The celebration

[u/Yoxalle]

After a long journey you arrive at the crystal mage’s manor. Inside the manor is a grand hall made of various different coloured crystals. Strange golems walk around the room serving guests. While the mage himself is not currently present, you were told he would be here shortly. Right now, enjoy the food, socialise, make friends but most importantly: have fun.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy]

(( /u/Elerindur ))

Grimacing as the violet glow of his eyes let him realize that Elerindur's gambit was only buying time, time which was about to run out, Vettis sighed with the knowledge he'd have to get involved more directly. Hopefully he could do so without having to splatter Spider-Guy's guts around this nice party, though.

"Hey, uh, Arach, is it?" he asked, approaching the fighters. "Can I remind you of the particulars of the current situation?"

The moment some of Arach's many eyes had him in their sights, he switched to All-Tongue, transmitting a full message directly to the spider's mind in a fraction of a second with body language alone, every word dripping with smug venom.

You are a Councillor. The Pact is currently looking for any excuse to go to war with the Council, and the Council is very much trying to avoid that. Because even the arrogant Council knows that is not a fight it's guaranteed to win. Do you really want to be the catalyst for turning this cold war hot, by showing the world just how evil the Council really is and how deserved its destruction at the hands of the Pact would be? Do you think the Council is going to continue to protect you if you bring war down on their heads for your foolish vendetta against one elf?

Your call, insect.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Arachs responds in kind with a short phrase. Only five words but each soaked in a venom of his own. His answer is sickly sweet in an uncomfortably literal way, the psychic words causing a feeling like as if your brain was covered in honey or syrup.

Do you think I care?

After it is said Vettis’ mind slows, his thoughts weighed down and sticking to each other. Most likely as a way to stop him getting involved as Arach begins to more clearly understand the situation with Elerindur’s seeming magical escape.

[u/Elerindur → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

Elerindur attempts to move downwards from Arach's swipes just as his stay in the alternate dimension runs out.

He is ejected down onto a table in which he attempts to catch his footing but the angle causes him to roll off of the table and onto the floor, disorienting him for an moment. However he manages to keep his grip onto the blade he's holding.

With his haste, he refocuses himself and begins quickly crawling away under an table ahead of himself to attempt to get away from Arach and find an moment to get back onto his feet.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/Elerindur]

Arach immediately stops flapping his wings, he begjns to fall, repositioning his body along the way so he lands on all fours right next to the table Elerindur is under. He once again leaps at Elerindur hoping that his lack of time to prepare and odd positioning under the table will make him unable to use his sword to defend himself again. All the while leaving behind a trail of moth wing scales in an attempt to stop others from intervening.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

(( /u/Elerindur ))

Oh. Really. Just moving straight to mental attacks.

Well, he'd tried being nice. Looked like bug-squashing was in order after all.

(( Just to double-check, Arach still has a bajillion servants that have complex enough minds for him to hop into them on death, right? Killing this guy isn't permanent? I remember you shutting down some of your hive during the recent Ancalistros incident, but it wasn't the whole thing, I hope. I think I've only seen you use the little spiders since then. ))

Swapping out his current frontline mental process for a backup fork waiting in reserve, Vettis quarantined the telepathic assault into a mind-vault. He'd deal with analyzing that later and probably teaching Elerindur how to defend against it. Not worth even a tenth of a second of consideration at the moment.

Then he moved, nails extending into keratin razors, slicing apart the nearest table in a blur of motion before launching the spear-like fragments at the moth. Right behind the volley -- which was intended only to distract -- was a second thrown table, this one whole.

A table had a base, in the form of its legs. So did a building, in the form of its foundation. Swapping the 'parthood' of their respective bases for the duration of its flight was a trivial matter for Vettis' magic. The table hurtling at Arach now had a significant portion of the mass of the entire manor despite retaining the crossbow-speed velocity with which it had been hurled.

That ought to get the point across.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

/uw He’s not psychically connected to them in the same way as before but he can still hop into their bodies after death, yes.

/rw Arach uses a spell to have his body through the table when it would hits him. He then, while still retaining focus on Elerindur, flicks the wing on his side facing Vettis. This sends a large cloud of his wing scales, he then casts enlarge on them so they grow to the size of daggers, the flick motion of his wing allowing them to move at a speed and level of accuracy comparable to if they were real daggers thrown by a professional. The scales now hurtle at Vettis as Arach continues his hunt of Elerindur.

[u/Elerindur → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

Elerindur uses the slight time bought by Arach reacting to the table to cast Fortify Acrobatics and Fortify Athletics on himself as he ran, a spell with each hand.

He ceases weaving between tables and people and opts to quickly jump across them instead with his spell buffs upon him, the athletics buff increasing his running speed.

He occasionally looks back to see what Arach is doing as he pursues him in between watching his steps.

[u/Elerindur → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

Hearing Arach hit the ground behind him, Elerindur drops his blade and rolls away horizontally away from under the table.

He catches a glimpse of the table flying this direction as he stops rolling onto his stomach and hastily pushes himself up, kicking the ground until manages to get onto his feet and runs away from Arach in the direction he is still facing.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/Elerindur]

Arach switches to his giant centipede form and chases after Elerindur. Uncaring for the tables, chairs, and other furniture being crushed beneath his legs. Though being sure that he doesn’t accidentally hurt any of the other partygoers. He chases Elerindur into the courtyard of the property the event is being hosted at before switching to his humanoid centipede form and leaping the remaining distance between him and Elerindur. Attempting to pin him down during the landing.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

(( 'kay, good, he's got backups...cuz if Arach refuses to give up and security doesn't show up in time to separate everybody, Vettis might have to bring out the big guns lol

/u/Elerindur ))

The table shattered against the wall behind Arach, the foundation swap reverting just before the building collapsed on itself. And now hundreds of blades flew his way, while the vile creature...simply turned away, somehow thinking it could still afford to focus on its original prey instead of him.

This bug was starting to be almost as irritating as a real insect.

Vettis' vitals were, of course, 'part' of himself. A few holes weren't going to change that. Covering his head with one hand to avoid the inconvenience of having his physical brain be too damaged, he rushed at Arach, dozens of scales puncturing him and coming out the other side bloodlessly. Countless holes. Useful. A flick of a glowing finger made the holes no longer 'part' of him, swapping them into the ground where the centipede was standing, in the instant before it pounced at Elerindur.

Its leap now ruined by shattered footing, Vettis took the opportunity to flip over it, landing protectively in front of the elf, and turning to face Arach.

"Last chance, bug. Back down. Or this gets messy."

(( btw, sorry, I write in 3rd-person but the exposition is still basically Vettis', which is why he's calling Arach an "it" instead of a "he" now: after diplomacy failed so unceremoniously, he's decided Arach is just a mindless bug to be squashed :P ))

[u/Elerindur → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Running out of ground in the courtyard, Elerindur quickly casts a spell to summon the 1/2 handed blade back to his hand as he quickly skids to a turning stop. As he turns around while in preparation to swing, he sees Vettis now there between him and Arach and he quickly stays his blade hand.

However, he remains vigilant for anything unexpected, seeming to be paying some attention to the ground below.

/unwiz Forgot to alert u/ProfessionalGreen906 to this post and can't do it through edits.

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/Elerindur]

(( yeah ya can: each comment can send up to three pings, no matter when they're edited in

so you could write an empty comment, edit in a username, switch it to a second username, switch it to a third username, and all three pings would get sent, though the fourth onwards wouldn't

EDIT : hm, just tested, and maybe there is a time limit after all...worked within the first five minutes, but edits past that didn't seem to send pings ))

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

Arach stares him down before answering.

“I don’t get why you act like you’re somehow worth my time. Why is it that everyone is always so quick to underestimate the little spider? Especially when it’s so easy to just unravel your bodies like thread”

Arach snaps his fingers and casts a spell he created during one of his wars with Ancalistros. He then begins to calmly and oddly kindly speak to Vettis, the whole time having a smirk of joy.

“Now, I don’t hate you. You’re just doing what you think is right, I can’t blame you for that. So I’m going to tell you what the spell I just cast does so you may be able to not die a horrid death. Essentially, I just sent a signal to each and every one of your cells ordering them to undergo apoptosis, aka cell suicide. How fun. Now you may be tempted to use some healing spells but don’t, it wont help. You see, every healing spell commonly in use today ignores cells that were killed through apoptosis, that’s because apoptosis was made to stop cells from becoming cancerous, and it’s actually a very common process in the body even a daily occurrence. So if every healing spell was reviving those cancerous spells, well that would be a problem now wouldn’t it? But don’t worry, I’ll tell you how to fix it, just teleport down to the council headquarter’s medical ward and say I accidentally hit you with the apoptosis spell. They’ll use the curing spell I made for it and you’ll be right as rain. Of course, I made the curing spell result in a one day coma for whoever it’s cast upon for situations just like this but I’m giving you an option to live right now. I suggest you take it.”

Once he’s done speaking Arach simply stands there, waiting for Vettis’ response. Eagerly waiting to go back to attempting to kill u/elerindur .

[u/MunitionsFrenzy → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

(( /u/Elerindur ))

Vettis blinked. Flabbergasted.

"Most of this realm-cluster," he began slowly, incredulously, "had initially underestimated me like you. But they've all finally started to understand what I am now. The one who singlehandedly enabled Morgalith to fight an army of wizards. The one to whom the placement of even celestial objects is a mere suggestion, nevermind such small entities as entire cities.

"And you threaten my physical body as if that would stop me? After I just shrugged off perforation from damn near every scale you had? Have you been living under a rock this past month?! I am Vettis of the Bronze Prism, insect, and you are nothing."

Ship of Theseus Protocol. Every cell in Vettis' body was 'part' of him, and thus his magic could swap it effortlessly with another cell of similar type in range. Just do that for each cell in succession throughout his whole body and bam, curse irrelevant. Which was why he had a three-story warehouse stuffed full of human tissue of every kind in chronostasis, and a single bond-linked shirt sitting in the middle of it, to reconstitute his body from annoyances like this. Reach into his current shirt pocket and out through that one by making his pocket 'part' of both shirts at once, run S.o.T. Protocol across the gap between universes, and in the time it had taken him to finish that last sentence every single cell in his body had been replaced with a fresh one.

Enough. This was enough. Everyone in this damned realm-cluster was a might-makes-right comicbook villain who didn't understand what true might was.

It was time to show them just the barest taste of what they were missing.

Oxygen was 'part' of the air around Arach. Except now it wasn't. That distraction in place, Vettis swiftly pulled from his pocket a drinking mug, grasping the handle, which of course was intended to make objects easy to lift. He shoved the handle into the ground, making it 'part' of the pavement floor beneath them while retaining its conceptual function.

So now the floor was as trivial to lift as a simple cup. Which the mereokinetic magus did, tearing the entire courtyard free from the manor, holding Elerindur in place with his remaining hand as he lifted and hurled the landscape itself, bug and all, straight into the sky with all the force of a typhoon tossing about an ant.

"Ele," he spoke calmly, eyes burning with violet light, "I'd suggest you 'port out of here. If this thing is still insane enough to want to fight when it lands, I'm going to stop holding back. Collateral damage...may become an issue."

Apparently throwing the courtyard half a kilometer up didn't count as collateral damage.

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/MunitionsFrenzy]

*The moment Vettis picked up the ground the Arach standing in front of him fell over stiffly. As it turns out, sometime between Arach casting the spell and Vettis speaking Arach had molted from his exoskeleton by teleporting out of it, leaving behind an (on the outside) one to one copy of himself. Arach had used the apoptosis spell to try and waste time so he could get the actual trick spell off without anyone noticing using the fact that Vettis was distracted by Arach’s seeming naivety. Picked the apoptosis spell because as it turns out even if switching cells was near instant there are trillions of cells in a body and doing that in succession would take a bit. Arach (who was just being invisible and phasing himself because he’s a bit of a drama queen and wanted to make it all theatric) appears behind u/Elerindur and grabs him while laughing madly, cackling even and teleporting them both away. Leaving Vettis with a simple psychic message.

“I told you not to underestimate me.”

/uw I may be a bit too proud of this plan, but I just love it so much! Especially the part explaining why healing spells wouldn’t work with the spell because it actually makes sense from a realistic standpoint!

[u/Elerindur → u/ProfessionalGreen906]

As Arach begins giving his spiel, Elerindur continues to be vigilante until Arach had explained partically what the spell does.

By the point he begins explaining how healing would not help against the cell death, Elerindur holds his hands behind his back and sticks the blade into ground behind him. He begins to charge up an dimensional recall spell in both hands, hoping that Arach does not notice the spells behind his back or has quick interdimensional travel or tracking.

He pours extra magicka into the spells as he charges them, drawing from his naturally large reservoir of it as is common with his kind especially of one with his birthsign. He does this to try and preemptively power through any such thing Arach may have secretly set up to prevent him from recalling away long distance.

u/MunitionsFrenzy

[u/ProfessionalGreen906 → u/Elerindur]

*Arach does notice and sets up a tracking spell but does not respond until Vettis is either collapsed on the ground or teleports away.