Avad's brow furrowed and he opened his mouth to ask a question of the princess.

Then, suddenly, he found himself flung bodily forward and his face slammed into the steel bars of the prison, coming very close to knocking him out. A shell of transparent gray light peeled away from his body and he gasped for a moment in the sheer shock of the moment. Whatever had hit him, it had gone through his shielding as though it wasn't there, and still slammed him into the prison hard enough to bring him close to unconsciousness. As it was, he was heavily winded and unable to rise.

Understand, Avad was not overfond of close-quarters combat. Indeed, he was close to useless at it, and his official robe provided little in the way of protection. He was used to sitting in the backlines of an army and manipulating the battlefield from a distance, not brawling with the lithe, white-haired man that had just tackled him down.

Gasping for air, he tried to mouth a few words to a spell: "Achm...Achma..." but ended up only wheezing instead, the gritty stone of the dungeon floor pressing far too hard for his liking into his prone form. He raised his right hand to draw a glyph in the air, but without the corresponding words of power, there was no point. It was like trying to move water with a sieve; the magic simply drained through his hand. At last, he managed to gasp the word out and draw the glyph: "Achmat." Lightning.

There were dangers associated with phrasing a spell so carelessly. With no verbal direction of what to do, the lighting he called could do whatever it pleased. And of course, it was just his luck that the spell recoiled on him. While it succeeded in launching a bolt of lightning at the man before him, it also coursed a jolt of electricity through himself. Without the grace of his shield, he was rammed forcefully back by his own magic, colliding with the opposite wall and groaning heavily. Raising his head, he looked to see if anything had come of his spell. Anything at all, barring hurting him even further.