Message #149776

[Coquard]

Closing the Black Gate ~ A Costly Delay   (21 minutes ago)
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As Incantatrix and her guardian Daimons chase after rogue whorls of portal-magic across Rueffilo, she starts to feel a sense of unease. At first she ignores it, but it grows stronger minute by minute, until she cannot deny what she is sensing:

Someone is bringing portal stones close to the temple.

Directing the detachment of her guard that is still with her to continue without her, she turns toward the temple and begins to run.

She is not halfway there, however, when she encounters a magic-whorl heading in the same direction. Knowing that if she allows it to strike the portal, stopping the portal stones will mean nothing, she stops and exerts all her power on the whorl. It takes her several seconds and a great effort of will, but she drains off its energy, preventing another disaster before resuming her run to the temple.

When she arrives, she sees that those seconds of delay were costly. The portal stones are already set up, and she feels the shift in the magical field of the region as they activate. Cursing in twelve languages, she enters the temple and stops with the point of a sword inches from her throat, held by a young woman.

It takes her a second or two just to remember which language to use, such is her fury when she snarls, "Out of the way, foolish mortal. You have no idea what you're doing."

Her clawed hand streaks forward with the speed of a striking viper as it closes around Amber's wrist, forcing her to drop the sword. Then she releases the energy she drained from the magic-whorl on the way here, teleporting the adventurer somewhere else. Where, she didn't care: just not here.

She turns to face the next obstacle, and finds that there isn't one. There is nothing between her and the circle of portal stones but a half-dozen yards of empty temple corridor.

Beyond them, though, is the portal—and seated directly between the two is the human betrayer Lila.

Closing the Black Gate ~ Battle for the Stones   (21 minutes ago)
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Incantatrix stalks forward, her form beginning to ripple and shimmer as magic coruscates around it. "Lila of no known family or clan, for your base and vile acts against Domina and all Daimonkind, I claim your life," she snarls through clenched teeth.

The blind woman turns her face toward the sound of Incantatrix's voice, smiles slightly, and replies, "You may have it, for all of me, now that my task is complete."

Incantatrix's own mouth curves up in a twisted parody of Lila's peaceful smile. "Not yet, fool human. The stones have yet to complete their magic. This time, I shall—"

She is interrupted by the tromp of a half-dozen pairs of Daimon feet entering the temple behind her. The frontmost of them growls something to her in their own language. "What?!" she snaps, too agitated and distracted to switch languages.

Then she feels it.

The light emitted by the portal stones is not merely a beacon to human eyes, Incantatrix knows. It warps the magical field in its vicinity, drawing in certain kinds of energy to itself. Energy like the portal-magic whorls she and her Daimons have been chasing.

They are now all converging on the temple.

"That will not happen!" Incantatrix bellows. She leaps forward to grasp the closest portal stone, intending to tear it free of its formation, throwing the magical alignment off and sending the whorls toward a different target.

But instead of closing on hard stone, her claws sink into yielding flesh.

Lila stands between her and the portal stones now, holding to Incantatrix's outthrust arm with a grip like iron, even though the only way she could be certain of where that arm was was by letting it plunge deep into her own chest.

Incantatrix snarls in rage, takes Lila's arm in her other hand, and snaps it as if it were a dry twig. Then she flexes the hand still inside Lila's chest and slices open her heart. It takes Lila mere seconds to die, but it takes Incantatrix even less time to contemptuously toss her body from her.

It takes her somewhat more time—maybe half a minute—to realize what a terrible miscalculation she has made.

As Lila's body falls onto the stones, the light fading from her eyes, blood gushes from her chest onto the stone ring...and sinks in, absorbed by the stones as if they were sponges. The column of light shrinks down to surround only the ring of portal stones, increasing in intensity as it reduces in height, and taking on a rainbow sheen.

The stones rise off the ground, and Lila's body flips into the center of the ring, floating in the middle of them as they begin to spin. They don't have far to go this time, and it isn't long before they have turned upright and begun to float gently toward the portal.

Incantatrix feverishly chants, rattling off a dozen spells in the space of seconds. All of them strike the glow surrounding the stones and Lila's body, and disappear in a rainbow shimmer, useless.

Closing the Black Gate ~ Sacrifice's Reward   (21 minutes ago)
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The stones float no more than an inch from the portal, and the rainbow light expands to envelop the entire thing. Incantatrix, in one last-ditch effort, brandishes her scintillating staff and jams it in the space between the portal and the stones.

The portal stones cease moving.

Lila's body hangs, suspended, in the center of what looks like a strange inverted eclipse, with brilliant light surrounded by a nimbus of inky blackness.

Out of the corner of her eye, Incantatrix notices something moving toward the portal—coming out of the wall!

"NO!" she shrieks, lunging futilely toward it. A moment too late.

The magic-whorl strikes the portal with a cataclysmic detonation.

Incantatrix's staff is blown free.

The portal stones move that last precious inch, and cover the portal completely just as a half-dozen more whorls come into view.

With an explosion so large it can be seen in Fronepu and Reeds, the portal in Rueffilo is closed, sealing off the Daimons' last access to the Netherworld.

When the dust has settled, there is no sign of Incantatrix and her guardian Daimons, unless perhaps those lumps of fused charcoal near the center of the crater could be their remains.

No one else in the region escapes unscathed, and when she regains consciousness Amber blesses her luck that Incantatrix chose to teleport her away, rather than leave her helpless on the floor of the temple.

In the exact center of the crater, unmarred save for one broken arm and the wound in her chest, lies the lifeless body of Lila, whose selfless sacrifice called the stones' magic into action.

Closing the Black Gate ~ Consequences   (13 minutes ago)
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In her new throne room in Fheuvenem, Domina suddenly sinks to her knees, clutching her head in her hands.

"It is lost," she whispers. "My people will suffer if I cannot..."