Khana looked up from the still breathing (for now) Sam as she heard the horrible cursing of a god coming from Jace’s lips, most of the hall seemed like they wanted to crawl into a hole and hide upon hearing those viscous oaths. When the Gods walk the world you just didn’t curse them like this. Not in front of one of their Emissaries you didn’t. She jumped when she heard the snapping of the bindings on him, and stared in disbelief when he vanished. She almost thought a god had killed him until she saw the wizard who was torturing him collapse to the ground dead with the knife in his head.
She still wasn’t sure what was happening, but she knew she saw Jace use an illusion similar to this before. Suddenly a storm of power rocked the dome as Kay’rin and a naked and bloody Jace started fighting in the middle of the marble stand. Jace’s face was locked in a vicious sneer, as waves of power exploded sending warlocks flying. White cracks of power ricocheted off shields, then Jace vanished again.
Several wizards attacked, but the person they attacked was Kay’rin, they clearly were trying to take advantage of the battle between her and Jace to strike back at her for her slaughter of their collogues. Jace appeared a few dozen paces from those wizards and cut them down with a single blade of air, before vanishing again. The next place he struck he detonated ‘something’ she couldn’t even tell how he did it but a giant explosion occurred in the middle of the dome basically vaporizing the warlocks and a number of the male wizards there. Khana saw Kay’rin blown a hundred paces back away from the center of the explosion, burned and tattered and looking like she was losing the battle against the absolutely enraged Jace.
Khana took a glance at the Kindred and noted that they were quietly talking to each other not taking action, and letting the battle happen. She saw something like a smirk on the mouth of the emissary.
Jace wasn’t sure how he was freed from the bindings or the ward stopping him from touching the pulse of this world. Just one moment he was bound up screaming out his frustrations and the next he was snapping free. He didn’t hesitate, and quickly cloaked himself and launched into a battle. He was going to cheat as much as he could get away with it. His heart was screaming for vengeance. Vengeance for Sam. Vengeance for their child. Vengeance for being summoned here. Had that not occurred none of this would be happening. Sam would be alive he would be home.
He wasn’t going to stop himself. He killed for the first time. Driving that knife through that wizard’s head was strangely satisfying. This was the point he started his sleight of hand. He cast multiple illusions. In reality he never really moved far from Shawey. He actually freed her almost immediately but he kept an illusion of her dangling from the board to keep eyes away from them. He would make a vision of himself appear from time to time to direct attention elsewhere while he warred with multiple foes from the shadows. He was careful to use spells that did not originate where he was standing. So mostly used air and lightning. Most fire attacks came from the caster.
His lightning was blowing holes in the beautiful dome above their heads. He didn’t give a care. As far as he was concerned the old Grey Corpse was half of the problem this world had. He created a magic circle on the floor right in the middle of most of the men students. He wasn't killing them fast enough. He had to kill more. More... So he worked on the circle desperately, his anger crying out to make them all pay, it was a little tricky to make one using air to carve it out, especially when he was keeping up this illusion subterfuge but he wasn’t going for anything too complex. Just turning the humans standing within that circle into air pollution. He waited until his doppelganger forced Kay’rin into the circle and ignited it, not hesitating like he did before to try to kill her.
He was a little disappointed when she flew out of the explosion. Her battle instincts were horrid. She might be a genius but she didn’t know how to use all this power in a battle. Not that he was a genius, but at least he trained in something approximating a battle all be it with a sword. The constant threat of death wasn’t slowing him down in the slightest. He came up with this illusion strategy when he realized how easy illusion magic was. It was a blended magic, based off of what Kay’rin showed him when she was testing for channeler. He never saw the people here use illusionary magic, so he figured it would be a useful tool in a fight. Especially considering most mage’s difficulty with melded spells. This was simple, fire and light and water and sound. Four glyphs melded just right produced an almost impossible to detect illusion. He supposed those with a good sense of smell would be able to tell.
He healed both his and Shawey’s wounds. And made his way off the platform keeping an eye on the kindred, he could feel the eyes of the Emissary on him, he knew since the man was a sorcerer these illusion games not affect him.
He ripped a black cloak off one of the dead warlocks, and tossed it around Shawey’s shoulders and pointed her toward the others, give her a push to get going. Then stalked around the battlefield, Kay’rin was scaring him a bit. She might not have a lot of battle ability but her strength and knowledge was not a joke. Half the magic she used he never saw or even imagined before. On the bright side she was caught up in a battle with a half dozen wizards. He didn't see what enraged them into attacking her. Either way it was all to the good. He wanted to see them all dead afterall, the more they killed each other the better
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No longer near Shawey, he rushed toward the pile of his things, he needed his sword badly. This whole hall was within the range of a Kindred’s teleportation. If one decided to act while he was unarmed he’d be dead in seconds. He seized his possession and continued to run through the chaos. He got the belt on just as he realized that Kay’rin was doing something unbelievably stupid. Cursing under his breath he noticed even the Kindred were alarmed, he tried to take advantage of their distraction to get out of their line of sight.
Once out of the kindred’s sight, he used the “sound” glyph and shouted in Shawey’s ear to get everyone to the portal. Cause it was going to get very messy shortly. He saw Shawey stumble a bit but then continued to run over to the girls and spoke with them, the girls started to move toward the exit.
One more concern gone.
Knowing what Kay’rin was doing he wanted to find Sam’s corpse and get out of here. But he knew that was impossible as long as those kindred were lurking. He moved deeper into the shadows, and around out of their line of sight. He had to find a way to kill them without magic. There was nothing he could do with magic against a sorcerer.
He saw a trail of smoke, and saw the man with the emissary pop out of nowhere attacking Kay’rin. Obviously the stupidity she was attempting had alarmed the kindred enough to actually jump into action. He had to pause for a moment watching her battling with 4 living wizards and one kindred and not falling back a step. It was an awe inspiring sight he almost felt like he was being enlightened to magic and it's uses just watching, she was increadible, and positively freightening. He was finding himself hoping the kindred would win, Kay'rin was a monster. It was a small bit of madness hoping one side would win, ultimately they BOTH were his foes, and frankly if Kay’rin didn’t stop what she was trying to do he doubted many people would survive. He could FEEL the lava surging under the ground. This was going to get really ugly fast. Worse, while earlier in the battle she seemed to have horrid battle sense she was learning rapidly. It was a terrifying thought, that she could improve this quickly.
The ground was now trembling, and he could hear the huge stone blocks from the broken dome falling to the ground. Yet another hazard on this battlefield. He was now crawling on his belly as he made his way around another large pillar. If the kindred Emissary knew where he was, standing or crawling he was dead. He’d rather hope the man was more interested in other things. Taking a peak he saw the emissary standing there his back to Jace. Just 12 feet or so away. He seemed to be watching the battle with Kay’rin and had forgotten Jace completely.
He didn’t believe that for a moment, in fact he had a feeling the man knew exactly where he was. Taking a deep breath, he stood up and readied several body enhancement glyphs in his mind, then sprung forward sword tip stretching before him.
He knew he was had the moment his sword tip passed through the man in front of him. Igniting the physical enhancement glyphs, he guessed at where the attack would come from, ‘left hand side, pillar on the right’
And dove forward twisting as he dove, avoiding a sword strike by millimeters he rolled to his feet. Terani’s face was ugly as his strike missed. He started to cast something that Jace knew would probably kill him so Jace launched himself straight at Terani. He didn’t think he’d make it but he had to try something.
And in Terani’s eyes he saw death. He knew he wasn’t going to make it. He could only regret that he wasn’t strong enough. He only felt bitter that he wouldn’t be able to make good on his threat.
Just as he thought it would all end, a sword bloomed from the middle of Terani’s chest. Terani’s spell collapsed and Jace’s blade took him in the face, blowing right through his head. Staggering to a stop he stared in disbelief, as the corpse fell revealing Verna. She looked picturesque as always, her hair just so, a smirk on her face. Jace felt numb. He thought she was dead. He assumed it since she had vanished. But if she was ok… why didn’t she save Sam? He felt inexplicably angry at her. He didn’t feel like entertaining her so he snapped. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“What happened?” Her smug smile vanished under the heat of his glare. “I was injured badly fighting Terani, last night. I got here just in time to see you hanging from that board. And cursing the Gods. By the way that was a nice speech. Ssaras approved and freed you when I asked. So please don’t start burning down Ssaras’ temples, she will not directly confront Elis, but she will not aid him either.” She noticed the anger in his eyes didn’t decrease though it no longer was directed at her. “What happened?”
“Sam….” His voice caught, then he looked over at the now two wizards and kindred fighting that monster Kay’rin. His rage ignited again. He still needed to find her body and these mother fuckers were in the way. Casting another handful of complex illusions, he launched another handful of sneak attacks from misleading locations.
Kay’rin was dealing with them better thanks in part to her getting used to dealing with the lightning and wind attacks. So he was going to change it up and see if he couldn’t take them all down at once. He glanced at the crumbling dome and snarled, casting 3 spells at once. This would decide all their fates.