Cruallassar

The Final Hazard

@Terminal

Kael's eyes followed the lines of text, understanding...well, some of it. Then the revelation that he could have saved his companion came to mind...which of course, seemed largely obvious in hindsight, but his reasoning for not trying something like that was still sound.
"You could have saved her, you worthless thief..."
So it would seem...he wasn't particularly perturbed by the insult and remark, people had said worse to him before, but the way he could have saved her...
The last line of text scrolled across the screen, and his name caught his eye. Proxy Iris...that knight kept talking about proxys...vitiating him, Kael...he didn't know what vitiating meant, but he knew the roots of such a word, and anyway, something told him he probably didn't want to be vitiated. But more importantly, everything except the essential outside elements of this world had been torn away, who was this Pro...
Everything and everyone who wasn't...something, essential...had disappeared.
The only being who hadn't who had also not been in that carriage besides the monstrosity above him was that knight.
The knight with the golden eyes who was even now reaching for his shoulder.
"Maybe you should do that now..."
If there was one thing his mentor had taught him, it was the value of instant action. Kael's will exerted itself immediately, intent on two effects. Firstly, he willed himself about three feet away from the entity he presumed to be Iris. Then, he used the interesting thing he had noticed.
When he had looked at the machine, he had figured, ~Hey, this seems to be a piece of complex magical equipment that I am not sure I can deal with.~ If he thought about the prospect of healing the wound in his partner earlier, he figured that it would be a task he wasn't sure he could accurately accomplish, due to...once again...a lack of understanding. And yet...he could have done it. Therefore, the next task he wills to occur, is for the machine before him to reset. Once again, no fiddling with whatever accomplishes that task, no fighting the monster above, and no getting vitiated by their ally. Simply the clear intent for it to perform the function he knew it could. He may not have saved his companion, but this worthless thief could certainly save anyone left and get them home.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

Oh...
Oh Terminal, you glorious hellspawn.

I am onto you.

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

I'm typically with you on that, Wisedragon. The sword's path was described by GM post, and as far as I've always been concerned, GM post is law.

The Final Hazard

@Terminal

From the moment the world had disappeared, Kael's mind had been working overtime, streaking from training to present situation and back again in a logical chain that was finally, finally, starting to link together. Even as he had asked his earlier question of the lady who had threatened them, he'd mentally already leaped far ahead of any such matter. When he had come to this world, he had expected a blank dimensional space...a sort of world between worlds, a space where nearly anything could be made manifest according to the user's will. When he had looked at where he had arrived, naturally two things had thrown him off...firstly, that everything looked more like an actual world than a blank magical slate, and secondly, that his return ticket had been fully drained. But now that the fluff had been pulled away and the world revealed in merely the bare bones of its existence, it looked nearly exactly like it was expected to.
...I am having genuine trouble telling otherwise...
So following that chain of logic, it would make sense that this place did in fact follow the rules expected of such a place. Now, from what was being said, it seemed like this dimensional rift was actually a sort of prison for this woman in front of them...who, going by their knight comrade's demon idea, might very well be an Illvarai. Which in turn, would indeed mean exactly what the guy had said, that she needed an anchor to enter the physical world. Of course, he might also be entirely off base, but in the end it was largely irrelevant anyway. The point here was that this place should conform to the will of those with power over it. That might be the reason it had collapsed...before the arrival of the extra people, it fit the shape and purpose of whoever had created it in the first place, and imprisoned the woman perfectly well. But when they had come, the addition of extra minds, perceptions, and wills to obey had caused essential collapse of the predefined state...and this was just guessing here, but it made sense with what Kael knew.
...A flash, a splitting boom...
When the minor explosion rang out, under the circumstances it was basically the one thing Kael had learned to completely expect from this whole ordeal, and Donny's betrayal surprised him not at all as Kael's bow found its way into his hand. But his train of thought roared on. If this place obeyed the will of Kael and company, then as the entire situation now seemed to prove, no part of what constituted reality in this magical rift was outside their control. And that gave them a fighting chance, since presumably the same could not be said of the one being this place had been designed to contain.
The explosion went off. Ash and smoke obscured the battlefield. The Pavise Knight explained his observation to Kael, and with his brain switched from deduction mode into action mode, the situation was immediately clear to him...clearer than it had been throughout this entire joyride. Donny was attacking, but all were essentially blinded. Donny had thrown a grenade of his own, but they were doing the job of distracting the two hostiles. And the strange machine...built of what were very clearly magical channels, it seemed. Kael looked toward the Pavise knight for a split second. "I'm with you then." He said in a low voice...he still didn't know what the hell a proxy was supposed to be of course, but it seemed unimportant now. In a single, smooth motion he slid five of the strange metal-coating crossbow bolts from his belt and cast them toward Donny and his new friend in a blanket pattern while Kael was nice and obscured by the smoke, then looked down at the machine and willed himself there. From here, to in front of the device, to hell with transit time, this was the test of his theory on this space. As he did so, another thought occurred to him...if everything had disappeared and the raw form of this dimension was revealed, maybe his Ethereal sight worked again too? He could test that later if needed, the moment of pain that was risked wouldn't damage him permanently.

The Final Hazard

@Terminal

Kael's impression of this whole situation was, impossibly as it seemed, actually getting a bit clearer now that essentially the whole thing had fallen apart. This reality was actually resembling something a bit closer to what he had expected of dimensional magic now, as opposed to...well...an alternate world entirely. He slowly rotates himself to face this new enemy in an upside-down manner. "Um, not to rain on the party or anything, but if you are now free to leave...and do leave...then what's to stop us from resetting the whatever it was you said afterwards and leave ourselves? Seems like that's a win-win situation."

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

Oh. Bugger. In the stress of apartment inspections today, I seem to have forgotten the really important thing I had to do last night.

The Final Hazard

@Terminal

Kael yelps in pain and ends his enchantment, holding his eyes. It felt like they'd been hit with precise taps by a red-hot hammer... "Gaaah...ok then, none of that I guess..." He blinks rapidly, making sure they were still in working order. And on top of that, their mission was as clear as mud and their chances of survival apparently nil. Lovely. He heads toward where the others are going, being sure to take a pass by the paviseless knight while he was at it...were his eyes golden now? Not Ethereal sight, judging by his own experience...whatever. He holds out the shield he had salvaged before to the knight. "Here. If you're accompanying us, you might want a full kit." Since after all, his last shield had been turned into doom incarnate...

The Final Hazard

@Terminal

Kael...really isn't sure how to react here. Having nothing better to do under the circumstances, he decides to use his Ethereal Sight, his eyes glowing green as the magic of the world is lain bare before him. It feels an awful lot like someone took reality and made it into a five-dimensional maze...

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

LOL

TTL: The Final Hazard OOC

I feel like, logically, this catastrophic series of events would not occur in response to a person simply standing in an inert fashion...