A Will to Kill

GAME: Corey rolls 2d10+18: (3)+18: 21

Faphinae Cari'thana tracks Akimitsu down outside of Alexandria, adopting the guise of a generic traveler through the use of an alteration spell. She is exceedingly skilled at keeping her distance, and she has Wuya flying overhead and pretending to be an ordinary bird, just flying from place to place and perch to perch as he pleases. Only until Sōri leaves through the gates does she find the right spot and occasion to place additional spellwork on herself, out of sight and out of detection.

Once an assassin, always an assassin. Maybe it's why she and Karasu get along so well.

Finally, Sōri is maybe twenty feet away. The road is clear today; they've ended up on a road not terribly far from the forest road. She figures that he's traveled all the way out here with the intention to teleport. Unfortunately for him, she's not much giving him the opportunity to do so.

She weaves a quickened spell to help her strike true. Then... "Lock." The word of power leaves her as a ray of green light, traveling to lock Sōri down into this spot in reality.

GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+20+20: (12)+20+20: 52
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+32: (16)+32: 48
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d100: (4): 4

The man she's tracking doesn't look like himself at the moment, but then, that's only to those who can't see truly. Faphinae's spell lances out to capture him; tying him to this location and he spins around with his rapier in hand, his eyes narrowing on the woman who is the source of the magic. "The mother?"

He is only mildly surprised, but he launches himself forward, jabbing his weapon at her, but the blade passes through part of her that isn't truly there at all. "More than you seem." He murmurs the words and tightens his grip on his weapon. "This should be interesting."

GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21: (20)+21: 41
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+4: (18)+21+2+4: 45
GAME: Corey rolls 1d6+5+1d6+5: (2)+5+(6)+5: 18
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+15+8+2: (2)+15+8+2: 27
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+32: (15)+32: 47
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+27: (1)+27: 28 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+22: (16)+22: 38
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+17: (19)+17: 36
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d100: (35): 35
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d100: (5): 5
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d100: (68): 68

Faphinae may wear the appearance of a more common-seeming woman, but the cold iron rapier that's drawn to meet him is somehow less unsettling than the wide-eyed grin that lusts for violence. "I certainly hope that you do not mean to underestimate me," she says, before uttering one word of magic. "Knife."

An illusory knife appears behind Sōri, and Faphinae lunges out with her attack, jabbing into Sōri hard as she finds a weak point in his defenses. She chuckles gleefully, even if the knife behind Sōri glances off of him. "I don't normally like intervening in my baby's affairs, but I really cannot abide what you did to Karasu. How many fingers have you taken from children, you sick fuck?" The rapier twists a little as she pulls it out.

GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+1: (14)+21+2+1: 38
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d6+1d6+9+9d6: (1)+(6)+9+(26): 42
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+1: (2)+21+2+1: 26

Sōri calls out a word in the language of his people, calling for an attack on Faaphinae. Four people dart out of hiding to surround her. Their attacks are ineffective against her defenses but they offer Sōri an opportunity to land his own attack against her weaving his blade in a series of dizzying blows. His blade comes back covered in blood. "My teaching techniques are effective, Karasu himself is the pinnacle of what can be achieved, and he has squandered his talent in your son's company. Perhaps if your corpse is left at their doorstep they will learn better."

GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+1: (13)+21+2+1: 37
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+16+2+1: (14)+16+2+1: 33
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+11+2+1: (15)+11+2+1: 29
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+11+2+1+4: (7)+11+2+1+4: 25
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+1: (3)+21+2+1: 27
GAME: Corey rolls 1d6+5: (6)+5: 11
GAME: Corey rolls 1d6+5: (4)+5: 9
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+15+8+2: (1)+15+8+2: 26 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+12: (2)+12: 14
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+12: (2)+12: 14
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+12: (1)+12: 13 (EPIC FAIL)

Faphinae looks severely displeased that Sōri has managed to draw blood against her, but it's the remark about her corpse that puts a new chill in her glare. "You really are as charming as they come. You'll do anything to justify what you've done. I know your kind."

She sneers at him as she jabs at him in a flurry of her own, only two of her attacks finding some small purchase. Yet it seems almost a diversion for the hiss of a magic word she gives, snapping her fingers behind her as some of Sōri's men slip and fall on the grease she conjures.

GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+21: (1)+21: 22 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+32: (4)+32: 36
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+1: (3)+21+2+1: 27
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d100: (96): 96
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d6+1d6+9+9d6: (6)+(2)+9+(33): 50

The teacher of assassins has little concern about stepping on his own men to achieve his goals, though the steps are tenuous things and he is only able to levy one attack at her due to the treacherous terrain. Still, thanks to his ally distracting her at a critical moment he manages to stab her again. "People like you are unwilling to do what is necessary to change the world. Karasu understands, and he will die for the cause one way or another."

GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+1: (18)+21+2+1: 42
GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+21+2+1+4: (18)+21+2+1+4: 46
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+12: (11)+12: 23

A laugh barks from Faphinae as she's decorated once again in her own blood. She has the look of someone all-too-used to it. A long-lived assassin tastes her own blood at some point or another. "Don't you dare."

She thrusts hard with her rapier into the master assassin. "Don't you fucking dare--"

The blade's point enters Akimitsu Sōri at the belly, a grievous strike point all on its own. But the further she burrows into it, the blade crackles with magic, and Akimitsu's skin turns to stone. "--lecture me on 'being unwilling to kill' when I have killed and bled for everything I have ever wanted in life. But heartless scum like you wouldn't know. You wouldn't understand."

Her silver eyes blaze with sheer rage, glowing with all the magic that is at her command. "That's why I will break you as thoroughly as you broke that boy. As you broke all the others before him. Starting with making you into a material more deserving of someone who has forfeited his heart. For yours is only a heart by technicality of it being flesh."

GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+14: (1)+14: 15 (EPIC FAIL)

"Killing is only one piece." Sōri says, his dark eyes holding no fear as his body becomes stone. "What you break will come together again." His eyes turn to the last of his men standing and his skin is becoming totally gray. "Kill the bird."

It is the last thing he says as his body turns to rock and the man behind Faphinae drops his sword, pops backwards and quickly draws his crossbow. He aims it at Wuya, and his fear makes his hands shaky enough that the thing shakes in his hands as he fires it off at the raven.

Wuya takes to the sky, and then the raven crashes to the ground an instant later.

GAME: Karasu rolls 1d4+1d6: (2)+(2): 4
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+5: (9)+5: 14
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+5: (1)+5: 6 (EPIC FAIL)
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+5: (19)+5: 24
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+5': (5)+5: 10

Seeing the raven fall to the ground painfully sets something off inside of Faphinae, like the sound of glass crashing to the floor in her heart. She turns and looks at the assassins of Sōri's employ and possibly tutelage. Unlike her son, she does not care whether they are evil or not. She just knows that they were ordered to kill Wuya.

And she will not have that.

She snaps her finger. "Cloud." Acidic fog roils in around the assassins, and she watches briefly as they all go down to the ground, choking on the air. Calmly, she strides past them and the cloud itself to pick up Wuya, carefully.

"Sweet boy," she murmurs. "How badly are you hurt?"

GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+26: (14)+26: 40
GAME: Karasu rolls 1d20+25: (5)+25: 30

Wuya is picked up carefully and the raven lets out a little croak of unhappiness. One of his feathers is missing, but the truth is that he's more bruised than anything else. Maybe a bit dazed. He looks at the woman and even though he's not supposed to, he murmurs quietly to her. "Thank you."

Eventually the cloud fades, and when it does there's only three bodies on the ground, and one statue. It seems, that one of the assassins got away...

GAME: Corey rolls 1d20+20+1: (6)+20+1: 27

"There is no oath between us," Faphinae responds, petting Wuya as she inspects the area. She could track down and kill the last, but she has more pressing business, which is the matter of the statue of Akimitsu Sōri. Faphinae then moves the raven to sit on her shoulder, utterly unbothered by the sensation of his talons on her shoulder. "Watch."

She unleashes a spell then, a spell she'd half-wanted to use on the man but abstained for the sake of tactics. It's a light-green magic that pierces the statue. For a moment, it stands, until it falls apart into dust, which the wind picks up and carries away.

"A monument to his own cruelty, broken apart by his own weight once persuaded into destruction," Faphinae says with a nod. "So it goes with the end of tyrants."

She repeats the disintegration with the bodies before her, and then she goes about her way back into Alexandria. A resurrection for any number of them will be difficult now, and there's a thought that tickles at the back of Faphinae's mind.

Which is that sometimes, she misses wielding Mortal Dread. But that was a lifetime ago, even if this was a brief exercise in nostalgia.

-End