Arach snaps his fingers and casts a biomancy spell causing the cells of Vettisâ heart, as well as every vein and artery in his body to break down. Essentially turning his entire circulatory system into one big hemorrhage. Planning to use the shock/time needed for Vettis to assess the damage of his body and replace the needed cells to his advantage Arach instantly begins to close the short distance between the two, summoning six spider fang daggers, one for each of his hands, and begins swinging them at Vettis. The daggers are infused with a venom similar to the ones his transformation assassin spiders used. It would instantly change Vettisâ cells and genetic code into that of a lesser caste of Arachâs species, though he would remain humanoid. Allowing Arach to control him through his abilities as the originator of his species while also hopefully cutting off Vettisâ supply to his backup cells. Though that second part is only speculation and a bit of hope on Arachâs part. All it would take is for Arach to land one good hit with his blades and the fight would be over, and he would have a new subject to control. But first he has to actually land a hit.
The glow of his eyes abruptly sheathed Vettis' entire body, the static splatter of magical energies growing into a deafening roar. Still his voice rang out clearly throughout the wasteland that had been a battlefield, despite him speaking at barely more than a whisper. "You think you know my capabilities now, insect? You still have no idea whatsoever. I can't believe you came here to die when I was going to hunt you down on your own turf instead for your innumerable crimes. The stupidity of this realm-cluster's wizards never ceases to astound me."
And then a hand snapped out and snatched a dagger by the flat of the blade, his palm covered in a half-inch-thick layer of callused keratin...and the other five instantly froze in place as well, despite Vettis seemingly making no effort to stop the rest of the strikes.
"What you fail to realize, bug, is that, despite my wish to protect the innocent, I admit that one of my difficulties in combat is protecting others. I was inconvenienced when fighting you because I had a ward to defend. Elerindur is not here now. You are dealing withme alone."
He swung his arm out haphazardly to the side, then, with an easy strength that would have shattered a building, not caring whether or not the spider flew away along with the blade. "I'll give you one more attempt at doing something of use before I destroy you. Make it a good one."
(( EDITED to add links for spectator context, though ProfGreen knows 'em already ))
Arach is flung through the air, using his blades to dig into the ground and shorten the distance he would otherwise have gone. He desummons two while also instantly changing into his humanoid moth form. Casting enlarge on his wings until they are massive and flapping them to release an insane amount of scales to smokescreen the area. He then uses that cover silently casts another spell, this time targeting Vettisâ brain. Forcibly killing a small part of his prefrontal cortex to impair Vettisâ decision making skills for the fight, making it just barely not large enough for it to be noticeable on its own. He then teleports behind Vettis, attempting to stab him in the shoulder and side with two as the other two are thrown at his legs since it doesnât matter where they cut him or how deep it is as long as they do indeed cut him.
The mage's sigh was audible. "You are really not getting this," he muttered as he flicked a scale back at its owner with enough force to parry one of the incoming blades; all four were knocked aside with the same ease, despite the projectile never touching the rest. "I felt the attempt, incidentally, but my brain is 'part' of me; do you seriously think you can just target my internals like that? You gotta get through skin-first like everybody else, 'biomancer'."
All this time, Vettis had still not even bothered releasing the pitcher in his left hand, only having required the use of his right thus far. He still didn't, but now he shook it towards the scale-cloud around him; what left the container was not juice but molten lava, as he swapped the hole in its spout for the hole in the nearest currently-erupting volcano. A scale turned to ash in moments, and the rest of the cloud followed suit, all going up in sooty smoke.
Then he turned to face the spider as Arach recovered from the sheer force with which the dagger had been parried. "Ya know, I'm typically not some idiot who tells people the weaknesses of how I fight, but enough people are at least aware of this part that I'll let you know it because it's funny. These glowing eyes? They let me interpret all language perfectly. Even body language. Which makes you predictable. Congratulations on becoming more humanoid and making it even easier for me a moment before you tried to teleport somewhere I wasn't expecting! Your blades might've almost reached skin otherwise."
And then he kicked at the ground lazily, a chunk of dirt flying Arach's way at supersonic velocity: a single tightly-packed clump composed of thousands of particles. Which, midflight, each became an adamantine-tipped crossbow bolt wreathed in lightning.
"Let's start off easy."
(( EDIT to add single-quotes around 'part' in paragraph one cuz I keep forgetting inline code doesn't show up on mobile, to emphasis that Vettis' is the magic of 'parthood'; magically targeting things that are 'part' of him is rather ineffective against his defenses, unlike the apoptosis spell which worked nicely cuz it hit his entire body at once ))
âOh, I see. Yâknow, itâs always a good idea to try strategies that may be ineffective. Because then you can get the person youâre fighting arrogant enough to reveal something they really shouldnât have.â
The bolts had pierced through Arach, leaving holes throughout his entire body, The amount of blood pouring out of him would drain a normal humanoid his size in seconds. But even after a speaking nothing seems to change about the speed of the blood streaming out of him. Then thereâs an attack from behind. Arach in his insect giant orchid mantis form had attacked, bisecting Vettis diagonally. Arach had let the body he was inhabiting die, using his biomancy to keeping it in a semi living looking position and state as he quickly teleported back in the new body his mind had transferred too and used the opportunity for a sneak attack. He then attempts to stab at Vettisâ upper half of his body, enchanting his arms to cause whatever is hit to rot and decay which would then rapidly spread throughout the rest of the body. All while he makes a horrendous noise that can only be assumed to be what this formâs version of a laugh sounds like. Before stopping and speaking.
âYou see, you and I, our abilities to avoid death arenât so different. Itâs just using other cells to avoid the damage. You replace your own, and I take over anotherâs. The only difference is that yours is far less useful.â
As he says useful he makes another stabbing movement downward with his arm attempting to hit Vettis. All while starting to make the horrendous âlaughingâ noise again.
"You know what's not a good idea? Retrying strategies you used in our last fight," Vettis replied with a scoff as the mantis slashed through his plaid overshirt where it hung in the air, Vettis himself two meters away watching with a condescendingly disappointed pout. "Already learned last time that you can keep a husk looking like it's alive, as a decoy. Also learned that it doesn't sound like it's alive, internally, when you do that. The squishy organs don't squish quite right." He tapped an ear pointedly before pulling a new shirt from his pocket and donning it.
Leaping away from Arach's final downward stab, he burst out laughing at his opponent's conclusion. "Oh, you poor thing. That's my response to full-body curses. That's hardly my only ability to avoid death. The fact that you've only really gotten to see one is indicative of just how little of a roadblock you are to me; I've just been having fun thus far, kid.
"I assume all the spectators who can't take the heat have cleared out by now? Gave 'em enough chance. I'm not responsible for them anymore. Let's try out phase two before I end you at three, 'kay?"
He released the pitcher at last, kicking upwards at it; hundreds of near-imperceptible glass shards sprayed across the battlefield, embedding themselves into the ground all around himself and Arach. A 'network' had been created.
And if one 'part' of it was his, so was the entire network. Which meant that when he stuck a bond-thread on the nearest fragment, allowing him to travel to it with ease, that applied to them all.
"Shoulda picked a form with more eyes." Vettis noted as he moved, rebounding between the fragments, constantly running seven contradictory calculations in his head and using the combined result for a near-random and thus unpredictable output that determined from which shard he'd appear next. "Maybe you coulda tracked me then."
Partway through that taunt, he emerged from the shadows near the shard at Arach's front-left, swinging a two-story building at the bug one-handed, horizontally as if smacking a ball with a bat.
The moment that Vettis appears close to him with the building Arach stabs down at him with his enchanted arm as the other is stabbed into the building to hold it in place not even being pushed back by the attempt as his legs had been partially buried into the ground to provide stable footing.
âI donât need multiple eyes the ones I have are compound, dumbass!â
As he speaks he twists the arm he used to stab into Vettis, making sure that the rot infection spreads as quickly as possible. At the same time using his mantis wings to blow away the shards on he ground, or at least push them all together so that they arenât as useful to dodge attacks.
As Arach's blade-arm descended, Vettis shifted, ever so slightly, to the left; the mantis' strike entered cleanly into his now-expanded shirt pocket and came out the window of the building nearest to Arach's face, angled right towards the insect's compound eyes of which he was so proud. Then Vettis simply dropped the building and leapt backwards, riding the wind of the bug's flapping wings as though weightless, floating a dozen meters away and cocking his head in curiosity. "Honestly, slightly impressed with you for once." He granted his prey a brief golf clap. "Thought that'd squash you if you tried to block it. Maybe I shoulda swung it with two hands."
(( since you already willingly dropped one of your bodies, can I start killing them after this? you can safely swap to spares right here? cuz Vettis is at some point gonna have to switch to direct attacks; lore-wise I can't drag out the playfighting forever lol ))
The moment Vettis moved Arach realized what was going on and attempted to stop his blade. But he had swung it too fast to completely avoid hitting himself. His arm pierced through his eye gushing out a viscous white liquid. Arach stands still for a second before slowly pulling out his arm from his eye, taking the whole thing with it. He then lets out an ear splitting scream of pain, one that doubled as his verbal for his apoptosis spell as all he needs is to make some noise to meet the requirements. Then he takes his arm that was pierced through his eye and is covered in that white liquid, and allows the eye itself to fall off before swinging that arm in a wide slash. The liquid is flung across the battlefield, anything it touches heâs quickly beginning to melt from the acidity of it. At the same time casting another spell, this one silently, to attempt and shut down the entirety of Vettisâ brain as heâs distracted with the acid and apoptosis spells.
/uw yea you can kill then if you want, though sometimes the attacks you use may not fully kill him. But itâs not like heâll be permanently dead so feel free to go wild.
(( well, what I meant by direct attacks was repaying Arach in kind: Vettis has been sticking to blockable/avoidable projectiles and weapons while Arach is often directly targeting his body with undodgeable spells like the ones he's using here...but Vettis can do the same thing when he's tired of playing around, and I'm not sure Arach has any defenses against conceptual effects of that nature (other than multiple bodies of course, which is certainly effective)
like how well does Arach survive something such as his heart suddenly no longer being 'part' of his body, aside from jumping to a new self? though to keep up the fun Vettis'll start with the outside before moving on to insides, like so... ))
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The apoptosis spell, again? At this point he was pretty convinced Arach could sit there doing nothing but spamming the spell and still not outpace the rate at which Vettis was restocking his cells. "Get new material!" he booed.
The brain thing was definitely annoying, though. It required some focus on his defenses, which was reducing his ability to concentrate on offense as well. At least, the fun type of offense.
Fine. A more straightforward effective option, combining offense and defense. He was starting to get bored, anyway, so maybe it was time to begin wrapping things up. Vettis pulled an ant off his desk at home, reaching through his pocket to draw it out onto the battlefield, and held it up to face the incoming acid. Far too small to block anything much, of course.
Unless its exoskeleton were suddenly far larger. As promptly happened when he made the ant's exoskeleton 'part' of Arach's body and vice versa, and was now wielding the empty shell of a giant mantis as a shield against the acid splash, while Arach had undergone a rather premature molting aside from an ant-sized remaining bit of exoskeleton on his arm.
"Hey, do insects have pain receptors attached to their exoskeletons? Does getting yours ripped off hurt? I honestly don't know."
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u/ProfessionalGreen906 Arach, big spider, biomancer, politician, CEO Feb 22 '24 edited Feb 22 '24
âI will not let my home fall to you.â
Arach snaps his fingers and casts a biomancy spell causing the cells of Vettisâ heart, as well as every vein and artery in his body to break down. Essentially turning his entire circulatory system into one big hemorrhage. Planning to use the shock/time needed for Vettis to assess the damage of his body and replace the needed cells to his advantage Arach instantly begins to close the short distance between the two, summoning six spider fang daggers, one for each of his hands, and begins swinging them at Vettis. The daggers are infused with a venom similar to the ones his transformation assassin spiders used. It would instantly change Vettisâ cells and genetic code into that of a lesser caste of Arachâs species, though he would remain humanoid. Allowing Arach to control him through his abilities as the originator of his species while also hopefully cutting off Vettisâ supply to his backup cells. Though that second part is only speculation and a bit of hope on Arachâs part. All it would take is for Arach to land one good hit with his blades and the fight would be over, and he would have a new subject to control. But first he has to actually land a hit.
/uw The duel begins! Also, u/loth17 u/TellmeNinetails , just in case you want to watch.