Anything ~ 31!

- Taylor -

Taylor watched as Andre fainted again. She was starting to get annoyed with how often… “Oh. He sank into the earth.”

Putting aside her concerns for her companion’s health, Taylor hurried to get her Spells in place. The smart choice when dealing with stealthy attackers like this was obvious, “Lightning Beast’s Eye!”

Thunder sounded softly as her nerves impacted her control, allowing slight vibrations into the surroundings as she coalesced nearly the entirety of her mana into strands of heaven’s wrath. Even with as many times as she had cast this as practice, it never failed to amaze her how utterly awe inspiring it was to have total control over power of this magnitude. Just as she got down to the last dregs of her mana, the spell snapped into place fully and the eye began searching around for a target.

She sat and meditated for a minute as her mana recovered, then slowly got to her feet. Taylor was surprised to see that Luke hadn’t moved at all, but was instead staring at a rock that had crashed down near them. “You know we’re under attack, yes? You can go and fight the people attacking us.”

“Not sure about this rock. Rocks aren’t supposed to fly.” Luke waved her off as she tried to explain that it had been thrown or something similar. “Yeah, yeah. That might be it. Still. I wanna see if there’s more to it. I’ll catch up.”

There was no reasoning with the insane, so Taylor simply ignored his inane comments and began stalking around the vegetation. A blade *whisked* past her face and slammed into the wood all the way to the hilt. Another shot through the air as if it had been released from a bow, curving to follow her as she dodged. She cursed and adjusted; her devotion to Senses paying off as the person controlling the metal lost their target.

It was easy to tell when the Ascender attacking her decided to stop attempting pinpoint strikes: a spray of flechettes tore through the area, mulching plants as they closed in on her from multiple directions. The terrain was trained to help her, and a vine reached down from a tree to provide her an escape. She jumped and backflipped off the tree, using the vine as a swing, and searched for the location of the metal manipulator.

All she knew about Manipulators was that they needed to be close enough to control the element they used. This one needed to be fairly close if they could target her well enough to almost get Taylor even with her reaction speed letting her escape almost any situation. As she neared the edge of the oasis, it didn’t end up mattering: her active spell found the Ascender that was attacking her before they could lock onto each other.

The air sizzled as a bolt as thick as her arm dripped from the eye like the fastest tear in existence. Every chunk of metal that was used as protection only increased the speed and efficiency of the power finding its mark, and the Ascender fell from a single strike. Taylor was excited by the power of her spell only for as long as it took for the next attacker to catch her in an updraft and slam her to the ground.

Potentia gained: 755.

Damage taken: 33 terrain.

Current health: 79/112.

Taking a massive blow like that shocked her - not literally like her Spell did to the Manipulator, but figuratively, as in an unwelcome surprise that she was unprepared for. With her Senses so powerful, she knew exactly when she had last taken such devastating damage, and it had been years. There were few things that could manage to land a hit on her, and even when they did… she could always mitigate most of it. Whatever had grabbed her had used the air around her to attack: there was no easy way to avoid the air.

Just as she was springing up to fight, she was pulled underground and encased in stone. She yelped breathlessly as she was dragged to… “Andre?”

Her voice was weak from lack of air, but it seemed she had taken tha Druid by surprise. He pulled back the hand that had been reaching for her face, and blinked owlishly. “Taylor? What? Stay off the bare earth around the oasis, abyss.”

Then she was catapulted up and into the open air once more. She was lucky that she had been thrown with such force: the instant she was out of the ground, a half-dozen mana-forms tore chunks out of the ground where she had exited. For an instant she was confused as to how they knew where she was, then an arc of lightning fried an assassin that had been trying to sneak up on her: the poison-coated blade fell just short of her skin as the once-beautiful wielder fell.

Potentia gained: 445.

She felt ill as the death of her fellow Ascender made her stronger. These were her countrymen! A group appeared at the fringes of the oasis and charged at her; but she was sick of killing them. With a completely unnecessary stomp, she cast Fissure and used it to trip the attackers and send them tumbling into the area that Andre had claimed. At least four people were sucked underground without even enough time to scream.

Prismatic light in a beam so focused that it felt physical seared the air, only the fact that it had lit a tree on fire in passing gave Taylor any warning that it was approaching. She managed to avoid it, though her hair lit on fire in the same motion. The Mage trembled as she quenched the flames; that had nearly scorched off her head. Most of the attacks and screams that were sounding within the oasis faded as the greenery captured people, but Tayor’s attention was on the band of Knights that were approaching as a unit.

“Heaven’s Earth. So this is all your doing.” her words were practically hissed as the group moved to engage her. “For some reason, I really thought you would hide behind your lies longer than you actually did.”

“Mage Taylor Woodswright, you are under arrest for resisting arrest.” Sir Edward spoke with a smarmy grin. “I order you, by my authority, backed by Prince Vir, to surrender for immediate execution.”

A rock made the air tremble as it passed Taylor’s shoulder, crumpled the man’s face, and sent the Ascender tumbling away as a broken heap. Luke walked over to stand next to Taylor and gestured at the stone. “There was nothing more to it. It was just a rock.”

One of the men fell back and cast healing magic on the Knight, while the others stepped forward with a roar. “You dishonorable-! How dare you attack a Knight of the Hollow Kingdom! Die for your crimes!”

Taylor didn’t bother trying to reason with these hypocrites; sending Shatter Shots and Flame Lances at the enemy without delay. Luke rushed forward to fight the metal-clad Knights in close combat, and Taylor took a single second to decide what to do next. So far, they hadn’t done anything against the laws of the Hollow Kingdom. Yet, if they actually killed the Knights, their Sigils would be working against them every step of the way until they got a pardon from the King. Even in cases of self-defense, killing even the lowest of Nobility would incur a heavy penalty. Blood erupted from Luke’s shoulder as she hesitated, and that settled it for her.

She leaned forward and dashed at her highest speed toward the Knights. Once she was among them, her most potent Spell was unleashed. “Nullify!”

A swarm of black-and-purple butterflies erupted from her, swarming over the Knights around her and removing all of the auras and buffs that they were using to fight at a higher level. Luke’s next punch removed a perfect tenth of the tower shield he hit, so the Knight threw the decimated item away and gripped his sword with both hands as he swung it for Luke’s neck. The Murderhobo’s grin was creepy even to Taylor as he grabbed the sword by the blade and dispersed the force behind it with ease.

“You don’t even know that your weapons and armor make me hit harder, and harder to kill. Thanks for this.” Luke yanked the weapon away and tossed it behind him, where a large animal-hide blanket had been spread out. “Same deal as usual, Taylor! Dibs on the gear.”

“That’s fine, Luke!” Taylor increased the spread of Shatter Shot and used the dispersed force to batter another Knight’s head around in his helmet. “Make sure not to kill them, or the Sigils will make us… um… go and apologize to the King!”

“Abyss with that.” Luke muttered and barely managed to pull his punch, merely knocking out teeth instead of caving in the man’s skull with his next attack. “These guys are really fluffy, it’s kinda hard not to kill them accidentally.”

Three of the five were out of commission already, and only one of them was a fighter. Luke appeared in front of that man in a flash of movement so rapid that even Taylor hadn’t seen him start to move, grabbed him by the neck, and lightly tossed him onto the bare earth. He vanished below with a light slurp, and Luke followed up with the others before going after the healer that was working on Edward.

Wailing as he sailed through the air, the healer vanished. Luke went to grab Edward and was blasted into the air by a detonation of light. The Knight got to his feet and stared at Taylor with dead eyes. “You insolent little traitor. Die for your crimes!”

The Knight’s body appeared to shift partially into energy, and he rushed Taylor as a stream of light. She dove out of the way and rolled behind a tree, an over-bright sword following just behind her and cutting through the wood as if it wasn’t even there.

Taylor bent backward at the waist as the blade rippled through the space she had just occupied, and caught a broken dagger that had been lodged in the now-falling tree. She flicked it up at the Knight’s helmet, and he flinched back to avoid it. Using his motion, Taylor steadied herself and opened the ground under them with Fissure. The rend in the ground swallowed both of them, and closed around both as Taylor’s control faltered.