Swamp of the Ancients

[Rinexe]

"That's ridiculous. I am but 27. I may be pale, but I am not undead. That simply would not make sense!" Demetri turned away and started walking back to his previous area to examine the undead. This Hale fellow was obviously a liar, or so Demetri thought. As far as he was concerned, he was simply teleported. At the current moment, he needed to find a way out. He turned back towards Hale. "I understand that you may be a little off, but I need to find my way to the surface and save my people from the evil is Defaeco. The stories of this place told me of tunnels. Are they real?"  

[SpokenSoftly]

Hale sighed inwardly as he stepped forward behind Demitri, tapped him once on the shoulder, and ripped his arm off when the other undead turned around. Within a moment that same arm was lodged in Demitri's stomach, the hand up to the wrist protruding from the back of the swampdweller's body. "You can still feel your right arm, even though it has been torn off, as if it were still attached. You feel no pain from your stomach or your shoulder, though both would be fatal wounds to one of the living. You are undead. I have had over fifteen thousand years of experience as an undead myself, I know the signs. Also, your tribe is dead. I did mention the extinction of the dialect, did I not? That arose from the extinction of the speakers."  

[Rinexe]

The only part of his arm being ripped off that he actually felt was his arm moving in odd ways. He felt a light puncture, but that was about it. He never actually got to get ask about the tunnels. He looked down and noticed where his arm was, and didn't really remember much. What he did remember, however, was passing out in shock. Except, when he fell, it wasn't really passing out. Things were dizzy, and that was all. There was no sleep to be had, and even as his head was underwater, he realized he wasn't breathing. Now, he was just staring.

What is going on here? Has it really been over 1000 years? But, what's happened on the surface?

He heard Hale say that his entire tribe had been dead for also that long.

How could they be dead? We use magic! Yes, they did too, but ours has been the pure magic of the years before the dawn of humanity! It's been passed through the family.. The Old Magic has always prevailed against lightning a candle...

Demetri simply layed down and let himself seep into the mud with his arm sticking out of his stomach. There was no blood. There was nothing. He could even move his hand if he wanted to.

What is happening here...?  

[SpokenSoftly]

Hale reached down and heaved Demitri up out of the water. The Sataris, ready to translate any ambient thoughts in the individual(s) it was bound to, spoke Demitri's thoughts aloud in regards to the Old Magic. Hale would have snorted in derision, had he breath left to snort with. The Old Magic was darlking imitations of the power the Artifacts tapped into, the universal Triune Principle, always three of all, for ultimate balance. And, in the case of the original Divinities, a fourth Triune to hold the Three Lessers together against themselves. "Your Old Magic failed because the Defaeco had myself as an aide last time, when I was still the Archmagus and not simply Hale. I tapped power that the Old Magic could only dream of to quell the revolt, and killed most of the spellcasters in this area myself. The only real challenge among the survivors after the Citadel descended was a rather old man who looked vaguely like yourself. He was sitting in a gigantic tree when I found him, and actually survived my first attack. Not the second, though. I brought the tree down on our heads. I survived, thanks to the Artifacts I wielded, but the man was old and weakened by the Citadel's landing."  

[Rinexe]

Demetri was lifted up and in a complete trance. It took him a minute to let everything that Hale had said soak in. He walked over to the tree and tore his arm out and placed it on the tree then turned to look at the murderer in front of him. With his left hand, which was luckily the dominant one, he held his cane outward. "Then what has happened to you now? You seem so weak at this point! Explain yourself! How could you kill the greatest practitioners in the Old Magic and the greatest with two spells?" Demetri's cloak was starting to flare up behind him as wind magic started to circulate around him when he started to levitate. Water that was left on the cloak after laying in the bed was circulating around him, and the muddy water from under him was also coming up. He would await a response while he continued to gather the water around him into a more powerful vortex to unleash depending on the response.  

[SpokenSoftly]

Hale laughed out loud, the first sound he had made since finding Swampspeak as Demitri's language, as the Sataris answered for him. "I don't ask you your business, do I? Trade secrets, boy. Now put that little twig down before I hurt you. I may be mystically dead, but the Artifacts I carry are capable of providing me defense enough against your attacks, even if I can't strike back."

As Hale laughed and the Sataris spoke, the galaxies within the head of the Aros began to swirl faster, preparing to 'eat' the magic in the area and 'return' at Hale's discretion. The Aros didn't discriminate, so Hale would be without his own meager Artifact-augmented magery for a time, but it would neutralize the boy as well.  

[Rinexe]

At this point, Demetri wasn't listening. He was levitating a foot in the air, and using his energy to gather magic, even though he knew he was out after the fight with the demons. As he gathered elements, his energy fell. Murderer... he continued to think, but then, his energy hit as low as it could without killing him... again. And he knew it would kill him if he continued. He dropped the elements around him and fell to the swamp. He limped to the tree and picked up his arm. "What..." he mumbled with what energy he had left, "am I supposed to even do with this now?"  

[kjaslkdjiehdfba]

Tommy stood still with an alluring stance. He had cocked his hip and sat his hand on that hip. He looked around and decided this whole area was getting too populated. "I shall make my presence else where. Hmmm, math Etheral." With his last word trailing off into an ominous tone, Tommy left the scene with a devilishly smirk and a crazed little laugh that only the devil could make.
[Exits]  

[SpokenSoftly]

Hale shrugged as he waved his staff vaguely in the air, tiny bits of the elements coalescing from nothingness to orbit the Aros before vanishing, too small to be of any use and most simply reactions to the ambient power within the Aros itself. "Stitch it back on, perhaps. Or, I don't know, use it to prop doors open with. It's your limb, do what you like with it. If you want breakfast, though, I have a bit of bread-Stuff in my cauldron that probably hasn't started to revert quite yet."

((Note: The phrase "bread-Stuff" is a translation from the Sataris of "at'challah-Sat'tellu," in which "Sat'tellu" is the word in Hale's language for the clear, water-like potion which his people perfected that reacts to words in their language by briefly becoming the object named. It has no direct translation, since the potion hasn't been discovered by other civilizations and Hale is the last native speaker of his language and thus the last to know the recipe, but the closest translation is akin to "set'tellin," which is a word used to describe some nonspecific object, directly translatable as "something," but which when used in context more clearly means "this material" or "this stuff." Thus, "bread-Stuff." Also, Sat'tellu only keeps its form for ten minutes at a time and can form only perishable goods.))  

[Rinexe]

A wave of indifference seemed to pass over Demetri. "Then get to stitching. I could care less for breakfast," he started as he stood and held up his arm and could still move his index finger on the broken hand. With that, he pointed at Hale. "as it appears that even after such a number of years, I have no hunger. Make stitches with your oh-so-powerful magic and put my arm back on. We'll deal with the affair of your murder another day." Though the indifference was on his face, and he could barely walk, he had an inner anger, but an outer aura of what seemed to be arrogant false royalty. "But for now, we need to leave this old swamp. The old magic that lies here shall be released again."  

[SpokenSoftly]

Hale raised an eyebrow in genuine indifference to Demitri's demands. "I said you could stitch it back on if you like, boy. And since when is there a we in this equation? You are you, I am myself, and we form no unity together. If you want to try for something, I am willing to take on a disciple if I really must."  

[Rinexe]

Demetri smirked with his new found understanding of what he had become. Every man of the swamp people is dead. Every practitioner of the old magic is dead. I am the only one that continues to use the Old Magic. The magic that came from the beginning, the founding of Ethral and the way any new magic could come into existence. I am the new king of the swamp, and I will bring the world back into my domain. he thought to himself while Hale babbled in an ridiculous arrogance. "I guess a knowledge in your new Magic could be useful...." he said with a smile. The arm would be a problem, but it could be dealt with later.  

[SpokenSoftly]

Hale raised an eyebrow and smirked as the Sataris broadcast Demitri's thoughts just as it did Hale's own. "Every man of the swamp people is dead. Every practitioner of the old magic is dead. I am the only one that continues to use the Old Magic. The magic that came from the beginning, the founding of Ethral and the way any new magic could come into existence. I am the new king of the swamp, and I will bring the world back into my domain."

Hale laughed once, a sharp sound that revealed none of his true emotions. "I'll choose to ignore that if you will. And as for the Triune Principle, my magic is no more 'new' than yours is. Do try to remember that. Now, little 'king,' if you want to learn follow me."

Without waiting for Demitri's response either way, Hale turned and walked back to his cauldron, once more waving the Aros over it and transforming the Sat'ellu into bread. If the arrogant boy wanted teaching, he would get it. It wouldn't be easy, but it would be effective in the end.  

[Rinexe]

How obnoxious. I might as well speak in thoughts... Demetri pulled up the nearest twig and tied his arm to his side. He picked up his fallen cane and started to follow Hale. Shall we learn here, in my people's underworld?  

[SpokenSoftly]

Hale smiled grimly as he twirled the fingers of his left hand through the air, the magic in the air crystallizing around his fingers, almost like candyfloss. "Obnoxious indeed. Try imitating me."

He flicked his fingers and the candyfloss-energy seemed to warp in the direction Hale flicked them. For an instant after the flicking a strong breeze - stronger than anything Hale could normally summon - blew through the area, curling around Hale and Demitri so that it touched neither one of them while bending the thinner trees almost double. Hale repeated it with each of the other elements, beginning with the parting of a small pond before moving on to a minor dust storm, a cloud of embers, a long line of built-up static, and a hovering mass of gel-like substance that looked to be congealed darkness. "The Triune Mystic Concentrations, first Concentration of Spinning, devised by those with knowledge of the Triune Principle to harness more of the Elements than they would normally be able to do. Used properly, the first Spinning can increase volume capability by up to 50%. Give it a try, and tell me when you get it. It shouldn't take too terribly long; you can hardly fail in such a mystically-saturated environment."

so saying, Hale went back to his cauldron and started eating the bread with slow deliberation as it began to slowly turn back into unFormed Sat'ellu.