The Chained Watcher

On a Magic Carpet Ride~

The song wouldn't leave my head, therefore I shall inflict it upon others.

~~~

Grian's wings cut through the air as he approached his retreat.

As much as he would like to put the fear of god into the Watcher that dared try to take over his retreat, he can't take too long or make a mess, lest any of the Hermits find something strange.

That means he needs to kill it with as little blood as possible, preferably without giving it the chance to make any noise. The leftover mist within the walls should muffle most sounds before they can escape, but better safe than forced to explain. So no dismemberment, probably no beheading, maybe a stab through the heart? But then it might make a noise...

Oh! What if he just teleports it to the bottom of the ravine first? There's so much mist there, no noise should get out, and he won't even need to clean up any of the blood after it's dead. Failing to silently kill the Watcher that had kidnapped some of his friends that one time had led to them being quite frightened, so if possible he'd like to avoid that this time.

Now that he's directly over the retreat, he can sense that this Watcher seems to have captured some people for experiments. That'll be a bit hard to handle without his friends wondering where the Watcher that had captured those people had gone, but he'll think of something.

He lands in the courtyard, and grimaces when he sees the statues. Of course it couldn't just leave the original decorations up, noooo, it just had to put up its own. There's not enough time to change them to something less offensive to his eyes, but at least he can reduce the eyesores to rubble without much effort.

Even just standing here, he can sense the latent enchantments he had left underneath the ground starting to move, acknowledging him as the owner of this place. That was a little something he'd added shortly before his unfortunate imprisonment, just in case he found himself besieged. It allows for reactionary shields to manifest to block any attacks, and can cast illusions to trick invaders into walking in circles.

The whole setup had been more of a 'just in case' type of contingency, since it had been awfully unlikely that not only would he be unable to defend himself, but enemies would have found his retreat while he was incapacitated. When in good health, he would be more than capable of blocking any attacks that the surface retreat's enchantments could, after all.

Well, at least it can be synced with other people's signatures as well, so it works just as well for protecting his friends. No accidents will befall them, not here.

His path takes him through the buildings as he methodically wrecks the statues and tapestries the other Watcher had put up. Way too much god complex visible in these, too much gore present in those, and who needs so many depictions of twisted monstrosities?

When he reached the room the Watcher was in, he flexed his magic to plunge the entire room into darkness, mildly straining his transformation. It's in the room where it put its captives, and he doesn't want any of them to see him when he grabs the Watcher. The captives just silently shrink back against the wall when the sudden darkness registers, but the Watcher whirls around to try to find the source of the magic.

"Who's There!" the Watcher snarled. He has no need to introduce himself, not to someone who did things like this in his retreat. Its wings bristle when nothing greets its senses, and its magic flares as it tries to pierce the all encompassing darkness. Trying to beat him in magic? In his retreat? Almost laughable. Not only does he have a much higher Tier than this one, it's on his turf. Today it will die.

His transformation unravels as he coils magic around the Watcher, and he just leans against the wall as it exhausts itself with increasing panic. Killing another Watcher to claim their retreat is not terribly uncommon to begin with, and most Watchers wouldn't even think twice if they heard rumors about it. That's why none of them reveal where they build their retreats, and why this one is panicking so much.