RP:Sandstorm In A Bottle

Part of the Do You Believe In Magic? Arc

Summary: Poor Odhranos. Raiez has staked her claim on another of Lithrydel's mages. At least he's not naked like Linn, though, right?

Odhranos gripped the edge of the outcrop with one hand and hauled himself over the precipice, his breath coming short with exertion. From his new vantage point, the whole Xalious Valley would extend out beneath his feet, out across his vision until it swept up into the facing mountains that framed the valley with sharp teeth-like points. The mage knelt on the hard stoney outcrop and paused to catch his breath, then turned and examined the sight. It was quite something to behold, that was, until his vision dipped and looked over the cliff edge. The mage's stomach lurched and he was forced to take a few steps back from the edge before steeling his nerves and shuffling forward until the toes of his boots poked out over the abyss. Closing his eyes, the mage drew in a slow measured breath as he balanced on the fine line between stone and void, battling with his fear of heights. After a few moments, the mage let out his breath and stepped back from the precipice, dropping into a crosslegged seated position a foot from the edge. Settling the shaking in his hands, he glanced around him. The ledge he was on was small enough, perhaps a few square meters in area and there was no way down save the slow descent by hand. Convenient for the mage's desire for solitude, but might count against him should he need to escape anything. Y'know, highly unlikely as that is. Pressing his hands together, the mage focused his mind and extended his senses into the rock beneath him, causing the small layer of scree on the ground to rise up and dance in mid-air, hovering like a cloud around the intently focusing terramancer.

There wasn't any sign of the source of the recent disappearance of mages. There were no scorch marks, no abandoned camps smoking wildly from unattended fires, nothing. There were, of course, the occasional batch of broken trees, but those could be attributed to any monster that roamed the lands. It was...well...peaceful. At least until a great roar filled the air, one that caused birds to take flight and the forests to rustle with fleeing animals. Grand, blue wings broke through the treetops, soon followed by the giant body of a blue dragon with...was that a jar in its claw? There was something in that jar, some sort of figure. A humanoid figure. The Blue took flight, unheeding of the birds that scattered before that deadly maw. It was clear the Blue was not out to feed itself. The dragon looked about, however, as though something were nagging at it. What could bother a dragon so? Was it danger? Was it some preternatural sense? Or was it that this kidnapper of mages could feel the presence of another source of magic?

Odhranos' arcane meditation was abruptly broken by a titanic saurian roar echoing across mountains. The mage's eyes flashed open and a gleeful smile crossed the grey-robed mage's face. A dragon! The mage got to his feet, letting the sand and scree drop softly from the air then he opened his robes and hunted around in the innumerable hidden pockets within. Finding the one in question, the mage brought forth his newest innovation, a set of lenses of increasing size and magnification, set in thin iron rims which the mage could use to move them freely in the air, creating an impromtu telescope. Lining up the lenses in sequence, the mage swept his now magnified view across the valley, seeking the great dragon from which the roar must have heralded. Odhranos was blissfully unaware of which dragon exactly it was, had he known, he would not have been curious to seek it in the slightest, but due to hailing from a dragon-less land, the mage had a distinct interest in the saurian families, almost a fan-boyish enthusiasm. Suddenly, a vibrant azure wing danced on the edge of his field of vision and the mage broke into a grin. A blue dragon, master of the element of electricity! Facinating! The mage barely curbed his curiosity as the colossal creature broke free from the treeline far below and he swapped lenses in and out at a ferocious rate to better see the subject of his excitement.

The presence of the magic that had called her had lessened, but she still had its location burned into her mind. It was always like this, when she was in her dragon form. Magic would call her, she would come into view, and people would either panic or simply stop in awe. Her sleek form, that she had not much earlier been worried was fat due to fleeing humanoids, made its way through the air like a graceful crane, towards and over Odhranos with wind-buffeting speed before she began to circle. Slit-pupiled eyes scanned the scenery below, sought out the source of the arcane disturbance, and, once located, her bulk began to descend. Just how was she going to fit on that cliff with the male mage? It was obviously too small to accomodate her, but she still moved like she intended to take up every millimeter of space available. But then her body began to crackle, to charge with lightning until it simply glowed a brilliant white. When the charge hit the ground like a thick bolt of lightning, what stood there was not a blue dragon, but instead a woman in extravagent finery fit for traveling, a lizard-like tail swaying idly behind her. The jar, shockingly, had shrunken, as well, and she was already busy burying it in a satchel that hung across her body. Other than that, she made no movement, an intense gaze settled on Odhranos as she studied him.

Odhranos' eyes widened as the dragon approached and began it's descent, evidently it intended to land, but where exactly? The mage quickly shunted his lenses away again and stepped back from the precipice, it would not do to end up mushed flat or knocked off the cliff by the downdraught of wingbeats. What happened instead only intrigued the mage further. Around the scales and wings, white hot sparks began to coalesce and crackle like a thousand lashes of whips before merging into a searing bolt of energy which barrelled down towards the ledge. The mage cursed and dived back against the cliff-face, tearing the stone open and diving in, sealing the rent behind him as he went. After a dull thump of collision, the mage slowly emerged from the rock to survey the damage, only to find a rather finely dressed lady, rummaging around in her satchel as she stood to attention. The mage cast his gaze about for the missing lightning damage, but it was nowhere to be found. Only when his gaze landed upon the azure tail did it all fall into place. "Incredible, converting mass to energy for swift transport, that's the second instance recorded." The mage smiled broadly, swiftly taking out a small notebook, jotting down some notes, then returned his gaze to the woman, blanching for an instant. "I'm terribly sorry ma'am, didnt mean to ignore you. My name is Odhranos." The mage bowed deeply from the waist, a crisply defined movement, ingrained from years of training.

The trick with the stone wall had the dragon's interest piqued. Though the man introduced himself, Raiez spoke not a word as she began circling, her eyes going from man to stone, stone to man. He was a man with tricks she had not seen prior to that day, a mage that specialized in an element that few of her kind and of her time dabbled extensively in. Slender hands twitched involuntarily, a strong desire to reach straight for her satchel forcibly overcome by a mage's iron will. "Raiez Vayne," she finally uttered, a name offered in return of a name. Some would say that the phonetic pronunciation of her surname was quite suited for the dragon's personality, and truly, she would hardly argue. The fact that she dressed so nicely in her humanoid form was evidence of that, but even without that...she was a dragon. It came with the territory. "That trick of yours. Is that the only one you know?"

Odhranos inclined his head respectfully. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms Vayne." He smiled amiably, then an eyebrow raised curiously at her inquiry into his "trick". "Well... I suppose I wouldn't be much of a mage if that was all I could do, it is one of many things I can do with earth and stone." As if in demonstration, from the sleeves of his robes came forth twin streams of black obsidian sand and white chalk dust, pooling in fist-sized spheres above the man's hands before shivering and solidifying into two quartzite balls of black-tinted and white-veined clear stone, which after a moment's presentation shattered and dissapeared away into the mage's grey robes as quickly as they had come. The mage folded his arms and tilted his head to the side. "I'm assuming from that display of magic, you are a mage of sorts, is your magic innate or learnt?" The mage reddened slightly and dropped his gaze. "N...not to pry I mean, apologies."

Raiez grinned. It was not a friendly expression, but rather one filled with malicious intent. The man admitted to being mage, and he was of a specialization that she had not seen often. "What a splendid display," she purred as she watched the small spell form and dissipate. The question of her own magical nature made her laugh, loud and raucous, a hand held before her mouth in a physical effort to stiffle her mirth, the other hand extended towards Odhranos with a finger raised to say 'wait a second' as she composed herself. "I am a mage, aye," she answered as that grin came back to her lips. "What you saw a moment ago was my own, innate magic. Here, let me show you something of my actual magecraft." The dragon's arms lifted as she began to chant. Never once did her eyes leave the terramancer, nor did that disturbing expression leave her lips.

Odhranos took an instinctive step back. That smile, he had seen it before. It was the spitting image of the malevolent corruptive smile Desparrow had worn upon their first encounter, predatorial, almost a feral smile of hunger that one graces upon their prey. The mage's eyes narrowed and he took another step back towards the cliff-face, the stone crumbling and cracking slightly with his instinctive response to flee through the safe enveloping stone, but his instincts were fighting against his ravenous curiosity with magic, he simply couldn't get enough of it; it's mechanics, it's magestic enigmatic rules and it's wonderously absent limits. In the end, curiosity won out and the mage stood his ground, his nerves settled with the thought that he could flee after witnessing this strange new magic. As the rather apt saying goes, "Curiosity killed the cat."...

Poor, poor Odhranos. He should have run. He should have shouted, cried for help. He should have done whatever he could to get away from the Blue. Instead, he stood there as she cast her magic, a spell that she had been using quite often, of late. It was a spell that had allowed her to add to her hoard of magic, a spell that let her shrink whatever the focus of her magic was. She wasn't sure how the magic made a person feel. She would have to ask one of her captives. The earth-mage, however, was sure to be finding out at that moment as she completed her spell. The dragon didn't even bother to watch the effects, having seen them many, many times, and instead was rummaging through her satchel for one of her jars. This one could go with the other. It was probably best not to tempt the vampires.

Odhranos knew his mistake as soon as the arcane syllables finished in the air. A maelstrom of malevolent energy surrounded him, pressing in on him as it wrought it's caster's will. The mage's mind was drowned out in a flare of bright magic, driving him to his knees, then further, bringing him down to the ground, which seemed to rise and expand to fill his vision as he collapsed. When the spell reached it's completion, the mage nearly gasped in pain, his whole body wracked with jittering bolts of searing pain, like lightning had struck him and was burning through him. Dragging in a painful breath, the mage looked up towards the Blue, so far away and yet looming over him like she was a hundred feet tall, it... it didn't make sense. The mage's head spun and his eyes rolled back into his head as he fell unconscious, a tiny little grey form sprawled out amongst the stones.

Raiez started at the shrunken form of the mage, a blank look on her face. He had fainted. A practitioner of magic fainted after having a spell used on him. What was the world coming to? Back in her day, a mage took a fireball to the face and went on to get drunk. These young whippersnappers and their lack of constitution. (Woah there, Raiez. Calm down, ya old bat.) With a tsk of derision, the dragon knelt down to retrieve her prize and deposit him in her jar. The contianer went up to eye level, afterwards, and those ancient eyes of hers examined the treasure to be added to her hoard. "Yes, I must definitely keep you away from the bitey ones. Maybe then you'll live long enough to learn how to handle your magic. Hmph. Lightweight." And so back to the satchel that jar went, and soon enough Raiez was leaping from the side of the platform the pair had been on. Not much longer after the fall, a great roar tore through the air and a giant Blue flew off into the distance.