[M]Undying Quest: The Proving Grounds[IC]

[Eddren]

Dezeroth immediately caught wind of the Vampire Queen's magical enchantments, and his eyes snapped open. He saw her, now, wearing armor and armed with a blade, and smiled. She had made a grievous error, one which Dezeroth would happily take advantage of. He did not stand, but instead wrapped his magical aura around the Queen, and impressed upon her his own magical will. He took her haste spell within his mind's eye, and altered it. It was a subtle alteration to the spell itself, but with an extremely obvious effect.

The Haste Spell still sped up the queen--Or rather, how the queen perceived time to be passing. Rather than seeing time pass second by second, she instead experienced one out of every two seconds--She was experiencing everything as though it was happening two times faster. It wasn't correct, of course--The effect was purely mental--But as far as the Queen was concerned, it may as well have been her reality.

His focus, however, was completely upon this magical tweak, and he could dispense no further magic to the aid of Karrha. He had to hope that Tala and Sel'Ora would be able to come to her aid now.

[Arcus]

Tala only had a few minutes to breathe, watching Mozilla dance and play in the air. While keeping her ears open for signs of trouble and stood up as fast as she could when the queen showed her face. The wolf pulled out the sword that fit her clawed hands. Which set Mozilla off, as Tala went to protect Karrha and deflect the queens' current attack. The quick little fire fox launched himself at the vampire queen over and over, repeatedly attacking her. While seeming as if trying to keep her attention on her, any of her sword attacks likely just passing through his fiery body.

It is possible, he did this to keep Tala from receiving more damage or just because he now seemed to understand that she was a threat to them, or maybe even just to repay the healer that had let him cling to her during the massive wind storm. It was hard to say for sure what his reasons were.

[Cfavano]

"Oh, a wizard, I see. I'm guessing it was you my dear apprentice saw in the window. "Normally, I'd speak with the master of a fortress face to face, but judging by the fact that you won't face me, and the disrepair of your abode, you are a squatter, no offense meant. We re adventurers however, with a thirst and yearning for adventure nd treasure. Put it plainly, give us these, and we'll leave you alone. Fair deal, no?" He says, calmly, and giving a thumbs up to Alaana.

[Evening Rain]

Reina

Ozupan had staggered back - stumbling out of the radius of the thundercloud flask with a grimace. He seemed to be more hardy than any ordinary person had the right to be, and yet still he had felt the effects of her attack keenly. His left hand was again reaching into his coat, seeking an answer to her initial strike. A bolt of lightning slammed into the ground, and as it did - a small fragment of the courtyard fractured and buckled in on itself - causing Ozupan to slip and lose his footing, plunging his foot down through the hole. He quickly righted itself, but it was an exploitable mistake nonetheless.

Samael

There was an agitated groan from the voice that echoed throughout the stairwell. "I don't have any treasure, but if you want adventure, maybe I could give you some. A bloody pack of... something... ransacked my study and stole my book of enchantments a couple of nights hence. That's why I had to put up all these bloody wards and sigils. If you want to be of help, go and kill them and bring me back my damn book. I might even be able to do some enchantment work for you. If you'd rather fight me - kindly remember that you're in the middle of a building rigged with magical defenses. I wouldn't advise it - so why don't we just be civil and help each other out?"

[Cfavano]

"See, now, was that so hard? I'm not a monster, though my visage may say otherwise. Pray, wizard, could you conjure us up a map to point us to these things? It would make the retrieval all that much quicker." He says, confidently. "I have much experience in killing things, though do not mistake me for some uncultured brute. A wise wizard like you probably has tracking dweomers place upon his magical tomes, yes?"

[P.K.]

Sel'ora's shout gave Karrha only enough time to look up, she couldn't follow it with her eyes... at least not at first but then she could, just a blur. Karrha's first instinct was to push herself to the side but she wasn't fast enough. Even Tala coming to her aid only kept the blade from cleaving her in half, the blade biting into her shoulder as Karrha tore away and tumbled across the ground. She let out a pained hiss as she rolled to her knees her other hand clutching her wound as she allowed her magic to spring up, To stop the bleeding.

Karrha felt the rise of panic as the blood continued to welling out of the wound and staining her hand and clothes. The only thing she could do for herself and it wasn't working! She swallowed back the feeling as she clamped her hand down firmly at a cretin vain to stifle the blood flow a bit. "Don't get cut by that!" Karrha snapped. If her healing was useless here with this wound she was pretty much dead weight. "I couldn't heal you if it did." She growled staggering back to her feet, quick to put distance between her and those who could fight to remover herself and be less of an obstacle.

She'd kneel back down near the mage. She didn't have the hands to bandage herself, let alone stitch herself up. No one else had extra hands to do so either. The fastest way would be to cauterize the wound, and they had plenty of people who could use fire to do that she just couldn't draw their attention away from the fight at hand. If she wasn't bleeding out horrible she might be able to hold out till the fight was done...

[cashpop]

Seeing Ozupan fumble like that was a satisfying sight for the young alchemist to see. Without a moment to lose, Reina rounded the corner of where she stood, a hand held onto the stonewall for safety for what's to come, while she quick tossed another flask toward Ozupan. This time it was the Whirlwind flask.

With Ozupan situated as is, Reina figured a torrent of wind should further stagger the monster, hopefully even sucking him in toward the whirlwind. It would also pull in those thunderclouds, subjecting his entire mass into a true storm.

Don't like lightning, do you? Have some more!

[Evening Rain]

Dezeroth, Karrha and Tala

Immediately, Karrha staggered back from the sudden and furious onslaught of the vampire queen. The blade bit deep into her shoulder, and relishing in the injury it had caused, it sucked Karrha's vitality directly through the wound. Still, the vampire queen did not stop there. With startling and blinding speed, she struck again and again - and Karrha knew that she would in no way be able to protect herself from such attacks. Even the flaming fox and Tala's strikes seemed to have little to no effect on her. Sel'ora launched an arrow - aiming for the head - but the vampire moved so quickly that the shaft bounced uselessly off her gorget.

However, Karrha soon realised that despite the numerous strikes, the vampire had not landed even a single blow after the first. In fact - she had ended up with her back to the healer, striking the empty air behind her savagely. Soon, however, she seemed to realise that something was amiss. She turned back around and made a few cautious, probing strikes, trying to familiarize herself with the correct flow of time. It would not be long before she would be fighting relatively normally again, and the blade that seemed to seek out flesh of its own accord was still alive in her hands, slipping under and over parries with fluid grace.

"Clever, aren't you?" She projected forcefully to Dezeroth, "I don't know how you did that, but one way or another - I'll find out."

It was becoming increasingly obvious that without a competent swordsman to hold their own against the vampire's strikes, any who put themselves in her way would be cut to ribbons. Tala was the only one with them currently who fit that description, but so weakened was she by her state that she knew she wouldn't be able to hold her off efficiently, or for very long. Fortunately, the hurried footsteps of Alessandro echoed through the castle as he charged back down in the direction of the battle.

"Dezeroth." Sel'ora snapped. "Give me your saber."

Samael

"Naturally." The voice grumbled. "Whatever those beasts were, they have some sort of lair to the north. Go and cut them apart will you? And make it painful - I don't appreciate having my things stolen. It's very irritating."

Reina

Reina hurled her flask, and as she did Ozupan's eyes widened. He seemed to have guessed what was about to happen. Desperately, he tried to stumble back - but correcting his mistake combined with his mutated clumsiness made it particularly difficult for him. He threw a flask of his own - aimed directly at Reina. Reina's flask hit first, and there was a hideous sucking sound as the howling whirlwind that erupted from the glass tore Ozupan off of the ground and condensed the thundercloud flask into its mass as well - trapping Ozupan in the swirling electrified clouds - effectively forcing him to bear the brunt of a lightning storm.

Meanwhile, Ozupan's flask broke open beside Reina. Immediately there was a concussive, explosive blast - but it was accompanied by an eruption of acid that was forcibly spread throughout the area by the force of the explosion. The effects of the explosion were most profound on the area around Reina. As stone dissolved and cracked, the explosion tore a hole in the ground - causing the area that Reina stood on to buckle in on itself and collapse in addition to the damage she herself sustained.

[cashpop]

No sooner did Reina thrown that flask had Ozupan responded with his own. The young alchemist pulled herself around the corner of the wall, but the sucking wind of the whirlwind worked against her as well so she could not fully round herself to the other side in time. Once the flask hit, the blast sent her flying away several feet away from the wall, which was the other side not occupied by a lightning whirlwind of death. She landed with a thud, knocking the wind out of her. Fortunately, the blast had sent the young alchemist a fair distance of several feet away from the crumbling floor, which should save Reina from a very nasty drop. However, there was no telling how much more this platform could take before fully giving out.

As expected, the shield reacted timely to the blast, but must now also hold on against the acid. The acid was slathered all over the young alchemist, eating away at every inch of her cloak, leather armor, and inner clothes. If not for the shield, the skin would have suffered the same fate.

Reina groaned from the toss, her head pounding, but quickly stood up, stumbled forward and fell, and then stood back up again. Such a blast had her slightly dazed.

The acid on her person no doubt had been flung about as well as what she wore. Reina frantically shed her cloak as well as any pieces of her armor that was affected by the acid. The nasty substance obviously melted through the stone, so she as well attempted to watch her footing whilst frantically attempting to wipe off as much acid as she could before it would eat through her shield.

[Eddren]

With one fluid action, Dezeroth pulled the Saber and tossed it to Sel'Ora. He otherwise did not move, because he was still deep in concentration. The Vampire Queen thought he was done with merely altering her haste spell. He was not. He took a few steps closer to her, adjusting for the now-smaller aura, and set his eyes upon her sword. The Red Waltz, apparently. It had a lot of rather vicious powers, but first and foremost was that it stole life-force and gave it to its master. Dezeroth knew just how to sabotage this sort of artifact.

He now wrapped yet more Arcane power around the sword, and drew from his own intellect, forming a shard of artificial consciousness with which he implanted into the sword, weaving it so that it could directly effect the rest of the sword's powers. This consciousness was rudimentary, still, with the inability to feel a wide range of emotions--But it knew greed, and it knew envy. And it wanted that life-force for itself. It knew that its' master was stealing it.