Gelert
Above Shambhala
Your point-blank blast hits her in the ear and blasts little bits of glittering, porcelain-like shell off her skull to reveal the swirling exotic matter beneath. Lucienne shudders, and a ghostly shadow swirls out of her orifices to form into the phantom of a great white tiger.
"To think that I would owe my freedom to a pup!" booms a bemused voice. "My thanks, little one. You are truly the bringer of Hope."
There is the roar of a mighty tiger,
All
Above Shambhala
The platform of stone, Akashic gate on it, continues to rise at accelerating speed. You are high above the Himalayan mountain range, the smoking ruins of Shambhala a tiny dot below you, and from here you can see the curvature of the Earth's surface.
"Ahh! All the guardians are gone," Lucienne says, and for the first time you hear a little wistfulness in her inhuman voice. "I had hoped that it would not come to this. But I have come too far to stop now. If this is the sacrifice I must make, then so be it!"
She turns, makes a fist with one hand, and shatters the gate of the Akashic Library.
The strongest wards ever laid down by mortals, the work of generation upon generation of Master Mages, crumple. The stone gate explodes and hurls chunks of molten rock into the deep blue sky. Through the hole in the gate you see a nothingness so pure and absolute, it is not even black. No light penetrates into the forbidden dimension where the secret knowledge of Master Mages past is hoarded.
No light but the Morningstar's. Lucienne reaches in with her right arm, and screams as the wards burn her horribly: her porcelain skin turns angry red, then magma-orange, and melts off her arm. She reaches deep in, all the way to her shoulder, and you see disintegrating fingers pluck a single, glowing spell out of the Library. She reaches up with her good hand to catch it as her right arm disintegrates all the way up to the shoulder, and this time, it does not regenerate.
She holds up her prize with her good hand, a single glowing mote of light. "Do you see this, maggots? The spell that will end civilization on this world: BABEL!"
"I will eradicate all tongues and reduce you to speaking your most ancient, primal language: violence and terror. There will be no diplomacy, no dialogue, no understanding.
There will only be war!"
"Earth will descend into an orgy of bloodshed as you sort out your myriad differences in the only way left to you. With this act, I shall prove myself the embodiment of War Incarnate, and take Kaak-Shar's place."
She grins. And then her voice grows intimate.
"And when you have finished painting the planet red with your massacres and genocides, I will descend once more. I will make you mighty, raise you high, and bring you to the stars. All humanity will be my heralds - my standard bearers - in a future grim and dark where the galaxy burns with the fire of unending war. Bwahahahaha!"
OOC
At the start of her next turn Lucienne's powers return to normal, and she no longer has -10 effect ranks.
Lucienne maintains her concentration duration telekinesis. She also surges and uses [UNTRANSLATABLE] on the gate of the Akashic Library, destroying it and withdrawing the spell Babel from within. However, doing so irreversibly cripples her: she suffers another -2 PL, for a total of -8 PL after losing all 3 guardian spirits.
The Lemurians delay their action until after Nightbird. This is an OOC editorial decision, to avoid making posts that are too long all at once; it is not any deliberate tactical decision or deception on their part.
Round 3
42 Lucienne Lightbringer (-7, Demoralized, Power Level -8)
21 Moonlight *
19 Nightbird (higher bonus)
-- Lemurians (delaying)
19 Kisai
15 Qora
09 Gelert
Moonlight is up!
