1627/To Tame Pure Rage

To Tame Pure Rage
Date of Scene:	21 February 2015
Location:	The Citadel - Field of Trials
Synopsis:	Nox, Adelyn and Lezard tackle the Shajem of Rage for practice. A lot of things get set on fire in general.
Cast of Characters:	12, 202, 546, Lezard Valeth
Tinyplot:	New Blood

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Mordred (12) has posed:
    The FIELD OF TRIALS, within the CITADEL, is a grand area with many locales. Mordred has claimed a fairly large holodeck, however, so we won't be dealing with the natural hazards of the Fields and will instead be in a location suitable to the Saber, made to her specifications for this.

    Nox, Adelyn and Lezard have been contacted, privately, in regards to matters of draining and sealing a god-like being. Briefings have been included (regarding the nature of Elliana's world, the Shajem, etc.), which leads to practical training. Since finding a Shajem to practice against isn't easy, Mordred just offered to let hers out to play. It's going to get violent, and fast, but those three should be able to handle it.

    Entering the holodeck reveals bloodied grass, scattered steel and flames. The hills of Camlann, with the blazing, ruined Camelot in the background. Naturally inclined, the pile of bodies one must walk on to reach the top of the hill probably makes it look larger than it really is. Swords lay planted in the ground here and there, with broken shields and spears, battered armor, and countless knights who did not survive.

    Mordred is waiting atop the hill of corpses, already fully armored, helmet included. Due to her allies roughly knowing what she looks like, the helmet's masking effect is greatly reduced, but still prevents the use of scanning spells or other means to analyze her. Clarent, the gleaming silver sword, is planted in the ground in front of her. Well, a body. Not much visible ground up there anymore.

    "If you have last minute questions, this is the time."

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn Lysen is here, the archmage dressed much the part, in robe and staff. There's a book in her hand, which may be another grimoire for its appearance, though it is neither her abstractum nor her divine weapon. (Her staff would be the current form of the latter.) She's consulting the pages for something even at this late moment, but it can't be too immediately important as she responds to Mordred in the negative.

    "You've prepared a fitting field, and the goal of this exercise has been explained. Additional planning shall await additional information. I believe I'll take some distance as we begin, but no need to wait for me."

    Looking from Nox to Lezard, she smiles. There hasn't been a gathering of such specific talent in some time, that she can recall.

Nox (546) has posed:
    This is Nox's first time visiting the Field of Trials. In retrospect, he probably should have come here earlier for study, since a complete dissasociation of causality seems like a powerful potential tool. Regardless, that isn't the reason he's here today. Upon first hearing the description of a Shajem, his thoughts had immediately gone to what Mordred had suggested: how much power he could potentially siphon from one. There's no reason to refuse a free training session, where none of the energy he uses would actually remain spent. The more prepared he is, the better.

    Of course the choice of location is a little droll by his standards. One can see the eyes of his mask lid halfway for a moment upon seeing it for the first time. He briefly considers whether this is a place in Mordred's memory, or her Shajem's. Lucky for him, he gets to float everywhere, which means he doesn't have to wade through corpses to get anywhere. He simply glides over the blood soaked grass and broken bodies as any other terrain. He remains near the bottom of the hill, a sane distance away from the knight if combat is about to start. "No, I think I have been briefed adequately on the matter. Anything else isn't worth asking when it would be simpler to find out."

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard is as prepared as he will ever be. He had been spending a great deal of time 'interrogating' his captive visitor and throwing his skills of necromancy and alchemy at the samples gathered and given to him by Nathan Hall.

The Shajem situation was basically a bonus round. Lezard is more than prepared to have at, and arrives as scheduled.

The murdered wasteland of Camlann means nothing to Lezard, though the scale of the devastation is not lost on him. He looks over the area, the flames reflected in his glasses, for several moments, before trekking up the massive hill of dead towards Mordred.

Once he arrives, he nods, producing his ruby-tipped scepter that he uses to magnify and focus his spells, as well as a book with no title that he pulls from a warp in space. The book opens of its own volition, hovering over his other hand and flipping pages. It seems that it knows what Lezard wants.

He nods to the others present. "This will be a true test of our capacbilities. I look forward to the challenge."

The ritual of Soul Transfusion is sufficient for most beings, but a being of this power... Will not be contained so easily.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "Fitting? It's so I get in the mood," Mordred replies to Adelyn, taking two steps to the right. It seems that behind her is a frozen moment in time, a bit glitchy, more of a visual feature than something that's actually present. Arturia's spear pierces Mordred, and Mordred's massive sword is planted firmy in Arturia's stomach. Basic history lessons should make it fairly easy to piece that together, but she doesn't explain.

    "Good. I like that," she then answers Nox. Finding shit out the hard way is pretty much her style, and falls in line with their purpose for gathering here.

    "And me of yours. Don't let me down," is Lezard's answer.

    Mordred reaches for her sword, pulling it out of the corpse that was acting as its stone. "Th'fight ends when you manage to either knock me the fuck out, or stuff the Shajem back inside me. I suggest goin' for the latter, 'cuz that's the point of being here. Weaken it, distract it, and then put a lid back on it. I won't be able to."

    The heat rises abruptly.

    A burst of anger echoes out from Mordred; it's contagious, and it's only going to get worse and worse as the fight drags on. For now, it's fairly easy to shake off. Flames coat the Saber and draconic wings of fire sprout out of her back, but perhaps more pressing is the immense shape behind her. Though it is a dragon, it is more serpentine and feral in look, made of flames, magma and bright red, pure rage, held together through that alone. Its form is about as stable as you'd expect a creature made of those three things to be, constantly shifting and twitching.

    With its roar, it bathes the hill in fire, immediatly attempting to engulf all those upon it. For fairly obvious reasons, this does not seem to bother the knight at all, but the same probably can't be said of her guests.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox tilts his head up with a little squeak of metal, looking into the space past Mordred to the little diorama playing out behind her with interest, only turning back to look at her again as she resumes speaking. It answers his questions at least. "Very well. I believe it is our shared goal to accomplish the latter, with the former perhaps used as a last resort. No hard feelings if it comes to that, no?" There's a little bit of braggadacio there, but honestly Nox is excited to see a Shajem in action, and there's no reason to even begin to fear for his energy reserves or even his personal safety while here, though of course the idea would be to accomplish it with minimal damage to both.

    Though the mask is impassive, one can imagine a look of much greater excitement as Nox finally beholds the Shajem. "Oho! A /dragon/! I didn't realize you were keeping such a secret from us! I assume that form has much more significance in this particular world than those in which they are commonplace." As hype as he is however, Nox isn't distracted enough to get hit right from the start. Already on guard, he fizzles out of view the moment the fire comes racing down the hill towards him, apparating high enough up in the air that the inferno below won't reach him. "First things first. Let's test this thing's resiliance." He starts with his most basic form of ranged attack; a bolt of volatile, post-processed energy that had once come from a living thing, discharged from the aperture in his hand. He fires them at a rapid pace, which steadily slows down as each successive bolt grows more powerful, going from roughly the strength of a high calibre bullet to that of a small bomb before he is likely interrupted.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    "Hm? I meant the holofield." Adelyn doesn't actually have an opinion on the field of corpses. She just figured it was Mordred's whim. When the knight steps to the side, she gives that not-quite-there image a curious glance. Aha--familiar forms. So, it's something like that.

    The book snaps shut, and is then tossed behind her. Some prepared magic keeps it from actually impacting the ground, instead letting it glide outside the holodeck's active area, where it will safely wait until retrieval. "Time to put theory to practice, then. Aim for the optimal result, first and foremost."

    Then, the dragon appears, and the shout causes an unexpected reaction within Adelyn's body. "Large isn't it, and--o-/ho/, mind-affecting... hm, fire and ice, no... this could be a problem, in time." For now, she can suppress it, but magical rage touches too closely on a vulnerability in her nature she prefers not to expose.

    As she'd said, she takes distance immediately, the wind magic stored in her staff catapulting her from the ground, though not with such speed that she trusts the dragon to be unable to aim for her. A white and red shielding ward comes to the fore, intricate spellwork scintillating in vibrant hues and, more importantly, manipulating the flow of heat and mana to pass around her.

    "Well! As far outside my specialty it is, let's see how it deals with the most obvious of opposing elements." Staff floating beside her, she claps her hands once, and then sets to work, alternately drawing glowing figures in the air at lightning pace and making twisting gestures as if manipulating some complex machinery with her hands. The shield she was using winks out, as even she is unable to use opposing elements simultaneously to any great degree, but in the same moment the sky shows her magic's effect. Whatever there was before, now there are dark clouds, with the temperature plunging rapidly, and wind beginning to howl. The snow begins immediately. It will take her moments yet to reach the more dangerous portion of this effect.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
While Nox gets hype, Lezard gets serious. A circle is already forming beneath him as the dragon erupts. It looks upon them, and Lezard fades out of the way moments before the flame impacts.

He reappears some distance away; While it's clear he can teleport in his own way, the lag time and obvious windup makes it hard for him to use it as a defense mechanism like, say, Nox would. He has to know something in coming and get the timing down right.

This does not, however, mean Lezard goes unscathed. The flames even at his new position wash around him, leaving burning scorchmarks. Purple holes tear open in the ground, and Lezard summons up a swarm of undead, putting up chaff between himself and the Shajem. The minor spirits probably won't last long at all, but the heavily armored, hulking forms with flowing manes of flame and massive twin blades before him look like they're designed to take a beating. The expression on Lezard's face is grim, but he doesn't seem to be succumbing to the aura of rage.

Yet. "Burning god of fire and rage, prepare to taste my magic." He calls out. "ICICLE EDGE!" He thrusts the sceptre forward, shining spikes of ice forming and rushing towards the dragon. Logically, there's no point in using fire against the massive fire enemy.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    With the Shajem of Rage out, unfortunately, Mordred will not be offering very many answers, or very many words for that matter. If she does talk, it'll almost assuredly be to scream at someone and threaten to rip limbs off to use them as bludgeons. That's the downside of this one; as no doubt explained in the documentation Elliana must have available, the aspect of a Shajem taints its energy. To use the power of one is to make yourself subject to it; to have one inside you must logically make it worse. She gets off pretty easy, thanks to Elliana's secure binding, but it still means opening that up when using it.

    Nox teleports up and begins pelting the Shajem, or at least its immediate representation, with increasingly more powerful energy bolts. The first volley mostly disappears in the flames, causing no visible disruption beyond the already chaotic nature of its body. As they become more powerful, though, they sometimes come out the other end of the dragon, causing the flames to flicker and weaken momentarily. Expectedly, the Shajem roars in anger.

    Adelyn attempts to cool things down; the great thing about rage-fueled powers is that opposition just makes them better. The colder the blizzard gets, the hotter the ripples of energy coming out of Mordred and the Shajem get. This has an upside, in that if their anger is focused on beating the blizzard, it's not focused on them. Directly, anyway.

    Lezard's spell, equally bolstered by the blizzard and weakened by the flames, slams into the dragon. It's difficult to tell how effective it is, but judging from the way the dragon's form loses consistency where hit, it probably did something. Careful eyes could tell slightly darker spots apart, where the fire is 'wounded' and bleeding lava onto the ground.

    With a savage roar, Mordred beelines for Nox, to interupt his machinegunning. Her blame gleams an ominous red, and she's unusually fast, not to mention able to fly with those fiery wings. She tries several times to slice and dice into the Xelor, but there's no swordsmanship there. Just savagery, and fairly ridiculous speed and strength, with occasional arcs of red energy extending her blade's reach.

    The dragon itself charges towards Adelyn and Lezard. Brimstone and fire clouds form in his wake, creating a direct counter to the blizzard, as tiny flakes of fire and sulfur crash into the snow and winds. It attempts passing straight through the undead, trying to eat the lot of them in one charge, and to continue on to Lezard if able. Adelyn doesn't have to worry about the dragon's physical attacks, but each beat of its wings sends homing lances of fire her way.

Nox (546) has posed:
    "Interesting. It seems almost entirely incorporeal, and yet not at the same time. I wonder, are all of them like this, or only for such insubstantial and fleeting emotions as rage?" Seeing Mordred charge him is a little outside of what Nox expected, having assumed that she'd be rooted in place with the effort of providing power to the Shajem, rather than being entirely independant. His sword flashes into his hand just in time to intercept the first blow, and then a short succession of strikes aftwards.

    While a capable swordsman, Nox is not actually a match for a high ranking Saber class Servant in close combat, and so he quickly falls behind owing simply to her sheer speed. He intercepts one blow with the heavy gauntlet on his right arm, sacrificing it to Clarent in lieu of taking the hit straight to his body. The relatively thick metal shatters straight down the middle, and falls outward in five separate pieces, but as it does, Nox releases the additional energy stored in it just in time that the spalling fragments start to hover in midair, dramatically slowed by temporal dilation that absorbs the remaining energy of the attack, and slows down Mordred's sword.

    Since the purpose is to go after the Shajem rather than Mordred, Nox goes with an old standby to try and reduce the threat she presents. He's a long way from Horologium, but he can still summon a temporary Dial, forming the twelve roman numerals out of thin air in a wide circle around him, layered like a summoning circle. Aiming one hand towards Mordred and the other towards Adelyn, he tinges the air between them with faintly flickering arcs of blue like a circuit completed with his arms, rapidly siphoning slices of Mordred's timeline and injecting them into Adelyn's instead. It should nicely accomplish the dual purposes of reducing the knight's ability to fight and allowing the mage to cast her spells much faster.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn is unable to use her earlier shield in this state, but still has several options. She needs to take time out from controlling the weather to summon a shield in white and blue, this time directly blocking the attacks coming her rather than more efficiently redirecting them. This is not without effect on her, as too many hits in too short a time breaks her shield, and one of the runes on her robes flashes out in a burst of neutralizing magic to disrupt and cool the flame that would otherwise engulf her. As Nox's magic reaches her, her shield is swiftly renewed, but the rune will need to be laid down again when she has time away from battle.

    The degree to which her wide-area attack has angered the Shajem is uncertain to her--as a spirit of rage, this seems as if it may have been inevitable. Progress, or not? It's still promising enough to continue the attempt, and so she does. The wind grows stronger, necessarily whipping at everyone present, though most strongly--causing highly visible, localized eddies--as she directs it to the dragon. The biting chill is not the primary portion of her attack, but rather used to focus it.

    The true blizzard begins moments later, coming down in sheets of hail, all faintly charged with water-aligned mana. The hail does not stop at pebbles as most Earth-like storms do, but instead grows quickly, passing the point of being deadly to an unprotected human within the storm's focus, and to the point of being a more serious danger for even armored soldiers. This is more of an anti-army spell, and it's taking enough focus for Adelyn that she likely cannot use it against multiple targets without also hitting her allies. Nox will need to handle Mordred on his own.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
The logical choice, opposing fire with ice, just makes it angrier. Lezard grimaces, he should have expected that. Direct oppositon gives rage something to focus on, creates a channel for the anger. The dragon rushes through the undead, the minor beasts barely even slowing it. But that's what Lezard expected, he simply brought them onto the firsl to interfere and distract. The Dragon-Tooth Warriors, however...

Moments before impact, Lezard raises up a hand, and a wall of bones surges upwards, trimmed with the fingernails of long-damned Viking warriors. The dragon hammers into it, blasting through, and Lezard spins behind one of the Warriors as it interposes itself in the way.

In the aftermath of the dragon's passing, Lezard is heavily scorched, and the Warrior is blackened and crumbling. He turns in pain, grimacing as he drives a hand into the beast, tearing a purple flame from within it. The body shudders, turning stone-gray and crumbling away as Lezard crushes the flame in his hand, perhaps in a disturbingly familiar gesture for those from Lordran.

His flesh heals rapidly, the soul-power flooding through him and imparting additional power to his magic. For now.

He raises the scepter again, focusing as orbs of light form around it. "PRISMATIC MISSILE!" He calls out, as the orbs surge out in multicolored beams of crackling lightning. Some of the beams carry poisonous taints, while others might even petrify what they strike. They splay outwards, scorching in towards the Shajem with amped power.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Now here's something Nox should be all too familiar with. Using magic on Mordred? Oh, it's not that it's ineffective in the slighest. A Xelor of his talent can do miracles if he sets his mind to it. Nonetheless, as the distortion attempts to slow the Saber's blade-- and then, as the magic tries to transfer time between her and Adelyn, a shimmering bubble can be seen around the Servant, made of small blue hexagons. It seems to be providing a hefty amount of resistance to magic-- a power innate to her, not the Shajem, for the exact reason that Nox might be led to suspect given his experience with this. So although Adelyn does get some of Mordred's 'time' and the Servant is slowed, there's no doubt the effect is being pushed back, and maintaining it might be more effort than it's worth.

    Adelyn does in fact continue angering the dragon. This might be for the better, because it tears its attention off Lezard entirely. The good thing about anger, insofar as anything can ever be good about it, is that it's single-minded. It'll lock on to whatever draws its ire the most, and right now that's the mage trying to quell its flames with a snowstorm. After singing the warrior, the Shajem turns heads straight for Adelyn, charging through the hail. Though the larger fragments of ice cause its form to become damaged, liquid flames leaking out like blood, it doesn't slow either it or its desire to chomp on her.

    That's what Lezard is for, though. The colorful barrage of projectiles impacts the dragon. The grey ones cause the lava to harden into stone, while the blue ones weaken the flames. It doesn't seem like the other status ailments are going to find too much purchase on a being of fire and rage, but freezing and petrifying chunks of it in-movement causes its course to alter, flying by Adelyn and crashing into the ruins of Camelot behind.

    Mordred, for her part, is all but locked in a recreation of this battle. Maybe it's what she meant by getting in the mood. A setting where she can get lost in the rage. Countless slices of her sword fire blood red shockwaves of raw magic towards Nox, trying to give him no respite. A more tactial mind would aim for his Dial, but... yeah. 'Angry swordsman' isn't really all that unusual a threat though. She might be physically powerful but she's not wildly unpredictable or anything like that.

    The Shajem, on the other hand...

    The beast bursts out of the walls of the castle it crashed into, its form more or less recovered from the combined assault. Its roar shakes the battlefield, as every suit of armor, every sword, rises from the ground, animated by flames and simple anger. The weapons hurl themselves at all three fighters, while the now-animated suits of armor go for more personal attacks like punches and kicks. The blizzard will do a good job slowing them down, but there's a lot, and the flames coating them are as hot as the storm is cold, meaning some of them still manage to advance.

Nox (546) has posed:
    For one among many times, the multiverse has presented something confounding to Nox. Most Elites required judicious application of time magic to significantly impact simply due to their high propensity for hyperaction, but Mordred is something different. There is clearly something going that that is directly resisting his magic as a whole. rather than building any kind of inertia against temporal manipulation. Buying time to calculate his options, he presents Mordred with a barrier formed of a maze of glowing cockwork segments, interlocked with each other in a steady rythm that warps space and time within its bounds to neutralize the flurry of slashes coming at him. One after the other they crash on his shield, blasting themselves to pieces like water against a rock, before finally one manages to exhaust its energy and breach through, slashing through with enough energy to split his breastplate in two and cut into the undercoat below it.

    The few seconds granted in this way is just what he needed to figure something out. Trying to fight Mordred one on one would be a long and bloody, knock-down-drag-out affair that would leave him likely unable to deal with the Shajem afterwards even if he won. Stalling her is obviously the best tactic in hand, but using magic directly against her is woefully inefficient. To compensate, he fires a blast of Xelor magic that slows down molecular vibration within its confines, plunging the area into such low temperatures that air flash freezes. Though the area he casts it in comprises a fairly wide radius around Mordred, ice alone wouldn't be enough to stop her. What he does to correct this is to follow up by directly manipulating the fourth dimensional aspect of said ice to dilate it, as if it were moving at relativistic speed, giving it insanely increased inertia that requires drastically more force to break apart at any reasonable speed. Her magic resistance will probably keep the ice from actually encasing her, but it should be very thick around the spherical barrier than protects her.

    Hoping that occupies her for long enough to work on the Shajem, Nox teleports to the opposite side of the battlefield, distancing himself from Mordred should she break out earlier than he expects. Seeing that ice magic is effective, he continues to use his own, though it is not so much elementally charged as a direct damper on freely flowing magical power. With a short series of precise gestures, the ground directly beneath the dragon erupts into a towering explosion of frozen lances, bristling out in all directions as if a high explosive had gone off and suffered flash freezing halfway through.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Nox is occupied tanking Mordred personally and keeping the Saber from murdering them all personally. This is a good thing, since Lezard is allergic to six inches of steel in the gut, like most living beings. Adelyn is the focus of the dragon's strikes, however, which causes Lezard to consider.

The Shajem is outnumbered. As long as one of them can act freely at any time, they can begin setting up more powerful responses...

The Shajem promptly disabuses Lezard of that notion by arousing the /entire battlefield/ against them. The rage pulsing from the mighty beast batters at his psyche. The pulsing beat of his own anger, however, resonates. "You beast of all-comnsuming fire, do you think you can STAND AGAINST ME?" The remaining undead move to hurl themselves in the way of the flying blades and leap upon the animated armor, becoming a matter of army versus... half an army, as Lezard draws himself up. A blade shears towards him, but the remaining Dragon-Tooth Warrior takes the blow, the impact resonating off of the armored form. "MY SORCERY IS INVINCIBLE! LIGHTNING BOLT!"

There is a crash of lightning as he lashes out with an air-sundering blast, a spread of crackling, searing electricity leaping across the battlefield towards the Shajem.

But it does not end there. There is a surge of power as he links the energy to feed back into his sceptre, and a large magic circle forms under him. Wind explodes upwards as light and Power surges, Lezard harnessing a titanic amount of force into this next incantation. Great hunks of earth tear themselves out of the ground, rising into the air and sending armor and undead flyign as the red burning sky crackles and thunders. A great sphere of lightning gathers within the clouded sky as Lezard calls out,

"AS THE HARMONIUMS OF ASGARD SOUND, THEIR VERY MELODIES STIR THE ANCIENT LIGHTNINGS TO WAKE!"

The surging sphere of lightning condenses, exploding into a mighty, sinuous form, almost like an Eastern-style dragon with great claws of lightning and a bone skull. A radiant mane of lightning encircles the adjoinment as the skull gnashes in the air in anticipation.

"DRAGON BOLT!"

As he calls out the final portion of the incantation, the huge lightning dragon sweeps down and surges through the battlefield, electrocuting all enemies in its path as it goes on a direct crash course for the Shajem.

After a short time, there is an explosion as the ruby-tipped sceptre shatters under the force, leaving only a smouldering stick as the power dissipates, the energy leaving Lezard and the ground hunks collpasing back down.

But hey, it was impressive while it lasted, right?

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    It is rather fortunate that Lezard's magic was effective, as it saved Adelyn from testing her relatively meager shielding spells against a direct assault. She's instead given some time to work while it crashes through the castle, but whatever new spell she's building up has to go on hold.

    There is one major benefit to being in the middle of a field-spanning spell. There isn't any physical vector by which someone can reach Adelyn that doesn't pass through the area being, at least marginally, influenced by her magic. Defending herself does require her focus once more, dispersing the specific cyclone she was building over the dragon while not dispersing the blizzard itself, but now using that torrent of air to catch the weapons being launched at her.

    If they were all aimed at her and otherwise uncontrolled, she could simply dodge, using her controlled flight and the storm winds in opposite direction. Unfortunately, this is a spirit of rage, and she doesn't expect its aim to be so precise. Rather, the most she can do is constantly shift her position, direct sudden gusts below, and then weather the inverted storm of steel. Again, a separate rune inscribed into her robes flashes and expends itself, this one created for physical attacks--but its effect is brief, and she's scored multiple times by the flying blades, having to strike down one with her staff that would have been a vital, if lucky, stroke.

    Bleeding, Adelyn again feels that tendency toward /rage/. It's an unfortunate fact of her heritage that she susceptible to that specific emotion. Rather, something in her blood is--again, this could cause a problem, given time. Being injured is making it much, much worse. Clouded judgment would be rather fatal.

    Mordred's helmet prevents scanning magic from working on her, but the same is not true, Adelyn suspects, of the Shajem. Flying far higher into the air, her hands again move with the remarkable dexterity of one born and trained to and gifted these specific motions, manipulating the raw mana of the Arcane, seeking information on the enraged, yet weakened spirit below her. Passive sensing is insufficient under these time constraints; her magic presses in at every angle, nearly harmlessly, but testing for boundaries, points of cohesion, form and power, anything and everything that will give her the understanding necessary to find a place onto which she can grab hold.

    In contrast to before, the Realm archmage is now working precisely in her element. This is a spirit, and it CAN be bound--bound again, in fact. She is a summoner, but the most difficult of a summoner's work isn't the opening of the portal, but the control of what passes through it. Theoretically, the task is simple. In practice, it is anything but. This is likely to take time. At the least, time sufficient for both Nox and Lezard to make their own attempts. Possibly, time enough for either Mordred or the Shajem to orient on and interrupt Adelyn. Hopefully, they will choose more obvious targets for the moment, while her own spells seem a mere annoyance.

    Given what is occurring on the ground, she finds this likely.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Nox encases Mordred in ice. True to his guess the bubble around her prevents complete encasement, but being stuck in a glacier, a super beefy magical one at that, is a sufficient speed bump with or without being part of it that it won't bite Nox in the rear all that hard.

    An angry and frustrated Saber hacks and slashes away at her prison, blood red cracks spreading in the ice wherever Clarent impacts. It will take her a moment to break free.

    The ice-attuned Xelor magic then proceeds to hack and slash into the dragon. As before, it's hard to tell if it's being injured, disrupted, or just inconvenienced and angered. It's a bit of everything, with the fiery wounds gushing fire everywhere. It pins the dragon in place, at least.

    Lezard counters the fire dragon with an electrical one. However the Hell that works, it works. The clash between the beasts, however brief, seems to significantly impact the Shajem, whose energy readings seem to be dropping all-around. Not to mention what was left of the castle is pretty much rubble now. And molten slag. And ice. It's a mess. The severity of the blast blew the Shajem free of Nox's icy shackles, though it seems too injured to make immediate use of that.

    Adelyn guesses right-- the helmet's effect doesn't extend to the Shajem. Thanks to its weakened state, the mage can catch glimpses of its inner workings. Though it's unlikely to be enough to make a spell that cannot fail, it's enough information to try something. Bruteforcing it with the other two present certainly would help. The tie to Mordred might be the easiest thing to abuse. Since the Shajem is bound by Elliana's spell into the Servant, tugging on that might provide the easiest way to stuff it back inside. There's no guarantee a 'wild' Shajem will have such a flaw to exploit though-- but maybe their binding to their tombs is similar enough? That's a gamble.

    But maybe one worth taking, if she can't work the whole thing out in time.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    With a burst of mana and flames, Mordred breaks free of her prison at least. Her three opponents gathered, far from her, assaulting her source of power, angers her beyond belief. Her helmet splits down the middle and slams down on her shoulders; her eyes are bloodshot red, practically made of fire. She takes a stance, gripping Clarent with both hands, a rarity, as the blade's design alters, spikes extending, the blade starting to gather large quantities of almost liquid red magic.

    The funny thing about Mordred is that her dossier is missing one critical piece of information. Her Noble Phantasm has straight up never been seen, and she sure hasn't told anyone what it is and what it does.

    As Clarent evidently starts powering up, every animated sword, every animated suit of armor still standing, drops to the ground, harmless. Even the Shajem is slowing its movements. The anger spread across the entire battlefield is being siphoned into a crimson vortex around Mordred's sword. Every ounce of it, like red streaks through the air that can actually be touched. They graze the fighters, and that alone is enough to...

    Are you not angry, Nox? All those 'heroes' wasting your time. And how precious of a resource that is to you. They are keeping you from your family, each and every last one of them. It's their fault.

    Are you not angry, Adelyn? Arcane sits in a box, taunting you with unimaginable magical power that you can't do anything with. Just sitting there, the god of magic herself, and you can't use her for anything whatsoever.

    Are you not angry, Lezard? How many heroes must you kill? How long is the battle-maiden going to keep you waiting? Should she not already consider you beyond worthy? Instead she shuns you and does not even consider you worth her time.

    Of course, it'd be easy enough to shake that off. Just don't touch the physical strands of rage! Although, you might want to do something about the Shajem before Mordred is done charging that, because it looks like it's starting to get siphoned too. The Shajem is rage, after all, nothing but rage. And that sword lets her channel all of it into one hit, whether it's regular anger or a giant fire dragon.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Oh that's right. That is very much the case. Though he does his best to numb the sensation, to think little enough of it to dismiss it out of hand, to think of anything but it, somewhere within Nox's psyche is a deep, smouldering hatred for the people that stand against them. It's easier to look down on them, or else to be intrigued by them, than it is to get angry at them. He'd just about burned himself out on that frustration burning out of control a century ago, before finally learning to detach himself from such concerns. Though he realizes plain as day that it is an unnatural influence of magic, he can't help but be momentarily overcome with old feelings bursting forth out of their proper place.

    As if in direct response to Mordred's Noble Phantasm, an opposing force rises into existence around Nox. At first, the tattered tabard affixed around his waist begins to flutter in an upwards breeze, followed by the broken blades, shattered armour, and pulverized ground around him being caught in it as well, steadily yet unstably lifting into the air, flickering in and out of view like transient static. The circle of influence spreads around him, soon characterized by flickering bolts of cerulean lightning that crawl and slither over the ground, arcing between pieces of debris and forking through the air. The ground rumbles as a deep, resonant whine sounds from nowhere, gradually rising in pitch like the acceleration of some unimaginably massive generator. The space around Nox begins to flicker with pale blue fire, shooting upwards in the same vertical vortex as everything else. Behind him, a bubble of cyan light blisters into existence, swelling in size as its surface roils like the surface of a star, spitting out motes of light which freeze in midair and then revert their course back to join the whole. Blind anger has made him lose sight of all sense of proprietary, simply calling on his biggest guns out of centuries of anger and spite.

    Suddenly, a whisper shoots through his mind like a bullet, sibilant and e<span style="color:hoing.

cxterm123">Not now, Noximilien</span>

    The brilliant aura of coruscating energy abruptly fades, the miniature cyan star collapsing into nonexistence and the floating detritus clattering back to earth. He remembers now, that this is what practise was for. To grow used to the mental influences of the Shajem, and steel himself against them. Attempting to do what he had just about done while out in the field would have catastrophic consequences. Better he learn now than later. Of course that still leaves the problem that Mordred is charging her Noble Phantasm and he has no counter to it. What is interesting however, is that she appears to be draining from the Shajem to do it. With all the damage it has sustained, that /must/ be leaving it in a weakened state.

    Nox does the natural thing and abandons the path directly in fromt of the knight to chase the dragon instead, teleporting in behind it and, without a second thought, thrusting his hands into the creature's fiery body, at the head if possible. Intent on taking it out before Mordred can complete her attack, he sets the energy drain to full throttle, shooting out barely contained bolts of off-coloured electricity as the siphons in both hands complete their circuit and begin drawing away magic at a staggeringly prodigious rate. He has some idea of what this will do to him, but is resolved to do it anyways, if only because he can safely learn his limits here in the Field of Trials.

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Laughter. Laughter is the only way Adelyn can react. Her blood sings to her of its own rage, like to like, blood to bloodlust. She feels so very much alive, as if she hadn't been mere minutes before. Everything is clear to her, everything is moving quickly, and she can see the patterns and the organization despite the speed. She's not going mad--she already was. She's just lost, for the moment, the filters against seeing the world as a demon was meant to.

    She understands, still, what is being done. She needs to hold on, not to give in to THIS thing's rage. Her own she understands far better. This is a thing she will destroy--wait, no. This is a thing she will control. Yes, that's right. She'll stuff it back in its own little box.

    The tattoo-like lines all over the mage's body glow brightly, as if she were suddenly lit from within, the light flowing rapidly as the mana conduits grafted deep within her are pushed past every rational safety limit. She will be unable to do this long without breaking, and it will be messy. But even if she has to lose a limb or two--such wounds heal. Success is what's important.

    Her magic assaults the Shajem from every angle, but with so little force that it's barely perceivable. In essence, she feels over its 'body,' becoming surer of where to place her hooks--and then, when she is certain, she thrusts out an arm, and 'holds.' Immediately, a massive spell-circle appears not over her, but over Mordred. Pure white, it is the most complicated such construction she has made in recent memory, its runic lettering full of fail-safes and redundancies and its geometry forming interlocking mazes of a wholly necessary complexity, because this spell will be as much guesswork and force as finesse. In the same motion, as it activates, she performs a hundred technically different attempts toward a conceptually singular goal--pulling the Shajem of Rage back into Mordred.

    Aware of Lezard's incoming spell, but not the technical specifics of its workings, she is similarly prepared to adjust and work with him as a combined effort. Parts of her magic even seem designed to automatically do so. She is, above all else, extremely thorough.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard is left without his sceptre, which makes offensive magic more... taxing. But the issue is rapidly moot, as Mordred begins to siphon the magic away into their own attack. Lezard looks over towards it, and his eyes widen. What kind of power is this!? He prepares to counter it...

When the rage touches him. Red hot fury burns through his mind as he hisses. the anger pushing exactly where it would hurt the most. His rage, that eternal denial in a world that is not built for mortals, even mortals as puissant as he. That rage and pride that drive him on. Maybe that's why he and Mordred tend to get along. they understand, in a way.

But Adelyn calls out, and his paralytic rage-out gets stopped in favor of noticing something important: The Shajem is being drained too. It cannot attack while Mordred prepares to obliterate them all.

"Demonstration or not, I will show it a lesson it will not forget anytime soon!" There is a rattle of pages, and the tome without a name flips to a complicated, ornate design, a magic circle of surpassing complexity. There is an explosion of Power as he prepares the Ritual of Soul Transfusion. A magical circle begins forming around the Shajem. It is slow, unbearably so. Were it not paralyzed it would easily escape. This is not meant to be used in battle, it is a ritual for use in a laboratory, or far from interruption.

but desperation and anger make for interesting times. So be it.

"Body, mind, soul; all are sheared away! If to serve this purpose I shall be despised, my body scorched and blackened, so be it! If to serve this purpose I must command forbidden magicks, so be it! Though my body may be tainted, though my soul may be tainted, I imbue thee with thought!"

It is at this point that the dark power attempts to tear at the Shajem, working in concert with the others' efforts to contain and wrest control, if only for a few critical moments.

Should the Shajam yield to their combined forces, he will turn, reaching out to open a conduit to Mordred, who stands in a vortex of blood-red rage. Putting all of his will and conceit to the task, he pushes everything he has into these next moments. While breaking the Binding upon Mordred to send it elsewhere would be ill-advised at best and likely impossible in the current conditions... the channel exists in Mordred. It is a connection that can be used. Such mystical connections are a fundamental part of spirits and bindings, and he seizes on the opportunity to use that connection against the Shajem.

"I SWEAR AS THE GODS SWEAR, AND BREATHE LIFE INTO THE VOID!"

As he completes the ritual, he pushes with all of his power to funnel the Shajem, to contain that spirit of rage back within its Servant shell.

Gods, the things he does to overthrow a pantheon.

Mordred (12) has posed:
    Nox thrusts his hands into the Shajem of Rage.
    He drains.

    The effect is going to be very predictable: anger, and a lot of it. But also delicious, delicious energy. He should avoid the brunt of the anger if he avoids using the energy right away, but since it's coursing through his body and staying there for the time being, there will inevitably be some bleeding. Irritability, sparks of rage, or great build ups destined to explode. Thankfully Nox is smart enough to know this is the sort of consequence to expect, so he'll surely dump that energy in a jar before it gets too bad.

    With the dragon weakening from its energy rapidly being drained, and Mordred basically sitting completely still to charge up, the hit is direct. The Shajem is conceptually tugged back towards its container, and weakened as it is from the repeated assaults and Nox plucking a straw in and drinking the bad liquid candy, it can only struggle. Struggling from a creature that powerful is worth a lot, though. Adelyn can feel the workings of her spell just unravelling in places, cracking in others, but the fundamental idea is good enough.

    Especially when Lezard pitches in. A ritual that powerful can tip the odds back into their favor. The Shajem roars, and its existence is forced, in a fiery blast directed at the Servant, back into its home. This knocks Mordred straight off her feet and disarms her of her sword, which seems to be enough to cause the build up of rage and power to subside completely.

    The holodeck finally shuts down, and Mordred decides to remain on the ground for now, rubbing her head. "Fuck. Ow. I know I said this was your goal but do you think you could have fucking PULLED THE PUNCH just a bit? That thing was going to slam back into me either way, you didn't have to make it do it at Mach fucking Yes."

    She's angry but that's kind of normal.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard slumps a bit as he realizes he's not going to have to potentially decant ANOTHER homunculus clone of his body in the near future. Causality reworkings or not, you can NEVER BE SURE.

He looks over to Mordred and steps over to the fallen Saber. "Actually, I would say that we did in fact have to do it that way to ensure our success. As we will not have the benefit of an existing connection to use, it is better to have too much power in the trial than not enough, would you not agree?"

He smiles faintly and holds out a hand. "I think we will be ready to take on this god, especially with the others to be present who will undoubtedly feed themselves to the being while we prepare." He shrugs. "Heroes."

Adelyn Lysen (202) has posed:
    Adelyn is in very similar emotional state immediately post-battle as she was during. Most people would likely describe her demeanor as 'disconcerting.' She does, at least, seem quite happy. She is also ignoring Mordred's complaints, because they are silly.

    "Very good." Thanks to the holodeck having supplied this exercise, she is no longer injured, and therefore no longer bleeding. In fact, she never really was, but--that's just a technicality.

    "Aha, Lezard! That was--a very interesting spell. Hm. Nox, as well. I believe I could use assistance from either of you in readying a device for our later excursion. I have a wealth of material for study on the subject of draining-slash-binding beings of immense power. It is something of a... hehe, family tradition." Wide smiles.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Very much so. The flashes of uncontrollable rage that flicker across Nox's consciousness like tongues of fire are more easily suppressed now that he knows what to expect, but he's plenty wise enough to know how that kind of energy should be dealt with. Gesturing telekinetically towards the far end of the holofield, just outside of its bounds, he conjures over a swarm of gears, springs, bearings, bezels, gems, levers and pins, causing them to rapidly assemble in an unbelievably convoluted fashion around what is unmistakably a crystal hourglass roughly the size of a human torso. Placing one hand on its top, the aperture in his hand goes from cyan to bright, bloody scarlet, exuding a luminescent crimson fluid into the glass, swirling like a miniature inferno. It just about comes up to the neck before it finally stops, prompting the last few components to settle over the cap, and then twist around, upending the sandglass and causing the liquid to start dripping into the bottom, one drop at a time.

    "As long as this machine continues to regularly rotate, the processed energy inside should be caught in 1/1000th stasis. It won't stop any bleeding effects outright, but they'll happen slowly enough that I should have devised a permanent solution by the time they manifest." Nox explains. "This is a prototype simply designed to see if it can handle containment without immediate catastrophical failure. I have designs for a much larger one when we make a real attempt on a Shajem outside of the safety of this ring." He turns to regard Lezard and Adelyn with masked stares, folding his hands behind his back. "Though I must say the both of you were /exceptionally/ impressive, I believe that this approaches the limit of the amount of subtelty we can affect without expendable help." He settles on Adelyn. "I would be more than happy to at least take a look at it. Something like that is, hmmm . . . within my scope of interests."

Mordred (12) has posed:
    "Ugh. Yeah," Mordred answers Lezard, still staying on the ground. Man that's comfortable right now. And holodeck or not, Nox's drain still happened, so maybe she's just kind of tired. Ah well. Eventually she tired of laying down and takes Lezard's hand up.

    Glancing at Nox's mechanism, she whistles, impressive. "Time magic, huh. Shit's wild. Let's hope it holds. So! Alright, you guys have a good idea what we're up against. Now just imagine it's the same thing, except stronger. 'cuz, well, stuffing Mister Angry inside me kind of means a chunk of its power is restrained. It'd probably eat me or something, I dunno. Oh, and yeah, there'll probably be like, half a dozen heroes there wailing on it. Which is an issue."

    Mordred raises a finger. You can imagine she's wearing glasses and giving exposition if you like. "Sealing the Shajem back up is all well and good, but I want us to get away with a chunk of it. Big enough to split up among you guys and experiment on. The Union... probably ain't gonna just sit still and let us get away with that though, so... gonna have to think of something."