Every time William moved to make another approach towards the mage the tentacle slashed in, quickly as a whip. While it was easy enough to dodge the tentacle or to parry its slashes at the edge of its threatened area, moving in was starting to seem more and more improbable. From out here there were only so many angles that the blade could come from. Even two pillars inside the tentacles reach would let the construct come at him from any direction. There was no way that William was getting into melee range with the mage without drastically changing his plans.
That annoyed William but it was something he could deal with. Facing off against a variety of abilities was one of his main draws to keep coming back to the Citadel. He’d faced dozens of opponents in these magical chambers, each with a completely different and surprising array of special skills that kept him on the tips of his toes. Seemingly insurmountable odds were only that way until you shifted your thinking process to uncover the flaws that lie within them. Adapt or die, that was William’s belief and he wouldn’t begrudge the mage for presenting a difficult lock to pick.
What William could hold against the man was the slight smirk his face as he settled his posture. The spirits-damned bastard had no intention of actually entering the arena to fight. Only to throw up a formidable defense and let the pillars tumble under his opponents. One by one William and the faun would lose available footing until there was nowhere to go but under the reach of the mage’s tentacles or into the abyss. That level of cowardice lit a rage in William’s gut that was reserved for the people who William truly hated.
All but one of those people had been dead a long, long time.
William whipped his scythe out and slapped the mage’s tentacle away from him once again. He’d taken up a position on one of the already triggered pillars while he thought his next move. The seconds that he’d stood still had increased the pillar’s falling speed to the point where William could feel it the motion beneath him. He waited for the tentacle to spin into a new arc before leaping to another previously triggered pedestal. At least that plan had worked in his favor. But with the mage making no sign that he would ever join the fray, losing even one pedestal was a devastating blow.
A hideous bellow drew William’s attention, loud enough that he could hear it even over the howling winds around him. He spun, expecting to see the faun bearing down on him but the creature had simply swelled to enormous proportions as she had leapt into the arena. Her fox was also undergoing some sort of transformation, though it showed no sign of joining the fray at this time.
“Better one than nothing,” William grumbled.
The faun’s new massive stature would prove an interesting diversion, but William wasn’t sure how tactical it would be to increase one’s center of mass while balancing over an endless void. She’d gained reach and likely increased strength and toughness from that bulky frame, though a cursory glance with his destructive enlightenment told William that the transformed state didn’t grant the faun any defensive capabilities that would shield her any more than her naturally tough skin and armor would. Her transformed nature also meant that all William would have to do was to push her off-balance and let gravity do the rest.
Despite her form change, William still considered the mage the more dangerous opponent. Now that both he and the faun were in the Dancing Stones it would only be a matter of time to failure if they left the shadow mage to his own devices. It was critically important that he find a way through the man’s defense.
William turned his attention back to the mage just in time to see the man’s conjured spears of ice fly in his direction. He reacted without thought, the warrior’s instinct he’d honed through hours in the Citadel kicking him into motion. Jumping from the last pillar had taken William completely out of the tentacle’s reach, but the way that the mage had splayed his projectiles left the revenant covered no choice but to dive back inside.
Thankful that he’d loosened his arm by batting at the tentacle and its sword, William’s weapon slapped away the first two spears as he leapt into their midst. Two snaps of ice behind William told him that another two had slammed into the pillar only just a second after he’d left. And yet another spear sailed harmlessly by William as its momentum carried it on a deadly trajectory for where he had been.
It was an impressive display of reflexes to have dealt with five icy missiles in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately the mage had sent seven missiles to attack William. He brought his clawed hand up to meet the first spear in a fumbling attempt to slap the attack aside. The bone splintered where the ice lance struck, drawing an involuntary gasp from the revenant. Blood like liquid fire poured from the wound, hissing as it boiled over the body of the ice weapon. But the spear’s magic wasn’t finished, and William found that the spear shattered as it struck and formed an inch thick coating of ice that covered the bone carapace of his right arm from claw to elbow. Normal ice would have cracked instantly upon meeting William’s super-heated skin and blood, but this ice was tougher stuff and was slow to melt under his heat.
Frustrating as that was, it was only a minor wound compared to the last spear, which struck William with enough force to hurl him back against the pillar from which he’d just jumped. The weapon tore through William’s body easily and pinned him against the side of the pillar just below the surface which had already been iced over thanks to the first two spears which had struck it. The mage’s icecraft flowed around the searing wound in William’s shoulder, the thick ice from it bonding with the rest of it on the pillar.
Though the attack had been painful, William had experienced worse and pushed through it. His mind cried out for a moment to let his healing take away the pain but William knew he didn’t have that luxury. He was pinned against a pillar that was dropping with increasing speed and every second he spent bound to it brought him closer to the abyss.
William considered dropping his warscythe, but he’s already dropped all his other gear into the swirling abyss. It would be almost impossible to win against these foes with nothing more than his claws. But he needed his one good hand to free himself and to keep from plummeting off the side of the pillar the moment he did so. As painful as it would be, William knew that he needed to free his wounded hand and that he couldn't afford to be squeamish about it.
Heat drew into William as the revenant focused the power of his molten core from the air around him and transferred it to his limps. The bone carapace on his arms and legs responded instantly, transforming completely into lava-like molten fire. Pain lanced up William’s arm as he flexed the now-molten limb against the ice that covered it. Strong as he was, William suspected that the best result he could have hoped for without the fire would have been to crack the magically toughened ice before falling out of the arena. With the fire however, the task was much easier. It took only a second for the cracks to appear in the sweating ice and only another half a second of force before the ice completely shattered.
Though his hand screamed in protest, William transferred his scythe to it and clamped down to make sure that he didn’t lose it. His healing had already started to secure the bone carapace back together but he’d have to fight through it until then. He was still in danger and he was getting angry about it. Here he was, desperately scrambling for his life over a yawning darkness because he’d played by the arena’s rules while the mage smugly stood above him.
There was nothing in the world that William wanted more at that moment than to crush the man’s skull with his bare hands.
Roaring, William struck the ice covering his shoulder, digging his burning, pointed claws into its mass. He anchored the claws of his unwounded hand there and then the burning claws on his feet against the side of the drooping pillar itself and then with a strength that could crush rock to dust he heaved. A fresh burst of pain shot stars in front of his eyes as the twisting force of his motion pulled against the hole in his shoulder. He flexed as hard as he could but even so felt something slide loose with a pop inside. Steaming blood gushed into the ice from the wound, joining the molten fire on his arms and weakened the ice that much further. And then he was free, the ice shattering off his straining shoulder without warning.
Only a hand span of stone remained between William and the edge of the arena. He knew that he didn’t have time to get his bearings, but there were still enough untouched pillars around him that William simply kicked off his rapidly dwindling perch and flailed for another. It was an awkward, ugly jump, and it didn’t take him that much further up the next pillar over, but it was enough to save him from an untimely demise.
Stone splintered under William’s claws as he gripped this new pillar. It hadn’t been touched yet so its movement was still glacially slow. That would change now that he was on it, and it would only get worse the longer he took to catch his breath. Besides, he couldn’t afford to take his time to recover while that mage was still smirking on his platform.
William bit down on the pain and started climbing the pillar. He allowed his injured arm to hang limply at his side so as not to cause any further damage to it while his regeneration stitched him back together. The progress he made was slow and awkward, but it was progress nonetheless. Still, there rapidly came a moment when the downward momentum from the pillar's increasing descent matched the speed at which he could climb. When that occurred, William steadied himself and then kicked off to hurl himself towards another pillar.
This jump was far more controlled than the previous one, and William had chosen one of the nearby pillars that he'd already triggered on his first assault. It had moved for some time now, but the brief amount of time that he'd stood on the pillar meant that it was still falling at a relatively slow pace. Not that he had much choice in the matter. Three pillars in the surrounding area had already fallen into the abyss, and this one would soon be joining the others. That didn't count all the other pillars like the one on which he now perched, the ones that he had previously triggered. Though their descents were as slow as this one, enough time had passed that they were decidedly low enough to be functionally useless. This would likely be the last bit of use he could get from them. So much for his backup plan.
The winds of the arena whipped through the lower reaches of the pillars as ferociously as they did above, but they'd been enchanted only to adversely effect creatures who were flying. Since they hadn't bothered William during his awkward, flailing jumps between the stone stalks, he assumed that they understood the difference between flying and jumping really far. It was time to take a risk.
The edge of the Dancing Stones was slightly visible through the forest of pillars. Given how the path of descending stones lie in relation to that edge, William felt relatively certain that he knew where the mage's platform was. He readied himself, transferring the warscythe back to his agile hand and ducking into a low squat. When all was ready, William leaped into the air with all the power that he could muster.
He shot off the pillar like an uncoiling spring and sailed over the field of the Dancing Stones with ease. True enough to his belief, he had moved inside the guard of the mage's tentacle and was facing the man's platform. The tentacle lashed mindlessly at him, driving its blade at him. William thrust his blade out to meet the attack and knocked it viciously aside. Before it could whip back around he gathered his energy into a molten ball of fire and launched the explosive magma shot towards the mage's position. The shot arced forward under the tentacles squirming mass, but William had aimed the shot so that it wouldn't directly affect the mage himself, but would instead fall under the mage's platform before detonating. Down there the explosion would hopefully do enough damage to the platform to destabilize it and force the mage out into the Dancing Stones. William just hoped that the tentacles weren't intelligent enough to understand his plan.
Come on asshole, he snarled to himself. Time to join the fun.
