- Grand Colosseum Arena -
'Unbelievable,' Vect lamented. 'As if fighting the traitorous learners weren't bad enough. Now we've got monsters too.' Without his sword, Vect was having to rely upon what was usually his secondary weapons; the throwing knives and what spells he was able to use, and he was running out of both quickly.
A wyvern swooped down and crushed a traitor when it landed, an unintentional casualty, as it was so focused on eating a dwarven loyalist to watch where it landed.
Vect didn't see the dwarf coming out on top due to his new opponent trying to carve him open. He barely had time to jump backwards to avoid the sword strike from the traitor knight, the front of his kimono was not quite as fortunate. The woman's armour was splashed with fresh blood, but it was the near sadistic smile on her face that unsettled him.
"Why are you doing this," he yelled.
"Besides that it's fun?" She attacked again and Vect dodged it again. "A promise of power and an end to this pathetic kingdom."
Vect sidestepped the stab the attack, drawing his second to last throwing knife, and buried it in her exposed neck. She fell to the ground clutching the wound. "Not if I can help it," Vect snarled, then he spun around at the sound of something big landing behind him. Some kind of hybrid of a giant crab, and possibly a gnome. The monster raised its large clawed arms and brought them down. Vect was able to roll out of the way, and threw the last of his knives followed by another made of ice. The knife made of steel harmlessly bounced off the carapace, but the ice knife exploded on impact and caused the creature to stagger backwards. However that was about all it accomplished besides pissing it off. It roared and swept its claw sideways knocking Vect off his feet and the wind out of his lungs.
Vect tried to catch his breath and saw the creature prepare to crush him. A large figure appeared between them and halted the massive claw.
"What are you doing you idiot," Salazar Ortega growled. He opened his mouth and a cloud of poisonous gas spewed out and encompassed the crab thing and it fell to the ground dead.
"Get up fool," Salazar roughly lifted Vect to his feet by his clothing. "Why are you fighting so pathetically?"
"What are you talking about?! I'm doing all I can out here," Vect retorted.
"No, you're not even trying boy! You've got one of the most powerful weapons here fool. Now use it," he snarled and left to rejoin the melee.
Looking around the battle at the chaos surrounding him, Vect retrieved the heart from its pouch.
(Vect, you aren't ready for this), Erress cautioned.
(I know, but people are dying while we delay.) A body dropped from the sky as if to emphasize his point.
(I may be able to keep us from fusing temporarily similarly to our training. I don't know what will happen to you though.)
Vect pulled his torn kimono aside and took a breath to steel himself. (Let's do this!) And he shoved it into his chest.
----
Jack had lost track of how long they had been fighting. Could be less than 10 minutes, could have been hours. Time tends to get skewed when you're fighting for your life. He did however know how many he had fought by now though. 3 hostile adventurers and 2 monsters. It was the drider he was facing now that was his current concern. Her long claws had already torn his tunic and his weapon was chipped from the previous monster he'd dispatched.
'Damn back pain,' Jack cursed. His dull pain being aggravated by the battle. Every swing, every block, every dodge would send a jolt of pain through his back and shoulders. He swung again, the jolt of pain causing him to flinch slightly and turn what would have been a fatal blow into a light wound. He followed through with the strike and opened some distance between the pair.
The drider screamed in a savage rage and charged. Jack used his armoured arm to block the drider's claws and swung his shortsword, severing one of her 8 legs at the knee. She screamed in pain and backed off. Their fight was near the base of the wall that made up the arena's edge. Baring her fangs the drider spun around quickly and aimed her abdomen at Jack. Before he could react, Jack's left leg was wrapped in sticky silk and yanked out from under him. He landed heavily on his back, sword having been knocked out of his hand. He tried to get up, but his left leg was stuck to the ground by the silk and the drider was now almost upon him.
'So this is it,' he thought grimly. The drider drug her left hand claws along the wall, carving effortlessly into the stone. Jack prepared himself for her inevitable lunge on him. But it never came.
The monster's head was smashed into the side of the wall and it went limp, dead. Jack needed a moment to take in the moment. He followed the arm to the figure, recognizing the light blue kimono.
"Vect?"
His friend slowly turned his head and sent a chill up Jack's spine. Instead of caring green eyes, Jack saw a pair of savage fiery yellow slitted eyes. His bared teeth were slowly elongating to fangs, and a few isolated red colored scales were growing on any exposed skin Jack could see. With a sickening slorp Vect withdrew his hand from the crushed skull, and Jack saw the elf's nails were lengthening into talons. In a blink of an eye, Jack's leg was free from the sticky silk.
"You ok," Vect asked through clenched teeth.
"Yeah, thanks," Jack got up and quickly retrieved his sword. "Are you," he asked as he turned around, but Vect had ran off and was several yards away and had already dispatched a giant bat.
"By the 10, I'm glad he's on our side." He noted the remains of the drider's head were smoldering as if a torch had been held to them.
----
(Oh Gods, this feels worse than training ever felt.) Vect felt like he was on fire, on top of this strange feeling. It was like someone had made him absolutely livid and he just wanted to tear them apart. Lucky for him, there were plenty to direct his fury toward.
(Grr, I warned you we would have strange effects) Erress growled, all of her attention focused on keeping her vessel from merging completely into Vect and potentially killing them both.
If it wasn't for Vect's kimono covering his chest, everyone would see a heart stuck to his chest. How long his clothing would last was questionable because the feeling like Vect was on fire wasn't inaccurate. Smoke was starting to rise from his clothing, mixing with the steam from his sweat evaporating.
(I know!) He snapped. (Sorry) he apologized after realizing his tone.
(We've got to separate, I don't know how long I can continue to hold off the joining and you're starting to loose control.) Erress pleaded.
Vect grabbed a traitor alchemist by the hand and threw him into a giant winged serpent, the impact breaking the glass bottles of alchemist fire on his bandolier and engulfing the pair in a hellfire.
(If we do separate, I'll be useless to everyone until I can recover.)
Before Erress could press the issue they heard a loud boom come from one of the smaller arenas followed by a second one in a different arena.
(What was that?)
(I don't know Vect, but we cannot deal with that right now.)
By now Vect was starting to feel a dull pain in both his back and the base of his spine. Given how the others that joined changed, Vect had a good idea what this pain was for. What he didn't understand was why his clothing was feeling tighter.
"Look out Vect," called out a voice.
Vect instinctively ducked down and spun around, looking for an enemy that had snuck up on him and saw a harpy drawing a bow to fire at him. A blast of magic struck the harpy and knocked him out of the sky. Looking up he saw Sara was swooping down to him. But when she landed she saw the changes Vect was going through. Judging from her expression, she was a unprepared.
"Thanks for the save," Vect growled, trying to reign in his emotions.
"Uh y-yeah," Sara replied obviously unsettled by Vect's appearance. "Erress?"
"Yeah."
"Something is happening in the library at the mages school. Are you good here?"
Hesitant to let Sara leave but knowing she can handle herself, he nodded. "We'll hold this place. Whatever is happening, that is probably their objective."
Sara took flight and gathered Mai and 2 other people to join her. They quickly flew out of sight while Vect rejoined the fray, praying for every second Erress could give him.
- Mages School Library -
Eva was slowly gaining the upper hand on her opponent, pushing him backwards with each swing. It was clear to her that the thief wasn't adept at open fights, possibly preferring to not fight at all. Understandable for one who is trained to not even be seen, but still they usually have some sort of trick to save themselves. Eva swung her axe and the man ducked at the last minute and Eva's axe bit into the bookshelf he was standing in front of. She tried to pull it out but it was stuck.
The next thing she felt was a knife biting into her thigh. The pain of the wound was quickly replaced by a numbness that quickly spread down her leg.
"Damn poison," she spat and punched the man in the face and sent him stumbling backwards. Eva tried to capitalize on her advantage, but her leg refused to move and she fell forward.
Eva tried to get up, but the poison had spread to her other leg and the numbness was spreading. The thief got up and ran off towards the fight between Freed and Akemos, who had emerged from a pile of debris that had fallen on him from Freed's attack.
-
Akemos rolled out from under Freed's front claw before it slammed down on him. Freed couldn't use any spells right now due to his binding ribbons still reforming, any spell could use up the last of them so he had to rely on his body's features to fight. Swiping his tail, Freed knocked over a shelf on top of Akemos. Before he could capture him however, Freed felt a stinging in his lower back. Looking over his shoulder, Freed saw the thief Eva had been fighting pulling his knife from Freed's body and jump clear. Then the wound became numb and it quickly spread to the rest of his body and he collapsed, limbs unresponsive.
-
Dolph was about to bring the hammer down on Celine and end the fight when he fell forward, his limbs unable to move.
Celine got up and saw the knife sticking out of the small opening in his armour. She began to strike when Graham stopped her. "No they are not our mission. Get to the back and help them break the last seal."
"But we can kill them here and now!"
"Don't argue with me or you'll be left here."
"No she won't," a voice corrected. Stepping out of an opening portal, Alyvia was clad in black armour. Her voice echoing eerily from the obscuring helmet. "The Dark Vault is almost open and Harker has dropped the wards to allow us to teleport out when we finish our job."
A blast of air pushed out from the back.
"The seal is broken," Graham observed and he ran off to the back.
"You two go as well. I sense more approaching."
"Let me end these here," Celine pressed.
"No, they can be a good distraction for us later."
Celine and Akemos followed after Graham, leaving Alyvia alone with the 3 immobilized adventurers.
"Time to welcome our guests."