lostcarnival | ⇨ FAERIE TALES

Strange's reaction times are better. Whatever Ignatius did to him, that training doesn't seem to have been just for show. However, Lambert rapidly has other problems, between Ignatius's sudden burst of flame rolling out, the magician in front of him turning into smoke and flowing towards him, and having only a split second to weave a narrative for himself without the aid of witcher magic.

He brings up the magical bracer Peridot wrought for him and it absorbs the flame ... for a time. It quickly superheats against his skin, making his teeth grit in pain, and unfortunately it's no shield for the rest of him -- it keeps it off enough to keep it from killing him outright, but he can feel his clothes essentially fusing to his skin as they're turned to ash.

Fuck it. He's bent reality before, just by willing it, he'll fucking bend reality again, trying to call on the Athenaeum's power. What is the Athenaeum's power? In the heat of the moment, Lambert can't think of a specific story -- only the memory of poring over books, books, and more books, endless lines of text that blur into each other.

"Shield!" Lambert shouts, visualizing a wall -- a dome of text around him -- to block the rest of the flames, and block the smoke seeking to choke him too. For a moment, it seems to work, as his form's briefly obscured by a uite literally formed of the word 'shield,' repeated over and over again -- but the narrative's too thin to hold it together and it shatters, making him yelp as he's drenched in flame again.

Luckily, he doesn't have to bear with it for long, as Zangetsu's wall of water floods the Coliseum, letting him be a little less on fire as he tries to catch his breath and figure out what the hell else is happening.

Edited (walls of text can't save you now) 2018-06-04 04:26 (UTC)

This has really never happened to him before.

Not quite like this, anyway. Dunked in water, sure. Everyone sees the guy that's on fire and thinks 'oh, what if we put water on that?' It usually amounts to a temporary inconvenience at worst, unless it's in the hands of another fae, and even so...

Not when he's already unleashing his Domain. Not when he's had the opportunity to let loose like this, no amount of water should be enough to get in his way. Yet, as the water pours in, the flames are smothered, and he is smothered as well.

It's not like it extinguishes him like a candle flame. He's made of sturdier stuff like that. What should be happening, however, is his flames turning all of that water to gas the instant it touches him. Instead, it's only the water closest to his body bubbling and steaming, slipping into the water above him as his flames flicker and struggle against the inhospitable climate.

He's dazed by it all, and even just existing here feels difficult. Rita, though... she's the one that trapped him here, she made that circle. So he has to take her down. That's the way it has to go, he doesn't have a choice.

Staggering under the weight of the water, he draws his other sword, taking the two blades and holding them out in front of him. The metal of the weapons breaks off, melting instantly into molten metal and breaking into parts, swelling in size and burning red against the water.

The blades of superheated metal zip through the water zip through the water to wards Rita. She may be fireproof, but she isn't metal-proof.

What the everloving fuck is going on. First Rita becomes a Guardian again then Lambert summons a dome of text then Zangetsu summons a literal tidal wave? Strange doesn't know what's going on but what he does know is that nobody's playing fair and this is all bullshit.

He remains in smoke form as the water pours into the arena and then almost instantly decides that feels weird and he doesn't want to experience that particular sensation ever again. He can't cast as smoke but he also can't really move through the water as smoke. So, against his better judgement, Strange turns back to his human form.

...and then instantly finds out he can't breathe. This is all so bullshit. Strange is straight up attempting to swim to the top of the wall of water so he can get some air and his mostly verbal spells can actually be of use.

Edited 2018-06-04 04:48 (UTC)

Syrlya narrows his eyes as Ignatius is pinned back, but it buys them time. It's not unlike fighting in Elder Dragon, that his raw strength will be enough alone--but Rita managed to pull some resemblance of Creation forward again, and Strange did once tell him he felt traces of the Blue Rose shortly after he wielded it. Rita has his bloodstone, so he needs a new catalyst.

"I don't have the Blue Rose, but I have enough of its power." He reaches back, gripping the but growing at his ponytail and snaps the stem. It immediately begins to grip his left arm again with vines, just as the real Rose had done for him. Its power could be stored in some sort of glowing orb, why not an imitation of it as well? He has to believe it'll be enough.

The water is actually beneficial in giving them a very obvious tell that the metal is coming forward. It takes less than a second when Syrlya registers them for a purple bubble to sound them, translucent like a faceted glass. It's feedback--if the metal hits the bubble, it almost seems to be absorbed before reversing its direction right back to Ignatius.

As the metal is caught and thrown back at him, Ignatius decides he's going to follow Strange's lead. He rockets away from the floor via a stream of superheated water, making for the surface as quickly as he can. If he can get out of the water, then he has a chance to turn the tides back in his direction.

Right. So the last time Lambert tried harnessing the Athenaeum's magic, it got slapped back in his face like a first draft full of editor's red marks, but it worked for him before, so it's clearly not like it's ineffective.

He just needs to rethink his approach. Against the wince of pain, he looks up sharply at Ignatius and Strange making a break for the surface, and snarls.

"The witcher called on the Earth Spirit to aid him once more! To bind the lord to the ground with chains of stone and mud and leave him to the others!" Maybe being literal will help. In any case, as he speaks, the dirt and stone of the Coliseum floor shifts and then bursts upwards, pillars aiming to wrap around and grasp Ignatius's limbs and pull him back down to the floor.

Whether it takes or not, he doesn't wait to see -- Lambert kicks upward to follow after Strange.

Apparently, the Earth Spirit comes through for him. The chains of stone wrap around Ignatius's legs, stopping him in his tracks. He's weak to gather flames in his hands, ready to tear them away, only for more chains to grab his arms as well.

He manages to struggle against them for several seconds, but he doesn't have enough left to escape. They tug him back to the ground, binding him in place. He doesn't have to breathe, so he isn't drowning - but there's some kind of oppressive heaviness in the water that makes it harder and harder to act. A despair that is hard to fight against, even for someone as determined as him.

He yells in frustration as he tries to get away, the fight becoming harder and harder as the searing water around him is gradually being reduced to a sizzle.

Edited 2018-06-04 05:35 (UTC)

He can hear Ignatius yell in frustration which only makes Strange swim faster. He hates this, but there's nothing he can do until he's on solid ground or at least out of the water. He manages to reach the surface and takes a few gasps of air before thrusting his hand down to point at the base of the coliseum and muttering a spell.

A different pillar of earth shoots through the water, directly under Strange. He's far enough away from Ignatius, Syrlya, and Rita that neither of them have to worry about it but surprise Lambert, now you get to deal with a whole bunch of earth. It pushes up through the water to give Strange a platform to stand on but big enough to hold one or two other people as well.

For a moment, Rita stares in fear as the sizzling metal shoots toward her... and is reflected away. She shoots Syrlya a quick, grateful look, then turns her attention back to Ignatius. With Lambert succeeding in binding him, she sees a clear opportunity.

Rita holds a hand out to her book, which turns its pages in response, seemingly unaffected by the water around them. "Come, sword of knowledge... Elucidator!" From the pages, she draws a long, thin sword with an orange-jeweled hilt. "Infuse element: ice!" Waving a hand over the blade, she charges it with cold magic.

Then, using her wings to propel herself forward, she charges.

Rita's not that skilled with a sword, as her grip and positioning might show. But there's more to this fight than skill. "Bound by the Earth Spirit's power, there was no escape for the fae. The magic blade would surely find its mark!" she cries as she closes the distance, then thrusts the sword at Ignatius' upper body.

He doesn't have any tricks up his sleeve. He's trapped here. So when Rita lunges forward with her icy sword, it goes straight through his chest.

The fire inside of him gnaws at the ice, fighting to melt it away, but sting of it is more than enough. He grunts in pain, with nowhere to go to escape it, the blades resting in his chest as he squirms. He looks up at her with half-lidded eyes, from his kneeling position on the ground. Even like this, he's almost as tall as her.

He exhales into the water a few times, before his grunting turns into a hoarse kind of laugh. He can't help it. He's really never imagined getting stabbed by one of his own changelings, but here they are.

"They grow up so fast," he says, compulsively chuckling.

Earth pillar shooting up to almost slam up under him? Not what Lambert was expecting, but he remembers: Strange is a damn powerful magician in his own right, and if they don't put a cork in him fast, he might just turn this story against them. He's got enough bullshit on his own, even without the Athenaeum's help. Lambert swears colorfully as he nearly breaks his ribs on earth rushing through the water, but he twists away in time, just getting a harsh scrape along one burned side for the trouble.

Where the fuck is Zangetsu and his pickles? He grabs at the earth pillar for a handhold to hitch a free ride up, coughing for breath as he tries to spin another narrative out.

"The earth ceased to obey the magician, because the Earth Spirit would not allow it!" Of course, Strange can do a hell of a lot more than move dirt around, but trying to deprive him of at least one element should help. Right?

Edited 2018-06-04 06:20 (UTC)

With a grumble, Zangetsu does manage to sit up. He's still nice and cooked in a few places, and the new skin is sensitive and tinged with his blue blood, but he can at least move now. His clothes, by virtue of being part of his soul and his power and not just cloth, are not as torched as they probably should be. He wipes his mask, revealing the white bars under the soot.

And now he's surrounded by cold, all too familiar water. Ugh.

At least it seemed to have done the trick to douse some of Ignatius' flame. He quickly takes stock of the situation -- Syrlya and Rita below with Ignatius more or less at their mercy, and a pillar of stone reaching up past the water with two familiar spiritual pressures above.

It occurs to him that they might be able to end it, here, now. By taking out Ignatius, they could--

... No. Get Strange back. That's his mission. As tempting as it is to take out a High Fae, he had a priority. As the only person here who could capture a soul. He looks at the sadly partially melted plastic bottle on his waist and uncaps it, thankful that poor little Pickles didn't get boiled alive. That would totally mess up the story he was about to tell.

So he rockets upwards through the water, bursting out near the pillar and standing in midair about ten feet off the surface. He holds out his hand and lets the little magic leech crawl between his fingers. His voice is raspy, but he manages to be as dramatic as ever.

"And have we mentioned the Dragon, Zangetsu's, AMAZING pet-keeping skills? In fact, the Great Beast entrusted him with a very special little creepy-crawly, a leech that could devour magic like blood. Alone, Pickles wasn't too strong, but there were thousands of leeches just like Pickles, and they were coming for Jonathan Strange, because their brother asked it of them."

From the water, thousands of small, slimy green creatures begin inchworming their way onto the platform. They're slow, they're weak individually, but they are coming in incredible numbers. Any that manage to latch on will sap as much magic as they can swallow.

Yeah, seeing Rita stab his current boss has pissed Strange off so much. Strange reaches out, trying to manipulate the earth around Ignatius and free him from these chains...but nothing happens. Something's cutting off his access to the earth. He's about to start muttering a different spell to find a different way to either free Ignatius or hurt Rita, before Zangetsu shoots out of the water, Strange instinctively summons a fireball to his hands, and then thousands of leeches swarm out of the water.

Right, new plan, this is disgusting and he hates it. That fireball is going straight towards his feet as it charbroils a good number of leeches. However, there's more coming. So, Strange attempts more fire. That half-assed platform he made is a solid 75% covered in fire now as Strange attempts to burn as many leeches to death as he can. Some have made it through the carnage and are latching onto Strange's feet and climbing up his legs, trying to push their tiny little leech mouths through the Roman armor Strange has on.

This also means that the air out of the water is starting to smell really terrible, thanks to all the corpsey burnt leeches.

Rita can’t help but crack a smile at her moment of triumph. She did it. She got him!

But hearing Ignatius respond calmly... almost fondly, her smirk fades and her focus returns. It’s not over yet. She stabbed him, but that’s not enough to kill him.

Still gripping the sword plunged in the fae’s chest, Rita demands, “Release Strange from his contract! That’s the only way you’re walking away from this.”

"I don't think that's going to happen," he says, his gaze falling from her face to her feet. "So much for 'negotiations'." His somewhat grim smile returns, and he's obviously still in pain, his thoughts beginning to wander.

"When I met you... was that even real?" The smile fades again. "I'm still not sure. I didn't understand anything in that place. I was looking for a solution... and you ended up being part of it, anyway. In an entirely different way than I expected..."

"Maybe I don't understand anything anymore."

The leeches bubble out of the waters while Lambert uses clawed hands to clamber up the side of the earth pillar as rapidly as he can, adrenaline from the fight making it easier to ignore his injuries, for now. He keeps his mind on his goal: Strange, who he assumes must be on top of this platform, because if there’s one thing he knows windbag magicians need to work their magic most effectively? It’s air.

Too focused to pay attention to whatever negotiations are going on below, Lambert bursts from the water and onto the edge of the platform like a sodden, scorched avenging angel. This time, he learns from the mistakes of the past, and the first thing he casts is a purple circle around Strange’s feet to keep him corporeal.

Luckily? That spell doesn’t require words. Meaning that he’s absolutely free to yell as he hurtles towards Strange.

“If the lord wouldn’t return him, the witcher knew one sure way to break the fae’s hold! One the magician taught him!” A step more and he’s grabbing for Strange’s arm, his stupid armor, anything he can reach to grab ahold of him and yank him around. If this works, it’s going to be terribly awkward, if it doesn’t, it’ll at least shut Strange the fuck up for one second.

“True love’s kiss.” And he tries to kiss Strange. Well, more like tries to punch him in the mouth with his mouth, really, for the way it bangs their faces together.

Wow. Uh.

That sure is a thing that is happening, right now.

Rita’s look sharpens into a glare when he refuses, but as Ignatius goes on to reminisce, she frowns, uncertain. Is he really asking that?

Her grip doesn’t budge, but her gaze wanders, avoiding his eyes. “It was real,” she says after some hesitation, though her tone is firm. “But it wasn’t me. Not at first.”

"I wonder who you are, then," he says, closing his eyes. He tenses his muscles, like he's waiting for something.

"I can't give him up to you. So... you'll have to take him from me." He keeps himself still. "If you can. It's all I can do, but it will be done, none the less."

The main problem here is that kiss magic is a narratively sensible solution to Strange. After all, he's specialized in disenchantment via his mouth. So probably to everyone's surprise, Lambert's smooch attempt slightly works. Of course, the key word here is slightly.

Now Strange has two competing influences in his brain: most of him wants to stay with Ignatius, while a tiny part of him wants to go back to the carnival. Something's definitely shifted in his posture. He's still tense, but it's more like the tenseness of a cornered cat than the battle-ready tenseness he had before.

He's certain of one thing, though: he is way too straight for this kissing nonsense. So, Strange attempts to bite down hard on Lambert's bottom lip while trying to push Lambert's face away with his hands. This means that Lambert's getting some claws to the face as Strange does so.

This is now officially a kiss fight, and definitely probably not what Strange had in mind when he asked Lambert to kill him all that time ago. While Strange might be bringing claws, Lambert is bringing claws and fangs, which he reminds Strange of forcibly when the kiss turns more violent and he bites back, sharp points slicing in hard enough to make the magician bleed. The taste of iron floods their mouths, while Lambert blindly grabs for the magician's wrists in a crushing grip, before he yanks his mouth away.

He's dripping blood from his mouth, staining his fangs as it runs from his lips.

"By your blood I bind you," he spits. "To stop fighting and shut the fuck up!"

Unfortunately for Lambert, Strange doesn't shut the fuck up. Blood contracts don't work that way, idiot! He spits out a mouthful of blood before grinning madly at Lambert. "And I was starting to think you were too scared to even scratch me."

Because unlike the rest of the team, Strange has taken a surprisingly small amount of damage so far and it's mostly been caused by friendly fire. "Come on, you cowards!" he yells, hopefully loud enough for Rita and Syrlya to hear as well. "Let's make this a real fight!"

There's still a shit-ton of leeches and, as one bites into the bare flesh on his leg, Strange remembers that they exist. Lambert's got his wrists and that glyph on the ground is keeping him solid, but what Ignatius has in sheer power, Strange has in versatility. He mutters a few quick words before pursing his lips slightly as he sucks in some air. The air around Lambert's head gets lighter and it becomes harder to breathe as Strange continues to magically remove the air from Lambert's vicinity.

Surpriiiise, Strange learned more fun ways to murder during his magical training montage from hell.

Real fight his ass. The magic of the Athenaeum might not respond to Strange, but he's smarter than the specters and ghosts of it as well, which makes him less susceptible to having bullshit thrown at him if he can think his way out of it, which is mostly why Lambert was hoping to accomplish. Hitting Strange too hard and fast to give him time to come up with anything was mostly the strategy here, or maybe dumping him in the water -- but moving him out of the glyph would just give him a chance to turn to smoke, and the leeches can't keep doing their job.

As his mind's racing for another story, the witcher abruptly finds he can't breathe.

Could Strange do that before? Lambert sure didn't know he could do that before. It would be pretty impressive if it also wasn't trying to kill him. Unfortunately, while Lambert has many talents, breathing when its actively being restricted from him isn't one of them. You also kind of need air to speak, and Lambert discovers it's a pretty bad time when he reflexively tries to breathe and it feels like daggers knifing his lungs. He should be able to hold his breath for longer, but with the magical inducement his vision starts to darken in little enough time, perception narrowing to the band of heat around his arm.

Peridot's gift, still charged from Ignatius' attack before and crackling with magic energy Lambert hasn't drawn from. He could pull from it now, turn into dragon form, something with more of an advantage --

Lambert is straight up swinging his arm around to beat Strange's face in with that bracer instead. Fuck magic, physical violence is where it's at!

Ignatius' stance is about what Syrlya expects as he wades over beside Rita. His fingers curl around the rose and sword both before he glances up at the pillar that extends over the surface.

"We'll need a little more than that." He points his blade at Ignatius, although the motion isn't firm enough to be a real threat. "If you are going to force our hand, then I will hear what it will take to forcibly remove your claim of him... unless you would like this torment to continue until you relent."

"You'll not do worse to me than I've already suffered," he says through his teeth, not looking up to face them. Considering he's staying this with a sword already stuck through his chest, he might be kind of serious.

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