lostcarnival | ⇨ FAERIE TALES

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.

Strange's yelling from above is answered with nothing more than rolled eyes. Rita will go if she feels like it, but right now, she's more interested in what Ignatius has to say. Besides, it's not like they can just leave him unsupervised, even if he is bound like this.

Rita frowns at his answer to Syrlya, wondering if it could really be true. There's always worse, isn't there? But it's not like Rita's all that interested in exploring the various ways a fae can be tortured. "If we take him, and you go free, will you pursue him?" she decides to ask instead.

Because if he will, then Rita's not too interested in pulling this sword out anytime soon.

Edited 2018-06-04 18:07 (UTC)

"If I must," he says. He isn't going to lie about that, and it isn't really anything to do with personal interest at this point. Sure, no fae likes having things stolen from them, but he cares far more about his duty to his Queen than he does about having an extra wizard.

"As long as your home is an enemy of the Summer Court, I will be sworn to use what methods I must to ensure you cause them no harm."

Alas, poor fictional leeches. Zangetsu is sure that if Pickles had sapience, he would be in agony right now.

But he’s also sure that Pickles has the personality of a hungry piece of cardboard, so.

Crawling over the toasty corpses of their kin, the leeches keep coming, and more and more latch on with almost painless bites, quickly growing fat on Strange’s abundant magic.

Wham, there's a punch right to the nose. Turns out your strategy of 'turn to smoke' is a bit shit when you're standing in the middle of an anti-smoke glyph. Strange stumbles towards the edge of the platform but remains upright as blood just gushes from his nose. The impact of the bracer has left a large burn on the side of his face, almost like a skid mark from his nose down to the top of his jaw.

Thankfully, Lambert punching him frees up Strange's hands. Strange is still keeping the spell going as Lambert finds it harder to breathe. At the same time, Strange tries to brush off or yank off as many leeches as he can. His concentration is focused almost exclusively on the leeches and trying to murder Lambert.

Well. Zangetsu had seen enough. Lambert's kiss didn't work, the leeches were too slow for his tastes, and now the Nightrider was choking to death. He doesn't know if Lambert has an extra life, but he knows for sure that Strange does.

In a split second, Zangetsu is gone from his perch in the air. He reappears on the earthen pillar in the next millisecond, then moves imperceptibly fast.

And Strange will find himself with a bone-white sword sticking a few inches out of the front of his pretty little roman outfit, just slightly south of his breastbone. Zangetsu stands behind, expressionless mask staring, and twists the blade.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject