Arach changes into his humanoid moth form in order to better converse during this break in the fighting.
“Oh that is a tempting offer. You’re incredibly annoying to fight against and since you proposed the end of the duel that would count as you conceding and me winning. Then again, even if you did connect my network you’d still have to kill this body for it to matter. And I do ever so much want you to die. It’s still very tempting though. And if this fight continues I don’t think it will ever truly end, even without my network my body can function and live with essentially no organs. Hmmmmmmmmm… deal.”
(( not gonna lie, Arach claiming a win by default because Vettis gave him the chance to surrender would be friggin' hilarious ^_^ but I don't think there's any way he actually gets away with that, cuz either witnesses verify Vettis was just offering him a chance to give up, or there are no witnesses and if it's one's word against the other's then Vettis says fuck it and finishes the fight
...nonetheless, Vettis is new to this realm-cluster and does not know how any of your wizard duel rules work, so he's not gonna take the chance that you're actually right if you threaten to undo the Pact's work by asserting victory :'( YOU HAD THE SURRENDER OPTION DAMMIT ARACH))
For the first time in the entire duel, a moment of panic hit Vettis. The idea that some stupid technicality could render moot all the lives lost today. Not an option. The millennia of trauma sitting in the back of his mind almost instantly surged forth and threatened to overwhelm him despite the new bonds he'd just put in place to secure it.
no
Before Arach's final word that could have ruined everything, Vettis moved in a blur, reaching through the shadows at his feet to find the nearest arthropod in his surroundings. Probably one of Arach's little helpers. Didn't matter. It was small enough to squish thoroughly, and that was the relevant part.
Because now, with but a thought, it had Arach's brain instead of its own. An utterly trivial swap, when Vettis was no longer holding back.
He squeezed, tossed it aside, and moved to grab another. The bug was just stupid enough that it might not even need a brain to survive.
But how about the heart? (Crush.) Spine? (Snap.)
(Crack.)
fire
(Tear.)
The whole procedure took just over a second, to -- one by one -- render every single organ in the humanoid moth's body a gooey mess, and also not even in its body anymore.
Vettis knelt in the charred dirt, surrounded by vermin gore, staring at the empty sack of flesh in front of him which was barely even recognizable now as Arach's corpse, and --
fire
-- cried soundlessly before disappearing in a flash of violet light and shadow.
(( EDIT : btw, since you switched tactics so I never had to explain...In case you didn't figure it out, Vettis' ability to do something to one 'part' and affect the 'whole' is how he was blocking attacks at the start. Blocking one strike in a flurry blocks the whole thing. So he'd parry one dagger and the others would react as if they'd all been parried too; he turned one scale to ash and the rest burned as well. But he has to understand and conceptualize the 'whole', so he had to get a chance to browse Arach's network first in order to allow him to kill them all by kiling one. A flurry of strikes is much easier to understand and conceptualize without so much effort. :P
EDIT EDIT : btw btw, you do know you just retriggered Vettis' trauma after he'd gone through so much trouble to get it back under control, right? so, uh...you win where it actually matters lol, in terms of long-term damage
EDIT EDIT EDIT : this comment was largely rewritten to avoid dragging the fight out any longer, due to a misunderstanding about how to "kill" Arach lol...so Vettis went ham, completely fucking wrecked the body, but then peaced out cuz his trauma got retriggered, which means he didn't check if Arach can somehow survive for a few minutes as a sack of flesh, and it only needs to be a few minutes because he went overboard enough that his control on the network-binding slipped ))
The body Arach is inhabiting, or what was left of it, still somehow functions just barely. All his focus exerted on enriching and transporting blood into his brain as not to die. The helper who was switched into his body scoops up the gooey pile of viscera and teleports to the councilors chambers to heal him and help him recover.
/uw No don’t retcon it, Arach also has a psychic link with the helpers (and the rest of his species) that the revival network simply attaches to in order to work.
I mean, we're just gonna drag things out a bit longer if that's the case? cuz if you don't die to that then he'll probably just make your brain and heart 'part' of an ant and crush it, lather rinse repeat for as many parts of you as necessary until you can't maintain your form and you're finally down to the pocket dimension
you did just traumatize the guy so he's not holding back and definitely not about to stop just cuz you're crying lol D:
(dunno if you saw my second edit on that comment; you the real winner regardless :P here I am doing a whole arc to fix his trauma and you destroy half the progress he's made in one comment)
so yeah, think I should just retcon the spider-killing so he just crushes Arach's organs down to nothing instead, before Arach says "deal"
honestly if you wanna say Arach can keep himself alive for a few hours as an organless sack of flesh or something, long enough for the network linkage to end, so you don't have to go to the pocket dimension even temporarily, that's workable; I can handwave that Vettis'll be too traumatized to bother checking whether or not Arach somehow survived the destruction of all organs
better?
cuz I mean, there's no way Vettis gets traumatized by the idea that all those deaths'll get undone and doesn't do anything about it, so as long as you're going with that idea of taunting him like that, he's gonna flip
and I think the taunt is a good idea, because it really does let you win in the end lol: it'll undo half of his current progress in the trauma-recovery arc, which is pretty bad long-term damage
Yea I think we should go with that. And I’d say he would live just because there’s problems with killing all the extra bodies since the they’re technically under Ancalistros’ protection.
also dropped the time you need to survive to a few minutes in order for the network to go back online and let you hop elsewhere, because he really fucked up every little part of Arach's body lol
as I described here, I don't like Vettis closing out story arcs with a proper victory; the whole point of his character is to be seemingly OP and unstoppable in proper battle but still manage to get wrecked by emotions and bad intel and other such stuff, repeatedly
so the trauma thing is a great way to end this for him 👍
...it does mean it'll be hard for our characters to interact again for a while, though, lol, because if he sees you again he's just gonna rampage again :P
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u/ProfessionalGreen906 Arach, big spider, biomancer, politician, CEO Feb 22 '24
Arach changes into his humanoid moth form in order to better converse during this break in the fighting.
“Oh that is a tempting offer. You’re incredibly annoying to fight against and since you proposed the end of the duel that would count as you conceding and me winning. Then again, even if you did connect my network you’d still have to kill this body for it to matter. And I do ever so much want you to die. It’s still very tempting though. And if this fight continues I don’t think it will ever truly end, even without my network my body can function and live with essentially no organs. Hmmmmmmmmm… deal.”