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Tahi-shei had been waiting and meditating on his plan for nearly a cycle now. He was going to kill Elias -- who was, as far as he could tell, a needlessly violent brute who had been willing to
murder Aran for no real reason (and Tahi-shei had been in chrysalis before, now; he knew what sort of trauma needed to happen so that you would enter such a state). But such a thing posed a problem -- he needed to find a way to stop Elias from entering chrysalis, assuming he could manage to get the deed done.
But he'd already planned for that, really. His chrysalid had spawned from his stone -- he still had the scar on his chest from where the ametrine had exploded out of it. It stood to reason that Elias's might, too -- so all he had to do was incapacitate Elias sufficiently, and then remove the aforementioned stone. Without getting himself killed. He'd seen the damage to Aran's legs -- so, Tahi-shei had taken precautions. Thick, beautiful black frills -- around his legs, now, all four of them, and barely cresting up at the edge of his throat. Elias wasn't really tall enough to bite at his neck, so Tahi had focused on his fragile legs.
Tahi-shei had been carefully combing Canis for a while now, searching for Elias in the bones and stones of the cave. He'd been paying mind to his footwork, and to the pools of water -- any large enough to have a crocodilian inside. He'd also been exceptionally careful to be as quiet as he could be. Tahi-shei had no interest in knocking over a clattering pile of bones and giving away his position -- Canis was a tricky cave to have a fight in, with its uneven floors and various floor-to-ceiling blocks, but this was the jam he had gotten himself into.
He paused, frozen, when his eyes caught on a particular spot. The same niggling anxiety he recalled from last time tugged at the back of his mind, and he focused. It was hard to spot a still alligator, if this was the alligator at all -- but he was hoping that it would be.
@elias
elias can be wherever you want him to be, i left it vague on if he's looking at the ground or the water, but if he rolls higher i'll say tahi hasn't actually spotted him
Elias
had been in the very shallow water that he had come across in Cetus. He found it to be almost soothing, though not as much as the water where he normally resided was. Elias didn't mind coming back to this place, though. So he had and so far nothing had bothered to interact with him to chase him away from his spot. Elias had stopped feeling sick from the magic ages ago, so he had been exploring the various caves he could get to without much issue.
Though it almost seemed too quiet.
@Tahi-Shei
Tahi-shei identified the shape in the water after a few moments. Yes, there he was -- the white-and-black shape with the bright red stone poking off up his nose. Tahi-shei assessed his footing for a moment -- he didn't know how fast Elias moved, but he took a step or two back. He was about two yards away, now, and there were plenty of bones between him and the alligator. Moving across them wouldn't be easy, certainly... but neither could Tahi-shei easily move further back. Luckily for him, his frills would only start decaying once teeth were sunk into them.
He took a deep breath, and electricity began to build up around him. If he electrified the water, it stood to reason that Elias would be significantly more fucked up -- he'd have to be working through it to get to Tahi-shei, and while this wasn't a super powerful jolt of electricity like Madhukar's lightning had been, it was still going to
hurt. He set his jaw and-- apparently had not centered himself properly, because the electricity tore through him painfully.
"Ah-!" he yelped, ears laying flat. His limbs felt numb, and the force of the bolt had dissipated too severely through him to do any real damage.
What a way to start this fight. Tahi-shei hoped Elias wouldn't notice.
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if elias attacks tahi, count this as the start of round 1 and i'll edit in a table
@elias
In fact, Elias did notice the deer. At first he thought it was the same one from before, but no, the size and shape of them were completely different. Plus... this one did not have the stone in the antlers like the other one did. Something looked like it was wrong, and Elias' first reaction was to ask if he was okay, but then he remembered how pissed the deer was when Elias had made that other one go away.
"Are you back to throw another fit?" The gator grumbled out.
Elias didn't know what that deer had on his legs, but it had to be from some kind of spell of sorts.
@Tahi-Shei
Tahi-shei narrowed his eyes. Elias had not ventured out of the water yet, and that meant his spell could still work. He did not plan on giving him a warning, but the magic dissipated again and fizzled into nothing in the air. So... maybe a little bit of chatter wouldn't hurt, just to keep Elias from getting too suspicious.
"Do you really see no fault in what you did?" he asked, and there was a genuineness in his tone. Tahi-shei wanted to know.
"Do you have no value for life? If he had not been a Greater, fueled by excess magic, he would have died." Tahi-shei had chrysalises since, when Madhukar had killed him to purge the fungus. It had... not been a very pleasant experience, to be sure.
@elias
Tahi-shei felt nausea coil through him. What an abysmal philosophy. What a violent one, at that--! He took steps back -- it might have looked like fear, but he was really just trying to maintain the distance between them as he recalled what he had
prophesized would happen to this alligator. Violence for violence -- it was not something he wished to fall into, but he needed a body, one way or another. It was better to remove a beast than to harm someone innocent, was it not?
A bolt of electricity arced off of him and towards Elias.
"Then you ought to have no issue with my removal of a pest," he said, voice cold. Tahi-shei felt the chill of his words spread through the rest of him, and his eyes glazed over, just a little. It was no longer time to play games.
@elias
Round: 1/5
Attempt: electrocute the lizard
Defense: Inky Cap around legs, some distance away
Injuries: Sore from backfired Bolt :(
Tahi-shei took a single step back, because he didn't think he'd be able to get much more, but also because Elias's approach was beneficial.
And for my next trick... he thought distantly, and spores started to web up in his chest. He breathed out sharply, and the noxious spores began to fill the air -- right where Elias would pass through them on his way to Tahi-shei. The horrific smell of rotting carrion would strike his nose, and Tahi felt his own stomach roll for entirely unrelated reasons.
He was really doing this. He was really trying to
kill someone -- to tire out and weaken Elias to the point where Tahi-shei could remove his stone from his body and kill him without risking a chrysalis. He felt as though he were watching from outside his own body -- this fight was absent of fire. It was just... empty.
@elias
Round: 2/5
Attempt: make elias drowsy and nauseous
Defense: Inky Cap around legs, some distance away
Injuries: Sore from backfired Bolt :(
Note: This post is for round one - dark gave me permission to post twice due to an error in my previous posts
Elias noticed the other deer step back when he went forward, and he stepped forward again. Was the smaller deer afraid of him? Or was it something else? Elias wasn't a bad gembound per se, but he did harm those who stepped on him, that deer included. Too many had done it and the Alligator was tired of it. If it made him a bad gembound, then oh well.
What he didn't expect, though, was the magic that came at him and made his body feel all tingly. That.... was weird and kind of hurt and he didn't like it. Angered, Elias surged forward to close the distance between them.
Round 1/5
Attempt: Get within attacking distance of Tahi
Defense: Literally nothing
Injuries: Body feeling tingly....