Kael hastily examines the machine in front of him, looking for controls or other devices that might suggest a reset command.

Set into the face of the sixth stone slab from the bottom of the cairn was a computer screen gilded in brass, with a pewter case seated within the monolith's body. A fine mechanical keyboard with extremely robust but ornate pewter keys with pearl-coated surfaces and emerald typeface extended from below it. The computer's readout currently was not displaying anything helpful - nearly all of the text, if it could even be called that, was completely illegible, save for a single repeating line that reappeared at the bottom of the screen every few moments only to rapidly scroll upwards and vanish at the top.

>Current Allineation Target Lost.

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.

Anybody and anything within twenty meters was essentially fucked.

The field triage kit was sent flying as a shard of Donny slashed across its surface, sending it flying through the bleak emptiness. The knight raised their pavise, several metal-coated fragments smacking into it and losing most of their momentum, drifting eerily in place. After several moments he lowered the pavise, and without even looking at the surface - now covered in rapidly spreading metal, releasing a keening, screeching sound akin to metal being compacted and sheared - pressed some control on its inner surface, causing the clasps to release from his arms and send it drifting as well. He then set his sights to look for Andreas in order to determine if the doctor had survived Donny's final act of violence.

"Does it look like there is any method of escape here anymore?" He said again, though as before the comment did not seem directed at either Kael or Andreas. "It is hopeless."

The explosion came as a surprise, but delivered a quick death for Andy. At the moment of his death the backpack slipped from his fingers and continued to float towards Kael. If needed there were still medical supplies and some of those spray cans for dissolving metal in it.

@Terminal

Kael moves himself over to face the keys on the machine, typing out the word "reset" on them to see what happens. Then the explosion sounds and he twists around to view the last of his comrades...and the erstwhile murderer...expire. Lovely. So much for saving anyone else then. "You know, this situation might seem a hell of a lot more hopeless if you were doing less trying to kill everyone and convincing everyone of the fact. As it is, I'm inclined to disbelieve you." He notes the detachment of the knight's shield...interesting. So he was still vulnerable to the metal bolts. Kael wills the knight's crossbow to explode as an afterthought as he hastily returns his gaze to the machine's screen.

@Terminal

Kael moves himself over to face the keys on the machine, typing out the word "reset" on them to see what happens. Then the explosion sounds and he twists around to view the last of his comrades...and the erstwhile murderer...expire. Lovely. So much for saving anyone else then. "You know, this situation might seem a hell of a lot more hopeless if you were doing less trying to kill everyone and convincing everyone of the fact. As it is, I'm inclined to disbelieve you." He notes the detachment of the knight's shield...interesting. So he was still vulnerable to the metal bolts. Kael wills the knight's crossbow to explode as an afterthought as he hastily returns his gaze to the machine's screen.

>Resetting all valid entities.

Just as the knight's bolt exploded in an iridescent flash of light, the command Kael had entered in the machine took grasp of what little was left of the world and reshaped it.

Kael found himself without the accouterments he had picked up since arriving in the limousine, and all that he had arrived with had been restored - and the Knight was suddenly standing tall in the dark pitch of the world, with a new pavise strapped to his left arm. His crossbow was raised, a new cylinder-tipped bolt placed neatly in its till as though nothing had happened.

Kael immediately noticed - he could no longer see the conduits that bound the machine and the knight together, nor the strange internal passage through space within the machine's interior. His sight had gone.

The pavise knight shook his head, a wry smile on his face.

"If he touches the keyboard again I'll just shoot the Allineator." He called out again, floating off to the side of the machine in order to get a clear shot off again at Kael, his pavise raised in anticipation of another attack.

@Terminal

Kael's brain was working overtime. Of course, it did this very well...
Resetting it had...what? Turned off his Ethereal sight...given the knight back his shield...had it reset to an earlier point in time? Impossible, that would have changed position too. Reset all con...no, then the knight...irrelevant. What did he know? He knew that apparently this machine responded to commands. Any command? Well, that was the way magic worked...but then, this was more like an enchanted object, so only some commands, whatever was built into it. But then, this thing appeared to have complete control over this entire world, so that was a hell of a lot of "only some commands". It had some sort of conduit running into it, and another linking it to the knight...maybe the conduit was some sort of portal? But then, what was the link to the knight? He needed more time to test, and while the knight's bolts were unlikely to hit him, and...
"No, you won't! You haven't played cards before, have you?"
...but wait, his ethereal sight had been turned off...maybe his power that the machine had said something would take was taken as well? If so, that would be ungood. He needed to test that, but he also needed to make every action count considering the time duress. He wills one of the small rubber balls in his pouches to appear outside said pouch and shoot at the knight, that would be a nice nuisance for him. At the same time...let's try a basic magical command to buy him more time. But computer terms, it had apparently renamed everyone to separate entities...let's see...
In a quick frenzy of movement, his fingers reach out and tap the keys as fast as he could, just in case the knight wasn't bluffing.
"Shield Entity VII from harm"

He wills one of the small rubber balls in his pouches to appear outside said pouch and shoot at the knight, that would be a nice nuisance for him.

...But nothing happened.

In a quick frenzy of movement, his fingers reach out and tap the keys as fast as he could, just in case the knight wasn't bluffing.
"Shield Entity VII from harm"

>Entity VII [4167067] Kael Arvindr marked invulnerable.

"Bluffing is boring anyway. How well does he play chicken?" The pavise knight quipped to the empty vacuum again as he swerved through the air to Kael's right a scant three meters from the machine, his pavise still raised in protection. With a metallic twang, his crossbow fired the cylinder-tipped bolt loaded in its till at Kael.

Kael had plenty of forewarning of the attack - from the predictable trajectory of the knight's gliding motion through the void to the verbal challenge immediately prior, and being able to see the crossbow fire. He could easily dodge out of the way.

...Which would take him out of reach of the keyboard. The pavise knight was close. What might happen if he reached the keyboard himself?

On the other hand, the computer screen's readout was telling Kael that he had been marked as invulnerable. Did he even really have to dodge the crossbow bolt...?

Kael was already following through with his next move. Though he was now marked invulnerable, and he trusted the system, mere invulnerability wasn't enough to guarantee that he could keep the knight away...more importantly, the crossbow bolts plated one with metal, and while it didn't seem particularly strong and could probably be broken with enough strength, it would still prove a hindrance. However, on one hand, the backpack carrying the anti-metal solvent had by now drifted close enough to reach out and grab. On the other hand, there was a lesson Kael remembered about the different means of enchanting oneself to move faster. One could simply cast a speed enchantment, but to do so meant one also had to increase the speed of their perceptions, otherwise their body would move faster than they can control, or they would not be able to react fast enough to an event for their speed to matter. The other method is to increase the speed of the passage of time on oneself...to their perception, it will be as if time slowed down around them. Forces will still act on them in their own time, such as gravity or being struck with a set force, but everything not part of the spell will move and take effect far slower. And for Kael, who's chiefest need at the moment was time to act, that was perfect.
Chicken? He could play that. Kael ignores the shot, intent on typing out his next command. How nice of the knight to take his time with quips and flairs as he gives Kael lots of time to finish his plan...
"Alter time Entity VII accelerate 100x"

Chicken? He could play that. Kael ignores the shot, intent on typing out his next command. How nice of the knight to take his time with quips and flairs as he gives Kael lots of time to finish his plan...
"Alter time Entity VII accelerate 100x"

The bolt hit Kael directly across his chest, at a slight angle. The cylinder-tip erupted in a burst of iridescent light, and Kael was treated to an oddly pleasant sensation of warmth spreading across his chest as both his shirt and skin were plated with silvery metal - its spread continued even as he typed, reaching up to his neck and seizing the motion of his head, as well as encompassing his shoulders and locking the angle of his arms in place in an odd, hunchbacked posture.

Absolutely nothing hurt and he appeared to be uninjured, which was good. What was bad was that no matter how hard he tried, he could not seem to shift or crack the metal at all.

>Entity VII [4167067] Kael Arvindr accelerated to one-hundred times current velocity.

Without any further notice, Kael's face slammed downwards, his indestructible cranium tearing through the computer screen and obliterating the keyboard, sending the delicate nacreous keys with their ornate emerald typeface spiraling through the empty world along with a thousand tiny shards and fragments of broken pewter and rent brass. Glowing ciruitry and cables from within the monitor flickered and sparked before turning dim and dead.

Kael's entire body continued its end-of-end tumble, until his head slammed directly into the surface of the monolithic stone slab the computer had been housed in - and this time, he bounced, his momentum drastically reversing and flinginh Kael's body in the opposite direction, sending him backflipping through the void behind the machine. He appeared to have already slowed down somewhat from the impacts and shift in direction, so the one upside appeared to be that he was not stuck at one-hundred times acceleration.

"The Allineator, much like the world, was adopted to suit all your needs. It accommodates some more than others though." The pavise knight remarked of nobody in particular and he casually reloaded the crossbow once more, drifting forward to approach the shattered remnants of the keyboard and display screen, looking with faint interest at the tangle of now-severed cables drifting through the air.

"That will take me ages to fix with the world like this. You witless heels. Did you think this was a game? Do you enjoy toying with peoples' lives?" The knight muttered to himself, an irritated expression crossing his face.

@Terminal

Kael had been expecting something like the metal coating. He had very much not been expecting to suddenly shoot forward and smash the whole machine, and he certainly didn't expect himself to be flinginhed off in some direction...he didn't even understand where such a word to describe that motion had come from, but he did know that wherever that was, this word seemed to describe his sudden unexpected journey perfectly. At least the metal had stopped before reaching his face or hands, that was the critical element of the plan there. As long as the motion of his entire body was still accomplished via his mind, and he had the use his hands and eyes, he could fix this problem. He drifted himself over to the backpack with the solvent in it, keeping himself oriented with the Pavise knight in view as he...rather awkwardly...fumbled with getting the bag open. As he did that, he tried to think about what went wrong...he had typed in the action, the subject of the action, and the degree to which the action must be accomplished...how is it that something drastically different occurred? Did he have to be more specific, perhaps type it out as one would tell a person to do something instead of how one might envision a magic spell? Of course, he did only have limited experience with such, but still...then there was the knight. If it weren't for being stuck in a blank dimension with his torso covered in un-yielding metal, Kael might find the knight's statement hilarious...hysterically so in fact.
"A game? Toying with people's lives? How about ours? I didn't choose to come here, I didn't want to make enemies, but when you try to kill me, what do you expect to happen but us responding in kind? Don't you understand the concept of cause and effect?"

"A game? Toying with people's lives? How about ours? I didn't choose to come here, I didn't want to make enemies, but when you try to kill me, what do you expect to happen but us responding in kind? Don't you understand the concept of cause and effect?"

As Kael fumbled within the bag to retrieve the solvent, he realized a crucial complication: His arms no longer had the range of motion to apply the solvent anywhere. He could probably just manage to point some of it back at himself if he held each can just-so, but the process of ridding himself of the metal was not going to be a quick one.

The pavise knight finally turned to look directly at Kael.

"Cowards." He said flatly. He raised his crossbow and pavise once more, the former peeking over the edge of the latter - shielding himself from the possibility of Kael throwing anything from the bag or his person. "Take responsibility for your choices."

There was a metallic twang as the next crossbow bolt was fired dead at Kael.

@Terminal

Kael isn't particularly concerned about the crossbow shot...with most of the contents of the bag now floating in space around him, the bag is perfectly suited to act as a disposable shield as he maneuvers it to stay in the knight's line of fire. As for his actually fixing his rigidity problem...yes, that would be an annoying set of actions. On the plus side though, the only parts of him that are critical to apply the solvent to are his joints, which should minimize the work. Additionally, there is no gravity here...so he should be able to get some of the stuff out of the can, then maneuver himself to the floating liquid. He sets to the task carefully as he keeps behind his bag-shield, being sure to minimize his profile while he's at it and to keep an eye on the knight so he can keep maneuvering. At least he's a good ways away again, with infinite room to move around. As things are, there is virtually no way for the knight to get a good shot off, and Kael should be able to keep away indefinitely. A good thing, considering the task at hand.
"Responsibility, sure. Avoidable consequences, no."

"Responsibility, sure. Avoidable consequences, no."

The world shifted again.

"Nothing is late if intentionally so." The pavise knight intoned as he reloaded his crossbow. The sun, casting its cold light, reappeared in the darkness above. Kael's shadow was cast a cobblestone path that bled from nothingness like colored ink behind him - and gravity, or at least a semblance of it, return. The archer's feet once more fell firmly planted to the ground, and the sprayed solvent he had been about to drift through hung in the air above him. Most alarmingly, the bag containing the remaining solvent continued to drift upwards out of Kael's reach, coated wholly in metal.

"There was only one choice you made that mattered, you degenerates." The pavise knight muttered as he leveled his crossbow at Kael yet again. "End this. If you carry on, they will continue to draw back. The veil of your world shall return and you will be undone. One way or another."

@Terminal

Kael took a single look at the solvent and metal and figured that it was useless to try and get at it, instead planting his feet in a manner that made him ready to dodge another crossbow bolt. There was minimal chance of his being able win win this...but that was still enough reason to try. "If you want this to end, return me to where I came from. Tell me how to return, give me a clue of what I was and am supposed to do! Otherwise, I'll fight against the end for as long as I'm alive. No matter how bad things get, the consequences of what could happen can't get enough worse than they are now for me to stop trying to make things better."

"If you want this to end, return me to where I came from. Tell me how to return, give me a clue of what I was and am supposed to do! Otherwise, I'll fight against the end for as long as I'm alive. No matter how bad things get, the consequences of what could happen can't get enough worse than they are now for me to stop trying to make things better."

"What I wanted..." The pavise knight said as they leveled their crossbow yet again. "Was to use the Allineator for myself once all of you scum were dead. Now even that is denied me. I am a creature of its own nature made - even having lost everything, I will still destroy you."

The crossbow seemed to twitch-

@Terminal

Kael sees the twitch and starts a dodge to the side, stopping when he sees it wasn't a shot and prepping to dodge again. "You know, we probably would have just let you use it...what the hell is the Allineator, anyway? I'm still wondering that." Chances of survival...well, 100%, but dying of starvation or old age while encased in a statue wasn't his idea of surviving a battle. If the bolt hit him in the chest where the first one did, then it would probably spread the same amount, so it would be the best place to be hit if such is unavoidable. As for killing or neutralizing the knight...chances are slim, but he had some ideas on that...it might be futile, but still. If his enemy was willing to take Kael down despite everything, then Kael would be happy to respond in kind.

...And the world devolved again, the sun vanishing once more just as the pavise knight fired his crossbow. Kael was left hanging in the air as gravity abandoned him and the traction afforded by having his two feet planted on the ground vanished, with little in the way of moving in time to evade the attack.

If he had been expecting the ability to transmit from one place to another to return, he was left disappointed. If he were to recall the epiphany he had discovered upon his initial exploit of the ability, he may have remembered that it was independent from the state of the world itself and tied instead to some aspect of his own being - which the Allineator had somehow altered.

@Terminal

Kael wasn't caught off guard by the transition, not as such...

He just had essentially no options. He maneuvers himself as best as he can to take the shot in the same spot he took the last one, that way the metal would spread the same distance and merely coat metal with more metal, instead of spreading to cover something vital. At least if that worked, he would have access to the solvent now. He memorizes its relative position to him in case it doesn't work...luckily he'd gotten some out of the bottle before.

The last time that Fortune's sword had been seen by anyone, it had been flying away in a black void with no forces or rules working against it to slow it's momentum, a trip that would last forever... until the world was restarted and rules such as gravity were re-established.

Pulled down by the invisable force, the sword started to fall back towards the pull of gravity of the planet below it, picking up speed at an incredible rate as it raced towards the ground. As it reached terminal velocity, it maintained the pace for its final journey as two humans came into view underneath it. One of them was wearing armor, while the other appeared to have a coating of metal over his chest.

The sword landed on the tip of its blade on the ground behind the pavise knight, the impact and strange angle of landing causing the blade to shatter in a storm of deadly shards, peppering the back of the knight's legs. The last trace of Fortune De Worde broken and no more.

@Terminal

Kael wasn't caught off guard by the transition, not as such...

He just had essentially no options. He maneuvers himself as best as he can to take the shot in the same spot he took the last one, that way the metal would spread the same distance and merely coat metal with more metal, instead of spreading to cover something vital. At least if that worked, he would have access to the solvent now. He memorizes its relative position to him in case it doesn't work...luckily he'd gotten some out of the bottle before.

The last surprise of Kael's life was the revelation that the metallic coating spread across surfaces like a liquid when more of it was added - even if it already appeared to be solid. The cylindrical bolt exploded in a burst of iridescent light, a warm, burning mass of silver pouring across his chest and armors as the already existing mass spread further out, completely encompassing both his arms and enveloping the entirety of his head.

It did not even truly hurt. In fact, although he could no longer even move his arms or head whatsoever, Kael nonetheless felt fine overall.

Until his lunges started to twinge.

The sword landed on the tip of its blade on the ground behind the pavise knight, the impact and strange angle of landing causing the blade to shatter in a storm of deadly shards, peppering the back of the knight's legs. The last trace of Fortune De Worde broken and no more.

The pavise knight glanced at their own feet in confusion as the sun bled back into being once more, the ground becoming recast beneath them for the second time.

"...You waited a third day? Why? They were already-"

Fortune de Vigny's sword shattered into fragments against the ground directly behind the pavise knight. By some twist of chance, a single fragment of the blade shot nearly straight back up from the angle of impact. The pavise knight was wearing even lighter armor than the first opponent the passengers had encountered in New Nemean had been adorned in. Demonstrably just as if not even more physically resilient, but altogether providing less coverage. In particular, the pavise knight lacked any kind of gorget, which had been supplanted by the low-hanging front of the helmet's transparent visor. Which left a single strip of exposed skin just above the helmet's rear lip, obscured from sight but still technically exposed to air, with the chainmail below it ending precisely where the helmet began.

The single fragment of Fortune de Vigny's blade shot straight up into the gap between the helmet and the pavise knight's head, carving a neat and surgical tear into the back of their neck. That alone may not have proven fatal. However, the sudden burst of the remaining fragments across both of the pavise knight's knees surprised the knight, forcing him to reflexively take a single step forward and crane their head to look down, even though none of the fragments could either penetrate his chainmail, or even stagger him from their impact.

The pressure exerted by the pavise knight's indestructible helmet, with the man's final jerking motion, buried the intrusive fragment fully into the back of his neck.

"...Me too?" The pavise knight muttered as he fell, further, and all motor control abandoned him. "Why did I have to-"

He never spoke again.

The cold sun shone upon the scene - the broken allineator, the pavise knight fallen on his face, and Kael's form - arms, head, and chest wholly ensconced in metal.