[center][h3]One Such Gambit[/h3]
[i]Toun and Vestec[/i][/center]

A great many things flowed through Toun’s mind as the tide went up and down against his Cornerstone. The great act of creating a spot of perfection had helped his thoughts to flow smoothly. Plans ran through his mind, simulating and analysing. It was little extra effort to set commands to his disciplined slave hain.

The angels in the distance caught Toun's attention before the hain ever saw them. He assumed they were agents of Niciel about their business. There was no need to heed them. That is why it was so curious to Toun that they would dive forth to attack.

The slave hain on the walls were taken by surprise, but the warrior caste wasted little time in pulling spears and shields from the floor and seeing to the defence. The most talented kaolokineticists made quick work of the first attacker, impaling the angel upon a spike that erupted from the wall itself.

As the small battle raged, Toun stood and stared. His eye was narrowed, trying to discern the meaning of it all. His perplexed state was disrupted when Vestec appeared next to Toun, also watching as the Angels and the Slave Hain battled. 

Vestec looked...odd. His form shimmered, and his colors were muted. "My, my. I didn’t think she had the guts to do it!" He giggled, looking back at Toun. "Niciel took issue to the fact that you have slaves. She wasn’t able to free them via regular means, so she decided to give them ‘the mercy of extinction.’ Evidently, she thought so little of them that she only sent a handful of her Angels." Another Angel fell, pierced by porcelain spears. "Evidently she made a mistake, wouldn’t you say?"

Toun did not acknowledge Vestec’s appearance by turning to him physically. He didn't even move from his standing position at all. A few moments passed where Toun's mind allocated a hissing sigh in anger. Vestec was one of the least welcome in Toun's domain. The only reason that he was not immediately expelled was Toun's curiosity competing with his rage.

[b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"Vestec,"[/color][/b] Toun began slowly after considering his disdainful words, [b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"a mistake would imply that Niciel expected to gain something from this. My servants are more numerous than to be the prey of a handful of angels."[/color][/b] Toun's head gradually turned to face the apparition, [b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"I am no longer the gullible fool as I used to be. Kyre has told me of your hostile intent."[/color][/b] Toun’s voice dripped with disgust, almost spitting out the last word. [b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"What reason should I have to trust you at all?"[/color][/b]

Vestec giggled again, amused by the perfectionist’s hatred of him. He hadn’t even marred his perfect face. "Because Toun, I’ve already got my entertainment on the way. A bunch of Fallen Angels and Corrupted Hain. Your fortress will come under siege, and blood will flow. What would I gain from lying to you about this?" The God of Chaos circled around Toun, as another Angel went down in a spurt of blood.

Toun straightened his head again as Vestec circled. There was the possibility that the skirmish was not Vestec’s doing. Still, it did not make the scenario any more rational. It made Toun’s rage gain a greater foothold over his curiosity. To think that Niciel would jab at him so spitefully after all that he had done. She would answer for it.

As for Vestec right now, Toun had little patience left for him. [b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"I can promise you, Vestec, that no amount of spatters and blemishes upon this fortress will stop me,"[/color][/b] Toun closed his eye as if to concentrate on something, and then craned his neck upwards to address Vestec with a bellowing shout. [b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"Your flying rabble is no more a threat than the tide!"[/color][/b]

The concentration Toun displayed was made evident by the sudden movements of the slave hain at the walls. All who were not in the warrior caste scuttled away into the hollows of the fortress wall where they made their homes. When they were all inside, the white ceramic around the entrances began to ripple and flow like watery milk caught in time. With kaolokinesis, the inhabitants took on a slow, flowing dance that made the porcelain move. They secured the entrances with weaving grates of thick porcelain, the likes of which would not be battered down easily.

The warriors on the wall let their spears and shields drop and melt back down into the floor before they took up positions in a uniform line against the crenellations. In a single, synchronised movement of all their bodies at once, they lifted their arms and willed the triangular, tooth-like crenellations to take mass from the concaving wall below and elongate. Another flowing form of kaolokinesis had them bend their upper bodies to one side, willing the crenellations to bend over like reeds of grass to shelter them all. The last form, harder to see as obscured as it was by the teeth, narrowed the gaps between the bent porcelain. The slave hain sat entrenched and sheltered by Toun’s walls. Gleaming white spearheads poked out from the remaining gaps to dare any attackers to break through. The last of the pure angel blood flowed off the curved roof in gathered rivulets, making one interrupting mark upon the otherwise perfect and endless repeating pattern of the wall.

[b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"So be the tide, Vestec! Watch as every attempt you make becomes more futile than the last."[/color][/b] Toun made his declaration with fire in his blue eye.

Vestec drew the shattered remnants of the Angel’s minds towards him. "Here you go Toun. Just in case you need evidence to throw into Niciel’s face." He giggled as he sent them towards the perfect god. "And then we’ll see how futile everything is in the end."

As if the motion of the Angel’s selected physical remains were pre-planned by Vestec’s toss, Toun’s arm curled upwards in a movement independent from the rest of his form. His fingers splayed, split, and extended with a snap and in a blink of an eye every drop of the Angel’s remains were in his possession. Not a drop fell on the tiles below him. Just as unnaturally, the fingers contracted and brought the pieces together, reforming the angel’s mind like an impossibly detailed jigsaw puzzle.

Toun turned his head slowly to the material in his hand and became oddly still. While his form seemed like a statue, the oppressive force of Cornerstone’s aura began to thrum. It was an emotional resonance, lined up with the mind of its creator. Toun could read enough of the angel’s intentions to realise that Vestec’s words were supported by them. It was impossible, but at the same time increasingly likely.

[b][color=PaleGoldenrod]"Begone, brother,"[/color][/b] Toun murmured as quietly as the eye of a cyclone.

"Have fun…" With those words, Vestec’s apparition faded away until there was nothing more than the echo of his giggles.

Toun gave no answer to Vestec as he took his leave. The atmosphere only grew more and more furious as his statuesque form fumed. Only two moments after the last of Vestec’s laughter faded from the echoes of the vast white courtyard did Toun suddenly and abruptly lift his foot. The movement looked as natural as a raging humanoid would in full motion, but for the sickening sudden extension of his leg and lower body bringing it greater momentum . Just as quickly, the foot came down to stomp viciously onto the tiles below. The strike caused the receiving tile to shatter in place as the earth shook below.

Galbar felt that strike. Immediately, every slave hain in Cornerstone was tripped onto the ground. The ring wall seemed to shudder as a single object and transfer the force out. The displacement pushed the water around Cornerstone to climb high and fast from its centre in colossal waves. In the air was the sound of the stomp; coastal inhabitants around the white ocean all felt a sudden, unexplained, deep clap upon earth. Where the clouds were above, it was waved off as thunder. Where it was clear it was instead a worrisome omen.

The waves travelled all the way to the coasts of the white ocean, blue as it was, but was thankfully dissipated enough to result in nothing more than a peculiar surge in the tide that day.