[center][b][h1] Plate Five, Undercity Ceiling [/h1][/b][/center]
[hr]

Ah. The target approached. Rapidly gaining speed and distance, like a meteor searing through heaven.
Time had passed enough for it to understand itself, call itself 'Anara'. A-9. It watched, silent and thoughtful, as mana poured in from the very air around it, the [SUN-SERPENT] burned her way closer. 
She would try to kill it. [i]Try[/i]. It had existed longer than her, longer than the thread of [love-confusion-Fear-motherwaskeepingthis?!].

Ah. Time. That silly thing that those with [SAPIENCE] understood better than Anara understood [MIND]. It was slowly coming to understand it, thinking it over and turning it around in thought and experimentation. There was a before that could never change, a 'now' that changed endlessly from one instant to the next, and an after that would never be known until the 'now'.
How interesting. 

Heat was starting to enclose on Anara, and it returned its limited focus to the fore. [PERCEPTION] was so slow, incredibly slow. A wonderful benefit of understanding the [MIND] was changing how it [perceived] the world. The astralshape of the sun-serpent was here, looming over Anara as a gout of flame began to rush forth. [HEAT AND FIRE AND DESPERATION] burned on it's surface. Fuel.
Ah. So this is what the drones felt when they absorbed something? Emotions rushing in like water down a drain. Hungry for more.
Time became more concrete, and Anara suffered in the heat, accepted the burning hellfire that blazed towards it. Converted the [DETERMINATION-FOCUS-killkillkillitnow] into fuel.

A new thought sparked, and Anara stared its' death in the face. Looked past a maw of screaming inferno, gazed past the astral miasma that was whipped up in a storm of [hAzE].
Locked eye to eyes with a human, championed by [[color=Gold]The Blaze of The Sun[/color]]. Across a distance that could only be crossed by those with the learned, built, or intrinsic talent. 
Anara felt nothing, but then, a small trickle of personal emotion.
Sadness. Pity. Loathing. Curiosity.

The fire wrapped Anara whole, coming so close to ending its' existence entirely... 
[i]He[/i] shifted. Gaze becoming baleful as a [CURSE] lanced through the mana-scape. Seared into the eyes of the astral form in front of it.
"[i][color=Magenta]I am Anara, I have lived for two hundred and eighty four human years. I spite thee, o'blazing snake. May the light of your fire wound your eyes. May the warmth of the sun sour upon your flesh. [b]May your sight fail you when you need it most.[/b][/color][/i]"
Mana shifted with his voice, yanking on the fire around him as Anara wove a spell of gargantuan size with a speed otherwise unexpected.
A curse was a powerful thing, drawing on the very [soul] of the weaver to spite the [soul] of another. The bigger the curse, the stronger a soul had to be. 

'Strong'. Hah. Souls were endlessly strong, it was all about 'conviction'. And he was in possession of a soul that fueled him, now. One sacrificed to him in a moment of true desperation. 
One shot at this curse, one guarantee that it would be surely settle, seethe, and scour.
Anara felt amusement burn through him, his woven spell becoming complete as his astral and physical form [i]crumbled[/i] into dust. 
He was dead, dead and gone. Removed from existence forever.

The body that arrived in the depths of a forest filled with mold and fungal growths was definitely dead. There was no now malevolent intelligence hiding within. Assuredly, there was no pillar of salted-marble white, cracked and cracking all throughout, that was immediately supping upon the ambient mana in the area. 
Definitely.

Hah.