Oh, by the way, RisenDemon was working on a dwarven biosuit.
Unlike high-tech ones, it just keeps the wearer alive longer, and, since it was fashioned from the soul-swapper, lets the user swap two people's souls using their hands.
To put it in TvTropes words (it has enhanced my life in an odd way), he might need a Big Damn Heroes moment.
Maybe putting FallenAngel (or someone else, but FallenAngel would be the easiest and safest for soul-swapping) into Oku's body?
Bit late to try to change the direction of the story...though I would not be opposed to pulling a stupid stunt like trying to bodyswap, to distract the masked one for a split second.
Long-winded ramble in which my dwarf figures out much of the Masked one's plot, too late to stop it completely...but in time to prevent all the adamant everywhere from vanishing.
A number of adamant slivers sat on a shelf, each the same size, while a single point of eldritch light hung in the center of the room. The Entity, wearing an artificial (but very convincing) body, grabbed a piece of adamant with a pair of magically insulated pliers, and brought it to contact with the light.
"one...two...three..."
The adamant crumbled into dust, and the Entity wrote the data down.
Then the next one. "one...two..th-" and it crumbled.
Then the next, and the next, and the next...
"Three seconds", muttered the Entity. "All of them. Three seconds or less. That's all they last when exposed to the singularity. They should be lasting much longer than that, the weakest samples should have lasted five seconds. So why aren't they lasting as long as they should?"
"Rift phenomena depleting the adamant? Unlikely. Those are one of the few things I can reliably detect. Mistake by Armok? Even less likely, that guy is also easy to detect. Complete failure of the entire system?...hold that thought. Action by one of the demon's creators? Also unlikely, Swordthunders would have detected that kind of disturbance.
"So that leaves mortal and quasi-mortal casters...which means it's either a completely new caster who's figured out how to use adamant as a power source, or it's the maskdwarf. The former is incredibly unlikely a priori, but why in the world would the masked dwarf go and do so straight under my nose?"
"Of course! Nobody else ever figured out how to draw power from adamant, because it has defenses against that sort of thing! But add the spacial distortions I give off...and the defenses weaken. Add in the temporal paradox involving flame, though, and the opportunity should have come much sooner...ah, you needed me to be distracted with one of my projects. "
The Fractal Entity's face took on a grim expression.
"I know what you're planning now, Masked Dwarf. You're planning to temporarily disconnect the spires from the network, and drain them almost to nothing, counting on me to attack you, triggering a disproportionate emergency response, resulting in a cascading chain reaction failure of all the spires everywhere at once when they try to reconnect...but it won't work."
'you see' thought the Entity to itself, 'I know something you don't: I can draw upon the adamant in Swordthunders to reinforce the adamant here, without damaging space time. I shall likely induce much madness in others by doing so...but space time shall not be further stressed. If space time is not further stressed, then the cascading failure you seek will not occur. Oh, and if you were able to siphon power from adamant indefinitely, you'd have been much, much more subtle about it, escaping my notice until you felt you had the power to challenge me.'
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Topic: Demongate: Wrapping up the Loose Ends. (Read 696821 times)