This post has the following content warnings:
Ari's out collecting mushrooms on the Blood Moor.
Yes, there are demons, and zombies, and once he saw some bipedal cows with halberds for some reason, and yes, they could theoretically kill him. But he has a very sharp scythe, and he can conjure fire and lightning at his whim, and just in general, Ari can take care of himself.
Uncle Deckard told him not to go too far. Ari told him to go teach his grandmother to suck eggs.
...Okay, how does Diablo react to the sudden ritual circles etched on the floor beneath her? And to Felix chanting?
She just keeps walking forward, though she does absently throw a missile of white-hot flame at Felix.
Dodge. Suddenly the floor comes to life and forms tendrils that try to stop her.
The strands of diamondlike crystal wrap around her legs, slowing her down for a moment.
Then she snarls and slams her foot down, sending thick spiderwebs of cracks through the floor. The tendrils shatter into a million pieces as she resumes her stride.
She's barely inconvenienced.
She reaches Li-Ming and swipes at her with one massive claw. Li-Ming dodges out of the way-
and vanishes in a flash of red light.
"She's been sent to the Realm of Terror," Diablo says conversationally, "where my minions shall torment her for eternity with her greatest fears. As for the rest of you, though... I think I'll simply crush you like the insects you are."
Lorath lets out a shrill cry of fury and sends a wave of sickly bluish-green light at Diablo. She swats him aside with her claw, and he slides limply across the floor.
Once again the tendrils, but now they are better directed, aiming to blind Diablo or even suffocate her.
Thomas picks up Lorath where he fell.
Her eyes turn out not to be any softer than the rest of her. As the tendrils enter her throat she inhales deeply, then roars with such explosive force that the crystal shatters.
“That’s more like it,” she purrs. “But still not enough.” She gestures, and the ground under Felix bursts into impossibly hot flames.
(Lorath's not moving, but he whimpers in pain as Thomas picks him up.)
Diablo taps on the shield with one claw. “Oh, what shall I do?” she laments. “Perhaps...”
Her hand ignites in flames and directs a stream of fire towards the crystal debris. It heats until it glows, then begins to melt together.
The melted crystal debris start to ooze out and through a hole in the floor. The triplets are nowhere in sight. But they probably have something to do with that beam of cold energy that hits her from behind.
She’s caught off-guard, and the blast knocks her off balance for a moment. Then she shakes herself and looks for the triplets. “Well played. I’ll make your deaths quick if you show yourselves.”
There are gusts of winds all around her, the flashes of light.
(Does Lorath reacts normally to healing?)
She seems mildly irritated by the flashes of light. She calls up a cloak of flames around herself and throws out her arms, causing a sheet of fire to flash away from her in all directions.
Lorath is exactly as responsive to healing as anyone else. He coughs up some blood.
"Lorath? Wake up. Do you have any trump card that you have kept up your sleeve?"
Diablo's head snaps around, pinpointing the source of Thomas' voice. Lorath swears and gets up a shield of bone a split-second before a stream of lightning sears across the intervening space.
"No! Li-Ming was the only chance we had, and she-"
There's an explosion of purple light, and a glowing figure stands in the middle of the room, looking like she's composed entirely of purple light. She floats over towards Diablo, who catches her in one claw. Then she explodes again, forcing the demon's fingers apart.
Then she floats upwards to Diablo's eye level, reaches forward, and rips the Black Soulstone from her head.
The massive demonic form bursts into flames, which burn it away like a papier-mâché statue, leaving the corpse of a naked old woman with a bloody hole in her forehead. Then the purple figure fades back into human form, drops the stone, and spits on the body.
"You should have killed me while you had the chance," Li-Ming hisses.
"Are you okay?" Felix asks Li-Ming, both he and Fernando are keeping an eye on the corpse.
"I'm fine," she pants, belatedly covering her breasts with her arm. "Her... realm of terror... everything happened very slowly there. They took away my powers, and they thought that was enough to contain me. I snapped my captor's neck and cut my way through the legions of the damned with the dagger he used to carve my flesh, until I found a portal back home. Then, once I had my power back, I just... submerged myself in it. I became an archon, the pinnacle of magic. It was trivial to teleport back here, and then... I took my revenge."
She experimentally lights her hand aflame. "The excess power is gone now. I won't be able to do that again for a while. Hopefully I won't have to."
Felix is now shirtless and offering his shirt for her to cover himself. "Do you want a hug?"
She takes the shirt and shrugs it on. It's just about long enough to cover her below the waist as well, as long as she doesn't walk too fast. "Absolutely fucking not."
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
