RP:Razurathian Genocide Pt. 2

Part of the Saurian Onslaught Arc

Summary: A small troop of Razurath soldiers take a final stand against Gevurah's army, which is bolstered by the Mage's Guild thanks to Daath D'Artes. Valrae, disguised as Sara Grace, arrives at the battle site to witness the horrific slaughter of a sapient race. Kasyr and Quintessa arrive on the back of luffy, the black ice dragon. Odhranos creates a rock'em sock'em Razurath stone golem that launches meteors. #terramancers (Also, Val tries to kill Gev, and Daath stops her and sees, briefly, that it is Val, his former apprentice. Drama!)

D'Artes + MG + Dragon = Overkill.

But the Razurath have a final ace up their sleeves: an all powerful, hills-leveling bomb. The army is forced to disband and flee. D'Artes loses over 60% of their army. Every single last Razurath is dead. The species is extinct.

Rolling Plains

Here the planes seem to roll along gently, up and down up and down ceaselessly like the waves of the ocean. Walking over these hills will become a hard slog as you must constantly change your footing and most of the soil here has turned dry and dusty and simply slides away under a heavy boot making your journey all the more tiring. There is very little to see here besides trees that have been stripped bare of their green watery leaves by hungry animals.

Aetherclaw :: The Rolling plains were no longer as peaceful as they had been, but today they were peaceful in another sense, a peaceful belief that blood would be spilt and one more problem removed from the world. For the Razurath, who normally would have appeared in their tribal, or in their armour, had chosen to appear in their best. Each color, each being encased in a body black body glove jumpsuit, upon it plated in polarite armour patches and decorated with gold. The razurath have come in their dress uniforms, because they have chosen to accept the fate coming. Aetherclaw stood at the ready, in front of his troops, Nexura close by, and claymore watching from nearby cliff, as if waiting for his enchantment to go off. Aetherclaw looked at his troops and watched them, each armoured with their lightning spears, only 1700 strong, all other civilians either dead, or soldiers who died of their own accord. Whether it was in the city of the drow, or in the public executions in chartsend, in which Aetherclaw ordered remaining razurath civilian deaths to preserve Chartsend from the wrath of the drow. He spoke plainly to his army, and said. “I will not tell you we will get through this, we will not. I will not tell you that we will go peacefully into the earth. And i will not tell you that today we shall see our enemies vanquished. Today we take ownership of the mistakes we have made, we will fight to the death and we will die, but to each and everyone of you who has been with us since the beginning, it has been an honor to serve with you.” He said, turning his spear on and igniting a blast of lightning into the air. “This is where it ends.” And with those words the forces would scatter anticipating possible dragon fire and mages should those occur.

Valrae, as Sara Grace, has joined in the guild’s efforts to exterminate the Razurath against nearly all of her better senses, but only to witness. The air is tense, rolling and charged as it would be before a terrible storm, as she stands away from where the battle lines have been forged with a small group of scribes from the guild who will be recording the events. The witch is prepared to fight if she must, with her wand ready and her bag filled with bespelled objects and tricks, but would rather keep her hands free of blood on this matter. With the wind at her back, Valrae watches the opposing forces ready for battle with dark eyes.

Kasyr 's arrival likely falls beneath the notice of most, if only because who he's come with is far harder to miss. A large black shadow traces a path over the forces which lay gathered on those twisted plains, ultimately overshooting them. No, the dragons immediate target is further back, towards Venturils gleaming white walls. As the glacial dragon draws close, her whole body contorts in the air, twisting to send her tail arcing towards the gatehouse and ultimately through it with a thunderous roar of shattering stone and rending ice. Her tail emerges from the wreckage, near bare of those deadly spines with normally adorn it, and yet for the world- Luffy seems pleased as punch at her handiwork, and especially the sight of bodies teetering off the wall. "Well, They aren't going to be getting any reinforcements any time soon." Kasyr sounds notably chipper as he slides down the dragons side, briefly catching one of her foreclaws along the way, if only to finish his descent to the ground below. Luffy casually flicks a rock below, sending up a spray of mud and dirt, smearing both the Kensai's coat and scarf. "Really? Anyways. Vesper?" He taps the overtly large broadsword strapped to his back, before drawing it free from it's scabbard. "Smokes?" He fumbles around in a pocket, and finds nothing- before he remembers there's one stuck behind his ear, and plunks it into his mouth."Okay, and Quintessa?" Kasyr glances upwards, wondering if she's going to be following suit, even as the Black Ice Dragon gets a look that can only be described as murderously mischievous and begins to collect some stone from the ruin that she made of the guard post. The Kensai, for his part, is simply baffled by the lack of any sort of Razurath presence, if only because the fundamental idea that the enemy has collectively decided to die in glorious battle is a difficult one to fathom. Not that the lack of immediate conflict bothers him that much, given he's contentedly smoking- a faint crackle of electricity building up around him as the moments go by. "Are you going to be much longer, Luffy?" The Dragon pauses for a moment, seemingly contemplating dropping another rock down, instead settling up scooping up more between her arms, "Where's that little worm. He'd shown me a burning city." Luffy was clearly here for the property damage. And possibly to maim Lanlan. She's had a week to stew on that disastrous evening.

Quintessa hangs close by Kasyr, her entrance also masked by the arrival of a large ice dragon. After spending the last couple of days becoming more acquainted with Luffy, the changeling expects to see no less than the carnage her sudden entrance had already caused. With fascination in her gaze, she observes the way Luffy's spiked tail crushes the gatehouse before scooping up the rocks to lob at the bulk of the Razurath army. This dragon was the perfect siege weapon! Sharpened fingernails slow Quintessa's decent as she flips over the side of the massive saurian, her lithe form sliding quickly down the thick scales. The hex blade slides in beside the Kensai almost immediately after he said her name, "I'm here," she says, her mismatched eyes already scanning over the battlefield to the north. Her left hand already grips the sheath of her katana while her right hand moves to reach inside of her invisibility cloak. "I guess their forces are trapped out side now," the apprentice notes, taking a look inside of the walls. Her brows furrow. "This place is empty. They didn't even leave a retinue? Have they abandoned the castle?" There is a sense of urgency in the odd girl's voice, partly because she's eager to get to the battle, partly because she finds something suspicious about this whole thing. A grin is thrown up at Luffy as she pulls out a handful of small, glass spheres, "Will burning the enemy forces suffice? Just fly over them and I'll drop a few of these on them."

Odhranos arrived on the field of battle in typically terramantic fashion. Approaching from the direction of the Xalious mountains, a singular cloud of dust was thrown high into the air as what appeared to be a man-sized boulder sped across the plains with an unwavering trajectory, rolling with violent intent towards the field of battle. Once level with the line of mages, the boulder slowed, splitting into orange-slice segments and unfolding to reveal the mage within, plated in heavy stone armor. Stepping out of the unwrapped spherical shell with the grinding rasp of stone on stone, the terramancer cast furtive grey and gold glances to either side, taking note of the companions and colleagues that stood alongside him, remembering faces and names and hoping beyond anything that he wouldn't have to bury those selfsame colleagues after this nasty business was over. Letting slip a nervous breath, the mage stepped back up into his boulder shell, sealing it around himself, encasing Odhranos in cool, blissful darkness. Allowing his terramantic senses to dissipate into the soil, the battlefield rendered itself in silver and grey, a spider's web of earth-bound vibrations before the mage's mind's eye. Hearing his breathing echoe loudly in the enclosed space, Odhranos prepared himself for the battle that was to come.

Daath D’Artes’ attention does not fall on the chaos caused by Kasyr’s entrance and sudden elimination of possible reinforcements, no, the drow noble’s efforts are upon working with the collective mages he has to finishing bringing the amassed forces of House D’Artes and the undead legion he has prepared through the mage gates. Line after line of troops files through, all eager to shed blood and rid the realm of the filth that dared ever raise a force against them. Spirits high after their matron’s powerful culling of the saurian menace from their homeland, each member of her army is ready to slay anything that dare stand against her. Those that died in the past previous attacks have been risen, creating a horde of undead ranging from skeletal warriors to fully resurrected corpses at the command of lesser necromancers. While in the back is the royal guard, the elite of the elite, march into battle Lady Gevurah herself. Massive undead brutes, bugbears by the look of them, carry an obsidian throne carved out of bone but fashioned with Vakmatharas motifs. Upon her arrival her forces bellow out praises and cheers, as her army is ready to carry out her will to the last man. Daath watches as the forces are brought to forth, and smirks as he knows a few things he has prepared also await the razurath. It would have been a good day, until the sad sight of small force is seen. There are no cheers, no praises, no battle cries. In fact, if the mood of the opposing force was visible, it’d be a cloud of sadness and despair. This was interesting indeed. Turning to Gevurah, Daath warps himself from his location to her side, offering his hand to help her rise when she is ready.

Gevurah dressed for battle in a black jumpsuit with black leather braided around her torso to form ornate, light armor. She dons her iconic piwafwi that hums with enchantments passed down from her forebears. Her white hair is pulled into a braid over one shoulder. She expected to get messy today, to be splattered with the blood of enemies, to mop up foes too powerful for the foot soldiers of army. Yet all that preparation seems to have been for not. Gevurah pierces her army’s stunned silence with a laugh. Her cackle worms its way through her army and slowly, one by one, they laugh too. An unspoken understanding settles in among the drow. The battle may be less glorious than they had hoped, but they’ll make a game of it yet. Their bodies shake with the force of their laughter. They over prepared. This is all over kill. Is that a dragon fighting on their side? (They give Gevurah the credit, who else? Sorry Kas.) Ha ha ha. Ha ha! The dark gods know that there can be comedy in death, and what a treat to laugh before making sacrifices in the God of Death’s name. “Go!” the matron shouts, “Fulfill their death wish!” The D’Artes army streams forth, roaring with excitement. The soldiers compete to see who can score most kills. Gevurah takes Daath’s hand and stands. With a silent look she communicates her mild disappointment with the new set of facts on the ground. “This feels too easy. Be alert for a trap,” she says before levitating high above the cacophony of swords striking armor, bow strings snapping loose, lightning spears sizzling on flesh, and surveys the scene. She watches as the razurath parry not to open a chance to counter strike, but only to die with some semblance of pathetic lizard dignity. Dignity! “HA!” Gevurah cackles again. There could indeed be a trap, but if there is one, these razurath must not know about it. They fight with no purpose. Her own forces are animated by revenge and bloodlust. Was the intelligence she received from her scouts old, or just plain bad? “Izzerin!” she shouts. Her chamberlain lifts up on coils of electric wires to hover beside her. “Find out what happened to the rest of the army, and to the city. Where /are/ they?”

Aetherclaw knew they would come, from behind himself he with drew his blade, and with a command to his troops, they moved forward, as the armies would meet, lightning from the razurath spears would incererate a row of enemy troops and as the arrows fell on top of the razurath some would fall in time for the blades of the masses come strike at them and sever their string of their lives. Other razurath would turn and wielding their swords make slashes in the air as the blade would produce a ghost image of itself and the slash cut through the armour of some drow and undead more than 30' away. But in the end against the sheer number these forces, knew their end, so they did only what they would do, fight as if they were going to live another day, because that's what they were trained to do. Aetherclaw would watch Nexura swiftly cut through ranks and raise towards the elites, not carrying for those around her, her goal was to let their enemy know they would not be safe in the back row. Elsewhere atop of cliff face, overlooking the city of Venturil, some may have observed a palace now abandoned, and razurath heads in neat piles, bodies strewn about, and in chartsend similar piles by those who would investigate. Had the razurath ordered the execution of their own forces, or was their something at work, the secrets would lead into this palace. Particularly in the large open chimney where much scaffolding and many cloaks of mages and necromancers, lay as if the bodies within had just vanished left on the floor. Aetherclaw leapt forward into the enemy forces and a cut here a cut there, a spear stab into the ground sending an electro shock wave scattering forces around him, he to like nexura was on a march towards the elites.

Valrae watches the Razurath with keen interest, filling her weathered notebook with hastily scribbled shorthand and rough sketches of weapons and armor. She was interested in seeing how the battle unfolded, sure, but could count on one of the many other mages that stood with her to take better note of the actual event. After word of what happened in the Underdark had weaved it’s way through the guild, the witch was frustrated and eager to build a case of negligence and gross abuse of power against Gevurah and the guild itself. Someone was going to answer for the total genocide of an intire race of Raz. They were intelligent, enough so that they had formed societal structures and complex social systems. They could speak. They took care of their young and even displayed the capability to care for the young of other species. They weren’t just animals or a mindless horde that deserved to be slapped down in an overpowered display of magic and stomped completely out. The fact that Gevurah had managed to harness the guild to even pull off such a thing warranted alarm. What were the old bags that ran this guild thinking letting the drowess use the guild as her own personal army? Working herself up to a fresh fit of anger, ‘Grace’ pulls the hood of her cloak over her braided hair and summons her stallion from the shadows.

Replacing her notebook with her ash wand, the witch mounts Fury and leads him at a trot toward the battlefield, nearing not long after Odhranos’s grand entrance. Dust settles on her black hood and stings her eyes. When the sound of Gevurah and her army’s laughter reaches her ears, a breath taking pain blooms behind her eyes. Cursing, the witch draws Fury aside again, throwing off those that were beside her as they charged into battle on command. His hell flamed hooves trample one of the mages close to her, emerald flame devouring the man’s leg as he screams. Valrae grimaces, her panic mirrored in her horse as he throws his head back and snorts angrily. ‘Seek me. Seek me. Seek me.’ Gevurah’s curse whispered to her, her voice loud enough to drown out the sound of battle and bloodshed all around her. Against her own will, Valrae leads Fury toward the heart of battle and toward Gevurah.

Kasyr takes in another long drag from his cigarette, sparks blossoming into the air around himself as he paces back and forth in front of the door. "You make a good point. Especially if you're mindful of well, the decor." There's an offhanded gesture, if only because, whilst the majority gathered here are meeting the Razurath in combat- The Spellblade Duo's actually present to see the morbid lawn decorations. Something which coaxes the kensai into materializing his full array of summoned blades, which he arranges in front of himself along their flats to form a gradually ascending staircase. Frankly, he was more interested in this particular mystery, than the rout that was currently underway. "I'm going to see if I can get answers, on that front. Either tag along with Luffy, or keep close." And given the swords that Kasyr is using as his stepping stones are fading out of sight soon after he steps off them, if only to pop back into existence a bit further up, it certainly seems like there's a time limit for that decision. Once which is only magnified in the manner in which Luffys beginning to stir, her wings flapping violently as she prepares to leap from the walls. The Kensai might not be interested in a rout, but there's only a handful of moments before she heaves herself into the air and begins to bear down towards the rear of the Razurath army, with every intention of releasing the majority of the stones overtop their forces, just to watch them scatter.

Quintessa gives one last look over the undefended ramparts before she holds on tightly to the ice dragon, her ebony hair whipping freely in the wind as she focuses on the Razurath forces. Would they even reach the battle in time? Their numbers were already dwindling as it was. As disappointed as the changeling knew she'd be if she didn't get involved would be great as the murderous age Luffy would be in if she didn't get a significant enough kill-count. Quintessa gave this dragon an awful lot of promised pertaining to the destruction she would get to take part in. Honestly, the hex blade expected this to be a massive resistance. This? The Razurath basically just lined up to die here. Quintessa's mismatched eyes scan the area below for any other sign of the enemy or anything else nefarious. Something else was at work here, she could -feel- it. "No, you go ahead and figure out what's going on here. I'll go with Luffy and provide air-support." With one last look to her teacher she offers him a smile, "Good luck," is all she says before the dragon carries her away and to the battleground. The hex blade readies her runic bombs, little glass spheres that contained basic spells, and waits until Luffy begins dropping her large rocks down upon them. She watches for a big clump of them before lobbing it directly at into the center, a large fireball exploding from within when the glass shatters. She throws two, and then three, the blasts of fire disrupting the units behind the Razurath line. Quintessa grins down at the carnage, a bit less disappointed now. When Luffy finally lands she knows she get the chance to engage in melee combat. That's what she really came here for.

Odhranos can hear the roar of the D'Artes troops as they begin their charge, heralding the battle's commencement. Standing up inside the spherical chamber, Odhranos shakes his limbs, as if limbering up for a run, then the stone armor on his body stretches out spars of rock to either side to connect with the inner walls of the boulder, lifting him off his feet and suspending him in the centre of the space. Outside, flanges of rock raise themselves on the surface of the boulder, preparing to dig into the earth and provide traction for the great stone war-machine. Suddenly, with a roar of torn earth, the boulder takes off, throwing up gouts of dirt behind it as it rolls towards the advancing line of Razurath. When it reaches the centre of no man's land, the ground before it rises, a roughly torn ramp of stone ripping through the earth, which the boulder screams along with a shriek of stone against stone, before hurtling into the air. Like a vengeful meteorite, Odhranos' stone sphere wails with fury as its pock-marked surface batters the air aside, a battle-cry of earthly rage as it plummets towards the saurian battle-line. Lightning strikes from the oncoming for arc and spit across its surface, melting divots in stone, but the sheer speed of the boulder's revolutions only throws this molten rock outwards, spattering down onto the Razurath before the meteor makes its impact. Striking down with a shockwave of thrown dirt and bodies, Odhranos crashes down into the middle of the lizards, crushing any unfortunate enough to be standing beneath his point of impact. Once landed, the boulder explodes, detonating within the heart of the Razurath host, sending vicious shards of shrapnel in all directions, decapitating and dismembering any and all in their path. At the centre of this stone-explosion, Odhranos reveals himself. Clad in a living body of stone, the mage has chosen to add insult to injury by taking on the form of a stone Razurath, standing a good head taller than the lizards around him. Letting loose an unearthly shriek, the mage launches himself at the nearest standing Razurath with claws and teeth bared, an uncharacteristic battle-frenzy gripping the terramancer.

Daath isn't one to to charge into the fray with reckless abandon, and he is reminded of this as one such saurian crusader does just that as it cuts a path through the undead horde easily enough, and even some of the D'Artes troops. Its when the elite guards begin to form a defensive parameter around their Matron that Daath steps forth to meet the charging Razurath warrior. The creature never gets close, as defensive warding and esoteric magic sweeps the thing off its feet and into the air. Tendril's of dark magic spring forth wrapping about and utterly immobilizing the creature. One tendril fro the neck, one for each arm and leg and one for the tail and waist. The valiant effort is met with utter failure, and lifting the beast into the air with but a thought, Daath has the tendril's rip apart Aetherclaw's loyal soldier limb by limb. Blood pours down like a rain, tho magical warding and actual physical barriers prevent any from touching either Daath or Gevurah. The screams of the still living thing echo out across the battlefield, before with just a flick of his wrist Daath sends the limbless torso flying right back at Aetherclaw's feet. He'd have to try much harder than that to get to Daath's wife, that's for damn sure.

Gevurah || Odhranos’s stone Razurath snags Gevurah’s attention. She grins at the terramancer’s spectacular one-man assault. In the distance behind him, she spies Quintessa on the back of a dragon raining down fire and terror. The Razurath army is completely flanked, and even penetrated from below by the terramancer. Perhaps Daath has been right to tout the surface mages as useful, powerful soldiers for her army. In the battle’s early moments, Izzerin swiftly snagged a defeated (but not yet killed) Razurath for interrogation. What he learned startled and excited him. He rises on electric coils to rejoin his mistress in the air and says, “Matron, it would seem the Razurath in Venturil and Cenril have killed their own civilians because they,” he pauses here to truly relish what he is about to say, slowing it down for her pleasure as well, “Because they feared your death curse would be an inevitable and even worse fate.” Gevurah’s shoulders start to shake with laughter and she dons a rare, genuine smile. Her curse worked out better than she had hoped. Unbeknownst to her, its area of effect extended beyond the city in psychological warfare. The Razurath have come to fear her to the point of civilization-ending self immolation. She cackles loudly, overcome by a terrible joy, and suddenly aches for someone with whom to share this moment. From her heart blooms the image of a drow who is not her husband, but she tamps down that gutting memory by force. Instead she looks to her husband and marvels at his arcane efficiency, at the brutal, but clinical way he disposes of her foes and makes sport of Nexura, Aetherclaw’s elite warrior. Is any of this personal for him, as it always is for her? “Aetherclaw!” she shouts in a booming priestess’s oratory voice. “Fight me, coward!” She descends on the candy-cane striped general and torches him from above in a four foot wide cone of white hot flames that extend from her palm. She drops onto the ground as she keeps the cone trained towards him, expecting him to dodge but keeping him moving for her own advantage. Her free hand slips into a bottomless satchel beneath her piwafwi to extract a reagent for her next spell. She remains oblivious to Valrae’s presence so far.

Aetherclaw eyes fall briefly to the dying nexura. "Hot even in death." He whispered, clutching his spear and pentrating her head, to end her pain, as he ripped it out and spun the lightning spear causing several enemies to fly into the air their bodies crackling with lightning striking others on the ground. He could see the drow matron cackle and the stone razurath mockery killing his troop, what was he down to now, three hundred? No three hundred and one, Claymore still sat upon the cliff still unmessed with or target, what was he doing? Was that popcorn, how the heck did he get popcorn? The blue/green razurath hybrid seemed to be laughing at both his troops death and also the drows. The matrons cackle, her servant must have bought the lie, and told her. He wished his own troop were alive as if the two could share in an immortal drink of kegs but that would never come. He feels nothing, at the death of nexura, he had anticipated this, and so did claymore. At the palace where the mages cloaks lay, those who were reporting would note that just about every kind of mage and spellcaster even runesmiths and dead blue razurath corpses littered the place, there was something very wrong about this construction chamber within, as if the magic were trying to refill the void in the room, as if something beyond recognition of power had happened here. Back on the battlefield Aetherclaw heard the matrons voice, and stepped forward, a gash already through his ribs yet he held on, the blood spilt out but that didn't seem to stop him, it wasn't his worse wound ever. He shouted a rune igniting on his throat, to amplify his voice across the battlefield, "today I curse you, laugh if you wish, for their is no magic in it, only wisdom, "You two shall get everything you ever wanted, but everything you need shall be withheld from you, and your misery in that will not cease." He moved bisecting one bugbear and sending its topless carcass hurtling into the guard. "Today we make an end to this." He said breaking his spear and sending an electrical shockwave to push out the lesser troops so to make it more focused on them, his sword in hand. Ready to deal the blows he needed.

Aetherclaw :: (missing part) which was to first dodge but take a burn one side of his skull, and then strike at her shoulder, and roll and try to loop his tail around her leg to pull her off her feet.

Valrae struggled to focus as the violence flew by her, Fury trampling through the chaos of battle in a streak of black vengeance and sparking emerald flame. With one hand fisted in his wild mane and the other gripping her wand, Valrae volleyed fireballs at any Razurath that neared for attack before streaking beyond them and toward her unwilling goal. Fury stumbled as he and his rider were pelted with fire and debris that came from Quintessa’s aerial strike. Because her hood had fallen to the wind, Valrae’s glamoured face was bare and now bloodied from whatever unknown object had landed below her eye. She cursed in pain and was nearly gored by a blow from a Razurath’s spear. Fury managed to lurch away in time to have the spear tear through her cloak and on into the fray. Through the struggle, Valrae’s eyes finally land on the outline of Gevurah. The fever pitch of her mind doesn’t lessen though, even as her voice raises about the deafening cries of war. Determined now, Valrae pulls one of her tricks from the bag at her side. It looked like a ball of clay or mud, small enough to fit easily in her palm and a ruddy, uneven clump of brown in the rough shape of an orb. The witch threw it as far as she could into the writhing mass of bodies that stood between her and the drowess. In a matter of seconds, the orb touched the ground and exploded with enough force and fire to part the sea of battle. Fury leapt through the wall of enchanted flame and barreled toward Aetherclaw and Gevurah. With the Razurath’s curse echoing all around them, Valrae raised her own cry to the wind and threw another ball of emerald fire from her wand. This one she aimed not at the Razurath but at the dark priestess’s back.

Kasyr’s pace hastens the very moment Quintessa makes her choice, his forward stride transitioning into an outright sprint as he continues to scale up his improvised 'stairwell'. Already, the swordsman is reaching out with his other senses, endeavouring to latch onto any sort of empathic resonance that might be tied to the slaughter which had happened up above- ethereal tie that might still be attached to a living creature who could provide the answers he sought. Kasyr, after all, is consumed by a desire to know- to put some sort of reason or logic to the madness that was currently underway. Was it simply the outcome of tyranny gone awry, from a species doomed to die, or was it part of some elaborate ritual- some grim proceeding that the battle taking place only further fed. As a magically amplified voice echoes across the plains, the Kensai spares a sidelong look towards the embers of the battle- before he reaches into his coat pops out what is undoubtedly a foul tasting draught, and proceeds to chug it, entrusting it to pre-emptively mitigate what follows. Which is namely the abrupt manner in which a few portions of the skin on his right arm ionize as those sparks about his body crackle fully into life. There's something wrong in the air, and Kasyr intends to find out just what it is- hurling himself towards that corpse-coated bit of scaffolding in a streak of literal lightning. Luffy, on the other hand, doesn't spare a single moment for these thoughts, as she belly flops into the fray, patches of lightning and metal scoring and searing her underside, even as she turns the enemy soldiers into a horrid mess of crushed in metal and broken bones.What's worse is the way she seems to bite and rend at the soldiers not to kill them, but simply to see them maimed and broken, before plodding forward, treading some beneath her claws, whilst others are left gurgling in her wake. That there are a growing number of spears accumulating within her frigid hide doesn't seem to dissuade her from the massacre for even a moment.

Quintessa takes to the ground, her katana drawn and ready to meet the remaining forces head on. The battle was chaos, and the day almost won, but the Razurath refused to break. That was all fine for the changeling. She would gladly give them the death they wanted. "Llafn tân!" she yells, her shrill voice piercing the noise of combat as her incantation set her sword aflame. If all eyes were on the massive dragon still, they might still yet take note of the lithe form wielding a flaming sword. "Tân!" she calls as she swings her sword the direction of their flanks, sending long ribbons of fire into the backs of the saurians currently engaged with the Drow forces, essentially trapping them between fire and steel. Out here, in the middle of the battlefield, Quintessa is home. She fights on, even with the occasional slash across her chest or stab in her thigh, she continues to cut them down until she carves a hole all the way to the Drow army. What glorious combat! The showdown between Atherclaw and Gevurah has not yet been noticed through the thick, red haze that is the changeling's bloodlust.

Odhranos tears into the Razurath with snapping jaws and tearing claws, hook-bladed limbs scything through whatever scaly flesh comes within reach. The terramancer appears to have completely surrendered to the reptilian form; not a trace of humanity is left in the stone Razurath's actions, only the pure unfettered fury of a saurian. In truth, Odhranos' mind slumbers, taking a back seat as S'erok full possession of their shared body, ripping into the smaller saurians with a frenzied gusto. From his detached view of the battle, Odhranos feels an unsettling sense of dissociation, as his body very truly acts without his control, driven into the gory fray by the dragon soul within him. Observing as if through someone else's eyes, the terramancer is disturbed at the lack of emotion he feels, as one life after another is crushed out of existence beneath his stone claws. <"I'm… just going to sleep, S'erok. I don't want to witness this."> The mage speaks mentally in a subdued monotone, allowing himself to succumb to unconsciousness, relinquishing full control of his body to S'erok. The dragon-mage roars with battle-glee, leaping into the air and throwing himself into the midst of more Razurath. Tearing, slashing and biting his way through the host, when S'erok finds himself surrounded, the earth beneath him splits and he dives down into the darkness, only to surface again like a breaching land-shark amidst another group of unsuspecting foes, beginning the slaughter anew.

Daath watches as Gevurah easily goads Aetherclaw into battle with simple pokes about his ever exposed frail ego. As his army falls, the mad ruler of the would be invaders chooses to try to cut the head off the snake. What he'd find is a matron more than capable awaiting him. So much so, Daath does not intervene, save when a sphere of green flame catches his attention. Aimed at Gevurah, the magister reacts quickly enough to shoot a magical sphere of his own to deflect it, the colliding explosion of magical flames and energy leaving quite the crater behind them all. Having never seen this person, Daath assumes a threat. Perhaps one of Aetherclaw's slaves like the magically talented child Daath still has in his possession. Either way, this stranger tried to attack his wife, and the last person to due such just had their limbs ripped from their sockets and their corpse tossed aside like trash. Whats another? Seeing her wand, the magus smirk and brings forth one of his own. Carved from the bone of an unknown creature, Daath unleashes a blast of magical energy designed more to simply knock the woman off her path so that he can have a proper duel. Its been ages, after all. Now standing between the pair, Daath offers a mocking bow, before he'd unleash more attacks upon the person not so much meant to outright kill but to prod and poke and see what this person is capable of.

Gevurah pivots onto her back foot to evade Aetherclaw’s lightning spear at it thrusts towards her shoulder. As the spear passes before her chest, she pulls a fistful of fluorite powder out from her satchel and blows it onto the weapon. She whispers a quick spell that transmutes the pulverized gem into a magic-nullifying gel that coats the spear from end to end. With the weapon nullified, Gevurah twitches her fingers into an esoteric symbol to prepare for her next spell just as Aetherclaw’s tail whips at her feet. It knocks her ankles, but she catches herself mid-air in levitation before she falls. “Don’t struggle, Aetherclaw. I’ll make your slaughter quick.” Her black nails extend into razor-sharp claws. She stabs her right hand into the flesh of Aetherclaw’s retreating tail. Of course, Aetherclaw is much stronger than the drow and his tail easily yanks her towards his massive Razurath body. She lets the force of the momentum drag her closer to him until she’s close enough to not miss as her left hand stabs deep into his scaley side. Embedded in her prey, and with seconds to spare before he shakes her off, she whispers a dark, quick prayer to the God of Death. Near instantly, the dark priestess pumps Aetherclaw full of parasitic energy that injects like venom from her nails right into Aetherclaw’s nervous system. His spine goes rigid as the spell takes hold. Preoccupied with Aetherclaw’s theatrical death, Gevurah unwittingly exposes her back to Valrae’s green flame, a risk she only takes because of her confidence in Daath’s ability to protect her blindspots. And he does. With Aetherclaw fully under her control, Gevurah removes the hand she had embedded in Aetherclaw’s side but keeps the one pinned into his tail. She levitates up, lifting Aetherclaw high above the battle with her, his large body a near-weightless living puppet on her hand. All he can do is watch in horror, imprisoned in his own reptilian body. To the remaining 150 or so Razurath, Gevurah says, “Look upon your general, for he has a message for you!” Slowly some pockets of the battle quiet to watch the puppet show in the air. With a long dagger that was hidden in a boot, Aetherclaw cuts off his jumpsuit until he is naked and exposed. Slowly he carves into his stomach the Ancient Drow rune for ‘flesh’ followed by the rune for ‘to separate’ followed by the rune for ‘spider’. “Thank you, Aetherclaw,” Gevurah mocks her puppet before activating the runes. She moves her fingers above his head as if sprinkling confectionary on a cake. After a few seconds, tiny spiders fall loose from her fingers and bite through Aetherclaw’s hide until the course beneath his scales and break it loose from his sinewy muscles. He is flayed alive by tiny industrious spiders and his flesh falls away like a husk. The razurath bleeds profusely but is still alive. Gevurah’s free hand extends into claws once more and stabs beneath his collarbone to locate the fatal Razurathian bone. She snaps it in two then withdraws both hands from the corpse and lets it drop to the floor with a thud. Gevurah appends that anyone at her last public execution will be familiar with this display. The Matron hopes it becomes her signature execution.

Aetherclaw :: The enchantment of Razurath activated with Aetherclaws death like a dead man’s switch. It began with a near unimaginable feeling as if magic all around the armies were pulled into a single point, and the air seemed to scream, as from a single point above the battlefield the sky ripped open, like a hurricane of fire, the sheer immensity, expanding vastly over the plain in less than a second. Armour, weapons, drow, bugbears, razurath, bodies, living and dead, were sucked towards this mass, this intensity of heat, the center a sphere of white that seemed to blind all within its sight, those who were looking away from the blast could see their skeletons beneath their flesh, the heat tremendous a terrifying awe inspiring terror as the ground, the grass, the trees, the rocks everything was screaming in a form of anguish unrivaled in recent times. Hopelessness, terror, the anger of tens of thousands slaughtered to the last being, the earth pooled up towards the center of this sphere. This sphere of annihilation, and earth became as if a whirlpool ascending into the fiery heart and the air, above, descending like tornado down within. These 13 seconds of absolute utter abominable madness, a spell so forbidden and unimaginably powerful, used like kamikaze would instill, if Claymore were still alive his cackle would no doubt have been the gloriest most. But even to insane Razurath, Claymore was the very heat especially is being on the cliff and that heat rises, his very bones are vaporized with his flesh, leaving the cliff face with a permanted twisted shadow of his form in mid cackle. Then when it only seems to be gaining more tower, it abruptly ended as if somewhere somewhere in the world the last razurath was no more. The colossal cloud would continue to turn as hot smoke, the sphere in the center gone, the and the spiraling earth in the end left twisted like a gross stalagmite in the earth. Many perished, those that remained would be left with pause, to wonder in their minds, how did they do what they did, and realizing that now they may never know. Rolling plains once of earth, now were ash.

Valrae watches with dismay as her magical fire is thrown off of it’s path, pulling Fury to a jarring halt and rounding him up again to face her new opponent. Fear and dread sink like a stone into her belly when her eyes finally find Daath. Her mentor from another life. Before her racing mind can form a plan, an action, his power slams into her and sends her flying off of her stallion. She lands clumsily, hitting the ground hard enough that her teeth slam together painfully. Fury lunges in front of her, prancing and snorting flames wildly, but the witch quickly mutters a desummoning spell and he vanishes in a cloud of smoke. Valrae is on her feet again, her wand quick. She parries his blows with her own, emerald flame leaping from the tip of her ash wand with skill and precision despite her conflicted mind. She was looking for a moment to disappear into the movement of battle, to run as soon as the opportunity presented, knowing that the Magister only toyed with her now. Gevurah’s execution of Aetherclaw was a spectacle, the dark priestess’s voice yet again rising above the mayhem of war, and Valrae makes a mistake. She looks away from Daath. Though the blows he placed now were only testing, one of them lands squarely on her chest. The witch spins wildly into the dirt, the enchanted necklace that held her glamour breaking with what would have been an audible clap if not for the roar of battle. With her illusion broken, Valrae resembled more the apprentice Daath had once known. But she doesn’t wait around to see if he recognizes her. With pain searing through her, Valrae rolls onto her feet and uses one of the bloodied bodies of the Razurath to take the brunt of another blow aimed her way. She manages to throw a returning shot, screaming with the effort of it, when Aetherclaw’s final move is made known. Fear sinks through her for the second time. Fury is called forth again, her wand traded for an amulet of shielding as she leaps onto him and sends him away from the beginning of a deadly firestorm. With both hands fisted into her hell stallion’s mane, the witch rides away from both Daath and the destructive spell, her barrier sending the worst of what was thrown at her bouncing away. She’d already tasted what death had to offer by fire, Valrae had no intention of trying it again.

Kasyr is pretty good at improvising, and pretty good at finding trouble, which is no doubt part of what's brought him to the construction chamber, and that distinct sense of ...absence. That void of feeling and power precipitates an involuntary grimace from the Kensai, from the familiar feeling it elicits- but he doesn't get to dwell on it for too long. There's a distinct frisson that runs through the back of his neck, coaxing him to turn his head just as the first moments of that magical holocaust extend outwards. There's something terrible to behold about the way the heat magnifies so intensely that the oxygen innates, bodies dragged from their earthly moorings in the wake of the arcane thermobaric bomb. The only thing that prevents the swordsman from resting transfixed at that morbid sight is the simple awareness that he might be able to do something, and there are people that might depend on it. It's intuition he relies on in this moment, stepping to where that sense of absence feels strongest in the hopes that it places him in the wake of whatever ritual occured, and may still be active- if only so he can slam Vesper into what he hopes was that spells arcane cradle. From there, he simply begins to channel every bit of divine energy he can into it. The hopes simple enough- that the ritual was still gathering fuel, hence the sense of a void seeking to be filled. Kasyr's hoping that if that's the case, then the introduction of something beyond the spells scope, a desperate outpouring of the divine energy he serves as a conduit for into the spellwork might serve to disrupt whatever occurring so it doesn't escalate to it's full and proper conclusion. Now luffy? Luffy doesn't have a plan. And in the moment, there's little else that matters to her other than the all consuming pain that's encompassed her form, the sudden shift in temperature forcing fractures all throughout her body, even as portions are instantly vaporized into steam. It's only by virtue of her sheer scale that she's unable to be pulled into the epicenter, but even despite that, she's also unable to make much progress in prying herself away from that core of fiery energy. She's rapidly losing mass with every passing moment, her hind legs and tail already in the process of collapsing in on themselves.

Quintessa went from one moment being consumed by triumphant glee to the next moment being crushed by utter heartbreak. The battle was going well, the dead numbered in the hundreds if not thousands. Aetherclaw had been slaughtered in a most horrific way, it was all fantastic! But the death of the Razurath general was simply the harbinger for even more destruction. "Luuuufffffyyy!" the changeling cries, watching in horror as the dragon was drawn in and slowly disintegrated. In the short time she had know the murder dragon she had come to see a kindred spirit in her. Seeing her go like this? It was just awful. Still, there was nothing Quintessa could do for her so she buried her feelings for a time where she wasn't in immediate danger from area razing magic. "Tarian iâ!" the hex blade screams, emotion betrayed in her voice as a large dome of ice materializes over her, shielding her from the destructive forces of the spell as she retreats eastward. Flecks of ice sheer from her barrier as it levitates after her, cracking and splinting as it takes hit after hit from the annihilating energies. "Tarian iâ!" she repeats, reinforcing her shield over and over. She had only a little further to go and she would surely be outside the area of effect. After all, if this spell could destroy Luffy she wanted no part of it. The Drow could clean up this mess.

Odhranos , or rather S'erok turns his stone muzzle upwards when Aetherclaw's corpse is elevated and grotesquely disassembled before the remaining audience of Razurath. The stone saurian lets loose a triumphant roar, further insulting the dying race of reptiles as a facsimile of one of their own cheers their leader's death. However, when the vortex of energy begins building upon the saurian general's demise, S'erok's cheer turns into a growl of disgust. The stone Razurath lunges towards one of the few remaining lizards, disembowelling it out of sheer irritation before crouching low to the earth. The ground parts around his body, great blades of stone chewing the dirt apart and grasping the stone Razurath's form, dragging it deep into the depths, where it is safe from the deathly pull of the imploding ritual spell. Only halting when he is deep enough into the earth that the vortex's pull is no longer strong enough, the dragon reaches into their shared psyche and prods the mage's mind awake. <"Wha..? What is it S'erok, where are we?"> The mage inquiries, his reactions slow as if sleepy. <"Under the battlefield. Those scrawny lizards rigged some kind of ritual spell on their leader, it's taking care of whatever is left of that sorry excuse of a race."> Odhranos slowly retakes control of his body again, and shirks the Razurath form, burrowing through the earth as he sends his senses out, seeking his allies above ground. "Let's touch base with the Mage's, then head back. I've had enough of this."

Gevurah was not expecting the bomb, but Aetherclaw’s re-animated corpse’s final words tipped her off that something was coming. Her guess? Corpse explosion, a classic! Her guess is not quite right, but generally a good enough guess to put her reflexes to good use. She unclasps her piwafwi and spins it out into a wide, hardened shield. The material resembles mithril in its lightweight toughness, though it is still black, and is enchanted to withstand just about all magical damage. “DAATH!” she shouts as she dives towards her husband, lifting the shield to protect them both. The rest of the army (and even Izzerin) be damned. They are all that matters. As the blast collides with the shield, a dull gray spider web glows on its face. There is a limit to how much magical energy the shield can take before it cracks. “Get us out of here,” Gevurah says as she holds firm to Daath’s arm, afraid of losing him as they are first pulled into the spinning blast, then buffeted away by it (unless Daath gets them out sooner). She loses over 60% of her army in those 12 seconds. And Izzerin? Who knows where he’s gone.

Daath felt is happen before all hell was unleashed. The gathering storm, so to speak, was enough of sign. But the flash of Valrae's appearance was ALMOST enough to cause the magister to forget about the impending doom. There is no way? Was he really just fighting against his first apprentice? These question are quickly dismissed as the very vapor in the air evaporates due to the insane rise in heat. Gevurah is near the epicenter, as Aetherclaw's last ditch effort is foiled by her running leap into his arm. The medallion upon his neck, a symbol of his rank and a magical tool of estoric power, is used to teleport the pair clear away from the destruction just as the damning wave of heat washes over the area. In the flash, it may even seem like the pair were killed, maybe even giving rise to hope for those who'd wish such. But, for now, the D'Artes couple are back once more within the darkness of Trist'Oth, their army scattered and possibly dead, but their enemy defeated for now.