Board Thread:Random RP/@comment-26444332-20170424191044/@comment-26444332-20170730032354

As the hydra screams and thrashes as the assault continues from all sides, spitting fire and venom and poisonous fog, Azarias blinks and remembers.

''Azarias steadied himself against the cliffline, the jagged stones beneath his bloody palms, elbows and knees quivering, as if yearning to immerse themselves in the crystalline lake at the base of the near sheer incline. He hadn't been in this much pain since the War, when he had been nothing but a combat mage, only trained to fight and none of the other parts of magecraft. A few meters above sat Crowley, cross-legged atop a stone outcropping, his back turned to Azarias and his gaze seemingly fixed on the snowfields the blanketed the mountain's summit.''

'''If you don't already want to murder me, you will before I'm through with you,' he was saying. 'The urge to kill one's superior in magecraft is intrinsic to our kind: those born to battle demons and gods. My strength makes you envious; my wisdom fuels your desires; my Magic excites your craving. It has been this way since the beginning, and it will continue to be so until you realize that our relationship cannot be founded upon these. My strength ought to make you wonder at yourself; my wisdom ought to fuel your learning; my Magic ought to inspire a distaste for absolute power. My pupil, great power- and you should know this very well by now -only serves to distance oneself from those you love and those you respect, for in the end we all die alone. From you the future will fountain, and the many peoples of this world will profit by it: I would not teach you if it were otherwise, for I have no desire to loose a mage into the world that does not help improve it. Until then, however, you must strive; you must demonstrate commitment to my teaching and a worthiness to be my apprentice. You must take the hatred you feel for me now and transform it into power- the power to overcome that hatred and like me in spite of yourself.'''

''Scarcely listening, Azarias moved with utmost care, his hands and knees seeking purchase on the stones. For weeks Crowley had deprived him of adequate sleep, food, and water- no wonder they had called his methods torture, he thought. Now if only he could reach the human, his thrist and hunder would be slaked, his injuries healed. Seething in silence, he managed to scale another meter, calling on his Flow to make him lighter.''

'''Idiot,' Crowley derided him. 'Success doesn't come from applying magical energy to every situation. Stop thinking of the future and anchor yourself in the present. I thought that would have been beaten into your head by now, you stubborn-' he caught himself, sighing. 'Still, I'm somewhat encouraged by the progress you've made. You probably want to strangle me. Fair enough. But to do so, you will have to make a greater effort.'''

''Azarias gathered his strength and leapt to the outcropping, hands extended to catch Crowley and use him as an anchor in case he fell again. But instead of visiting themselves on the human mage, they went through thin air and left him to collapse face-first on the outcropping. Off to one side he heard Crowley stifling a chuckle.''

'''If you're to succeed, my unashamedly angry student, you must recognize when you are being tricked.' Crowley pulled him to his feet. 'If you can survive a few more days of this, I may be inclined to teach you what you wish to know.'''

Azarias shook his head at the memory. Crowley was definitely a man of very different personalities depending on what he was doing, but the method had worked- which is precisely why he had never visited what he had had to go through upon his own students. He doubted Artoria, Dolenus, and Manteau would be the people they were today if he had: certainly they would be better mages, but at the likely cost of their sanity.

The hydra, weakened by blood loss and suffocating from Astron's flames, collapses, its legs no longer able to support itself. It lets out a mournful keen from several heads, and drags itself against the cliff wall, evidently unable to fight further.

'Alright, that's enough.' Azarias calls before any of them can make a further move against the creature.