[color=f7941d]”Very well.”[/color] Ssarak said dryly before dashing to the side. The moment he did so, he used another application of psychomancy in the form of two doppelgangers that split from himself, all of which appeared identical to him. There were obviously runes on his opponent’s necklace that were related to psychomancy. He had known the fire was an illusion, so Ssarak fell back upon a psychomancer’s most reliable defense. Doppelgangers worked differently from most illusions, and could help protect a psychomancer from a warded mage against which normal illusions would not be reliable. In this case, Ssarak had the idea that the necklace might be able to detect the presence of illusions. However, merely knowing that an illusion was present would not help in picking him out from the doppelgangers. 

When the Esyire started to release the noxomantic cloud, Ssarak’s first reaction was to run the other direction, and of course, his doppelgangers followed suit. None of them acted any differently from himself, with no less concern for their own “safety,” so their behavior would not serve as an easy give-away as to which he should target. Ssarak did not know if he was going to escape the cloud, but in any case, he did not need to be close to attack the Esyire. Ssarak wanted to disable or kill his opponent as quickly as he could so that he could help his friends, so if he was able to get away from the advancing cloud, Ssarak would demonstrate the full fury of his expert focused concentration squarely onto the Esyire’s ward. If he could break through quickly, Ssarak already had some ideas for how to best manipulate his opponent’s mind. Upon hearing Leith shout, Ssarak angled his head away from the source of the sound so as to avoid what he knew was coming.