The phantasmal limbs that had sprouted from her shoulders finally finished making the link of signs that they had been engaged in, and a burst of entropic magic flowed out of Alistaira’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. If one could see it in person it would be as though a sicky purple fog was ejected from those places like it had been forced through a nozzle, and while the effect only lasted a short while it was more than enough to purge the contaminants from Alistaira’s body. She now no longer had any need for the spectral arms and hands, and with a wave of one of her flesh and blood arms the four extras faded away.

She turned and watched as the black-skinned Tiefling desperately tried to escape the thin but extremely durable longsword that was currently chasing it. The flying cursed sword had a much easier time changing direction than the assassin did, and slowly but surely the hitman’s outfit was being sliced up and their body was gradually gaining newer and newer cuts. Said cuts did not run deep, but even if the Tiefling could keep dodging for eternity it would eventually meet a ‘death by papercuts’.

However, as it so happened, Alistaira had decided that the situation that she had found herself in was the perfect place to test just how much a sentient and living non-human could take. Ever the one to experiment if it meant uncovering new knowledge, Alistaira wove a spell and sat in the air, crossing her legs as she floated on what seemed to be an invisible chair. Her large, thick grimoire began to flip through its own pages, landing on one in particular as Alistaira’s flying sword ceased its attack and returned to her. The arcane sigils on the page that the grimoire had stopped on began to glow, and the ground beneath the tired assassin erupted as thorny vines half as thick as standard can of soda (store bought and from the USA, mind you, as some places have thicker or thinner cans and the standard) emerged from underneath and wound themselves tightly around the limbs and torso of the hitman.

The thorns began to rip into any exposed flesh and added yet more damage to any bits of cloth or leather that remained. The assassin wordlessly struggled against the brambles for a few moments before accepting that they were not going to escape. The assassin then bit down hard on one of its own teeth, and in so doing ended up swallowing a potent poison. The hitman’s body began to convulse and foam at the mouth as the pitch-black eyes in its head rolled back, exposing yet more blackness, but this was not going to deter Alistaira from her desire to experiment. The dead, by her command, would not stay dead for long, and a simple exercise in necromancy was more than enough to bring the Tiefling back to ‘life’.

…

Elthairon stood on the deck of a sand ship that was making its way across Mortis’ version of the Sahara Desert, occasionally looking back towards where he had been born and raised. This was certainly not the best ship that money could buy, but that did not matter to him any more than you would think. He had no further ability to dwell in the Arbiana Sultanate, and he was almost sure that, even though the assassin he had hired would do their job, they would just be hired again afterwards to try and hunt himself down.

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Thus, he had no real recourse but to flee to the place his family originally came from, the deep jungles and vast savannas that his kind normally called home. If the escape system had worked properly, all of the estate’s valuables (aside from personnel) would have been stripped from the manor and its grounds and ended up in the vaults beneath the large trees that his relatives had wound together over the course of centuries. He could return to the land of his ancestors, but he would do so only to face ridicule and scorn. But he was an Elf, and he could very easily outlive his enemies. Even if it took him decades to plan out and execute his revenge, having to deal with the irritants that were his family and the shame of being forced to run away to save his skin for a few tens of years was a small price to pay in the long run.

He had, in this time of stress, at least partially grown up, but that was not going to stop him from engaging in his childish pursuits even among his own people. He had learned the art of the deal, and he hoped that by the time he was ready to retaliate against the people or Ars-Saihar that even his own kin would be firmly wedged in his pocket.

As for if that were to come true or not? Well, we all know that the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.

…

While Alistaira was dealing with the assassin sent after her, a battle was taking place on the docks between the crew of the black ship and a bunch of hired goons. Said mooks had tried to force their way aboard in order to douse the ship in naphtha and dried straw but had been repulsed by the sailors aboard Darksol’s ship and pushed back and away from the ship itself. Then, as the thugs were being pushed further away, another few group of nameless grunts joined in on the action and now the sailors and criminals were engaged in a kind of reverse tug of war where neither side would allow the other to push any further into their ‘territory’.

There were fewer sailors than there were mooks, but just as correlation does not imply causation quantity does not imply quality. Each Darksol sailor was the match of at least three and a half of the goons, and to make matters even worse for Elthairon’s parting gift the sailors were armed enchanted weapons and armor. Be that as it may, the numbers of the scumbags were growing and replacing each numbskull that was left bleeding out on the ground. The sailors were gradually being pushed back towards the black ship, but Alistaira had left a surprise of her own that could be called upon if the situation was ever so dire that it was needed.

Three of the sailors retreated from the melee and got back on the ship, opened some chests that had been placed around the deck and took out some rather bizarre objects. They then placed these objects on top of a kind of multi-jointed swivel arm system and after locking the objects in place they flipped the switches on the devices. The objects began to move on their own, using the modified man-portable camera stabilizing device as a way to move themselves into a better position before the end of the objects erupted with the sound similar to that of a Thompson Sub-Machinegun. Immediately the sailors hit the ground and watched as the thugs that had given them such a hard time were ripped apart by a hail of magical bolts.

After a solid minute of non-stop shooting, the firing stopped, and the sailors began the process of finishing off any of the grunts that were not already dead and cleaning up the mess. By the time Alistaira got back to the ship, the dock was devoid of the broken bodies that had previously littered it and all that was left of the battle were the places where blood had seeped in between the stones.