Hera, a venerable ArchMage whose wisdom transcends ages and whose mastery of the Arcane grants command over the elements and more curses under her breath. She glares as Lavinia’s body boils sweat in rolling steam, both from the sea raging by them and the tremendous amount of Demonic Essence rippling from her body.
The scars on Lavinia’s face shift, growing into serrated worms crawling underneath her skin as they spread and lengthen down her neck, chest and arms. Hera braces her staff and grinds her teeth as Lavinia bares her fangs and claws, her half-braided mane of hair billowing behind her. Her eyes are glazed over and though she sneers Hera knows not an iota of Lavinia’s consciousness remains behind the maelstrom of power growing in her eyes.
Henry’s cursed her...how long ago. No, wrong question. Jeriko spoke to Lavinia about Henry decades ago when Hera first stepped in these Dungeons, he must have already cursed her by then. Hera narrows her attention on the scars covering Lavinia and snaking about her body— the source and anchor of Henry’s curse.
“You must have been young.” Hera says, glancing at the Soul Reaver’s steam form from the corner of her eyes, “This is far too merciful compared to what you’ve unleashed on our kind. I suppose you were always cruel but it took time for you to become what you are now.”
“And what is that? A tyrant? A wicked fiend? The worst King of Mankind?”
Lavinia doesn’t let Hera think of an answer. Her Essence spikes even further as she condescends it around each hand and falls on all fours. The beach’s glass bed shatters under her foot as she bursts out, straining every inch of her to close the distance as she slashes an Essence bubbling claw up at Hera’s throat.
But she’s gone. Hera’s afterimage shimmers out of existence, setting her a step beside Lavinia as she falls from the overextended swipe. Hera smashes her staff against her open back, sending Lavinia tumbling across the beach like a sick mutt. Lavinia whizzes away, shattering glass and coating her injuries in scalding sand she claws the beach and brings herself to a skidding stop.
Hera twirls her staff and smites the ground with it. Fingertips light up with mana as she reapplies her [Haste] enchantment with a crossing gesture. Staff thrumming in hand, she speaks Magic to the earth, commanding it to ensnare Lavinia, “Terra Vinculum!”
[EarthBound Grasp]
The earth shudders as if stirring from slumber. Loose granules of sands and shards of glass coalesce, binding themselves into massive tendrils of soil powered by Hera’s surge of mana. She points her staff accusingly at Lavinia, it’s Crystal hums as it receives direction and all seven tendrils descend on the snarling demon.
Lavinia evades the first four with deft agility, leaping over their strikes, evading into other tendrils and sliding underneath the dangerous swipes as her command drives her to murder Hera where she stands. Her claws bubbling with Essence tear through tendrils she can’t escape, Demonic Essence smiting each to fine bits as her Soul Crystal’s power burns Hera’s mana away.
“A slaver.” Hera says, smiting her staff against the ground and feeding her spell more mana. “A King that sells, kills and devours his own people. You are no King. You deserve only death and even then I fear it won’t be enough.”
Henry bursts out in raucous laughter, a sound that startles Hera even more than the sight of Lavinia releasing an exploding ball of Essence to shred her spell apart even further. Hera sneers up at the apparition, wishing she had enough left to dispel him— even if she has to subdue Lavinia she’d rather not have the bastard watching and getting off on it.
“Is that why you’ve brought this…thing? To replace me and cast me down to these disgusting pits?” Henry’s form shifts from a whole head to the length of a man raising his hand over them, “You’re right, Hera, but you ought to be wiser. Death, Reais, even the realms beyond won’t be enough to keep me from my rightful place on this throne. Your puppet will reign over my remnants like the imbecilic dog he is!”
“Lavinia, here’s your second command!” Henry’s form of steam swells, the sea boils more vigorously and the heat begins to overpower Hera’s protective enchantments as the Soul Reaver points at Mark buried in the sand near the entrance. “Devour Mark the Usurper!”
Hera’s eyes go wide before they narrow. She smites her staff in the sand and releases her first seal with a phrase, “Enai Drul!” Her pathways swell, burdened by the weight of her own mana as it floods through in unrestrained excess. She snatches her staff and as Lavinia expends Essence slashing and smiting her tendrils, Hera calls to the boiling water itself, “Unda Corripio!”
[Leviathan’s Grasp]
Hera’s earth tendrils fail just in time as an arm of hissing, bubbling water rises from the sea. The giant hand spills through and waves away Henry’s steam form much to his amusement. Lavinia dishevelled form erupts from the fine sands of Hera’s last tendrils, crossing the beach with a swirl of Essence forming in her hands. With but a thought Hera’s water arm flattens the scurrying demon against the beach and swallows her into its boiling currents.
Making a circle with her hands and staff, Hera's brows furrow in concentration as she spins the boiling waters of her spell, thrashing Lavinia against its flow and effectively cooking the Vampiric Demon as she reshapes the water arm into an inescapable sphere of steaming water.
“I’m sorry, Lavinia, I can’t let you free just yet.” Hera says all the while Henry’s form fills the room with laughter, a sound he’s most undeserving of, “You will fall, Henry Vanavil and I’ll be there to watch.”
“I hope it will be as enjoyable for you as it has for me, though given that I’m watching you die now I guess we’ll never find out.” Hera seethes and curses him but a deafening roar rumbling at the entrance startles her to silence. Henry smiles and adds above the encroaching thunders of what must be another minion, “Lavinia…do not forget, do not fail, do not hold back. Follow my commands, we will meet again, surely.”
His words seem to inspire something in Lavinia as he fades into nothing. Though her skin flakes, scalds and burns to the plum red flesh and muscle below, she reaches for her boots and Hera understands all too late.
The entrance explodes.
Debris rains down on Hera. She turns away from Lavinia even as she plucks a Crimson Crystal from her boot and finds an amalgamation of the Mossmen from the previous room. Bunched up together the hundreds of moaning undead creatures form a body of bloated puss and erupting gases. An arm of arms and a leg of bodies with a gaping hole bursting with gold and riches, all of which melt into the creature’s acids.
It shrieks and Hera lunges with her staff, commanding the sand around her vulnerable Mark to swallow him and spit him out behind her. The colossus of undead Mossmen stumble on its leg of bodies, its mouth hole pouring acid gold as it swipes at Hera. She ducks under and scratches the sands with her staff, raising them into tendrils that cuff the mossmen’s arm, pushing it away from the one entrance and exit. She doubts this will be enough to keep the creature occupied long enough for—!
Hera’s senses blare aloud in her head. Quick on her heel she turns in time to watch Lavinia manifest out of blood and a thick shroud of Essence, her fangs baring down as she falls upon Mark.
“NO!”
Hera’s concentration on all spells breaks at the sight. She waves her hand at Lavinia and spears of glass and sand erupt from the ground, impaling the demon and trapping Mark under a cage before her bared fangs can reach him. The confused Mark merely laughs and claps as if watching a jester mock a play.
Skewered by six glass-sand spears, Lavinia struggles to lift her head at Hera, “I’m so sorry, Lavinia…I—!”
Hera’s [Haste] enchantment saves her again, shimmering her away as the colossus smashes where her afterimage still stands. Glaring up at it, Hera wonders; How did it cross the bridge and canyon? Did they assemble themselves after crossing? Ugh, I have to—
The colossus wails her thoughts to silence with a high pitch screech she wouldn’t have thought it capable of. Hera spares a glance at Lavinia skewered on her sand and glass spears. She raises and strengthens it, causing Lavinia to vomit blood. I need to be sure, I’m sorry.
Hera tosses herself to the side, sparing her skin the affection of the colossus’ golden spit wad. It drags itself further out of the entryway, breaking the subtle bonds of sand Hera set at its massive limbs. With another screech it begins to flail, tossing its many arms and swinging about without a care what it tramples on.
Sights shifting to Mark she finds him still trapped in his cage and Lavinia…gone, “What!?” Quick thinking, Hera slams her palms against the sand, having it swallow Mark up again and this time it spits him back up in an enclosed box of mixed silicon that floats against the bubbling currents of the sea.
Her eyes go wide when the colossus tumbles forth, smashing through the spire nearest to her so it falls sharp tip first. She rolls away, letting it skewer the sand and sink as she pants through her mana exhaustion— forcing sand into silicon so suddenly has its costs but it’s worth it because Lavinia is— There!
Between the Mossmen’s leg of bodies, Hera spots a quiet drifting red fog. She narrows her senses at it and confirms it is indeed Demonic Essence. Another wad of golden acid flies at her head, this one she dispels with a quick manipulation of wind as she figures with certainty where her true concerns lie— Lavinia is the true threat. This giant abomination will fall with a little help but her…no, she has to go.
Hera levies her staff against the colossus and before it can roar, a bolt of purple lightning streaks out and smites it right in its ajar mouth pit. She twirls her staff and with fine elemental command she brings the boiling sea to the Mossmen's feet. Willing the waters to seep and cover every crevasse she releases three more bolts of purple lightning into the floundering Mossmen.
It drools gold acid and falls flat on its back. Hera examines her staff, extending her senses to the sliver of Demonic Essence swirling in its Crystal Core. I’m almost out of Demonic Essence, can’t be careless with the lightning. One more spell to send Lavinia back and then…then we finish Henry, once and for all.
Resolved, Hera wills the waters tossing Mark up and down back to the shattered glass shore. Of course, the red mist follows it. Demons and unnatural powers. What a bother.
“Lavinia, I can see you. I know you’re there and I know you can’t reach Mark in that. Not enough space to squeeze in or are you scared if you shift back you’ll bleed to your death?” Hera shakes her head, reminding herself that the Lavinia here isn’t her own but a mindless minion slave to Henry’s commandments. “You can’t kill him but I’m right here! Commandment number one, right?!”
She doesn’t wait for an answer or even a reaction before starting to draw on the sliver of Demonic Essence in her staffs Crystal Core. Summoning a portal out of here will take all she has left and even more Mana. Time to break another seal.
“Enai Culm!” Another seal breaks and Hera brings down the excess mana into the mixture of Demonic Essence to form a new power.
Lavinia’s mist form drifts across the beach and it occurs to Hera to blow her away with some Wind Magic— If only that will be a permanent solution…even this…this isn’t enough to stop Henry’s curse.
Over the years Hera spent fighting Henry, escaping to different worlds via [Planar Travel] has become something of a mastery. It only takes two ingredients for her to achieve it and she no longer requires the incantations. She lied before when she tried summoning a portal out of the Mossmen room. Henry isn’t capable of sensing other Chosen, not even the Dungeons he commands and so Mark will be safe from his sight. Casters like herself on the other hand are bait as they wield magic. Portaling recklessly would have left her without enough to do this, left them stranded and at Henry’s mercies. At least now he’s gone.
Finally, Lavinia materializes, her body a mess of skewered muscle and shattered bones struggling to heal, of burnt skin and boiled flesh. Hera winces at the sight but bites her cheek as Lavinia kicks sand running at her like her injuries mean nothing.
“Corym you said, yes?” Hera smiles weakly.
She smites the sand and a portal explodes to form behind Lavinia. Hera commands the head of winds to push against the teeth gnashing vampiric demon, sending her tumbling and scratching for leverage against the sand as the portal looms, ready to banish her back to where she belongs.
“Goodbye Lavinia, there’s much for us to accomplish, I hope you survive.” Hera says, watching Lavinia unearth the rock she’s clawed into and take it with her through the portal. It shuts right behind her, leaving Hera with one last thing to take care of. The stirring Undead Mossmen.
In the silence of the boiling room, she huffs and climbs the creature, walking up to its gaping mouth-chest where she examines it with disgust and mild interest, “A slaver is the last thing I want to be but you’re not alive are you? The firebreathing Prince will be pleased at the challenge.”
