10-14-2013, 04:50 AM
“Your friend?” his scarlet eyes swept from the dying, wheezing man back to Sif’s angry countenance. “You didn’t even seem particularly shocked when I struck him. Even now he’s in agony, and you’d rather fight me than tend to him.”
“He was more than a friend, you son of a bitch!” the ‘guide’ screeched, hurling a blast of orange energy at Magus. Sif’s fury meant he’d telegraphed everything about his attack; the Fiendlord hardly had to hurry to sidestep it.
He arched a blue eyebrow. “Your eg g lover, then?”
Sif twitched, but the two of them became blanketed in a suffocating silence. It was all the confirmation Magus needed. He thought it somewhat amusing; he’d meant the quip as a bit of an insult, not as a catalyst to learn a deeper truth about the man he now had to fight. “You should learn to keep your guard up,” he said. “Your arrogance will get you killed.”
Magus smirked, regarding Sif through lazy, half-lidded eyes. He wore an expression of supreme confidence as he began to speak. “Sif… you had come to myself and Link,” he looked over toward the boy to see him handily competing with the three wizards on his own. “Looking to turn us into your… slaves,” he chose the word because it was less disturbing than the other option, but he said it with no less contempt. “And you call me arrog-AUURGH-!!”
He saw white. He saw stark, empty white, like the Nexus, only without the fountain and strange people there. A horrible, searing pain dug into and crawled through his flesh, centered on his right shoulder and radiating outward to every inch of his body.
Magus couldn’t even begin to describe it. It was like every form of pain he had ever felt in his entire life, plus many other ones he’d never felt before, at the same time sublime and horrific, all tore at him at the same time. Sharp and dull pain, acute and nagging pain, every kind of pain he could imagine, it all assaulted him from somewhere beyond that veil of white.
Someone was screaming at him. He couldn’t really tell from where; his hearing seemed dull and disconnected, and without being able to see, he didn’t have any reference points anyway.
The white at the edges of his vision gave way to tendrils of black. Horrible, slithering, greasy blackness. It snaked toward him, writhing and squirming, its aura cold and vile. Its inherent wrongness screamed at him, made him shiver involuntarily. It felt like… necromancy. Only, Magus was no stranger to necromancy, despite its hideous nature. This felt somehow worse. He had to push it back.
He closed his apparently useless eyes and focused. He concentrated on sheathing himself with his magic, coating every part of himself with a semisolid magical membrane. That done, he reached within himself for the now-limited well of power he possessed, and commanded it to come spilling out, overflowing out of him as powerfully as he could muster.
His own energy fed into the sheath, before pushing it outward, sending it crashing into the tendrils of sickly magic trying to get at him. The uneasiness began to fade, and suddenly he found himself able to determine the source of the screaming.
It was him.
Magus stopped shouting, his throat now ragged and hoarse, and opened his eyes. Sif wore an expression somewhere between confidence and arousal, but immediately a brief look of astonishment betrayed him before he could mask it again.
“I thought I had you,” Sif declared. “You took that hit straight on without even knowing it was coming. Most people don’t come back from that even when the see it coming. Still, look how worn out you are,” he licked his lips. “It will be delicious to break you.”
Magus was sitting on the backs of his legs, knees on the concrete, his arms pinned to his sides like they were made of the same material. His scythe lay useless at his side, and he was covered in a sheen of cold sweat, his hair matted on his forehead. “What…” he paused, catching his breath. “What did you do to me?”
“Oh, did you like it?” Sif’s face split in a toothy, disturbing grin. “I turned the blast around behind you, sent it straight into your back. You were being sarcastic at the time, I believe. But did you enjoy it? The sensation, I mean,”
“It’s something I’ve spent a long time cooking up, as a result of my experiments. I… when I break people, I find it’s always more effective when I’ve discovered some kind of deep, personal truth about them. Some deep-seated pain, suffering, or weakness hidden away. The torture, physical and mental, once it reveals a secret like that, the person’s resolve has cracked just a tiny bit. Turn that personal truth against them and the rest of their defenses crumble away,”
“As for the magic I used against you, to be honest, I haven’t really considered a name for it, yet. It’s reserved for particularly resilient subjects, like yourself. You should consider it a bit of a compliment; I’m very good at what I do,” Sif grinned his stupid grin again.
“You’re insane. You don’t know anything about me,” the Fiendlord growled, gathering his will but remaining where he was. He couldn’t play his hand just yet. “What does any of your rambling nonsense have to do with knowing me?”
“Ah, but I’ve learned all I need to know about you,” Sif smiled and closed his eyes, forcing Magus to curl his lip in disgust at the hooded man who moaned and licked his lips. “You see, that pain or weakness hidden away is activated by my particular brand of magic. I draw it up, my power feeds on it. The more suffering a person bears, the more effective the magic. The more you hurt,” he chuckled.
“I’ve never heard someone scream like that. It… mmm… it made me shiver all over. You’ve spent your whole life torturing yourself and destroying everyone around you, haven’t you? Looking for her.”
Magus’ eyes went wide. No, he couldn’t know about her. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, cut the nonsense, Janus,” Sif pulled back his cowl to reveal his face. He was a pale man. Clean shaven with short brown hair. A small scar marked his cheek. But it was the fiery orange glow of his eyes - the same orange as the devilish energy that had struck Magus - that stood out. “I know who you are. I know what Mommy Dearest did to you and your sister. I know you’ve spent all this time searching for Scha-”
“Don’t you fucking say another word!!” the Fiendlord thundered, rolling to his right and over his scythe. He deftly snatched it up as he rolled up onto his feet, charging right at Sif.
“Yes!” the pain mage cackled. “You’ve already lost!!”
Sif laughed maniacally as he willed that orange power back into his hands, unleashing another burst of that heinous power. Magus saw it. He didn’t care. “Oooh, I know what I’m going to do when I’m done with you, Janus!” he shouted. “I’m going to find her, and I’m going to do much worse to her than I did to you for what you did to Ryland!”
Magus’ eyes darkened, and with a roar, he brought the blade of his scythe down on the crackling orange energy, detonating it in a harmless burst of light and motes.
Magus didn’t have time to register that it must have only been effective on contact with a living creature, one that could think and therefore feel and appreciate pain. His thoughts were all focused on what he’d do next.
He whirled the staff of his scythe around in his hand, to bring the spear-end opposite the blade to bear and hurled himself at Sif, impaling the stunned wizard and running him clean through before kicking him in the gut as with all of his gathered momentum, grotesquely sliding him off the scythe.
Sif hit the ground with a grunt and began to cough. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and flecks of it fell on his face and chin from the coughing. His breaths were ragged and wheezy.
“You sound like your lover did in his last moments,” Magus’ eyes swept from Sif to Ryland - now a fresh corpse - and back again. Magus’ eyes were cold, but not the kind of cold they usually were. Eyes that were normally overburdened, weary, and disinterested were now fizzing and buzzing with bloodlust. “But I’m not going to let you meet him just yet.”
Magus stepped over Ryland’s corpse and picked up the heavy, iron rod he’d intended to use as a weapon. It was clearly an instrument meant to maximize pain and suffering. Good.
He looked over at Link. The sorceress was clearly a skilled elemental mage, seen easily by the enormous electrical storms generated from her fingertips. Magus considered this also to be good. Link seemed to be able to handle himself, and the boy being occupied left Magus and Sif alone for the moment.
He casually walked over to Sif, who lay bleeding next to his dead companion. He stood, gazing down at the beaten magister.
“Just-”
He didn’t wait for what Sif had to say. With a primal grunt, Magus swung the rod down hard onto Sif’s right kneecap, shattering it with a splintering pop. Sif screamed an animalistic scream, his whole body writhing and contorting in sick agony, and Magus brought the rod down again onto Sif’s remaining good knee, crushing it.
“He was more than a friend, you son of a bitch!” the ‘guide’ screeched, hurling a blast of orange energy at Magus. Sif’s fury meant he’d telegraphed everything about his attack; the Fiendlord hardly had to hurry to sidestep it.
He arched a blue eyebrow. “Your eg g lover, then?”
Sif twitched, but the two of them became blanketed in a suffocating silence. It was all the confirmation Magus needed. He thought it somewhat amusing; he’d meant the quip as a bit of an insult, not as a catalyst to learn a deeper truth about the man he now had to fight. “You should learn to keep your guard up,” he said. “Your arrogance will get you killed.”
Magus smirked, regarding Sif through lazy, half-lidded eyes. He wore an expression of supreme confidence as he began to speak. “Sif… you had come to myself and Link,” he looked over toward the boy to see him handily competing with the three wizards on his own. “Looking to turn us into your… slaves,” he chose the word because it was less disturbing than the other option, but he said it with no less contempt. “And you call me arrog-AUURGH-!!”
He saw white. He saw stark, empty white, like the Nexus, only without the fountain and strange people there. A horrible, searing pain dug into and crawled through his flesh, centered on his right shoulder and radiating outward to every inch of his body.
Magus couldn’t even begin to describe it. It was like every form of pain he had ever felt in his entire life, plus many other ones he’d never felt before, at the same time sublime and horrific, all tore at him at the same time. Sharp and dull pain, acute and nagging pain, every kind of pain he could imagine, it all assaulted him from somewhere beyond that veil of white.
Someone was screaming at him. He couldn’t really tell from where; his hearing seemed dull and disconnected, and without being able to see, he didn’t have any reference points anyway.
The white at the edges of his vision gave way to tendrils of black. Horrible, slithering, greasy blackness. It snaked toward him, writhing and squirming, its aura cold and vile. Its inherent wrongness screamed at him, made him shiver involuntarily. It felt like… necromancy. Only, Magus was no stranger to necromancy, despite its hideous nature. This felt somehow worse. He had to push it back.
He closed his apparently useless eyes and focused. He concentrated on sheathing himself with his magic, coating every part of himself with a semisolid magical membrane. That done, he reached within himself for the now-limited well of power he possessed, and commanded it to come spilling out, overflowing out of him as powerfully as he could muster.
His own energy fed into the sheath, before pushing it outward, sending it crashing into the tendrils of sickly magic trying to get at him. The uneasiness began to fade, and suddenly he found himself able to determine the source of the screaming.
It was him.
Magus stopped shouting, his throat now ragged and hoarse, and opened his eyes. Sif wore an expression somewhere between confidence and arousal, but immediately a brief look of astonishment betrayed him before he could mask it again.
“I thought I had you,” Sif declared. “You took that hit straight on without even knowing it was coming. Most people don’t come back from that even when the see it coming. Still, look how worn out you are,” he licked his lips. “It will be delicious to break you.”
Magus was sitting on the backs of his legs, knees on the concrete, his arms pinned to his sides like they were made of the same material. His scythe lay useless at his side, and he was covered in a sheen of cold sweat, his hair matted on his forehead. “What…” he paused, catching his breath. “What did you do to me?”
“Oh, did you like it?” Sif’s face split in a toothy, disturbing grin. “I turned the blast around behind you, sent it straight into your back. You were being sarcastic at the time, I believe. But did you enjoy it? The sensation, I mean,”
“It’s something I’ve spent a long time cooking up, as a result of my experiments. I… when I break people, I find it’s always more effective when I’ve discovered some kind of deep, personal truth about them. Some deep-seated pain, suffering, or weakness hidden away. The torture, physical and mental, once it reveals a secret like that, the person’s resolve has cracked just a tiny bit. Turn that personal truth against them and the rest of their defenses crumble away,”
“As for the magic I used against you, to be honest, I haven’t really considered a name for it, yet. It’s reserved for particularly resilient subjects, like yourself. You should consider it a bit of a compliment; I’m very good at what I do,” Sif grinned his stupid grin again.
“You’re insane. You don’t know anything about me,” the Fiendlord growled, gathering his will but remaining where he was. He couldn’t play his hand just yet. “What does any of your rambling nonsense have to do with knowing me?”
“Ah, but I’ve learned all I need to know about you,” Sif smiled and closed his eyes, forcing Magus to curl his lip in disgust at the hooded man who moaned and licked his lips. “You see, that pain or weakness hidden away is activated by my particular brand of magic. I draw it up, my power feeds on it. The more suffering a person bears, the more effective the magic. The more you hurt,” he chuckled.
“I’ve never heard someone scream like that. It… mmm… it made me shiver all over. You’ve spent your whole life torturing yourself and destroying everyone around you, haven’t you? Looking for her.”
Magus’ eyes went wide. No, he couldn’t know about her. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, cut the nonsense, Janus,” Sif pulled back his cowl to reveal his face. He was a pale man. Clean shaven with short brown hair. A small scar marked his cheek. But it was the fiery orange glow of his eyes - the same orange as the devilish energy that had struck Magus - that stood out. “I know who you are. I know what Mommy Dearest did to you and your sister. I know you’ve spent all this time searching for Scha-”
“Don’t you fucking say another word!!” the Fiendlord thundered, rolling to his right and over his scythe. He deftly snatched it up as he rolled up onto his feet, charging right at Sif.
“Yes!” the pain mage cackled. “You’ve already lost!!”
Sif laughed maniacally as he willed that orange power back into his hands, unleashing another burst of that heinous power. Magus saw it. He didn’t care. “Oooh, I know what I’m going to do when I’m done with you, Janus!” he shouted. “I’m going to find her, and I’m going to do much worse to her than I did to you for what you did to Ryland!”
Magus’ eyes darkened, and with a roar, he brought the blade of his scythe down on the crackling orange energy, detonating it in a harmless burst of light and motes.
Magus didn’t have time to register that it must have only been effective on contact with a living creature, one that could think and therefore feel and appreciate pain. His thoughts were all focused on what he’d do next.
He whirled the staff of his scythe around in his hand, to bring the spear-end opposite the blade to bear and hurled himself at Sif, impaling the stunned wizard and running him clean through before kicking him in the gut as with all of his gathered momentum, grotesquely sliding him off the scythe.
Sif hit the ground with a grunt and began to cough. The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth, and flecks of it fell on his face and chin from the coughing. His breaths were ragged and wheezy.
“You sound like your lover did in his last moments,” Magus’ eyes swept from Sif to Ryland - now a fresh corpse - and back again. Magus’ eyes were cold, but not the kind of cold they usually were. Eyes that were normally overburdened, weary, and disinterested were now fizzing and buzzing with bloodlust. “But I’m not going to let you meet him just yet.”
Magus stepped over Ryland’s corpse and picked up the heavy, iron rod he’d intended to use as a weapon. It was clearly an instrument meant to maximize pain and suffering. Good.
He looked over at Link. The sorceress was clearly a skilled elemental mage, seen easily by the enormous electrical storms generated from her fingertips. Magus considered this also to be good. Link seemed to be able to handle himself, and the boy being occupied left Magus and Sif alone for the moment.
He casually walked over to Sif, who lay bleeding next to his dead companion. He stood, gazing down at the beaten magister.
“Just-”
He didn’t wait for what Sif had to say. With a primal grunt, Magus swung the rod down hard onto Sif’s right kneecap, shattering it with a splintering pop. Sif screamed an animalistic scream, his whole body writhing and contorting in sick agony, and Magus brought the rod down again onto Sif’s remaining good knee, crushing it.
![[Image: Magus.jpg]](http://rpnexus.com/sig/miscsig/Magus.jpg)