Immortal [Open]

OOC: This thread is starting right in the middle of a fight. If you want to join, keep in mind that your character will have been fighting with my two (Aleksandr Sokoll and Kichaa Mesoa) for a while now. Feel free to make assumptions on why they're fighting, or just fight, but there's one thing I don't want in here and this is it:

FLASHBACKS.

So don't include those. Two character spots are open, so if you want to come in with one, go right ahead, and if you want to come in with two, go right ahead. If you come in with one, though, you'll have to work with someone else during the fight.

IC: Aleksandr Sokoll and Kichaa Mesoa leaned their backs against one another, chests heaving in a mismatched rhythm. Blood dripped from a cut below the wizards' eye and from the cold iron of the swordsman's sword. Eyes closed in the trust born from unadulterated desperation and the tiredness born from strenuous combat, the two were disturbingly symmetric, the combined demeanor of their fatigued stance strangely alert in its carelessness. They knew where they were in the instinctual way only a person who has fought somewhere knows that place so thoroughly.

"Are they coming?"

The single shaft of golden-white light in the room beyond, defined by the dust motes dancing in its light, cast an eerie panel of shadows across the columns between which they were resting. A sound of footsteps, morphed and distorted by the concrete walls and stone pillars, echoed into the corridor to their left. It ricocheted off into the corridor to their right, reverberating quietly and loudly at the same time and encompassing the enclosed space of the underground palace. The shaft of light from the ceiling behind Aleksandr—and in front of Kichaa—was the only source of illumination through the entire hall, the sconces having long-since bereft of their torches and the braziers having long-since burnt to gray ash.

"They're coming," Kichaa muttered, his eyes still closed. His tone was more longsuffering than worried or frightened."

"Have you ever fought anyone for this long before?" Aleksandr asked, opening his eyes to turn slightly towards his battle companion, "This cannot possibly be ordinary."

"Not ordinary," Kichaa muttered. He rubbed the slight, sticky film of saliva from his lips with one fist. "Usually I'm in it to kill, not to win."

"I see your point."

The two of them stood almost at the same moment, as if on some unspoken agreement. Kichaa opened his brown eyes, let them adjust to the cool, dry underground air once more. He rotated his neck in a slow, purposeful circle and ignored the sound of Aleksandr coughing and setting his staff. The cold iron shuddered slightly as he planted his feet more firmly, his arm shivering with the rest of his body as he coughed. Dust was everywhere in the underground palace, but the ash and the lack of moisture on this particular level was almost intolerable to him. Time seemed to be passing at a snail's pace underground, where no sign of light and no graduated change in the general atmosphere could signal any passage of hours.

Kichaa had long since let go the hope that he would end this fight quickly, or that his wizardly compatriot could do much more than give him support. He had always detested fighting in an enclosed space, or in the dark, but this situation had him pushing his luck. Most of his reactions were dulled by the darkness, his sight was all but nullified unless the wizard did something that was particularly flashy, and he was having trouble finding room to move quickly in the closed space between the walls and the columns. All he knew with certainty was that there was one fewer column now than there had been when they entered, and that it was all the fault of his support magician.

That, and he was at a standstill. Whoever he was fighting was good enough to avoid getting knocked out of the fight, but not quite good enough to end the fight on his—or her—own strength. Hell, there could have been two of them. The silhouettes had been either changing or morphing throughout the entire fight, appearing first to be one thing and then to be another. It was almost confusing.

"Ready to go again?" Kichaa asked.

The sound of footsteps seemed to be getting closer.

"I am ready when you are," Aleksandr replied, the runes of his gauntlet glowing vivid blue with the energies of his gathered magic. It cast a glow into the corridor near them, shocking Kichaa's eyes only a bit.

OOC: I'll lay claime to both spots. Check my sig for Acthaiyne and Blackharrow.

This looks very promising, by the way. I can really appreciate your writing style. ^^

IC:

“Did you see where they went?” Acthaiyne whispered, his sword held out firmly before him.

Mathias narrowed his eyes as me moved down the corridor, nodding. “Yes,” he whispered in reply. “They moved deeper into the palace. Into that room, up there.” He looked down to his shield, and frowned at the fresh gouge deep into the wood. 'Quite a swing, he thought.

The doorway, along with everything else around them, appeared illuminated to the two. The walls, pillars, even the dust particles-- it all appeared vividly in shades of blue and green. Mathias’ alchemy had, again, come to purpose, giving them two long-lasting Nighteye potions. Acthaiyne hesitated a moment to study the structure of the area around him, before gently tapping Mathias’ armor, who turned to face him.

Looking back toward the doorway, Acthaiye spoke. “I think that is the throne room for this place,” he said, motioning toward it. “Look at the pillars. The layout is similar to the Cradian palaces.”

With a shake of his head, Mathias said, “I would say the design resembles Charnian dwarves rather than Cradians. Either way, though, I think you are correct; that does indeed look like doorway of a throne room. Be on your guard, friend-- if they’ve found the relic, then this fight just got much more deadly.”

The thought made the Thaumaturge grimace. 'If only I had taken another step before I slashed', he thought, I could have cleaved his head in twain instead of just the scathe on the eyebrow!'

Acthaiyne nodded gently in recognition before they crept to the doorway. They quietly huddled against the stone frame of the door; Acthaiyne bit his lip as the rough stone brushed against the gash in his shoulder from a stray slash of their opponents, and Mathias quickly leaned his head in, and withdrew it. It was confirmed. There were two masses of purple amidst the green and blue, and Mathias held up two fingers to his companion: a signal that both men were inside, armed, and ready for round two. Acthaiyne nodded, and made another signal in return-- a closed fist, quickly opening like an explosion. Mathias understood immediately.

Silently, he leaned his mace against his neck and pulled a palm-fitted glass vial from the pouch behind his shield. He motioned to Acthiayne-- a flat wave of his hand, indicating a barrier was necessary-- who replied with a nod. Then, the fireworks started.

Whipping his hand around the corner, the potion left his finger tips, doomed to smash against the dusty stone floor. As soon as he retracted his hand, Acthaiyne sealed a barrier over the door frame, locking both the enemies and the explosion into the room. Once the potion smashed open, the orange fluid would reacted immediately with the oxygen around it, and a flash of a firestorm would sweep into the room in the blink of an eye. The fire was hot enough to melt away skin and leather armor, sear wood and make red hot steel.

As soon as the sound of the flash fire passed, the two rushed synchronized into the room, weapons at the ready to clean up the two men, should they have absorbed the potion.

"Adbelydra danio!"

The regal, rolling syllables of Aleksandr's roar echoed loudly against the walls and into the corridor beyond as an abrupt and shockingly bright flare of blue-white light replaced his closed fist. Kichaa jerked his eyes away, covering them quickly with his forearm, and even then he felt the wash of magic luminescence needle into his eyes. The grip he had on his sword faltered long enough that when he gripped it tighter and more savagely, he felt the knuckles of his hand pop slightly out of place. Even with his eyes shielded by his arm, he could see the stark contrast of the light cast by the magic and the darkness created by the shadows it created. It dulled as sharply as it rose, losing most of its fervor as the flash fire passed.

"They are coming," Aleksandr muttered, his steady, clear voice seeming bland and insignificant in comparison to the thundering command of his shout, "Please ready yourself."

Gods, above, Kichaa thought, blinking his eyes in the shimmering light of the shield the wizard was still holding around them. It had formed into a half-dome, leaving off at the floor, where an obvious line of charred dust and stone made it obvious that the fire would have done a considerable bit more than scald them. He had met some wizards in his day, even ones that could pull off a metaphysical brawl against some of the nastier monsters and mayhem-bent warlocks. It was still impressive to see one really cut loose with the defensive magic, to throw up a barrier that precise in so much time. As far as the untrained but highly educated swordsman could tell, the shield had stopped the kinetic energy of the alchemical mixture that had been in the bottle and the heat of the fire itself.

"Ready," the swordsman said, twitching the sword in his hand. Iron was no specialty metal, but it was going to have to do well enough for his purposes. The opponent, or opponents, seemed to be at least half-way mortal beings. He was decently sure one of them had a shield, too, which made things more complicated. The ones with shields were always better at close ranges.

The wizard was the first to step out into the fray, his shield bending and altering without any sign of strain or effort on the part of its creator. Its half-dome curved outwards and flattened into a solid wall that covered several yards of space directly in front of the door and illuminated the pair of antagonists, giving Kichaa a good look at the two as he stepped out and gripped the hilt of his sword in both hands. It was obvious immediately why, exactly, the pair had been able to avoid being beaten with the immediacy the swordsman had first expected. Both looked competent, both were decently armed, and both gave off the strong, confident aura of a person who was at home and capable in a combat situation. A stoic frown set across the swordsman's features as he strode forward and set his feet.

Aleksandr shifted his shield again, pinning one end against the wall and angling the other so that anyone coming for him would have to step around the transparent wall of light and walk straight into Kichaa.

"The pale one is an undead of some kind," the wizard warned, his voice low and quick, his eyes narrowing on the vampire with sharp focus, "He uses living magic. I can only distract him for so long with any of my spells. We should keep them on the defensive."

"To late for that, here they come."

The two stopped in their tracks when the bright light flashed. They might have been blinded had Mathias been a novice alchemist; the nighteye potions would have magnified the light. But because he knew his way around his mortar and pestle, their eyes rapidly adjusted to the light, and they were hardly stunned by it.

Acthaiyne noticed the magic immediately and scowled. Barriers. ‘We can play this game, if they want,’ he thought with a feeling of excitement. He always enjoyed practicing his Thaumaturgy against someone else’s magic. As Mathias identified the swordsman, Acthaiyne waved a distinct purple barrier toward him. This barrier moved with all the speed of the fastest horses, and was intent on sending the swordsman flying from his position and sprawling to the cobblestone ground. The barrier would then turn to wrap around the edge of the enemy wizard’s own barrier, and begin to push it out of the way.

Unless this wizard was an expert in barrier magics, Acthaiyne knew his own could easily push their shield aside. It served two purposes: one, it would leave them momentarily vulnerable, and two, it would display the caliber of sorcerer this enemy was. He was excited to see the level of spell mastery this man had, as it had been a while since a decent magic fight.

His mace-wielding friend was significantly less enthusiastic about combat. Mathias enjoyed it, in his own way, but he never found pleasure in risking his own life, or in taking another’s. As he charged forth on the swordsman, his next move depended entirely on the effect of the barrier.

If the barrier did knock the swordsman down, Mathias would rush to him, to accurately bring the full weight of his mace down on him with a pommel-swing. If the swordsman rolled or took to his feet, Mathias was capable of redirecting his mace’s momentum before collision with the ground, to swing with aided momentum for the next exposed spot. If the swordsman rolled, that spot would be his right hip, from Mathias’ angle; if the swordsman moved back and got to his feet, it would be his legs.

But if the warrior somehow managed to avoid the barrier, or if the barrier was negated, Mathias was content with a standing fight to trade shots in. He knew he had the advantage in a close-range fight; he was an armored, shielded enemy with close range, and his foe was unshielded wielding a blade too long for close-range maneuvering. He realized the swordsman would try to break away and keep distance until support could come, but he hoped his own support would aid him first.

And indeed it would. As soon as Acthaiyne saw the two engage, no matter the effect of the first barrier, he would shoot out his sword hand to form a much thicker, stronger barrier between the enemy wizard and his companion. The process of holding two different kind of high-energy barriers was taxing: one was a mobile, kinetic barrier, and the other was a static wall. Acthaiyne was unable to attack for the moment, but he hoped his assistance to Mathias’ would make up for it until he could dive into the fray.

Tricks within tricks, Aleksandr thought, almost in tandem with a similarly-emphasized but more crudely-worded verbal sentiment from Kichaa. The two of them separated immediately, though they were already fairly distant from one another, in an instant reaction to the oncoming wave of magic. Neither knew exactly what it would do, of course; the swordsman didn't have the knowledge and the wizard had no desire to poke it and prod it at the expense of a quick fix. Both of them did have the same general idea, though.

Get away from it.

The brunt of the impact landed full-on in a blast that sent Kichaa off his feet and flying backwards, though fortunately not off-balance. He had already been reflexively skipping away from the barrier when it hit him, halfway off the ground and all the way prepared to go through with a jump and a landing. The jump and the landing he was subjected to just happened to be an impressive amount larger and more disturbing than a little backwards hop. The hit from the mage barrier knocked him backwards and out of the most luminous area of the fight, giving him a good excuse to fade back even further into the shadows. He kept his eye on the advancing warrior even as he did it, aware that the shield had gone down already.

Aleksandr had taken no damage whatsoever from the barrier. His magic functioned on an entirely different wavelength from the one his opposition threw at him, resulting in a defunct wash of purple energy that bypassed the kinetic shield entirely. With Kichaa knocked out of the fight and the warrior distracted, the wizard had already come to the conclusion that the shield would be functionally useless in any fight he took part in—it looked like it was going to be the predictable pairing. Warrior-versus-warrior, magician-versus-magician was poetically appropriate, he admitted that much to himself, but it left out a great deal of potential for foul play and tripping up the opponent. Magicians were so much more difficult to trick than warriors.

As his shield dropped, the wizard took a deep breath of the cool, dusty air and let it out in a single word.

"Dalla."

The energy of his spell congealed quietly and subtly, insidious and cruel. He imagined a faint circle in his line of sight, a pentagram sealed within it, and the energies of his spell became a firm reality that he could direct. He lifted a hand in an imperious, dismissive gesture of nigh-contempt and let his curse fly at the opposing mage. Direct combat wizardry had been the name of the game so far, but with the lights out except for the dull glow of his shielding glove, he was at a disadvantage against an opponent who could see him. He presented a fine old target, a bastion of prepared light in a dark place; a curse to take away sight seemed entirely appropriate.

Meanwhile, Kichaa was taking advantage of the darkness in which he believed he had the advantage. That he could be wrong, of course, never occurred to him. He moved deeper into the shadowed room until he felt the smooth, cool brick of a wall, then backtracked further from there until he was in a corner. The fight could only come from one way, which limited him but, he thought, made him a harder target to find in the darkness. That he was wrong was just an unfortunate chance he had taken.

Mathias let out a snarl as the swordsman fell too far back to engage. Though he wanted to pursue, the path would take him nearer to the wizard who, at the moment, Mathias had no intentions of dancing with. Instead, he watched the swordsman back his way into a corner. 'Protecting his back in exchange for an escape route, he thought. It may have been a good plan, had Mathias not been able to see through the shadows.

But he knew that, were he to charge the man, there would be too much reaction time. The swordsman could probably outmaneuver Mathias easily; though he was exceptionally agile in his light armor, armed with a heavy mace and shield, the man had none of these burdens. It was safe to assume that the foe, by default, was faster. So Mathias counted on a different skill.

He knew that he, too, was covered in shadows. The man should not be able to see him. So he saw tno reason, excluding intervention by the sorcerer, that this plan should fail. He quietly slipped his mace into his left hand and pulled free a small glass vial from the pouch on the backside of his shield. Then, with impressive percision, he hurled it at the man's feet. Upon shattering, the orange liquid would make contact with oxygen, and the dangerous chemical would promptly explode. Though the shockwave of the potion would be miniscule, the intense, sticky flames could kill or severely wound in the blink of an eye. The man's reaction or condition would decide Mathais' next move.

Acthaiyne, however, was having a more difficult time. The enemy sorcerer was using a type of magic with which the young vampire was not familiar. A blink and a slight sigh would be his only reaction to being struck blind. It was clear that he was more annoyed than worried. It was not a sign of a lack of appreciation for the danger he was in, nor that he was overconfident; it was simply a testament to his strange brand of silly madness.

Though his eyes presented him only with a wabbling black picture, his other senses were heightened enough to understand the situations around him. He could hear the clinking of Mathias to his left and the sound of the potion zipping through the air. He could smell the two foes to his right, the wizard closer than the swordsman. It was enough to survive, but unfortunately, not enough to fight. Until he had the time and concentration to cook up a dispell enchantment, which would take a bit of both considering it is of an unfamiliar school of magic, he was stuck that way.

And so Acthaiyne reverted to the default. "Mathias!" He shouted out. The warrior, of course, knew what Acthaiyne meant. They had fought together before. Acthaiyne shoved his hands forward, and one giant barrier from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, tore through the room. Mathias knew to get against the nearest wall on his left, the opposite side of the room from the enemies. The barrier has a door-shaped hole that would pass over Mathias. But the other two were too far and too confined to reach it, and would have to take the barrier's force, or negate it somehow. If taken, the barrier would slam them agaisnt the stone wall behind them, and press against them with an incredible weight-- more than a human could lift off himself. A second barrier quickly followed to intensify these factors, before Mathias lunged back into the battle. Hopefully, it would be as simple as smashing the heads of two pinned foes.

Perceptiveness in the non-visual senses is indirectly increased by the darkness, auditory senses in particular. Kichaa, over the years, had become gradually aware of this fact and made it a point to avoid ‘practicing' anything like seeing in the dark, since his instincts were good enough on their own that he could react better without the practice. In this instance, his avoidance of hard work paid off perfectly—he sensed the movement of the bottle, hearing the slight whisper of moving air as it tumbled in his direction. His reaction was too large to be called a flinch, but too sudden and sharp to be a practiced movement. His arm lashed out, dipped low, and rounded into a gentle cup to receive the flung bottle. It fell almost perfectly into his hand and he had a firm hold on it before he truly realized he'd moved at all.

The clatter of his sword as it left his hand was what startled him into that realization. Clanging, scraping, horrendously loud, and ridiculously amusing, it was a bothersome way of telling anyone nearby exactly where he was. They already knew, he thought, coming upon that revelation as his fingers closed a bit more tightly on the jar that had fallen into his grip. Can they see in the dark?

Aleksandr was coming to no such conclusions. He was anticipating and reacting to the spells of his own opponent, the artistry of whose magic he had to respect even as it threatened his life. The barrier was on a magical wavelength entirely apart from his own, similar to the faith-based magic he had encountered in use by some Catholic priests but creating effects more similar to his own magic. He had to admit that it was an impressive way of working spells. A slight frown crossed his normally bland features as he focused energy into another spell, reacting with quick clarity to the warning shout from the other magician to his warrior counterpart.

"Caethiwa," Aleksandr hissed, the magical energy of his spell illuminating his staff in a wave of harsh, cold greenish light. Half the room was suddenly brought into sharp, washed-out relief as the light from his staff spilled out and covered him in a murky, glassy kind of glow.

The barrier struck something with all the acceptance of a cornered wolf and the give of a twenty ton keystone, ground to an audible halt, and squealed savagely as its opposition flickered into sight.

Revealed under the green-white glow of Aleksandr's magic, the spirit was a hideous, grotesque figure of a thing, sinuous and hatefully malevolent in its very appearance. A barbed-wire collar of dull white, glinting green, was wrapped around its jaws and neck, distorting it with the power of deliberate and cruelly tailored pain. In life, the apparition was clearly humanoid and, judged only by the strength of its sheer metaphysical mass, immensely powerful. Now it was a slave. Kichaa tore his gaze from the hideous spirit to look at his wizardly ally, noting in a moment the dull set of the wizard's eyes and the calmly, coldly horrible way the man's expression seemed to settle between arrogant haughty and imperious power.

The swordsman broke his gaze from that, too, and fumbled to find the sword he had dropped. This fight was just starting, and he was less and less afraid of his opponents. He tossed the unbroken bottle of alchemical liquids to his left, plucked up the sword as soon as his fingers touched it, and dodged warily closer to the wizard.

When the barrier stopped, Acthaiyne took a stumbling step back. He had not anticipated resistance so soon. But when his eyes caught the new creature fighting his magic, illuminated in the purple light of the barrier and the green light of the enemy magic, he shoved his hands forward, exponentially multiplying the force of the barrier. He held the barrier in place with his sword hand as he drew his staff out in the other, and with his staff brandished, he shoved forward again.

The barrier would be moving forward at more than five times the force that it had come with before, due to the additional effects of the staff. But Acthaiyne was no longer interested in pinning the enemies-- they were far too able for that, and he doubted it would hold them long anyway, in light of this wizard's tricks. So, instead, he flicked his wrists and the barrier began to close up around the newly-summoned beast. It would quickly clasp shut behind it, becoming one spherical barrier, and could trap the wizard as well, were he close enough. Acthaiyne then began to ball his hands up into interlaced fists around his sword and staff, shrinking the barrier to crush into dust anything that dwelled inside. It was one of the easiest ways to turn this brand of magic into an incredibly deadly force: trap something or someone inside a barrier, which was easy to do, and crush it.

Mathias seemed to be fairing a little differently. He scowled when he saw the man catch his potion, but when he realized the man had dropped his sword, he took advantage. Lunging through the air, he shoved the spike of his targ shield foreward. The man was cornered-- no where to run, trapped between the two stone walls and the oncoming eight-inch spike. Mathias was well-aware of the possibility that the man would try to use the potion against him, but trusted that he could impact the enemy before he had a chance to toss the vial. If it broke, it would torch them both. Mathias was relatively confident the man would not do something so selfdestructive.

Perhaps it was something about that particular wavelength of magic, perhaps the barrier had been designed for that particular purpose, but somehow Aleksandr felt his control slip from the spirit. The garrote wire of power he held around its neck, though it was still there and still driving the long-dead creature mad with pain and anger, fizzled from his metaphysical grip and he found his surprise to be entirely genuine. That was impressive, cutting him off from the spirit, but it was a bit pointless. The spirit was no familiar of his; its obliteration meant nothing to him.

Rather than dwell on that slight miscalculation of his foe's magical might, he took matters into his own hands and directed his attention at the vial arcing across the room. It caught the light and glinted, tumbling end-over-end towards the enemy spellcaster. The bottle shattered onto the floor several feet short of the man and burst into sudden and violent flames that seemed all-too-familiar to the wizard. He smiled appreciatively and cast a look back at Kichaa, who was still struggling against the much better armored man with the mace. . .or was it an axe? It was too dark for the wizard to tell, even with the shine of his magic, and he really cared very little either way.

The swordsman did seem to be having some trouble. His sword was a bit long to be in so close with an armored man with a shield, and he seemed to be ducking around a bit strangely. The stain of crimson on the front of his shirt, dark and wet as he turned towards the light, told the story of why: that spiked targe must have hit him. Either way, Aleksandr decided, he was doing fine on his own for the moment.

"Dreisio," the wizard muttered, gesturing vaguely towards the general direction of the other magician as he said the word. A wave of kinesis, invisible and unlit but displacing enough air that it almost seemed to create tangible bubbles, flung out towards the alchemical flames in a rush.

Kichaa was a great deal less lackadaisical. Accustomed to the pain he had been dealing with since the spike had pierced his side, luckily not hitting anything vital, he was trying his best to maneuver along the wall towards his wizard support and away from the armored menace. He saw and opening and leapt for it, scything his sword over the shield as he hopped to the side and out of the cornered position.

Acthaiyne was pleased with the victory over the beast, but in the end, it proved to be little more than a distraction. In truth, the enemy wizard’s spell simply caught his attention too late. He cursed, and threw up a quick and hasty barrier to protect himself, but the enemy spell caster had put more strength into his spell. The translucent purple wall wavered briefly before tearing through, and the flaming wave of force slammed into Acthaiyne hard. The strength of the spell projected him from his feet, and even in his daze he knew he was airborne. He quickly concocted a barrier to protect himself from a devastating impact, but again, he had too little time to make a strong enough barrier.

The magic softened the blow when his back slammed into the stone wall behind him, but the force was still powerful enough to crack a rib on impact. Sliding down the wall to the dirty floor, Acthaiyne gasped for breath for a moment, before forcing himself to his feet on the balance of his staff. Instantly, he threw up a purple sphere around him too thick to see through, and it was obvious that this was a very strong barrier. He was injured, now-- he needed a moment to regroup, or fighting in his daze could cost him his life.

In the corner, Mathias shifted slightly as the man slipped from his grasp. It was satisfying that the spike had pierced the man’s flesh, but Mathias could only guess where. He assumed it had hit him somewhere between his gut and his thighs, but until the man had escaped Mathias’ shield, he could not see where. Finally, illuminated by the blue shades of the Night Eye potion, he was able to see that he had stuck the man in the side with the spike of the targ. He knew this would slow his movements and curb his balance a bit, and he had no intention of losing his advantage.

When the swordsman scattered from his cornered position, Mathias answered with a sudden swing toward the man’s hips. If it hit, it would be an incredibly painful blow, probably breaking the pelvis. If it missed, it would effectively force the man to step away from his sword and give Mathias the time to cut him off from it. But the man's replying blade forced Mathias to draw back slightly and lift his shield, glancing the blade a bit too close to his face for comfort. He was unharmed, but the brief lapse in defensive ability caused his aim to blunder, and the shot would probably miss. They had been fighting for some time now, and it was beginning to wear on him; his shield arm was getting tired, and he was beginning to drop if past shoulder level. It was a rookie mistake, and usually the last mistake a rookie makes. He noted not to make it again, before pushing away from the wall to pursue the swordsman. The distance between he and the lighter-clad for was annoying, but he knew all he had to do was draw him in and he would have him.

Mathias began to subtly leave spots open. The split between his brigandine cuirass and his studded leather greaves made a very tempting shot on his hip, just around the edge of his shield. It was not completely exposed, but just exposed enough to look like a target without looking like a trap.

"The magician is temporarily subdued," Aleksandr called, almost casually. "Do you want any support?"

Kichaa hopped back a step, sacrificing the perfect opening he had spotted to create more distance between them. Faint light was spilling over his shoulder, but he dared not look back to see what the wizard was doing to cast that eerie white green glow. After less than a moment of thought, the swordsman nodded sharply and pronouncedly. What followed was, to his mind, a bit zealous as far as attacks went. This wizard was pulling no punches, something he had never seen any of the self-proclaimed wizards he had met and murdered do.

Two shapes loomed past him. Saying they walked would be going too far altogether—they did not actually use locomotion, as evidenced by the lack of relation between their limbs moving and their velocity. Calling them animals would have been generous, as well. The first looked rather like a bear of some kind, if a bear had been murdered gruesomely, cut into pieces, and sewn back together by a madman. Its legs, two of which provided its apparent movement, were all separated in some place from their natural places, one foreleg actually hanging only by what appeared to be ethereal tendons. The creature gave off a dull green glow, not at all wholesome or encouraging.

The other was a bit more simplistic and much more innately terrifying. It was solid black, such that it only had a silhouette and lacked any depth whatsoever, and its eyes burned with literal crimson flames. Its teeth, bared in a silent snarl, glowed milky white. Kichaa shivered at them and looked back at his opponent, hefting his sword in an attempt to muster his offense again, trying his hardest not to stipulate on the implications of the savage, iridescent green wire wrapped around the throats of both spirits.

The green glow might have signified a lot to a fellow wizard, but to Mathias, it said one thing: a magic trick. It was not something he enjoyed dealing with, and it was the exact reason he kept with him the one potion that could save him now. It was incredibly expensive to produce, and difficult to manufacture, but it was a necessary thing. As soon as he spotted the two disturbing creatures behind his foe, he snatched the potion from the pouch behind his shield.

"Acthaiyne!" he called out. His ally understood the warning from a premade agreement.

Mathias dropped the potion, and stomped the glass vial with beneath his boot. A sudden white flash, followed by a brilliant shimmer akin to crystaline rain, overtook the room, encompassing all four of the warriors. It was a dispel potion, the only one that Mathias kept with him, and all magical effects within its bounds would be vanquished for that moment.

It was all Mathias needed to even the odds, and one second was all it took to end fights. When he stomped his foot down, it was the first step as he broke into a sprint toward the swordsman; the potion activated, and he was already in the process of making his next attack. When he neared the enemy swordsman, hopefully temporarily disoriented by the sudden and unexpected effects of the potion, he swung his mace back-handed at shoulder level. It would be an incapacitating smash, and most likely fatal with a snap of the neck and a possibility of crusing the skull. Mathias did not fully expect the shot to land, as this enemy had maneuvered out of harder attacks, so he did not stop his sprint; if the attack did not land, the for would again find himself rammed with the spike of the shield, level with his chest.

When the dispel potion struck the room, Acthaiyne's shield vanished for a moment. Having expected it, he quickly formed a large cone-shaped barrier, and forced it toward the enemy wizard. He hoped the wizard would be distracted by the potion, and that the cone could take advantage of his distraction and impale him. Acthaiyne knew of no way he could stop it, but the wizard had shown his adaptive nature several times thus far, and remained wary. Still injured, he remained against the wall, a thin shield around him to keep out anything unexpected while he made his attack.

Of the two, Kichaa reacted first.

One hand jerked up, sword flashing in the rapidly-diminishing glow of the dispel potion, and he ducked smoothly beneath the oncoming mace. His head dipped as low as his waist as his knees bent and one foot, his right, slid back to brace his body against the oncoming warrior. The blade of the sword rasped harshly as it caught in the corner between the spike and the shield to which it was attached. The hand holding the sword jerked again, reacting even in the darkness to the feel of the shield and how it was moving, jamming the cruciform hilt onto the shield and creating a handle from the leverage caused.

His other hand, the right, slipped past the shield and dipped under the arm that was still swinging that dangerous mace, groping for something he had seen before all the lights went away. A hard, savage grin stretched his lips when his fingers touched the hem of tabard his foe wore and followed it up to the man's neckline. His fingers closed around the collar and he pulled down, bending his knees and shoving the shield heavily to the side as he pulled, falling back onto the ground and dragging the other fighter along with him.

In the three seconds it took for him to get that done, Aleksandr had begun reacting in his own way. A marble glinted in the darkness, held between two of his fingers, and he tossed it towards the oncoming magical force with a word: "Aflwyddi."

The magic rushed out of him, into the marble, and took form in a blazing red hand made of flame and fueled as much by his cold anger as by his magic. The hand distorted sickly, wavered for a moment as the spell narrowed on its target, and slammed closed around the oncoming barrier cone. Aleksandr watched the other spell shatter underneath the curse, savage light burning in his eyes because he refused to look away from the inferno of dispersed energies, and waited until it had torn the spell entirely asunder before he looked to the other spellcaster. A sneering smile revealed his teeth in a humorless smile.

The runes of his staff burned out as he dropped it, his hand moving deftly beneath his duster to the thong that held his rod. The rune-carved silver spike came force with an unnatural glimmer of purplish-white light, leveled dramatically on the dim shield of his opponent, and came to a halt. His savage smile curled up on one side.

"Baria," he growled, channeling pure hatred into the spell. A bolt of lightning as thick as his arm buzzed across the room in a heartbeat, burning the air and creating the harsh tinge of ozone as it illuminated the closed room like a flash of full-on natural lightning

Suddenly, Mathias found himself off-balance. Before he could regain himself, he was crashing to the ground atop the swordsman. He would be out of his element on the ground, but it was not something he was unfamiliar with. It was the simple idea of using a warrior's sheild against him, whereby making his shield one's own. But with quick reations, Mathias was able to turn the
tactics aside.

As the two of them dropped to the ground, he released his mace instantly and his hand flew to the nearest weapon on him. His dagger was on his hip, his bootknife where it should be, but the closest weapon was the clockwork pistol tucked behind the pouch on his belt. Before he had even hit the floor with the swordsman, the pistol was drawn behind the secret veil of his shield.

The shot was muffled by their landing. Upon hitting the ground, Mathias had jabbed the barrel of the pistol beneath the rim of his shield, level with the foe's body. It was difficult to distinguish exactly where the shot would land if it were successful; chest, gut, somewhere in the midriff. If the oppertunity was to be had, he would fire an additional shot to be certain of the swordsman's fate.

In the war of wizardry, the rules just changed. When Acthaiyne saw Mathias go down, he knew assistance was necessary. Breaking into a sprint behind the protection of his shield, he moved toward the enemy wizard just as the lightning bolt fizzled to life. The lightning bolt was easily spotted and easily blocked; Acthaiyne intensified his shield dramatically, and stopped the bolt; the blast temporarily knocked him back because the shield was not quite strong enough. It held, but it was enough to force him a step back.

After that, Acthaiyne used repeated, rapid-fire barriers to wrap around the mage, specifically to contain him and maybe do damage. Time after time, the barrier would appear and instantly hopefully wrap around his form and constrict. If not dealt with, just one of the barriers could easily crush him, or at the very least, incapacitate him for the time being. He used this to get closer to the wizard, still holding the now-thinned barrier around himself. It was an attempt to close the distance, and keep the wizard busy while Mathias sorted things out on his end. It was the best Acthaiyne could do to lend him assistance.

The gunshot registered harder and louder than Kichaa could have anticipated. Pain rushed over him in a wave of fire as the bullet tore into his diaphragm and seared through the muscle that let him breathe. The invasive insistence of that scarlet pain forced a harsh cry that was little more than a rasp past his lips, which were curled into a pained expression of hurt surprise, and his back arched stiffly against the stone until his weight made his shoulders hurt. The cry and the struggle, however meek they were, were cut short as the severity of the wound set in and his next breath jarred the bullet. It had cooled to the point of solidity and, now that it was hard, shredded what remained of his diaphragm. That last breath gasped away as the pain seared into his brain.

He was going to die.

Aleksandr found the right wavelength about that time, and it saved his life. Golden-white light erupted from the runes of his shielding gauntlet as he clenched his fist over his sternum, calling forth power from his will and channeling it into a screen around him. A translucent dome formed over his head, slightly misshaped, and in the less than complete second it had taken him to erect his mystical defense, the barriers of his opponent struck against it. Shadows danced of their own accord when the opposed magical forces struck each other, casting white-hot sparks of harmless energy onto the floor just a few feet away from the wizard. His counter-spell had been flawlessly executed, so definitely and completely opposed to the magical energy of the opposing barriers that both his spell and the spell of his enemy tore each other to pieces in that moment of contact.

It was at that exact moment of triumph and survival that his wizard senses shook themselves and stretched out towards a new presence in the room. The feeling of it was like waking from a very shallow nap very suddenly, only to find someone or something unexpected lying so close that the reaction purged all sleepiness. That was the feeling he had, and the sensation of it was enough to give him an involuntary jolt.

Death had just made its entrance, or was just about to do so. Out of his peripheral vision, in the fading light of the shattered magic, he saw the cause. That brief glance was enough to absorb his full focus in that single moment as his full attention was drawn to the quickly-dying man he had employed. Kichaa lay face-up on the ground, his eyes out of focus and his chest unnaturally still, his mouth and throat moving in such a way that left no doubt over whether or not he could take a breath. As if that were not enough to define the situation, the spreading stain on the swordsman's chest certainly would have purged all doubt.

Alek took a disbelieving half-step towards the surprisingly clean carnage of the death, stopped in his tracks, and stared.

The pain was almost gone. It was an afterthought at best, just lingering there at the edge of his consciousness and kind of half-probing him to make sure he was still alive. Soon enough the probing would stop reminding him to be alive, and he would die. It came as something of a dim surprise, but dying gave him very little fear. He had already latched onto the images of his loved ones—his father and mother, whom he had not seen in years ... his angel, who he had taken for granted. Only one unhappy thought passed through his mind, one burst of spite and hate and true loathing, and it was the last one before his life was snuffed out and that last breath wore off.

Kichaa Mesoa died.

The wizard watched it happen without expression. He had planned on killing the man anyway, of course, but this complicated matters. Now he was facing two opponents, one of whom had been hiding an evidently very effective weapon for later use and one of whom was a talented sorcerer in his own right. He was a capable man, a capable wizard, and better than most. Two-on-one was bad odds even for him, though, and he had no intention of finding out whether he could beat the odds this once. He frowned at the corpse and muttered a faint good riddance, then made for the door. His interest in this ruin was not likely to disappear when these two had their way with it, but if he stayed he would become as dead as his counterpart.

"You claim the victory," he said, his voice steely and cold in the darkness. Faint illumination spread out from him as he flushed more energy into his shield, casting hard shadows into the room. "I retreat."

Then he left.