Legacy of Fire Gameplay

After a brief exchange, Lydia borrow's Nari's chalkboard and writes out "Talk? We promise no violence unless provoked."

”I can sign,” the woman signs back. ”And I have no desire to fight. But I cannot allow you to harm Lord Jhavul.”

”Please clarify,” Mahvash signs back, speaking aloud for Felliped’s benefit.

”I owe Lord Jhavul my life. I care not for his goals, but I owe a life debt all the same. Please turn back.” As she speaks, her expression does not shift at all.

”We cannot forfeit our lives and our world to honor your debt,” Mahvash answers. ”We must face Jhavul and stop him.”

”Why? What does this plane matter? You all have the power to flee with your lives and your loved ones, even the prisoners if you so choose. Just leave this world to burn,” the diamond woman retorts. ”It deserves no less.”

Giexmund shakes his head. ”That’s not happening. It’s not one person’s place to decide if a world lives or dies. Stand down or be cut down.”

With that, the invisible stalkers strike, but find themselves dispatched quickly by Giex, Mahvash, and Krunk, with Nari assisting by covering them in glittering dust to make them visible and blind one. After they're struck down, Giex takes to hurling his adamantine chakram at the sphere of force. When it breaks, pandemonium erupts. The diamond woman takes a step back and begins to cast a spell, but Felliped and Lydia attempt to interrupt her with arrow and spell. Unfortunately, Felliped's hasty shot fires wide, and Lydia's spell finds itself turned back on her - much to her good fortune, it was also weakened by the wishwarp. Before Nari can finish dispelling the magical effects on the abjurer, however, her spell completes and the diamond woman becomes a nigh-invisible blur for only a split second, reappearing directly in front of the group. "I said you will not harm Lord Jhavul," she repeats, still dead calm as her last spell completes. A brief burst of magical energy surges from her, and magical items begin to shatter and fail. The instant before Tempest becomes mundane, Mahvash feels a sharp surge of panic from Vardishal, then nothing at all.

The distinct, disruptive sensation of her spells being ripped away leaves Lydia disoriented for a moment, though it thankfully doesn't touch her wings. Their defenses stripped, their weapons depowered, their empowering spells nullified, and a devoted zealot with the most powerful, versatile magic known to mortals at her fingertips standing between them and their goals. An almost insurmountable task that might have been disheartening, were Lydia not a devoted servant of a goddess almost dedicated to deadly, uphill battles. As she planned her next move, a verse from The Light of Hope sprung Lydia's mind unbidden, and she fought the urge to smile.

"The tyrant fights from a place of power. This is both strength and weakness, for when he remains there it is difficult to face him as an equal, but when he is brought to the level of the common man, he will be unable to match you."

Lydia withdraws a rod from the folds of her robes, thankful she can still feel its magic thrumming in her hand, and uses it to quickly channel magic out of her body and into a beam of white light directed at the diamond woman. The air around her ripples with the same effect that turned Lydia's earlier spell back on her, but this time the ripples disperse and the beam flies straight at her... dissipating harmlessly against her chest. With a smirk, Lydia then pulls a small pouch out of her pocket.

"I beseech thee, Milani," she says, not shouting but instead using the same loud voice she uses to preach. With every word, a small cut appears upon Lydia's body, but she's unfazed by the profuse bleeding. "In the face of this agent of tyranny, stricken down and weakened in defense of the people, I call upon your favor. Strike her down in kind, turn her oppression back upon her, and grant us a battle on equal terms." With one hand she opens the pouch and swings it, casting a small fortune in diamond dust into the air. Before it falls it briefly takes on the shape of a rose, while the violent motion casts several droplets of blood from her arm that mix into the glittering dust. The dust disappears as suddenly it was cast out, and the same light that the diamond woman had just sent through the room reappears, this time swirling around her.

This time, instead of having the colourless sheen of arcane magic, the spell glows red as a rose and surges inward at the diamond woman. All the spells surrounding her dissipte in an instant save for her diamond skin’s aura, and she floats down to earth right in front of Krunk. ”Done. Now kick her ass,” a voice rings in Lydia’s mind, foreign yet familiar at the same time.

”Didn’t know you could do that,” the diamond woman comments at the same time, her tone more bemused than anything else.

The team doesn't hear the voice Lydia does, but follow its instructions anyway. Krunk circles around the woman, giving her a hard hit as he does. Mahvash takes advantage of this distraction and an innate talent to strike her with chilled attacks from her blades. Giexmund steps back and throws his chakram, unaffected by the woman's magic. Between the flurry of attacks, the woman goes down very quickly. Mahvash looks troubled, examining her blades. "Does anyone know if this will pass?" she asks, looking around. "I can't feel Vardishal."

"It'll take almost twenty minutes for this to pass," Nari signs.

With a grunt, Krunk asks, "Do we have any reason to keep this bitch alive? I don't like taking chances on finger wigglers."

Giexmund pauses before Rover strikes its final blow, struggling with the moment before letting his blades down. ”I’m not gonna be the one to do it. I’m sorry. And, uh, it looks like you two got the worst of it, huh? Fido’s down, but Rover’s still barking. My armor isn’t really working either.”

”I’d rather not, but we can’t take chances,” Felliped votes. ”And my armour’s also shut down. My bigger concern personally is the magic that was protecting and strengthening us.”

"I can replace most of it, but if we're waiting out her spell, I'm going to wait until that's almost worn off," Nari signs.

After stripping the diamond-skinned wizard of her items, the group doubles back to a prior, more defensible room to wait out her spell. No more than a minute there passes before a deep, booming voice echoes from the west side of the caverns. "So you've slain Rajali. A shame. Allow me to give you a choice, Neo-Templars. Come to me, right now, and I will give you a fair fight. None of my minions or allies, no hostages. Just me against you. Or, if you wait, I start burning body parts off the prisoners. Perhaps the halfling's eyes? That would be ironic, he cannot see his favourite pupil, but she cannot hear him. Or the merchant's tongue, silencing the master negotiator? You have one minute to decide. I can see you, no tricks."

After a brief look, the group immediately begins preparing. Lydia withdraws her other pouch of diamond dust, this time whispering. "Milani, I ask of you one more blessing. This enemy cannot be fought from a place of weakness, so please, return to us our strength." She pours the diamond dust into her hand and casts it out, once more marking herself with harmless lacerations that mix blood into it.

With a flash of the crimson of roses, all the broken items swiftly mend themselves and magic returns to all the items that it was purged from. Lydia hears no words this time, but all present feel a quiet, steely determination in the air. "Milani favours you. Good, striking you down will only earn me more of Ymeri's love," the voice from the west booms.

Just as the items' magic returns, Mahvash feels Vardishal's presence return with it. "That was Jhavul," he remarks with a flare of alarm. "What happened? The wizard appeared in front of us, then I was in the Boneyard for a couple minutes, and now we're here. My only reassurance was that you weren't also there."

"Oh, good," Mahvash comments, sighing in relief as Vardishal returns. "The mage used a spell that disabled our magical equipment, and I suppose that disrupted your connection with Tempest. Lydia just fixed it, and we have about a minute before we face Jhavul."

"I have waited far too long for this," Vardishal replies. "But be careful. He's proud and arrogant, but no fool at all. No doubt he had whoever he could tell you everything they knew about your capabilities, probably had some way of watching the town when we retook it as well."

Mahvash nods, frowning. "I can only hope the six of us prove too much even for him," she comments as she rummages for her vials. She knows better than to voice any doubt of that hope right now.

"You will," Vardishal answers confidently. "You wouldn't know it because you've been fighting incredibly powerful beings for weeks now, but just killing a balor as you all did would immortalize anyone as a hero of legend. You're certainly not the merchant-mercenary who picked me up two years ago."

This gives the merchant some pause, but she gives a small smile and nods. "We will."

"It certainly can't earn you any less," Lydia snipes back. "After all, you can't lose what you don't have."