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Diez's spell was finally finished charging. Thinking for a few moments, Diez picked out a form he thought would be appropriate for the situation, and initiated the transformation. Black mist began to seep from underneath his robes, more and more until it obscured him from view entirely. Large bolts of dark energy cackled throughout the black cloud as it lowered slowly to the trembling ground... when the smoke had finally cleared, the new form became apparent. A hooded black cloak was draped over a skeletal body, with rotten flesh hanging from what was once the face. Out to the side, a single skeletal hand was chained to an enormous, black and silver coffin. The Dark Lord had transformed into Mammon, the Lord of Greed.

Grinning (can a skull do anything else?), the newly transformed Dark Lord popped open the front lid of the coffin, and reached within to see which magical trinket he could produce... as he pulled his treasure forth, he practically bubbled over with delight. He had an idea of what Willow was about to attempt; looks like he got to preempt her. Holding up what appeared to be a golden hand wreathed in flame, Diez speaks to Willow.

"Behold, the Hand of Hephaestus. The Lord of the Forge embodied his wrath in this, his hand. A wrath which we both are now subject to..."

At this, the flames on the hand intensify, as the the ground suddenly goes from quaking to outright bursting open, huge streams of lava pouring forth from numerous cracks in the destroyed earth. Several pieces of the battlefield sank dramatically, while others shot upwards towards the sky. The piece of the field that Diez/Mammon stood upon shot far upwards, far exceeding the height of all other pieces, as his laughter echoed throughout the Coliseum...

((Meet my favorite alternate form, Mammon. What I love about him is that his attack strategy is entirely random; I have 50 pre-set spell effects, and which one I use at any given turn is determined by the random number generator. With this guy, you never know what you're gonna get. mrgreen I have the list on a notepad document, and although I'd prefer to keep it secret, I'll PM you a copy if you feel you need to keep me honest.

And in answer to your question, I've never used anything like this before. ^_^))

(( xd Nice. Countering this might be a bit tricky. Let's leave it to the numbers...))

(( gonk What is it with this number generator and fire spells? Grrrr... I will not be denied! Not yet at least. xp ))

Mammon could only do one thing as the enormous lava tornado came towards him.

eek

He barely had time to react. Fortunately, he didn't have to. The coffin had been steadily backsliding ever since the plateau began to rise. Just as the lava tornado was about to hit, the coffin actually slid OFF the back of the plateau. Dragging him down with it...

The coffin landed firmly in the lava, as the large plateau absorbed most of the brunt. Landing on top of the coffin was Mammon, thoroughly preturbed. Popping open the lid of the coffin again, he reached inside, hoping to pull out something helpful... he didn't.

"Son of a b***h!"

The tiny gold statuette of the Sun God raining his wrath down on the earth. Just what he needed... more fire to give the pyromaniac. Still, this was supposed to be the girl's test, and he was quite impressed with her progress thusfar. He wasn't quite ready to call it quits yet, though...

In the meantime, the sky seemed to darken slights, lit up briefly by large streaks of what appeared to be fireballs raining down on the earth. Several of them were aimed not at Willow, but at the platform she was on. If they impacted, the force of the explosion would surely at least cause SOME damage. In the meantime, Mammon floated gently on his lovely indestructible coffin, out of sight of Willow, hoping that his next magical trinket would be a bit more helpful than the last...

((I will get you next time, Gadget! ninja ))

((Out of the fifty possible effects of these attacks... 5 of them would save me from this attack outright.

Let's hope for the best. mrgreen ))

((Not exactly what I was looking for, but I can improvise. wink ))

Fumbling around clumsily in the coffin, Mammon pulls out... a jewel-encrusted golden thunderbolt. Zeus's Fury. He knew what came next...

KIERZAPP!

A gigantic lightning bolt speared straight from the heavens, striking him with such incredible force that the resulting electrical explosion not only blasted him high into the air, far away from the two tornadoes, but also managed to weaken them signifigantly. He holds tight to his coffin , soaring through the air, he thinks...

One....

Meanwhile, another mighty thunderbolt was headed straight for Willow. Actually, four other mighty thunderbolts were headed straight for Willow. Fully capable of ripping the already unstable ground from beneath her feet, the bolts would fire one after the other, until they were exhausted.

On the other side of the battlefield, Mammon lands on another platform, crumpling into a fairly useless pile of bones... he would likely get only one more chance to make this work, so he clawed his way up the coffin with one hand, reaching in for one last time...

Hearing the loud crack, she gave herself only a few moments to register what was going on, and surprisingly, jammed the hilt of her sword into the rock quite close to her, watching as it acted as a lightning rod for the lightning bolts. Not taking any chances though, she rolled off her little 'boat' leaving the katana to float useless by. The flute however, she threw up in the air, as she manipulated the lava to recede away from where she landed again. Sitting up, from a distance it looked like she was actually swimming in the lava. Taking a look at her hair she frowned, noticing how the ends were singed...oh well, not like it hadn't happened before. Catching the flute as it came back towards the ground thanks to gravity, she immediately began playing, once again the music beginning to wind itself around the Dark Lords heart and Mind...though this time.. the song didn't seem to just enter through one's ears...but through his very skin. There was only one way to fight this off, and Willow was the only one nearest enough to know how. The music would tug at Mammon's conciousness, pulling him into an easy, mind-numbing sleep if he didn't do something quickly. Willow however, perched in her little spot in the middle of the lava flow seemed to be intently listening to her own music, the Music of Illusion.

((OMG hax. I'm a skeleton. I have no skin. gonk There's no such thing as spiked olives!))

Placing the skeletal fingers of his detached hand on another one of his trinkets, Mammon immediately felt an absolutely fantastic rush of energy... and he knew what he had placed his hand on. A small, white orb called Soul of the Eagle. And he knew exactly what it entailed; the gift of flight was now his. Rising up from the ground, and pulling himself together, Mammon began to think just as the Music of Illusion began, of an attack he could launch at Willow. Unfortunately, suddenly, he began to feel very sleepy... an unhappy Diez once more cut off his hearing, only to find that the music was still having a strange effect on him. Not one to go down without a fight, however, Mammon immediately set off towards the source of the music, his enormous coffin with him. Flying up, he spotted Willow, and immediately commenced to dive bombing her, his coffin out to the side, he was aiming to swing the enormous, heavy thing right at the wolf guardian as he passed... his mind was slowly leaving him, but he would have the presence of mind to pull this off, and hopefully continue to fight...