Welcome to Gaia! ::

(( eek Wow, I think Tekira has misplaced her faith a little bit. That, or I've been playing Aer as if he were favored by Penguin. You remember Penguin, doncha Bard? The God of Extremely Convenient Things Turning Up At Exactly the Right Moment. xd I was using my boredom as an excuse to steal Amryck's power. Lawls.

I believe, Bard, you said the ship was also called Wraith, correct?))

Aer blinked, then hurriedly ran his fingers across the inscriptions on the box. "Um... Bathin. Bathin--" He flipped the box open. "Bathin!"

Appearing first like a swirl of white smoke, a white horse erupted out of the box and landed before them, mounted by a well-muscled man who appeared normal in all respects--except his serpent's tail undulating slowly behind him.

"You called, Master?" he said with a touch of arrogance in his voice, but no disrespect.

"You can teleport us, right?" Aer said.

"You should know," the demon said simply. "Do you require my services, Master?"

So. This was one of the demons that was going to be picky about doing his specific job. Hopefully he wouldn't be too greedy about the price.

"Teleport us to the Wraith's ship. All of us," he said, waving his arm to indicate Tekira, Janika, and Amryck.

"The price--"

"Just do it," Aer said sharply. With an anticlimactic pop, the room fell away and they found themselves on the bridge of the Wraith.

"I desire my freedom," the demon said promptly, as soon as Aer had got his bearings. "Not permanently, of course. But, say... One year."

Aer stared at him. "A year? What if I need you before then?"

The demon gave him a blank look from atop the horse, then raised one eyebrow. "That is a good question, Master, but not one that concerns me. Will you pay?"

Aer gave the demon a steely look. He felt a moment of brash stubbornness. "If I don't?"

The demon didn't move, but suddenly he seemed a lot more threatening. "If you refuse to pay," the demon said softly, "you will pay."

Aer snorted. "Fine. Whatever. Get, then. I will expect you back by this time next year, though!" he shouted as the demon leapt back into the box, which closed with an amused-sounding clack.

Aer looked at Wra--Amryck. "What do you need here?" he said. Suddenly, he was tentative. If Amryck was no longer--technically--Wraith, then could he control the ship?

For that matter... Could his father?

((Is Janika still here? O.o))

Aer's eyes widened. It could kill us all? With a nervous glance at Tekira, he slowly opened his mouth.

"Now, wait," he said. "Isn't there any... less dangerous... way we could go about this? Something without such a high risk of, you know, miserable failure and sudden, painful death?"

The ship lurched in a manner reminiscent of the earlier event in the desert. This time, though, the forward lurch was stopped suddenly, as if the ship had hit something. The bridge began to darken, and it elongated, becoming sleeker. The walls became black, and Rivus's voice sounded.

"Are you there, worms?" he intoned deeply. His voice was garbled and distant. "Amryck--the former Wraith. Relinquish your control immediately, or I shall destroy you and take it by force."

Aer's eyes widened. He waited for Amryck to answer his question, fingering the box nervously.

Shaking his head and wondering how much it was going to hurt, Aer stepped forward and set the black box on the pedestal. He looked to Wraith inquiringly.

((Teehee.

Wow, I've been playing Realms of Despair all day, and just now, instead of "((" I almost typed "chat". ><))

Aer grabbed the box, startled, but that was the last thing of which he was aware before even the light faded, and he found himself...

"You are Amryck's choice?" The voice was deep, and gravelly. Aer thought it was a demon, at first, until it said, "Then let the attunement begin. The tests are of past, present, and future. I trust Amryck has advised you not to lose your Hearrte. Now, go."

...standing on an opulent rug in a massive dining hall. There was an odd black box in his hands. He thought it felt vaguely familiar, but... and those inscriptions on the side, in Old Tongue. He thought he might be able to read them... Ah, well. Perhaps his instructor would be able to decipher it later.

Don't lose hold of your Hearrte.

The dining hall rocked violently, as if the island had shifted. Frightened, the boy ran out of the room, clutching the black box close to his chest. Down the corridor and down the stairs, to the entrance--

--and straight into his father.

"Aer," the man said, seeming bored. "What is the matter?"

Aer's throat was tight. He couldn't speak. Rivus's mouth curled into a terrifyingly predatory smile.

"Interesting toy you've got there," he hissed, snakelike. "May I sssee it?"

Petrified, Aer could only stare up at the man. He hadn't changed at all; he looked exactly the same. but something about him...

"Give me the box, boy," Rivus hissed.

Don't lose hold of your Hearrte.

As the man knelt down, Aer punched him in the nose and ran.

Do so and you will die.

The corridor began to shake. Plaster drifted down from the ceiling, and the hall began to crumble. Aer screamed in terror as he tripped, pitched through the air, and landed...

His eyes snapped open and he sucked in a deep breath. Light. Light everywhere. There was blood on his hand, where the edges of the box were digging into it, but he dared not release it. Just as he thought he had his bearing, the light flared up again.

...in one of the galleries of the Forteresse. Rivus turned to face him. There was something around his neck, like a black silk scarf, but it undulated eerily. His eyes flashed with malevolence.

"So you've come to kill me, have you?" Rivus hissed. Something about the hissing was familiar.

"I've come to serve justice," Aer said. "You've run amok here for too long. Give it up, Rivus. Give it up now."

Rivus laughed, a barking sound. The black scarf-thing flared with dark brilliance, and Aer felt himself shoved back by powerful threads of magic. His right hand was drawn forward, holding the box up.

Rivus reached for it.

Don't lose hold of your Hearrte!

Aer struck out with an unfamiliar power. The very threads that held him released him and then struck viciously at Rivus, driven by Aer's fury. As he watched, Rivus wove a complex pattern of his own creation and flung it at Aer. It looked deadly, but something inside Aer's mind told him--

Instead of diving aside, he leapt forward, flying straight into the weaving...

The light was blinding. His eyes were being driven into the back of his head. The hand that held the box was numb, but he knew the Hearrte was still there. He could feel it with his left hand. He switched hands and flexed his right hand painfully. And the light exploded.

...and was sitting in a high-backed black chair, really a throne, for all that it was only one color. Before him was a desk, behind him a fireplace, roaring with heat. Across the desk was a man with dark, membraneous wings.

Aer shook his head, warmed a glass of wine with a tongue of fire that protruded, when he summoned it, from his forefinger. He sipped the wine. It had a sharp tang; it was blood wine, a red mixed in equal parts with blood. This wine was lamb blood; it wasn't always.

"So they are complaining," he said dryly, playing with the black box in his left hand.

"They are, High Lord. Rather... vehemently."

"Well," Aer said, "Perhaps I shall have to remind them who is the High Lord."

The bat-winged man shrugged, but kept alert eyes on Aer. "Shall I convey a message to their spokesman?" he said.

Aer pondered that. "No," he decided finally. "I will do it myself." Smiling grimly, he opened the box, and said softly, "Focalor."

The demon appeared as a tendril of wispy white smoke, stretching out of the box. When it touched the ground, it solidified into something very like an angel, but Aer knew better. Those wings were griffin's wings.

"Master," Focalor said, kneeling briefly. "You called?"

"There is a peasant uprising," Aer said softly. "I want it ended. Can you do that?"

"Of course, Master. But there is the matter of a price."

"As always," Aer said dismissively. "What do you want?"

The demon only smiled. A second later, the door opened to admit...

...Rivus.

Aer stood and snarled, throwing his wine glass into the fireplace. It hissed and sizzled.

"Now, now," Rivus said, "is that any way to greet your dear old father?"

"You have been exiled," Aer snarled. "Get out of my sight, or I will add you to Focalor's hit list."

"I don't think so," Rivus said. "Focalor, would you care to educate my son on the situation?"

Focalor inclined his head. "You see, Master, There is one other with a similar Hearrte. Your sister."

"You both have my blood," Rivus laughed, "and you both have demon-summoning Hearrtes. Focalor here is your sister's friend... And I've currently got a great amount of leverage with your sister. Focalor is performing a task for her at the moment."

Aer snarled again. Malevolent tendrils of power snaked out of the Forteresse's walls, reaching for Rivus.

"All I want," Rivus whispered, almost hissing, "is your Hearrte."

Don't lose...

Aer hefted the box. "This thing?" he said too softly.

Rivus smiled. "Precisely."

Aer smiled right back at him. "Go ahead. Take it." Wrapping a subtle enchantment around it, he threw it at Rivus, who instinctively reached up and caught it.

His hands were immediately enveloped in fire, and he screamed, dropping it. Aer swung around the desk, caught the Hearrte, and drove his fist into Rivus's chest, sending spikes of the Wraith's power through his father. Rivus crumpled.

Focalor just watched him. Finally, Aer faced Focalor, ignoring the now-pale bat-winged man who stood off to one side.

"Now," Aer said with deadly softness, "are you going to obey me, or must I teach you who you really serve?"

Silently, Focalor bowed, and left the room. With an angry glance at the bat-winged man, Aer stalked out of the office...

"Good," came the deep, gravelly voice. "Good. You are now the Wraith. The attunement will be slow, but you must learn as you acquire the office. This portion, at least, is done." And with that, the light vanished.

..and was pushed out of the pillar of light. He collapsed to his knees, gasping for air.

""What..." he wheezed, "the hell... was that? Who... was I?" Catching his breath, he got to his feet and faced Amryck.

"Amryck," he said, shaking his head with a troubled look in his eyes, "I don't think I can... should... be Wraith. The last one... The future, I suppose... Is that really going to happen? I was... I called myself the High Lord, and I... So nonchalantly ordering the deaths of so many..." He dropped his eyes, shaking his head. "It can't be true..."

Aer shook his head to try to dispel the fear that threatened to overwhelm him.

"I can feel the link," he said slowly. "It feels... cobwebby. Slow, but... it feels strong." He weaved a few patterns experimentally. The threads were unfamiliar, but followed similar rules. There were other threads drifting about, now, that he had never seen before. Those, he didn't want to touch until he asked Wraith about them. But as intricate streams of flame and frost danced before him, he decided that he needed to do something about Rivus. His link may have been broken, but he was still a sorcerer, and he was still dangerous.

"I'm going to look for Rivus," he said absently, as he closed his eyes and experimented with the connection to the ship. The magick was sharp, acrid--but also powerful and electric. As soon as he touched the ship, its power rushed through him, and his body stiffened a bit.

His mouth watered. More his body screamed, but he knew what he had to do. Finally, he found the connection to the Forteresse that would let him search. If Rivus's link had been broken, then he should be weak, or at least dazed, like when Amryck's had broken. So if Aer was going to find him before he went back into hiding, now was the time...

There. One of the galleries. The gallery he'd seen during the attunement, of course. He slammed down every type of barrier he could conceive to prevent Rivus from leaving, and then wove a multitude of trap spells around the exits. None of them would kill Rivus, but with luck, they would incapacitate him. Finally, he sent a number of tendrils into the room itself. He remembered them from earlier, when they had put Tekira and himself to sleep; creating them was a simple thing. And after all of that, he felt he could do it again--a hundred times over, even. The power coming from the ship seemed limitless--But he had to get to Rivus first. He withdrew his influence--

--and gasped. He hadn't realized it, but for the last minute or so, his physical body had stopped breathing. So, there was a consequence for getting carried away with the power of the Wraith: The stronger that link became, the weaker the link with the physical body. He would have to remember that.

"I found him," he gasped. "I think I managed to trap him, or at least slow him down. He's in one of the galleries. I think... I think I can get the ship to transport us there. Do you have any power with magick other than..." he paused. "Other than what you could do as Wraith?" he finished quietly, hoping it wouldn't sound as if he were belittling Amryck now that he had none of the Wraith's power.

((Holy spit. I just took a peek at Aer's profile... and I have NOT been playing him in character at all.))

Aer nodded, and - tentatively, this time - extended his awareness once more into the ship. He found a thread that felt like the one he wanted - he'd never used teleportation threads before, but he knew how they worked in theory - whispered 'Rivus', and plucked it.

That much, he had expected. He hadn't expected the sudden sensation of falling that came afterward, nor the jarring of his legs as he came to rest outside a doorway. Amryck and Tekira appeared just behind him. He looked back at Tekira. "It's time to end this," he murmured, half to himself, and turned back to the door. He was wary of using the ship's power for a while, after nearly losing the link with his body, but he could still wield his traditional magic. And, he reflected, he still had his Hearrte. Surreptitiously, he ran his fingers over a few of the names, not really for any purpose, but felt the names as if they had been whispered into his mind.

Berith; Astaroth; Forneus; Foras; Asmoday; Gaap; Furtur...

His eyebrows rose. If that was really Furtur's power... But, no, he didn't want to kill Rivus. He shook his head and pointed at the door. The spells he'd woven were of the Wraith's magic, but Aer had woven them, so he was able to unravel the weaves without much difficulty. He threw the door open and entered the room. Rivus stood, leaning as if exhausted against one wall, glaring at Aer with hatred.

"Father," Aer said, his voice full of cold fury.

"I - had - the - power," Rivus hissed. "I - will - not - be - thwarted...! Give - it - to - me!"

Aer shook his head slowly. "Even if I wanted to," he muttered, "the link isn't very strong. I don't know if I can pass it to another yet. And if you try to steal it again..." he trailed off, realizing that that wouldn't be possible. Rivus's Hearrte, the tome, lay on the ground - in shreds. He shook his head sadly and turned his eyes back upon Rivus.

"Give... me..." Rivus said, his eyes feral.

Shaking his head sadly, Aer spared a glance for Wraith, almost as if asking permission for something, then thought better of himself.

"I may not have the power yet," he said, "or the link, but as Amryck has been forcefully deposed, I take it upon myself, under the name of Wraith, to exile you, Rivus d'Mors, from the Forteresse de Terrain Vague. Because you have repeatedly disobeyed the orders of the former Wraith, and have proven yourself to be a volatile, dangerous sorcerer, I also sever you from the use of magick."

Rivus's glare became murderous - more murderous, anyway - and he reached for Aer, snarling.

With a flick of his wrist, Aer created his old epee out of Spirit. This time, though, he augmented it with a few extra threads from here and there around the gallery, sliced it downward, and -

- severed Rivus's magick threads. Nothing that would harm him, nothing that would kill him - just the threads which, when cut, would prevent the man from using magick. Any magick.

What he hadn't expected, though, was the invisibly subtle spell Rivus himself had woven - and which the attack unleashed. A gleaming vortex appeared in the air, and cannoned toward Aer, who instinctively sliced across it with his epee.

The world exploded. Aer was thrown back, and the epee disintigrated, but not before burning his hand. He slammed into someone, who then slammed into the wall, and they toppled. He heard Rivus's howl of anguish, but after that, the now-suitably-finished-exploding world then faded, and Aer lost consciousness.

((Owned. Although I'm not quite sure who just got owned. Maybe everybody. razz ))

((Definately. But... You stole my hand! crying Gah, I feel like Adolfo from the Tir Alainn Trilogy. He had a run-in with... Oh, who was she... I don't remember, but she's the Tir Alainn equivalent of the Grim Reaper. After he pissed her off, she gave him a souvenir: She 'killed' his left arm. For the rest of the trilogy, his left arm was paralyzed - dead and useless, but otherwise healthy. *shudders*

EDIT: Or Greer from the Black Jewels Trilogy. Daemon Sadi grabbed his hand, crushed it into a twisted, bloody claw, and then healed it - in that shape. xd ))

Before Lux appeared, Aer found himself staring at the damage, and at his ruined hand. His eyes passed blindly over Amryck, then Tekira - his stomach lurched as he thought she was dead, but a desperate, hasty magickal probe told him she was simply unconscious - and finally back down at the half-ruined palace.

Despair welled up inside him. He had - it seemed - beaten Rivus, but the price... Amryck's power, prematurely stolen. The palace, horribly damaged. His hand. And the pain and confusion he had inevitably brought to Tekira, who he had initially gotten involved in the first place. He didn't know where his Hearrte was; presumably it had fallen from his hand and was on the floor somewhere, but he hadn't bothered to look for it.

"I'm sorry," he murmured in a broken voice as he fell to his knees at the edge of the precipice. "I didn't... I didn't want..."

An enthusiastic, yet somehow disapproving squeal jerked him from his mournful reverie, and he looked up, startled, to see...

...Lux?

"Lux!" he cried, jumping to his feet and reaching for the familiar. He couldn't resist wrapping his arms around Lux as if in a hug, though his arms passed through the familiar with only token resistance due to Lux's magnetic qualities. He couldn't help the laughter, though tears ran down his cheeks at the same time.

In response to Amrick's sourly-given choice, Aer said without thinking, "He stays. But, Lux," he said with a cautionary finger for the familiar, "try not to antagonize Uncle Amryck too much, all right?" Lux gurgled unintelligibly, and Aer laughed, feeling giddy with a strange relief. Maybe he was relieved that Lux wasn't gone. Maybe he was relieved that everything wasn't over. Maybe he was just relieved that he hadn't thrown himself off that precipice...

Whatever the reason, he cast a quick eye around the demolished room, spotted his Hearrte on its side in a corner, and swiftly strode over to pick it up. He had to extend his other hand when he realized he'd instinctively stuck out his burnt one. An expression of sorrow clouded his features as he held the box, staring at his bad hand, but it passed quickly.

"Perhaps a demon can fix it," he muttered, then paused, running his thumb quickly over some of the names on the box. "No, don't think any of them can heal." He laughed again. "What does it matter? Lux! Catch!" He tossed the box to Lux, who dashed forward and absorbed it easily, squealing with apparent glee.

Now, though, the pleasure leaving his face to be replaced by concern, Aer knelt by Tekira. He glanced up at Amryck.

"Are you any good at healing?" he asked with a weak smile.

((OMGZORS O.o))

Aer frowned, uncomprehending. "I don't understand," he said, shaking his head and looking at Lux. "What does Lux have to do with my father?"