diatu | Mysterious Building, Go!

"Ghosts. Wonderful. I had so much fun with them the last time."

Dust, on the other hand, let a little amusement-covering-worry slip through. Ghosts were... one of the few things he sincerely feared, if it came to a combat, because a swordsman like him simply didn't have the power to battle one. His last encounter with one, a terribly powerful one at that, truly had been a lot of running on his part.

Tyzias pays Dust no mind, too occupied with sifting through the details that the identification gave her about the spell currently threatening to drag them further down into the depths of this world's punitive afterlife. Looking, searching, thinking, analyzing, looking for any hole or hint in the spellcraft that could provide a way back to Diatu.

...and then there is a- wait, no. Not anymore. There's only a few scraps of spiritual energy in front of Tyzias where there once was probably a spirit, a white blur separating the moment it was undead and the moment it was, for lack of a better term, double-dead. "Stay sharp," she says, as more ghosts begin emerging from the mists.

"That's what I've got swords for," Dust returned as he half-turned, making his walk into a sidle so he could keep the rear covered. The ghosts weren't too hostile... yet, anyway, so they could keep moving safely.

"I was really hoping for monsters or something," he continued, because words seemed to help fill the air and keep the pair of them grounded.

"Easier to kill something than to double-kill something."

"And I definitely feel like you always take the easy route."

Sorry, Tyzias, but showing up here in this place with him pretty much gave you away.

"I absolutely do," she says without a hint of sarcasm, which somehow seems more sardonic than if she laid in on real thick.

"Mmmhmm. You definitely didn't use any tactics that would say otherwise back when we were playing that game together."

He could play that game too. And considering how generally quiet and intense he was, that only helped.

"Not at all, no." And there goes another ghost that wanted to try its luck with Tyzias. It's just... gone. No trace left.

"...Wish I'd had you around in Falana," he said a moment later, much more serious than before. And also wistful, bringing to mind memories of Fidget.

"Let's say, hypothetically," definitely not hypothetically, "if I was any good at fighting and if I was on your homeworld... what was happening that you needed me for?" Tyzias had an inkling—you don't get that good with a sword for no reason, after all—but she was curious as to the details.

"Dealing with a ghost. I couldn't kill it, it nearly killed me a few times." Dust paused, then smirked. "I had everything else under control till the end."

"That makes sense. You need something real special to double-kill things without a whole bunch of other steps." Like a sword infused with the power of the Angel of Double-Death, for instance. "If you don't have some uber-weapon on hand, your best bet is good ol' fashioned exorcism, dealing with their last wishes, or appealing to their emotions. None of which we have time for here, unfortunately."

"There aren't any weapons more special than Ahrah."

"AHEM, Dust."

"You weren't there. But we ended up having to set it to rest... not without a few terrifying encounters, though. I think that thing scared me more than anything else I've ever met."

Speaking of terrifying encounters, the dynamic duo finally reaches the top of the stairs. Tyzias curses under her breath, apparently unwinded by the flight up. Goes to show that not every universe bends to the laws of narrative resonance like Paradox Space.

But there's not a lot of time to lament that, since there's a big fuckoff SPIRIT DRAKE: GUARDIAN OF THE SPECTRAL STAIRCASE roaring at them on the misty platform that Tyzias and Dust are now standing on.

Tyzias doesn't waste a moment. She snaps her fingers, and the net of lights rushes up the staircase after them and begins swarming around the draconic creature in an attempt to confuse and disorient it. While it's distracted, she takes out her wand and chants a fire spell, making those odd movements with her other hand once again. A fireball far larger than one of that level has any right to be flies out of the circle and towards Dust. He knows what to do.

The moment Tyzias made her first moment, Dust charged in at top speed, blades already cutting wide arcs through the air as he whirled through a surprisingly graceful forehand-offhand-backhand-cross pattern in less time than it takes to tell. The twin blades didn't leave visible marks, but mistlike spiritual energy trails out in the wake of each cut, indicating he's having SOME effect.

No sooner did Tyzias lob the fireball then Dust vaulted into the air. This called for a different technique, sort of: the aerial Dust Storm. As the spell closed, he whirled forward like a drill, swords trailing red and blue lines through the air.

The spinning motion of his body and blades together had the same effect as the vortex of the Dust Storm did -- but when the fireball hit, rather than multiplying, it exploded into a massive roaring column of flame that briefly engulfed both Sen-Mithrarin and Spirit Drake (in attack mode!).

On the one hand, Tyzias really didn't want to out herself. On the other, if she could trust anybody with a secret, it's Dust. And he's already figured it out, or most of it at any rate, so...

Click. Through the smoke of Tyzias's flames, Dust can see the troll roll her shoulders. Then, in a flash of blue pixels, two swords are in her hands.

One is pure and white, sleek, smooth. Beautiful. It's a hero's sword, looking more like the ideal of a sword than a physical object. Caledfwlch.

The other is black and a deep, dark, mesmerizing purple. It's spiked, brutal, and seems to warp the air ever so slightly around it. The blade seems to be made almost out of a living thing: scales and horns and fangs and claws all formed into an instrument of destruction. It isn't as polite at Caledfwlch, announcing its name for all to hear, and it thrums with a silent menace.

Tyzias doesn't have time for theatrics. She moves with a graceful fluidity, not an iota of energy wasted, not a millimeter out of place. As the drake is distracted by Dust, Tyzias darts behind it and begins... well. Unlike Dust, who has been likened to a "three-dimensional buzzsaw," her swordfighting style is simple. Efficient. And terrifying. No frills, no unnecessary flair. It's not poetry in motion, it's too brutal for that. Her swordplay is butchery, in the classic sense: calculated, practiced blows, in the exact right place at the exact right time until the job's done.

Caledfwlch and Dragon's Spine are perfectly suited to the job, of course. Caledfwlch is meant to bypass perfect immortality clauses and is crafted partially from the essence of one of the few beings capable of obliterating ghosts, while Dragon's Spine was created from the corpse of the Calamity Dragon and is ever so efficient at slaying its kin.

And yet... yet. It almost seems like Tyzias is bored. She's barely paying the beast any mind and looks more irritated that she was forced to show her hand early than anything else. In more modern parlance, she's ten-percenting this fight.

Tyzias, you are just... so full of surprises Dust wasn't actually surprised. Extremely curious, yes. (More than a little confused about his own inner reaction to this display, oh hell yes.) But there would be time later for analyzing that; right now he focused entirely on whirling through the drake, exactly like that buzzsaw. This was nowhere near the finesse he usually showed, simply because the spirit beast simply wasn't small enough that knocking it skyward or slamming it around with raw strength could actually work.

In an instant, it's over. The drake is obliterated. Clearly, whoever put that thing here in the first place weren't expecting people like Dust and Tyzias to come a'knocking. Tyzias's swords vanish into blue pixels, and her head snaps towards Furae. She stands tall, taller than Dust has ever seen her, and something about her doesn't... fit quite right. It's hard to put a finger on, but it's there, along with the endless, deep, eldritch abyss in her eyes.

Bracing herself, Tyzias summons another, different weapon: a massive, black-and-red hammer with a spectral clock ticking away at its center. Spikes akin to the blades of Caledfwlch and her other blade adorn its bashing end, and without hesitation she smashes the mysterious pillar lurking behind the drake.

"Tell anyone about this, and I break you. Understand?"

"Dust. Dust. Dust You have got to spar her."

Furae was fairly well immune to fear and common sense both. Whereas Dust... turned his head slightly, flipping both swords back into their sheaths as he did.

"You didn't have to do that. We could've handled it without that." The way she seemed so flatly displeased about revealing those tricks of hers stung, because it meant she thought he wasn't strong enough to handle it, even with her help. Quite aside from the general hit to his pride, which was bad enough, he... really didn't want Tyzias thinking of him as weak. Or needing rescue. Or anything like that.

On the contrary, Tyzias didn't think he was weak. Far from it, Dust was obviously capable of holding his own. But standing on the backlines, flinging spells and shouting encouragement when she could be doing something? Not Tyzias's style. Not anymore.

"Yeah, you definitely could've handled it, given enough time. But I don't want to wait around for some other fucky thing to happen that might trap us in the afterlife. And sure, you would've beaten it, but you might've gotten hurt in the process and... I don't want that happening to you." Tyzias explains. She might not be an empath, but... she knows Dust enough by now to sense his displeasure. "Look, I..." she runs her head through her hair, sighing. "Sorry about that. It's just. It's been a long time since I've had anything approaching a normal life. I wanted to keep it lowkey here. Stay in the background. Let somebody else be the hero for once. But I guess that just doesn't come naturally to me anymore."

"If I get hurt, I'll heal," Dust said, the quiet intensity of his voice working on overdrive levels as he lifted one hand, fingers slightly curled. "If I die, I'll come back. That's what I was created to do. If you want to hang back, I can handle things. That's a promise. If you don't, then I'll help, because that's my nature. Literally. But I'll keep your secret either way."

"Yeah, well, I auto-resurrect back home too.

"But do you really want to find out whether it works here too?"

As irritated as Tyzias sounds, there's genuine care in her voice.

"I did come back here after I died at home, so it clearly does work. Besides, it's baked in. It's part of what I am."

Tyzias was a good person. No matter what she acted like, Dust had seen that for himself. That concern doesn't surprise him.

"If you say so. Just... take care of yourself, aight? No need to tempt the reaper, especially considering that we might have just personally pissed them off." Tyzias's smile is half-genuine, half-dangerous smirk as she surveys the scenery.

"'Tho I'm pretty sure we could take 'em together."

Mysterious Building, Go!

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i feel like this tag standing on its own is perfect

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want to save the Reveal of how strong she is for later but she has perfect gear for this

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is an anonymous network post about crush feelings incoming

"did someone put love potion in the water again?"

do it do it do it

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