Outraged at the pig-tailed martial artist Lina gave up trying to draw mana from the dungeon heart and just settled for using her personal stores. Sure she ran the risk of draining herself to exhaustion, but she was an experienced sorceress. With that thought she pointed her finger and snarled the incantation to a basic fire spell.
"Flare bit!" A dozen small flicks of light shot forward and into a wide eyed Ranma. The impacts caused a cloud of smoke, and sent Ranma backwards a few feet, but caused little damage.
"That hurt you know." Ranma coughed slightly as she patted down her singed clothing.
Lina gaped for a moment, before she frowned mightily. "That should have at least knocked you down."
"I am tougher than your average person." Ranma chuckled slightly as she tilted her head at Lina. "You aren't like the other keepers here, most of them would have gone for a killing blow, and there weren't any other minions here either, not even an imp..."
"I believe the question Keeper Ranma is trying to ask is as such. Why did a sorceress of your caliber claim a dungeon heart and then leave it un-defended?" The Mentor hovered closer to Lina as it peered her over. "I have never heard of one matching your description either, and my resources are near un-matched."
Lina snorted and stepped back from the ghost. "That's because some slimy jerk summoned me to this dimension. Now what where you talking about when you called me your new 'servant.'" The young sorceress made a face at that.
The Mentor chuckled slightly. "Two beings of not inconsiderable power summoned in the span of a month? Oh the dark gods do love irony. As for why you are considered a servant, the answer is simple really. You bound yourself to a dungeon heart, and you failed to defend it properly. Normally the price for such a travesty is death.." Here the spirit chuckled at Lina's expression. "But in this case Keeper Ranma was magnanimous. He decided to bind your heart to his own, and your fate is now his fate. So long as he lives, so shall you, but your life is in the cusp of his hand. All it would take is a simple act of will... And your very existence will be snuffed out."
Lina gawked. "Like I would LET that happen!" The sorceress frowned at the spirit, ready to begin a loud and blisteringly long tirade against the idea. "Hey what are you doing!?"
Ranma ran out of the dungeon heart with a very large frown, summoning an imp with a gesture. "Get me hot water." He ordered. He really didn't like the way Horny looked right now, and the way the demon was aproaching the still recovering Seras was not good.
The demon growled as he lifted up his scythe. He would get to kill something yet. With a savage grin the reaper brought his scythe down, and directly at the gasping Seras. The strike never landed, and Horny found himself flying across the room from Ranma's rather impressive kick.
The redhead was furious at the Reaper, and for once it showed plainly on her face. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Horny just snarled and clanged his scythe against the wall in anger. Getting to his feet the demon growled in anger and began to approach both Seras and Ranma.
"Ahh, I was wondering when Horny would finally snap." The Mentor's voice was amused.
"What?" Lina blinked at the standoff between Ranma and the Horned Reaper. "You mean those things were working with her?!"
"Part of Keeper Ranma's army." The Mentor nodded his ghostly head as Ranma and Horny began to clash. It was quite obvious that none of Ranma's strikes were doing much damage. "A Horned Reaper does so love to kill. And since you decimated all of Keeper Sidarian's forces he has been denied the chance to continue to do what he does best."
At this point a minion came trotting up with a bucket of water. Ranma smirked slightly as she sent Horny tumbling across the room and in one smooth motion picked it up and dumped it over her head. The change was immediate, and Ranma grew several inches and turned from female to male. Not missing a beat Ranma slammed his foot into the Horned Reaper and sent the demon back several feet once again.
"Keeper Ranma also has a curse that transforms him into a female in case you were wondering." The Mentor commented with a smirk at Lina's stupefied expression. "It's quite the hassle if I understand the mechanics correctly. Keeper! Keeper Sidarian had a substantial temple built to the dark gods. Place Horny in there while you order your imps to ransack the dungeon, and he should calm down.. Eventually."
"Magic shouldn't work that way.." Lina rubbed at her head. "This entire dimension is strange." Finally she took a deep breath as she made a decision. As the Horned Reaper dissipated the sorceress stalked up to a surprised looking Ranma and grabbed him by the shirt.
"Listen up." She glowered at the young keeper. "We are going to be partners right now, none of that servant business. You get the benefit of my lovely presence, and I don't incinerate you until I figure out how to break this whole dungeon heart business all right?!"
Ranma blinked and chuckled slightly as he smirked widely. "Tell ya what, I will throw in a library so that you can do that. In fact, if you can figure out how to get both of us home I won't even bug ya while you research."
"You got summoned by that perv too?" Lina blinked at Ranma. "Wait, don't answer that, of course you did. The spell that that creep used was rambling and incoherent, but busty female was clearly stated several times." The sorceress sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I swear this entire place is warped."
"Umm master?" Seras gulped as both the keepers looked at the now recovered vampire. "Can you try to send me home too? Please?"
Lina's eyebrow twitched.
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(Posted Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:53)
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