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Roan shrank into the floor away from the heat and the oppressive [i]whoosh[/i] of the fire overhead, a stark and sobering reminder of the raw power the Empress herself was smart enough to fear. But more than that, above the roar of the flames came a sound that he never thought he’d be lucky enough to hear: Inquisitor Hasgad shrieking in pain. 

The sound was so shocking it made Roan pause, and despite the surrounding danger he lifted his head, eager to see what horrible fate befell the feared Inquisitor to make him scream like so many of his victims had done before. The sound was hauntingly familiar, so oddly close in pitch and tone to the shrieking laughter that usually accompanied vicious torment that Roan almost wondered where the hapless victim was. But he was right there: frozen by his own magic with a vampire’s dagger in his side, screaming bloody murder and vengeance on his enemies. 

Hm. Didn’t that look familiar. 

Enraptured by the sight, Roan rose to his feet, staring in disbelief at the frozen sculpture of his tormentor, reveling in his unbelievable luck for what felt like an eternity before an arc of lightning popping in his direction brought him back to his senses. 

[color=396BD4]“Agh!”[/color] he recoiled as the bolt caught his forearm, hopping back a step as further lightning groped for contact. Right, that vampire wouldn’t last long getting fried like that. Roan knew from experience trying to separate the two would only get him paralyzed along with them… but maybe that wasn’t necessary. 

[color=396BD4]“Hey!”[/color] Roan shouted above the din to the purple-haired hostage that had since regained his footing. Possessed of a conviction not present before, he pointed to the belt of daggers girding the vampire’s waist. [color=396BD4]“Grab one for me!”[/color]

It took Quinn a moment to realize he had even been addressed, with his eyes locked on the mess of a melee that had erupted in front of him. Logic told him he should’ve moved first and gawped like an idiot later, but his body hurt and his thoughts weren’t yet caught up with the events that had transpired in the past few moments. A stray arc from Count Eve finally urged him into motion, though his limbs cooperated much more sluggishly than his magic, which hoisted him back into the air. 

Roan’s frantic look caught his eye, and Quinn finally processed what it was he’d been asked to do. Had he been shocked too many times before they got here? Rushing into that mess with a knife was suicide! Not that Quinn wanted to sit by and let Donovan be cooked, but shooting into that mess seemed like a good way to hit the vampire on accident too. Better the prisoner take the fall than him, he supposed.

Quinn swiped a finger upward, dislodging one of Donovan’s knives from its sheath, before he flicked his wrist aside and sent it floating in Roan’s direction. Knowing nothing about the other mage’s reflexes, it’d be a gamble to speed up the knife at the risk of cutting Roan, but the motion of the knife still felt painfully slow compared to the tension of the last couple minutes.

Roan caught the knife on reflex, or maybe luck, since Roan looked just as surprised as anyone else to find it actually landed in his hand. He didn’t acknowledge the mage who threw it to him; instead, like a magnet, his gaze was pulled back to Hasgad. 

He turned the knife in his hand to grasp it with the blade pointing downward, fingers curling awkwardly for purchase around a knife made to be thrown. His grip and posture belied an utter lack of training, but his white knuckles testified to his zeal; gone was the timid prisoner the rescue party found begging for death. His body seemed to move independent of his mind, driven by a singular calculation: if he couldn’t detach the vampire from the lightning, just turn off the lightning. 

In contrast to before, when the cacophony of battle overwhelmed his starved, exhausted mind, everything now seemed to slow down for Roan. The urgency that should have accompanied his bold new plan didn’t quite breach the surface of his mind. The din of the reinforcements being torn to shreds in the entrance didn’t reach him; only the pulse in his ears, the crackling of lightning, and the twisted expression of rage frozen on the Inquisitor’s face. 

Maybe this was how Hasgad felt in his victims’ final moments. 

[color=396BD4][i]“AAAHHH!”[/i][/color]

Roan’s own scream brought time rushing back to him, and he was already moving; he rushed forward with vengeful fervor, dagger in hand, numb to any bolts that fell upon him. Somewhere in the far recesses of his mind he had probably predicted that he was in for a hell of a shock once he made contact, but gambled on the electricity stopping soon enough not to stop his heart; in the moment, however, any consequence to his actions were far-off and insignificant compared to the righteous justice he could finally mete out for his friends and comrades by putting the son of a bitch out of his misery. 

When Roan reached his target, only a few steps away to begin with and only a handful of seconds after the whole affair began, he threw all of his weight behind the dagger, bracing as he moved to plunge it deep into the Inquisitor’s neck.
[right][sub]Collab with [@Scribe of Thoth]; [@Achronum][/sub][/right]