2018-07-08: Graven Image
- Log: Graven Image
- Cast: Neriah Parringer, Riesenlied, Fei Fong Wong, Kourin, Jacqueline Barber, White Knight Leo, Ethius Hesiod, Dean Stark, Noeline, Margaret
- Where: Felkirk Village
- Date: July 8, 2018
- Summary: Drifters and Althena's Guard move to heal the tainted Althena Statue at the heart of Felkirk Village - and discover a Cult of Valmar.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
For those who have wandered through the ruins of Felkirk Village before, the village seems much larger; the contagion has spread out farther from the centre. Flickering buildings stretch for what feels like miles. But for all that, the trip towards the old church is... quieter. The illusions fade in and out around the Drifters, and occasionally there is the paranoid sensation of something watching them, but nothing springs out to challenge them. The way forward is almost... coherent.
Until the church. No nightmares confront the arrivals, but phantom shapes continue to drift through the church hall. Horrific faces have manifested in the stained glass windows, warping the images of Althena and her Dragons into hideous visages more monster than human. But they are not alone.
A small group of about a dozen people has gathered in the nave of the church, around the centrepiece of all of this - the tainted Althena statue. The people involved are an odd mix - three men in the battered armour of Hyland soldiers, a handful of Rolance villagers (one woman with a dress showing a peculiar geometric pattern unique to Lastonbell), even a redhead in her teens carrying a long ARM. But a figure presides over it all: A man in a long red robe shot through with black lines.
The man faces the statue, chanting like a hierophant in a low, sonorous voice. It's hard to make out what se's chanting; it's too quiet, too lost in the murmur of the phantasms. But the statue can be seen clearly enough. It's been warped into an effigy of black marble, pulsing through with a dreadful energy - and the once-serene face of Althena has been twisted into an almost mocking smirk. Even her features have shifted. To some, they might look... shockingly familiar.
Holding up a hand, the hooded man stops his chant. The congregation around him sits up attentively as the man pushes back his scarlet hood, letting long blond hair fall free to a point just past his shoulders.
"...All of you," he says to the congregation, "go. We have guests." Looking back over his shoulder, the man scowls past his closely-trimmed beard.
"Just as our Lady foretold," he growls.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied is still... hurt, from her last engagement only a day ago in the depths of a sealed library in search of a tome of the Cardinal Runette Forton's writings. Talia and her hired muscle had managed to get one up on her, and there's bandages where both frigid mist and flame have come and harmed her.
Still, it's not enough to deter her from coming to resolve a problem she knows she likely has the means -- given that this isn't a Malevolent stain.
And within, when she gazed upon it... she could see it...
The face of 'Number One'.
The leader of the Fereshte is here in a long white Althenan priestess garment, leaning on a long priestess' staff as she gazes towards the church. At those gathered, and the statue's visage herself...
"... Neriah ...?" her eyes widen quietly. She frowns softly as she leans further on her staff, with a haggard breath.
She looks towards the hooded man and the rest as she expresses, "We are here to cleanse this statue of its taint. This... is a problem borne of the Blue Star, and I feel a responsibility to take care of that which we have introduced."
She stands a little more firmly, her eyes full of resolve. She clutches a little cuff-link that she'd retrieved from her time at Felkirk before.
"We do not wish to invite any harm on anyone. Please allow us to do our duty."
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Once the 'contagion' spread outward from the initial area, Fei knew he had to go back to the village to see if he could stop it. He ended up arriving largely on his own, fully intent on not dragging any of the Wolves into it when he spots Riesenlied in those robes.
Fei looks over to the Althenan garment and tells Riesenlied, in case she didn't know, "You don't have to wear that still." He pauses. "Plus it might give the wrong idea....Particularly--" He looks up and over towards the defaced statue. "--here."
There's nothing more abominable to Fei Fong Wong than setting yourself up to be worshipped. Is this really a problem from Filgaia, he wonders. Whatever is going on here doesn't seem like anything from Filgaia that he knows of...except maybe that one dig.
"Riese, they're th'ones tainting the area, but I guess it's nice to give it a shot anyway."
He approaches the statue but grimaces as he is hit by that dreadful energy.
It's hard to approach but he might have an alternative as he charges up chi into his right hand.
"Maybe I can just smash it from here." He says.
<Pose Tracker> Kourin has posed.
Kourin is here because the blasphemous statue offends her on a level that most of the young woman's friends haven't seen. She's got the fury in her over this. She doesn't say anything, just glowers, readying her weapon. No trying to parley for her!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Felkirk Village had been on Jacqueline's mind lately. What it was, what it meant...and the cap that Fei had discovered there. It...worried her, deeply. She had been looking into something, anything that could be done for it, but...nothing became clear.
The only thing for it was to go there again...and this time, she has come with a larger group.
The path to the chapel is...worryingly open. It's almost as if they were being invited in. That thought is perhaps more frightening to her than the idea of it rejecting them.
But soon, they arrive, only to see that they were not the first ones here, but here for a different reason - they appeared almost to be worshipping the statue at the other end of the chapel.
...The statue.
Jacqueline sets her eyes on it and staggers back, her eyes wide.
"Th-that face... It can't be...!" Jacqueline murmurs, fear creeping into her voice as she shook her head. It had to be a trial, right? That was what this place did - it drew out one's fears and ngihtmares and tortured them with them.
And then Riesenlied says the name aloud. Jacqueline looks in her direction.
"...You...you see her too...?" Jacqueline asks quietly.
...It was true, then. Then...this really did relate to her. She had hoped it was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. But...
Jacqueline shakes her head and looks up. Riesenlied entreats the people - the worshippers - in front of the statue. Jacqueline doesn't say anything. She's...still a little shocked, at the moment.
She glances toward Kourin, and then Fei, but still says nothing.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Glenwood has seen more than its share of trouble, of late. The Dragonship Destiny has been an almost constant fixture in the area, and Guards have been busy tending to refugees, fighting back opportunistic bandits, and rooting out the Hellions left over from the Saint of Sinners' assault. Of course, war and Malevolence aren't the only things threatening the innocent people of Lastonbell--there is another darkness here, one that White Knight Leo first sensed on the Blue Star. It is his sworn duty to see this corruption rooted out. Given how dangerous the remains of Felkirk have become, Leo has taken a grand total of one other person along, someone who is both skilled and trustworthy.
The earth trembles. It feels like the prelude to an earthquake. It's all the warning the congregants get before one of the desecrated temple walls erupts in a shower of shards, rock and stone giving way before the will of one blessed by the Goddess. Dust flows outwards from the hole, shrouding a large, broad-shouldered silhouette--a figure with a cape, a horn, and an unsheathed sword. The dust clears soon enough, revealing White Knight Leo, who stands atop a pile of rock, face twisted with barely-restrained anger.
"Blasphemers," Leo whispers, as he sees the congregants and their idol. The sight of it makes his skin crawl. It sets his nerves on fire with disgust, with fear, with rage. "Surrender, and perhaps the Goddess will have mercy! Fail to surrender, and you will drown in this cesspool of your own creation!" Leo's eyes dart back and forth as more people file in. His lip twitches at the sight of Riesenlied wearing the (stolen?) robes of a priestess. Kourin, likewise, gets a look, but Leo is capable of prioritizing. There is a far, far greater threat on the board.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Too many issues. Too many leads. Too many complications. No concrete plan of action to address them all in any quantifiable number of fell swoops. The closer to 'one,' the better, but reality has not been cooperative.
Unreality, ironically, chooses to when a number of Drifters mobilize to once again traverse the blighted village ruins of Fellkirk. Ethius remains on alert among the others with his quarterstaff already drawn in one hand, used as a walking stick of sorts while the other hand has already adopted an odd gesture of his thumb, ring, and pinky fingers extended - the Symbologist equivalent of drawing a gun and keeping it pointed down at the ground until a threat reveals themselves. (In effect it just gets the first of a sequence of them out of the way, saving only a fraction of a second - but it could well be a critical fraction.)
No rhyming crows. No strange puddles wanting to drag one in. Occasionally, Ethius seems ready to turn and fry a phantom that lingers in and out of his perception, but they never last long enough for him to complete the part of a spell chant that dictates effective range and area of effect. They'd no longer be there. None were aggressing upon them.
Only when they get to the church, does he take the quarterstaff in both hands in a proper fighting posture. As per the usual, he seems to be giving Riese significant distance among the gathered as he sizes up those who are present within.
The young red-headed woman. She will need immediate addressing. Eyes dart for other places of interest. Prospective ambushers. Other hidden weapons of that ilk.
His eyes drift towards the statue, and its face.
His mind moves to force his gaze away from it. He blinks once to re-focus himself. Yes. That is...
"Indeed, Miss Riese." Ethius appears to agree with her sentiment?! To avoid trouble, to peacefully remove the source of the problem and leave them to their lives...?
"The problem will be addressed." No, that was too optimistic. He parts his hand away from the quarterstaff in the beginnings of gesticulating part of a Symbological spell. His eyes drift back towards the red-head with the ARM. He is already stringing together his planned movements in the span of fractions of a second - like a taut wire, ready to snap at any moment.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean doesn't know Neriah--certainly not enough to recognize that it's her face marring the statue of Althena--but when his friends and companions gasp that name, he blinks over at them in concern. He'd come to Felkirk with them because he, too, had found those strange silver cufflinks with Riesenlied, and whatever was going on here, it was obviously bad news and something he couldn't ignore. Not being from Lunar, the blasphemy involved is over his head, but...
"How d'you know?" he asks Fei, of the man and his entourage being involved in the... whatever's going on here. Dean doesn't quite understand it well enough to put words to it; he just knows how *wrong* it feels on a gut level. Even so, he looks back at the group. "...Yeah. We don't want to fight you guys. Please just let us fix what's wrong."
...Considering how strong some of the others present are coming on, though (hey there, Leo), Dean's got a feeling this is going to turn into a fight no matter what. He grimaces, then looks over at Jay. "Hey, are you okay? You seem pretty shook up," he murmurs.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
When last Noeline stepped through the Felkirk Ruins, the cloying magic of the place twisted around her senses and threatened to overwhelm her, even with her affinity for the Guardian of Illusions there to help her. It was-- a personal annoyance, more than anything. Injuries and assaults she can deal with just fine, but for the metal demon her pride has always been in knowing her own mind and trusting her own eyes - and a distortion of that rankles at her.
This time, she's decidedly more prepared, her gaze set steadfastly forwards as she places one foot in front of the other. Around her, the air positively crackles with sorcery; with Duras Drum unsealed, she's finding a lot more power at her fingertips, and the protective shield of the Guardian clashes against the miasma that hangs in the air of the church, seeking to tear an easier path through it.
"... I have said as much myself to her, you realize," she mutters back towards Fei. Her gaze is fixed straight ahead at the threats in front of them, voice held mostly steady, but there's a note of amusement in there. "Something about it seems to soothe her, and you have to admit it makes for a good disguise the rest of the time. As for this lot--" she adds as she focuses, drawing an enormous blade of white metal out of thin air to brace it against the ground, "--I rather suspect we were headed for a fight either way, don't you?"
Her eyes narrow at the statue for a moment, as her muscles heft the weight of her sword. Fei's idea is a terrifically tempting one, even if it probably doesn't count as cleansing the taint outright--
--but it only takes her a moment to shelve that idea wholesale, twisting the sword to one side to plant it into the ground in an attempt to cover both herself and Riesenlied from the spray of stone. Peeking from behind it, her eyebrows soar at the sight of a white-hot White Knight; she's not entirely sure she's ever seen the man that angry.
Ethius immediately begins casting a spell as well, and the Crimson Noble winces to herself. "If we could perhaps all agree on a method of resolution, that would probably save a lot of incoming trouble. I just wished to point that out, first of all," she mutters under her breath, unable to avoid the lopsided grin that comes with it.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Behind the Leo-shaped hole in the ground comes through a slimmish Elf woman with a spear. Margaret, the Black Pearl of Neo-Vane, has opted to tie her hair back for this, probably in order to avoid having Heresy grip it and pull it down and scalp her.
She seems a little less wacky than usual. Leo says what she expects even as Margaret turns her gaze over the others. There are probably her semi-converted ruffians bringing up the rear, but this is the sharp point.
"HM," Margaret says, quite loudly. "You know, you've been exhorted by the White Knight and the Goddess knows none of you are going to listen to me if you weren't going to listen to him, so I'm just going to take a different tack here. Attention heretics:"
Margaret stamps the back half of her spear on the ground. The tapered triangle of its head gently and emphatically catches fire, the metal burning ardently and without consumption. "If you know of 'Command', throw down your arms and crouch behind us all, facing the walls. Be good little heretics and mercy will come to you like sweet and soothing rains."
"And if you don't, well," the spear twirls with a burning flourish of a trail: "It's all the same to me, frankly."
<Pose Tracker> Mederic de Courcey has posed.
"Don't listen to her. Svetlana, get them to safety," the blond man says with a sharp nod for one of the other armoured fellows. The other soldier nods; he and the two other men in Hyland armour gather up the others and begin to lead them out a side door. The girl with the ARM draws her weapon and takes up the rear, covering the group. Those with long memories may recognize her as the Svetlana in question - and indeed, one of the White Glove Bandits who made a play for one of the Statues in Nortune. She's got her ARM trained on Margaret because Margaret is the most police-like.
As the cultists make their exit, the man turns to face the arriving cluster of Drifters. Riesenlied gets a simple nod from him. "Ah, so you've met our Lady," he remarks mildly. "In any case, welcome to Felkirk Chapel. My name is Mederic and I'll be... ah... not letting you touch the Statue today." He lowers his eyelids ever so slightly. "Though I wouldn't necessarily call this situation a problem. Perhaps a fortunate accident... but not a pro--"
Fei gathers his ki and so does Ethius. Mederic cuts his sentence off and holds his hand out - and the phantoms roiling around the room surge. Like inkblots, they writhe and swirl around Ethius and Fei - they hurl themselves into their ways, still more sweeping through them. Any time they touch, they leave the body jolting with a cold, numbing shock of pain.
"'Tainting,' he says," Mederic scoffs as he folds his hands in front of his chest. "Fixing."
And then the back wall blows in.
Mederic narrows his eyes as Althena's White Knight makes his appearance. "Please," he snarls. "The cesspool is this... this state of things that Althena has given us. She has returned, and yet, she prevents no misfortune and prohibits all joy. No pride, no song or release - only war, rain and Malevolence. And you defend this status quo as if any of this is worth saving!" He squares his jaw and declares, "But our Lady the High Priestess showed us the truth. That Althena is small and powerless. That she has failed to change this world. But that there is a greater power. One that can make Lunar strong again."
Eyes alight, Mederic grins broadly behind his beard. It is a mad, unhinged grin. Lifting his right hand, he clenches it into a fist.
"Hail in the glorious name of Valmar," he intones as the Icon of Valmar glows against the back of his hand.
He takes a breath... and Valmar energy begins to stream out of the Tainted Statue and into his body.
Crimson robes shred rapidly as the man's body swells, growing rapidly larger - he gains about a foot and a half and a significant amount of muscle, the Hylander chainmail beneath his robe stretching as magic surges through it too, warping and expanding it into black and gold platemail. Veins pulse through his temples as he reaches for his sword and draws it, only to reveal that the once-standard Hyland blade has warped itself into a butcher-bladed thing of black metal, with a crosspiece of metal coils twisted with garnets.
FIRST CRUSADER OF VALMAR
MEDERIC DE COURCEY
"BEGONE!" the Crusader roars, his voice underlaid with an unearthly rumble as he sweeps his enormous sword through the air - and a wave of dreadful energy pours from it. It swells into a tidal wave, whirling and pulsating as it blossoms into blades of energy that slash through the room, sweeping towards just about everyone with a force that slashes at the soul as much as it does at the body.
Behind Mederic, the Tainted Althena Statue looks on, its fixed smirk cold and mocking.
MISSION OBJECTIVES:
[ ] Smash or purify the [Tainted Althena Statue].
[ ] Defeat the [Crusader of Valmar].
DC: Mederic de Courcey switches forms to Crusader of Valmar!
GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Ectoplasm! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Ectoplasm! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Riesenlied with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Noeline with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked White Knight Leo with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Kourin with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Margaret with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Dean Stark with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has completed its action. GS: Riesenlied guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bladeshock for 96 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Ectoplasm for 75 hit points! GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bladeshock for 101 hit points! GS: Kourin takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bladeshock for 103 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bladeshock for 104 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: White Knight Leo guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bladeshock for 59 hit points!
DC: MISS! Margaret completely evades Bladeshock from Mederic de Courcey!
GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bladeshock for 72 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"I know, but..." Riesenlied wilts just a little as she considers Fei's advice. "I was hoping that it may aid in appealing to their faith. Perhaps I am naive, but..."
And doubly so, really, because much like the Kool-Aid Man, Leo bursts straight through a wall with a full load of Althenan anger, and she feels no small amount of shame.
... well, she'll have to believe that she's upholding Althena's tenets for this particular incident, at least.
She looks to Jacqueline and expresses, "Yes... I do," as she nods at Dean's question. She bites her lip as she sucks in a heavy breath and states:
"The taint here is undoubtedly one of Valmar's. I have seen... the faces within the distortion..." which is confirmed just a moment later, really, when Mederic intones a hail towards Valmar himself.
Ethius and Kourin are here too, to back up Jacqueline... she's glad, even though she's concerned about the level of power that Ethius might level upon the place, as Noeline points out.
She trusts Noeline to protect her as she steps beside that sword, covered within its wall-like quality.
But the Icon soon appears-- and her eyes widen as she expresses, "That is not a power you wish to cavort with--" but it's too late, as the Valmar energy seeps into him and empowers him... swelling, stretching, his body bursting as she winces and is nearly blown off her feet by the resulting weave of energy.
"I will protect us all, and purify that statue..." Riesenlied expresses. "Just give me time..." as she holds onto the Dragon's Tear and lets the photon emanations start to flow from her body, towards Noeline.
GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's Ectoplasm for 63 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod!
<Pose Tracker> Kourin has posed.
Kourin nods to Riesenlied, then doubles over as the shock from the attack hits her. She straightens slowly. "I will fight to buy you time, then, Miss Riesenlied." With that, she throws herself forward, lunging into an attack with blade flashing, Spirit dancing at her heels, ready to strike if his Mistress calls on him to do so.
GS: Kourin has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Lunge! GS: Kourin has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from Kourin's Lunge for 20 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Well I figured you did," Fei tells Noeline. "But I can't help myself either. Get ready--"
"Who else would linger in a place like this?" Fei asks before looking over to Dean. "It's hard to believe Neriah would do something like this...but I'm not the sort of person who is going to ignore the blatant evidence in front of my eyes. Besides...What has been going on at Lastonbell...can readily be explained by what's seen here can't it? Would explain why the Hylanders moving in were behavin' about as well as soldiers could but some..."
He looks over to Riesenlied and nods, "I'll give you a chance to purify it...but if it looks bad and you're not done... I'm going to just flat out destroy it. So...good luck. I'll watch your back."
Fei Fong Wong doesn't know much about Valmar but as the wave of dreadful energy collides against him and makes him sink to one knee to weather the blast, he knows at least one thing.
"You just traded one god for another. Besides... If Althena gave you this world after you fled ours rather than face the consequences of humanity's actions--"
He fans his hand to the side. "Then what makes you think she owes you anything?!"
And with that, the screen shatters into combat. Fei Fong Wong can tell htis crusader is a powerful foe. One doesn't wear that kind of gear while being unskilled. One doesn't become a voice for a false god without power.
"Your god is just a young girl!" Fei shouts as he darts in for the Crusader, throwing several furious punching strikes for the man. Sure those inky blots hurt, but Fei is pushing through by being furious. He almost looks as pissed as Leo does.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Hagan! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Hagan for 23 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Sucking in a breath, Noeline pushes down the momentary trepidation - not at the figure of the cult leader, though the way the man's form twists and cracks with sudden bulk does bring an unpleasant grimace to her face for a moment.
Instead, the worry is inwards, as she flexes a hand and feels the still-unfamiliar tang of sorcery start to pool there. She's dabbled with her unusual power for years now, testing and poking at it, but the difference between the Guardian sealed and the Guardian awoken is like night and day. She's seen how much channeling Odoryuk has hurt Riesenlied in the past, and wonders for a moment if she's doing the right thing--
--but she catches herself the next moment, and forces a grin back onto her face. Those kind of doubts don't suit her, she decides, and instead she simply focuses on bringing her blade around to meet the tainted wave. Were it simply metal, the attempt to block a formless cloud would be absolutely pointless - but instead, Noeline searches inside of her, pulling more of Duras Drum's power outwards. In response, the edge of the sword begins to glow, a dim corona of unusual greens and purples.
Though wavering as it is, the concentration of power is still enough to dent a lot of the incoming attack, acting as a stone that parts the wave around them. At least, Noeline's reasonably sure it works - it's hard to tell, between the disorienting atmosphere and the sudden fire of sorcery in her veins. She nearly stumbles, but catches herself in time, getting more used to the sensation.
"I'm here," she mutters privately back to Riesenlied, her voice undeniably soft as she allows herself a fanged smile. "Just be careful. Jay! Fei! Keep your wits about you!" she commands sharply, louder. "Hold onto your sense of self!"
GS: Noeline has attacked Riesenlied with When I'm With You...! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Riesenlied guards a hit from Noeline's When I'm With You... for 0 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Noeline! GS: Reload! Riesenlied gains 15 extra FP from Noeline! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with ...I am not Afraid...! GS: Riesenlied has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Riesenlied heals Noeline! She gains 100 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Noeline gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Leo's lips twist as Mederic continues to spew blasphemy. "All I behold here," the White Knight says, "is an abomination, and a threat to the innocent. Will those be your last words?" Leo sets his feet, the earth beneath him a solid and reassuring presence as the heretical knight's form twists and warps under his heathen god's influence. Leo does not shudder, even though a part of his brain recoils in horror and visceral disgust. It feels wrong, just like this whole place feels wrong. Riesenlied declares her intent to destroy the statue and protect everyone. Leo steps forward.
"Face one of the Goddess's own Chosen!" Leo declares, raising his gleaming blade. Mederic does. The wave of power surges off of him, slamming into everyone around him--Leo meets it blade-first, striking for that awful waveform even as it tries to tear into his body and soul. Spacetime warps and bends unnaturally, buffeting and bludgeoning the White Knight as the surge continues past. He's still standing, though. Most people here would know it takes a lot more to put the White Knight down for the count.
"DEMON FANG!" Leo roars. He steps forwards again, the air trembling as his blade sweeps through it with enough force to cut it--energy leaps from the edge of the White Knight's blade, joining with the vacuum crescent. The wave of power rushes at the fallen Crusader, coming in from an angle that will ideally give Fei and the other melee space to work.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Demon Fang! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Riesenlied confirms it, and Jacqueline feels her heart sink a bit. So it was true, then. She opens her mouth to say something...but soon, the man at the front of the room - Mederic - speaks, retorting to the White Knight.
"Valmar...?" Jacqueline repeats. She had heard the stories, of course. But she had thought them just that - stories. To hear that name invoked now...
...Was that the power plaguing Neriah...?
Before she can consider it even further, the Mederic draws upon the power of the statue - of Valmar - and his body shifts as it accepts the power...and then he swings his blade
Jacqueline tries to defend herself, but her current distressed state leaves her easy prey for its bite. The wave of energy sends her flying back, toppling over a pew, even as it assaults her mind.
She shuts her eyes tight and shakes her head, trying to clear it of the horrors it brought on...but even now, she finds her sorcery draw upon.
"E-everyone...here..." Jacqueline says, still a little overwhelmed, and draws three bottles from her bags before tossing them out.
She then attempts to force herself to her feet, but she's having a little trouble.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Noeline with Boosting Brew! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Kourin with Boosting Brew! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Boosting Brew! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Demon Fang for 27 hit points! GS: Kourin takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Boosting Brew for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Kourin!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
He can't let Svetlana leave alive. The moment Ethius reads the body language of the ARM-toting woman as being directed to escort a number of people out the side door, he starts to piece together a quick electrical spell.
Mederic does not allow it. Phantoms move with alarming speed and intensity, and one sweeps right behind the mysteriously murderous man. A sharp chill has his neck hairs ready to vacate his neck. One such phantom starts to run through him.
Fight or flight kicks in, and Ethius dives into the pews for cover from the display, which allows Svetlana her escape from his brand of interference. As the screaming phantom passes overhead, it dangles a hand down onto Ethius' hooded scalp. His eyes widen in a pain he can't define, and a shock that he can, in that he seems paralyzed where he kneels. His breathing shallows, as Mederic's rhetoric rings out to those who gather, those who oppose. Their zealotry and displeasure over Althena's return and her prospective failures. One hand squeezes against the pew in front of him, struggling to use it to stand. The other is clutching his chest.
Hail in the glorious name of Valmar, the words boom through the surging phantoms still swirling about.
This doesn't belong here.
The hand clutching his chest disengages, reaches down, and picks back up the quarterstaff he dropped. The other hand clutching the pew flexes out the fingers. He closes his eyes and re-focuses the human fear back into that unemotional, unyielding stare he's known for.
He stands back up, vaulting over the pew with the hand already on it. He didn't watch the man's transformation into the First Crusader of Valmar thanks to having been kneeling behind some of the scenery. He has little time to mentally gauge the difference in space between his current position, the front pew, and the massively muscled monster of black and gold platemail. He has no time to assure the others worried about what he might pull.
He just has to act.
Vaulting right back towards the front from underneath the wave of energy that sails past his head, he takes the quarterstaff in both hands as he swings it upward in an uppercutting motion from the Crusader's left-hand side, a short hop into the air as he swings it straight back down again in a second hit from above.
"Gale Strike!" Ethius calls the name.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Gale Strike! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret curls her lip.
"O boo hoo," she says to Mederic in acidic tones. "I can't sing a song and drink distilled liquor in order to keep a lid on the Malevolence, and I'm simply so TERRIBLY upset about that that I'm going to embrace -" She falters then as Valmar is invoked! VALMAR! Her eyes widen. It is a face that says: 'well shit.'
And then comes the wave of darkness.
Margaret does not try to brace this head on; she does not gather her sorcerous forcerous or her inner strength or her sword techniques or her ancient relic machinery to battle it. That is something many might do here, if they didn't simply take the blighted force of Valmar on the chin and laugh uproariously.
She is also briefly surprised at what seems like Fei Fong Wong's passionate defense of Althena. She didn't expect that. (For reasons Margaret doesn't fully understand, he stands out in her attention space despite being basically some asshole with great abs.) Either way the wave is coming towards her and she must do something about it.
What is that?
She leaps.
Her descent comes with a streak of flame behind the Crusader as she sweeps round with her heels throwing sparks from their metal bracing. "Gone this far, eh? All that means is that you've got more stick-to-it than the usual heretic, laddo. Would you like to lecture a little further? I hope you won't mind if I interject when I think it's necessary."
To wit: There is a sudden lunging stab-thrust of the spear as if she's going to gore open his abdomen. It's not very nice, but then neither is Margaret, probably.
GS: Margaret has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Shellcracker! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Gale Strike for 18 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from Margaret's Shellcracker for 20 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean frowns at Fei's response. He still doesn't know who Neriah is, or how it would correlate to what happened at Lastonbell, but... apparently that's who's behind all this. The name Valmar he *does* recognize, though, if only vaguely.
"Hey, isn't that the one evil god guy from that one religion from Filgaia?" he says, Twin Fenrir flashing into his hands. (Spoken like a true someone-who-was-raised-without-religion.) "Are you serious about that?! Haven't you seen anything that's been going on in this village?! There's something SERIOUSLY wrong here!"
Then the Valmaric shadow shifts from the Statue to Mederic. "--Oh," Dean says. All of a sudden, he realizes that if Mederic doesn't recognize this as seriously wrong, nothing Dean could possibly say will convince him. "Then we'll just have to stop you by force!!"
Riesenlied says she'll protect everyone and do her best to purify the statue. "We'll keep this guy off your back and leave the purifying to you, Riese!" he calls, already leaping forward at the Dark Priest. His pulse of dark power behind that one word, BEGONE, slams into the young man and sends him stumbling to his knees. "Ugh...!" he grunts, teeth grit, as he swallows hard to avoid puking all over the floor, primal instincts screaming at him to run, *run*, RUN. It takes gargantuan effort for him to get to his feet and sway back upright--but Dean is nothing if not stubborn. Ears ringing, body swaying, he lifts his paired pistols/combat rods, fixing a glare on the Valmar-twisted man.
"We won't..." he growls, the rods of his ARMs beginning to glow with intense heat, "let you do WHATEVER YOU WANT!" He launches himself forward then, aiming to slam those rods into Mederic's side. If they connect, the intense heat of them might well leave him with nasty, lingering burns.
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Burning Booster! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Dean Stark's Burning Booster for 69 hit points! GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Dean Stark! GS: Noeline takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Boosting Brew for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Noeline!
<Pose Tracker> Mederic de Courcey has posed.
Himself not knowing Riesenlied, Mederic has no idea what to make of the Metal Saint's murmured hope - only her intent. His lips peel back, eyes flashing with points of red. "I think not," he snorts as he begins to advance on her. Somehow, he's sprouted a long, dragon-like tail in all of this; even his armour is oddly jagged and peaks in strange places, like a snapping turtle shell built to house a man. Or perhaps not a man.
Kourin lashes out with a blade driven by skill and spiritual righteousness - but for all that he's at least 7'4", Mederic whirls with startling speed and sweeps a hand off his blade. His gauntlet slams into the flat of Kourin's weapon. It rakes along the heavy plating of his bicep, but doesn't cut through, merely scarring it. The warrior snarls. "Such a noble one, aren't you!" he shouts before swinging a fist at her to try and knock her away.
As Fei comes powering in on him, the Crusader brings that arm back around. The big martial artist's fists strike and dent the Crusader's plating before he swings his weapon out, aiming to slash into Fei brutally. "Our Lady is no god!" he spits. "She is the Prophet! The one who shows us the TRUE GOD!"
White Knight Leo descends like a mountain-splitting thunderbolt. The Demon Fang strikes - but with a roar, Mederic swings his huge blade back to clash with the White Knight's. Sparks pour from the bladelock, dreadful energy surging against the holy wave that Leo flings his way. Backwash sears across the Crusader's armour -
But he snarls, and hurls the arc of power aside with a roar. "Then we will see whose god is stronger, White Knight!" Mederic challenges as he strikes out, lashing at Leo with a heavy stroke of his blade - and darkness roils behind it like a wave of thunder.
Margaret leaps; Ethius lunges. The big warrior sweeps his tail out to bat at Ethius's staff, though the impact jolts him nevertheless. It gives Margaret an opening, slipping a disabling thrust through a seam in Mederic's armour - he jerks away with a hiss, dark blood running down the plating. "You've got more than a lecture coming, Priestess," he rumbles.
Until Dean Stark cuts him off. The combat rods strike; they scorch into Mederic's armour, crumpling part of it. Snarling, Mederic whirls away, more dark blood oozing down his hip as he lunges back towards the statue.
"The choice isn't yours," he rumbles, his voice a little deeper. "What happened at Lastonbell was not our doing... but a consequence of your own sad denial of yourselves. Your sad fears. You wallow in your weakness." As he speaks, darkness ebbs and pulses; it surges around him, welling into inkblot-like patterns in the air. They bleed into him; his body surges and pulses with it.
Mederic clenches his teeth. "AND WE EMBRACE OUR STRENGTH!" he roars before opening his mouth.
And his entire lower jaw swings downwards as his mouth distends back freakishly far. His teeth didn't look like fangs a minute ago. They do now.
A wave of black fire pours from Mederic's maw like some kind of dark dragon's flame. Inkblots of darkness twist themselves into fiery shapes as Mederic breathes them everywhere. The fire burns wherever it falls - but it burns not merely the body, but the spirit, a tainted touch which scorches and curdles flesh wherever it falls.
GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Monstrous Courage! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Monstrous Courage for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Kourin with Punch the Kous For Valmar's Sake! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Bladeshock! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked White Knight Leo with Smite the Savior! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Noeline with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Margaret with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Dean Stark with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Riesenlied with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes 7 damage from Poison! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes 11 damage from Toxin! GS: Mederic de Courcey has completed its action. GS: CRITICAL! Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bladeshock for 22 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong!
DC: MISS! Riesenlied completely evades Eldritch Fire from Mederic de Courcey!
GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Jacqueline Barber's Boosting Brew for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Kourin takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's Punch the Kous For Valmar's Sake for 53 hit points! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 164 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 29 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 74 hit points! GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod!
DC: MISS! Noeline completely evades Eldritch Fire from Mederic de Courcey!
GS: White Knight Leo critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Smite the Savior for 29 hit points! GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 149 hit points! GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Margaret!
<Pose Tracker> Kourin has posed.
Kourin is knocked reeling by Mederic's blow, but recovers her equilibrium quickly. "Noble? I am an orphan, abandoned and raised by the Church of Althena, which you despise as being worthless! Everything I am I owe to Her! I will not stand for your blasphemy against her!"
The young swordswoman raises her left hand and summons an ice lance, which she hurls at Mederic before rushing back to engage in further bladework!
GS: Kourin has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Ice Lance! GS: Kourin has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Kourin's Ice Lance for 61 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"Mister Mederic... I can't begin to know how you feel. You feel hurt, wronged... and if those are your true feelings, then I cannot disparage the verve of your faith," Riesenlied expresses to the now almost draconian knight. "However..."
She shakes her head as she places her hand to her chest and says, "However...! The power of Valmar does not bring comfort to those it touches. It is a power that has distorted communities for generation upon generation..."
She bites her lip.
"And that circumstance has brought untold pain and suffering to a dear friend of mine, ever since her birth! Do not make the same mistake! Your life and faith are too precious to be played!"
Fei and Dean have joined the battle, with fist and combat rod alike; Kourin's knocked aside and could use support -- and perhaps she knows that Ethius would not like her 'assistance', which may more disrupt his concentration.
She stamps that staff that she's holding against the ground and lets it hold there--
--and as the wave of black flame washes over her, her robes and form catching the taint of flame, she...
... simply explodes into a silhouette of herself, composed of nothing more than fundamental particles. It's an emergency manuever that Fei and Jacqueline and others have seen before--
--and coalescing out of the form of mist mere feet away, Riesenlied coughs and drops to her knees, but not out of weakness. It is because she's gathered the Dragon's Tear to surround the venue of the church in light, as her voice echoes out to those within the battle.
Her voice echoes, within the form of a wordless song. A song of soft echoes, of deep, faithful chants. The song that brought draconic giants back towards their roost...
It is soothing and focusing, a centering presence that helps to repel against the distortions and illusions that rankle at the mind and pitch at the dark corners of one's thoughts...
The song of the giants, dedicated to those that carry the weight of the world...
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Once again, Dean doesn't have a solid grasp of the relationship between Lastonbell and this cult, so he can't remark on that--but that's okay, because there's plenty other chicanery here for him to dig into. "What strength?!" he shouts, falling back a half-step. "All you've got going for you is hate and terror! If you think that's strength... then no wonder you surround yourselves in illusions!!"
Mederic's retort is a bellyful of dark fire. As retorts go, it's pretty effective. It pours over Dean, who screams as it scorches his body and jacket and armor... but once the flames pass, he's still standing there, blue eyes blazing with defiance, even as he pants from the pain the flames have left behind.
Once again, he charges towards the Valmerian priest to slam his combat rods into him, though they're not super-heated like earlier; there's a WHAM WHAM WHAM, rods striking up Mederic's body from his gut to his midsection to his chest--assuming they connect--and then Dean falls into a ready stance, like he's ready to follow up at an instant's notice.
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Dean Stark with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Kourin with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Noeline with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has attacked White Knight Leo with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has attacked Margaret with Empathic Prayer - Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Riesenlied heals Kourin! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Kourin gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Noeline! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Noeline gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Jacqueline Barber! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Jacqueline Barber gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Fei Fong Wong! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Fei Fong Wong gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Dean Stark! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Dean Stark gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied heals Margaret! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! Margaret gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Riese's beautiful healing song follows up a moment later, and Dean smiles over his shoulder at her as it washes over his body, soothing the scorching wounds the almost draconic flames had left and bolstering his inner verve. "Thanks, Riese!" he calls before focusing back on Mederic.
GS: Riesenlied heals White Knight Leo! He gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Reload! White Knight Leo gains 15 extra FP from Riesenlied! GS: Dean Stark enters a Counter stance! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Violence Vice! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"Really!" Fei says. "That statue is of her, not of Valmar!" Granted, he's not exactly sure what Valmar actually looks like but he's pretty sure it's not 'like Neriah'. Fei lashes out with a hand to catch the Crusader's blade--which he manages to do successfully, but the dark nature of the blade seethes against Fei's touch and he's forced to lt go as his hand burns. He hisses to himself and stumbles backwards, trying to shake the pain off of his hand before adding, "Give me a break. Everybody has issues to work through, just because folks like you are taking advantage of them while they're trying to figure it out...doesn't mean they're to blame." Yeah Fei is pretty strongly against KKianism.
"And--" Fei seems to be recovering from that hand burn. "--Anybody who'd trust a God that does stuff like this is a fool." He may have added 'that does stuff like this' purely to avoid pissing off the Guard any more than he already has. That Margaret lady has his eye for sure on that front.
He sees Kourin summoning an ice lance and he says, "Nice idea!"
He darts in with Kourin, fanning one hand to catch Jay's drink and another to empower Kourin's ice blade with his own chi, sending a large iceburg erupting from the lance and towards Mederic.
He quaffs the bottle with his free hand even as the wordless song soothes and focuses him. Fei isn't sure why, but whenever Riesenlied uses these strange abilities of her--it always seems to lift his spirits, like the connection goes beyond words...
...but even with that empathic encouragement, Fei doesn't seem to be budging on his opinion to the softer one Riesenlied is deploying. Not yet, though the tears do flow freely they do not impede his movements.
GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Suikei! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Dean Stark's Violence Vice for 48 hit points! GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Suikei for 87 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The tail knocks Ethius back. He hits and bounces against the floor of the church until he can halt his momentum, the butt of his staff grinding against it in one hand as his palm slaps down. He sucks in another breath. The chill of the phantoms has yet to leave his person. They may never do so. He uses his weapon for balance as he comes up a second time while the transformed preacher pontificates as they yet further transform under the sway of darkness...
And Ethius breaks off into a run down the outer side of the aisles, as sweeping black fire blocks off his ability to approach the statue. He keeps his head down, allowing the fire to pass overhead. He is not caught in the direct blast.
One doesn't have to be within the corrupting flames of the black fire to feel the soul-melting heat that churns the air in its wake. Every time his foot steps into the descending embers of unlight, something stabs at his spirit. Any flesh of his in open air stings like it wants to slough off his body to getaway from it. His eyes water. He has no faith to scream back against Mederic's mad mumblings. What is his stake, the overwhelming darkness challenges for all the twisting and squeezing it tries to put his spirit through.
Ethius detaches one of the satchels on his belt, fighting back against the erosion only with a clear idea to embolden him so. The actual process is so automatic to him it's only a step harder than breathing - the proper spellcasting gestures and incantations later, the satchel's contents are activated. He shuts everything out as a consequence of some focus. He pushes away the discord of Valmar and the song of giants in equal measure, as though both were noise and distraction to some greater - or worse - purpose.
Rising up again, Ethius hurls the satchel into the opened maw of the Crusader, intending to have the sorcerously-activated contents explode in a cloud of choking, blinding dust to try and put a stop to the inkblot-like breath of darkness. No matter the stakes, beliefs, and dramas unfolding, something deep in there compels a simple message to this distant man.
A simple message he seems keen to heed even in this disadvantageous position.
GS: Riesenlied has canceled their attack on Ethius Hesiod. GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Powder Grenade! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes 11 damage from Toxin! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Powder Grenade for 57 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline's not yet standing when Mederic roars, spewing black flames all over the chapel. Jacqueline shrieks and falls back, her left hand sweeping out and gesturing to project a gust of wind to blow the flames away from her...
...But she's still in a weakned state. The flames eat through her sorcery and envelop her...
...But then...she hears a song. It's a song, wordless and beautiful, that fills her with hope. With a wince she forces herself to her feet, black flames still clinging to her clothing.
Her stance is unsteady. She needs to rest a hand on the pew in front of her to remain standing, but she's up.
"...Where..." Jacqueline starts.
"...Where is your Prophet? Please. I need to speak with her. I...I have to know why." Jacqueline entreats.
Still, she knows that this man isn't going to just listen to her, and he certainly isn't going to ignore her while she waits for an answer. She gestures with her right hand and the atmosphere above Mederic begins to crackle, before lightning drops down upon him.
Her Sorcery is still a little weakened, however.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Lightning Strike! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Lightning Strike for 85 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline only needs a moment to scan the battlefield and decide that things could be worse; she's more than happy to leave Leo to present himself as a primary threat, because it makes both her job and Riesenlied's that much easier if the Crusader is sufficiently distracted. That moment of distraction allows her to dart to one side, gritting her teeth as the wave of energy bears down on her once more--
--and Noeline momentarily gives herself over to the Guardian of Illusion's power, seeming to wink out for a moment as her presence abruptly subsides into the dark cloud and reappears a short distance away in safety. Compared to Riesenlied's own ability to teleport, it's a simple parlour trick - but the Crimson Noble seems pleased enough with herself regardless, letting out a quiet hum as she emerges in a stumbling dash.
"Jay! Now isn't the time to falter!" she calls as she sets her feet once more, and hefts her blade in her arms. "You've faced bigger than this!" It's not meant unkindly, though her voice is perhaps a little sharper than she intends; Noeline looks for a moment towards Ethius, but-- well, she's never quite sure if that man ever needs any words beyond those he's already considered in his own head.
"Fixate on something! Remember something important you'd never mistake! Use that feeling as an anchor!" The words keep coming as she sweeps forwards, the unnaturally large sword held easily in the slim demon's hands; it's not directed at anyone specific now, more called out across the din of the battle. Perhaps it's Noeline's own reinforcement of her beliefs, laid bare for everyone. Perhaps it's just meant as plain old good advice.
Either way, the darting lunge that accompanies her cry is low to the ground, making use of her size - low enough to slip under Fei's arm as he catches the blade, and low enough to use the momentary opportunity that provides to set her feet, twist, and ram the oversize lump of metal home against the Crusader's side. As blows go, it's far more crushing than it is cutting - but backed by a demon's strength, it's arguable whether that matters.
GS: Noeline has activated a Force Action! GS: Noeline has attacked Neriah Parringer with Black Velvet! GS: Noeline has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Noeline has canceled their attack on Neriah Parringer. GS: Noeline has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Black Velvet! GS: Noeline has entered a Reflect stance! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Noeline's Black Velvet for 91 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret seems momentarily consternated at the call of Dean's voice, but he can glimpse, despite the angle, her on the far end of the Crusader. She winks and blows him a kiss because some things are constants in this reality.
And then the heretic breathes fire.
Flame bursts outwards. Horrid flame. It burns, it hisses; Margaret reels backwards, throwing an arm up to guard her face, ears flattening against the sides of her head. "Getting into a GODDESS OFF in the middle of your desperate defense??" she says, but it's a little half-hearted.
Then there's a song in the distance...
And Margaret, it must be said, is not going to complain about this particular act of heresy right now. She has been indifferent on the topic of music, not least because between Neo-Vane and the "horn signals" squad in her unit, music has not exactly been completely absent even if it has been carefully excused. She had estimated this would be temporary, something to deal with for four or five years - a mere trice in her lifespan.
The surprise is encouraging, nonetheless.
"You've thrown away the body you got from the Goddess, twisted into this horrid form, and for what? To express your feelings? To show us what-for!? I'll show YOU what for," Margaret says, as she raises her hand to her lips again -
This is a much more perfunctory motion. The purple-pink heart flying through the air is less perfunctory. The screaming hallucination of darkling torment that it brings is probably a lot less perfunctory - for Mederic anyway. He is not harmed... in body; but as established a moment ago, Margaret has ways of weaseling around the letter of the rules.
GS: Margaret has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Illusion Kiss! GS: Margaret takes 10 damage from Toxin! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey takes a glancing hit from Margaret's Illusion Kiss for 0 hit points! GS: Cripple, Disease, Jam, Mute, Poison, and Weaken! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey! GS: Mederic de Courcey has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
'Then we will see whose god is stronger, White Knight!'
"Yes," Leo says, "we will see." He presses the assault, striding forwards, shoving down that fear as it rises in the back of his head. Those amorphous inkblot shapes bring to mind awful memories--the same ones he'd seen when he last entered this desecrated place. He remembers carrying a casket. He remembers waiting at a sickbed--
That soothing song washes over everyone, stilling Leo's thoughts before they can dive into a self-destructive spiral. He knows where it came from--and he turns to Riesenlied, allowing her a brief nod of thanks. He's within striking range of Mederic now--not that this is difficult, given how aggressive the man is being--and the corrupted crusader strikes. The man's heavy blade comes down, coated in tainted sorcery--and Leo's blade rises to meet it, a gleaming steel crescent. Sword clashes against sword, throwing up horrible sparks of unlight. Leo locks blades with Mederic mere inches from his own face, and shoves, breaking free. The Beastman steps back, unintentionally following Noeline's advice to Jay. He focuses on the earth beneath his feet, stalwart and eternal. It is stoic, constant, and life-giving, and when it moves, there is nothing that can stand in its way.
Flakes of pure, black granite crawl up from the desecrated ground, coating Leo's skin and uniform. Earthen energy suffuses his body.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked White Knight Leo with Earth Prayer! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action. GS: White Knight Leo takes a solid hit from White Knight Leo's Earth Prayer for 0 hit points! GS: Hyper and Shield! Statuses applied to White Knight Leo! GS: Your next attack with the Sneak flag will display with the name Bloody Kisses.
<Pose Tracker> Neriah Parringer has posed.
"And did your devotion to Althena spare you a lifetime of despair and loss?" Mederic fires back at Kourin. "Or give you the wherewithal to tame a world which scorned you? You cling to a goddess who gave you only pain!" He wheels to face her - but she surprises him, and that lance of ice slams into his shoulder armour, driving him backwards. As Fei bolsters it, the iceberg slashes deeper into the huge warrior's armour, leaving more blood oozing free in a dark stream down his shoulder.
He snarls with pain and takes a step back, lips peeling back to reveal those fangs - and the fact that his face is gradually distending into something less than human, more draconic than anything. His armour actively seems to be merging into his neck. Patches along his cheeks are beginning to shift into something dark and chitinous.
The Song of the Giants is sung. Mederic narrows his eyes a little. "...Our Lady said there was one like you. One with a pure heart," he murmurs as he watches Riesenlied whisper her prayer.
Dean lashes out before Mederic can say anything more. The huge Crusader wheels to face Dean; thunderous rod strikes slam into that jagged armour, knocking Mederic back a few paces with a grunt.
He snaps a glare towards Riese. "My faith got me a world of loss!" he snarls. "We're all tired of being weak. With the power Our Lady has sho--"
Ethius cuts him off by throwing a Powder Grenade into his mouth. It goes off with a burst. Mederic's cheeks inflate outward and powder comes shooting out his nostrils, which have distended along with his mouth to give him an almost dragon-like look. Gagging, he staggers back, coughing raspily.
Jacqueline takes advantage. A thunderous blast descends and slams into the Crusader of Valmar. He jerks and twitches back with a gurgle, electricity arcing over him as he's hurled into a wall. "Damnation," he growls. "Speak to her, then! She was going to Meribus!"
He whirls towards Margaret, all too prepared for her to stab him again - but she does something he wasn't ever going to expect. She blows a kiss.
"You're pretty high on yourself if you think this is all about you," he begins, before flicking his hand up to bat the heart away.
Until it bursts into a chaotic sensory mess. The Crusader gasps and staggers, swatting at the air to try and bat away something only he can see. "WHAT DID YOU DO," he screams, his voice barely human anymore.
The distraction buys Noeline a critical moment to jump through Mederic's defenses - and he drives his weapon into the Crusader's flank. With a roar, the man - or is he a monster now? - sinks backwards, attempting to whirl and cleave his sword through Noeline like a butcher's cleaver. As he moves, he leavs a bloody stream behind.
And then he coils his long tail around himself, hunkers down - and the phantoms still fading through the room begin to multiply, random inkblots blurring lazily through the air as Mederic vanishes into the haze.
The inkblots float through the room and twist into hideous shapes. They loom around you, forming familiar visages, grasping hands, bits of memories. And where they touch you, they will begin to infiltrate. They pulse through veins and nerves like a plague, draining away the loving touch of healing magic and flooding the soul with doubt.
They cluster most thickly around Margaret. Bubbling and writhing, they form into phantom figures, blowing a hundred ghostly kisses her way.
"So you want a kiss, do you," Mederic's voice whispers from everywhere at once.
GS: That attack doesn't exist. [smite] GS: Mederic de Courcey has activated a Force Action! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Blood Plague! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Blood Plague! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Dean Stark with Blood Plague! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked White Knight Leo with Blood Plague! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Kourin with Blood Plague! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Riesenlied with Blood Plague! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Blood Plague! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Noeline with Smite the Savior! GS: Kourin takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's Blood Plague for 0 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Kourin! GS: Kourin has been weakened by Disease! They take 40 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: Jacqueline Barber takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Blood Plague for 0 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Jacqueline Barber has been weakened by Disease! They take 40 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Margaret with Bewitching Blade! GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Blood Plague for 0 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Riesenlied! GS: Riesenlied has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: Mederic de Courcey has canceled their attack on Margaret. GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Margaret with Bloody Kisses! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes 6 damage from Poison! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes 13 damage from Toxin! GS: Mederic de Courcey has completed its action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Mederic de Courcey's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Margaret guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Bewitching Blade for 87 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Margaret!
<Pose Tracker> Mederic de Courcey has posed.
...Until Mederic suddenly materializes from the haze behind Margaret and attempts to run her through.
"There's your kiss," he rumbles, fumes coming out of his nose. His armour has consumed most of his face now. Not that he has much of a face; it's more like some kind of hideous dragon.
DC: MISS! Noeline completely evades Smite the Savior from Mederic de Courcey!
GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Blood Plague for 0 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong has been weakened by Disease! They take 40 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kourin has posed.
Kourin, reeling back from Mederic's ink blots, gasps for breath. "Althena gave me the strength to carry on DESPITE the pain! She gave me the knowledge that even if my parents had abandoned me, even if the world scorned me, I was loved! She gave us all these things, and you have turned away from them!" Rather than re-engaging, Kourin punctuates her words by summoning a huge golem of ice, sending it lumbering to smash the metamorphosing foe with glacial force.
GS: Kourin has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Glacial Golem! GS: Kourin has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from Kourin's Glacial Golem for 35 hit points! GS: Dean Stark guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Blood Plague for 0 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has been weakened by Disease! They take 40 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Blood Plague for 0 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points! GS: CRITICAL! White Knight Leo guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Blood Plague for 0 hit points! GS: Cripple, Disease, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to White Knight Leo! GS: White Knight Leo has been weakened by Disease! They take 40 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"Althena lived amongst you, once... I cannot but pretend to know her screed of recent events, but..." Riesenlied whispers. "Trust in her. Trust in her champions... and work with them! In casting aside everything, you only--"
Riesenlied will never ever learn her lesson of abusing her free actions to talk, because the weave of Valmar is back and beset upon them right now, and she can't possibly hold strong against it at this point in time.
She hears Noeline's urge towards Jacqueline.
Fixate on something... something important you'd never mistake...
She grimaces for a longer moment, letting out an agonised wince as the inkblot-esque power gnaws away and threatens to bear her down--
The corpse's hand rips through forcibly, pushing one inkblot away at a time. "... you're not going to use me against her. ... we've come too far for that."
She glances up, as if it would let her see into the realm of the conscious. "... I'm not sure I've forgiven you, but I'll acknowledge your efforts."
--Riesenlied finds herself gasping as if resurfacing from being drowned; she's on one knee as she gazes towards Mederic as he snaps again.
"I have chosen to believe in the strength of others. Banding together, empowering others to act and hold strong in a belief that cannot be shattered by oppressive behaviour... that is the faith I choose to believe in...!"
Jacqueline gets an answer -- Neriah's going to Meribus. What was she headed there for...? Glenwood has always been her jurisdiction--
This isn't the time... but the way the battle has gone--
"Thank you, everyone! I shall-- begin the exorcism attempt...!"
It's a curious choice to do it mid-battle, but with Mederic momentarily distracted on Margaret -- and focusing upon a specific target, she dares chance this upon the Neriah-faced statue of Althena that twists and reverberates with a sickly energy. She's hoping that it will reduce the effects it has on everyone's mind... the energy of Valmar that she's touched upon before, in Nortune...
The Dragon's Tear shines with a glow unlike others before. As she strains herself further and further, leaking more and more motes of herself out towards the air, the indefatigable shine coalesces into a column that begins to shine brightly above the statue... a wash of power sourced deep within herself to forcibly drive the connection between the physical world and Valmar's energies...!
"Watch me, Odoryuk... I shall strive to live by your words... and let this light of ours gather--"
She drops her hand to let it descend.
"Sacred Exorcism!!"
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Sacred Exorcism! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Sacred Exorcism for 0 hit points! GS: Disease! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey! GS: Mederic de Courcey has been weakened by Disease! They take 0 damage, and burn off their temporary hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
For a moment, Dean spots Margaret on the other side of her flaming lance. She winks at him and blows him a kiss. The face he makes in response is basically this: o_o? ?? ?????.
When you're up against an illusionist backed by the power of a hateful dark god, this is not a great thing to get distracted by.
The inkblots surge up around Dean, twisting, looming, leering, grasping, bringing back memories of when Dean had essayed this town with his friends and left him alone, listening to his friends' suffering while being unable to do anything to help them. His solution back then to break through the illusion was applying the rubber bullets of his Standard Cartridge to himself, but this is really not the time to try to repeat that, which means Dean can't use the same solution he did before. While he does his best to keep his guard up, there's no guarding against a purely soul-centered attack--and the blots sear at his soul, tearing away at the soothing and healing that Riesenlied gave him earlier. He screams again, staggering.
But when he looks up at Mederic, it's with teeth grit and eyes filled with determination. There are lots of things in this world and the next to doubt, as the shrieks of the inkblots at the core of his being remind him incessantly. However, Dean's best quality is his emotional fortitude--and his will to keep trying and never give up, no matter what the circumstances. And while he might not have the same kind of faith as Riesenlied, Leo, or even Kourin, he has his faith in his friends. His faith that they'll all keep moving forward, together. So the inkblots can tear at his mind all they like; he won't give up until he passes out. Maybe not even then.
"Is this what it feels like..." he says through gritted teeth, "to be you? To follow Valmar?" He pulls out his copy Sword Medium and channels the power of the leyline at his feet--one of no particular element--to launch a physical, concussive force to SMASH into Mederic like an invisible hammer. "How could you feel this way, or make anyone else feel this way... and EVER think it's good or right?!"
GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Elemental Crush! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Dean Stark's Elemental Crush for 73 hit points! GS: Mighty! Statuses applied to Dean Stark!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
The gagging dragon-crusader is Ethius' cue to move in again. His body is not completely in sync with his will. Numbness crackles and strangles sensation throughout his body as an attempt to break into a run back towards the center aisle to close in - his previous route remaining too saturated in the black fire - translates to a slower jog at best. The additional cover being provided by the assaults that follow - electrical blasts, an exploding heart of disabling magics, and a flying Noeline - afford him more time.
He sees a clear shot of the statue for a split second when the Crusader wraps himself into the darkness. The darkness yanks this clear shot away, and Ethius finds his target lost half-way into the incantation as his left palm faces outwards into the open air.
A phantom inkblot grabs his hand. Ethius is rooted to the spot as it slips in through the glove. He cannot move a muscle. Things take forms around his eyes. Forms that are... what, exactly?
These are shapes that should mean something. Colors and angles that meant something. Green? Blue-green, soft? Leaves? Lilac, white? Sterile, flat gray? Lines of a specific color with blends of others that were not as important as this specific color? Words that maybe have a meaning? That is a voice. More than one.
Ethius blinks while the evil works itself through his system. There is no touch of Riesenlied's pure heart given power and form in him to expunge. There should be fears and anxieties, painful. They must look like this, in some form.
He doesn't react in any meaningful way to any of this as his stare re-focuses. The whole exchange leaves two different entities - one Ethius Hesiod, and one or more phantoms that may or may not be comprised of individual wills - at a complete stalemate as the blinding inkblots still fill the air with twisting, fearsome shapes that never find purchase. One can't see where anyone is--
There.
"Miss Margaret, behind you." Ethius calls as he grabs hold of his quarterstaff and starts to move forward again. Even through the surging phantoms, there is something chilling about the way this man just stares at the Crusader.
Hardly any emotion. No screaming calls for Althena's light, no deep-seated loathing and hatred.
The gaze of someone who seems extraordinarily sure about what he's looking for and what he wants to do, and how he might yet achieve it once he has a clear shot.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Mederic de Courcey with The Stare of Ethius Hesiod! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes 10 damage from Toxin! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action.
DC: MISS! Mederic de Courcey completely evades The Stare of Ethius Hesiod from Ethius Hesiod!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Over the din of battle, Jacqueline can hear Noeline calling out to her. It isn't easy, but...she shuts her eyes, taking a deep breath. She tries to focus, to hold on to the things most important to her, to use them to keep her going.
"...Thank you. I needed that." She calls back.
Her lightning lands, which seems to get Mederic's attention.
"Meribus...I see. Thank you." Jacqueline replies with a nod. She shuts her eyes for a moment. She'd have to go try and find her, then. ...But, later. Right now, she had to deal with this situation.
The situation which is rapidly getting worse, as Mederic hunkers into the haze and the phantoms begin to spread.
"Wh-what...?" Jacqueline staggers backward, her eyes wide in shock as they begin to take on the faces of familiar friends and family.
The phantoms grasp at her and she tries to shake them off, but she does not succeed. She can feel them eating away at her, as she falls to her knees, grasping her head and letting out a cry.
But...she recalls Noeline's words.
"I-I can't...I can't falter here..." She murmurs, shaking her head. Even as her mind is wracked with doubt, she focuses. Focuses on the faces of those that would never betray her, no matter what. She hauls herself to her feet and tries to shove aside the thoughts.
With trembling hands, she draws out two bottles and begins to mix them together. She focuses not on the doubts and fears coursing through her mind, but solely on the process she was in the middle of. And when she's done...she looks in the direction that Ethius points out, as he warns Margaret of the presence of the enemy.
"Miss Margaret, incoming!" She warns as she tosses the bottle into the fray. As soon as it collides with the ground it shatters, releasing a furious electrical storm onto everything in the vicinity.
She expects her to get out of the way, but if not...well, she could handle some electricity.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Fei Fong Wong says, "What's wrong with being weak?!" He files away the information of Meribus which isn't a good sign. If Neriah does what she did here there who knows how many people would suffer? "I don't see any strength besides, just a dead village full of ghosts and strength...hasn't saved anyone!"
But those inkblots touch Fei and his gaze unfocuses as he looks into the distance. Riesenlied probably has her own issues, but she can no doubt hear htose words pulsing through Fei's skull.
I heard every stinking word you said! You think feeling bad is going to be good enough after what you did?!
But perhaps more interestingly, Fei sees something else besides the accusatory shouts of Dan. What is this corpse that he sees in his mind's eye? A corpse that's pushing away inkblots one at a time. The corpse is there but also not there. Fei stares dumbfounded as the ink-Dans warp and wibble into the edges of his perception.
I joined with the STRONG. And you think you can just stand there and take punches like that will make things better too!
Fei struggles to push them away but genuine guilt over a genuine crime is far harder to push away than the imagination. To the outside world, he looks like he's thrashing with his hands wildly at nothing.
You killed my sister! She's dead because of YOU!
How can you kill everyone and still act like this?
Fei reaches out for that strange corpse in the distance that doesn't look like it belongs, that strange incongruence that shouldn't even be there. And he hears a faint whisper as his hands lightly brush against those cold fingers, passing through them.
I'm not sure I've forgiven you but I'll acknowledge your efforts.
It's not the red kid that says it, it's the strange entity that does not belong that says it, and it's not to him, of course, it's to someone else, but those words...
...get Fei up all the same. He stands up and swirls on one foot before a red chi aura ripples around his body.
"One..." Fei pants. "Of these days... all these people's abilities to make people feel bad about themselves...is going to come up short..."
And he dives in with a surging swarm of fire towards the crusader from his upper body even as the ground underneath them bursts upwards underneath them.
"So do it! Make us doubt all you want! That just makes the punches stronger!!" Fei shouts.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Apothecary's Lightning! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Apothecary's Lightning for 104 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Empathic Connecting Fist! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Fei Fong Wong's attack becomes clear! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Ultra Idstinct for 267 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
A sudden grin on her face, Noeline braces for the attack, facing down the cleaving edge of the sword as it trails a scarlet light down towards her. She doesn't even raise her blade to try to block it - instead, illusion fights against illusion as she taps further into Duras Drum's power, the fire in her veins mingling with the adrenaline as she lets herself go with the flow of the battle.
When the blade meets the ground, sparks flaring from its tip thanks to the force behind it, she's no longer there to meet it - instead she can be half-seen amongst the mist, flitting around the Crusader in a circle with the edges of her form dim and wavering. She's clearly not left this plane - her sword bites twice at Mederic's guard from an unknown position, sudden and unexpected - but it's that much harder to distinguish her position, wreathed in shadow as she is now.
So it is even when Mederic vanishes, leaving the church welling up with confusion and raw, twisted power. The Crimson Noble slips between the inkblots as if they weren't there, almost paying them no heed. "All you talk about is what your faith got you - what your Lady will give you. Have you ever grasped for a single thing on your own?" she mocks - and a line of the dark splatters leading towards Margaret suddenly bisect, falling away into wisping motes of leftover magic.
Just as Mederic appears behind the Althenan priestess, so too does Noeline appear behind him in turn, her sword having reformed into an ornate scythe, much too fancy for a true fight - but swung down towards the Crusader nonetheless, an attempt to pin their adversary down to allow the exorcism to begin. "Your power is merely borrowed!" she challenges, feeling the light of Odoryuk begin to rise and shine around them.
GS: Noeline has activated a Force Action! GS: Noeline has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Whispered Silk! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from Noeline's Whispered Silk for 37 hit points! GS: Quick! Statuses applied to Noeline! GS: White Knight Leo has entered a Reflect stance! GS: White Knight Leo has activated a Force Action!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret smirks at the confusion of the crusader. She leans against her spear for a moment and says to him, raising her voice to be heard through the hallucinations, "Oh, I don't know, what do YOU think I did? Hmmm? Let's hear what YOUR take on the acts of an arch-magus of Neo-Vane is. Perhaps you should have thought twice before you tampered with acts beyond your ken!"
Others leap in. Margaret draws her blade back, circling to the side and
oh
shit, she thinks, as the bubbling pain of searing blood washes forwards. The shadows come towards her and she draws into herself, saying with an increasing level of dudgeon - a shout that comes near to being a scream - "Not from YOU, you miserable pedant! Do you think you're guaranteed to have everything go your way? Take a little responsibility for your actions, you"
shhhhk
Blood flies from Margaret's abdomen. Her eyes are momentarily blank.
Is this the end?
NO -- for the words of Ethius Hesiod had led her to start twisting, to start moving. It was impossible for her to know exactly which way the threat would come, how the peril would display itself, but she did the best that was possible in that moment. And so, well: she keeps her guts together, although given the force and fury of the bleeding, as well as her straining to not double over, it may have been a question of making the best of a bad lot.
"So," she says. "Is that what it was... is that what drove you to follow 'her,' Mederico? Pfeh. I'd have sympathy... mercy for you... but I'm going to leave that to the nicer sort of heretic." Margaret's eyes widen as cold sweat beads on her brow. Purple light starts to spiral round her feet. "Now face"
"The judgment," say two other Margarets who twirl out from behind her, all of them bearing the same ugly abdominal wound if apparently less grieved by it.
"Of history itself," as four others spin out from behind them.
And they all lunge towards him with their brands of fire! The spears dive and dart and swarm, the shadow-Margarets storming forwards and sliding around others with passing whiffs of shadow and ozone and third-hand perfume. Margaret herself is shrouded from view for a moment, breathing heavily.
Then one of them lunges right at his face with a single, simple dive, pain on her face.
Well, that wasn't too dramatic, was it?
GS: Margaret has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Fading Riposte! GS: Margaret takes 11 damage from Toxin! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of Margaret's attack becomes clear! GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Margaret's Seven Sisters for 93 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Poison! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Mederic's form warps and distorts, twisting into a parody of something sacred. Leo's mind flashes back to Lastonbell, and further back to Adlehyde--what force decided to create dragons that were agents of terror and destruction? He doesn't know. All he can do is suppress a shudder as the fallen knight's body keeps twisting. Mederic continues his argument. Sympathy flares in Leo's heart, but he remembers what General Heldalf told him, long ago: honor is paramount, but misplaced sympathy can only get good people killed.
General Heldalf--
The inkblots swarm Leo, taking shape. A young woman who looks a lot like him. An older man in military garb with a full beard and a long mane of hair. The man's flesh is horrifically burned, and the young woman is thin and sickly and pale, as if wracked by plague. Something else swims in the corner of his eye--a vision of a horrifying, leonine figure, his features twisted in a snarl of purest hate. It's a tryptich of sorts, a tryptich of things Leo cannot make sense of. He staggers, his guard dropping for just a moment. Mederic blurs forwards, but Leo cannot shout a warning to his subordinate. His thoughts swirl in frantic spirals. He bites the inside of his cheek, tries to focus on his heartbeat, and on the twisted form of his opponent. He's rattled, though. He can't afford to be rattled.
"Your blasphemy will not save you," Leo growls. Then--
shhhk
Leo sees gobbets of red fly out of Margaret's midsection. From this angle, he can't tell how bad the wound is, and can't tell she's already preparing to counter. Anger takes over. Leo falls on Mederic like an avalanche, blade sweeping across the man's mutated torso from shoulder to hip. Leo is literally trying to cut him apart, or failing that, cut him wide open. He has to still have innards in there, right?
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
That, of course, is because the actual Margaret had sat down on the ground to nurse her wound for a moment, and at the last moment, shoves the head of Lamplighter - still incinerating with that oil-flame heat - right at the side of the Crusader's calf. "Wanker," she growls to herself as she hops back up, pushing past the pain.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Mederic de Courcey with School of Georg Heldalf! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action. GS: Sneak! The true nature of White Knight Leo's attack becomes clear! GS: Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Reaping Crescent for 33 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Mederic de Courcey has posed.
Mederic is becoming more and more like a Satanic Berserk in appearance by the minute.
"Nobody asked for the sympathy of a dying fool," Mederic rumbles as Margaret sasses from in front of him.
Until several more Margarets come dancing out to attack. With a hiss, the huge man-monster whirls his weapon out - but it's too big and ponderous for him to take on seven at once. Spears dance and probe, and he bats most aside - until the real Margaret comes up out of nowhere and rips into his leg with a searing thrust. Mederic gags and staggers-
And Leo pulls off a thunderous maneuver of his own - but Mederic spots him at the last second. He snaps his sword up with a rumble, the huge blade slamming into the White Knight's once, then again, before a slash sneaks through to carve a slash into his flank. "Oh, really, he rumbles."
Dean's blast of concussive force slams into Mederic hard enough to crater his breastplate - or is it his body now? He's hurled violently back, only staying on his feet by virtue of having a tail now to brace him. Snarling, he plants a talonious foot and swings his two-handed sword, attempting to rip it violently into him. "It feels good to the powerful," he snarls. "That's all that matters!"
As he moves to launch his next attack, Mederic catches sight of something. Ethius staring at him.
The man-monster fixes him with a flat look. "What're you looking at," he grunts.
And then Jacqueline blasts him. The lightning bolt crashes into Mederic's chest, flinging him away with a groan as the blast arcs across him. With a pained growl, he lifts his head -
And Fei makes his move. He comes up with a punch that catches Mederic with his guard down. The blow carves away a strip of armour before slamming into the man-dragon's jaw with enough force to level the church. With a long groan, Mederic sails through the air, then descends ponderously, crashing through several rows of pews.
Kourin calls forth the golem of ice. With a roar, Mederic swings both hands up - and the golem's thunderous fist slams into the Crusader's left. "IT CAN'T BREAK THIS HAND!" he screams, his voice guttering in his throat like a volcano ready to burst. The impact is colossal; shards of ice scatter everywhere, the blow nearly driving Mederic into the earth. Floor tiles buckle and splinter beneath the immense force.
"'Love!'" Mederic sneers. "She loves you but lets you suffer! No... what matters more than love...." His voice rises to a thunderclap. "...IS POWER!!!" He swings his right hand forward. Snarling brutally, Mederic plants his foot and tail - and, wheeling, attempts to grab the golem by the arm and throw it back at Kourin!
And then ... the Dragon's Tear shines.
For all that Valmar was once a force to be reckoned with... the font of power Mederic draws on is coming to him secondhand from the last surviving child of a sealed god. The power consuming him is there... but tenuously rooted. The light Riesenlied shines washes over Mederic and the Statue.
And the inkblots begin to dissipate. It's slow - a few fade away, gradually. The shapes in the stained-glass windows flicker and roil.
Mederic's eyes go wide - and another pair beneath his eyes open up and go wide as well as Noeline manifests and drives her weapon into him, even as the shining light radiates across him. He surges forward just enough that Noeline can only dig in tenuously, her sword biting in an inch or so but catching on some chitinous jutting part - and Mederic begins to thrash under the light of Riese's spell. "YOU DAMNED METAL WITCH!" he shrieks as his armour practically boils beneath the intensity of the light. "ALL YOU'RE GOING TO GATHER IS OBLIVION!!"
The darkness gutters - strains to resist the light. More of it pulls out of the landscape, the phantoms in the room beginning to reduce in number as Mederic inhales more of the ambient evil to bolster himself against the exorcising light.
Once more, he swings that vast sword through the room. Coiling waves of darkness pour from it, slashing and pounding, a crushing force that seeks to shatter bones and hurl bodies across the church. He wheels to try and hit Noeline, then pivots to strike at Fei, then Leo and Margaret, with a massive arcing blow of his blade that attempts to power through them all
And then he swings his mouth open again.
His lower jaw splits again. A third jaw drops from it as a second mouth rips itself into being.
And from the upper mouth, a vast, shrieking white BEAM roars forth. The beam crackles with raw power, twisting itself into the shape of a leering, barely-human maw trailing a comet's tail of Valmar energy.
The face of the God of Evil itself, unleashed to consume Riesenlied, utterly.
GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked White Knight Leo with Smite the Savior! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Smite the Savior! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Ectoplasm! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Dean Stark with Ectoplasm! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Ectoplasm! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Kourin with BOWSER THROW! GS: Mederic de Courcey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Noeline with Smite the Savior! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Margaret with Smite the Savior! GS: Mederic de Courcey enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Riesenlied with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Mederic de Courcey has completed its action.
DC: MISS! Margaret completely evades Smite the Savior from Mederic de Courcey!
GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Ectoplasm for 67 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: Riesenlied takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Riven God's Blasphemy for 289 hit points! GS: COUNTER! White Knight Leo strikes at Mederic de Courcey with a counter attack! GS: White Knight Leo takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Smite the Savior for 134 hit points! GS: Sneak! The true nature of White Knight Leo's attack becomes clear! GS: Mederic de Courcey critically Guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Counter Attack for 28 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Dean Stark guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Ectoplasm for 117 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Dean Stark! GS: CRITICAL! Noeline takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Smite the Savior for 146 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Noeline! GS: Fei Fong Wong critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Smite the Savior for 25 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's Ectoplasm for 57 hit points! GS: Ethius Hesiod enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Kourin takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's BOWSER THROW for 58 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kourin has posed.
Kourin dives out of the way of the golem, her quick movement getting her out of the way of the golem as it shatters, but she takes a chunk of ice to the shoulder all the same. She staggers back to her feet, clenching her teeth. "Spirit," she manages to grind out. "Get him!"
The dog darts in, snapping his jaws and biting several times!
GS: Kourin has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Spirit Rush! GS: Kourin has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Kourin's Spirit Rush for 97 hit points! GS: Cripple! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
In truth, Riesenlied wasn't certain if that would work.
For all that she styles herself to wish to follow the divine -- she is in no way divine. She does not even have a conduit to any channel of magic... merely a fundamental phenomenon that, perhaps, purports to have similar effects to the divine.
But perhaps that is what they say about sufficiently advanced technology...
"I--I believe I've done all I can, but... the tether of power is still inextricably linked towards the Crusader," Riesenlied explains. "One cannot be removed without the other going..."
And it's worse enough, in that moment, that her rather grand incantations leave her wide open-- and as she whips her head towards where Margaret had been struck, where Noeline, Leo and Fei are drawing fire--
--the maw rips open, from Mederic himself. Her eyes widen as the beam erupts, threshing through the floors of the church and cutting a destructive, disintegrative swath that thrashes onto her.
"Aah!"
Any other time, and Riesenlied may as well just have ended her career there-- but it's with a reflexive hand that she throws up what little there is of the Althenan staff in its wake, creating a barrier of light that seeks to repel the force of Valmar away...
It's hardly enough. It threatens to convulse and overwhelm the barrier. She drops to both knees, writhing in agony--
*clatter*
A small metal object lands on the floor next to her, threatening to be disintegrated much like the rest of the flooring.
It's a single polished steel cufflink with the initials N.P. upon it.
"No--" she seizes upon that seemingly pointless little trinket, a fool thing to do in the withering gaze of the God of Evil...
...and she concentrates further. "I won't give up...!"
Her knees tremble, but she clutches close that trinket as she bears her gaze towards Mederic. She casts her gaze to Fei for a moment, unsure why-- why she could feel something within him that she couldn't before...
The corpse within pauses, before shaking her head as she sidles back down towards her broken wooden chair.
"Just a little more..."
She gathers what little left there is of her power as she shapes her light into a thin but familiar blade. A manifestation of that which she believes so fervently...
The culmination of her empathic reach.
"This... is our torch in the dark!
A stand against the winds of malice...
A hope that will shine everlasting!"
It is a familiar speech.
The light of the blade culminates further and further as she reaches back and lets it ensconce around the Tear.
"A light that shall carve through all barriers...
A light that shall open the gates to the new world!"
She lets it rise, even as she feels the last vestiges of her power buckle away.
"And its name is..."
The light descends. It seeks to bring light where there is none -- none, where the visage of Evil itself bears witness in front of her. And though her power may be scant...
It is her faith in everyone here that she draws her strength from, every last one of them...
"Laevateinnnnn!!"
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Empathic Prayer - Laevateinn! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's Empathic Prayer - Laevateinn for 0 hit points! GS: Entangle and Shieldbreak! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"If that's what you really think, then you're nothing more than a bully!" Dean shouts back at Mederic. But he's not going to listen, is he? He knew that from the start. Dean just can't stop himself from saying *something*, not at something so absolutely twisted as this. Mederic meanwhile recovers from Dean's Medium-based attack and swings that two-handed sword at him. Dean manages to cross his combat rods in front of him in time to avoid getting cleaved in half, but the sheer force of the attack still *smashes* into him like a spike-headed mace and sends him flying, crashing across the chapel and landing with bone-jarring force through one of the pews.
He nearly doesn't get up again. This is to his advantage when Mederic starts blasting lasers and stuff all around the room. Then Dean groans, stirs, and pulls himself slowly upright, using the rods in Twin Fenrir as balance until he's back on his feet. He might be approaching the end of his rope, but... even so, he'll keep fighting. He told Riesenlied he'd have her back so she'd have time to purify that statue. As long as he *can* still stand up, he *will*.
"This is... the end of the line for you!!" he says through gritted teeth, once again calling upon his Sword Medium as he aims both ARMs at the Valmarian priest. This time, though, the Medium sharpens his vision, which tunnels in on Mederic, and gives Dean instinctive insight as to the priest's weak points, if he has any. Upon Riesenlied's rousing call to bring down the light to sear away darkness, Dean unloads both clips of his paired ARMs, and those bullets fly for those weak points as fast and furious as they can.
GS: Dean Stark has activated a Force Action! GS: Dean Stark has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Twin Fenrir - Sonic Vision! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Dean Stark's Twin Fenrir - Sonic Vision for 111 hit points! GS: Hyper! Statuses applied to Dean Stark! GS: Dean Stark enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
You, says Ethius' eyes as he sizes up the increasingly monstrous former man who inquires as to where he dares plant those peepers. For that moment of time between then and Jay's lightning blast, Ethius is afforded a time to size up the Crusader's anatomy and their collected wounds - and his continued transformation and deformation into something else. Between the particles of magical power, movements of masterful martial artists, and everything in-between, he works with the information he has.
The shining Dragon's Tear compels Ethius to make distance anew, as the inkblots surrounding him seem to give up the ghost. He moves again, more pep in his step. He sucks in another batch of air through his bandanna. Less oppressive. There, just as Noeline's attacking, he might have a shot at--
Phantoms are inhaled. Some pass through Ethius just as he's moments from lunging through that opening to the statue. The paralyzing chill pulls him back, his steps unsteady. His contact with them is mercifully short, planting the butt of his quarterstaff for blaance just as Mederic prepares to swing the sword again.
Ethius leaps, his momentum carrying him forward. The blade comes shy of contact of his head as he inverts. The tip of his quarterstaff scrapes against the blade as it passes underneath. Waves of darkness spray out. Blinding. Tossing. The inky energy feeds up through the staff.
Ethius starts to rapidly spin it in his hands in mid-air, as he is washed over the wake of dark power. Shrieks of a mouth that gathers fell power deafens through the inky black. His gaze does not waver. He does not directly see where he is relative to the Crusader. He has an educated guess.
With one final flicking spin of the quarterstaff, he passes overhead and snaps the weapon still. Somewhere in the fracas below, Ethius mouths out the mantra that holds him together as the latest extension of Valmar's fell influence grasps at his person all around - wanting to stab out the eyes, to numb the mind, to blow out the ears, to stay the hand. His reason, so simple as to be dull, walking outside of the debate of Althena's worth as a deity versus Valmar's.
"This doesn't belong here." Words stated not in yelling desperation, but as though certain fact to him as he comes down into a crouch off to the Crusader's right and back. He chooses to work with one of the wounds already inflicted, drawing back the staff and moving to lunge and stab deep like he were wielding a spear (he could, in fact).
"Stinger." He calls the name, pushing in as far as he can and letting it linger if he can get it in there at all, before flicking it up and back to try and throw the greater mass of mutated muscle, mouths, and other appendages further out of balance.
His positioning is also a pragmatic choice - this theoretically shields him from any further alpha strikes from those giving their all against the Crusader.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has activated a Force Action! GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Stinger! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Ethius Hesiod's Stinger for 83 hit points! GS: Jam! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
It's more like a drug, Fei thinks, than strength. It's pitiable that one is being mistaken for another.
The wave of crashing darkness comes upon Fei. Fei brings up his arms as if to block it but you don't block doom energy, not really.
...Which makes it all the more surprising when that's precisely what happens. The dark energy burns around him but presses past him rather than into him carving up the floors and pews before ultimately colliding into a wall and dissipitating. Fei seems as surprised as anyone but as noted--Mederic's power is coming to him secondhand from the last surviving child of a sealed god. Whatever Fei draws his power from is not second-hand.
"Riesenlied!" Fei shouts. "Watch out!" But it's too late, isn't it?
That strange weapon again. #-1 FUNCTION (ANSI) EXPECTS 2 ARGUMENTS BUT GOT 1 but it's starting to become apparent why it worked and the other did not.
Fei says, "Riesenlied..." quietly as he looks at that familiar blade. To think, scarcely a year ago they'd been trying to harm each other.
Fei isn't feeling drained after channeling that power but that strange chi vanishes shortly after the breaking of that energy wave. Whatever Fei did, he can't do it consistently. He runs towards Mederic. Doth thou desire the power, Mederic? Do you?
Fei leaps into the air at the last moment and slams his feet rapidly for the beast, intending to stay in nice and close and keep him off of Riesenlied. "Power isn't as useful as you think!"
Come on, he thinks, just a little more.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Tenbu! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Fei Fong Wong's Tenbu for 165 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong enters CONDITION GREEN!!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
"Oh, don't flatter yourself," Margaret says as she gets up to her feet. "You didn't gut me, you pretentious infidel, you just nicked me in the bollock. Ugh!"
This is actually miserable for Margaret, but she soldiers on. Especially as whatever it is that the Cucco Queen over there is doing seems to be working. By the Goddess, she thinks, what a relief that not everyone who came here from this planet is composed entirely of WHINING and SNEERING.
The darkness, then, comes - and Margaret bows her head. Darkness rises around her and she remains crouched, the darkness forming multifarious shapes around her. She leans on Lamplighter and focuses on that touch, the blessing of the Goddess, she who also is there in the dark of the night.
When the storm passes, Margaret breathes out with effort.
And she has something in her hand. Broad silk-painted plates. No. Cards!
She turns them to face the Heretic. The nine of swords. The tower. and...
What's that last one? Rugile's Silk-Print Novelties and Sacred Objects - 3D4 Borgan Lane - Neo-Vane -
The rules card?!
With a snap of her wrist they're slung at the heretic, with lethal, sparkling force!
"You seem upset," she says to Mederic, more wanly. OK: She is showing her pain.
GS: Margaret has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Straight!! GS: Margaret takes 11 damage from Toxin! GS: Margaret has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Margaret's Straight! for 84 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
"A-ah!" Jacqueline is forced to brace herself, hunkering down and crossing her arms over her face as she is buffeted by waves of crushing darkness. She tries to hold her ground...but before too long, the sheer force of it sends her flying backward, crashing into the wall on the side of the church, where she slides down and slumps onto the ground as her glasses clatter to the ground next to her.
For a moment, she is still.
But, she can feel it. She can hear the speech that Riesenlied recites. She can still see the light.
Though her vision is blurred, she can see Kourin and Spirit - brave, loyal Spirit - giving it their all, even though the situation is grim. Even Ethius is here, even if it's for his own reasons.
...She can't give up.
Her legs refuse to move, and she can't see very well...but she doesn't need to stand to use her sorcery, and the light that Riesenlied provides is more than enough of a beacon.
She raises a hand and gestures...
...and energy begins to tear through the ground beneath Mederic, sending rubble, earth, and perhaps Mederic himself flying up if he is not stable enough. And then she brings the hand down with another gesture.
Lightning crashes down, sending everything back into the ruined earth.
GS: Jacqueline Barber has activated a Force Action! GS: Jacqueline Barber has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Dualcast - Voltaic Quake! GS: Jacqueline Barber has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Jacqueline Barber's Dualcast - Voltaic Quake for 123 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Leo has done something rash, something Waning Crescent masters rarely do--he's left himself open. Waves of force slam into the Beastman, battering him, forcing him a half-step back. Chill darkness saps at his strength, hungry for his life-force. If he hadn't empowered himself with the Blessing, he's sure that would've cracked ribs, at minimum. It still hurts in a way that is both numbing and agonizing. Leo steps forwards, lunging at Mederic in a vicious counterattack, but his blade finds no purchase on the man's scaled hide. The sheer strength of that blasphemous aura forces him back. His gaze flicks over at Riesenlied, uncertain if the dragon-woman is going to make good on her promise to purge this place, but it's no more than a glance. Leo steels himself again, breathes. The horror is mounting. He's not sure if he can--
No!
"Withdraw if you must!" Leo bellows, once more lunging forth, into the melee. Margaret's cards sail past his shoulder, and he twists his head a little to ensure he doesn't get nicked, too. He's not sure if Dean will listen to his command. He's not sure if any of them will listen, but he has to try. This is his fight.
"Whomever you were," Leo says, "you had but one life to live, and you have wasted it on this." Disgust drips from his voice, but he still sounds rattled. Not too rattled to focus his energies, though. Brilliant gold-white billows out from him, focusing along the edge of his blade. Leo slips into a striking stance, channeling it with practiced ease. His blade burns until it's almost too bright to look at.
"LION'S HOWL!"
Leo strikes. Energy surges off his blade, quickly taking shape--the phantasmal visage of a roaring lion, fangs bared. Its jaws close as it rushes at Mederic, and then it loses coherence, exploding outwards in a wave of energy. Bits of pews go flying. Chunks of rock become improvised missiles. That giant, blasphemous statue is going to eat at least a little if no one does anything to stop it.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Lion's Howl! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from White Knight Leo's Lion's Howl for 110 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline grits her teeth, hanging onto the back of the colossus as he roars and thrashes. She's well aware that this is her role in this battle - draw their opponent's attacks, pin him down and restrict his movements-- and if necessary, hang on for dear life.
It's an almost nostalgic feeling, because this isn't the first time she's been in a situation like this - just a few months ago, she and everyone else fought for their lives in the Floating Gardens, and just like then she ended up atop the Quarter Knight, giving every last scrap of herself to carry the Fereshte forwards. She almost chuckles when she realizes that day definitely gave them a new world, but perhaps not the one that Riesenlied was referring to.
The chain of thought is following her own advice; she focuses on it, ignoring the wild clawing of Mederic's blade as it bites against her. He isn't the only one that can twist his form; the metal of her scythe starts to shift, biting and clawing in a thousand tiny little rivulets that tear at the Crusader's armor, working with and around the searing light of Laevatein as she grasps for every last advantage she can.
For a moment, she blinks back white blood, feels her balance waver - and then she forces that wild grin back on her face, concentrating and pooling Duras Drum's power as she does so. For Berserk, it was a desperate stretch - here and now, it's more a torrent, gouts of a sickly purplish-green flame racing along the metal that comprises her.
GS: Noeline has activated a Force Action! GS: Noeline has attacked Mederic de Courcey with The Errant Blade! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Noeline's The Errant Blade for 106 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Mederic de Courcey has posed.
Mederic de Courcey had one weakness: Doge.
He almost doesn't notice Spirit; a dog is beneath his concern. At least, until Spirit's dashing past him and digging his teeth into his leg. "DAMN DOG!" the man-monster roars as he sweeps his arm down to try and knock Spirit away, but his leg's badly bloodied nevertheless.
And that's when it shines. The radiant light of one Metal Demon's hope.
Laevateinn.
"WHAT," Mederic rasps, seemingly less and less capable of much that's more coherent. He throws an arm up to try and shields his eyes. But it's not his eyes he needs to be worried about; it's the rest of him. Her light may not be divine, but the source of Mederic's power is hardly infinite - and the harder he draws on it, the more it seems to consume him.
He's going to need to draw on it quite a bit right now. Dean opens up with a barrage of bullets; they slam into the huge monster, blood spraying as the shots punch through what is by now less armour than hide. "DAMN YOU BRAAAAGH," he roars, degenerating into incoherent snarling before he can even get three words out. Ethius dips in behind and makes a needling blow that drives Mederic forward.
The man-mutant bellows again. It's the best he can do.
Fei drives in with a crushing blow. His feet slam into Mederic's head square between the eyes. With a gurgling groan, he staggers backwards and nearly falls over what's left of a pew.
Margaret flips him a straight, and a few words of sass. The cards slash across his shoulders and face, leaving sparkling lines of blood behind. He staggers backwards and screams a long, rattling scream that shakes the walls of the church. Another follows as Noeline's tricks work to peel armour away from him - but it's less armour than it is a body now, each needling slash leaving bloody wounds behind.
Althena's White Knight roars like a lion. The thunderous face of the proud leo of light crashes into Mederic headlong even as the once-warrior shields himself with his arms - the right one has completely merged with his sword now. Explosive force blasts away enormous chunks of chitinous platemail. They bounce off the face of the statue behind him. More of that energy slams the Statue itself.
A few cracks dance through the marble... which has begun to adopt splotches of white. One half of its face is Neriah's. She's frowning.
The other half is Althena's. Whatever you're doing... it's working.
More ambient inkblots whip through the room. Mederic inhales. The energy pours into him, bolstering, strengthening. But it becomes clear pretty quickly that it's not just power that he's getting.
Because something is incredibly wrong.
Mederic's body bulges in strange places. His armour bubbles and pulses and then settles again, then starts somewhere else. Veins in his head stand out with terrifying clarity. Another set of eyes randomly opens halfway down the huge stump that passes for his neck. Another tail is beginning to manifest from the back of his left calf. It's as if the Power of Darkness has run wild, consuming more and more of the original man the more he draws on his reserves to keep himself alive.
When he breathes out again, it's with a wave of eldritch fire that seems to barely be targeted. It spews at random; the flame is hotter than ever, roiling with anguish as it forms into hideous inkblots that evoke dreadful images, burning flesh with cold flame. And yet... and yet, areas of the room are untouched by it. Only fumes roil over a fortunate few. It is as though Mederic can no longer truly aim.
When he exhales again, it's with a barely-coherent shriek. Both of his mouths blaze with devil-light, spewing forth still more of those immense rays. They twist into the visage of Valmar once more as they race towards Leo, then Margaret, to swallow them up with dreadful force.
But the truth is becoming clear. Mederic is consuming the ambient Valmar energy to stay in the fight.
But there is only so much there - and doing it is rapidly devouring him.
GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Mederic de Courcey with CONSUMPTION - POWERS OF DARKNESS! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's CONSUMPTION - POWERS OF DARKNESS for 123 hit points! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Riesenlied with Chanson! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Dean Stark with Chanson! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Jacqueline Barber with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Kourin with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Noeline with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Ethius Hesiod with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Fei Fong Wong with Eldritch Fire! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked White Knight Leo with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Mederic de Courcey has attacked Margaret with Riven God's Blasphemy! GS: Mederic de Courcey has completed its action. GS: White Knight Leo critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Riven God's Blasphemy for 54 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 140 hit points! GS: Toxin! Statuses applied to Fei Fong Wong! GS: Margaret takes a solid hit from Mederic de Courcey's Riven God's Blasphemy for 263 hit points! GS: Dean Stark critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Chanson for 0 hit points! GS: CRITICAL! Noeline takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 78 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Toxin! Statuses applied to Noeline! GS: CRITICAL! Jacqueline Barber critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 28 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Jacqueline Barber! GS: CRITICAL! Kourin takes a glancing hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 75 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, Mute, and Toxin! Statuses applied to Kourin! GS: Fei Fong Wong used the Force Action Protect! He takes Mederic de Courcey's attack on Riesenlied on himself! GS: Fei Fong Wong has activated a Force Action! GS: Fei Fong Wong guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Chanson for 0 hit points! GS: Fei Fong Wong loses a Combo from Interrupt!
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Damn you braaagh, Fei thinks, the voice of power.
Fei Fong Wong is, this time, in position as he bounces off of Mederic to touch down on the floor once more. He gets caught by the flame as he hops down and is sent crashing down towards the floor, rolling with the blast to put out the flames before they wholly consume him, but thr burnt away peasant garb reveals hefty burns and scarring though the latter doesn't seem to be from this particular beast, not yet.
Fei raises both arms up and calls back to Riesenlied. "Keep at it! I'll cover you!"
Waves of darkness batters against Fei repeatedly but he refuses to let that darkness hit Riesenlied.
His gaze focuses on Mederic that is being eaten alive by his own power. It's certainly more gruesome than Grahf's methods, Fei thinks, so that's the silver lining to all this--knowing his own personal torment isn't quite as gruesome as this.
But it's a very thin line. Whatever Mederic is now, it's pretty clear even to Fei Fong Wong that it's better that it be ended rather than it be allowed to linger. He can't call upon that other chi that sometimes pulses through him, all he has right now to rely on is himself, his friends, and that Margaret lady.
He calls upon his own flame and unleashes an explosive wave of fire crashing through the pews and towards Mederic. To him, it's pity fire. Only way to be sure.
GS: Fei Fong Wong has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Kakei! GS: Fei Fong Wong takes 15 damage from Toxin! GS: Fei Fong Wong has completed his action. GS: CRITICAL! Ethius Hesiod critically Guards a hit from Mederic de Courcey's Eldritch Fire for 27 hit points! GS: Cripple, Jam, and Mute! Statuses applied to Ethius Hesiod! GS: Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Fei Fong Wong's Kakei for 139 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Kourin has posed.
Kourin staggers back to her feet after being bowled over by the force of the Eldritch Fire. She winces, but moves forward, gaining speed, sword flashing as she cries out, "Cross slash!"
Did she normally shout attack names?
GS: Kourin has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Cross Slash! GS: Kourin takes 11 damage from Toxin! GS: Kourin has completed her action. GS: CRITICAL! Mederic de Courcey guards a hit from Kourin's Cross Slash for 142 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied feels herself deeply rattled as Laevateinn's light winds down; utilising it always drains a significant chunk of her energy, and in no small way wounds her as well. But it was necessary for the push forward...
She gazes as Ethius brings forth a powerful strike to the Crusader. She can hear Fei calling out in warning-- one she heeds well, but one she's not able to do anything about given her ailing means of defending herself.
Margaret utilises an uncanny form of combat... ... cards?? She really wants to have a talk with her one day. She looks to Noeline with a sense of trust as she continues to give her the time she needs to act, a pang of worry still reverberating in her heart... and as she watches that sickly illusory flame erupt--
--she wonders for a moment as she can embrace that Guardian flame in the same way.
Jacqueline's magic erupts with a cutting swath through the church, and she nods very quietly as she moves closer, sensing distress from the alchemist. "You're doing good, Jacqueline..."
Fei springs to action and attempts to shield her from harm, as she lets out a cough from the roiling boil of the evil power within. "A-all right... thank you, Fei, I'll be all right..."
She grimaces faintly, looking on in horror as the Power of Darkness begins to consume him whole. She struggles, but tries to appeal to him, knowing well that such strong feelings may well be what can get one to resist the Power of Darkness: "Knight Mederic! It is what power brings that you desire, and not power alone, does it not...?"
A pause. "Power grants you a sense of security, a sense of belonging. A totem against the fears that you feel... the fear of being forgotten, of being cast aside... of being betrayed..."
She shakes her head. But she senses that building energy from Leo, as she senses a technique she'd first seen firsthand in Adlehyde -- the Lion's Howl, roaring energy bursting throughout the church.
"Listen to Dean," Riesenlied urges. "He knows the truth of what supports people! You can't give up in the face of despair... for Valmar will prey upon it...!"
GS: Riesenlied has attacked Mederic de Courcey with It's Like Turn 5 You're Using The Convince Command NOW??! GS: Riesenlied has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Together, they bring everything down upon him. It's enough of a distraction that Jacqueline's able to put her glasses back on and down a potion. Feeling gradually returns to her legs, which she uses to force herself into a standing position.
This is fortunate, as she's soon forced to defend herself. She projects a burst of wind, dissipating most of the flames before they can reach her. Still, even that took its toll on her.
She drops to one knee and takes a deep breath, shutting her eyes tight. Still, she can hear Riesenlied's encouragement, and she looks up to offer her a weak but confident smile.
"Th-thanks..." She replies...but then, movement from Mederic gets her attention.
She stares at Mederic, gasping in horror at the sight. It was as if he was suffering backlash from his own - no, Valmar's - power. As if it was consuming him.
"Wh...what's happening to him...!?" She asks, horrified, then glances toward Riesenlied. "I-is there anything you can do about it?"
Riesenlied's already trying to talk with him...but Jacqueline fears it may be too late.
GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Riesenlied's It's Like Turn 5 You're Using The Convince Command NOW?? for 0 hit points!
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
Ethius is standing much too close to the thing, but he has to hold his position there, walking gently after the staggering mutant. Blood splashes all over his clothes. Ethius doesn't flinch from the sheer grossness of it, resolute in the decision to keep his staff stabbed in there. If he moves out of place at any point... the power of others wash around him as he holds as strong as he can.
From the corner of his eye, he turns to the cracking statue. The half of the face that belongs to someone whose face represents *blank*--
The half of the face that belongs to someone who does not belong here seems to lose out to whatever form this took. The motes of white, the clearing darkness... an inkblot shuffles under his feet, coalescing and thickening as others join it. Ethius' hold of Mederic lessens with every pulse and mutation of their form being lost to power. He is close to ground zero. Eldritch flame builds, boils, burns...
It's with an un-Ethius-like scream that he writhes and clenches his fists much more tightly, to work out enough arm strength to pull the weapon upward and fall out of the belching gouts of flame. Not a moment too soon, as the black fire just misses directly consuming him through a deft physical redirection, sweeping upward and away.
Ethius falls to a kneel, a hand to his head, gasping. His fingers curl, digging into his forehead. There is something he has to do. There's no other--
More motes of white fall upon him. They're not calming. They're distracting. That works, almost. This doesn't stop him from doubling over further, lying on the ground as the inkblot-like flames rise and dance about. He rolls to his side.
A tired eye rolls to the hole that the White Knight made on the way in. From where he lies, he can only see the half of the face of the statue that is it of the Goddess. Her visage, as seen everywhere... he can't see her.
...He has to.
He waits for the mutated mass of evil to block out the light of the world outside of the church. That's his cue. The positioning is as prime as it will be.
He comes up to a kneel. He swings his right hand up. "I call to a star that enables the patterns of life itself, its existence itself an unstable, unsustainable chaos..."
An unbearable heat... doesn't build? No, not in here. But it becomes unbearably hot outside, just outside the hole in the wall. Intense light builds greater and greater, warping the air. Symbological runes grow more complex and animated around him.
"Relieve your ceaseless pressure at my call, and bathe them in the unrestrained maelstrom of your prominence...!" He swings that hand down towards the earth, his fingers spread out as far as they possibly can be, to a final shout that seals the preparation for this spell.
"S O L A R - - - S T O R M ! !"
...
A great gout of flame licks the area outside of the church - ground zero of the spell is away from anyone else. It splashes down and scorches the land. The windows of the church may warp and melt. The wall beyond might slag.
It is only through the opening that there is a great wash of melting heat. The too-far-gone Crusader is positioned perfectly in the moment to take the entire brunt of the splashback of heat, sparing everyone the worst of it other than warming the inside of the church to levels of 'uncomfortable' rather than 'flesh-searing agony' - and sparing those wielding ARMs from having to deal with unwanted malfunctions.
None of it will reach the statue.
GS: Ethius Hesiod has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Solar Storm! GS: Ethius Hesiod has completed his action. GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Ethius Hesiod's Solar Storm for 187 hit points! GS: Disrupt and Jam! Statuses applied to Mederic de Courcey!
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Pain shoots through Margaret's body as she staggers, leaning against her staff. She grimaces, and she stares at Mederic as he mutates. By The Goddess, she thinks. How much of this can he do? He must be dead on his feet already. The fire comes and she tries to leap over it, but it is a miserable attempt at vaulting.
It ends badly. The ray comes for her and she lands - unpleasantly and with a splat that isn't entirely wholesome - on her belly as her magical defenses, largely reflexive, mostly serve to spare her from instant vaporization. Rolling onto her side, tucking Lamplighter nearer to herself, she hisses breath through her teeth.
She looks upwards.
Wait, she thinks.
I'm near the statue, aren't I?
Margaret pushes herself upright. It's harder this time. How much blood am I losing? Margaret thinks, even as she looks at the changing statue, corrupt as it is. Goddess's name, isn't this Sorey's job? He's probably having an iced juice on the beach while poor old Margaret has to do all the lifting. That's right, she thinks, some beekeeper's daughter can push it all to the limit...
Kneeling, she closes her eyes.
The resentment fades out. She clasps both hands around the haft of her spear as the power inside of her, that blessing which has often consternated her, which has challenged her and drawn her forwards, the blessing which by sheer arbitrary chance has given her the key to be where she was instead of being some browned and bent laborer in the fields, or worse -
Thunder rolls in the distance. An oval shape of light sky blue forms - if it's an egg shape, Margaret is kneeling in the tapered portion. The rest surrounds the statue.
"O Goddess beyond reckoning," Margaret says, voice shaking slightly. "Ye who guide the stars in their track and set all lights to right in their appointed time; ye who banish the fears of the night and trace thy galactic arch to guide us; ye who wrought the world itself and all the blessings within it. By the Serpent, the Plough, the Tree; the Spiral, the Twin Dragons, and the Bridge Across The Galactic River, bring thy blessing here where it is denied! Penetrant gleam of the heavens -"
The oval flashes.
"EPSILON RAY, BURST!"
(please work, Margaret prays internally)
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Noeline can feel herself slowing down; she's still not used to the sheer amount of sorcery now running through her metal bones, and she's well aware that fatigue will quickly catch up with her if she doesn't force herself to break off the attack. Not that that means a great deal, of course - Riesenlied has never let injury stop her from doing what she feels she needs to do, and Noeline's ruefully complained before about the way she seems to have picked up the habit as well.
Ultimately, the decision is made for her. The latest rolling wave of power is not one she's prepared for her in her undefended state, having been concentrating too heavily on trying to bring Mederic to bear. It buffets against her, disrupting the Errant Blade - and forces her to withdraw it as she brings her hands up to try to block. The rage of magic has become an ebb, and while she does manage to turn most of the cloud away, it's at a cost-- blown backwards and away, stumbling for balance and purchase as she's sent skittering backwards.
Even then, her mind is still working as she views the devastation thus far. Their attacks only seem to have made the Crusader angry - and she's seen enough pyrrhic last stands to recognize another. A glance at the statue, and then at the positively glowing form of Leo, and she's forced to admit that it looks as if the Althenan issue is in decent hands, as well.
Which leaves Riesenlied, and Noeline knows that drawing the Sword is going to drain her partner far more than any overuse of sorcery ever would. She lets the last of the dark wave carry her several steps backwards, then with an effort resummons her blade - to plant it into the ground in front of the prone Riesenlied, kneeling down to offer the other Metal Demon some cover. She has no healing magics, and no repair kits - but she does have a conviction to match her partner's, taking her hand to link them together.
"... the 'wages of sin', was it?" she mutters softly to herself-- before swearing rather more strongly under her breath at a familiar chant, and having to hastily reposition her shield as Ethius takes a rather unorthodox approach to targeting. Then Margaret starts as well, and Noeline settles simply for looping an arm under Riesenlied and diving the both of them towards a corner.
GS: Noeline has attacked Riesenlied with If The World Turns Against Us! GS: Noeline takes 10 damage from Toxin! GS: Noeline has completed her action. GS: Noeline heals Riesenlied! She gains 200 temporary hit points! GS: Margaret enters CONDITION GREEN!! GS: Margaret has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Epsilon Ray Burst! GS: Margaret has completed her action.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
As the light fades, Leo glances past Mederic, at the statue. The contrast there is evident, and equal parts uplifting and disturbing. Althena's visage is always comforting, but the other half is clearly the face of someone he recognizes. That young woman he encountered several times--
This power is hers, Leo realizes, and a sickening chill settles in his gut. She's the one behind this.
Perhaps mercifully, Mederic doesn't give Leo time to dwell on it. The Beastman's eyes widen, and he swallows, hard. "Blasphemous power," Leo says, once his stomach settles. "It may grant strength, but in the end, it only consumes those who wield it!" And it's clear that Mederic can't let go--that the power consuming him will keep on consuming. "What we do here is a mercy for the man you once were!" A repulsive, distressing mercy, but so is killing a beloved pet that went rabid.
Flame spews from Mederic's orifices. Leo twists to the side, only for yet another orifice to target him, as well. Leo's blade all but flies into the path of the beam, blazing gold-white. Rays of killing force spray outwards, tracing across the walls. One of them glances off Leo's shoulder, and he winces--but most of the force of that beam does not find its mark. Leo moves from defense to offense, stepping forwards. Margaret's taking position. He knows what he has to do.
"DEMON FANG!" Leo roars. He swings. Another wave of force races from the edge of his blade, this time augmented with the very energies Mederic used to try and kill Leo.
GS: White Knight Leo has attacked Mederic de Courcey with Demon Fang! GS: White Knight Leo has completed his action. GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from Margaret's Epsilon Ray Burst for 138 hit points! GS: Mederic de Courcey has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight! GS: Mederic de Courcey takes a solid hit from White Knight Leo's Demon Fang for 165 hit points! GS: Mederic de Courcey has Fallen! It is no longer able to fight!
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Leo calls for people to withdraw if they need to. "Yeah, we'll keep this jerk busy while you get somewhere safe!" Dean calls, not realizing that Leo had meant this statement for badly injured people like him.
But then Something Happens to Mederic. Something that defies description. Something that fills Dean with horror. Mederic's body is... *metamorphosing*. Extra parts sprout where parts do not belong. He breathes out black fire that is unaimed, barely wielded. Valmar's energy runs wild even as it consumes Mederic from the inside out.
"What's... happening... to him?" he utters, that horror reflected in his voice. Horror--and no small amount of pity. Jay holds her fire and Riese attempts to talk to him, even citing Dean as an example to look to, but--can this guy even hear any of them anymore? The others definitely don't seem to think so, if the level of overwhelming force they're bearing against the once-priest is any indication. He hesitates only a moment; then he shuts his eyes and lets Twin Fenrir vanish from his grasp. When he opens his eyes again, it's with a look of sadness at the man who is no longer a man. Then he hurries across the chapel over towards Margaret, who even now is pouring her energy into trying to cleanse the statue of its taint. He'd seen her get pierced earlier, and while she'd seemed to shrug it off (thanks to her illusion), now that Mederic is on his last legs, Dean opts to focus on her instead.
Up close, it's a lot worse than he thought it was. His eyes widen, this time with shock, and he rushes over next to her. "Margaret!!" he calls, digging into his pocket and pulling out a valuable Potion Berry. He at least lets her finish her spell before he attempts to shove it at her, ignoring his own heap of injuries. *His* at least aren't causing him to bleed out everywhere. "How'd you get this hurt?! I saw a bunch of you just a minute ago!! Here, take this!"
GS: Dean Stark has attacked Margaret with Heal Berry! GS: Dean Stark has completed his action.
<Pose Tracker> Mederic de Courcey has posed.
Mederic inhales one more time. More and more Valmar energy pours from the environment and into his own body. Another arm begins to rip itself out of his side, half-formed and twisted into a monstrous shape like a crab's claw laden with swords. He winds up to swing all of those blades.
But there are too many people bent on putting him out of his misery. Fei calls forth the flame of pity, and Mederic roars as he hurls himself into it. Chitinous plating bubbles and begins to peel away from him. More eyes pop to life among the exposed wounds as the fire seeps into him and explodes over him. Kourin darts in and calls her strike, and Mederic's left arm is hit, splitting at the elbow.
His forearm falls away; he recoils with a hideous screech from not just two mouths, but a third that's opened up on his shoulder. The third one sounds more human than any of them.
He can hear Riesenlied talking. His eyes widen. Points of light glimmer briefly within them.
What do I want?
SCARED FOOL. BECOME AS A GOD! KILL THEM ALL!
The dark voice screams in what's left of his mind. It repeats itself again and again. "DAAAAAAAAAAAAH," is all Mederic can answer, surging upwards as another arm begins to spawn from what's left of his left one.
The limb that spawns doesn't even look like it belongs in this world. It's a distorted thing that looks like it came out of a Rorschach test.
Lei is quick to burn it away. The roaring wave of force tears that limb off, only for more unstable, blobbing matter to come extruding out - but more slowly this time. Slammed by that force, Mederic hurtles backwards, gagging from several mouths all at once and screaming from another two somewhere in a giant mantis leg arm face that has protruded from his shoulder hip blob thing.
Ethius Hesiod calls to a blazing star - and flame descends on Mederic like a godhand.
Lost within the unfathomable flame, there is a deep, gurgling roar of utter emotion, equal parts rage and hate and sadness and fury and anguish and fear and agony. Walls collapse away and stained glass windows melt and warp. They no longer hold the face of Valmar in them - merely misshapen glass that may once have been Althena and her Dragons.
The flame passes. A badly-charred man-beast - or perhaps just a beast now - is left behind, on both knees and a misshapen hand. And a few misshapen other things. Hideous, bubbling appendages warp out of dozens of gruesome burns and wounds, like inkblots running rampant. He raises his head. And another head somewhere further down where his back used to be. Both are simply lumps of twisted matter now.
With a gurgle, the misshapen thing slouches to earth, and lies there. He doesn't move, save for the slow bubbling-up of more negative energy.
In all the commotion, Margaret staggers to the statue and lets the light of Althena shine forth.
There is a sharp, pure sound, like a single crystal clear bell tolling with pure, tender faith.
And the colour begins to ripple away from the Statue.
Black shadow sloughs away like water, leaving behind only pristine white marble with a couple of cracks Leo made earlier. No longer is the face of the Statue that of Valmar's Child. Once more, the tender smile of the Goddess Althena looks upon the wreckage of a church - a church that no phantom dares enter. The wave of purity ripples out from the statue and through the village. Flickering illusions melt away; drifting inkblots vanish without a trace as the entire village sighs all at once.
In almost no time at all, Felkirk Village is back to where it began. A simple abandoned village in a rainy part of Glenwood. The rain has stopped for just a little while, though, letting a simple ray of sunshine through.
One other thing has been cleansed, as well. As the last of the darkness dissipates away, the twisted shape lying in the scorched ruins of the church aisle distorts and begins to shrink. The corpse contracts slowly, burbling darkness sloughing off and vanishing away.
What is left is the somewhat stab-riddled body of a young blond man in his early twenties, in the armour of a Hyland soldier, with a small charm of a dragon caught around his neck. He looks a lot like Mederic did when the group walked in, but somehow younger and freshed-faced.
He does not move or breathe again.
MISSION OBJECTIVES:
[*] Smash or purify the [Tainted Althena Statue].
[*] Defeat the [Crusader of Valmar].
M I S S I O N C O M P L E T E
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
Margaret's eyes track to Dean. "Ah; so you did come for me," she says a little breathlessly. She doesn't get up from her kneeling position. He's digging out something. "It only hurts when I laugh, darling," she says to him, which is probably a really good sign that he ought to hustle.
Then:
BERRY.
As the sweet juice runs down her throat, Margaret... doubles over with a loud "GUH!" and then says, immediately, "I'm fine. I'm mostly fine. Oh by the Goddess. Thank you, Dean, I didn't know how far it had gone. I thought he'd just hit me somewhere sensitive but looking at myself I suppose I tore it open or something like that. Hoooh. Thank you."
He gets a brief and authentic smile.
"What a bloody mess," Margaret says afterwards, with an air of sighing.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
"Of course I came for you!" Dean, who wouldn't know a double entendre if it slapped him on the butt, tells Margaret. "We're friends, aren't we?" One Potion Berry later, and Margaret is out of the danger zone. Dean smiles back at her in relief. Wow, she really hadn't realized how badly hurt she looked, did she? Or... how badly hurt she *was*, from the sound of it.
"You're welcome," he tells her, hunkering down next to her with a wince of pain. He shoves a normal Heal Berry in his own mouth, and while it doesn't soothe all of his various injuries, it does take the worst of the bite off so he can focus back on her. "I'm just glad you're okay!" A pause. "Uhh, d'you need a hand up?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
The sensation of the Solar Storm ripples and rends through her -- but fortunately, she's far enough away that it doesn't affect her like it would back in Wehaca--
She coughs very faintly as she feels Noeline's hands upon her, whispering that she's here, their hands linked together. It's deeply comforting.
There's a strain of effort as she pulls herself to her knees, and looks towards Margaret as she creates an unusual incantation and brings light upon the statue...
And then Mederic distorts and gurgles, the powers of Valmar overwhelming him...
She cringes and lowers her head. "... I--I need a moment..." she utters, deeply dazed. But she can't feel the sensation of Valmar anymore...
"... Neriah..." she whispers, clutching that cufflink closer to herself.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Mederic's death is horrific. It's gruesome. It only cements what Leo has been thinking this entire time--that this man was dying by inches, giving more and more of himself to that horrific power out of desperation. By the time the twisted man slumps over, Leo has long since stopped watching. General Heldalf might have thought this a poor tactical decision, but Leo doesn't want to have to look at it. He can't bring himself to look at it.
Pure, clear light washes over the church. Leo opens his eyes, and looks to the statue, and to Margaret. He lets out an audible sigh of relief, and smiles, ever-so-slightly, for the first time in hours. "Well done, Guardswoman," Leo says. "And thank you," he adds, to Dean.
Leo finally turns around, and looks at what's left of Mederic. He blinks, once, and takes a step towards the fallen knight, wary that this is some sort of trap. He breathes in, glances at the others, and decides that the lingering foulness has truly been cleansed.
Leo kneels next to Mederic's body, and closes the dead man's eyes. There isn't anything suitable he can use for a shroud, so he just picks the corpse up, gently and carefully.
It looks like this is something he's done before.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
Ye shall become as gods.
Fei rubs at his eyes briefly and the sensation is gone. The village is returned to normal. Perhaps in time, people can one day rebuild their homes here and live once more. The Hyland soldier seems to be dead. Fei suspects he's done worse in his life. It's unpleasant but he hopes that on this, at least, he won't feel too guilty about this one and remain more or less nightmare free.
Well he can hope anyway. He'd just like to have uninterrupted sleep one day. "Neriah..." He murmurs. "Why are you doing this?" And no answer comes to him except, of course, it's me. Not it's you, it's me.
"huh? You're friends?" Fei asks of Dean and then looks to Margaret. "Well any friend of Dean's is a friend of mine. Thanks for the help, miss Margaret."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Try as they might, there is no saving Mederic in his current state. The only thing they can offer is purification, which Magaret provides - the statue is freed, and with it the taint it wrought is reversed.
The monster before them is now but a man once more. Jacqueline shuts her eyes tight and bows her head, whispering a prayer. It's the only thing she can offer him now.
She remains quiet for a moment...then opens her eyes and looks up.
The corruption has gone. This is now just an abandoned church in an abandoned village. No more would it haunt her dreams and her nightmares.
...But there was still one last concern on her mind.
"...Meribus. She's gone to Meribus..." Jacqueline murmurs, then shakes her head.
"I have to find her. I have to talk with her. I don't know what she's after, but...I have to find out why. What all of this is for..." Jacqueline says. This far exceeded the scope of what she thought Neriah was after.
But, with that said, she once more turns her attention to the man lying dead on the floor.
"...We should...bury him, I think." She says. Leo already seems to be on that, though. Perhaps he feels the same way.
She looks then, to her CaraKin - Kourin, and Ethius...
...If the latter hasn't found an an opportunity to escape beforehand.
"...Are you alright?" She asks.
<Pose Tracker> Kourin has posed.
"I...I will be fine," Kourin says, quietly. She glances warily at White Knight Leo, but doesn't make any move to initiate rudeness or violence towards him. "I am glad we could purify this place, despite the cost..."
<Pose Tracker> Margaret has posed.
"I probably need a hand out of the building entirely," Margaret admits to Dean, the double entendres missing their mark completely fine with her for the moment. "I am in immense pain even if the injury's healed. I really can't describe it." Her eyes turn to Fei for a moment. "Here, big strong man. Do the Goddess a favor and help me up."
She is able to get up with only one loud yelp from flexion of the abdomen. Fortunately between berry and the nearby statue, she'll be fine.
<Pose Tracker> Noeline has posed.
Were it any other time, Noeline would not be particularly on board with lingering - as much as Leo has respected the Tainted during times of duress in the past, the two of them do have a bounty on their heads even on this farflung moon, and the spy's natural wariness is riding high after everything that's just transpired.
On the other hand-- there's something in the way the White Knight lifts from his feet with the body in his arms that pulls Noeline up short, and she forcibly reminds herself that there are times when you run and times when you bear witness and pay some respects.
A hand rests on Riesenlied's back as the other metal demon wavers, but other than that Noeline keeps her eyes forward, watching both the purification and the vigil that follows.
<Pose Tracker> Ethius Hesiod has posed.
It appears over, by Ethius' reckoning. From where he lies, he's bathed in the light of the Goddess' Statue. The lingering darkness and phantoms that toyed with one's perceptions and inner demons simply go away. The pulsating mass of something that should never set foot upon Lunar - or anywhere, if scriptures are to believed in Filgaia - is gone, leaving a fallen body that the White Knight moves to respectfully begin the process of burial. Ethius says nothing to intervene.
It's a struggle to get his way back up, even under Her healing light. He casts a glance over to everyone there. He has no fathomable idea as to what great honor as an experience he had of being that close to a purification of a statue of Althena by one of Her most devoted of servants. Names are whispered. Ethius, now on his feet, walks with the help of his quarterstaff. He's drained. Food is ever harder to come by in this part of Glenwood. He might have been pushing a touch too hard on the spellcasting-to-calories ratio.
"Miss Jay." Ethius says as he passes by. He hasn't escaped yet. He still has one more Powder Grenade on the belt. "This is why it is imperative you move to locate and secure a route back. Do not forget."
He looks no one else in the eye as he keeps forward. He chooses whatever path out of the cathedral that takes him furthest from where Riese catches her breath, en route to... wherever he's intending to go.
Wherever he's intending to go that he can't say anything straight to virtually any of them. This is just one problem addressed, in his mind. There are others, yet.
<Pose Tracker> White Knight Leo has posed.
Leo looks down at Mederic's face. He makes himself do it. "Yes," he says, to Kourin. "I am glad. But more importantly, we must prevent this blasphemy from setting roots elsewhere." Leo looks at Jay, his face stony. (He's holding the body of a man who died in service to some insane cult. Can she blame him?) "His family deserves to bury him," Leo says. "While we must make haste to prevent that woman from ensnaring more victims."
"Whatever it takes."
<Pose Tracker> Jacqueline Barber has posed.
Jacqueline looks toward Ethius when he speaks, and passes her by.
"I-I..." She starts, the lowers her head and nods once, weakly.
"...Y-yes, you're right..."
She doesn't respond to Leo directly, but the way her stance shifts, and sadness creeps into her eyes...it's clear that she heard it. And clear that she understood.
<Pose Tracker> Dean Stark has posed.
Dean nods in sympathy to Margaret. "That's okay," he assures her, of being unable to describe the pain, before wincing and clutching his side himself. "I think I've got an idea."
Leo comes by to bid them both good job. "Thanks," Dean tells him, smiling up at the beast knight. His smile fades, though, when he watches Leo approach Mederic's remains. The man is... extremely dead. Dean's gaze isn't exactly sympathetic, but one can tell he feels sorry for the man. He was so insistent on power, on not being weak, that this is what became of him...
Fei comes up. Dean blinks at him, then manages a new smile. "Yup! I'm glad to hear it." He looks back at Margaret, then over at Jay as she suggests they bury the clergyman and Leo who tells her that should be left to his family, then up at Fei. Well, if she wants his help... he *is* strong, after all. Dean, in the meanwhile, will be easing himself back up to his feet while sticking around if anyone else needs help.
<Pose Tracker> Fei Fong Wong has posed.
"I just don't understand why she's doing it," Fei looks to White Knight Leo. "She seemed embarrassed by her power when I first met her, now she's starting a cult? It's hard to believe she could change so drastically." He shakes his head. "But you're not wrong."
He gives Ethius a bit of a look when HE speaks but ultimately just helps Margaret up. That's one way to help out. Despite his wounds, Fei doesn't seem to have any trouble hefting up a Margaret.
"...Perhaps Grahf got to her." He frowns thoughtfully.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied lets out a quietly sharp gasp of pain, feeling something possibly fractured inside as she looks towards Jacqueline with a look of sympathy. "Let me come with you. It will be easier to endure the burden if you do not go it alone..."
She looks otwards Fei with a quiet, contemplative expression as she leans to Noeline's side, respectful of Leo's decision.
"... maybe," Riesenlied whispers to Fei. His hypothesis is as sound as any other.
This incident has highlighted to her more than anything that, like Noeline, they need more in the way of capability to deal with the threats that they face. What she has been capable of doing is one thing, but...
...
A relic awaits her back in Filgaia. In Elru.
A relic of true divine power...