Guild Wars 2

“Come out! You know it’s futile trying to hide!”

He knew. As the charr ran between rocks and tree stumps, visages of the man shouting chased after him. As long as he was aware of the mesmer, the illusions could track him through that awareness, and if he’d shut him out of his mind, the mesmer would be as good as invisible. The charr swung his staff at one of the illusions, scoffing as it dissipated into distorted light. Hide? Run away? Such wasn’t his intent to begin with. He continued making his way up the slope.

The human was growing impatient. His foe was getting away from him – he couldn’t see the charr, but he could feel his illusions chasing his quarry, moving further and further away. He shut his eyes and pointed his sword forwards. Relaxing his arm, he could feel his consciousness point the sword in the direction where the splintered copies of himself were. Today would be the day the charr would die by his hand, he thought as he started striding onwards. No more games. No more challenges. Only one of them would walk out this time. And by Lyssa’s hind, it wouldn’t be the charr.

The charr remembered the first time he had met the human. He had been young. Ambitious. Brash. Hated charr from the bottom of his heart. It had been clear they’d never get along, but still, they had studied magic side by side. But all things come to an end sometime, and now was that time. He woke from his reminisce as he arrived at his destination. He turned around and with a surge of chaos magic, broke the illusionary clones following him. He had much to prepare, and little time.

As the human approached the place where his clones had dispersed, he knew the charr had chosen the battlefield for their confrontation. It was crevasse, wide enough for five men to walk shoulder to shoulder, and curved around the end out of sight. Most noticeably, a barrier of fire cut across the ground, from wall to wall and equally deep, the flames rising up high. He put his hand forwards, and felt not a tinge of heat.

“Illusionary flames? Really? That’s the best you can do?”

The man laughed and stepped into the flames.

“You think just the sight of fire will keep me away? You think I’d trust my eyes, fighting another mesmer? I don’t understand what you were hoping to achieve…”

He was cut off by the charr stepping into sight, laughing.

“Your mistake was to trust your senses at all.”

The man looked furious, but before he could shout, the charr snapped his fingers, dispelling a veil of invisibility, revealing a phantasmal replica of himself, writhing in pain, twisting and turning on the ground. The human’s face turned to terror, his lips forming a voiceless “no”, as the charr snapped his fingers again, shattering the phantasm. The charr gave the human one final glance.

“You can have your senses back now. Enjoy them while you can.”

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