Topic: ~Duties of a Groundskeeper~ {Open; 18+ Friendly}

Zynisch Lucis

Date: 2016-09-18 16:39 EST
(( Author's Note: This first post serves as a preface to Zynisch resuming his guard duties at Crios after another of his extended leaves of absence. Whilst the first portion will dictate the scene and the initial confrontation with the unknown force outside the protective measures of Crios, anyone who wants to can chime in, should they choose to. Let's have a little fun with this, no'

First Scene's Ambient Tunes: "Now I Know the Truth" -a la Final Fantasy XIV- ; "Fire Above the Battle" -a la Lost Odyssey- ))

Once again, the pensive, elder Swordmage found himself no less than buried in the depths of his mind, no doubt searching for the cause of his consistently troubled dreams of late. As aware as he oft was even amid this state of focus, he'd somehow miss the placing of a teacup-bearing saucer upon his desk by his ever faithful ward, Elle until she was attempting to rouse him, as she was wont to. Thankfully enough, her attendance of him usually was not to his own detriment, as she left him to his devices when there wasn't imminent need of him.

"M'lord" Does something yet plague your mind" You've been sitting there for just shy of five hours now without so much as a stir. I can't help but wonder if maybe something ails you," she murmured, seeking reassurance from the ancient mage that his thoughts weren't threatening to force his hand and prompt rash action on his part. Nevertheless, when his rather dull hues rose to meet hers, a smile was present on his face. Such would have been enough to quell her worries, but as always the wordsmith in Zynisch had to let her let her know he was all right in his own way.

"You know that you needn't fret over me, child. My servant you might be by choice, but there's nothing keeping you here to fawn over my sorry excuse for introspection."

A minute lack of tact had been present in his choice of phrasing, to be sure. 'Twas fortunate for him that they shared an understanding else it might have earned him another of her 'brutal beatings', as she put it. As she moved to respond to her master's soft chiding, his gaze would turn toward one of the many windows framing his office. At once, he lifting himself from his chair and made swift strides over to it, eyeballing what he'd seen to be smoke of some sort. A twinge of pain had accompanied that rude awakening the moment he'd taken notice of the strange incident, notable as he came to hold his arm in a gingerly manner. Naturally, the girl rushed to his side and peered through the glass with him.

"Was that one of your defensive measures, Lord Zynisch?" she asked, her tone more than a little concerned when compared to the eerily calm manner with which he spoke.

"...The very same, m'dear. Procure my cloak for me, would you? I do believe there's business to attend to outside the grounds," he politely requested, a pair of digits rising to stroke his chin amid further contemplation. Even as she went to retrieve his desired garments, she'd take in mumbling that she could only assume meant he was already enacting his secondary plan of action. The trap-wards that Zynisch had additionally provided the Coven weren't ones that could be set off without incurring the wrath of age-old glyph magicks. In that vein, he'd a right to be concerned.

"G"nger....Can you see the intruders where you are?" he inquired softly to none who remained in his quarters. Nay, instead, the scene would shift to the forests beyond the wards wherein another resided.

~~~~~~~

"As much as I want to suggest that I don't..." trailed the familiar tones of a second Zynisch Lucis, cloaked and hooded as was common for both. The gentle breeze of artificial aether currents whistled against his clothing as much as it did the wafting trail of smoke in his immediate vicinity. The shrouded construct would take the time to glance about, surveying his surroundings with a quiet intensity prior to leaping down from the canopy to the forest floor. Almost immediately, he was met by a hailstorm of bullets aimed in his direction. As he ducked behind one of the many trees obscuring the area, the shower of enemy fire would cease and the doppelg"nger's brow would raise accordingly. A casual glance at his arm would serve to bring true credence to his concerns, as it was taking much longer for his body to reconstitute than it would have under normal circumstances.

"...Anti-spell rounds" Reminiscent of Lord Arthour's armaments....Which means generating my crystal sword will be much more difficult..."

Instinctively, he would direct his gaze to a number of spots on the ground beyond his momentary haven of safety that looked to be marked. After a brief bit of concentration, a considerable portion of the ground that he'd observed immediately erupted in a dazzling display of flame, sparks, and crystalline ice structures. The pains his better half must have taken to secure the forest so that even his duplicate could set them off were surely harrowing to think about. Nevertheless, he would stride free from his concealment to peruse the still-smoldering remains of the area the glyph magicks had been employed. A sidelong glance in either direction would avail him of no decisive information.

"Sharp intuition you've got there, my friend. Truth be told, I'd forgotten that I'd placed those there. Two minds are certainly more malleable than one..." cooed the telltale voice of his original, the familiarly-dressed man hopping down to join him at the site of the brief altercation. By his side, dressed in the garb of a knight in suitably fitting plate armor, stood the proud servant who'd insisted she accompany him this time around. Elle was most certainly her master's keeper when it came to his protection on Crios soil. Both settled their eyes on the duplicate; however, it was the elder Swordmage's keen sight that spotted the uncommonly slow reformation of his shade's arm.

"...So they can inhibit our body's natural ability to heal itself, then?" he inquired grimly as he stepped past the both of them a short ways to attain some clarity with his own eyes. Finding nothing of particular interest, he veered off from his investigation to regard the clone again. "Did you sight anything notable about your attackers apart from the shots they'd fired?" The other's head would shake to either side, denoting his lack of information about their assailants. Turning his gaze on the armored woman who protected him, he would gesture with an arm toward the clearing off a ways whilst he sought to the man's complete restoration.

"Understood. It shall be done without delay," was all that she needed to say to confirm his orders. Such a dutiful lass.

With a furious pace, she unsheathed and brandished both her engraved sword and her enchanted shield, pressing forth into the clearing at his silent behest. Once they were alone, he reached out to his second's arm and gripped tightly, no visible signals of pain resulting. Good, his tolerance for pain was still intact, meaning there would be no need to reshuffle his properties. With his hand clenched tightly around the man's appendage, he would infuse it with crystal from his own form to seal the 'wound'. Before he could properly close up the gaping hole, another shot would whiz past him and strike his cheek, searing a scar into the 'flesh'. Clutching his friend's arm more harshly for a second or two afterward, both of the crystal mages jumped from their spots and separated into the denser tree cover as it became pelted with those same bullets.

"Damn it all....Another detachment' No, they're the same ones from prior. A second detachment would have probably set off the traps again. I had purposefully configured the glyphs to rearm themselves after a period of time passed....All the careful planning in the world wouldn't prevent another explosion of that size. Just....what are we dealing with here?" he inquired to no one in particular as the torrent of anti-magic bolts bore into the trees in their immediate vicinity. A brief intermission in their fire would permit him enough time to send a couple of gestures his partner's way. Without warning, he darted up into the canopy and launched himself further into the fray whilst Zynisch busied himself with a certain....ability.

"Improved Vision ~ Dual Sight....Dominion of the Judicer," he murmured, prompting his body to let off an emission of energy. Ere long did his newly silver-laden gaze intensify despite looking nowhere in particular, as did the twin hues of his distance-closing crystal double. Off a lengthy distance further north than he remembered venturing, he'd spy a shady-looking man in a suit slinging what looked to be bladed chains about in the direction of their protector knight ally. Though she deftly blocked and parried most of his blows with fierce arcs from her blade and calculated charges with her shield, the occasional blow seemed to cause her to buckle beneath the weight of her armor for whatever reason. That was unlike her, beyond the shadow of a doubt, and as number additional gunmen began to surround her, it was clear that she was in the sort of peril she couldn't just whisk herself away from.

"I spy the woman, Lord Zynisch. Do you desire for me rescue her from her predicament' There are far too many adversaries for her to take on alone," the duplicate relayed, not that the magus was ultimately surprised by what they had both glimpsed. Without the time to formulate another strategy beyond what he'd already set in motion beforehand, he would sigh and clasp his hands together. Slowly, but surely, the currents of aether that he and his comrade oft kept around themselves would acclimate around his stationary form. Thankfully, the gunfire in his portion of the forest had subsided, likely because the assailants in question had managed to rejoin with the rest of their unit and its presumed leader.

"Be swift and do not dawdle. Otherwise, you're like to perish along with her."

With the order having been given, his accomplice launched himself forward in a haggard race to the scene. As the suit he'd described made to deliver what resembled a decisive blow, he'd break through the clearing and deflect the elongated implement's blade with a well-timed spell shield wrought of hastily gathered current on his own part. With its shattering, he would make to scoop up the fallen maid and disappear with her in the blink of an eye. No sooner had the two of them done so that the glyphs all but littered around the area were set alight with their sealed energies. As the spellforce the original had collected formed, the runic sigils borne by his light plate armor took on a luster of their own, suggesting some much-needed, additional umph! to his cast.

"Well, well....Look who managed to finally grow a pair. Hnhn."

"Release Sealed Spell ~ Ruinga!" he called aloud, resulting in the non-elemental force latent in those glyphs to explode with a resounding roar, the resulting shockwave echoing across the breadth of the forest. Soon enough, the Warp magic that he'd prepared in his partner's arm in the gap of reaction time he'd utilized before the two were besieged by gunfire deposited both the spent maidservant and the understandably weary body double onto the forest floor just beside the original who had saved them.

"F-forgive me....Master Zynisch....I didn't expect to....be so we-weakened....all at once..." came the pathetic whimpering of his stewardess companion. If only she knew how much it meant to him that she would even bother defending him in the first place...

"Yours is an undoubtedly swift mind, M'lord. I'd have never thought to use all of those in such a way."

"I'd save the praise and apologies for when we're out of this mess. It's not been all that long since I came back, and already we're being attacked. Take her back to the Grounds and make sure she's properly cared for. The spell I bound to your arm should still be active enough for another use before it breaks. When she's seen to, I want you to return as soon as you can. We've to confirm they've been dealt enough damage to consider withdrawing, or we're like to have even more to contend with," he ordered rather calmly for having expended much of his energy reserves having to develop such a complex recovery mission on the fly. He'd been far too hasty, and it had almost cost the life of two of his friends. He'd not let that happen again so long as he possessed the capability to prevent it. Once the duplicate complied with his command and spirited away both himself and his charge, the remaining Swordmage would rise to a stand and draw a pair of digits against the tiny imperfection now present upon his cheek. Even now, it hadn't fully healed.

"...Magicks won't be of much worth should they yet remain. At least....They won't for long enough that I can leisurely waste mana on them. Tch....This is such a disadvantageous circumstance for me. Try as I might to deny it, I may need help on this one....Anything to ensure these fools get what?s coming to them. No haphazard assault on my scholarly oasis will go unabated..." he quietly and affectionately lamented with the advent of his passively-drawn, artificial streams of aether current gathering around his shrouded frame again. Once the wind-aspected spellforce surrounded him, he would draw it into him and proceed to focus his efforts on determining just how fast he could force his false body to heal without relying on his natural recombination effect.