None of the Rainlords seemed to realize that Hector’s resilience was all the shield’s doing, but Garovel wanted to keep it that way, lest they decide that they needed it more than he did. Asad might have known of its power, being the crafter’s brother, but if he did, he wasn’t saying anything.
And so here Hector was, having somehow lied his way into a situation where no one in their right mind would want to be. He felt like the most ridiculous member of their party, too, clad in full plate armor that clinked every time he moved, while everyone else hardly even bothered with bulletproof vests. At least it wasn’t a mission that required stealth.
Their purpose here was to draw Melchor’s attention so that Lord Abel and the rest of their forces would have time to rush in and seize the castle. If they defeated Melchor, then that would mean instant victory, since no one else would be able to stand against Lord Xuan; but even if they somehow lost, Lord Abel’s forces would have already gone through and neutralized enough of the other Blackburns that they could simply focus on the weakened Melchor and overwhelm him with numbers.
As far as plans went, Hector thought Lady Amaya had come up with a pretty solid one.
The first corridor they found was completely dark. Lord Xuan lifted a burning hand and illuminated the way forward with a greenish light. At first, it only flickered faintly, and then it became bright enough to reveal even the high ceiling.
‘Is that really necessary?’ said Duvoss. ‘You have a flashlight, you know.’
“Yeah, but how often do I get to use my glowy powers to actual effect?”
‘You’re hurting your hand for no reason.’
“You’ll fix it for me, won’t you?”
‘Use your bloody flashlight before you fill the air with toxic smoke.’
“C’mon, I have more control than that.”
Lord Dimas intervened. “I do smell garlic...”
“Really? Shit!” Xuan’s hand dimmed suddenly and flailed up and down, apparently having trouble undoing his own work. “Eek! Ow! Ah...! Whew... that was close...” In total darkness again, there came a clearing of a throat, and Xuan’s flashlight clicked on. “Not to worry, everyone. I meant to do that.”
Hector no longer felt the most ridiculous. ‘I don’t want to be rude, but... this guy is our ace in the hole?’
‘I... I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ said Garovel privately.
Qorvass and the others looked similarly dubious, however.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
So copper than? Or tellurium? I know they both burn green/blue but I think tellurium is the one that smells like garlic.
ReplyDeleteBwahaha.
ReplyDeleteNice, very nice.
http://media.giphy.com/media/wVRM3ItKfEsmc/giphy.gif
...and flailed up and down /was/ apparently having trouble undoing his own work...
ReplyDeleteI don't think that "was" is neccessary here. :)
Great job with this page and the novel as a whole! Found it accidentally on tumblr, and couldn't stop reading g!
Wait, why are they worried about toxic smoke; they can survive lung damage, can't they?
ReplyDeleteWell, if you noticed, no one actually sounded particularly worried. It's more that it would be doing additional damage to them for no good purpose.
ReplyDeletePhosphorus
ReplyDeleteThe Garlic smell and the glowing
I know this because I read about the properties of Phosphorus in school and thought it would be an OP materialization ability
Pillars of igniting flame
but Transfiguration is still awesome
Depends on how he's making it burn. Tellurium, arsenic, sulfur and phosphorus all have compounds that smell like garlic. Arsenic is the one best known for its garlic odor, but I couldn't find anything about its flame color, and I know tellurium burns blue.
ReplyDeleteThere are normal people in Marshrock that they don't want to hurt.
ReplyDeletePhosphorus is even cooler than that, since it also has allotropes (violet and black phosphorus) that don't burn that you can use for other things. Violet, for instance, is very resistant to most chemical insults.
ReplyDeleteWell he does supposedly have the reaction very tightly under control, could he be locking away the byproducts?
ReplyDeleteNot if there's still enough to smell. That smoke is pretty spectacular.
ReplyDeleteOf, course, it's just possible that Dimas was messing with him. Or the placebo effect was in full force. Or Dimas was opposed to the blatant stupidity that is setting your hand on fire with a reaction that produces toxic gaseous or particulate byproducts when you could just use a flashlight.
ReplyDeleteBut setting your hand on fire looks better than a flashlight...
ReplyDeleteAnd people who think like that don't belong on military strike teams :D
ReplyDeleteI don't think Dimas seems likely to have been just messing with Xuan. Also, i would think that his reaper could just refuse to replace the hand until he promised to behave. Of course, from what we've seen of Xuan, if they want him to behave he's just going to go into battle with one hand.
ReplyDeleteIf it is arsenic, we might be about to see a pan-rozum form that doesn't focus on mobility, like the three we've seen so far do. Looking forward to that, and hoping Xuan doesn't just use pan-forma instead.
ReplyDeleteMmm, I'm not sure Parson's exactly counts as "focusing on mobility". Sure, he used it to fly. He also used it to drug Dunstan, suppress soundwaves, and SMITE HIS FOES WITH A GODDAMN TORNADO. Melchor's, too, didn't make him any faster; he used it to seal everyone into a death chamber.
ReplyDeleteXuan, you've been a bad boy. I'm taking away your hand privileges until you learn not to use it as fuel for a controlled oxidation every time you feel like it.
ReplyDeleteBut moooooom, I USE that hand!
Well, you should have thought of that before you turned it into a toxic metalloid and lit on fire, shouldn't you have?
Except that it also let him fly, and be in three places at once, although how he does that without tearing apart his reaper is beyond me. I wonder if a mass pan-rozum user could dematerialize matter that they created by transfiguration, allowing Xuan to clean up after himself if he really does have arsenic or something similarly nasty.
ReplyDeleteFixed, thank you. *throws bread*
ReplyDeleteSmoke doesn't necessarily come after smell.
ReplyDeleteThe tactic Dimas and Diego were trying was slicing off bits of Melchor's mass and freezing them. Presumably the materialization-mercury can't be used to replenish the body-mercury.
ReplyDelete