the last ounce of magic within the priest as he felt his limbs sink as if tied to stones within the sea. His body instantly heaving onto the side as he lay there, panting and over-exerted. His eyes closing, from the weight of his lids and Remus finding that he couldn't quite lose himself into a dark abyss of slumber, yet was far too exhausted to move. Let alone open his eyes. The threat vanquished, village mostly saved, and as far as he could tell both alive. More healing would come, but first, he had to rest.
End
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