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#Post#: 1347--------------------------------------------------
Tales of Len
DIR By: ARandomN00B
Date: July 14, 2021, 7:55 pm
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[center]Performance Review[/center]
“This room’s not quite as I remember.” Len spun in a circle,
taking in his surroundings. There wasn’t much to see, on account
of the near-total darkness save for the view of his favorite
commander, Johannes, that he could see from the window. Although
she was trying her hardest to speak, it was likely that the
mystical glow around her throat and lips barred any sound from
making it out. Surt was to her left, looking as friendly and
approachable as ever with his trademark scowl.
At the center was the sociopathic mage herself, Pandora, eyeing
him carefully. If Pandora was any other woman, Len would’ve
thought the death stare was her sneaking in some eye candy, but
he knew better. Her robotic scan sent shivers down his spine.
Altogether, this wasn’t a pleasant gathering. This moment was
not between Len and his three colleagues spanning from
acquaintance to good friend; It was Len, the lowly officer, and
his three superiors.
“We had to modify it to fit your capabilities. Couldn’t have
another incident,” Surt motioned over to Johannes, who motioned
over to Pandora, who with a snap of her fingers, invaded the
darkness of Len’s chamber with magical light. Len shielded
himself with his arms, parting them once the initial flash
subsided.
“Oh come on! Flash photography costs extra, even for my biggest
fans.” Len’s vision blinked in and out like a camera shutter
before focusing once more.
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[/center]“On second thought, blind me again.” What lay before
him, previously obscured by the darkness and his focus on his
commanders was a grotesque collage of stone, glass, and ceramic
masquerading as a holding facility. Whatever trial was going to
face him, it’d be nothing beyond the difficulty of navigating
this harsh terrain. It looked to be on the verge of collapse.
Len stumbled at the sight of it all, narrowly avoiding a
stalactite poised to impale his delicate body. Earlier today,
Len thought Johannes was joking when she was warning him of the
‘super dangerous terrible performance review I think they’re
trying to kill you, but her worries were well-founded.
Surt let out a chuckle. “As you can see, your arena for today’s
performance review is composed entirely of - “
“Inorganic materials so I can’t simply siphon the life from my
surroundings like a Neo-Sentonian factory. I get it,” Len
interrupted. If Surt felt slighted by Len’s outburst, it wasn’t
shown on his face. After two years, the commander had gotten
used to Len’s eccentricities. Namely, his distaste for proper
manners around authority.
He only had to deal with Len for an hour or so, then he could go
back to what he actually signed up for. Advent babysitting was
not listed on his job description, and yet here he was.
“Indeed. The way you solved the issue last time was -” Surt
sighed. “- Not exactly what we had in mind when we told you to
‘defeat the outworlder’.”
Len beamed with pleasure at being reminded of his last escapade.
No one expected him to simply outlast the outworlder into
submission. Poor thing looked so dejected before Pandora
forcefully ejected it back to the proper plane of existence.
“That was exciting and all, but now we need to see what you do
when put under immense pressure,” Pandora’s cheerful exterior
felt all the more unnerving when contrasted with a terrifying
statement. “It would be awful if you perished, so do your best.
We don’t have many advents to spare, after all.”
Len opened his mouth to make a well-timed quip but was
interrupted by the strange sight of the floor moving he caught
in his peripheral. Len could feel a ripple of sound from within
the ground crawl up and into his toes, giving him goosebumps. He
turned as soon as a mound of glass and stone was unearthed,
revealing the beginnings of a head that dwarfed him in size.
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“A glass golem, I take it?” Len said to no one but himself. A
pair of lifeless, glass eyes not too unlike Pandora’s own met
Len’s glance as he readied his tome. “Nevermind. That’s just a
shambling pile of glass and stone moved through magic alone. I
get what’s going on here.”
Len knew that, unlike a regular golem, this construct didn’t
have an internal power source. His ability to take inorganic
life was already far more difficult than something that was
living, but the problem magnified itself if it had no power
source whatsoever. There was no conventional life within it,
powered only by what was likely Pandora’s seemingly endless
magical supply. Combine that with the completely inorganic
surroundings, and Len had very little life to siphon from. At
the very least, at least he wasn’t facing an outworlder. Not
yet, anyway.
Regardless, he faced the challenge with a smile. In combat, he
had already been forced into positions such as this, and thus he
learned that his ability to take life had far more scope than he
originally planned. Much like high-level necromancy, his ability
took away the very concept of life, stilling all movement. He
readied his magic, an intense necrotic shroud the color of a
day-old bruise danced across his fingers.
Instead of giving a wave and taking whatever was in the vicinity
as he regularly did with a psyche siphon, Len pulled. As his
outstretched hand pulled back, multiple violet spots appeared on
his opponent along their joints, the concept of life itself
robbed from the glass and stone. Unfortunately, Len didn’t have
time to admire his handiwork before an uncharacteristically fast
fist aimed to crush him. A burst of air whizzed past as Len
narrowly avoided being turned into a crimson floor decoration,
vaulting over the fist and ending up on top of it.
“Len, you really should know better. In other cases, the
inorganic material you take life from simply can’t move
afterward. But when I’m controlling it, the story’s a bit
different,” Pandora stated. “Find a different approach, or
you’ll prove unworthy of the investment I’ve already laid into
you.”
Len grumbled under his breath as a response. This wasn’t how
these trials usually went. Typically the formula went something
like this: Advent fights outworlder. Advent wins. Everyone goes
home and is happy. As it is now, this was him against Pandora.
Len continued scaling the monstrosity, making his way past the
spiked glass and slippery stone as he reached the shoulder. The
‘golem’ made its best effort to turn toward him, releasing a
flurry of stone and glass from its mouth in an attempt to blast
Len away.
“[Enparry!]” Len chanted, deflecting a portion of the blast and
dodging past the rest. Len thought at a mile a minute,
formulating a proper plan. Even if he could drain it, Pandora’s
mana was far beyond his own, and he’d lose the war of attrition.
The only way out would be to destroy the creature itself, or to
drain it in a way it could never receive more mana.
Len thought for a moment that even if he destroyed the creature,
it could be reanimated. But he also knew that winning this fight
wasn’t really the point. The point was to win, sure. But most
importantly, to show improvement. His commanders wanted to see
facets of his power that they’d never seen before, and he was
happy to oblige.
Len knew what he was, and he understood his power. The advent of
Mortixis had the ability to take life. But what defined taking,
anyway? Was the only option to drain all life around him? He
knew that wasn’t true. His Thanatos technique involved
transporting life between two different places, taking life from
two targets. What defined life? Or living? He could take energy
from the inorganic and organic as though they were the exact
same. Perhaps his abilities worked on anything perceived as
having life, even mana itself. Mana ebbed and flowed throughout
a creature, and it also responded to stimuli. Who’s to say it
wasn’t living?
A smile crept across his face as he finally figured out his
plan, nearing whatever should be the ‘face’ of the creature. It
was likely the creature was being moved with an animate spell,
but in order to reach the creature remotely, most mages
implanted a magical core into their golems that responded to
their signal. This came with the benefits of shared senses and
minor autonomy, and also the weakness of a vulnerable point.
Pandora likely went far more in-depth on this process, creating
a veritable separate leyline system for this golem alone,
powered by her magic. Although Len couldn’t drain enough to stop
it from moving, he could stop it from gaining power as long as
he found where its gateways were.
Len scanned the creature, his admittedly weak extrasensory
abilities pulling through as he saw a small, continuous pulse of
mana between what would typically be the creature’s ribs. Len
felt the air change. Glancing upwards, he noted the golem
attempting to slap him off. With a bow, Len jumped off from the
creature’s head, diving toward the ribcage.
“I call this one…” Len began, the necrotic shroud of mana he
typically wielded being molded into a gigantic needle. “Taking
life into your own hands!” Len plunged the needle forth. Being
life itself, it had the same properties as his typical psyche
siphon of going through any defenses as it pierced the coalesced
mana that controlled it. At the epicenter of his attack,
necrotic mana began to flow forth, spreading like a web
throughout the entirety of the creature as the flow of the
golem’s mana stopped. All color drained from the creature as it
finally stilled. Len turned toward his officers, motioning
toward the ground. He hadn’t planned for what would happen now
that he was this far up, and falling didn’t seem to be the best
plan.
“[Feather Fall!]” Pandora chanted. Len took that as his cue to
jump off the golem, gracefully falling back down.
“Congratulations! You managed to take the life out of mana
itself, stopping me from moving it throughout a target. Now
you’re ready for phase two.” Pandora clapped twice as the wall
to the right of Len split apart, the entirety of the golem being
sucked in violently. Moments later, another rift appeared atop
the ceiling, revealing the usual suspect for these trials: an
Outworlder.
[center]
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[/center]Len wondered if every Advent was simply a spiteful
bastard. Instead of resting six feet under when they failed
terribly, they instead chose to become eldritch monstrosities.
This one was a disgusting cross between man and spider,
grey-armored flesh giving way to blood-red muscles. It wielded
more arms and legs than any natural creature or most unnatural
monsters could ever hope to use, which lead to them being bent
at unnatural angles in order to still allow for proper
maneuverability. Most importantly for the battle, the creature
was blind, a chitinous visor enveloped its face, and it pawed at
its surroundings to get a sense of what was near. Red chains
restrained both the legs and arms of the creature, limiting its
ability to squirm.
“Seeing as this is your second year, we have chosen to make your
trial a bit more interesting,” Surt stated. In an instant, Len
felt a surge in his chest, the latent necrotic shroud
dissipating. In a panic, he tried to bring forth his Advent
abilities, but to no avail.
“A simple silence spell modified specifically for your Advent
powers. I’ll disable it once I see you do something without
them. Impress me.” With a wave of her hand, the restraints on
the outworld infiltrator were undone. Len was on his own.
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