Mas Bagus

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

Jazdia was ready to shoot another arrow when wounded Asevor managed to make a sudden turn toward the same building he was escaping from and took shelter there.

Undrawing her bow in sheer displeasure, Jazdia darted for the door leading to the floor below, almost like skidding down the stairs. Once she get in there, the elf glanced at Solomon who seemed to be busying himself with perusing the box containing the prince.

"I will not try to poke that thing if I were you, especially not when that wizard is still around."

Standing in the doorway leading to the second floor, Jazdia's eyes flickered for a brief while before giving another assessment.

"So that's why he is still here," she muttered. "It is very likely the runes that regulate the enchantment was programmed with a safety measure. If you see that green-colored rune surrounded by yellow or blue it means the trigger was designed to pick up the wizard's final energy before triggering itself to live. Or simply trigger itself when it can no longer detect Asevor's energy." the elf shook her head. "No, that would require a constant effort to emit your own mana into the air, it was never a practical method. A tether? I don't see the lines. Must be my first guess, but I don't have time to nerd it out."


"Let's leave the Prince for now. Asevor is right under our feet. On the first floor of this building. If we want to subdue him alive, I would need your restraining spell."

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

Jazdia readied shot, and for God's sake, she could hear the incantation as the bladed point of her arrow creaked in purplish flame. When the bolt of arcane magic struck down, however, she determined that it was already too late to intercept the attack.

She only caught a glimpse of the collapsing bear before returning her attention to the caster himself. Composed as ever, yet still irritated by waves of pain coming from her injuries, Jazdia drew her bow and aimed. When the wizard cloaked himself in an invisibility spell, she activated her eyes, casually, like a trained operator responding to a blackout by switching on a flashlight.

Her mental crosshair wobbles a bit to follow her target. That target in question was the bluish man with several shining dots that seemed to have its intensity decreased. Against the chromatic background, that silhouette flew away, straight, and despite the hailstones, it was not even trying to make any erratic move, or try to protect itself with another layer of arcane energy, perhaps in sheer arrogance, or fear. A perfect target nonetheless.

The arrow launched, aimed as true as Jazdia could manage, and no amount of hard wind or icy pellets may deter it from its path.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

After what seemed like a long dash, Jazdia reached the edge of the battlement and looked down. Uninterested in the explosion above and more concerned with creating more of it.

"Hey! You two," she shouted to a particular Samurai and the newcomer girl. "Use my arrow and bla--"

"FINE! IYULL DARKEN YA FUCKIN' SKY FER YAH, YA FLYING FAT FUCK! IF'N I GOTTA DANCE FER YA TOO, SO FUCKIN BE IT YA PRICK!"

Jazdia knew it was not for her, but standing here in the line of fire of a cursing druid made her hold her breath. Anyhow, that should be the least of her concern; the air's changing all of a sudden, adding more to the dark overcast above. The wind whistles unnaturally and became more intense in seconds. She had no idea what deity Cedar worshipped, but apparently, they were incredibly lenient they answered his prayer even if it was laced with foul epithets.

"Hey, you! Listen to me! Use my arrow and shoot that mage!" Two of her arrows kindled in bluish flames before Jazdia tossed them down to Veronica and Chonan.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

Emerging from the smoke and leftover vapors was Jazdia, standing in a way that hid her flabbergasted expression. Her clothes were tattered around her calf, elbow, belly, and chest, showing the burnt skin beneath. Her injury testified to the intensity of her firestorm, yet the blaze barely licked the source of the dangers itself.

And it was still going, albeit at a slower pace.

"What a *cough* bother."

For a while, her vision blurred, and it felt like she would collapse any moment, the damage was pretty bad Jazdia could have sworn she heard her father nagging from the afterlife.

Yeah Dad, channeling magic without a medium was a very reckless of me.

"How is that damned prince anyway?"

Jazdia's heart raced, with a certain anger in the mix, she refocused her magic and stared into the room, half expecting the poison to have reached his chamber, cooking him alive with no way to exhaust the gas away. Yeah, of course, it didn't happen... for His highness' convenience, her fire had cleansed the air before it could seep through, with her paying the price for it.

Was it worth it? Was it the right thing to do? Tough questions, one of many things she wouldn't do when the danger was still imminent and her enemy was still at large, but her mental acuity allowed her to do that, all while dashing forward, and the only thing that made her paused the thought that she had allowed herself to get hurt just to save a royal brat was a slight embarrassment after realizing her tattered shirt was draping behind her exposed midriff.

...and the mass of concentrated energy being sent to the sky.

Despite the damage she suffered, the last explosion taught her something, and it was time to put that knowledge to good use.
Reaching for her previously-enchanted arrow, Jazdia grimaced as the skin from her scalded finger peeled off as the arrow released. It trailed straight toward the arcane construct before exploding on its own and igniting the acid fog.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

Whatever that wizard was doing, Jazdia did not care, the bombardment continued even when the first one failed to bring him down. The second arrow trailed in the air, and his summoned servant also intercepted it. Not waiting to see the result, the third launched, the wretched lunged, punishment dispensed, and damage was taken. To shoot them until they were all down, and let's see how long they can withstand the bombardment. There's more where that came from!

When the fourth was ready to launch, it was apparent that the Wizard's turn to answer her onslaught was imminent. Same trick, same problem, but now it descended like some sort of volcanic haze crawling down from a very passive mountain, yet its course remained unaltered by the wind. Jazdia winced and have her bow un-drawn. She had had enough.

The elf gripped the remaining three arrows and cast upon them a protective command before returning them to her quiver. For much of the observable moment, she did nothing but breathe. A fire vortex started to form on her right hand.

Breathe.

She looked up as the cloud of poison hovered down towards her.

Breathe.

She kneeled and closed her eyes. A calmer state of mind was required...

To breathe.

Fire engulfed her right hand as she touched the stony base. The flame was her own energy, compacted in a volatile medium, unstable without its usual casing.

For another five seconds, Jazdia kept on maintaining the flame. A while ago, in her current blinded state, she would worry that damned Wizard would come down and lop her head off while she was kneeling, now the concern was more immediate as the acidic fumes started to burn her clothes and she could hear her own skin sizzling. Worse of it, she could only ignore the pain.

With a swift motion, the elf raised her hand. The condensed flame whirled and pulsated once before lashing its blaze in every direction. She braced for more pain as the flame ignited the acid fog and scorch the entire battlement in a rapid conflagration.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

The room was clear, and she did not waste a moment pondering about it.

Third floor, eyes activated...

Jazdia usually never bothered with vines and overgrown proliferating around her. But this time they grow so quickly that she instinctively slowed her pace down. When the next floor reached, however, she started to despise it even more.

"A friendly... magically enchanted construct, great!"

And true to that, besides making her feel rather squeamish, those overgrown were an active veil to her vision, and having to exert more power to pierce those layers was always a bother, especially when done in a place where the access to the sunray was limited.

After treading through the moss-layered floor that felt like cheap, soggy carpet, Jazdia climbed another set of stairs and reached the door. It was opened but blocked by the overgrown. In sheer frustration, she unsheathed her long knife, channeled magic until the blade was glowing hot, and slashed the moss, vines, and all.

She was half expecting an ambush but found that the welcome was rather lukewarm. Carefully her eyes spied the coast. She saw the spectral doctor Solomon near another room, smaller than the floors below with myriads of magical emitters installed between it and another internal room in which the prince could be seen sitting and reading without a care in the storming world around his small cubicles.

The wizard was up there...

Was he really that snob he thought of himself as ascended being or something?

The elf grabbed her arrow in a batch of six and took her time to enchant them with the explosive spell that would automatically explode after reaching a certain distance. A bit more expensive than usual, but look where she was now! The sun was shining directly above her head making the cost almost negligible.

When the wizard finished his summoning, Jazdia had already finished her arsenal. The first one nocked and the bow was drawn in full, it whistled in the air before blasting its target with fire and crystalized shrapnel.

She betted the wizard never heard about surface-to-air missiles before.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

Not too far, but at least undisturbed from the commotion below, Jazdia gripped the railing and hopped on a staircase sturdy enough compared to what half of that spiraling stairs had suffered. As the bear's howl faintly echoed in that antechamber, she couldn't help but shake her head; would be nice if he make good use of his big displacement and helped that foreign samurai to bring down the nasty northlander.

There was some magic pulsing, coming from below. Again the druid tried his luck with his overgrowing spell.

Jazdia had reached the second floor. Her bow was drawn and her piercing vision activated, too busy to ponder the effectiveness of Cedar's spell. Both the captured and the capturer was well above, and sadly she need to tread carefully.

Her violet eyes glanced at every corner of the room, scanning for any ill-intentioned surprise the Wizard and his lackeys might have prepared for her.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

The elf stopped, the dust had settled for God knows how many times already in this ransacked room, and it revealed the enraged northlander, alive and approaching them in desperate gait. As someone who studied practical magic, Jazdia wondered about the cost that man had to pay to be able just to stand right now, and how long it would be able to keep him together if left alone.

She decided to not find out, the black bow was drawn, and the arrowhead was now programmed and filled by its explosive magic. However, as soon as she aimed for his center mass, the Berserker's movement suddenly became erratic. A quick observation told her that Kaito was behind all of that cruel yet whimsical prank; a tubular conjuration now encasing Ragnar's head, and despite the heavy doping spell, the illusion was apparently perceived so real Ragnar instinctively had his voice muffled as well.

Should she feel bad for it? Her bow had been relieved from its temporal tension, and the glowing arrow on Ragnar's chest said she didn't really care.

What she did care about was when the pale lady positioned herself near the rampaging brute, anticipating his movement and preparing herself for what she predicted would be a series of heavy melee slashes.

"Get away from him!" Jazdia shouted.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

When she reached outside, Jazdia immediately cast magic into her arrow, only spared a flash acknowledgment toward the surrounding fire and screaming civilian before activated her eyes and aimed again.

She saw a pulse emenated from the wizard. Another beacon wanes and disappear. If that corroding fumes were magical, it too suddenly neautralized, leaving only ashes and putrid stench that Jazdia imagine would render the entire floor inhabitable for years to come.

If that baron was still alive that should be the least of his concern. She observed the wizard dispelling the barrier, and several reanimated dead already lunged at his men like rabid beast. But instead of staying, he walked toward the stairs.

Her eyes were still incapable of seeing through the wall, but her hunch told her that the ghostly doctor was upstairs, and the Wizard was on his way to deal with him. Sighed, Jazdia motioned her left pinkie to detonate one of her planted arrows, but apparently the link was disconnected.

With visible displeasure on her face, she announced. "Follow that wizard. The price is several floors upstairs!"

There was only one problem, the nortlander and Baron's henchmen was still blocking their way. And she wasn't really sure the room is still safe to tread into. She could see anything that was remotely magical, but the hazard often came from the physical realm as well.

Drawing Lurea on its fullest draw, Jazdia released her crystal arrow toward the line of enchanted arrows she had previously planted. Employing the of the old adage When in doubt, blast it! to its full effects.

Sovereign's Will: A Fantasy Roleplaying Game. [CONCLUDED]

The enemy's heavy frontliner was down. Good thing because Jazdia didn't have to involve herself in another fight. Not possible considering she hadn't been able to break her own stalemate. The violet hue on her eyes had been returned when the Druid's conjured vegetation covered the wizard's shield, and he saw him preparing another spell.

And Veronica's shouting.

"Acid fog incoming! We need to get out of here!"

Even from this distance, the spreading vapor had started to contaminate the air with a sickly mustard-ish stench. Her eyes darted immediately toward the door. It was locked, but nothing explosive arrows couldn't handle.

She hated the idea of terrorizing the hapless henchmen had to be stopped now, but her priority was always clear. The elf leaped for Matilda and dragged her toward the exit.

"Come on! To the door! Double time!"

In her restless surveillance on the encroaching mist, the not-so-transparent-anymore-barrier, and the door, she saw the druid running around frantically and searching the pile of thrashed tableware. What he did next was unobservable as Jazdia had better things to do, like pushing Matilda not so gently and prepared her arrow, that fortunately had been enchanted prior to this tactical retreat. Again, that made her grit her teeth.

This would be the last time she looked back; The barrier was still up, the mist nearly reached her, and in that critical situation she saw the bear-- urinating?

Jazdia was lost for words, simply because she had to hold her breath to prevent toxic fumes from entering her lungs, or perhaps to maintain her sanity remained intact. The next bizarre thing that happened was Jazdia watching the urine-soaked fabric disgustingly waving like a very filthy cape as the druid propelled himself against the door and body-slammed it repeatedly. Like... err animal?

Sadly, communication, one of the most underrated aspects of society had been cut off from them. The notion that those guys could dispel their barrier any moment and shoot her when she was so occupied running from mist started to get on her nerve. In desperation, the elf drew her bow and aimed at the door, with a raging bear blocking it, hoping Cedar would take notice and move aside... Or somebody would be kind enough to nudge the stinky bear out of the way.