Re: Epic Clash Round 3 - The Ascended City
07-07-2010, 08:08 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by suomynonAyletamitlU.
"No--!"
Spender instinctively started after Michelle, as she was torn away, but one last flash of lightning gave him pause. Below and behind him, one last engine was on the frizt, and that meant the pieces were in place. His meta-analysis proved the point well enough; the fake space was trembling under the assault.
If I can rip it open all in one go, ground and gravity have no meaning. The timing is iffy, though; if anything goes wrong...
He threw everything into his spell--all the accumulated matter and energy in his reactor, all the spells he already had going, and every spellcoin already waiting in his queue, leaving only his normal set of hold-out coins squirreled away across his body. He reached out with his mind and latched onto each and every one of those dying and burning reactors, funneling their instability, their chaos, into one giant funnel of chaos, chaos bent with a single purpose--to rip the world a new one.
Thomas and Glere felt the tremble in space, as would Asteira and Michelle had either been focused on anything but their own intense conflict. When they looked, it was nothing and everything, there floating in the sky, and Spender was all of it, everything, nothing, neither, both.
The whole world trembled, and as he was hoping, it seemed as though for a moment, a new world was being born, one under his own control.
However, Spender was deep in the other analyses he needed. One of his special fields was monitoring the situation to let him know when he was ready to break through, but the others were looking into the incredibly powerful spellwork that maintained, controlled, and secured the Overseer's world against all attack. His original plan was to use not only all that energy, but all of his focus and concentration to pick that lock, slip through the cracks, and be on par with the Overseer.
What with the storm, and Michelle, and doubts, and his general unpreparedness, his concentration slipped. Although his thoughts greedily grabbed at the threads of the Overseer's work, momentarily untangling them, a hidden trigger slipped past his defenses and flattened him.
The chaos nova started to waver, and cracks formed. No longer was he forging a new world, although the world around him continued to break; his mind was flayed and dying, and momentarily, he lost all connection with magic itself, and he was violated, defeated in a way that he had never before experienced.
It should be said that the ATM device which Spender employs is not of his own making. It is an inheritance, from a man beyond all reckoning, and it is a boon beyond all understanding. It is impeccable, it is immortal, it could beget gods. Therefore, it must also be impeccably, immortally, divinely secured.
And if that security should be compromised, the device can never be allowed into anyone's hands.
No matter whose.
No matter why.
No matter the circumstances.
The mental invasion stopped for a moment, the threads woven through Spender's mind stopped dead in their tracks. Even Spender didn't know what it was doing for a moment. Perhaps neither space nor time themselves understood.
But he did understand a moment later. The absence made it perfectly clear--absence of the assaulting threads, but also, absence of that comforting presence in the back of his mind.
He was saved, but his ATM device had self-destructed.
"No--!"
Spender instinctively started after Michelle, as she was torn away, but one last flash of lightning gave him pause. Below and behind him, one last engine was on the frizt, and that meant the pieces were in place. His meta-analysis proved the point well enough; the fake space was trembling under the assault.
If I can rip it open all in one go, ground and gravity have no meaning. The timing is iffy, though; if anything goes wrong...
He threw everything into his spell--all the accumulated matter and energy in his reactor, all the spells he already had going, and every spellcoin already waiting in his queue, leaving only his normal set of hold-out coins squirreled away across his body. He reached out with his mind and latched onto each and every one of those dying and burning reactors, funneling their instability, their chaos, into one giant funnel of chaos, chaos bent with a single purpose--to rip the world a new one.
Thomas and Glere felt the tremble in space, as would Asteira and Michelle had either been focused on anything but their own intense conflict. When they looked, it was nothing and everything, there floating in the sky, and Spender was all of it, everything, nothing, neither, both.
The whole world trembled, and as he was hoping, it seemed as though for a moment, a new world was being born, one under his own control.
However, Spender was deep in the other analyses he needed. One of his special fields was monitoring the situation to let him know when he was ready to break through, but the others were looking into the incredibly powerful spellwork that maintained, controlled, and secured the Overseer's world against all attack. His original plan was to use not only all that energy, but all of his focus and concentration to pick that lock, slip through the cracks, and be on par with the Overseer.
What with the storm, and Michelle, and doubts, and his general unpreparedness, his concentration slipped. Although his thoughts greedily grabbed at the threads of the Overseer's work, momentarily untangling them, a hidden trigger slipped past his defenses and flattened him.
The chaos nova started to waver, and cracks formed. No longer was he forging a new world, although the world around him continued to break; his mind was flayed and dying, and momentarily, he lost all connection with magic itself, and he was violated, defeated in a way that he had never before experienced.
It should be said that the ATM device which Spender employs is not of his own making. It is an inheritance, from a man beyond all reckoning, and it is a boon beyond all understanding. It is impeccable, it is immortal, it could beget gods. Therefore, it must also be impeccably, immortally, divinely secured.
And if that security should be compromised, the device can never be allowed into anyone's hands.
No matter whose.
No matter why.
No matter the circumstances.
The mental invasion stopped for a moment, the threads woven through Spender's mind stopped dead in their tracks. Even Spender didn't know what it was doing for a moment. Perhaps neither space nor time themselves understood.
But he did understand a moment later. The absence made it perfectly clear--absence of the assaulting threads, but also, absence of that comforting presence in the back of his mind.
He was saved, but his ATM device had self-destructed.