Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

Aiming, and subsequently firing the bolt at the tablet, I waste no time reaching for another, while checking what the bolt does.

 

"I'm just going to look around the place."

Cecil looks around the area to see if there's anything useful.

 

Katie freezes herself in a thick boulder-like casing of ice, designed to take the attack. The few remaining mini-gold golems run over to Katie, forming a single larger one before grabbing the large ice-boulder and running away with it.

The gold golem falls back a bit, before regaining it's strength and leaping into the air. The gold golem spins around, forming a massive ball before crashing down on Xlentia's head. Noticing Katie's attack, Aqui shifts her focus and does the same, freezing and thawing the tablet. Whilst the tablet is frozen, Abigail begins throwing her explosives at it to do more damage.

A barrage of wooden arrows hit Xlentia's left eye again, all but a few landing in its centre, Artemis and Victus' aim precise as a hawk hunting a rabbit. Stephanie begins weaving another voodoo doll, this one an odd shape as Eve keeps her away from the battle.

 

You are completely ignored, but resistant to the hypnofire. Your notes are a bit darkened, though.

The tablet cracks even more, a hole all the way through.

You grab a poison bolt. Bad time.

After wandering around, you find an odd ruby embedded in the wall, tucked away in a corner of Xlentia's chambers.

The ice boulder barely takes Xlentia's charge, but Katie is still hit hard. The golem stops Xlentia from continuing to rush Katie.

Combined efforts plus Thirteen, the tablet snaps down the middle, the sigil losing its glow.
"YOU..."

It's hard to hit a closed eye, especially when a collosal foot moves over to smash you.

Eve picks up a rapidly growing disturbance from the other side of the ceiling. With the hypnofire becoming more dense, it's wearing on her shields.

 

Eve flies down, grabbing Artemis and Victus and flying them out of the way. With the amount of people she's carrying, Eve loses her ability to attack.

Katie is sent flying from her ice boulder, damaged. The gold golem notices this, and upon hitting Xlentia's head, spreads out and gets its gold in Xlentia's mouth, eyes, nose, anywhere it can until a good quarter of the golem is inside of Xlentia's parts before it pulls back, the gold inside Xlentia attempting to return to the golem and pushing against her insides.

 

The disturbance continues to grow, and it seems to be locked onto Eve.

Xlentia seems to be keeping everything shut, bashing the golem with her claws as it tries to reform while swinging her tail towards the fire guardians, to distract them if not land a lucky shot.

 

Eve deposits Artemis and Victus in a safe area, before diving into what remains of the gold pile with Stephanie for cover.

The golem shatters, but simply reforms again, drawing more gold from the pile to assist itself.

 

That safe area would be a far corner of her chambers...

"You can't hide, honey..." Xlentia's voice echoes to Eve.
Stephanie's vision slowly becomes red.
"Keep running. I dare you." Ruby cackles in Stephanie's mind. "You guys want murder? One demonstration, coming riiight up... You backstab me, I backstab you. Fair, right?"
All of this is exclusively to Stephanie.

Xlentia dives towards Eve's tunnel, intending to crush Eve and Stephanie under the gold and her weight.

 

Stephanie pulls something out from her cloak, along with her tome, before handing it to Eve with a look of urgency. Eve takes both, storing them in a chest compartment before tunneling back out of the gold pile and flying around, attempting to dodge Xlentia.

 

Xlentia utterly flattens the gold pile with Stephanie inside, the ground stopping her before she crushes Eve, merely throwing her off to the side.

 

With a scream, Stephanie is flattened beneath the gold into a human pancake, dead.

Eve looks back, shock in her eyes as she feels a massive sense of failure. The gold golem seems to have also noticed, and becomes enraged, diving into Xlentia's mouth.

There's a slight distortion in the air.

 

Hypnofire is the only thing keeping the gold out of her throat...

The energy draws closer to Eve, now visible as Ruby, entirely enveloped in terrifying levels of energy.
"IF I CAN'T HAVE YOUR CREATOR, I'M TAKING YOU!!" Ruby screams, clearly overloading herself.

Xlentia seems occupied keeping the gold from entering her innards.

 

Eve jumps back, jetting backwards to get away from Ruby.

Suddenly, something grabs Eve from behind, pulling her into a portal before a strong looking Shadow jumps out behind Ruby, grabbing her neck and trying to snap it. The gold golem loses power, an empowered Tirra flying out of it.

"Oh no..." I say through Tirra, clearly worried. The distortion in the air grows as dark portals open up all around Xlentia's chamber. Some of the dark portals appear behind the guardians, pulling them through and away from the battle without hesitation, including Tirra which I quickly unpower, only to be grabbed myself.

Eventually, Xlentia's chamber is nothing but a filling army of strong looking shadows with dangerously sharp looking weaponry and nigh unbreakable looking armour.

"yOU ShaLL PAY FoR WHAT YO U HaVE DONE!!!" A corrupt voice screams, as Shadows mounted on disgusting looking yet powerful beasts ride through the portals, the chamber becoming a little crowded.

 

The Shadow is uttery obliterated within the omnimagics, crystal dust seeming to fuel Ruby's fire.
"THOSE WHO SEEK MY BELOVED'S END MUST GET THROUGH ME FIRST!" Ruby screams back.

Xlentia bares her teeth, a dark blue glow emanating from each one.
"What, am I just some feral circus animal to you? Shadow king, you better hope you have reserve..."

 

Ruby is met with a tsunami-like storm of sharp projectiles, each one piercing her like a hot knife through melted butter. Some leave behind shrapnel, other explode as soon as they penetrate Ruby.

Hundreds of Shadows possess Xlentia, slowly taking over control of her mind.

 

Possessing Xlentia backfires, shadows showing any signs of weakness succumbing to the Hive's control as she resists them before spraying hypnofire everywhere once again.

Ruby seems nigh invincible, everything coming even close to her disintegrating as she mutters something under her breath.

 

The Shadows cancel their attack, none of them weak enough to succumb to the control of the hive before switching to physical attacks. While I may have struggled to cut a single tentacle on Xlentia, the hundreds of Shadows easily mow through them.

A ring of Shadow Guardians form around Ruby, their power chaining together as dark spectral tentacles reach out to Ruby, her mind becoming poisoned.

 

Ruby lets out a beam of solid energy, utterly disintegrating every shadow it comes in contact with as she swings it around wildly, screaming maniacally.

Seems non-paradox weapons have a hard time scratching them. It's an annoyance, but Xlentia keeps filling the room with hypnofire, anyone on the ground likely asleep by now.

 

She hits a few before the ones about to be attacked disappear, the poison seeping through Ruby's mind. Ruby starts feeling doubts about her ability, whether or not she's fighting for the right side, if her life is even worth living.

The Shadows attacking Xlentia let out a constant high pitched scream, all at once, mostly immobilising them. A pair of massive daggers begin to form either side of Xlentia's eyes, locked on.

 

Xlentia charges towards the portals, only stopped by a barrier.
"Geez, Aj, what the hell happe-...

...Aj?" A confused Ihra asks.

This makes Ruby put all her energy into the attack.
"F* your damn shadow mind tricks. You're no better than the Hive Master!" Ruby screams, clearly reaching her breaking point as she aims to kill or severely wound every shadow in sight - and then some.