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Character: Raemos
Stage: Oblivionite Adept Mage
Level: 50
Luck: 54 (including Luk from long running apprentice hunts)
Creature:
0 x Mage Mara (35 exp each)
1 x Rock Mara (25 Exp)
3 x Metal Mara (30 exp each)

Success Rate:
Rock: 11-100
Mage: 21-100
Metal: 21-100

Won:
Metal Mara x 2

Loss:
Rock Mara x 1
Metal Mara x 1


Total:
2x Mara Tokens

86 exp

Copper Bars x 15
Shattered Granite x 15

Rae fell into airy nothingness, tumbling head over heels from the momentum of the kargoth's charge. "Open..." he commanded quickly, feeling the mechanism on his back spring open into his false wings. "Fupanonai!" he intoned, hoping - praying - that they would work.

As he tumbled, he felt it resist a little and soon, he was falling - still tumbling - but manageable. The levitation had worked. He wouldn't be a broken splotch on the sand. This was good.

Freed from that fate, he watched Betty and Vona ride away, silently promising to catch up with them later.

He hoped.

He stabilized and touched down on the desert floor, his knees bending with the effort of landing. He had dropped his wand in the tumble - he could see it glittering like ivory nearby - but his sword had remained in his hand through the tumble - he was fortunate, he thought, to not have been impaled. Next time he took a fall, he was dropping it. But that would cause all sorts of other problems... there really was no winning in such a situation, aside from surviving the fall.

He looked up and around him to see the approaching forms of the Mara: they hovered above him, out of reach of both him and then. He still had time, but not much. He ran as fast as he could, diving and tumbling towards his wand. He grabbed it and stood up, turning to face the Mara - metal and stone - who had surrounded him. He rolled his shoulders, his wand in one hand, his sword in the other.

"All right." he said, his expression deadly serious, "Let us fight properly."

He attacked, his blade gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight as it was parried by the metal Mara. He twisted his wand, darkness enveloping him before spinning outward like a whirling blade, forcing the mara surrounding him back. He felt it strike a metal mara and felt the slightest amount of weakness in its guard. The darkness slash became tendrils that wrapped around the metal mara's sword, then its armor. Raemos left the magic to it's ominous business as he dodged and rolled, avoiding the attacks of the mara he was duelling. He struck a sparking blow against its armor, to no avail other than to push it back. It was enough, though - enough to concentrate on his magic and, like a black disease of oblivion, coil it around around and infest the other metal Mara. He heard it cry out in a ringing voice, felt its sword drop to the ground next to him and, coldly, let the magic snuff it out.

He felt it fall to the ground with a clatter as final as if its body had been flesh and dodged a crushing blow from one of the stone Mara. He shoved it aside with his magic as its remaining metal companions dove in, shining, to dispatch him.

Their bodies formed a shadow. He disappeared into it as their swords stabbed the ground where he had been.

It was strange to be a part of their shadow. His limits were straightforward, defined and threatened by the blazing, all-revealing sun. He was fluid but contained in the tiny patch of darkness, no longer Raemos, but still, ultimately, himself. He could perceive them too, a strange sense of where and what and who that transcended any sight he'd ever thought could be had. It was strange. It was, simply, strange.

He'd hid in shadows before, as practice for his magic. He'd even melded into the shadows, becoming one with them for a moment. But this time was different: the fluidity of the shadow meld, the adrenaline high of the fight, the pain and fear and exhaustion of the day... all of it combined to create a sensation that was beyond anything Raemos had ever known.

"Organic life form: vanished" His attention was caught by the sound of a voice. The language was Orderite and, raised among them as he was, he had no trouble understanding it. He listened, intrigued: he hadn't realized they could talk.

"It is not dead. There is no body present." That had been one of the metallic ones, he thought, or he would assume so from the metallic ring to its voice. "Explanation for vanishing is unknown."

"Conclusion: Must investigate. Bring back to king." That had been the stone one, the only stony one of the three.

"There is no body. What do we bring back?"

"Collect samples of the sand at the disappearance site." ordered the other Metal Mara, "You: with me. We will search the vicinity."

"Command accepted. Operation: Ruling out Escape: In progress..." The rock mara and the commanding metal mara moved away, spreading out - Raemos could only assume - to search the area. He felt his little puddle of darkness and self shrink as they did, and he knew his time was running out - he had no idea how to meld with a moving shadow, and in the bleak desert, that was the only thing he could do like this. He didn't want to find out what would happen if he was revealed by light - not like this. He promised himself that he would look it up when he got home...

When he got home. If he got home.

He waited until the other two Mara left the limits of his shadowy perception, observing as the metal mara began to scoop sand into spaces in its armor. He waited as it turned, taking discrete samples from the whole area around it. Finally, its back was to its shadow - and to him. Raemos pounced from it, re-entering three-dimensional reality with a snap of conciousness, his sword and wand raised as he slashed down, crushing its helmeted head with the force of his magic-augmented blow. It crumpled, its essence floating around Raemos and away.

Raemos looked around for the other two Mara - they were nearby, close enough to have heard his attack. Thinking fast, he hid behind a dune, brushing his steps with his cloak to confuse his tracks.

He watched from his hiding place, prone, as the mara returned and inspected their comerade.

"Inspection: Head crushed by heavy blow. Magic residue detected. Essence animation no longer supported."

"It must have been the organic. Hidden, somehow."

"Conclusion: Operation Ruling out escape. Escape ruled out."

"The organic was present the whole time. How: Unknown. Information must be brought to the King, immediately."

"Subject aquisition possible?"

"Possible... Scanning." Raemos watched as the Mara looked around, then shook its head. "Location is unknown. Escape is very likely."

"Query: Initiate Search?" a metallic ringing sounded out over the desert, like a bell.

"Negative. We are being called to reinforce. We will have to give the king information alone."

"Affirmative. Proceeding to rally point." Raemos watched them as they moved on, waiting, again, for them to become mere points of unnatural strangeness in the distance before he crept free of his hiding spot. He looked around at the scene of carnage, of metal and stone scattered in the desert, glittering in the sand.

He walked to the beginning of it and picked up the cloth that had, at one point, clothed one of the construct mages. Well... he thought to himself, spreading it out along the ground and making it into a makeshift sled, since I'm here... He began to take the heads from the dead Mara, as well as any salvage he could, and put it into the cloth. Since he was able to do it, he was not going to waste the opportunity to bring more much-needed money and prestige to his family.

He dragged along the sled, collecting heads and salvage, until he had collected from the last body. Then, with a resolute grunt, he began to drag it along the trail left by the charging Kargoth.