Board Thread:Roleplay/@comment-28358106-20160903233916/@comment-28358106-20160905041544

Lucida looks at Hound. "You...you don't have to worry about that any more."

Lucida turns, her face sad. "Sir Jorge, you were right.  I had my suspicions, but it wasn't until I was pulled into the Well that I fully understood."

She looks up to Alcamarie. "You've been lying.  Aethuriel, the End...it's all lies, lies you put into his head because you knew the Crucible would make them real.  Real to him, in a little pocket of reality that the Crucible created that he couldn't escape from because he believed it so much.  And you used his family against him, knowing it would make visages of them.  He wouldn't have known the difference. You made sure he didn't."

Alcamarie glowers at Lucida. In an instant she is before the girl, reaching for her. "You little...I will NOT have a mere construct tell me - "



As she touches Lucida, there is a blinding flash. Alcamarie is thrown back, blasted by an unseen force. She tumbles and rolls to a stop, hundreds of feet away, where she is still.



Lucida lowers her arms. Ibrahim looks at her, unbelieving.

"Lucida, how..."

She turns to him, her face still sad. "Papa...you don't belong here.  None of you do.  This place...it isn't real.  You belong back with your real family."

"But...you are real! You..."

"No, Papa.  I'm not.  I can't help you any more.  Everything you've discovered, every answer you got, was right.  We had to die.  But, there is a reason."

She takes his hand, smiling in a bittersweet way. "You were able to use me as a magic source, remember?  There is a reason why.  You know how the Glyph can only be posessed by someone who has owned it before?  When the Crucible made me, I became a second copy of the Glyph because it was a part of your memory..."

She presses his hand to her face. "I'm going to give it back to you now, Papa, and it'll be all right, I promise..."

Ibrahim pulls Lucida close. "Oh, no...please, no...don't do this to me!"



<p style="font-weight:normal;">She smiles. "Goodbye, Papa.  Even though we weren't the real ones, we all loved you..."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">She turns to dust in his arms, even as he tries to hold her, his hands clutching nothing, spilling between his fingers...but then he stops.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">In her place, in her shape, is a softly glowing image. It's shaped like Lucida, but it rises, glowing brighter...

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">And as before, a flash and a shockwave. In the air, where she once was, it floats. Not a wound in reality, but a glowing, shimmering mark of the purest kind, made from the knowledge of a truth that is selflessness and sacrifice and memories of a family. Purified in the body of a being who was given nothing but a father's love...

<p style="font-weight:normal;">The True Glyph.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">It hovers, its brilliance like a mark written from a shaft of sunlight...

<p style="font-weight:normal;">And it absorbs into Ibrahim's body.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Slowly, he looks down at his hands. He flexes his fingers. He looks up, and he stands.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">All around him feel their power begin to slowly return...

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Alcamarie stirs, and picks herself up.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"Unngh...how...unexpected." She stands and faces the group. "I had planned on you actually dreaming up a visage of Aethuriel.  I...had plans.  But I now see that no longer matters.  Regardless, I am still master of this domain, as you have surrendered your willingness to leave."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"No."

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Those close to him can feel it. Ibrahim hums with arcanum, tingling in the backs of their minds. His steely stare is locked on the Red Mindflayer, his fists beginning to glow. Clouds in the sky begin to roil, the distant peal of thunder rumbling. Hound can feel the subsonic vibrations begin to shake the ground...

<p style="font-weight:normal;">"No?" She mocks. "How old do you think I am, Doctor?  For thousands of years I have walked this planet, and countless others!  Do not lightly think you can escape!"

<p style="font-weight:normal;"> There are resounding thuds around everyone present. Shimmering globes appear around everyone, wards of protection.

<p style="font-weight:normal;"> Ibrahim lowers his hand, and his body begins to rise. Arcs of arcanum strike the ground around him as his strength builds, small rocks rising from the ground.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;"> "I don't want to escape.  I want to kill you for what you've done to me." He raises his hands, brimming with energy...

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">  "DO IT IF YOU CAN, FOOL!" She shrieks.

<p style="font-weight:normal;">

<p style="font-weight:normal;">Her body splits and peels open, her flesh roiling, bubbling, shrieking,  growing. The tentacles reach to the sky, slapping the ground, as she grows, mouths bellowing defiance, challenging, splitting the earth...



Victivius draws his dark blade.

"Let us go, now, and put an end to this..."