Lemons

A Tyrant's Undoing

Not to mention, I'm pretty sure there are more than twenty-five or so people in the King's elite guard, to say nothing of the full army. Including mages that aren't equal to Avad's skill level, but far outstrip it.

A Tyrant's Undoing

@Zetsuko

I got the feeling that other than the mages and the captain, they were mostly grunts. They didn't seem like elite units.

A Tyrant's Undoing

@IncredibleBee

In the interest of fairness, these aren't quite the force of natural lightning bolts, or Avad himself would be dead, and wood is nonconductive.

The powergaming happened, but at this point, I've returned it with some of my own, and we should just drop it and go on. More than a fair share of RPs have died because of stuff like this.

A Tyrant's Undoing

@Zetsuko

Shoot. Now I feel bad about my counter-powergaming, since there was actually a good reason for that story element.

A Tyrant's Undoing

Avad laughed, though he still faint faint. Gallows humor.

"Please, Wledic. You remember me from a decade back? Well, I'm going maverick again."

His mind raced as much as it could, analyzing the situation from every tactical standpoint. Okay. Surrounded by a small unit of guardsmen. Approximately twenty-five, if I had to guess. His face scanned the crowd. One High Battlemage, Anton Vedvoin. Specializes in ice and storm magic. So that's where my clouds went. Two Battlemages, brother and sister; Erin and Serra Nolindin. Both specialize in fire. Ten or so spearmen. Spears are useful in nullifying electricity. About that many sword-and-shield knights. Metal sheilds are a weak point. They conduct electricity. All are dressed in metal armor. Major weak point. I'm nearly out of innate magic, but there's a Vedlyn stone in my spellbook I've been charging for six years. If there ever was a time to use it, it was now.

He reached out to his spellbook, opening it to the back cover and yanking a large blue-white gem out. It glowed with a brilliant blue light, and he palmed it, forcing himself to breathe deeply. As he took cover in case of magic—no archers among the troops—he began to channel the energy from the stone into himself. The headache receded, and with it the faintness. He ground out to his allies, "everybody hold on to something and plug your ears!" before forcing all of the considerable energy that had been in the stone into a single spell.

"Achmat atial venedin altolis manahasta irredire verelest na'in!"

A shockwave of lightning raced out from him along the ground. No stormclouds for Anton, no fire for Erin or Serra. The lightning arced up the metal armor worn by all the guards except the battlemages, electrocuting them where they stood. Then, a second or so after, there was an intense wave of sound as a thunderclap exploded from beneath them, launching the guards several feet into the air. His hands, occupied with sigil-tracing, were unable to plug his ears, and the sound shredded his eardrums, leaving him in immense pain and deafness. The shockwave knocked him back from where he was standing at the edge of the cart, cannoning him back into the side. Through all the pain, though, before unconsciousness grabbed him, he shouted out one phrase:

"Go! Ride!"

Then nothingness.

A Tyrant's Undoing

Panic had a way of making anybody, even Avad, drop his buzz.

Grunting in irritation at the interruption, he climbed on back of the wagon, yelling "On it!" before tracing a sign in the air and mouthing a few words. The fire was enveloped in a blast of vapor, glowing from the inside with a hellish light. Then, grimacing at the impending headache, he flipped out his spellbook, turning to a page covered in runic lettering and beginning to recite a lengthy spell, focusing less on raw power and almost entirely on razor-fine control over the magic's direction. He had a very clear idea of what he wanted it to do.

Eventually, the fires went out, and he released the magic, tracing half a dozen sigils back-to-back before him. There was a tremendous thunderclap as storm clouds began to build thirty or so feet over, and twice as much in front of, the pained, burned, blinded guards. Another thunderclap and a lancet of lightning, and then the real fun started: an immensely powerful wind blew nearly horizontal, forcing utterly torrential rains, ice-cold and lashing like tiny daggers, into the hapless troop. He nearly dropped the spellbook at the sudden energy expenditure as the intense wind wiped out the fog, reestablishing line of sight.

Rhythmically chanting a three-word spell of lightning several times, "Achmat elike monâven," he forced them to stay down unless they wanted to be electrocuted. As he felt his energy, which had been vastly depleted even prior to the exceedingly long stormcalling, peter down, he screwed his eyes shut, ramming the last of his magical energy—into another overdraw, he understood, grimacing—straight into a heavy raincloud that followed behind the cart, turning the dirt of the road behind them into a thick, gluey trail of mud. Blinking owlishly at the sudden fatigue and headache, he toppled backwards into the cart, fighting to remain conscious.

A Tyrant's Undoing

@Ryuji Sakamoto Wasn't he searching for Avad in the first place?

A Tyrant's Undoing

Avad, having consumed two or three mugs of beer, was just drunk enough that his emotions were beginning to run unchecked. He would chide himself the day after with a this happens every time and you know it!, but for the moment, he was fighting back tears at the merchant's song. While he certainly wasn't warforged like Sergei, and certainly hadn't been through as many battles or as much pain, he'd still his share of the atrocities of war. At the siege of Nightvell Castle, his entire squadron had been slaughtered by a brutal curse, leaving him alone among the corpses of his comrades and friends. He found himself humming (badly, but mercifully quietly) along to the last few verses.

Then Tahra and Logan MacNeil came out of the abandoned mansion. Stumbling as he attempted a standing salute, Avad seemed to have forgotten entirely that he was no longer wearing his military robes, and, in all likelihood, the knight would have no idea who he was. Instead, he decided that the best possible of all solutions would be to address him as a military officer. "Surr Logn Mcneel..." He squinted suddenly, "why're you here 'gain?"

He stumbled sideways again, barely managing to catch himself before reseating himself. As the merchant (who had rapidly become his favorite person in the world for providing this much beer at a time this appropriate and the young boy stated the fact, he realized again that it was his charge's birthday. He lurched to her, gripping around her shoulders with a madcap grin that one would more likely see on the face of one half his age, and slurred a few words of power before motioning loopily in the air. His grin widened as the mug in his hand shook slightly, and he gave only a second or so of warning before he poured the rest of his fourth mug over her head. The beer had become a cloudy gray-gold and gave off a gentle mist. Taken by his own incautiously-conjured magic, he wrapped his arm tighter and cheered, lifting the empty mug to the sky.

As one might be able to tell...Avad did not often drink. It seldom ended well.

A Tyrant's Undoing

Avad will go with the group that isn't with Tahra. Though he cares about her, the king is a very old friend of his and he doesn't want to see him overthrown. Rather, he wants his name cleared.

A Tyrant's Undoing

"Magnanimous beer goddess."

You are now officially my favorite person.