ChaoZ: A Royal pain in the elves.

Rol entered Cell B walking directly behind Jex using him as cover of sorts, he peeked his head out to observe the room. "Now here's a rad vacation destination for the whole family." The bounty hunter chuckled at his own comic, but in his slight distraction stumble on to the ground as Jex cast a spell.

While on the ground he contemplated the inconsistencies of life  tried to fashion his shadows into a sickle of sorts, manipulating them to try to tear through the blue barrier around the cage closest to him, figuring the battle mage could handle himself.

When the mage noticed jex casting a spell they changed their own spell. Just before the fire arrows hit their target they were blocked by a shield of six big floating rocks that the mage had conjured up.

The mage then added a last word to their spell and the six rocks all shot forward towards Jex.


"Starting scan." Danielle announced telepathically to jex.

---


As Corvo's card was flying towards the mage she cast her spell and a blast of air shot out. The wind spell knocked the card off course but it exploded before it was out of range. The explosion almost knocked the elven mage off her feet.
She didn't have time to cast again.

---

Rol's shadow scythe tore through the blue barrier. Leaving a large gash from the top to the bottom. But then a sliver of mana went from the mage to the barrier and it repaired itself.


"Scan complete. The blue stuff is an anti-magic barrier. I presume it is placed there to avoid people breaking the cages with magic. Any spell that makes contact with it will be broken down and the mana used in the spell will instead reinforce the barrier. That mage also seems to siphon their mana to it when it is damaged. You should let Rol worry about the barrier because his shadows aren't magic based. You'll need to take down the mage first though. They'll probably just keep feeding it otherwise." Danielle reported telepathically to Jex.

--

In Cell A Corvo's men and fluffy (for some reason he didn't follow Rol) Also encounter a similar situation.

--

Meanwhile Nix decides that she has created enough distance and leaps into the air. She says a few words in Angelic which causes her feet to be covered in ice magic. She then kicks the air twice and two ice shards come flying towards the guards.

One of them is hit by a shard and knocked down on his ass.

The other manages to dodge but almost trips over his own feet.


Nix then makes a rolling landing, jumps back up and keeps moving. Using the ice magic on her feet to skate over the ground. She heads straight towards the boss guard, axe in hand.

Corvo presents a fully stacked deck from his sleeve and throws it at the mage's forehead, hoping to knock them out. While the cards are in the air, he throws a card at each of the cells around the room.

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Jex winds up and casts a strengthening spell on his staff and begins swinging. He tries to deflect the rocks at the cages, and then one at the mage.

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Corvo's men spread out and surrounded the mage. A few them began hacking at the cages, hoping to do something and let some of the prisoners out.

"So what's the dealio" Rol asked Jex, still hacking at the barrier. "Divide n conquer?" 

The mage tries to avoid Corvo's deck of cards but fails. The deck hits their forehead and knocks them down. They drop their staff as they hit the floor but aren't knocked out. Corvo can hear the mage groan as they attempt to crawl towards their dropped staff.

The cards thrown at the cells cut through the barrier. Most of them are stopped by the metal bars behind the barrier but two of them go through and almost hit the prisoners. Mana leaks from the mage to the barrier and the small cuts repair themselves.

-------

Jex swings and deflects the magic rocks. Five of them impact the barrier and are dissolved back into mana, further strenghtening the barrier.
The last one flies towards the mage who uses their own iron staff to deflect the magic rock back at Jex. He then quickly chants some more words and the rock breaks apart in the air. The now Ten small sharp rocks spread out and are guided straight towards Jex.

Rol keeps tearing through the barrier but just as Danielle predicted mana is sapped from the mage and the walls are repaired each time.

Danielle spoke inside Jex's mind. "The mage's mana supply is draining fast everytime the barrier needs to be repaired. They won't be able to keep this up for long. But I'm also sensing more guards gathering upstairs, a lot more."
-----

Meanwhile fluffy helps corvo's men in their attempt to tear down the barriers. But they are having the same problem as the others.

----

Back in the security Room Nix swings her axe at the head security guard. He backs up and dodges but she keeps her momentum and spins around. She swings with her other axe as she comes around and cuts the security officers cheek.

He jumps back and becomes angry, his cheek starts bleeding lightly. He looks around for something but Nix doesn't give him any time to do anything and attacks again. She kicks him in the chest with her ice magic still active. He stumbles into a table and almost breaks it with his weight.

Just then Nix notices the two other guards coming up behind her again.

"Just keep doing what you're doing, man. Danielle says he's supplying the barrier with magic but he's running low!"

Jex twirls his staff and mutters an air incantation and pushes his off hand palm forward. A burst of air releases from it, attempting to redirect the shards of rock away from him and off to the ceiling and floor, making sure there's no lateral wind that could potentially send any rock towards the prisoners. He rushes forward.

"Sagitta Magica! Series Lucis!"

Another flourish of the staff releases 10 lights arrows towards the mage. Upon firing the spell, he rushes forward, staff in hand.

_________________________________________________________________________

Corvo crosses his arms across his chest and fans 5 decks to a hand. He starts running towards the mage, serpentine style, releasing each steel-tipped card individually from his hands. A rune lights up from the 4th card, thrown not at the mage but rather at the wall behind him. Right as Corvo throws the last card from his hand, he activates the Rune and he flashes to the position of the marked card as it whizzes past the magi. He wields his dagger and prepares for an attack.

Rol continued with the shadow hack and slash, trying to make progress with the mana barrier.


"Does staff girl have a more accurate number to apply to that, or are we just touch and go at this point?"

The bounty hunter asked as he saw Jex release his usual towards the an enemy mage, hoping to assist Rol shoot a few rubber bullet by way of the mage as well, still focusing his right hand's attention on the barrier.

(Good thing I decided to check the forums today. Also, Hi Jex, long time no see. How've you been?)


After being deflected by Jex one of the sharp rocks flies by Rol's head. Missing him by a hairs length. The rocks end up only hitting the walls. The mage frowns.

The mage twirls his staff and slams its tip agains the floor causing a wall of dirt and stones to rise up. The Light arrow explode on impact, cracking the wall. The mage puts his hand on the wall and casts a spell. Sending a flurry of bricks flying towards Jex.


"His mana levels are at approximately 29% and dropping as we speak." Danielle responds to Rol's question.

----

Meanwhile in the other room:

Three of the cards slice through the mage's robes and cut her skin. She bites through the pain and uses the small moment where Corvo throws the fourth card at the wall to roll over to her staff. She grabs it and manages to deflect the fifth card with it.

She senses the air behind her being disturbed by Corvo's flashing. She react quickly and turns around blocking his dagger attack with her staff.

Still on her knees she lifts a hand and aims at Corvo. Preparing to fire a spell at point blank.

---

Rol notices that it's taking longer for the barrier to repair itself. His hacking is doing more damage to the barrier.

His rubber bullets however are stopped by the wall just like Jex' arrows.

The prisoners that are awake huddle together for protection.

---

Meanwhile Nix Spins around and kicks one of the guards in the head. He goes down.

The other guard tries to grab her but gets an axe buried in his shoulder. Nix kicks him to the floor.

Suddenly the Head guard lunges at her with a tazer. He hits her in the side. She stumbles and falls to the ground electrified. She dropps her axe.

The head guard walks over to her and kicks her axe away. He lets out a cruel laugh.

Jex grunts and rushes forward, towards the bricks and spins his staff around in front of him. He slams his staff on the ground, dragging the other end behind him and slashes forward in a wide arc releasing a slash of white light magic towards his path, directly towards the mage.

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Corvo smiles as the sigil on one of his orbiting cards lights up upon the mage's spell. The card itself dashes towards the mage's hand and attempts to get as close to the mage's hand as possible. The sigil, an antimagic rune, lights up bright as Corvo flourishes his dagger in his right hand and stabs straight towards the mage's forehead.

Jex breaks and deflects the bricks with his staff. He is untouched by the attack aside from some dust on his pants.

The slash of white light magic knocks the mage to the ground. His robes are singed and damaged where the slash hit. He grunts and lifts up his staff, aiming it at Jex. He starts to chant a spell.


"His mana levels are at about 15% now. It is dropping quickly now. But the guards are heading down the stairs right now. We don't have much time." Danielle says to Jex telepathically.


---

The mana withers from her hand as her spell is disrupted by the card. She gasps in shock when she realizes what happened.

She sees the dagger coming at her just too late. She tries to avoid it by turning her head. But it isn't enough and causes Corvo to stab the dagger right through her eye instead. She screams as blood splurts all over.

She starts to panick and flails her staff around wildly trying to hit Corvo with it.

---

Meanwhile

Nix crawls slowly crawls away. The head guard walks after her and laughs sadistically. "Nowhere to run girl."


"Not running, just need some distance." She answers while reaching behind her back. Before he can respond she grabs her second axe and throws it.
It spins through the air and plants itself right between his eyes. He stumbles back and falls dead on the floor.


"Bitch I gave birth to twins. Did you really think a little shock like that can keep me down?" She spits on his body before wrenching her axe from his head.

She uses his sleeve to wipe the blood from her weapon. Before she can fully clean it she hears footsteps coming down the stairs. "More guards.." She frowns and quickly retrieves her other axe.

After barely being missed by debris and deciding that being collateral damage was not applying in anyway, the bounty hunter devoted some of his shadows to a thin but decent barrier around him, this thinned his scythe, but also made it easier to swing faster. 

Rol slashed with a quicken speed but the smaller scythe meant his progress was the same as prior. He heard staff girl's response to his prior question. "What a rough and unrounded number, I like it." The bounty hunter continues, but you know, with like.. Gusto or something.

Jex notices the spell being cast from the end of the mage's staff and rushes forward, quickstepping in front of him. He grabs the end of the staff with his off hand and casts a destruction spell on it. With his staff in his right and he swings upwards, attempting to clock the mage in the jaw.


"This is for soiling my pantaloons."


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Corvo grunts and puts a foot to the mage's chest. He pushes off of it, prying the dagger out of her eye. He spins a card with metal tips on his finger and throws it right at her throat.


"Go to sleep."

The mage tries to fire off the spell before Jex destroys his staff. Instead he manages only to gather mana which when contacted by Jex spell causes the staff to explode.

Jex then clocks the mage in the jaw. The mage hits the floor. He tries to get back up but his mana is too low and he passes out.

"His mana levels are at 3%. He won't be waking up for a while."

(note: 0% mana causes a mage to slip into a coma. Under 5% You just fall asleep until it recovers wirh some possible side effects afterwards. Mostly depression.)

When this happens Rol breaks through the barrier and it shatters. Leaving only the metal prison bars between him and the prisoners.

"We should hurry and free the prisoners. The guards are only two rooms away now."
---

Corvo pulls away but not before the mage's wild flailing causes her staff to hit the side of his head. He trips and falls.
She keeps screaming. "NOOOO!!"

Her flailing causes the card to his the side of her neck instead. Making a cut in her flesh.
She falls on her side and doesn't try to get up. The dagger probably hit part of her brain and she's now bleeding heavily. She won't be alive much longer.

That's when the door burst open and Nix rushes in. She turns to Corvo. "There's a shit ton of guards coming this way. We need to fucking hurry."

---

Meanwhile in the other block Corvo's men and Fluffy overwhelmed the mage guarding it. They are now breaking the prisoners out of their cells there.

The alarm still blares through the whole building.

Jex runs to the metal bars and yells at the prisoners to get to the back. He slashes at the metal bars, his staff glowing with magic.


"Rol, any way you can tell if we can blow a hole up and get a straight route out of here?"

He continues working on the metal bars, allowing Rol to do whatever he needs to do.

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Corvo staggers backward upon his head getting hit. He winds up to throw another card at her but stops himself as Nix walks in. He nods as the three cards that orbit him spin faster. He runs towards the cage and places 2 cards, each on one adjacent pillar. He reads in the incantation on the cards as the runes light up, a weaken spell that would make the metal malleable. He puts his hands against the bars and starts pulling them apart.


"Quickly, get all the guards out of the cell and close the door behind you. Tell em to stick next to the wall I've got an idea."

"With direct experimentation." Rol tries to concoct some explosive rig that'll blow away the wall but not murder everyone, a slight maiming being his maximum degree of freedom. He opens some explosives, hooking wires together, using shadows as adhesive, a real fourth grade science fair project. "I don't know which wall to put it on though."

Jex quickly sees the prison bars aren't that sturdy. It seems they relied more on the barriers than on the actual cells. Jex easily breaks them.

--

"Right." Nix nods and gets to work. Using her axes in combination with her ice magic to break the bars. "Everyone we're here to break you out. Stick to the wall!"

Most of the prisoners do as they are told. Some of them however do not move. Some out of fear, others because they're already dead. All the prisoners look beaten and bruised. Some of them are bleeding, all of them are naked.

With the barrier down the smell spreads through the room. It kinda smells sweet and like rancid butter, mixed with a strong moldy cheese and rotting eggs. It's disgusting.

--

"Considering we are in a basement the only direct way out is up. Which would lead us back to the visitor room of we do it from this cell block. So I'm not sure explosives are a good idea... Correction, I know explosives are a terrible idea. Alternatively we could try to reach the sewers but the entrance to them is past the guards." Danielle explains.


"Scanning for other possible ways to acces the sewers." She says as the staff of wisdom emits a light blue hue that spreads over the room.

You hear the commotion of the guards entering the security room. They are now only one room away from you.

"Structural weakness detected in cell block A. You could break through it and that would lead you to a different section of the sewers. Explosives not advised due to the methane levels in the sewers. But going up from Cell block A would lead directly to the entrance hall, If you still wish to use said explosives." She finishes.

"Correction, explosives are never a terrible idea." He explodes the contraption in Cell block A and the methane explosion kills everyone instantly and smells really bad. Rol didn't overly like the sewer idea, something about not splitting the part even though they already did that, and was racking his brain to see if Corvo had mentioned an escape plan. He hadn't that the bounty hunter could remember. "Jesus, you'd think a plan of escape would be the first thing a gang leader would come up with right?"

Jex thinks for a moment.


"Fuck, eh. Looks like we're taking a trip to Cell A."

He finishes up with the bars to the cell, gesturing the prisoners to move wherever Danielle told them to go towards.


"Rol lead the way, I'll slow the guards down and bring up the tail."

With that, Jex spins his staff and starts casting an ice arrow spell. They release from the tip of the staff and start hitting the wall adjacent to the entrance they had came from.

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Corvo grunts at the prisoners who remained.


"Fine."

He lifts up his left sleeve, revealing symbol to the prisoners. The symbol of his guild, a crown with an eye in the middle arch. 


"If you do not wish to be free once again, tell the guards it was the Crow's Guild that destroyed the place. And if you do wish to come, well then you better tell every damn person you see that Corvo's alive."

He peels off the cards from the metal bars and they flutter in his hands before being consumed in flames. He spins towards the middle of the room and flourishes a card from his sleeve. 


"Keep to the walls."

He throws the card up, and it latches to the ceiling. With a flash of the rune, a blink of light teleports the ceiling away in a 15x15 foot hole. Corvo throws another card, straight upwards and unleashes a flash of light in the room, hopefully blinding any hostiles in the room above them.

When Rol enters cell block A he is jumped and pinned to the ground. He then gets his face(or rather his mask) licked by Fluffy who is apparently happy to see him.

Corvo's men in this Cell block have just finished breaking out the prisoners here. Most of the prisoners seem frightened by the manticore.

At the other end of the block there is a huge crack that runs along the wall.
--

Meanwhile back in Cell block B Jex's ice arrows begin freezing the entrance. Just in time as the guards try to open it, only to find it blocked by the ice. "They are preparing to ram down the door."

Some of the prisoners here also stay behind, clinging to their cells. But most of them follow Rol. The prisoners starts pushing and shoving each other to get through the single door.

--
The prisoners that got out of their cells stick to the walls as instructed.

Nix frowns at the handful of prisoners that are cowering in their cells. "They've been broken." She sighs sadly. Remembering the time she spent in these very cells. Back when they almost broke her as well.
She slaps herself. "Now's not the time for flashbacks Nix. Concentrate."

Above them the two guards that stayed in the main hall see the sudden hole in the floor. They run over to it and look straight into the light. Blinding both of them. One of them trips and falls on his face.

The rest of the guards are downstairs and one of them kicks open the door. He sees Corvo and points his sword at him. More guards gather behind the door. Ready to rush into Cell block C.

"So, what do now friends?" Rol asks on the ground with a manticore on top of him, covering the side of his mouth as he asks, in order to hide his incompetence from the frightened prisoners. I bet it worked too. He coaxes Fluffy off of him and manages to get back up. 


"Do we go up?"

"Set the explosives, Rol. Straight up. If Danielle is right this should lead to somewhere safe. Everyone, keep as far away as you can from where he's planting the explosives!"

Jex flourishes his staff and slams it into the ground. Ice seeps from it and creeps towards the door, hoping to seal it as the last of the prisoners flood into the room.

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Corvo points up on the ceiling and looks at Nix.


"Get up there and deal with whatevers up there. I'll take care of the guards. Get these idiots out of here."

Corvo flourishes 5 cards a hand as the door bursts open. 3 cards come alive from his pouch and begin orbiting him. He runs forward, throwing steel tipped card after steel tipped card. The last card, however, flashes a green rune. As the magic activates, the card explodes into a glob of sticky substance, hopefully enough to either slow them down or block off the entrance completely.

"I'll mark the safest spot for the explosives." Danielle says as a strand of mana makes its way up to the ceiling. Forming an X on a spot that's on the opposite side of the crack in the wall.


"That should be a safe distance."

The prisoners looks worried and huddle together as far away as possible from the explosives.

Jex succesfully seals the door just in time. The guards bash through the first door he sealed only to find the second door sealed as well.

--

"Got'cha" Nix nods and climbs up through the hole. She finds herself in the main hall.

At the same time the guards rush into the room below. The first guard jumps back to dodge the cards but his fellow guards are right behind him and he just ends up bumping into them. Three of the cards hit him and give him a few nasty cuts. He starts bleeding.
The fourth card hits one of the other guards.

The final card hits them and blocks off the entrance with a sticky something. The first wounded guard gets stuck in the stuff. The others try to pull him out.


Meanwhile upstairs Nix has dealt with the two blinded guards quickly. She yells at the prisoners to hurry up and climb up after her. They do so. It takes them a while to climb up however. Their prison time has caused them to weaken a lot. Climbing isn't easy when you're heavily malnourished and full of bruises.

"I can't wait for this to go horribly, horribly wrong" The bounty hunter said, rather cheerfully as he fumbled with his bomb likely worrying anyone observing him. He uses his shadow, directing them towards the mana mark with the explosive in tow. 


"Boom town? Boom town."

Turns out there was methane leaking in from the crack in the wall. Causing small amounts of the gas to fill the room. Nobody survided the resulting explosion. Not even the guards in the other rooms.


The city no longer has a prison. Crime runs rampant in the streets.

So nothing really changed.




THE END.


The explosion blows a hole in the ceiling. Debris falls down. The hole is right next to the entrance.

Upstairs the receptionist freaks out when the floor explodes in front of her eyes. She freaks out even more when suddenly Fluffy jumps out of the hole and growls at her. She screams and goes to hide in the corner.

--

Meanwhile in the main hall Nix and the prisoners hear a loud bang on the other side of the building. It sounds like an explosion. The prisoners start to panic a bit.

"The fuck was that?" Nix frowns.

Downstairs the guards pull their friend from the sticky substance. Tearing it apart in the process. They put the wounded guard aside and storm into the room. All four of them head straight towards Corvo.

The prisoners have all made it upstairs by now.

--

Back in the other block The guards attempt to break through the second Ice sealed door. Some of the Ice breaks off but the door remains stuck.

However there is a second door in this cell block. Turns out some guards went around and they come crashing down the other door. There's three of them. "Hold it right there you scum!"


(You should have taken a better look at the map lol.)

While all this is happening the alarm has not stopped wailing.

Jex slams his staff on the ground once more and casts his spell.


"Sagitta Magica! Series Fulgaris!"

10 fire bolts release from the end of his staff and start crashing towards the entrance the guards started funneling from. He sent one over the top of the door, hoping to collapse it and slow the guards' progress.

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Corvo closes his eyes and breathes in. As the guards enter the room, a single card drops from the top of his sleeve to his hand. He throws it at the ground beneath him and a purple rune glows. Smoke suddenly starts spilling from the face of the card at a rapid pace. Once he knows he is covered by the smoke, Corvo turns and runs to follow Nix and the prisoners.