Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Cruallassar
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@Terminal

From the moment the world had disappeared, Kael's mind had been working overtime, streaking from training to present situation and back again in a logical chain that was finally, finally, starting to link together. Even as he had asked his earlier question of the lady who had threatened them, he'd mentally already leaped far ahead of any such matter. When he had come to this world, he had expected a blank dimensional space...a sort of world between worlds, a space where nearly anything could be made manifest according to the user's will. When he had looked at where he had arrived, naturally two things had thrown him off...firstly, that everything looked more like an actual world than a blank magical slate, and secondly, that his return ticket had been fully drained. But now that the fluff had been pulled away and the world revealed in merely the bare bones of its existence, it looked nearly exactly like it was expected to.
...I am having genuine trouble telling otherwise...
So following that chain of logic, it would make sense that this place did in fact follow the rules expected of such a place. Now, from what was being said, it seemed like this dimensional rift was actually a sort of prison for this woman in front of them...who, going by their knight comrade's demon idea, might very well be an Illvarai. Which in turn, would indeed mean exactly what the guy had said, that she needed an anchor to enter the physical world. Of course, he might also be entirely off base, but in the end it was largely irrelevant anyway. The point here was that this place should conform to the will of those with power over it. That might be the reason it had collapsed...before the arrival of the extra people, it fit the shape and purpose of whoever had created it in the first place, and imprisoned the woman perfectly well. But when they had come, the addition of extra minds, perceptions, and wills to obey had caused essential collapse of the predefined state...and this was just guessing here, but it made sense with what Kael knew.
...A flash, a splitting boom...
When the minor explosion rang out, under the circumstances it was basically the one thing Kael had learned to completely expect from this whole ordeal, and Donny's betrayal surprised him not at all as Kael's bow found its way into his hand. But his train of thought roared on. If this place obeyed the will of Kael and company, then as the entire situation now seemed to prove, no part of what constituted reality in this magical rift was outside their control. And that gave them a fighting chance, since presumably the same could not be said of the one being this place had been designed to contain.
The explosion went off. Ash and smoke obscured the battlefield. The Pavise Knight explained his observation to Kael, and with his brain switched from deduction mode into action mode, the situation was immediately clear to him...clearer than it had been throughout this entire joyride. Donny was attacking, but all were essentially blinded. Donny had thrown a grenade of his own, but they were doing the job of distracting the two hostiles. And the strange machine...built of what were very clearly magical channels, it seemed. Kael looked toward the Pavise knight for a split second. "I'm with you then." He said in a low voice...he still didn't know what the hell a proxy was supposed to be of course, but it seemed unimportant now. In a single, smooth motion he slid five of the strange metal-coating crossbow bolts from his belt and cast them toward Donny and his new friend in a blanket pattern while Kael was nice and obscured by the smoke, then looked down at the machine and willed himself there. From here, to in front of the device, to hell with transit time, this was the test of his theory on this space. As he did so, another thought occurred to him...if everything had disappeared and the raw form of this dimension was revealed, maybe his Ethereal sight worked again too? He could test that later if needed, the moment of pain that was risked wouldn't damage him permanently.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Terminal
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"Leona," he called to her, continuing to drift around a bit, "you know I wasn't kidding about that voodoo-curse, right? I can see obvious signs it's already working, bad luck is surrounding you like a dark cloud. But, I can be coerced in sharing what I know about countering it over a cup of coffee. It would be a shame if pretty woman like you would die and you have no idea how much I long for a cup of coffee, I'm close to selling my soul for one decent cup."

@WiseDragonGirl
What Andreas saw was nothing he would have cared to have coffee with.

The woman's mass was rapidly expanding in every direction, her flesh seething and roiling like a bubbling sea of bile. Her clothes were in the process of shredding themselves as her mass broke through their seams. Her features were still vaguely the same though, even as they became bloated and twisted, and Andreas could still detect the hint of a smile about the contorted ridge that must have been her lips as she fixed her bulging, malignant golden eyes on him.

"Little mote, The sound she uttered possibly came from her mouth, but sounded less like a human voice insomuch as a chance acoustic phenomenon created by the expansion and incidental sound of her bloating form as razor talons began to sprout from her extremities and what looked like golden fur began to grow across her collar. "I am far beyond whatever feeble cantrips your pissant tribesman could have concocted."

The moment he saw Fortune bring his sword up, Donny fired off a second shot to blast out the knight's elbow joint, effectively interrupting his attack.
Before he came back into view, the group would have just barely enough time to react to a grenade being tossed right back at them, a dark blur hurtling through the midst of the smoke. No, not quite. The grenade was /arching/ out of the smoke, flying around in a wide circle towards the party's right. If they remained where they were, it seemed that the grenade would somehow pass around and behind them...

@Doc Doctor
Which was when the frankly queer suggestions that were space and time acted up again. Possibly. It was incredibly hard to tell what was going on with all the smoke from the incendiary grenade blooming in the empty, featureless battlefield. What Donny felt and what he saw though were both mutually exclusive, as well as impossible.

The first thing being the long gash that had slid open across the left side of his clothes and through a good few centimeters of his abdomen, resulting in a small splatter of blood flying free through the darkness. It was not a bad wound, all things considered. Very precise and clean. He was unlikely to bleed out from it anytime soon - which was to say, in the next thirty minutes or so. What was bad was that it had come completely out of nowhere and had apparently been caused by nothing.

The second thing being Fortune's blade flying, pinwheeling end over end - probably from the knight's interrupted, botched throw of the weapon - through the space just behind the trajectory arc of the grenade Donny had thrown, where it made contact with and sliced cleanly through the razor wire Donny had secured to the projectile. Due to its thinness and coloration, it had been effectively invisible in the void to the other passengers. There was no way any kind of throw the knight had made should have even come close to the wire unless he had specifically known about it, and even then, Donny's shot to his elbow should have precluded that.

In a single, smooth motion he slid five of the strange metal-coating crossbow bolts from his belt and cast them toward Donny and his new friend in a blanket pattern while Kael was nice and obscured by the smoke, then looked down at the machine and willed himself there. From here, to in front of the device, to hell with transit time, this was the test of his theory on this space.

@Doc Doctor
Three of the blindly scattered crossbow bolts were dead misses, having been cast by hand through a large cloud of smoke in a void without gravity. By chance though, one was headed on a direct collision course with Donny's right leg - it was not coming straight at him, its head facing several degrees away from the actual heading of its trajectory, but there was no telling whether the cylindrical head needed to hit him directly or lightly graze him in order to go off.

Also by chance, one punched directly into the woman's expanding, fleshy form - and then sank in as the rising walls of flesh washed over and consumed it whole. There was a wet sort of popping noise from her, followed by a long hiss, as though somebody had left a kettle with water out on a stove, but her body continued to grow and her expression was unperturbed.

@Cruallassar
It worked.

The transistion through space and and time came with a number of other revelations. Perhaps manipulations of this sort had been possible even when the illusory world itself had still been whole - though surely more difficult, as the nuances of time, space, relativity, matter, and energy would have complicated the effect.

The revelation also struck him, out of the blue, that perhaps he could have saved Ariett if she were still merely bleeding out with his newfound power. If he could move from place to place at will, who was to say he could not mend her flesh and vigor with but a thought?

However, that possibility was no longer available. The first thing he saw upon looking at the computer screen mounted on the cairn's body was a rapidly rolling wall of text, not all of it in legible type, but two of the newest lines were written in perfectly coherent words and had been emphatically highlighted by whatever force governed the flow of information.

>Entity V [4165277] Ariett Deveca has died.
>Entity V [4165277] Ariett Deveca cause of death: Cerebral Hypoxia following excessive blood loss.
>Entity [Ghost with no home] penalized.

Another line of text appeared on the screen directly below that morbid announcement, shifting the remaining text upwards. Given the mass of incomprehensible text sliding across the screen, he otherwise might not have noticed it - if his name had not been listed in the same line.

>Entity Proxy [Iris] vitiating Entity VII [4167067] Kael Arvindr.

"You could have saved her, you worthless thief."

"How did you do that?" The pavise knight said as he finally arrived by Kael's shoulder, drifting through the void hastily. The whole of his face remained obscured by the radiant, golden haze emanating from his eyes like a noxious gas. "Is that just a thing you can do? You should have just appeared behind that fucking Proxy Donovan and ended him on the spot! Uh." He paused as he reached out with a tentative hand for Kael's shoulder. "...Can you do that again? Maybe you should do that now..."
Hidden 8 yrs ago 8 yrs ago Post by Bright_Ops
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@Doc Doctor

While there were many misconceptions about plate armor when it went up against firearms, any knight worth their salt knew that having thick armor was merely half the story (Well... unless you had the raw physical power required to bare the weight of several ridiculously thick slabs of metal as armor like the damn greenskins). Good plate armor was designed to slope, redirect and reflect whatever came at it; It was designed to make glancing hits, arrows and bullets bounce off of it.

Fortune's armor was good armor and it did its duty; The bullet from Donny's gun struck his elbow at an angle and was bounced off to the side without punching through the armor itself... however, the sheer force behind the impact was still more then enough to cause problems as the blunt force of it fractured the bones in Fortune's elbow, causing him to scream in pain as he clutched his wounded elbow while he spun in the void a few times.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Loksfjoer
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"Oh?" Andy said to Leona, silently hoping the others would hurry up with that device, "then why are you so worked up about it? You could have just laughed it off and call me adorably ignorant and keep your form." He gestured to whatever he had to call this new appearance of her. "You looked better just a moment ago, although I have to say you have beautiful eyes." He flashed her a smile as he examined her expanding body. So far it seemed to be working, she had her attention on him. If Keal and that pavise knight would do their part of the plan, they might all be able to go home after all.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Cruallassar
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@Terminal

Kael's eyes followed the lines of text, understanding...well, some of it. Then the revelation that he could have saved his companion came to mind...which of course, seemed largely obvious in hindsight, but his reasoning for not trying something like that was still sound.
"You could have saved her, you worthless thief..."
So it would seem...he wasn't particularly perturbed by the insult and remark, people had said worse to him before, but the way he could have saved her...
The last line of text scrolled across the screen, and his name caught his eye. Proxy Iris...that knight kept talking about proxys...vitiating him, Kael...he didn't know what vitiating meant, but he knew the roots of such a word, and anyway, something told him he probably didn't want to be vitiated. But more importantly, everything except the essential outside elements of this world had been torn away, who was this Pro...
Everything and everyone who wasn't...something, essential...had disappeared.
The only being who hadn't who had also not been in that carriage besides the monstrosity above him was that knight.
The knight with the golden eyes who was even now reaching for his shoulder.
"Maybe you should do that now..."
If there was one thing his mentor had taught him, it was the value of instant action. Kael's will exerted itself immediately, intent on two effects. Firstly, he willed himself about three feet away from the entity he presumed to be Iris. Then, he used the interesting thing he had noticed.
When he had looked at the machine, he had figured, ~Hey, this seems to be a piece of complex magical equipment that I am not sure I can deal with.~ If he thought about the prospect of healing the wound in his partner earlier, he figured that it would be a task he wasn't sure he could accurately accomplish, due to...once again...a lack of understanding. And yet...he could have done it. Therefore, the next task he wills to occur, is for the machine before him to reset. Once again, no fiddling with whatever accomplishes that task, no fighting the monster above, and no getting vitiated by their ally. Simply the clear intent for it to perform the function he knew it could. He may not have saved his companion, but this worthless thief could certainly save anyone left and get them home.
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@Bright_Ops@WiseDragonGirl@Terminal

As the smoke cleared, Donny could be seen tearing his overcoat off. It mostly covered his legs, so it had taken the shard bolt. As the coat tumbled away, end over end, Donny was left wearing a crimson button up shirt with suspenders. He absolutely bristled with weapons, various handles and other black leather compartments.
A dark blood stain was slowly spreading down his side. Donny could have wondered how he endured the wound through his bulletproof vest, but at the moment he was intent on finishing off Andy and Fortune.

He might have tried to shoot them then and there, yet...

Something in the area was warping his mind, solidifying his calm bloodlust into a stronger, more visceral urge which overrided his common sense.
He holstered his revolver, let his hands drop to his sides, and began floating towards the medic and knight. His lazy eyes gleamed almost red, gloved fingers flexing in anticipation. In this plane where mind mastered matter, the killer had taken over the professional. In moments he'd be within reach of the duo, tensing for attack.


"Well, well. Awll of a sudden, Ah 'spose Ah'd like tah see yah blood up close. Be a dawll an' hold still..."
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Loksfjoer
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Andy looked at the rapidly growing bloodstain on Donny's side and then briefly locked eyes with Donny before turning his attention back on Leona. If that man was foolish enough to kill the only man here who could patch up that wound and save his life, fine. Let him have his fun and bleed to death afterwards. Judging from the growth of the stain the man would weaken soon enough and die without help. He knew pushing a cloth on the wound wouldn't to stop the bleeding, this was the kind of wound that needed proper medical attention. If Donny didn't ask for help, he wouldn't give it, not as long the man wanted to kill him. He didn't give the man any more attention and smiled at Leona, right now he was talking with the dear Leona and it would be rude to just interrupt the lovely conversation they had. And he certainly wouldn't interrupt it for something silly as pleading for his life or something like that, he wouldn't give Donny that kind of satisfaction. In fact, he would just ignore Donny and pretend he didn't exist.
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"Oh?" Andy said to Leona, silently hoping the others would hurry up with that device, "then why are you so worked up about it? You could have just laughed it off and call me adorably ignorant and keep your form." He gestured to whatever he had to call this new appearance of her. "You looked better just a moment ago, although I have to say you have beautiful eyes."

@WiseDragonGirl
"The only place flattery and childishness will get you..." The woman purred as her form continued to bloat and contort, "...is the depths of my belly." though now its blossoming, roiling coils of flesh had begun to settle into a more definite form. The only feature that remained as it had been was her head, which retained its shape and features, though had now been enlarged several times. Her body was now hexapodal, with six appendages as thick around as tree-trunks sprouting from her long body, each ending in a claw-tipped feline paw. A long sinuous tail had begun to slither and extend from the small of her back, and two large struts of what looked like bone had begun to sprout from her back, just underneath her first set of shoulders. All across the twisted mass of flesh, a fine layer of golden fur began to grow in.

Therefore, the next task he wills to occur, is for the machine before him to reset.

@Cruallassar
The Allineator rejected him.

The only warning he had was a faint pulse of light from the cairn before it unleashed a shockwave that passed right through the pavise knight without effect, but upon striking Kael knocked him back and flipped him end-over-end in the vacuum.

"Woah! Come back! I didn't-" The Pavise Knight struggled with his words as he turned his outstretched arm to Kael as the shockwave passed through him. "Godsdamnit I have no idea what is going on anymore..." He grumbled as he began to drift through the darkness. "Are you alright kid? Hang on, I'll sort you out..."
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So, he could either end up in Leona's belly or die at the hands of Donny. Andy sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, the situation seemed hopeless. Faced with the prospect of death he thought about his situation briefly, but he ended up shrugging with resignation. He should be afraid, terrified even, but he felt a strange acceptance. At least he had proven he could distract Leona quite well. After a quick glance towards he others he groaned, they didn't seem to be any closer to disabling the device, here he was risking his life and they were goofing around. He needed a solution, but the only thing that came to mind was the licorice. It was worth a shot, but he doubted the trigger-happy killer would let him get something from his backpack, that man would probably think he'd reach for a gun he didn't even have. He would have loved to play an ignoring game with Donny, but the situation called for a different approach. Since bullies liked attention, which was why he had chosen to give Donny as little attention as he could, it was possible ignoring Leona for a bit could help. Especially since talking didn't improve the situation.

"I can save your life," he said as he looked towards Donny, guessing those words would keep the man from shooting long enough to finish his sentence. "I'll just need to get the stitching materials from my backpack. Unless you prefer bleeding to death." This was something Donny couldn't do by himself, stitching the wound, he just hoped Donny would see that.
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Donny frowned and glanced back at Leona. He was looking specifically to be if she was breathing, for the rise and fall of a chest.

"Yuh a strawng one, ain'tcha? Ya able tah see if thah medic tellin' fibs, missus?"
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@Terminal@Doc Doctor@WiseDragonGirl@Cruallassar

As the pain started to ease, Fortune knew that this was the end. The idea of running now was unacceptable, both because of the harm it would have done to the De Vigny name if it ever got out and because there was no escape from the black void around them. The one possible path to victory laid with a machine that he didn't understand how to use and the one person whom did was having trouble and needed more time; Time that the traitor and the daemon wouldn't be giving them. Not without something major happening to turn the tide of this engagement...

Closing his eyes, he turned to the goddesses that he had dedicated his faith too once more... but this time it was different then before. When he spoke, he spoke with a quiet conviction of a man whom has accepted that they are about to die and has come to terms with it. "Please give me this one last blessing... and make my death worth it. Help me strike this foul creature down so that my companions may survive."

For a moment, nothing happened. He stopped spinning in the endlessly void, facing the ever growing mound of horrific flesh and its humanoid puppet... as well as one of the few that had managed to stay alive and sane up until this point. Whatever he had been doing, it was clear that it wouldn't work much longer; With grim resolve, Fortune ignored the pain in his arm as he started to drift himself back towards the scene of the coming battle. Sure his sword was gone, but he still had his shield and his fists! He would not disappear into the night quietly!

It was only as he started to drift that he seemed to begin picking up speed... and started to shine with a strange, bright light that enveloped his body. The aches and pains that had plagued him before seemed to vanish; In fact, he felt better then he had during his whole life! Slowly the light began to grow, pouring down his right arm in order to form a shape... a lance? While underneath him the light started to take the shape of a horse... no, an armored stallion! Ghost like in appearance but radiating a holiness that would not be denied.

What had started off as a slow drift through the void turned into a full thunderous gallop, one final charge against the twisted creature of darkness that called this abyss home in the name of all that was wholesome, holy and worth fighting and dying for! Aiming that lance towards the heart of the twisting pile of flesh, Andre reflected on his life and the vow he made to give his master and brother Fortune and the De Vigny line an ending much more fitting of their legacy then to die wasting away in a bed with plague... and was content with this ending.

With one final leap from a mount granted to him by the Goddesses themselves, Fortune De Vigny's final words as his divine lance made contact with daemonic flesh and both he and the foul creature itself were consumed by an explosion of pure, heavenly light were "FOR BRETONNIA!"

He would never be seen again.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Cruallassar
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Kael stops his speeding flight with a thought, glancing toward the Pavise Knight. "I'm good, eyes on the objective. Reset the machine!" His attempt to reset it had been a long shot at best...there had been no telling what might affect a machine that had stayed in the collapsed world, other than using it as it was meant to be used. Good to know what the result was. Then there was the knight...he may be a potential issue, but he's not a hostile at the moment, and the closest thing they had to someone who might know how to work that machine. Of course Kael might be able to figure it out himself, but turning his back on anyone present was not something he wanted to do. Ironic, actually...he didn't trust the knight, but it was the knight who seemed like the indispensable asset at the moment, and Kael couldn't afford not to trust him. Suddenly he noticed the shining radiance above him, and Fortune's charge. Donny's attention was diverted...unreliably though, since the man had shown himself extremely competent whether he appeared to be looking at you or not. But that was no defense against powers he didn't know of or didn't see coming. The Pavise Knight was at a safe distance if he didn't follow instructions...focusing on the objective was another of the first things Kael's mentor had taught him, but if Donny killed their distraction before they managed to reset it, it would be an issue. Both objectives are therefore critical.
Kael slides three more of his supply of metal bolts out and wills them at Donny...or more specifically, he wills one to appear immediately next to his center of mass at an angle behind the direction he is facing, one above his head directed downwards, and one spinning vertically at an angle upwards from his side, each appearing and instantly directed at high speed at the hitman. No angle to escape, no room to dodge, and with the metal bolts, even a glancing hit would likely be fatal. Lesson three from his mentor: When trying to defeat a formidable opponent, strike swiftly, silently, and leave no room for escape. Kael's next action would be to use his Ethereal Sight...it would work, because he willed it.
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With one final leap from a mount granted to him by the Goddesses themselves, Fortune De Vigny's final words as his divine lance made contact with daemonic flesh and both he and the foul creature itself were consumed by an explosion of pure, heavenly light were "FOR BRETONNIA!"

He would never be seen again.

Neither would Leona.

Perhaps her form had simply not been as intimidating as it seemed. Perhaps whatever power it had afforded her had not yet been fully developed. Perhaps she had been specially vulnerable to whatever magic Fortune had sacrificed his life to employ.

Whatever the case had been however, naught remained once Fortune departed in his final blaze of glory - not so much as a scrap of golden hair from her hide.

Kael's next action would be to use his Ethereal Sight...it would work, because he willed it.

His first action to will the three bolts now surrounding Donny into place took but an instant, a simplicity too mundane to require more than an errant thought to arrange in this suggestion of a world. When he turned to his own ethereal sight however...

He saw nothing.

There was no magic, anywhere. Unlike before, it was not as if magic had once been but had died. Now it was simply that magic had never existed; as if what had been before had been a mere illusion. The only trace of it he could find was spilled like ink in water from his own eyes.

Of course, his sight did reveal something that had been hidden before - it did not seem magical, quite - as still could not even properly see it, per-se. Yet, Kael could somehow tell that now, there were connections of a kind, all surrounding the machine left in the darkness. Perhaps due to his willing his own sight to work, perhaps passively enhancing his own power without realization.

One of the conduits tied directly to the pavise knight, a winding, screw-like cord that twisted silently like a knife in the empty space. Its motion was excruciatingly slow - but certain, like the sun rising and setting.

The other conduit tied - somewhere else. It seemed to spiral inward, inside the machine itself, burrowing into the depths of the construct's own internal space without end until it reached - something, somewhere else. It was hard to discern more. Peering into that link was akin to feeling one had when standing upon the edge of a chasm.

"Shit." The pavise knight uttered from behind Kael. "Well, guess we have more time to reset the machine-"

Kael received no warning whatsoever. As he had been speaking, the pavise knight had slipped loose his crossbow, leveled it calmly to aim it at the small of the archer's back, and fired another one of the small, cylinder-tipped bolts at him mid-sentence without even breaking his tone or sentence.

-now." He said with a complete deadpan, the sound nearly obscured by the metallic twang of his weapon firing.
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@Terminal

Luckily, no warning needed to be given for Kael to be warned. The first sign of the Pavise Knight's betrayal was his position...even as Kael examined the mysterious cords of power extending out from the machine, the mere fact that the one extended to the Pavise Knight behind Kael was enough to immediately confirm treachery, since for the knight to be in any way behind him involved his continuing to move towards Kael, and the machine was more or less to Kael's left. He had been unwilling to let any of his possible enemies out of easy vision, and if the knight took pains to attempt to change that, the reason was clear.
The second sign was his words and manner in which he said them. He wasn't supposed to be commenting, and the proper inflection for such a comment was most certainly not deadpan, not with a normal person in this scenario.
The third was the metallic twang...but really, that was just a catalyst for the pre-prepared action.
Since the knight was still a short ways away, as Kael had been knocked back pretty far by the shockwave, he even had plenty of time for action...but when one has become capable of accomplishing things at the speed of thought, that's just a bonus. The resulting exertion of Kael's will had been prepared against Donny's ranged weapons, but the circumstance mattered not in the slightest as the crossbow bolt flew barely a foot before it is twisted around and thrown directly back at the Pavise Knight at equal speed. Of course, such an action wasn't even close to guaranteeing the target's neutralization, so Kael's next mental command was to form the one thing that had been confirmed to stop these knights. He willed a slug to form very closely around the Pavise Knight...the same as the slug that they had had such a dangerous ride in, which had claimed the lives of three people. He could have formed it on the Knight and killed him instantly...but if the machine stymied his attempts to reset it, the Knight's life might still come in handy. Kael was not Donny, to slaughter ruthlessly without thought for the value of life. And for icing on the mental cake, Kael willed himself back over to the machine, behind it so as to be within sight of both the Pavise Knight and the result of his actions against the Hitman.
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Andy averted his eyes when Fortune made contact with Leona, ending her with a bright explosion. Words couldn't describe how grateful he was for that sacrifice. Knowing he wouldn't get eaten after all was a great relief. He turned to Donny, wondering what the wounded man would do now that his new partner was no longer there, when he noticed three bolts suddenly appeared around him. They were from the archer, he recognized them immediately, but how had they been able to appear like that? Teleportation? He turned slightly so he could keep Donny in his vision and see what Kael was up to. It was then when he noticed the pavise knight raise his crossbow and he opened his mouth to warn the archer, but it wasn't necessary. Kael seemed to be in control and Andy decided he would go over to him and see if he could help him with the device, but not before he knew what Donny's fate was.
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He willed a slug to form very closely around the Pavise Knight...the same as the slug that they had had such a dangerous ride in, which had claimed the lives of three people.

The dark air wavered very briefly as something began to form - just for long enough to send the deflected bolt spiraling away into the void at great force - but then settled as whatever effect had been about to manifest faltered and vanished.

"Why are you even fighting back?" The pavise knight called out to the endless pitch void as he calmly and methodically reloaded his crossbow with another cylinder-tipped arrow, having fully set his left arm into the straps of his pavise. "This world is far too broken for anything worthwhile to be learned now, especially after killing your main source of information. You should just let them die. I do not promise their deaths will be painless - but they will be quick."

Kael seemed to be in control and Andy decided he would go over to him and see if he could help him with the device, but not before he knew what Donny's fate was.

@Doc Doctor
In that single moment of eternity as the bolts materialized from thin air, Donny was very briefly entertained by a curious, foreign thought.

'You seem out of sorts. A little stuck, unsure and therefore unwilling to proceed. I can sympathize - but this world cannot get anymore broken.

I will ask you one question - what do you want? I am not talking to you, Donny-boy. I am talking to you.

Deliver an interesting answer and there may be a way out for you - although, naturally, your own situation is still yours to escape from. I refuse to clean up your mess.'
Hidden 8 yrs ago 8 yrs ago Post by Doc Doctor
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Doc Doctor The Fight Doctor

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@Terminal@WiseDragonGirl

Donny had been examining the freaky ass lady's breathing before having been trapped because he had come up with a theory. That thought and intent didn't matter if you were killed before you could think. He had been on the verge of seeing how well the entity would have handled a gout of cyanide.

A spectral warning darkened his mind, time grew heavy. With a mental growl he telepathically answered.


"Ah've always preffuhed action ovah tawlk. Do whatchya please, but Ah know how Ah'd like tuh go aowt."

Part of his scalp was torn loose, he was struck in the flank and back. He felt hot prickles of pain quickly spreading throughout his body. He was going to die, no doubt about it.

Donny twisted back towards the others and began drifting slowly towards them with a groan, hunching into a ball around his hands as his body gradually became a lifeless giant metal hedgehog.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Cruallassar
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@Terminal

Kael hastily examines the machine in front of him, looking for controls or other devices that might suggest a reset command. These lines of...some kind of power that extended into the machine and out to the Pavise Knight seemed significant somehow...a power supply, perhaps?
"Couldn't care less. I just want to leave."
Perhaps his power of will over the dimension could sever it as well? He was keeping track of the knight's location via his sense of that line primarily...but if he could neutralize the last remaining hostile, then resetting the world might be considerably easier. He takes a brief moment to glance toward the knight and directs his will to the destruction of the line reaching out to his enemy. It was nice that he seemed to have scored a hit on Donny...
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Loksfjoer
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Andy watched how all three bolts hit Donny and assessed the situation almost instantly. The one hitting the head was a problem, the other two seemed to have missed any arteries, but their location was far from ideal, organs could very well have been punctured. This was on top of the earlier inflicted wound. With all the blood loss there was very slim chance to survive, even with treatment. And that was without taking any metal-forming properties of the bolts into account. Then there was the important safety rule in first aid which said one shouldn't bring themselves in harms way to help someone. With the pavise knight there who wanted to give them 'merciful deaths' he couldn't afford to keep his attention on someone who seemed doomed anyway. Right now he had to focus on the living and Kael was the only other living person in this realm who didn't want him dead. He had to help him.

The thought process took mere second and Andy opened his backpack to get some of those spray cans to dissolve metal and put them in his pockets so he could easily reach them. Now that the pavise knight suddenly was an opponent it seemed like a good idea to keep them close. He looked towards Kael and the device and wondered how he could get there. He recalled he had moved before, but now that he thought of it, he wasn't sure how he had done so. Maybe he had managed to go where he wanted because he hadn't bothered himself with asking how to do it, he had just moved without thinking because he needed to be somewhere. Thinking he needed something to push off against hindered him. So he exhaled, focused on the goal and moved fast towards Kael. He made sure to keep an eye on the knight, one sign of that crossbow being aimed at him and he would get out of the way. As he moved he took one of the field triage kits from the backpack and hurled it at the pavise knight. It probably was one of the worst distractions he could come up with, but maybe it would help.
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@WiseDragonGirl

As Andy shuffled through his backpack, Donny blew up. When he had balled up around his hands, it disguised his final act. Setting his watch to blow up the C4 he kept on his person.

Large, sharp shards of the mutating metal coating Donny were cast from the detonation at speeds exceeding mach three. Anybody and anything within twenty meters was essentially fucked.
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