Cross Effects 3.0 - The Third Time's the Charm? Colosseum

[Milbunk]

"No screams of pain?"

Puzzlingly, Kayneth stared through the dust that covered the great hall preventing him from seeing clearly.

He was not about to let his guard down just yet, with a cautious hand he ordered the liquid to re-converge before splitting off into four different directions with one going into the dust and rubble.

"Search."

four thin lines scattered around the room coming from Kayneth's own leg. The liquid itself was special, because it did not have eyes it searched for the vibrations of a heartbeat or the pulsing of blood, the ragged breathing of air anything that would give his foe away.

No matter where they hid, so long as they still lived in this hall they would be found within moments.

[Panda]

Meanwhile, still hidden in the shadow, Adjutor takes a moment to re-evaluate his current resources.

All of my swords are currently out of reach, but I'm in the shadow.

He could potentially be anywhere, but he can't find us here. However, by that same token, we can't find him. And then there's that blob thing, probably a metal instead of a liquid.

In that case it would be something like mercury...obvious use, aside from the combat applications, would be in sensing hidden presences via heat signatures, given mercury's use in thermometers, and it would be foolish to discount that mage upgrading it to be able to detect in more ways than just that.

Appears to have some kind of autonomous defense, but in terms of offense, it's only really deadly at close range. Unfortunately, that's where we're at our most powerful.

We need a way to either blind it or disable it. First, however, a test.

Adjutor takes a moment more to collect himself before casting Concept: Soundproofing on himself, deadening the air around him completely, not allowing it to carry even the slightest vibration, not even the tiniest sound. With that, he leaps out of the shadow, landing soundlessly in the shadows of a pillar on the other side of the hall. With a thought, Rahab and Valmanway turn incorporeal, disappearing before making their way to his hands. Silently sheathing Rahab as he waits for Valmanway to manifest, he summons Tyrfing to him as well, quickly checking it over before sheathing it as well, leaving himself with Valmanway in his hands.

24 bodies of blood, 24 souls. Not bad, but we're dead if we get caught like that again.

Deciding to test a theory, Adjutor takes a look around the pillar before he spots the lines by the prana flowing through the metal.

Considering what we've worked out before...

Gripping Valmanway, Adjutor forces the air off to Kayneth's side, somewhere in the new dust cloud far from his current location, to vibrate, trying to simulate the motion of a person trying to run away, but ending up with something closer to the motion of a wounded person instead.

[Milbunk]

Kayneth sensed the appearance of something new. Had he reappeared?

But something was wrong, though it felt wounded it was almost too easy, and why only appear now out of thin air. There was something wrong with all of this.

But then he felt it, it was small but a second presence was registered by the small vibrations in mercury from the opposite direction. But he would not ignore both, rather he had a new plan in mind.

"Scalp."

The thin lines began to thicken before becoming larger tentacle like objects. With quick motions they slammed into the ground directly where the moving figure was going.

At the other end a thicker line of silver began to fan out towards the direction of the small tug that Kayneth felt.

[Panda]

At least he seems to have taken the bait...so this thing can detect via vibrations as well...

Taking note, Adjutor continues the vibrations, now adding a further limp to the 'victim' who'd just been hit by the tendrils of mercury as he takes a moment to observe the attack patterns.

Seems like this whip-type attack is most powerful at the very base, using centrifugal motion to cut, so the tip wouldn't have any real power behind it...by all logic, an attack via that method could only be accomplished by controlling the mercury with pressure, unlike what can be accomplished with things like thought-form metals...

So, pretty sure that would mean that full force attacks can only be made with a significant amount of mass in the attacking part itself...

If that's the case, then it should be fairly simple to predict the attack path.

Problem being that those kinds of attacks aren't the only kind.

Then a quick check of his surroundings reveals something problematic. It seems that the bait wasn't swallowed whole, as a sensory tendril of mercury continues to head in his direction. He really needed to find some way to spoof that auto-detection system, as it seemed that its user was smart enough to be suspicious about a complete lack of the expected signals.

Wait...What if it wasn't detecting anything at all...Going to need a bit to set it up, though...

Removing the familiar book from his pocket, Adjutor takes a quick look at the tendrils heading towards him before tossing the book to a spot just off to the side of the incoming tendrils, mithril covers clanging against the stone floor loudly as Adjutor takes off in the opposite direction, still Soundproofed on top of his Reinforcement.

[Milbunk]

It didn't take long to figure out the illusion, the reactions of the shadow were too mechanical, too forced, and the energy it held was different from what Kayneth had previously felt.

Yet the wire continued to slam into the body ripping it to shreds. All according to Kayneth's plan.

And then, another movement from the other source. Two more actions, as something hit the ground quickly followed by the empty space moving away.

'Your attempts to fool me will be wasted.'

The thin line that was heading in the direction of the noise as it clanged against the ground, it quickly sped up it's pace and it would only be a matter of moments before it reached the source.

But he was not done yet, holding his hand out, Kayneth began to quickly calculate in his head the trajectory of the empty vibrations.

"Jet."

He felt the mercury layer beneath his clothes begin to thin as it was stretched further out. From his glove a small ball of silver began to form which was quickly released firing out in a single strand directly in front of his foe's trajectory. Interception was inevitable.

Play the fool, allow him to think he's won, and then attack when he least expects it. This was Kayneth's battle strategy.

[Panda]

The deception wouldn't last long. It wasn't really supposed to, as it was just meant to test the mercury's capabilities.

Furthermore, while not giving off any vibrations would work in the short term, the problem with Soundproofing is that it kills any vibrations, and while what seems to be an autonomous search might not pick up on that, this mage certainly would if he had even the slightest bit of intelligence, considering that this thing seems to feed the vibrations to him, given that he was able to detect our movement even while shielding himself earlier.

And it hardly needs to be said that he's proven himself in that regard.

And yet, the magus's wrath continued to fall on the faked vibrations.

And he's already figured it out.

Next target is probably going to be the void caused by this Concept...

The book, fortunately, succeeded in fooling the autonomous detection. Regardless, Adjutor watched the magus carefully, cursing the absolute nature of the Soundproofing Concept, which did as much to hide him from the magus as simply going without it would have. He found his speculation justified when he saw the magus gathering a sizable amount of mercury in his outstretched hand.

Here it comes...

Waiting for the opportune moment, Adjutor then turns perpendicular to his previous trajectory, heading deeper into the cover of the pillars right as the attack would have intercepted him had he not been watching the magus. Knowing that whatever respite he's bought himself isn't going to last, Adjutor quickly focuses himself on the plan at hand, Valmanway going incorporeal as it follows Adjutor.

[Kat]

Crest

Crest turned his head and saw his opponent dodge is arrow, with a frown he continued moving to the river he could hear ahead of him hoping to get away from the blaze.

That archer stopped firing? She suspected that the hidden enemy was planning something that needed longer set up, so she decided to not risk being hit by an arrow that could have manifested more bizarre properties than avoiding flames of the forest fire so casually. The tip of her spear started glowing green, her Token released.

Now more confident about her chances of avoiding incoming projectiles, she decided to go along with the enemy's plan and head on her own where he tried to have her go.

[Milbunk]

Cancelling the previous two distractions, Kayneth focused his energies into the outstretched line of mercury causing it to expand into a thin large disk cutting through the pillars as it chased after Adjutor's retreating form.

[Panda]

It's ready!

About damn time!

Adjutor takes a moment to spare a look behind him, still holding onto the now semi-incorporeal Valmanway as he poured mana into it, with the movement patterns of the mercury figured out, dodging it wouldn't be too much of a problem.

All that aside, dodging the thing at this range should be child's play compared to earlier.

With this in mind, Adjutor continues to evade the pillar cutting disk, heading deeper still into the pillar cover in an attempt to see just how far the mercury could be stretched while retaining any degree of lethality.

[Milbunk]

Seeing his foe continuing his retreat Kayneth ordered the disk's retreat. Quickly absorbing it back into his coat he began to feel the increase of magical energy, his foe was readying an attack.

With a smirk Kayneth resumed his calm position once more relaxing his hands as he filtered the dust from his nostril's via the use of simple magecraft.

"So you wish to attack? Then come at me with all you have! I wish to see what a foolish magus like you dares to hold against me!"

With all the mercury retracted back towards himself Kayneth uttered his next phrase.

"Duplicate."

The metal expanded past Kayneth completely covering him in a complete sphere of a bubble before splitting into three identical similar bubbles.

Connected by a thin stream at the bottom all three bubbles looked completely identical in every way, they all released the same amount of magical energy and moved in the exact same fashion but only one held Kayneth's body.

"Well then? Do you dare?"

The voice echoed from all three bubbles leaving no difference between them, his foe had one chance out of three to guess the correct one, but would he?

[Panda]

Turtling? Change of plans, then.

Stopping the flow to Valmanway, Adjutor takes a moment to concentrate on Laivatain instead, releasing the incorporeal Air Elemental with new instructions as he waits for the Fire Elemental. While he waits, the teen quickly opens up one of the pouches and starts disassembling some of the ammo with the assistance of the Armogarians, not letting any of the pieces leave his hands as he reorganizes, putting the actual bullets in one pouch, the powder in another, and the remainder in a third. He manages to disassemble about ten bullets before Laivatain arrives and rematerializes.

Putting the work aside, Adjutor takes up Laivatain as Valmanway starts to go to work, its presence surrounding the balls of mercury as Adjutor pours mana into Laivatain.

"Fire Brand, Laivatain," he calls, no sound issuing thanks to Soundproofing even as he swings the blade in the magus's general, "Blaze!"

With that, the sword unleashes a torrent of fire, consuming everything in the general direction of the balls of mercury in a massive inferno just as Valmanway finally finishes its work, isolating the area around the mercury in a wall of wind, trapping mercury, magus, and unending fire alike within the eye of Valmanway's figurative storm.

Meanwhile, Adjutor takes a moment to catch his breath, the strain of channeling that much of the abilities granted by Laivatain and Valmanway quickly clearing from his mind.

Mana reserve is still looking good, and I've got enough souls in Tyrfing to compensate. Your move.

[Milbunk]

The three balls of liquid quickly began to expand forming into one larger ball and by using it's growing size it quickly smothered the fire against the wall of wind using the high pressures of the expanding mercury smashing against the wind field in order to put the flames out before they could do any harm.

With that threat currently dealt with Kayneth began to prep a spell. Though he normally loathed casting from his person he felt it a necessary evil in this case.

From within the confines of his Mercury shell that had once more split into three he began to chant.

"O spiritus, qui latent, intra haec moenia antiqua."

From within the ancient ruins the winds around the both of them began to pick up as the dead who once inhabited the ancient ruins began to stir. This was not a ritual of summoning, rather a ritual to call that which was already there.

Thousands of years go, people had once lived, flourished, thrived in these very halls, but that time had long passed. All that was left of that era were the great stone pillars and resting dead.

By using a chat it incite the dead's fury Kayneth hoped to use them as a means of attack, he had been studying the place for some time and thought that perhaps now he could use the spirits to his advantage. But such a spell required at least three lines of chanting, with the first one completed he'd need to buy himself more time.

[Panda]

...Dammit, probably shouldn't have expected that to work.

Now can we go for my plan?

...Ah, fuck it, we're probably not going to be using that any time soon.

Then he saw the magus's conduits flash before the flow of mana through them quickens, thrumming as if foreshadowing something massive.

Okay, that's it, move over you two.

Wait wh-

At that moment, Valmanway goes to work, increasing the wind speed to create a vacuum within its confines. As the pressure rapidly drops, Adjutor tosses Laivatain aside, the blade already transforming into an incorporeal form.

Kill the lights.

Before he can finish the mental command, the Fire Elemental has already sprung into action, flitting from torch to torch, consuming the fires completely as it goes, the room slowly darkening as Laivatain goes about its work.

As Laivatain goes about its work, Adjutor draws Rahab and Tyrfing before dropping the Shadow Elemental behind him. The blade sinks into the shadow, vanishing without a trace, as Adjutor readies himself, grip tightening on Rahab for a moment. In response, Rahab quickly lengthens, blade dulling, turning into a long shaft tipped with a barbed head. Shifting to a stance more suited for wielding the spear that the Elemental had just transformed into, Adjutor then remembers the bullets. Tendrils burst from his arms as they continue to carry out the work he started before, disassembling the rounds and storing the components in the pouches.

[Knick]

Crest

Crest worked quickly when he got close to the river, using his wire he tightly tied it around  multiple tree’s, while discussing the wire itself in the leaves below. It did not need to be held taught for what he needed.

So with the wire tied to the trees in one hand, and his knife in his other, he awaited his pray to enter the area he lead the.

And he saw her walk, right into his trap. And with the the wire in his hand turned black, Rejection of Matter coating it. The Rejection ate though the trees as he pulled the wire.

And like that 5 trees fell towards the armored woman, intent on crushing her completely.

[Knick]

Grenth

None of his attacks were working, a troubling issues. And then he saw the great pillars appear above him from a rift. That was slightly difficult to handle himself.

And so Grenth called forth more beasts. The golems and other minions formed together, and knitted themselves into a powerful wall. Then, as added insurance, Grenth formed a shell of ice reinforcing it further.

The spikes impacted with it, the armor was pulverized on the second, and the third ripped through the wall of flesh Grenth called him him.
But it was not enough to touch him.

Then hole formed in his defense and Grenth walked out. Then he held out his hand and the curse he was preparing latched onto the soul of his enemy.

Icy Veins, a rather brutal curse of his own design. It is a curse that fuels itself on the opponent’s magical energy, and slowly freezes their blood.