"It's quite unfortunate I can't let you do that. It'd be a shame to waste all my hard work, after all," echoes a voice around them.

The tone is familiar, though not quite exact -

The woman now standing on one of the balconies is very familiar. She's dressed in black robes with patterns of eyes decorating them, and has a helm of bone. Her eyes seem to have been replaced by rubies, though it's hard to tell at this distance.

"You." Elatra snarls. Her undead followers lurch to attack, and she curls her necromantic power around the nastiest skeleton available, a large saurian.

The saurian animates on an area where it can actually theoretically reach the woman, at least.

She laughs.

The saurian freezes in place.

"Aw, I'd been hoping for a bit more cleverness. And don't bother with those zombies. They won't attack me. I'm the master of all undead, after all."

Hisame sighs. "Somehow I'm not surprised an alt of me's the local asshole... Don't suppose I can talk you out of this? No?"

She's moving before she could possibly get an answer, zipping along the struts, faster than an unenhanced eye can perceive -

Acererak makes a grasping motion at her.

Hisame stumbles.

And loses her footing.

Unfortunately, she's currently running above lava.

On the bright side, her heart doesn't physically leap out of her chest like it's trying to. Small mercy, that.

She doesn't hit the lava's surface.

And Acererak is assailed by a multitude of energy blasts, projectiles, perturbations of time and space, other localized distortions of physical laws, mental assaults, and emotional attacks, cycling through as the Keres assesses their effects, seeking an attack or combination of attacks that works.

Most of these are simply ignored. Any physical attacks. Perturbations of time and space - though from the feedback the Keres gets she's having to actively counteract these. Mental and emotional assaults. Energy blasts, though, she throws up a magical shield for.

"Quite an interesting challenge! You'll all make delightful additions to my collection."

And several things happen at once:

A tentacle from below the cylinder lashes out at the Keres.

The strange creature wails, in a way that shakes the walls - trying to deal mental damage.

And Acererak raises her hands, sending three blasts of Hellfire at the Keres.

Eliana gestures, and the tentacle jerks back and then lashes out at Acererak.

The globs of Hellfire freeze in midair, then splash down to the lava, as Hisame is brought back to ground.

The Keres settles on a rotating split of spatiotemporal manipulators and blasters attacking Acererak.

"Shit!" Eliana hisses when Hisame gets near. She bends over her, hands glowing.

Elatra points a Finger of Death at Acererak.

Hisame is gaping, unable to breathe, her heart damaged by the wrench and blood rapidly filling her chest cavity as it keeps trying in vain to beat -

She has seen shinobi keep fighting when cut in half -

Black fire springs up around Acererak.

Quite a bit of that actually hits.

Acererak vanishes.

(She's stopped time for everyone but herself, actually.)

She reappears behind them, fully healed, and screams.

It's a sound rather like death.

The Keres has just enough warning to baffle the sound away from the group-

Acererak teleports away.

And then the sphere of annihilation she'd been directing under them finishes cutting through the rock, causing their landing to split and begin to crumple into the lava.

At least the Keres will have some warning of this.

(The atropal starts trying to drain Hisame's life force. She seems tastiest. This doesn't work immediately.)

A platform of solid light catches the group. The Keres seeks Acererak to continue the assault, to preempt the next thing she'll do-

Elatra summons an air elemental, which rises up and whips into a whirlwind.

Eliana has stopped the bleeding in Hisame's chest. That's about as much as she can do under the circumstances. She draws the loose blood out in a long whip, circling it around her, then drives it straight into the creature attached to the tank. The dark ichor that is released has a different flavor to it, but with this rush of power she thinks she can use it.

What does the Keres fear?

This is quite relevant, because she's about to see that come to life.

Illusory, of course, though that doesn't make her fears any less deadly.

An incomprehensible entity, of unknowable power-

-but no, she's the only being like that here, and the other wouldn't attack her. And besides, she's too angry to have room for fear.

Hisame starts trying to set the struts on fire. She's still out of breath, exhausted, but she doesn't feel like she's dying - just like she can't fight and that's almost as bad -

Mora's ritual goes off, shackling Acererak - should stop her from fucking teleporting everywhere, or at least make it harder -

Acererak's on the left balcony when that happens. It settles like the air's gone heavy around her. She laughs, says, "You're a clever bunch," and tilts her head, focusing on undoing the binding, apparently entirely nonchalant about the threat the team might represent if she gives them breathing room.