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Helpline / Re: Type of takeover vs. Region maintenance
« on: August 23, 2016, 07:46:34 AM »
Honestly I have found brutal TOs are faster than Friendly ones.
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Come, come to Creasur! But be careful, now there are rogues just everywhere. If Ravyn is captured again, that's going to be very inconvenient.
Closing the Black Gate ~ A Costly Delay (21 minutes ago)
message to everyone on Beluaterra
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)
message to everyone on Beluaterra
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)
message to everyone on Beluaterra
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)
message to everyone on Beluaterra
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..."
Roleplay from Lila (8 minutes ago)
Message sent to everyone in the region Rueffilo (2 recipients)
Rueffilo was different than Xinjin. She had described to Amber what the light and the temple looked like, and what they were looking for. Just as they crested the ridge, a wave washed over them causing them to stumble. Lila knew what it was... she didn't know how... but she knew that the Incantrix was here. The raw power that was running rampant even this far from the temple Lila knew it wasn't good. There was magic flowing unchecked all around her. Be it from her first run in with the Incantrix or the last, Lila knew what magic felt like. Without her sight, every day her other senses grew.
She worried about what the rogue magic would do to the other regions... the humans of the land. Telling Amber they needed to move quickly, the traversed the land between them and the temple. More than once they had to duck for shelter, smaller daimons were running around, looking for something. Amber described seeing on consume one of the whorls of magic...and Lila all but shuddered. Perhaps it was the Incantrix's magic that escaped, and as another portal stone in the temple detonanated, the girls felt the land tremble beneath their feet.
The closer they got to the temple, the stronger the pull of power was. Every so often there would be a wave of power... or the earth beneath their feet would tremble, until there was nothing. They dodged and snuck their way to the temple. Lila could feel the Incantrix was near, but Amber said there was no one watching the door, they all were chasing the whorls. Knowing it was now or never, they made their way in.
The power almost came to the point of pain, and Lila pushed it away and pushed on. It affected Amber less than herself, and Lila put one foot in front of another. She knew what she had to do, and by Dashi she would complete it. Explaining how the last portal was closed to Amber, they stealthly went into the temple, and made their way towards the portal itself.
Now the power flowing around her was almost to the point of causing her pain, but she still pushed on. Faltering slightly, she sent Amber on ahead to set the stones in a circle, but the time she made it to the center Amber had placed the last stone. Going towards the middle, drawn to it like a moth to a flame, she looked towards Amber and gave her a serene smile.
"It's up to you if you want to stay or go. I won't ask more of you than you want to give. I cannot promise what will happen when I activate the stones, nor can I say we will both survive. I survived the last with only losing my sight, and I pray to Dashi I won't lose anything else. Make your choice Amber...."
Lila took her place in the circle; again putting all her crystals and such in her lap. She began to chant as she did the first time, this time including Dashi in her mumblings. Her breathing became shallow, and while she was sure this time the Incantrix would come for her, it was the others she thought of the most. Not only did she try to cast spells to cast away the Daimons for good, but to help repair what was lost. Ramblings and mumblings fell from her lips. Her thoughts turned towards her main goal above all else, end the Daimon rule once and for all.
Her white hair spun around her head like a cloud and her sightless eyes were open staring at the portal as if it could receed into the depths of her soul. The chants continued to fall from her lips and she put her own hands out towards the portal, trembling at the raw power it held, and hoping that she, a nameless commoner could do the one thing to save all nobles.....
Her last thought before falling into a trancelike state was... "Perhaps now my mother might claim me......"
Roleplay from Lila (27 minutes ago)
Message sent to everyone in the region Rueffilo (2 recipients)
They met up in Drinilla, and it was a relief not to be fawned over like the others. This girl was straigtforward, and looking for a quest. Amber handed her the portal stones, and as she set them in Lila's hand, they reverberated with an unseen power. Lila closed her hand around each stone, closing her eyes and letting the power fill her, before putting the stone with the others in her bag. Over the last couple weeks, Lila had tried various things to regain her sight, but in the end, she was getting used to being without it. Her other senses were starting to take over, her hearing, her sense of smell and her sense of touch.
While Amber wanted to prove something to her father, Lila hoped to prove something to her mother. Lila over the years had spied on her true family, watching her younger sister grow up with everything she was denied. She didn't hate Ravyn though, it just was the way things were. But hopefully one day.....
She had talked with many people around Drinilla while waiting for Amber, so she had a route in mind. The goal was to stay out of Netherworld regions as much as possible, and lower the risk of being in a Netherworld prison. Lila was worried if the Daimon's every caught her... she would be killed on the spot. From Drinilla they went to Wheling and Cjelorg, before resting for a time. Then through Yncaalo to Lopa... and make it to Kuugl another safe rogue region. Lila would rather be in a rogue region than the Netherworld. The next leg would be the trickiest, and the most telling.
They would need to be fully rested, before setting out for Mio Dupaki, then Glongin.... before making it to Rueffilo. If they could make it in time.....
Roleplaying Event (4 hours, 17 minutes ago)
Message sent to everyone in the vicinity of Rueffilo (4 recipients)
Incantatrix appears in a quiet flash of light within the temple in Rueffilo. She steps outside and grimaces when she sees the pillar of light that has illuminated the sky over Rueffilo for some time now.
Turning, she snaps some commands to the portal behind her, then strides forth from the temple. No more than half a minute later, a column of Daimons follows her toward the pillar.
When she reaches it, she reaches out and tries to simply dismantle the ring of portal stones, but as soon as her clawed hand touches the light surrounding them, she hisses and pulls it back, holding it in obvious pain. Snarling, she begins to chant, walking in circles around the portal stones and making mystic gestures in the air. When she has made three counterclockwise circuits of the stone ring, she stops and incants some more, hands held out toward the pillar of light.
Where she has passed, a ring of violet-glowing tracery surrounds the pillar of light, and as she incants, it begins to constrict toward it. When the violet ring touches the pillar of light, it begins to bleed its colour out into it. This seems to please Incantatrix, who continues chanting with a faint smile on her face. The violet light continues to spread both up and down the pillar as the ring of symbols continues to contract toward the center of the light.
When the violet glow touches the stones, they begin to tremble. It continues to expand, eventually surrounding the portal stones. Tendrils of darker violet extend down from the ring of traced symbols to entangle the stones—
—But then something goes horribly wrong.
The instant the first dark tendril touches one of the portal stones, there is a soundless detonation, and whorls of white and violet light spin off in all directions. Incantatrix and her new guard are knocked backward, and when she struggles to her feet, there is a look of stark horror on her face—but only for a moment. She controls her features, turns to her guard, and snaps out some quick instructions.
Then they all run off after the whorls of rogue magic.
Letter from Amber (1 hour ago)
Message sent to everyone in the region Rueffilo (1 recipients)
Amber wanted to prove she was more than just a commoner in the eyes of her father, Cymore. He had always been the hero and never bowing down from a fight. She wanted to make her family proud like they were of him. Every day she fought against the monsters and got a little closer to her goal.
A rumor came to her that another was looking for Portal Stones. Naturally, she was curious. Was this the one moron who demanded everything for his own glory or... Talking around with others, they told story about Lila, the closer of the Xinjin portal. Surely, this would be the quest that could help her family be proud of her. One that would make people never forget she was a Maxwell. It became a priority to help this one. All she had to do was find her.
Searching through the rumors and tales, she came upon one who met the description. She introduced herself and told her she was willing to go on this quest to end the Daimon's portal.