Might there be more esoteric ways to pursue the wayward wife and her knight gallant? Given time, reagents, and the proper rituals, the sorcerer was sure Cassialyn could be retrieved covertly, something impossible with Dieter at her side. Sir Hulbert and Dhruzik weren’t to be underestimated, but what if one of them should perish without Blaise there to resurrect them in time? Sir Wolfram had been quite…clear…with his threats. Yet, his employer and a nobleman of higher standing had given a Blaise a direct command. The childhood rituals of decorum and lucrative self-interest were more then enough to override Blaise’s personal tactical misgivings.
Not that he was exactly complaining about
running withdrawing far-farther away from the murderous Archdameon mind you…
“Yes mi’lord,” Blaise cast his thoughts into the space between spaces, the nothingness simultaneously adjacent and beyond all creation. The now rote act brought on a brief bout of nausea and chills. Though Blaise had only theories as to why, accessing the
Corridors brought on the taint far quicker then more formal spellcraft that drew upon the Darkness. It was simultaneously revolting and intoxicating, like the clammy vertigo that comes at the height of fever. The Darkness rushed into his veins and mind, threatening to send him tumbling into the vast unknowable. Calming breaths brought a pitch black wound into existence in mid-air. After a troubled glance backward to see Sir Hulbert was charging at the demon, shinning blade burning bright, Blaise stepped into the nothingness.
The Corridors weren’t a ‘place’ in the sense most would understand it. Places implied a discrete position in time and space which the Corridors eschewed almost entirely. No the ways between were more like entering into another state of being, or unbeing perhaps. As might be expected, traveling in such a medium was far from straight forward. Your footsteps, shivering shoulders, and backtracking were all an illusion of a mind trying to comprehend something utterly removed from three dimensional space. One cannot walk through nowhere nor sprint the space between elementary particles. The Darkness was real however. Not all the corridors, tunnels, bridges, chasms, and far stranger things one encountered were tenebrous, but the Darkness was always there nevertheless, like a whisper you can’t quite catch.
It was only a second later relative to Ivalice that Blaise emerged back into the deserts of Dalmasca, though the gnawing vastness had felt far longer. The rush of light and heat was dizzying and forced Blaise to blink back disorientation. Blue eyes focused on Ramza and Cassialyn, pupils still oddly enlarged from lack of illumination. The small spare mage moved to block their egress. Though far from an imposing figure, a manic energy possessed his aspect, an unhinged danger lurking beneath soft features.
“Dhruzik’s right,” a tired reedy tenor said flatly, suddenly devoid of sycophantic airs without Sir Hultbert around.
“There’s no way you’re w-worth this." There came a long sigh, but the fervid tension did leave him.
"N-normaly I'd let you leave," he admitted.
"Can't choose who we love after-all," there was a fleeting hint of softness, a wince of pain, before a too broad 'what can you do?' grin dismissed Cassialyn's plight.
"buuuuut Clan Coffers gotta be filled somehow.”
Blaise’s attention shifted to the previous acquaintance.
“This is twice now Sir Beoulve,” tawny eyebrows rose in emphasis, apparently expecting Ramza to feel ashamed as so discourteously interfering with profiteering on other’s misfortunes.
“Sir Hulberts wealth, me taking on the demon’s power, the strong Hearts of those clanmen who came to rescue Lady Frewin here,” gloved hands clenched and unclenched with nervous energy along with itemized list,
“all could’ve been instrumental in prolonging Ivalice’s Light.” Balled fists shook with apparent need for Ramza to see the point, though the trembling included the young mages whole body, as if he were suffering hypothermia in the middle of a desert.
“But n-no NO,” brown bangs swished in dirty tangles as the mage shook his head too rapidly for natural emphasis, briefly pressing on his temples as if trying to drown out unwelcome voices. The open Corridor still gapped behind him, freezing stygian vapors spilling out like an ink stain over the sand.
“You just …” words ceased as a lunatic’s grin split the adventurers features like a knife across the skin of a peach. The pupils of his unforced eyes enlarged until they devoured the sclera, pools of the same emptiness as the portal.
“Your valor, while commendable is..” Blaise’s cursed
Stare sought to bore through the knight’s gaze into his very mind
"… surprisingly vexing.”A deep inhale that followed might’ve seemed like an attempt to bring the madness to heel if not for ell-tale trails of vapor that escaped his lips.
“Seems a shame.” Numinous mists enveloped everything with gale-fore, scouring skin from flesh and grinding stones to glimmering dust. The
Radiant Breath would touch Cassialyn only briefly, comfortingly even, while working to expunge Ramza with stolen sacred fury.
Status: Massive Wounds, Deranged, Mighty Guard (2 rounds)
1) Blaise heads Drake's orders and uses the Dark Corridors to teleport to Ramza and Cassialyn
2) After struggling to communicate due to Corridor Corruption, Blaise uses Stare on Ramza, dealing medium Dark damage and inflicting a random status on him unless he looks away in time.
DpK4uoEM1-4
3) Apparently underestimating the threat Cassialyn poses, Blaise uses Radient Breath, attempting to deal massive Light damage to Ramza while healing Cassialyn, in order to keep her unharmed for delivery.
Ramza Beoulve Dieter Wolfram Cassialyn Frewin 1-4
