I nod, relaxing my metaphysique to try and reduce the chance that he'll feel any disruption. Wonder if Orin will be willing to trade copies of whatever Ahri'ahn has written since he got back to Cranius by way of restitution?
I mean I… Could assimilate him. I'm not… Keen on it, but that's a lot of information to lose to death. The alternative is simply killing him and… Some sort of necromantic ritual? I doubt that calling him away from Orcus's domain would-.
Orcus, for the record, is an Etruscan deity of the Underworld. D&D borrowed the name for the Demon Prince of Undeath. And presumably the most likely to have a claim on Ahri'ahn's soul.
"We have a… Question."
"I quite understand if you don't want to kill him-."
I don't know, Luna strikes me as less forgiving than her sister or the other Alicorns. She's
old-school.
"Neigh, the sorcerer has earned his fate. It is more… When We were in the Dream realm, Our costume was clearly designed to draw the eye to Our mammaries and hips."
"Yes, it was. I believe that particular outfit is used for a form of exotic dancing."
It certainly was exotic.
"Your eyes were not drawn." Um. "Nabu looked, briefly. An instinctual response whose purpose We imagine that he barely remembers. Caliph Haroun al Raschid most certainly looked. We understand that Our equine form doth not hold your eye, but We had assumed that this.. bipedal form was more to your tastes."
"It's.. like I told you. I'm more cerebral in my arousal."
Or perhaps the Renegade is simply smart enough to take in the whole view using peripheral vision, while staying focused on her eyes,
"There is 'cerebral' and then there is this." Her face falls a little. "We are quite put out that you do not find Us attractive at all."
"Luna, we're about to fight an ancient magician together, having infiltrated his home, robbed him of his power and thwarted his schemes." I step closer to her, leaning down as I intrude on her personal space. "I'm one metaphysical harmonisation away from tearing-."
...Save that for the party afterwards, Renegade. Preferably once you've prevented a second round of tsunami conditions as Atlantis returns to the sea floor...
Her head jerks up. "The trigger-."
"Right-oh."
My Might Cannot Be Contained!
Here
he comes to save the day!
I push off the floor, slamming into the ceiling and breaking through, sending stone flying in all directions as I enter the drawing room! Ahri'ahn looks a little more weathered than he did when he attacked Abberance, but glowing steams of water are already looping around his forearms as I form a fusion cannon in my left-
"Foul villain!"
The paycheck proving a little more than he can handle, eh? Hopefully it'll slow him down a little.
Ahri'ahn withers, hair going from brown to white, flesh receding-.
I fire as Orin darts out of the way, Ahri'ahn barely being able to form the water into a defensive sigil-. Works though, my brilliantly burning beam blasting it to no effect-.
Ah, already suffering a heavy price from the magical drain, I see, given that sudden aging. Or Luna's stepping in.
Ugh. Something in my throat and lungs, blocking, choking. Good job I don't need to breathe.
Eternal Labour.
Luna's got her spear out and is manoeuvring around to the left. I heft my daiklave and go for another shot as Ahri'ahn recovers enough to wave at Luna… Expanding the space between them and raise a gold-coloured sceptre to parry my swing. I knock him back, but between what's clearly a casting aide and his aged stick-like arms that should have either knocked him flying or crushed him.
But he's still not weakened enough to go down so easily, even if he's probably looking more like
Kulan Gath now.
He takes a moment to glare at me. "Creatures like-."
He dances to the side, body momentarily shifting into water as Luna teleport in behind him and swings her spear! Runes along the blade glow with freezing light as it narrowly clips his aquatic form, a tiny amount of water breaking away from the mass and friezing on the point. She follows up by turning that ice into a tiny cloud which she uses to fire a bolt of lightning at Ahri'ahn as he reforms.
Yeah, save the racist spiel, Ahry. And good show, Luna. Putting some of that Pegasus magic to use, eh?
Nice to see that Lightning Dust's lessons haven't gone to waste.
He batters it aside with a sword made of vapour but can't block my punch! This time he does go flying, wards in his clothing shunting furniture aside as he tumbles, landing face first on the floor. I leap after him, bringing my daiklave around for an overhead swing! His head comes up as the sword comes down, his body turning to water once more to flow away but I knew you'd do that!
Well, the room's a write-off, but that was a given either way, assuming the sinking would be as forceful as the raising.
Conquest Hungers!
Spears of orange light slam into the floor, furniture and Ahri'ahn's aquatic body, turning it faintly orange as I have a crack at assimilating him. It won't work of course, but-
No doubt he's heard of that trick, and prepared defences against it.
"Unable to comply. Identity theft interrupted."
-he can only focus on so many things.
Still, the distraction value makes the attempt worth it.
He reforms, or tries to. Some parts of his clothing are still water and are pinned by my spears. And his flesh hasn't fully reformed either, lending him a truly disturbing appearance. I order the spears not currently impaling him to swing in his direction, his eyes widening-.
He raises his right fist and then closes it, my constructs shattering and his body becoming more fleshy.
"I am not-!"
Oof. Bet that would hurt like
hell if you could disrupt the reforming process.
My yellow ring glows as the people of Atlantis begin to wake up and I use that extra oomph to pepper him with energy pulses. He winces at the first few as I charge across the room, then tries to raise shield spell of some sort only for it to shatter as Luna's spear flies through the space it occupies. A flick of his wrists and some sort of liquid-. Acid, sprays out, eating through the stone of the floor and walls but mostly being neutralised by the spells on Luna's armour.
Nicely done again, Luna. Prepared defences when you know you're facing a water-focused mage.
The glow of my ring brightens. He's losing his grip on them. Unfortunately he's also throwing off Luna's curse. His hair darkens too his original brown and his flesh becomes a little more vibrant.
"Not so easily-!"
...Defeated, Ahry? I don't know, you're making a good showing but two-on-one is going to overcome you sooner or later.
Luna teleports behind him, catching her spear and spinning it at his side. A rune appears in the air next to it and it stops-
Bolster True Friend!
I swing my daiklave around, scything towards his chest only for a rune to shimmer into being and halt it-
Heh. Getting a bit of the 'MCU style of magic' vibes there. I can't help but picture him with glowing, fizzing blue runes around his hands now.
And for a moment I feel.. every person in Atlantis. Every person in the world. All those sworn to be or willingly serving my purpose. And I feel Luna, her desire to fight with me, to share in my successes and failures!
-the runes fail, Luna's spear piercing Ahri'ahn's left side while my daiklave slices across his chest!
Not a solid kill-shot... Yet. And make sure of it, any good sorcerer with half a brain makes themself
very hard to kill.
"Agh!"
Luna pulls her spear back, keeping it in him to neutralise his ability to magic himself out of this. I raise my daiklave for an overhead slash with my right hand while drawing the Sword of the Fallen with my left. Ahri'ahn grabs the haft of Luna's spear with his left hand and pushes himself off it while raising a shield with his right-.
At least they have a good level of coordination in their timing. When he focuses on one...
Luna blasts him with lightning!
We Strike As One.
He shudders and wheezes as the air is forced from his lungs, his rushes shield failing to stop my descending daiklave! It bites into his left shoulder and keeps going, slicing through the middle of his chest and exiting through his right hip! He collapses, blood spurting and ruined organs falling onto the drawing room floor.
...The other takes a shot. And that is one
hell of a kill-shot.
He stares at me with a look of absolute hatred for a few seconds before I put out his eyes with the Sword of the Fallen.
Haaaah.
Just to add insult to injury, huh? Not like he didn't
earn that.
I make eye contact with Luna. Armour's a bit beat up and there's a minor wound on her left cheek…
Your Wounds Are Mine.
My goodness.
There's that 'metaphysical harmonisation' he mentioned.
...Let's hope the integrity of your armour's codpiece withstands the unleashing of the Rene-hog...
"He's dead, then." Orin comes a little closer. "We'd better get ready for the cities to sink again."
"Can we leave that with you? Luna and I have…"
Man, Orin must be feeling
really embarrassed right now.
For someone not attracted to bipeds she's certainly breathing lustily enough. I can feel her desire.
"Something we urgently need to take care of."
...So, Empty palace bedroom, or back to Challenger mountain?
