The hulking brute nods his shaggy head, cracks his bloody fists with a peg toothed grin then turns back toward the looming Titan...
Afraid of hurting Serena, Grace tries nullifying the amulet first, pointing her blade and willing it to dispel all magic on Serena that isn't cast by Max. She tries to throw her force of will behind it, knowing Serena is likely protected by powerful magic. She thinks of her loyalty t her friends, to this world, trying to transfer that sense into the nullify.
The light of Calesvol cleans away the dark magic of Una's Netherworld that has infected Seven's arcane works.
The amulet does not give up its hold on Serena, but Serena's own defenses shatter.
Gylfir makes an exaggerated show of yawning as he tries not to look too closely at Eoten coming to his aid.
"So you're saying 'death was always part of your plan'? I've heard it all before. Usually from people who just happened to luck into something that saved them, through no particular merit of their own. If you were truly powerful you would have neither needed to die nor needed to merge yourself with two other failures just to achieve a fraction of the power you actually wanted."
With Serena's magical defenses neutralized by Gracie, Max reaches out with Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to remove the amulet from her.
"C'mon Serena. Let go. Be free of her."
Grace sustains concentration on the dispel effect. "Grab it, now!"
Eoten rumbles to where the Titan looms and reaches out with both meaty hands - his thick fingers seeking purchase on the massive creatures foot;
Eldritch's crimson bands wrap around the amulet. As they attempt to remove it, the chain almost writhes as it the stone and its setting struggle to resist, but then the gold chain snaps and the crimson bands bring the amulet toward Max.
As the amulet and Serena are separated, her face relaxes as though some hidden turmoil has been resolved. She shakes her head and her gaze flashes over the scene before finally focusing into the beam of light from Calesvol. She nods. "Thank you, Good Knight. I believe that I am myself again." Her hands move over her body in a way that might be someone checking that they have their purse, keys, phone, though not exactly that.
Now that the amulet is separated from Seven, those of you with magical senses can see that it is clearly still connected to the Titan, and more specifically to the portion of the Titan that is Una.
It occurs to you that if the amulet provides an arcane path to Una, you could probably pry the threefold being apart if you also had items that would draw out the other two.
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Eoten grabs the Titan by its toe, heaving it violently upward. The massive being rocks violently. The three gazes look downward, taking in the strange giant wrenching at its foot.
It's power releases Gylfir, dropping him 60 feet to the asphalt below.
Then it turns its attention to the giant. It lifts it foot off the ground, raising the giant up into the air, before slamming the foot down onto the giant, pinning him.
Max checks himself to avoid sweeping Serena into a loving embrace in relief and instead focuses on his crimson bands clutching the amulet as if it was a nuclear bomb. Its strong connection to the titan is clearly obvious to his magical Sight.
"We can use this amulet as a wedge into Una's magic. Serena, do you need access to the Netherworld to reclaim your magic? And Gracie's idea to put Una into the fantasy dimension that she crafted for the heroes seems too good not to try."
Seven snaps her fingers and sparks fly, "I still have my tricks. I'm stronger in the Netherworld, but Una is all tied up in the fabric of that place. I've spent years cleansing it of her influence, but she restored her control. She's pulling power from there and from all of the other dimensions she has conquered."
"How can we disconnect her from those dimensions? Is it the titan that needs to separate first?" Max visibly relaxes when his love appears fully released and restored from her magical bonds.
Eoten grabs the Titan by its toe, heaving it violently upward. The massive being rocks violently. The three gazes look downward, taking in the strange giant wrenching at its foot.
It's power releases Gylfir, dropping him 60 feet to the asphalt below.
Then it turns its attention to the giant. It lifts it foot off the ground, raising the giant up into the air, before slamming the foot down onto the giant, pinning him.
"Oof!" Gylfir cries as he impacts the ground, far harder than should be expected from a simple fall.
"That wench did that on purpose...just spiked me into the ground..." he grumbles, back clicking as he gets to his feet.
"How can we disconnect her from those dimensions? Is it the titan that needs to separate first?" Max visibly relaxes when his love appears fully released and restored from her magical bonds.
Seven opens her Sight to look at the Titan and raises her hand as if blocking a bright light.
"That thing is holding all of the portals open. I don't think we can fight that. At least, not with finesse. We might be able to swing the power of the Nexus like a big bat through those power channels, but just like my Netherworld, most of those are full of living beings. We could accidentally kill billions of sentients."
It occurs to you that if the amulet provides an arcane path to Una, you could probably pry the threefold being apart if you also had items that would draw out the other two.
Grace frowns, fist clasped. "The titan's clearly too powerful as it stands. Divide and conquer indeed seems the way. Could we draw it out with something they want? Because... because I think I know what Dracula wants... and Gwyn ap Nudd has it," She says, mentioning her nemesis they tangled with last Halloween. "All these worlds and portals... the line between worlds are thin... I could try to see if I could draw his attention, get him to come to this world. But he is as likely to help us as he is to hinder... the only thing that makes me think it's worth risking is I doubt he wants to relinquish his right to all the souls the titan might otherwise take. Should I try?"
Even saying the name give Gracie the prickle that one feels under a predator's gaze.
"Definitely, Gracie. Great idea. The fey are threatened by Una as well." Max replies. "I wonder with the dimensional barriers bent... I wonder..." The mage reaches out with his feelings trying to contact his uncle, Adrian Eldrich, the last master mage of Earth.
Switching to the mystical cadences of fey speech, "<Gwyn ap Nudd, I know you hear me. A threat to my world and yours, and to the souls rightfully in your domain, demands we see past our feud and join our strengths. You have what I need, Gwyn ap Nudd, will you answer?>" Combined with what she said prior, she will have said his name thrice. Usually that has some effect on fey...
Meanwhile, Gylfir puts his brain to work trying to figure out who this last f++#ing rando other wizard is and what he might want.
Meanwhile, Gylfir puts his brain to work trying to figure out who this
last f@&~ing randoother wizard is and what he might want.[dice=Lore: Everything]1d20+5
Archeologists uncovered Malador’s tomb in the 1930s and unwittingly awakened the ancient mage. One of them, Adrian Eldrich, became invested with the power of an Atlantean sorcerer and has become Malador’s arch foe in the modern era. Malador has clashed with Eldrich and various other heroes a number of times over the years. All the while, the ancient sorcerer seeks to recover the power he has lost and to reclaim the mantle of Master Mage, to reshape the universe in his image, and rule over a new netherworld as its Dark Lord.
Once a noble protector of humanity and a scholar of mystical lore, Malador has become mad with power-lust. He wants nothing more than to wield ultimate power and be acknowledged as the supreme master of the mystic arts. Anything in his way must be eliminated, preferably in a manner that demonstrates Malador’s power to any other fools that might dare to challenge him.
Malador is supremely confident and assured of his own power and abilities. Minions who question him end up transformed into slavering monsters or simply destroyed, depending on Malador’s mood. He cannot resist an opportunity to gloat once he has a foe in his clutches.
Malador is a master sorcerer, capable of casting a wide range of spells. His arsenal includes bolts of mystic power and magical shields that protect him from harm. He can levitate, allowing him to fly through the air, and he can entrap others in mystic chains, transform people or animals into demonic monsters, magically spy on distant places, and so forth. The only real limits on Malador’s power are his concentration, time, and the amount of mystic energy at his command. He uses magical artifacts and devices to enhance his spellcasting abilities from time to time.
Malador is no longer a living being, having become more of an undead creature sustained by his powerful magic. He no longer suffers from mortal concerns like aging or needing to eat or breathe, and is immune to most harmful environmental conditions.
In fact, Malador’s life force is bound into the golden mask he wears. Should his physical body be destroyed, Malador’s life force enters the mask and waits there until a suitable host-body comes into contact with it. Malador can then possess that person and magically transform their body into a duplicate of his own. More than once, heroes have believed the threat of Malador the Mystic was ended, only to have him return, as powerful as ever.
"Definitely, Gracie. Great idea. The fey are threatened by Una as well." Max replies. "I wonder with the dimensional barriers bent... I wonder..." The mage reaches out with his feelings trying to contact his uncle, Adrian Eldrich, the last master mage of Earth.
Max reaches out to Eldrich with a hand composed of his Will. His vision blurs and fills with a corusca of colors he recognizes from his various journeys into the dimension of Dream, what his former team mate, the Hypnotist called the Dreamtime.
He feels himself soaring over a seemingly barren desert, though he senses that for one who knows there is life here.
He floats down to the surface, landing near a man he knows, though he has not seen him for years. Not Eldrich, but the man with grizzled beard and polished walnut skin who he knew as The Hypnotist, lost when the team defeated Una and believed they had ended her attempts to conquer the Prime dimension.
The man looks older, more worn. He sits on an ottoman sized Uluru, the red protrusion also known as Ayers Rock.
As Max approaches, the man's face splits in a wide grin. "Max, it is good to see you, son. You've grown into a man! And you've finally found me. I've been waiting a while, though it's always hard to tell how long things take in here. Oh, I see. You weren't here looking for me? Eldrich? He's not here, son. With all of the mess Una is up to out there, he will have retreated to the Hold. You need to go to Shambala. Do you know Shambala? I can show you. You can probably get me out of here. I got trapped here fighting Una, but I think I can follow you back."
To the rest of you, Max disappears in a swirl of rainbow colors.
Switching to the mystical cadences of fey speech, "<Gwyn ap Nudd, I know you hear me. A threat to my world and yours, and to the souls rightfully in your domain, demands we see past our feud and join our strengths. You have what I need, Gwyn ap Nudd, will you answer?>" Combined with what she said prior, she will have said his name thrice. Usually that has some effect on fey...
The air seems to split at the deep throbbing sound of an ancient hunting horn. It might be described, in an onomatopoeic way, as Ro-maaaa!
From one moment to the next, there is no one and then someone, a powerful presence. The smell of musk and dog and blood fills your noses.
And Gwyn ap Nudd is there. He is taller than the tallest man, with the body of a strong man and a helmet that either has antlers mounted on it or which wraps around antlers growing from his head.
He wears a leather skirt of sorts, is bare chested but for some leather straps. A bow hangs at his back, and a spear in his hand, a familiar spear, Slake, a spear that smells the blood of living creatures of the world.
<"Aeon sceal, Good Knight. You call to me as one hunter to another."
He breathes deeply, nostrils flaring. "You smell different, Good Knight. You smell like a predator, not prey. Are you truly ready to join in the Hunt?>"
Beneath the Titan's foot, Eoten digs his massive hands into the sod and earth around him, carving out space to manoeuvre;
"Hello there Hypnotist. Well, Una is threatening the world again. Need everyone's help. Yes please, let's go to Shambala." Max replies.
Along the way, he mentions, "your son found us. Great kid. He's struggling a bit with his connection to the Dreamworld. How have you been doing?"
<"I hunt not for the sake of the chase alone, High Hunter, but to make a larger predator my prey, for the good of all of us."> Grace points at the titan, as though its presence is not obvious.
"<The witch Una has absorbed great power to join with Dracula and an ancient mage, Malador, and that is the result. We think the key to defeating Una is separating the three. You're the one who told me Dracula yearns for the spear you won, Slake. I want to use Slake as bait to weaken Dracula's bond with the others--to draw him away. Like one separates the weakest one from the herd in order to take it down.>"
Eoten sinks himself into the structure of the city.
_________________________________________
Max: The man's eyebrows shoot upward, hovering over his head for a moment. For a moment Max might be surprised, but then remember that he is in Dream. "Oswald has found a connection to the Dreamtime? I never saw it in him. And me not there to help him! All the more reason to get home and get things back together. Do you know Shambala? Have you been there before? If not, I can 'show you the way,' you might say..."
He stretches his hands out toward your head.
__________________________________________
Gracie: Gwyn throws his head back and laughs, a deep belly laugh that is somehow both amusing and slightly terrifying. Not because it is mad but because it is slighty reminiscent of wolves howling and hyaenas barking.
<"The Good Knight, Grace herself, has called to ask a favor. You know, surely, that such a request comes at a price. And such a price must dance in the same measure. If you seek the Spear that seeks blood, the bargain must also seek blood. I will loan you the spear, and you will also take my horn. In the time of your choosing, you will sound the horn, and it shall call the Hunt, and you will join in.">
"I do not know the way to Shambala. Please show me the way." Max is impatient to be shown the way.
This version of the Wild Hunt is bloodthirst and savagery made material. You choose the quarry and sound the horn and the Hunt is called. Everyone who hears it can be swept up into it, sometimes as hunters, sometimes as additional prey. There are also many beings, mostly fey, who will hear the horn wherever they are and join in. It could be a powerful weapon, but it is pretty much the opposite of everything Gracie is about. That said, Gracie would know that Arthur led the Hunt at least once.
"I do not know the way to Shambala. Please show me the way." Max is impatient to be shown the way.
Just before his outstretched hands reach your head, there is a tingle and you suddenly know the way. Shambala is accessible through a portal in Tibet, but it is also its own dimension, and one that is unaffected by Una's manipulations. It might be a good place to gather your troops.
"Thank you Hypnotist. After we manage Una, I will reconnect you and your son." Max expresses his gratitude and promises.
Then, with some illuminated sigils rotating around his wrists, he heads to Shambala, to reunite with his uncle and prepare for the arrival of his army.
Grace pauses, thinks a moment, aware time is ticking away.
"Your bargain is to ask me to do something that would deny my oath in service as carrier of Calesvol--and so I shall lose it. I could also do that by agreeing to your bargain and then breaking my agreement. Is that what you want? If you no longer wanted me to be capable of being your rival there are easier ways of accomplishing that. Or is it that you prefer me to being a gardener than a knight? For that is my nature, Gwynn--have you come to accept that at last? I cultivate the living and protect living things. You take them, end them, and shepherd them to the next phase. We are two sides of the same wheel. If I stop being capable of doing what I do, then you, as my counterpart--your purpose will be disrupted as well. Is that worth seeing me twisted to your whim for but a moment?"
She frowns at him. "You're not stupid, and you're not a child, Hunter. You know that the Titan threatens your realm, mine, and the souls I protect and you harvest. Join me and help me draw away Dracula from the Triad. Or if you insist on playing infantile games because you are too afraid to face Armageddon, stand and watch, and I will find another way."
Gwynn moves with a speed that is not unheard of among superheroes. After all, Gracie was just recently interacting with a true speedster. But it is, perhaps, surprising. Certainly not an ability Gwynn usually demonstrates. It makes one realize that any hunt he participates in must be performative. Not many entities could move fast enough to escape from such speed.
He is suddenly close, so close that Gracie can feel the heat from his partially bare chest and arms like standing next to a bonfire.
<"Grace, this is not an infantile game. You would not be the first bearer of Calesvol to lead the Hunt. Previous agreements keep me from revealing all that I know of this moment, but I believe that between the two of us I can say that you have been told to tell the one behind it to >'get stuffed,'< whatever that should mean. Agree to take the horn...>"
Max opens a portal and finds that it leads to a snowy pass high in jagged mountains that rise even higher overhead. Behind you is a massive and ancient wooden gate. Before you a narrow path leads downward into a valley filled with buildings in a Nepalese style. Windows glow warmly.
Snow blows through the air.
Eoten digs far enough to release himself from the pressure of the Titan's foot. The Titan raises their foot, looking in confusing for the giant.
:Gylfir.: Max thinks as he floats toward the village. :I've found Shambala. Assemble the heroes to you. When you are ready, I will open a portal here for us to retreat and plan our counter-attack.:
Good. She wanted him to get closer. Closer to the Titan, and in the Titan's field of view.
As soon as Gwyn finishes speaking, she jumps backward from Gwyn 20 feet while shouting to the Titan and pointing at Gwyn. "Oi! Vlad Dracul! Horn-boy there has Slake! Don't you want that?"
:Gylfir.: Max thinks as he floats toward the village. :I've found Shambala. Assemble the heroes to you. When you are ready, I will open a portal here for us to retreat and plan our counter-attack.:
Good. She wanted him to get closer. Closer to the Titan, and in the Titan's field of view.
As soon as Gwyn finishes speaking, she jumps backward from Gwyn 20 feet while shouting to the Titan and pointing at Gwyn. "Oi! Vlad Dracul! Horn-boy there has Slake! Don't you want that?"
[dice=Persuasion]1d20+15
Gwyn's eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
The Titan reacts variously. Una's face screws up in a quizzical twist of brow and mouth, the skull of Malador quirks to the side. The mouth of Dracula opens distractedly. The massive being lurches forward, leaving behind a shallow hole at the bottom of which digs an ancient giant. The Titan bends, one hand reaching downward toward Gwyn. The Hunter moves backward, throwing a quick angry glance at Gracie.
Grace shakes her head at Gwyn as though she's simply disappointed, and doing what she has to do to account for his deficiencies. She points her sword at him, activating its magic nullification cone to make him look an even tastier target as he can less likely speed away.
"Just remember you could have made this easier by not being a t%!@."
When Gyflir confirms that he’s assembled the heroes near him, Max targets him to open a dimensional portal with the keys of Azog from Shallamba.
The mage calls through the portal and calls out, ”let’s go regroup.”
Gylfir snorts.
"A worthy distraction. Now stop playing around and we can get to the real work. Eldritch may have found us a way out of this mess."
<Now, Eldritch. the pieces are all in place.>
Wearing a shroud of rubble dust Eoten nods his shaggy head in agreement and follows...