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 Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 9:27 am
 ☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Ptolemy chuckled and swung his legs on his cloud, leaning over to watch the demi-afrit advance again. "You aren't very bright are you?" He called down to the Anubis head who swung around its head before focusing a red eye on the djinni.
"Abhiba!" It roared, obviously recognizing the manner of the djinni who was evading him. Ptolemy rolled his eyes.
"Slivernus, I should have known. Got yourself locked in a statue eh? Prague didn't work out for you last time I checked," He called down, and the Anubis roared again in rage, bringing the sickle down vertically to the woman. Ptolemy shifted his weight on his cloud with an amused but slightly nervous edge to his eyes. He was pompous, but not a fool. He knew if the woman did not kill the demi-afrit, he would find himself in a pinch.
Lowering stealthy in the shadows of a corner of the hall, Ptolemy shifted into a jaguar and put himself at the opening of the right-most corridor, tensed enough to spring away if needed. It was not cowardly in his eyes, but the wisest thing to do to avoid failure, and death.Years of imprisonment had angered Slivernus, his essence ached with the physical entrapment, and the memories the djinni had surfaced made his eyes pulse with rage.
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 9:38 am
 Ilyia Nerian
Witness to the cruellest fate believed to exist,
I have stood my ground with the same tenacity.
Ilyia angled her blade horizontally and raised it to intercept the oncoming sickle, but the force of the blow was more than she had expected, and she quickly flipped her blade such that the flat of it faced her and she raised her other hand to it to prevent it getting any closer. In the next moment she had angled it away from her free hand and leaped into a spinning kick, the metallic ring of schiavona and sickle almost interrupted by her counter-offensive. With the rush of the impact she had sent herself flipping away into a defensive stance several paces back from Silvernus, crouching down so as to present less of a target.
"You know this thing?!" she shouted up at Ptolemy, "What in the - you wry devil, you..."
She could not afford to be so distracted though. A raging opponent could be more easily avoided with uncalculated blows and precise defensive options. She had to smile though; her rival in the matter had granted her that advantage. Taunting... she thought, I'll have to remember that.
Begone, O foul hand of corruption.
My choices are my own to make now.
Order Of Chaos:
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 10:22 am
☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Ptolemy couldn't help but grin, his razor sharp teeth being visible as his panther form parted its lips upon hearing the woman shouted. It was inevitable that he would know many of the essence beings, more than three thirds of them had been involved in one war or another, or one project or another. Humans favored using them to their purposes, but use in the other realms was not uncommon. The remark of devil made him narrow his eyes though, demon was not a term appreciated by his kind.
Slivernus bellowed again and turned, an Inferno spreading from his fingertips, a web of fire rushing at the woman, soon followed by the demi-afrit himself, his sickle raised overhead before he brought it down with crushing brute strength, the muscles beneath his black, sleek hide bulging with veins and the muscles themselves. The gold hoop earrings he had in his ears gleamed in the dim light of the entrance hall.
"No half witted djinni's pet will defeat me!" He bellowed, steam rising from his flaring nostrils. Where he sat in the opening of the corridor, Ptolemy took a sharp intake of air.
"Ouch. That hurt mate," He said before washing his face as if with little concern to the world around him. An idea came to him and he paused. He was being foolish. If the woman was preoccupied, he could be finishing up the job. The djinni stood and retreated slowly and silently into the corridor before turning and bounding off through the shadowy hallway.
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 10:49 am
Ilyia Nerian
Witness to the cruelest fate believed to exist,
I have stood my ground with the same tenacity.
Ilyia quickly erected a barrier about herself to fend off the oncoming flames and brought her blade around to block the physical strike, but to her surprise - and horror - the blade shattered from the sheer force of the blow, leaving her with no alternative but to stumble back to the wall in a desperate attempt to avoid the rest of the attack, but she flicked her wrist and the edges of her blade reformed from its own phantasmal outline. Even rearmed she was against a wall with a raging lunatic on the offensive. Still a thought struck her, and she could only hope that she would have time enough to pull off her next maneuver without any mistakes being made. She raised a boot to the wall behind her and prepared to spring.
"Who's the pet here..." she murmured, "I act on my own, even if I'd rather not."
She raised her blade as if to meet his charge again, even if she had other plans. Silvernus seemed to her as if he would take the bait. Forget kicking his face... I hope he likes a streak of light in his back...
Begone, O foul hand of corruption.
My choices are my own to make now.
Order Of Chaos:
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:10 am
☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Slivernus roared and raised a hand, his jackal teeth bared from his grin as a Detonation sprung into existence at Ilyia's feet, promptly exploding, and the Aubis headed beast charged, planning on leaving one last blow to smite his opponent, his mind oblivious to all else.
This is what he was good at, mindlessly killing. In the time of Prague, he was a prime choice by many of the magicians as an offensive. He had killed afrits higher than he was in power without earning himself a single scratch. For him to be defeated by a thing he perceived as human (even if she was not human, the beast was not bright enough to read her energy. Nor had he checked the planes. If he had, then he would have known who Ptolemy was right away, and not bother with the woman.
Intelligence aside, the demi-afrit was a force to be reckoned with. It would be hard to defeat him even with a higher intellect, just because of the overwhelming sense that the demi-afrit had a tendency to deliver to his prey. Even still though, silver would cut through his essence just like any other djinn, even if he could withstand the pain better than most.
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:40 am
Ilyia Nerian
Witness to the cruelest fate believed to exist,
I have stood my ground with the same tenacity.
Ilyia let out a slight cry of pain as the explosion met her and released a number of silver bolts about her body, but she was far from finished. An instant of focus and an eye on Silvernus' continued approach was all she needed. No time for fear of what could happen if this went wrong. The Creation had always been bold; she would not back down now.
She vanished again, reappearing much closer at the Demi-Afrit's back with a spin that sent her sword piercing right through his upper spine and into the wall, and she released a slight stream of light through it just to ensure it had done its job.
"Most pets are released to run ahead, they are not left behind you idiotic rat. I work alone."
The venom in her own voice stunned her for a moment, but again she recognized its source. The price she had paid just to survive had been steep, and in the past seven thousand years it had begun to erode her normal sensibilities, and in no way did she not despise this fact. Her worst fear of the matter was that it would continue as it had and take her entirely in the end, but as far as she could tell it only had changed her view of others, not of herself or her duties. She could still hope for something besides the worst.
Begone, O foul hand of corruption.
My choices are my own to make now.
Order Of Chaos:
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 11:58 am
☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
"Silver!" Slivernus shrieked, the light hardly doing anything to him. It crackled through his essence to be sure, and caused him enough pain, but the bitter bite of the silver caused his essence to part from it, and his form seemed to splinter away from it, burning away and leaving a hole around the sword. He was however, stuck, and he howled, his great mass shuddering with the sheer volume of it. Deafening to the ears of any being, mortal or immortal, essence or physical.
The great beast looked down at the sword protruding from his chest in utter rage and growled again, not sure of how to remove it without great pain. Finally he heaved himself to the right, the sword splitting through his essence, shrieks erupting in a blood curdling way from his throat as he writhed on the ground, struggling to repair his poisoned essence.
"Evil fiend!" He screamed before his skin seemed to bubble and he himself burned into ash, leaving no trace of Slivernus. Death itself had found the demi-afrit.
It was a release from a charge, and the last thing he felt was the fleeting happiness that he was going home. This was interrupted by the void of death.
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 12:09 pm
Ilyia Nerian
Witness to the cruelest fate believed to exist,
I have stood my ground with the same tenacity.
Ilyia stumbled back and cupped her hands over her ears even just to avoid the ringing the piercing shriek had shot through her senses, and for a moment she almost cried out in addition to them, but forced her silence. Still she dared to lower her arms at Silvernus' death and managed to discern what words he had spoken from amid the ringing still in her ears.
"No," she said as she pried her sword free from the wall, "that would be the ones responsible for me working alone."
She sheathed her blade and looked down at herself, discouraged that she had taken such a hit as she had from the entryway's guardian. It would take some time to mend on its own, and still she was in no position to lose time. Five ways forward, one way back... the other had gone left, and while it could have proven momentarily easier for her to follow in his path, that's exactly what it would land her in the long run; following. She had to carve her own path.
Moving over to retrieve her cloak, she paused for a moment to consider the man whom it had once belonged to. If things had turned out only slightly differently, she could have saved him, could have saved them both. Now all she had was a memento and the rumor of their children taking their place. Two more that she would have to avoid for the sake of maintaining her silent existence.
Wrapping the cloak around herself, she pulled up the cowl and continued on her way, taking the second path from the right. If it was all she could do, it would be to move forward somehow.
Begone, O foul hand of corruption.
My choices are my own to make now.
Order Of Chaos:
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 6:54 pm
☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Ptolemy sat in a square of silver light, his white Egyptian robes pooling on the checkerboard floor. He was guised as a small Egyptian boy, looking up at the puzzle on the door. His five tracks of thought were all engaged on it, dissecting different parts of it. He was surprised how much Earth influence that there was here, the inscription at the top of the puzzle was in Arabic. It plainly said that if the puzzle was solved incorrectly, a pestilence would be released. The djinni wasn't too concerned. The worst thing that would happen to him was blindness and pain for a while.
He had found out that the five corridors converged quickly into one tall and wide corridor, almost surely to give thought to be escapees false hope before the demi-afrit devoured them. Speaking of which, Ptolemy knew he was dead, and was rather conflicted about it. Now he didn't have to worry about him, but that woman was almost certainly alive, and all roads led here.
The puzzle itself were white marble tiles with what seemed to be elven script engraved in them. It needed to read "Open the gate of yesterday" and now read as a bunch of gibberish. The djinni was sure he could crack it with a bit of time. He scratched his head before falling motionless again.
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Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2011 7:12 pm
 Ilyia Nerian
An agent of light, hidden in the shadows...
I could never have dreamed this would happen.
Ilyia continued along the hallway for a moment before she turned a corner and stopped at the sight of two visible openings on the wall opposite her. Judging from the so-far still level manner of the hallway she had taken she could only assume this was in fact a linear path, and out of the corner of her vision she could spot a young boy of familiar power from before deathly still. She could only assume it was another ruse of the man from before... who else would be here? He knew too much about her already; his being there could easily prove a detriment, or worse...
No, she thought, I am an agent of Light, not of destruction. I can at least see what he has in mind... She considered her options. No doubt if it was the man from before then he already knew she had come. He seemed extrasensory from the start, and Ilyia suspected he would have been alerted from what distance she had from him. On the alternative, if she were the one doing the bluffing...
She looked about for a moment and bent the light around her, looking down at her arm as it wove distortionally out of her view, the light bent around her figure such as to render her invisible. She lowered her arm, and could not help but frown at seeing the glasslike distortion of the illusion from the manipulation constantly following her movement and reverting as it went. It would be slow, but it was all she had for now. In looking down she wondered if the arcs of silver lightening had been covered by the illusion as well, but then she realized her cloak would have done the job in that.
She slowly stepped into the room and took a more analytical look at the door in front of the boy. He seemed almost entranced by it, and he had been here how long before she was? Clearly simplicity was not to be found here. She looked again to the door and frowned. Elven, a language she had made every attempt to be a part in the creation of and had mastered before its alleged "refinement" that while indeed sounded much better, caused so diverse a split among fellow kin as to result in far too many kindred rivalries. Even then she felt pity for the mortal races, as little as she had been involved in their plight.
The message on the tiles did not take her too long to figure what it should have said in the end, but they were placed in such a manner that she could not determine how best to manage placements. For the time being, she simply maintained her silence.
This is what I was created for, though;
I can stand where she cannot. I can fight where she would fall.
Order Of Chaos:
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2011 3:56 pm
☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
"Ah, I was beginning to think that Slivernus had eaten you after all. Then again, he wasn't coming after me, even with having more than enough to want to," Ptolemy said, feeling the shift of energy behind him. His tone betrayed only mild amusement. Slivernus and he had met on the battlefield of Prague many many times, and Ptolemy's taunts was equally met by Slivernus' ignorance and dull wit.
Giving very little attention to the being behind him, Ptolemy resumed his study of the puzzle, translating it and processing it in five different languages, attempting to decipher the meaning of the puzzle, or rather, how to get to the meaning. He tilted his head one way, then the other.
Puzzles had long time been a favorite of Ptolemy's. His most recent master had once left a metal puzzle out in the open and he had solved it in a grand total of ten seconds. This one though slightly confused him, and he was far too concerned with the consequence of it. He knew far too much of the treachery of humans, and he did not want to be in a fight with an afrit or marid blind and in excruciating pain.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2011 4:11 pm
 Ilyia Nerian
An agent of light, hidden in the shadows...
I could never have dreamed this would happen.
Ilyia determined quickly that even her bending of light about herself had done her precious little good in fooling this man, and almost immediately it ceased to flow about her, instead revealing her completely quite suddenly - or at least as she appeared behind her cloak - and otherwise continued to watch the puzzle itself. She held out a hand in front of herself and focused on the puzzle's current positions and created a small fractal map of silver in her hand that snowflaked out in a seemingly random pattern. Several of them seemed to go on for potentially forever, and literally flowed through the walls behind her, but she did not look toward the outer edges for her answer. Rather she found a path from its center to the closest point where it had not continued from there and memorized the path's various designs of indication within a few moments.
"I never got your name..." she said as the fractal snowflake faded in her view, "If we're going to be at each other's throats this whole way at least I would prefer to know who would be trying to kill me." The lowered tone of her voice was no longer present; she no longer cared to guise her manner so much now that she had been unveiled, and she kept the cloak about and cowl high as a reminder all the same.
Beneath the cowl she smiled, her eyes still on the puzzle itself. The spectral snowflake she had conjured had in fact led her right, and although she had no doubt of this man's intelligence, she realized he might have been at a lesser means to utilize it than she was. The thought gave her a substantial relief, but the most she would show of it was her wry smile.
This is what I was created for, though;
I can stand where she cannot. I can fight where she would fall.
Order Of Chaos: Oheylook, I fixed her hair! Haha.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:06 pm
☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
"Kill you dearie?" Ptolemy asked, turning to regard Ilyia with an amused look in his dark gold eyes. "Whyever would I want to do that? I doubt you'd taste very good," He said with a low chuckle before turning back to the puzzle before ahhing. He sprung up silently, seemingly weightless (partially because he was) and had to form himself a taller form (a minotaur this time, he was getting tired of the humanoid races) to slide the top pieces across the square. He paused at the last piece, snorting slightly as he checked over his work.
He honestly did not want to reveal his name. Ptolemy was the djinni's true name, the one whom he could be summoned with. It was enough that the human magicians had bound him eternally within their books, that the elves had passed his name down through generations, that the dwarves engraved his name in the heart of their mountains, and that countless other races knew him in varying degrees.
If only he could be left alone, to mingle with the other beings of essence of the Other Side. That was unlikely to be any time soon, so he learned to deal with it. It was part of living.
Impatiently the minotaur slid the last piece into place. A low hiss sounded through the room, and he took a hooved step back, fearing he had set off the pestilence. To his relief none of the poisonous green gas filled the room, and the door fell away to reveal a dark cavern of a room. The minotaur huffed and turned to the woman. "After you then," He said.
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:17 pm
Ilyia Nerian
An agent of light, hidden in the shadows...
I could never have dreamed this would happen.
Ilyia raised an eyebrow at the man's method of solving the puzzle and resummoned her fractal shard again just to check if she'd missed something. Sure enough behind the path she had figured there was another ending, another solution. He had beaten her at her own game of manipulating strategy, had bested her at getting around direct obstacles, and - at least to her credit - had run off while she single-handedly dealt with a statue. This was not looking too incredibly good for her by this point.
"Don't call me that... again," she breathed, "or I might find reason enough to provoke you into killing me. If of course I don't kill you first." She strode past him and into the cavern, and as she turned her head her voice echoed slightly, "Don't tempt me."
There was honestly no point in dealing with him, she figured. By then she resolved that her only communication with him would be for the sake of ridding herself of a more stressing problem, as a manner of diversion. Then again, the thought of her consorting with him at all was growing much darker in her mind, but then again so was the state of her mind as a whole.
This is what I was created for, though;
I can stand where she cannot. I can fight where she would fall.
Order Of Chaos:
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Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2011 7:36 pm
☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧Ptolemy Abhiba☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧☪✧ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
Bound into service by my charge
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦ ✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
My essence thins with time.
✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦✦
The minotaur rolled its eyes, its essence hardening into a halberd in its hands as it moved forwards, its hooves beating into the floor with an exaggerated thump.
"You are by far less knowledgeable than you appear," Ptolemy said, after torches flared up and he resumed his first shape. He looked around at the chains draping from the wall before connecting them with the large black mass at the center of the room. "You should have forced the slave into the situation first." He said indicating the slumbering dragon in the center of the vast arena-like room. A low rumble came from the beast's chest as an iron gate came crashing down behind them, effectively cutting off their exit.
As soon as the beast had opened its golden eyes and raised its ebony muzzle, Ptolemy began grooming himself in his serpent form, curled away in the corner of the room. His gaze flickered to the woman back to the dragon, to his claw, before back to the woman. As the dragon roared, the chains snapped from the wall and whipped around the room violently while the great beast shook with stiff muscles.
"Sort of makes you wonder who's been feeding it, doesn't it?" Ptolemy asked the woman loudly before looking back to the dragon.
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