Tiberius’s metal form screeched as it finally bucked off Freya and Joseph, both wearing looks of utter horror and concern. Nathaniel’s face on the other hand was expressionless, Cece would have thought he simply didn’t care, if she didn’t recognize the look. It reminded her of her father. Her Uncle Cornelius had always been the head of the Silva family, but he had left several of his duties as the head to him, the look Nathaniel wore was one of cold responsibility.
At this point Tiberius was more metallic monster than human at this point and Cece watched in glee as a tendril of gold launched itself at a nearby mage helping the ceremony. The metal limb pierced straight through the young man’s chest, killing him quickly. The screams in the room began to intensify as tens of gold mages tried to corral the wild magics flowing through the room. Cece watched the process in a mixture of awe and trepidation, careful to keep far away from the action lest she be caught in it.
“Tiber, pull yourself together!” Joseph shouted. He turned his arm partially into gold, and formed a similar tendril to Tiberius’, wrapping it around his thrashing form.
“It’s us Tiber! You’re hurting your family!” Freya joined in, attempting to control the magic coursing through him. Unfortunately for Cece, it seemed like she was succeeding.
“I suppose a scroll can’t compete with the control of an elemental.” She thought to herself. It was one of the many weaknesses of alchemy. Scrolls could do exactly what they were meant to, but they could only do that. Magic was a malleable thing, conforming not just to the user’s skill, but also to their ability to visualize change. It could certainly be an academic field, but it didn’t need to be, there were many mages that wielded magic through instinct or creativity. Alchemy on the other hand was strictly academic and incredibly rigid, it did not adapt, it did not care for your will, and if a mage pushed past it, then there was little recourse. Cece couldn’t fight on the same playing field with alchemy, It did offer versatility however.
Cece pulled a small orb out of her bag, pressed a golden button on it, and ever so gently rolled it down to the altar. She didn’t dabble in poisons much, preferring a quick and explosive kill, when possible, but she needed subtlety. It was neither a strong nor deadly poison, although it was magical in nature. It was a mild hallucinogen that would slowly aerosolize into the room. Cece triggered a scroll that used a careful mix of gold and oxygen magics to create a barrier around her nose and mouth to filter it out. She wasn’t completely sure that it would work against the elementals, and if they realized they would surely be able to rid their systems of it, gold was the magic of purity after all. It was the refined poison of the argent moonflowers, a flower that drugged its prey. She was hoping that the concentration would be low enough that few would notice, but it should still hinder their magic slightly, but until it kicked in, it was time to make it harder on her own.
The scroll she had used was fairly powerful, if simplistic, it used gold magic to manipulate the flow of other gold magic in the vicinity and mercury magic to enhance that movement. It was set to simply move magic faster in the direction a mage willed, something that would hinder fine manipulation, however Freya, Joseph, and especially Nathaniel who was simply staring with great intent at Tiberius, seemed to adapt quickly. Alchemy was rigid and that was true even for Cece, but she still had a few tricks. Her daemonic eye pulsed as the scroll was rewritten inverting the flow of magic all around. There was collective lull as everyone’s grasp over Tiberius’ magic seemed to loosen. Still the elementals quickly adapted, their raw skill overpowering the magic’s strange behavior.
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“It did make them hesitate for a moment though…” Cece grinned to herself.
She decided to keep it up, altering the direction of the magic every few seconds, making it difficult for even the elementals, although she noticed Nathaniel didn’t seem to be having nearly as much trouble. Nothing could be sure in a scene as chaotic as this one, but as far as Cece knew they hadn’t begun to suspect foul play just yet, or at least they didn’t suspect foul play from someone still there, she was sure Nathaniel at least noticed the great amount of silver making up Tiberius’ body. However, they likely chalked up the wild behavior of the magic to Tiberius, and she wanted to keep it that way, altering it in time to his movements. Tiberius roared a metallic screech as his family’s grasp on both his magic and his mind faltered. He grew another set of tendrils off his back, another silver and gold, one of which impaled a young woman in the front row, the other of which swung like a whip towards Nathaniel. Fortunately for the elder elemental that was the gold limb, and he simply willed it to stop, his strength at manipulating gold overcoming Tiberius’ control over his own body. Leaving the tendril straining to move forward in open air.
“Please, Tiber, you can do this!” Freya shouted. She looked desperate and a pang of… something, went through Cece’s heart. She gritted her teeth and kept altering the magic. Argent moonflower poison was fast acting, but it took an excruciating long five minutes for Cece to notice the effects of the poison. In that time three more of Solastria’s mages had died. It had started with the back row, they had seemed to put the more inexperienced mages there, likely in case something went wrong, they were starting to get sloppy, their movements were sluggish. The middle row seemed to be holding themselves together a bit better, long hours of training hardening their minds against altered states, but still their manipulations were becoming clumsy. It took a few more minutes to notice any change with the elementals, it was truly a slight difference, something she could only see thanks to her eye, but there was an instability in their actions, an instability that was easy for her to take advantage of. Her daemonic eye burned a new path into the gold and mercury scroll, jerking the magic to the right as Tiberius swung to his right and sliced through two brave young men trying to get closer to help, their loved ones screaming at the sight.
Cece’s eye remained on Tiberius, watching the silver and gold magics fight each other. Ever so slowly however they were starting to merge, it was fascinating, so fascinating that Cece almost forgot where she was. People had theorized since time immemorial about the possibility of alloy elementals, but it was always considered far fetched. The only elementals people knew of where purely one element after all. However, Cece could genuinely believe that it was possible after seeing this. Tiberius obviously would never succeed at becoming one, she had ensured that, but it was an intriguing possibility, a gold-silver alloy elemental, she wracked her brain for a moment trying to remember the name for the alloy.
“It was electrum.” She remembered, her pre-daemonic memory still subject to human limitations. “How intriguing an electrum elemental” She idly wondered about it for a few moments before Tiberius started moving away from the gold elementals blocking his path and thrashing wildly at the crowd, a razor thin line of gold bisecting three people in a wide swing.
“There we go.” Cece thought wearing a savage grin. The failed electrum elemental moved even faster as Freya and Joseph started moving with him, both were still trying to move the gold magic through him how it was meant to, although Cece was still a bit fuzzy on what exactly that looked like. At the same time they had started working together trying to tie him down with gold threads.
“Freya, Joseph.” Nathaniel stated still at his starting position, his face a mask. “He has failed, we must end him.”