Inoadar All Inoadar found he could do was think. The physical struggle was horrifyingly over, the ghost had completely subsumed all physical connection to his body. The poisoner tried to initiate the Flux, to see if the sudden empowerment might take the invader by surprise and allow him to point the weapon at the ceiling and fire it. But he could not tell if he was succeeding or not. Then it struck him that he might only be giving the ghost the strength to break itself free of Miro's hold. At the thought of Miro, there was an odd redundancy of his mental picture of the mage. He could only figure the ghost had decided to target the mage. This would explain both the alignment of the thought, and the alignment of the weapon on his robed friend. He didn't know if Miro had any defensive method against the crossbow. He knew the bolt could pierce steel armor easily at this range. "No! Not him!" he roared internally. This was the only person here he considered a friend. But there was just as much the apprehension over having no one on his side when heads rolled for this fiasco as there was the loss of a friend. He knew there would be someone to take the fall for this. Acolyte Grey may well blame the soldier, Blake, beside him as well, knowing he too was possessed. But in the political arena encompassing the military aspect of Ravok, a contracted civilian like himself would be decidedly less likely to escape the brunt of reprisal. She would side with her own. He suddenly realized the "echo" of mental focus on the Acolyte now. 'Is it targeting her now?' The echo flickered briefly and Inoadar put his thoughts back on Miro, finding the same flickering attention on him. Trying not to mentally verbalize his discovery, he realized the ghost was not so easily able to shake his mental interference. He NEEDED indecisiveness. And he needed it now! 'No, wait! He's the one that has us locked in...But wait, She's the one that told him to do it! Or...no...he did it on his own...But he did it to save her...because she's the leader...if she dies, they'll all leave!...or no...the mage will probably take over...he's powerful...the rest will follow...except maybe the soldiers...if the soldier is shot, the leader will order a retreat to save him...or maybe not...maybe soldiers are not that important to her...she sure yelled at that one...Wait! that other guy is a mage too, maybe he's going to attack...but he's not as powerful as the first one...you need to kill the strongest one...or the leader...either one of them...' He continued this as long as he could, seeing that his crossbow was switching from one target to another, to another, and back, and back again. The ghost in the soldier's body suddenly growled at him "USE THE PETCHING THING! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?" Inoadar felt a sudden clear of his mental focus as the ghost turned its attention upon its partner. He grabbed at anything shocking he could imagine. The sense of finding "shock" triggered thoughts of the gasps of onlookers as they watched his masochistic displays of self-punishment while he was in the Second Edict. There was still the biggest reaction from the time he'd held a red hot iron in both hands. He embraced this thought and recalled the screams, one of them his own, and his determination to hold on in spite of the pain. Inwardly he generated a scream of agony in the present to accompany the vision. The ghosts consciousness snapped back in anticipation of agony, mistaking Inoadar's memories for the present. "IT BURNS!! it shrieked in the poisoner's voice, tossing away the loaded crossbow, which, unfortunately, fired upon impact with the floor. |