Private - Complications of Ownership

Dispater, what are you on about now?!

Ezra very rarely found herself with a moment to spare where she could revel in the quiet of solitude. Normally, she filled her days with training, with helping out the Khalasar, or hunting in the wilds with her Raptor. She hadn’t realized when she adopted the thing just hope much meat it needed to consume on the daily basis. It was probably old enough to go hunting by itself, but sometimes Dispater would whine and mope around the tent until she grabbed her gear and followed him into the treeline. Sometimes, they wouldn’t make it home until dawn the following day.

Now, he was pacing in front of the entrance to the tent, his eyes gone and away into the tees. Something was amiss. He was never this twitchy unless he was hungry and considering they had just returned from feeding him not ten minutes ago, something else was going on. Ezra trespassed outside with a huff, her silver eyes glancing upwards at the sky. Another overcast day and there was a chill in the air, but nothing else sparked her attention. She inhaled, scenting snow on the wind but nothing more, nothing alarming.

Dispater trilled his agitation, his lithe reptilian form walking a few paces away before doubling back and looking at his mother, his large yellow eyes pleading. Tilting his head to the side, he gave another inquisitive trill before pacing away and back once more.

Erza growled, the sound unlike anything she had ever made towards him before. With a huff, he went back inside, grabbed her great axe, and left the rent, her Raptor slightly in front of her, the two crossing over the land at a quick clip. But the land was familiar to them. Dispater had grown up in this land and knew the paths through the forest, the ebb and sway of the trees, the quiet brooks of water that marked how far he might’ve wandered from home.

And he knew when there was someone new trespassing in these lands.

He saw her first and growled as a reaction, his instinct pushing him to leap from the bushes and barrel her over, tear her limb from limb and lick up the fresh meat. Sure, he had just eaten, but more food was always good and he wasn’t completely full…not yet. Ezra’s steady hand on his side stopped him from acting, his slender dome turning toward her with a questioning quirk of his head. Ezra didn’t know this woman and she seemed lost, obviously a trespasser, but did that mean she needed to be killed?

Perhaps not?

Halt, the Death Knight commanded as she stepped onto the path. The treeline had ended some ways away and there was nothing to conceal Dispater from prying eyes. Ezra didn’t care. She had faith in her companion.

You are crossing into claimed territory. What is your business here?

The woman blinked at her, as if she were a spec of dirt not worthy of speaking to. And then she looked around the Death Knight, obviously expecting someone which wasn’t her.

Ezra ground her teeth and took a threatening step forward, the familiar heat of battle tickling the base of her spine.

I’m the one you’ll be dealing with. If you don’t need anything, get the fuck off this land.

@Madison Freebird ​

 

It had been a few weeks since the battle against Titanius, and Madison had grown considerably since then. The witch had become far more powerful since focusing entirely on Nature Magic, for the sake of her upcoming tasks. Her old confidence was returning, the kind of reckless swagger that struck fear into the hearts of players in games past whenever her name was brought up in taverns and guildhouses.

Had the Death Knight approached her the first time she set foot into the duchy, Madison would've turned around and never returned. But now...?

The plagueslinger's malevolent grin stretched from ear to ear.

"Claimed territory. That's a good one. You didn't get the memo? Astor revoked everyone's shit."

Madison followed that up with a quick roll of her sapphire eyes and a wanking motion. She knew just as well as anyone that there wasn't anybody who would try and make a grab for Lucia's former duchy. If the crown thought they had a hell of a time trying to fix up the western and northern reaches of Astorea, they had absolutely no idea what was in store for them here. The necromancer went through great lengths to hand-craft the land to suit her future undead society. No number of nature magi or plucky adventurers would be able coax the earth into giving up its treasures for the living anymore.

And then there was the army of undead ready to defend their way of life from any and all intruders, with a master necromancer at their back, waiting to replenish her ranks with the countless bodies that would invariably pile up during the invasion.

"Anyway," Maddy continued with a shrug of her shoulders, "my business is with Lucia. Get the hell out of my way."

The stranger in armor took another step closer, her hands tightly wrapped around the shaft of her great axe.

Madison steeled her gaze as she flipped through her inventory. "Step aside, or get stepped on," she growled.

The knight didn't budge, the same look of ill intent etched on her features. Madison sighed and flicked open the cardboard tuck case of her corrupted deck of cards. The cards slid into her hand, and she immediately felt Titanius's lingering energy pulsating within.

"I guess I can't expect all of her summons to be smart," the woman muttered to herself. With a quick motion, Madison shuffled and cut the deck, charging the cards with mana, preparing to run this bitch through with acid-tipped thorns.

Madison fanned the deck out in her left hand, ready to act as soon as the Death Knight twitched a single muscle. "Last chance. I'd rather not hurt you, but Lucia's got enough minions floating around that she won't miss one."

 

Her? A Summon?!

Ezra was normally a relatively calm and collected individual. She had felt the touch of madness and blood craze before and she endeavored to stay away from it, to keep it at arm’s length where she could monitor it. However, being reduced to a summon was the tipping point. Like a pot with too much water sat heavily down upon a surface, some of that madness sloshed over the sides and wet her. No, it drenched her.

The muscles in her back tensed. Her grip on the shaft of her great axe tightened. She could barely make out the inquisitive-yet-scared trill of Dispater behind her. He didn’t understand what was wrong and why he was sensing this energy rolling off of his mother in waves. His whip lash tail flashed back and forth in agitation, slitted yellow eyes roving from this woman that stood apart from them and the Death Knight with preverbal steam pouring from her ears.

Lucia’s Death Knight waited. She held her position as the other woman pulled forth a deck of cards. Ezra has no idea what that meant other than she was probably someone who did all the fancy waving around with the magic and the spells. Even better, in her mind; any of the casters that played TerraSphere were normally very, very squishy. And maybe she did have something to talk to Lucia about, but that information could be gained when the Necromancer pulled her soul from the Ether and questioned it.

On Madison’s last word, Ezra charged.

The sudden aggressive energy that whiplashed through her system was…unfamiliar to her. She hadn’t sipped from that dark chalice in months, not since Lucia had helped her with her hangups on dying because of newbies. Now, it consumed her, made her swings wild and unfocused, the first arcing cleave missing Madison by at least a foot. But, she was in range now and that was what Ezra wanted, her silver eyes blazing with untapped power.
​

 

The Death Knight lunged at her. It was an unwieldy attack, one that Madison found no trouble in dodging.

Madison could tell by the rage in her war cry and the ferocity with which she swung her great axe that something she said had gotten to her.

That was fine; she could work with that.

Anger made for a powerful weapon--she knew that first-hand. Most of the battle she fought on Terra and elsewhere were won because she gave in to her baser, bloodthirsty desires. She could channel her fury and malice into an unrelenting assault that would push her enemies off-guard and hand her a quick victory.

But, anger could also leave one open for manipulation. Something she also knew all too well.

Madison grinned as the knight readied herself for another strike. Being close to someone wielding a weapon like that was a little too dangerous for her liking. The edge on that axe would tear through her cloth armor like butter, and the momentum would carry it through the rest of her body without much of a problem. What would Lucia think if the witch showed up at her tent, her upper body sorta dangling off the lower half like a broken toy?

The cards brimmed with energy as she drew the top one. The Six of Diamonds ignited with purple flame, and the plagueslinger felt an odd sensation welling up inside her--as if she immediately needed to throw up.

A jet of stinging acid rose from her stomach and burst from her mouth, the sticky amber liquid shooting through the air towards the Death Knight. Madison's spell wouldn't be strong enough to melt flesh from bone, as she usually preferred to. The acid was meant to sting and irritate, to blur her eyesight, to keep her from landing another blow while the witch put some distance between them.

Death would be too good for this bitch. Madison wanted to humiliate her instead. Make her yield, to listen to the honey-sweet words of "I give up!" echo across the plain.

Madison knew plenty of people like this knight. All ego and honor. To her, it would be a fate far worse than death.

 

Once, Addison accidentally got chili pepper juice in her eyes while she was marinating food for herself and her grandpa. It was probably one of the worst experiences of pain she ever had had to deal with, not counting the monthly pain of her period of course.

The feel of Madison’s corrosive acid in her eyes was ten times the pain of that. Ten times the pain of her uterus rebelling against being empty, one-hundred times the pain of every scraped knee, elbow, and wound that she had attained over the course of her life. There was nothing to compare to the feeling of your eyeballs melting out of your head.

Ezra dropped her axe and clutched her face, her rage-filled scream turning into a wail of pain. She sunk to her knees and quickly shook her head as if that would somehow dislodge the acid from her eyes, her nose. Everything on her face was on fire and painful and there was nothing she could do to stop the agony that wrapped around her tender eyes and nose. Every inhale was torture, blinking her eyes only furthered the stinging and the few tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes didn’t help at all.

Another scream, this one full of frustration and pain erupted from her chest and echoed across the barren wasteland that Lucia called home. Her second wail was enough to get Dispater moving, his head perking up and his trilling-click filled with anxiety. He had never heard his mom sound like that before and it spurred him into moving.

The Velociraptor was quick, his talons barely scratching the ground as he circled around and dashed forward from behind Madison. A predatorial screech was the only sound he emitted as he leaped into the air and came down on the plague witch, hard, forcing her slender body into the ground. He screeched again, this time right next to Madison’s ear, his higher octave a mimic to the pain that Ezra was currently feeling. ​

 

Madison only had time to wipe the corrosive liquid from her lips and grin maliciously at the knight before an ear-piercing shriek ripped through the air. She turned just in time to catch several hundred pounds of reptile square in the chest.

The witch collapsed to the ground with the raptor still on top of her.

Where the fuck did you--ah!--come from?! The words stained the tip of her tongue like venom, but she couldn't find the breath to say them.

She scrambled around for her cards, which fell from her hands on impact. Her fingers fumbled over most of them, but she couldn't quite reach them all. Not with this incredibly hungry and incredibly rude beast on top of her, snapping at her exposed flesh with razor-sharp teeth and talons digging into her arms.

The dinosaur shrieked again, and Madison felt a surge of energy that always came when she realized that, hey, I might die here, and that would be bad.

Madison's shout came loud and frantic. "Hype!"

The Queen of Hearts in her hand flashed a brilliant green, and vines began growing from the dead earth next to her, kissing her fingers briefly as they shot into being.

Before the knight's pet could react, Hyperion was fully-formed and ready for action. The plant woman plowed into the raptor shoulder-first, taking it off its feet and releasing its grip on Madison.

"Oh dear, aren't you a feisty one," Hype playfully taunted as she wrestled with it on the ground, trying to stay on top of the beast, wrapping her arms tightly around its body, keeping its talons from absolutely shredding her mossy skin.

"But that's okay," she said as she whipped the long crimson leaves that served as her hair out of her face. "We can still be friends! Come give us a hug, lizardfriendo!"

Madison pushed herself up to her knees, scrambling to collect her deck. "Dammit, dammit, shit, fuck, where the hell--ah ha!"

With all fifty-two in hand, she sprang to her feet, gave the cards a quick in-hand shuffle and cut, and prepared for the next spell. Hyperion had her hands full with the raptor, but she was more than capable of holding it down long enough for the witch to fire off another spell.

And so, she did. The had she dealt herself exploded in emerald light, and called forth a dozen thick, thorny briars that sought to wrap themselves around the knight's arms, legs, and neck.

 

Ezra hated relying on just her sense of hearing to assess what in the hell was going on. It did nothing for the anxiety building inside of her and that anxiety fueled her anger, her rage. She clawed at her face, her eyes blinking rapidly while Madison was otherwise preoccupied. Her eyes still burned like hell and now there was dirt and who knew what else rubbed into her blue skin, but she could make out shapes. And while blurry, there was color, so it was, all in all, a net gain. She wasn’t completely blind anymore.

Dispater trilled in anger and surprise as his form was wrenched from Madison. He rolled in the dirt with…well, he didn’t know what it was. It smelled like jungle and something fresh, some plant that he might or might not have been told to leave alone but he ate anyway. He struggled, trying to wiggle his way out of the thing’s grip, but Hype was too strong and he was still a young dinosaur, nowhere near as deadly as his full-grown cousins.

Plus, he had never battled a truly intelligent being before. He and his mom had hunted prey types, not taken on other people’s summoned companions before!

Ezra growled and shook her head, her long black locks flying over her shoulder as Madison’s slender figure came into view. She bared her teeth, preparing to rise and lunge for the girl when she felt the first clench of those deadly vines around her wrist. She glanced down, the muscle in her arm flexing as she tried to tear herself free to no success. She wasn’t strong enough and that thought sizzled through her mind with a burning clarity that had nothing to do with the remnants of acid staining her vision. ​

 

As Madison stepped forward, she commanded the vines around the death knight to tighten. While they couldn't crack her armor, they did prevent her from doing much of anything else. There she laid, on her knees, the raptor safely neutralized with hugs and cuddles from a Hyperion who was incredibly happy to make a new friend.

The witch let her attacker know she was there with a quick spring of her cards. As the knight snapped to attention, fangs bared and rage overcoming the pain that coursed through her body, Maddy could only frown.

Her voice remained calm as she spoke. "Look, I don't want to kill you. I really don't."

A quick one-handed revolution cut of her cards demonstrated that she absolutely would, if she had to. And it would be incredibly drawn-out, painful, and messy. Thankfully, with the woman bound in vines, she didn't need to.

"I remember my first summon too," she continued. "It was kind of useless in combat. Kept dropping its weapon, kept getting in the way, kept dying all the time--but it made me laugh, so I keep it around for sentimental value."

Madison was inches away from the death knight's face. "Are you Lucia's first summon? I'm guessing that's why you're patrolling the borders? Just keeping you busy because she can't stand the thought of dismissing you?"

Out of curiosity, Madison pressed two fingers against her temple, activating her Investigation Mode. To her immediate surprise, she saw that the woman was named Ezra--but there was no special designation underneath her name stating she was a summon, like she would've found if she glanced over at Hype.

"Huh," the witch muttered as she toggled the extra data off. "Now I really don't want to kill you."

Lucia told her that nothing living resided in her territory. But obviously, that wasn't the case. Here this death knight was, clearly under the necromancer's employ. Was she another player who swore fealty to the priestess? An NPC paid to wander and protect the wastes?

Madison clicked her tongue in thought. "I feel like... this was all a misunderstanding." She shrugged her shoulders.

"Tell you what. Yield. I'll let you go, and we can talk about this like adults. Deal?"

Several agonizing seconds passed without any response from Ezra, save for pissed-off snarling.

Maddy's frown deepened. "Yield."

"Fuck you," Ezra spat.

The witch flicked the top card of her deck. It immediately ignited in deep violet flames. "Right," she muttered, the anger and disappointment dripping from her tongue.

 

The cries of an animal weren't something that Luna would have ignored even on a bad day. The cries of a familiar animal weren't something she would ever ignore, no matter the circumstances. But the cries of a creature that made Oktai, Luna's white raptor, screech in anxiety and race off? Well those were just completely unacceptable. There was only one animal in the whole world that Oktai cared about like that and she knew damn well just who that animal was actually partnered with.

It took a few moments to arrive, with Luna having to use the aid of both Natiri and Oktai to find the location of the ongoing fight. But when she made it there, she saw something that made her blood simultaneously boil and freeze solid in her veins. Savannah, caught in vines, with some disgusting woman aiming a spell at her, about to finish her. No way. No way!

"NO WAY!" She screamed, a javelin of arcane energy gathered between her hands, glowing deep crimson as she leveled it at @Madison Freebird and tossed it with all of her might. It was packed with energy, densely bundled together, enough to distort the air around it as it hurtled towards the woman. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"

 

She wasn’t going to yield and she wasn’t going to beg. That much she knew in her heart of hearts.

With her eyes still stinging and Dispater’s desperate cries sounding in her ears, Ezra felt helpless. It was a feeling that she hadn’t experienced in quite some time. And from this acid in her gut and nerves in her chest and the foggy grey feeling that swam around her brain, she never wanted to feel this way again. She was Lucia’s Death Knight for crying out loud and yet, here she was, on her knees, bound and tied by a foreign invader. If she couldn’t even take out a single threat to the Dark Lady, she had no business trying to protect Lucia from other threats.

The woman gave a loud swallow as the sound of Madison’s magic flaring to life hit her ears. This was the end…again. The eerily familiar temple waited for her, the cold marble flooring, the dark corners with their flickering red candle light. And the Woman Who Waits, standing forever patient at the podium, a white hood obscuring her features from view expect her smile. A smile too wide for her face, with sharp teeth. It was enough to give Ezra a panic attack…

Suddenly, a familiar voice shouted from somewhere behind the Knight. Her head turned quickly over shoulder and though she couldn’t completely see the image that was coming toward them, she could recognize Luna’s voice from anywhere. A surprised and thankful noise came from her throat, her eyes welling with tears that she didn’t want to spill. Though Ezra served a Necromancer, she was none too keen about dying and coming back again. It was one of her greatest fears still.

The vines around her wrists, arms and legs gave way and with a grunt, Ezra lurched to her feet. Circulation started twisting through her veins. Though her hands and fingers had pins and needles in them, she grabbed for her Great Axe and stood up, her silver gaze narrowed at the Plague Witch as she took a stance next to Luna.

Let Dispater go and maybe we’ll spare your miserable fucking life.​

 

Madison played with the burning card, flicking it between her fingers when I voice cracked like thunder across the field. The witch looked up to find a familiar white-haired woman with a flower that looked like a white lily in the place of her right eye. Murder was etched on her face, her lips twisted in a snarl and a dangerous-looking spell brewing in her hands.

Where the seven hells did she drop in from? Just a handful of sand ago, Maddy had been all alone, making the trek to visit Lucia and begin the process of splicing bits of undead to her, another piece of the puzzle that was her grand dream. And now here she was, face to face with a ruse, sassy, reckless woman, her pet dinosaur, and another one of the few adventurers suckered into the battle against Titanius that walked out of the eldritch god's guts.

The witch raised her free hand. "Now hang on just a minute--"

Luna decided that would've been inappropriate for the situation, and launched her arcane weapon. Madison loudly cursed as she pushed her abilities to the limit, maintaining her hold on the death knight while simultaneously extinguishing the black magic that coursed through the card and replacing it with the comforting green glow of nature's light.

With a flick of her wrist, she unleashed the spell within. A tangle of briars ripped through the dead earth at her feet, rising up into the air and tightening itself into a protective wall. It was too little, too late; the white-haired woman's bolt of pure magical energy shattered against the thorns, splintering into pieces that managed to pierce the vines and hit the plagueslinger.

Madison snarled as the arcane shards pierced her cloth armor and diffused into her flesh, sending jolts of blinding pain through her. It was enough to break her concentration as she stumbled back, causing the vines around Ezra to loosen their grip. Before the witch could regain her composure the knight broke free, picked up her weapon, and was at Luna's side.

The witch glowered as she rubbed the shoulder where Luna's spell connected with a sticky healing leaf. The thick sap quickly began to soothe her wounds, replacing the burning sensation with a wave of dull numbness.

I really need to get a new magical tool, Madison noted as she brandished a pair of cards, one in the palm of each hand. The Dissonance-corrupted cards, while incredibly flashy when she had the time and room to cast spells with them, were just as cumbersome in a quick and dirty battle situation.

Ezra threatened Madison through clenched teeth, the knight's muscles wound up tight and ready to pounce.

The cards burst in dark flames, one pointed at the knight, the other at Luna. "Not a fucking chance, ya' tin can. Your stupid iguana will jump me the moment it gets back up."

Luna steeled her gaze. "Let her go, or I'll shoot." The mage quickly formed another shimmering crimson bolt of arcane energy in her hands, this time aiming it at Hyperion.

Hype--!

Madison's face twisted in horror as she snuffed the energy coursing through her hands. "Okay, okay! Jesus Christ, put that shit out right now! I'll call her off!" Her attention immediately turned towards the forest spirit. "Hype, sweetie?"

"Yes, Miss Madison?"

Hyperion looked up from her position on the raptor. Dispater, while not entirely resigned to his face, looked extremely uncomfortable from having a bunch of leaves and vines in the shape of a woman give him chin scratches and being told "who's a good boy, yes you is~~!"

Maddy glanced back towards Ezra and Luna. "Let him up, please."

The spirit looked at her, then at the other two women, then back at the witch. The confusion was clear in her voice. "But, Madi--"

"Now, Hype," Madison snapped, her jaw clenching. She checked to make sure the white-haired mage was only threatening to fire.

Reluctantly, Hyperion got up, leaving Dispater free to do whatever. Hopefully it wasn't immediate going back to trying and rip Madison a new hole to breath out of. Slowly, Hyperion moved to the witch's side, her eyes never leaving the two women that stood across from them.

Madison lowered her hands and stuffed her deck of cards back into her inventory. Hype reached out from behind her and clasped the witch's left hand with both of hers, weaving her fingers between Madison's.

"Thank you, dear," Madison whispered as she continued to watch everyone, searching for telltale signs that they were about to move against her.

Hype likewise scanned the field for any additional danger. "Are you going to be okay? Do you need anything else from me?"

A couple shots of Three-Headed Hydra and access to the Terrasphere developer mode, Madison thought darkly.

"No. Get out of here. I'll call you later."

The spirit gave Madison's hand a reassuring squeeze before disappearing into the ground. The calm that Hype always brought was beginning to dissipate, leaving nothing in its wake but a simmering anger and a sense of emptiness and loss.

Why the fuck does everything always seem to go to shit whenever I actually have a purpose in life?

Madison closed her eyes for a brief moment as she slowly raised her hands in the air. As much as it pissed her off to admit it, there was no way she'd be able to take on all three of them at once. She'd been able to handle Ezra and the raptor on her own, and from what she remembered of the battle inside Titanius, the witch could easily handle Luna. But their combined strength, in addition to whatever hostile bullshit might be lurking nearby, waiting for a signal to join the fun? Fat fucking chance.

And so, the plagueslinger was left with no choice. It was the most un-Madisonlike thing to do; but it was her final option.

Try and reason with them. Ugh, the mere thought of it made her want to throw up.

"Okay, look, seriously," she began, trying to remain calm. "My business is with Lucia, not either one of you. She's got me working on on on a couple of projects, okay? A massive one for the ziggurat, for the undead to be able to sustain themselves. A-a-and another special project for her. I can't talk to you about that one."

Madison slowly lowered her hands. "Just take me to her, and we can sort this whole mess out, alright?"

 

Well, this situation was stressful. Luna nodded once Madison called for Hype to stand down and let Dispater go, slowly draining the energy from her arcane bolt back into her body, so that it didn't completely waste the energy that she'd used to form it in the first place. Arcanamancy wasn't cheap to use after all! "Good....that's good.....we're all calm here now, right?" She sighed, watching as the last light of her arcane bolt flickered away and died, leaving her standing still with an outsreached arm.

Then the stranger started mentioning that she was working with Lucia, saying that she'd been helping Lucia with something. Luna fought the urge to snort, fixing the woman with a look that said she was almost upset with what she saw as a shoddy attempt to lie. Anybody that knew Lucia knew that the woman was the last person to ever need help with anything in life, especially with anything that even slightly came back to relating the necromancy or the undead. Or just the game in general, Lucia really knew what she was doing.

Still, she placed a hand on Ezra's shoulder and shook her slightly, trying to bring her out of that berserk trance that she knew the woman could slip into sometimes. "I'm not too sure about her, but I think continuing this battle is pointless." She gave the knight a soft smile, before turning to face Madison once more. "Honestly, I don't believe you for one second. Lucia isn't the kind of person to need help. But I suppose that isn't up to me."

She sighed, pulling her staff off of her back, spinning it once, then twice, before she gripped it tightly and crimson magic started to coalesce at the tip. Then an orb of magic appeared, growing larger and larger as she packed it full of power, until it was the size of a small building, towering over their heads.

And then it shrank as the white witch condensed it, pushing all of that power until it was the size of a marble. "This should get Lucia's attention." There was an eerie silence, as if the world was still, before she fired the marble at the sky, where it detonated and painted the atmosphere a deep crimson, blocking at the sun and the clouds and kicking up an awful battering of wind.

When all was said and done, Luna put her staff away, sighing once. "You're staying in this clearing. Lucia should find you, probably. I um, I wouldn't try to leave. Some of Lucia's creations aren't....the nicest to strangers." With that said, she softly grabbed at Ezra's hand to lead her away.