The first blast from the Shaman"s staff tore the air and ground inside the arena, sending Eleanor diving out of the way as the floor ruptured into a torrent of fire and flying stone. She wove a delicate strand of sigils in the air as she stood, before they dissolved into a swirl of multi-colored spheres of energy that orbited her in all directions. She hurled one after the other at Rawgh"faz, each of them leaving technicolor trails of incandescent light as they rocketed towards him. Each seemed to weave and bob, trying to find some gap in the litany of wards and barriers he continued to produce around him. Soon he was entirely obscured by the relentless barrage of explosions, the entire impact area a flashing strobe of raw energy that even Eleanor had to avert her eyes from.When the results finally cleared, however, the gnoll was nowhere to be seen. As Eleanor looked around, she suddenly realized where he was. Every single one of the thousands of spectators in the stands of the arena was a duplicate of him now. And each and every one of them were rising from their seats and making their way towards the arena floor.
For the first time since the beginning of the fight, Eleanor felt significantly out of her depth. Her own power was as great as she could imagine it in this place. She could alter her form at will, conjure spells she could never have dreamed of attempting, and keep pace with every thing the dog could throw at her. But this was his world, not hers. And while she had no personal limits here, he had the ability do anything imaginable. He could bend every single rule of reality conceivable here, with the exception of what she personally could control. The fact that the world they currently occupied was his mind gave him an overwhelming advantage. But it also presented a unique vulnerability. If she could find a way to affect his mental stability, even for a brief moment, he might lose control over this world of his. And if he did, then there was a chance she could exploit it to escape the mental prison she had been in since the moment he"d first imprisoned her.
Maybe, just maybe, she could trap him in his own head in the process.
One after another, in a seemingly endless torrent, the copies of Rawgh"faz leapt from the bleachers and onto the floor of the arena, converging towards her as their chanting voices rose to a deafening cacophony of noise.
She steeled herself, and began chanting in Infernal as she rapidly scribed a vast collection of spell formulae in the air in front of her. In reality, the odds are that everything she was doing would be useless gibberish, and probably do nothing at all. In here, however, it didn"t matter. Just believing they worked was enough.
She completed the ma.s.sive incantation a few seconds before the first clone would have reached her. The spell writing vanished in a flash, and instantly, the entire arena was bathed in an unfathomably bright pillar of white light. There was no noise. When the pillar cleared a moment later, 99% of the duplicates were nothing more than piles of rapidly disappearing piles of ash and dust. The rest, having managed to somehow protect themselves, continued their relentless march towards her.
One by one, she set about dispatching those nearest, interrupting the ends of their spells with bolts of magic. The further ones, having finished their magic, began to shower her with fireb.a.l.l.s, magic missiles, lightning bolts, and a host of other projectiles. Her barrier spell was absolute, and each crashed harmlessly against it like waves against a seawall, until finally something managed to shatter it and knock her flying. Gathering the energy shards of the shattered barrier, she hurled them in the direction of the remaining oncoming dopplegangers, flattening nearly a dozen more of them as the razor-sharp shards of energy tore off limbs or heads, or left gaping wounds in the center of torsos.
Another jet of lightning crackled a few inches from Eleanor"s head as dove behind a shattered edge of the arena floor that had been torn up sometime earlier in the battle. Before she had a moment"s respite, one of the shaman"s dopplegangers appeared behind her, in a flash of orange-red light and smoke. It hurled another bolt just in time to score a jagged scorch mark on the stone she"d just been taking refuge behind. The doppleganger looked up at the sound of a whistle to find his target a couple dozen feet overhead. Before he could react, a shard of ice as large and as long as his arm slammed through his chest. The doppleganger groaned and gagged, before crumpling and dissolving into a pile of ashes and dust.
Another two copies of Rawgh"faz appeared in the air on either side of her, swiping at her with their staves. Each rod swung to connect, but instead of making contact with solid flesh when they struck her, they seemed to pa.s.s through without resistance, leaving ripples through her body as if she was a pattern on the surface of the water that they were disturbing with the ends of sticks. The pattern resolidified, and each one of the copies suddenly found itself staring directly into one of the devil girl"s palms, before the bright blue flames of her Infernal fire tore their heads clean off and sent them both tumbling towards the ground in a pair of ash piles.
A few more stragglers continued to level attacks, and she dealt with them one after the other, until finally there were none left, Not seeing any more of the copies in the immediate area, Eleanor called out, "that it, mutt? You ready to face me directly yet, or do I have to kill a couple dozen more of your clones first?"
There was no reply. Instead, the sky began to dark, twisting and distorting as the fabric of reality folded inwards on itself. Then, without warning, it tore, and Eleanor found herself launched towards the tear with such overwhelming and unrelenting force that she could barely take a breath before she found herself hurtled into an endless white abyss. The wind whipped past her in a roaring torrent as gravity finally corrected itself to a new down, and textures and patterns replaced the white until she found herself falling at terminal speed towards the top of a snow-covered mountain. Willing her form to change, vast pair of feathered black wings shot from her back in a spray of fabric and pinions, and she beat against the wind until she finally was able to regain control of her momentum.
Finally back under her own control, she altered her positioning to allow a gentle glide the last couple hundred feet to the snow below. When she finally set her feet down a few moments, she found herself not standing on top of a mountain, but instead in a sweeping and seemingly endless hall of black and white marble punctuated at equal intervals on either side as far as she could see in either direction by wooden doors painted red and trimmed with gold. Far, far above was a ceiling that was barely visible behind the natural cloud cover that appeared to develop somehow.
And there, a dozen paces away, was Rawgh"faz, his hulking form seeming to dwarf the ma.s.sive hall as he loomed nearly twenty feet above her. He looked more like a centipede or a spider than a dog now, his twisted and lengthened form bearing far more arms and legs than the rational mind could really process or accept as natural. He leered down at her, his twisted face bearing a wicked grin.
"Sooner or later, you"re going to run out of willpower, little one. And when you do, your ability to continue to fight me will disappear." He said. He shambled forward a few paces and bent over, his warped form looming over as he spoke. "And if you think I have been needlessly cruel before, imagine how much further I can go now that you"ve gone this far."
Eleanor instinctively found herself backing away in revulsion from him as he spoke. She didn"t want to admit it, but he was right. Every single thing she did in her was because she was able to mentally will things into existence inside his mental landscape. That took effort, and she had to admit that she could feel the effects of the sustained mental strain already. It wasn"t intense yet, but the longer this went on, the greater the chance her mind wouldn"t be able to handle the strain she was placing on it. She had no idea what exactly would happen when it finally gave out, but she had no doubts whatsoever that it wouldn"t be pleasant.
"If you surrender yourself now, I might be willing to allow you to keep your mind when I am through with you." He said, a long strand of drool falling from his mouth onto the marble in front of her.
Ellie continued to back up, stepping away from the ever-advancing monstrosity in front of her, until she suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She spun around to find herself face to face with a small, floating man with an elaborate beard and laughing eyes. The man looked at her quizzically, then up at the shaman. The little man raised an eyebrow as he looked back and forth as each of them.
Eleanor"s eyes widened in shock when she recognized the face.
"Frumpkin!" She said, grabbing on to the little man"s shoulders. "What are you doing here?"
"In the flesh." Frumpkin said. He furrowed his brows. "And this is where I work. Why are you here?"
Rawgh"faz shambled forwards, thoughtlessly shoving Eleanor to the side before encircling and leering down at Frumpkin.
"And who might you be, tiny meat?" Rawgh"faz snarled, leaning forward until his fanged maw hung a few feet from Frumpkin"s face.
"Name"s Frumpkin Snozc.u.mber. But you can call me G.o.d." The little man said, unperturbed.
Rawgh"faz laughed viciously, his cackles echoing throughout the ma.s.sive marble hall.
"A G.o.d! HAH! The only G.o.d in here is me, little morsel." The shaman said.
Frumpkin snorted, then motioned towards Rawgh"faz with his thumb.
"This the guy who brought you here?" He asked Eleanor. "He the guy what kidnapped you?"
Eleanor nodded, uncertain whether to feel relieved, or even more terrified.
"I see." Frumpkin said, turning back to Rawgh"faz. He took a step towards the shaman.
"I am not sure how you managed to gain access to this place, mister, uh... whatever your name is. We"ll figure that out later. In the meantime, I kindly suggest you find a way to beat a hasty retreat back to where you belong. You have five seconds to leave." The little man said grimly, his face expressionless.
Rawgh"faz"s toothy maw spread into a huge grin, and he placed a ma.s.sive clawed limb on Frumpkin"s shoulder as he leaned down to stare into the little man"s eyes.
"I"m not going anywhere, tiny "G.o.d". And you"re not going to make me."
Frumpkin smirked and cracked his knuckles.
"Wanna bet?"