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[featherduster]

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[endsjustified]

[it's cool rage adrenaline and artificial magic medications are obscuring that he should have already died like twice here

the wolf fades in favor of something else. he lines up a second shot. his hands are shaking and his vision is growing blood-clouded at this point under the screening illusion, though, so he's not able to attack again at once.]

[reflectonyourchoices]

[ The massive spider is rushing forward during the slight gap. It stabs down at the arm holding the gun, aiming to impale it to the ground. ]

[endsjustified]

[HE CAN DO LITERALLY NOTHING TO STOP THAT ACTUALLY HE'S USELESS ONCE IT REACHES FACE TO FACE BATTLE WITH A BIG SHARP MONSTER

all he can really do is go down on a knee with his arm thoroughly shanked, spell interrupted and restarting again, and yell]

MINUET!

[featherduster]

[ It's not 100% clear when he moved away from Wolfwood -- probably before Charon actually got around to yelling -- but either way, he's landing on top of the glass spider with extreme prejudice, firing three freshly loaded honeysuckle rounds directly into the top of it. ]

[reflectonyourchoices]

[ The spider's shell blackens and cracks as the bullets impact, making it crash down into ground.

Pandora climbs the back of the creature, still holding her eye as her nails sharpen and lengthen again. She lunges at Minuet's back. ]

[endsjustified]

[he does not try to get away from the spider. he is not fast or defensive enough to make much difference in rescuing himself or protecting the others. his role in this kind of combat is to find the way to do the most bullshit amount of damage possible in the shortest amount of time, and trust that either the others can take care of themselves or be healed later.

so while Pandora attacks Minuet, a familiar dragon's head pokes out through a rip in the air behind him. he ignores the feeling of something in his skull imploding again at this point, it's fine.]

Pale Palace.

[jagged ice shards spray towards the spider's abdomen, where it's still smoking hot from the lightning. hope Pandora likes thermal shock.]

[featherduster]

[ He just like.

Straight up lets her stab right through him in service of getting his metal hand around her THROAT ]

[reflectonyourchoices]

[ Thermal shock is THE WORST. The spider creaks and dips as huge cracks go through it, bringing the creature to its proverbial knees.

The nails pierce Minuet, then. She looks VERY smug as she slides forward to bury them in his body right up to her fingers... and then shocked as he gets his hand around her throat. She hisses a curse and scrabbles at his grip. ]

[endsjustified]

[drinks another potion so he doesn't just also die on the spot but otherwise does not do shit for a turn, his head is now destroying him too much until it kicks in

he's also running low on them so hopefully Minuet's got it handled up there]

[featherduster]

[ CHARON WE CLEARLY NEED TO HAVE A DISCUSSION LATER.

Anyway, he is just. Exploding into undulating wings that wrap up both himself and Pandora, physically trying to bind her while also jackhammering into her mind like a battering ram that's also on fire.

BE AFRAID BITCH ]

[reflectonyourchoices]

[ OW WELL

Pandora struggles against him, but he's got a PRETTY firm hold on her. But mostly? She's infuriated that this BLUNT INSTRUMENT is making any moves on her mind! How crude! He could at least do her the service of being precise.

Which is to say, she stabs him right back, all pointy scapels digging into his mental sledgehammer. ]

[endsjustified]

[ok she's distracted. NOW he's going to wrench his arm off the spider and get himself and Styx's corpse out of further immediate glass danger

he's pulling up one more spell as he does it though. hopefully whatever Minuet does makes it the last]

[featherduster]

[ Madam he is not a precision instrument he is a natural disaster.

His mind gives somewhat under her own attack; he has much better shielding than a normal human would, but isn't exactly well-practiced at using these skills. He's absolutely both an unstoppable force and an immovable object, though, so he's very intent on dragging them both into a psychic hell dimension. ]

[reflectonyourchoices]

[ SO RUDE, so rude. She goes down with him, but makes sure it HURTS him the whole way down. Mental splinters of glass give way to a physical one too; it grows from his back like a strange wing that slices into one of the ones he has. ]

[endsjustified]

[the fuck is that

anyway it's the three centaurs again and they are all going to attempt to drive their lances up through the spider and into Mirror

mostly because they are the one thing he has that is not elemental magic and he wants to see what it does to her

(when they stab something it gets hit with chance of instant death. the success rate is quite low, but the necromantic magic is probably still deeply unpleasant to experience in general if she isn't naturally aligned with it)

also even if it doesn't work 'getting hit with three bigass weapons' can physically fuck at least the spider up more, man. he's exhausted he might as well make this count]

[featherduster]

[ It's fine it's fine it's fine. Sometimes eating shit in service of making someone else eat shit is just how to handle things.

Her shards hit their mark, penetrating deep -- mentally and physically. One of those white wings hits the ground with a sickening thump, severed. She'll feel the pain through the link in their minds, momentarily blinding like a bolt of electricity.

He doesn't do the sane thing and stop, though.

He lunges deeper instead, reaching, digging. Sifting through sand with no regard whatsoever for what might cut him in the process. ]

[reflectonyourchoices]

[ Gods and void, does she hate pain. Pain is such a FRAIL and MORTAL thing, and she hates every single reminder that she's trapped in something far closer to mortal than she's comfortable with. That pain is echoed on her end by the white-hot agony of Charon's magic stabbing into her. The necromantic magic bounces with a dimly nauseating reverberation.

The shards grow thicker and thornier the deeper he goes. Like plunging into a sleeve lined with shards all going one way. He can get in and it hurts, but also it will hurt SO MUCH MORE getting back out.

An image appears. Pandora in an enormous glass palace, surrounded by reflections on all sides. Most of them show images she considers to be mundane - an underground arena, a view of the stars, several adventurers out surviving in the midst of dangerous territory. Above her, more shards hang dangling from the ceiling, flickering with a variety of different humanoid faces. She tugs one of the shards down; it shows a rippling pool somewhere in the midst of a vivid, bioluminescent underground. There, some sort of ... elf maiden? Is seated on the edge of said pool, dressed in a thin robe, and feeding treats to an ENORMOUS blue salamander. Her skin is a deep indigo punctured by the flicker of starlike white freckles.

So of course Pandora lunges up out of the water and jump scares them. CACKLES the whole way, even as the elf sputters and chides her. Pandora leans in close, resting her head against a shimmer of silver on the elf's shoulder. This is fondness, possessiveness - perhaps the closest thing to love a creature like Pandora can feel.

Outside, the spider is starting to collapse into shards under the force of Charon's magic. ]

[endsjustified]

[okay

he's down to the dregs so while THAT stuff happens in the mindscape he is going to get a ghost sheep to drag Vash's severed wing over to add to the 'grisly things to fix' pile he's got going over here]

[featherduster]

[ thx bro

He examines the memory -- examines the feelings that emanate from the memory. It's sweet, really. A little humanizing. Clearly a precious thing, as much as she seems to have those.


So he grabs for it and throws all his strength behind trying to rip it out.

(Where Pandora had carefully cut away Perci's memory, all precision and clean lines... this is brutal and indiscriminate, like ripping out a weed and not caring if roots get left behind, or roots from nearby plants get yanked out in the process.)

A mental voice, barbed. Let's see how you like it. ]

[reflectonyourchoices]

[ The scream that comes out of her echoes both physically and mentally. The most horrid, nails-on-chalkboard sound combined with the lurch of grinding gears and animal misery. She shoves him back out, shards tearing him the whole way as she forces him back via the same blunt force that he used to hurt her.

In reality she sways atop the crumbling spider, face blackened and cracking, limbs going stiff. In the end she pulls back and dives bodily back into the lake of glass. ]

[endsjustified]

[he kind of wishes he could try to shoot her one more time but it ain't happening

the ghost sheep at least tries to shove enough spider remnants out of the way that Vash doesn't potentially crash into a huge sharp pile of them in real life also.]

[featherduster]

[ He doesn't collapse or anything, thankfully. But he is still quite thoroughly impaled, and there's a fucked up glass wing jutting from his back, and somewhere in that psychic 1v1 his eyes and ears and nose started bleeding.

Whatever. Hashtag #worth.

He gives it a moment to be sure Pandora isn't going to imminently pop back out, then turns back to Charon and Styx, making his way over........ gingerly. ]

[endsjustified]

[Charon looks aggressively normal in that way where it's now obvious he just keeps a habitual illusion on to maintain that at all times. just kind of crouched by the pile and not moving himself for the moment, though, even to help]

[featherduster]

[ Honestly he's mad fucking jealous.

Crouching down in front of him, aware that it's Bad even if he doesn't know the extent of the badness. ]

Charon.

Are you out of potions?

[endsjustified]

[there's a lot of blood dripping OUT of the skin of the illusion so]

I have one left. And two bottles of tears.