“You’re in a bit of a sticky situation aren’t you?”
“You are acting like you have any sort of chance to win against us,” Yveth replied, her nails elongating to become two foot long spikes at the end of her fingers. “I don’t know where you get your confidence from.”
“Him mainly,” Peter said, pointing at Laurence, “the augers told me he would lead me here, and they were right. They were right again and again, so I have no fear that he will fail to stop your father before my work here is done.”
“You’re a fool like the rest!” Yveth spat, “the augers are only useful in knowing what is, not what will be. Like so many others, they predicted our Doom and thanks to you that shall never come!”
As they spoke, Peter pulled several simple bags out of his pockets and began to scatter the dusty contents into the air ad hoc. “I don't understand your hatred of augers. It can’t be because you find their practices abhorrent, as your entire race performs practices that are almost indistinguishable.”
“Why should I explain myself to a dead man?” Yveth strode forward, her body radiating force in a way that made the air shake. With a swipe of her clawed hands, she scattered the dust in the air that Peter had meticulously placed. Her skin sizzled as she passed through the clouds, but she ignored the pain. Within moments, her body was healed.
“I’m more curious than anything. No Avalonian makes sense to me, but you and your father are a special level of odd. You just come across as suicidal.” Peter continued to maneuver himself behind the poisonous barriers that he was continuously building. Dust clouds sprung up within an instant of his movement, coiling and mixing together in ways that only he understood. He was not as gifted at Creation as Laurence, or even Fen, but he prided himself on being an artist with poison.
“The augers are an aberration. Nobody should be able to predict my future, not even my mother. Especially not my mother.” Like a juggernaut, Yveth walked through the poisonous clouds. She ignored the searing of her flesh, the bubbling of her skin and the screaming sensation that her nerves were being put through as her body rapidly healed the damage that it was being bombarded with. Every step was pain, and halfway through the cloud of dust her movement changed. Almost instinctively she began moving through the places where Peter’s poisonous concoction was weakest. Every step she would follow the quieting scream of her nerves, leading her on an abstruse path through the cloudbank.
As she moved, Peter’s smile only grew. His way was Death and Control. He could not make an array to beguile his enemy, but he could cause pain to dictate his will in the area around him. “What if they are right? What if the path to destruction is inevitable? And what if the path is only set when it’s seen by the augers?”
Yveth twitched. Her body radiated an anger that almost overwhelmed Peter’s control over her pain. “Then I’ll break this tower! I’ll shatter it to pieces so the future never comes to pass!” She waved her clawed hands, cutting through the space in front of her and shattering several bone piercings that were still embedded in her skin. A path lined and paved in bone appeared before her, leading directly to where Peter stood. Taking several steps back in shock, Peter threw out more clouds of dust before retrieving a crystalline human skull from his storage ring.
Raising the skull in the air, he cried out, “Immortal resentment! The soul moves on, but the hate remains!” Taking another step backwards he forced his mana through the crystalline skull and watched as ethereal nightmare-black tendrils coalesced and began grabbing at the edge of the spatial pathway.
Seeing the nightmarish tendrils begin to force the pathway closed, Yveth sprung into action. She grabbed a large bone and plunged it through her left shoulder, before sprinting as fast as her body could carry her through the bone path. Inch by inch, Peter ushered his mana in an attempt to lock Yveth into that bone pathway she had made, all the while retreating and spreading dust around him. However before he had taken five steps Yveth burst out of the hole and tore apart the tendrils with her claws. Salt collected on her long nails as she ripped the tendrils apart and stared daggers at Peter. She flicked her hands and flecks of white scattered through the impurities in the air, turning black and dissolving before even reaching half the distance between the two of them.
Peter took another step back and smiled, raising the skull once more, “Soul Furnace! Smelt!” Hundreds of tendrils sprung from the crystal skull as Peter’s mana began churning and resonating between the man and his tool. The tendrils shot through the air like lightning as they attempted to wrap Yveth up, but her claws were just as quick as they were. Slowly she began making headway towards Peter, but he continued to retreat, slowly looking less and less sure of himself.
As she tore apart the endlessly attacking tendrils, Yveth screamed, “You piddling coward of a man! Can you do nothing but run?” She stepped forwards and smashed through the tendrils once more, before preparing to charge at Peter and tear him to shreds, when she stopped abruptly. A desperate anger appeared on her face as she continued to slash away at the tendrils that sprung towards her, but she no longer moved towards Peter as he retreated.
“So you noticed!” Peter said with a laugh, before turning around and walking the three final steps he needed to take to reach the altar. “You shouldn’t try to move, by the way. The corrosive dust is almost completely around you and it is quite potent. I dare say even an Ascendant Immortal like Laurence would perish when coming into contact with Summer’s Folly. You have no chance.”
Yveth growled as she watched Peter stand next to the altar and place the skull in his hands to the side. “You are making yourself the enemy of the entirety of Avalon by doing this!” she cried, “We will hunt you down and devour you! Not even your bones will find peace in returning to the Tower!”
“So?” Peter replied, “I knew that was a possibility the moment you started fighting with me, why should it matter now?” He pulled out Rose’s body from his ring and sighed, looking at the larger ball of light. “It’s time to bring you back to life, little Rosebud.”
The ball of light floated over the body on the altar, gently bobbing up and down as Peter stared at it for what felt like centuries. Finally he smiled and raised his hands, feeling the odd energy that he had never encountered before. It was wholly other, neither mana nor gi, but nonetheless it gave Peter a sense of comfort and intimacy he was not expecting. It was similar, and yet wholly foreign to him. The more he thought about it, the less concerned he was with failure. It gave him the confidence to complete his task. Originally he was worried about not understanding how to use Yoth’s Well, but in the same way he felt intimate to the energy around him, the moment he prepared to revive Rose, he understood how to use the device. Finally he was ready to revive her, all he had to do was ask.
He took in a deep breath and cried out “I wish for Rose Briar to be brought back to life!” before sparing a glance backwards and smiling, “Sorry Laurence.”
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