The Old City

0.42. Marcus vs Marek Part 3

The soldier guarding the last exit jumped in his way.

"Move," demanded the bloody Marcus. He directed the halberd at him and stepped forward slowly. The base was full of men who were already dead. He cared little about adding one more to the pile.

Bring me his head.

Marcus spun around looking for the speaker but there was no one besides the guard.

He cast his mind wide across the room, Who are you?

You know me, Marcus. The voice came from everywhere, overpowering. It felt deep and heavy with the weight of days so far past none remembered them. It felt wise and compelling, as though it knew best. Bring me his head.

He could barely control his body - it flew with malice toward the final enemy with a speed he didn't know it possessed and relieved the man's head from its body. The halberd seemed to relish in the man's blood.

I can take you out of here. I can take you wherever you wish to go. Let me help you. But bring me more lives.

Outside the Storeroom.

The cavern was a Hellscape of blood and art.

The aura of Mordat's foe permeated the air, suffocatingly thick like a summer's afternoon in the Bay. Lines of his blood were now etched into the walls and ground, Terrible beasts, a lion, a rylachnid, and a grizzly beat, drawn from his most gruesome nightmares, now stalked the darkness. And within the channels of blood swam another creature, hidden. 

The lion leapt first, claws aimed true for Mordat's throat.

Mordat knelt to grab a rock and tossed it at the beast. The stone passed through the bloodfor without any resistance and fell clean on the opposite side.

These creatures are formed of his own blood, so they cannot have much weight. He'd go anemic otherwise. Only the front side is hardened to attack. Yes, the claws are darker than the rest of the creature - it must be denser. The rest of it is fragile like paper.

Mordat jumped to the side and straight into the waiting mandibles of the enormous rylachaid. Its pincers crunched down, but Mordat possessed surprising quickness for his size and slipped away again. He punched the monster in the side and like the rock, it barely met resistance as it passed through. The rylachnid's concentrated spots were in its pincers.

"I was never the strongest mage," said the stranger. "My aura is not overwhelming or vast, but I do have precision. In a small enough space, my Paint Magic grants me complete control over that domain." 

Paint must be a derivative of Art Magic. He can pull forth to reality anything that might come to his imagination. But every type of magic has a weakness...ah, there it is.

Mordat positioned himself beneath one of the cavern's dripping stalactites. Beneath it had gathered asmall pool of water. When the grizzly's forepaw landed in the pool, its form began to disperse, bleeding into the puddle. It pulled back but its paw was no longer solid, it no longer held a sharp form but was an amorphous blob of blood.

"Agua!" he shouted and the whole cave began to quiver. The water from a hundred pools rose and sped toward him, forming a cage acound his body. "Your magic is powerful in a confined space, but it is diluted by water. This was a poor place for you to fight - I am a poor Elementalist, but there is so much water here that skill hardly matters."

I understand your magic. If I keep these three bloodforms in my sight, I can stop them.

The bear now stampeded toward him and Mordat could see the darker areas around its maw. When it met the cage, i t split into five pieces that continued to move in unison and slip through the bars of water. Mordat jumped back when be realized the cage would not hold and spun to close the cage completely off from the rest of the cavern. It bifurcated the bear and the portions of blood which had seeped through fell harmlessly to the ground.