Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

"I'm sure things will be fine." Praecantatia says, a slight doubt in her voice.

 

"My failsafe is able to cut new rifts, extinguish mana, and is entirely immune to the effects of magic. You wouldn't be able to hide." Idhaenna says, serious. "Activating it is catastrophic, and I know it sounds like I'm just threatening you. I really mean it; neither of us want it to trip, and it's not something I can just disable. Your daughter has done so much for us, the last thing I want to do is have my failsafe trip and start hunting here."

 

"Entirely immune to the effects of your magic." I correct.

"There's about a sixty percent chance shit doesn't hit the fan." Temporus calls from across the room, seeming to be able to slow himself down to the frequency of the time-ring.

Praecantatia just smiles nervously, picking up the time-ring. It's effects seem to stop.

"Maybe you'd like to demonstrate the effects, Aj?" Praecantatia asks, an invisible hand taking the cloak back from Idhaenna and putting it into my hands.

I shrug, taking off my cloak and replacing it with Praecantatia's. A slight green glow appears around me, but not much else.

"I don't feel any different." I say.

"Temporous, can you try freezing Aj in time?" Praecantatia asks.

Temporus groans, "I feel like you're abusing the concept of 'break time' but alright."

Temporus takes out the watch of true time again, pointing it at me and stopping it. Nothing seems to happen.

 

"Yeah, that's safer. I'm sorry, I'm really bad at helping my case." Idhaenna sighs as the cloak is taken, opting to just observe what happens with the flow of time.

 

"Well, as you can see, Aj is entirely immune to the effects of time manipulation. He can't be frozen, slowed, or sped up." Praecantatia says, before retrieving the cloak from me. I immediately freeze, only becoming unfrozen when Temporus groans again and clicks his watch.

"Those are just the items I brought with me though. I've got more back at home." Praecantatia explains.

A large, brutish looking demon with tall horns stomps over to the group, large muscles visible under his reddish skin. Two sharp tusk-like teeth stick out from his bottom jaw, and he seems to carry a well-used doubleaxe on his back. Despite his appearance however, he speaks with a high-class, posh sounding voice.

"My apologies for interrupting you, Lady Praecantatia, but a few of us couldn't help but overhear talk about some dangerous being of sorts coming to hunt you down. I'm sure you can understand why we'd be a touch concerned about our safety here, we just wanted some clarification on what was happening." The demon explains.

Praecantatia looks to Idhaenna.

 

"It was on my end. I told my followers that I would return in a day's time; if I don't, there's a 'failsafe' meant to retrieve my body. Once it's out, I can't stop it until it brings me home, and it's equipped with the godslayer of magic, which kinda wreaks havoc in a magic-based reality... Though you shouldn't be too worried. There's a responsible god of time here, too. It won't trip." Idhaenna says, seeming to have faith in Temporus.

 

"Ah, I see. Well, as long as it doesn't come here and start attacking us, that'll be perfectly fine." The demon says, before stomping back to a group of other demons. A succubus practically jumps him, holding onto his large muscles as he sits down on a beanbag.

"Those demons are actually pretty nice when they're not torturing you or trying to fight you." I comment.

"The same can be said for your kind though. You've often been seen as genocidal demons, haven't you? Yet your help with the alternate reality has disproven that stereotype." Praecantatia says kindly.

"Huh. Maybe I was the racist one all along..." I say, taking a sip of my brightly coloured drink.

 

“Maybe it’s helped with the stereotype here, but a whole lot of people call him a plague back at home. Yes, he’s a great help, but he sorta just wrecks things before the Hive Master can half the time.” Idhaenna says, glancing at you.

 

"Hey, lesser of two evils," I shrug, sounding chilled out, "Better I do it before he can take over people's minds."

"Do they call him the 'black plague'?" Praecantatia asks, giggling slightly before realising her joke was in bad taste, "You might want to talk to Tenebrae about him if it's a problem though. I'm not really the one to tell him what to do."

I drink some more from my potion bottle, Praecantatia seeming to take notice.

 

"Obviously we are faster. We're like 4 times her size."

"Let's go!"

 

"People literally turn themselves to the Hive Master if they discover you're going where they live. You went to Amethyst's home, carved it up, and left her in a pile of debris to get something she didn't know she had." Idhaenna says bluntly. "Don't make more excuses than you have for genocidal sprees."
She then turns to Praecantatia.
"No, either the demon plague or the rift tyrant. There's probably more names, but those two are the most common. I personally don't care, though. I have my own means of keeping him from killing my people, should it come to it... Gaia might have a bit of a problem with his ways though."

She's also a fox, can use magic, and gets tired a lot slower than we do. Regardless...

You take off down a dry but muddy path, at times able to see the hundreds of footprints that trampled the path in the first place. There are a lot of smaller paw pads, but there are too many to tell which ones are whose.

 

"Well, maybe it's their own fault for feeding into his armies. Do they not see the cause and effect by giving the hive master more power?" I say, relaxed. I go to drink some more of my potion, but Praecantatia takes my arm and gently moves it away.

"What means are those?" Praecantatia asks.

 

"If I told you, I'd probably end up in a tech race with you trying to keep my means effective as you make countermeasures. I don't intend to kill him, but I'm not going to let him just run rampant in my domain."

 

"The only countermeasures I'd make would be to keep him safe and take him out of there before you could do anything. I know easy enough ways to keep him out of trouble without needing to get Tenebrae involved." Praecantatia explains, gesturing to me.

I seem to be completely chilled out, red eyes now turned pink and purple, matching the aesthetic of the break-time rave.

 

Idhaenna telepathically links with Praecantatia, clearly trying to exclude you.
"I have a few dozen guards with modified nova snipers meant to stun him on trigger pull and then run a bolt of light equivalent to about half of Lux's energy through him - scaling depending on how much adrenaline's going through him. The depleted shell would act as a shield for his shadow crystal, since I'm aware he can't die until that's crushed."

 

"You can't just crush the crystal in a hydraulic press, and the shield I've provided him would protect against that sort of thing," Praecantatia explains, "Before he came to me you'd probably be able to pin him, but I've been giving him training to hone aspects of himself and he'd probably be able to react in time to block your snipers shots."

Praecantatia stops me from getting up, but doesn't stop me from finishing off the potion, which seems to chill me out even more.

"We've already seen the result of your reality killing off someone close to Tenebrae and Lux before. We've decided to try and not let that happen again, but I can't guarantee it." Praecantatia adds.

 

"That kid was ripping shit apart at the seams. I'm surprised Xlentia let him go that long. Despite that, it wasn't my responsibility. Xlentia weighed the consequences before she simply couldn't let things go any further. I will not wait that long for damage to be done; I do not wish to harm this reality, it's a beautiful haven. However, I won't sit back and let ours become even more of a shithole, even if it's your daughter pulling our reality apart." She relays, serious. "I couldn't live with myself if it came to that, but as a high god, I have a job to do and just because the others let morals get in the way with their roles doesn't mean I will do the same. I've been called a monster, and I won't deny that I've acted like one in the past. However, I will do whatever I must to do my job, and if that includes being public enemy number one, then so be it."

 

"If you dare touch my daughter, then I won't hesitate to use the full force of this reality's power to make you feel everything you did to her tenfold." Praecantatia says, incredibly serious, before downing her own chillout potion and slamming it back down on the bar.

 

Idhaenna nods, seeming comforted by Praecantatia's reaction.
"I would hope for nothing less. I... wish I could say the same." She says, dropping the link.

 

"Then I hope you understand the ramifications of you actions should you follow through with them." Praecantatia says, this time not through the link.