>>5715532Even as you are barrelling towards him along the narrow rafters of this high upper chamber, the drumming beat of your own blood caught mid-stride headlong into the rush - you can almost see it now, you will charge into him, unbalance him, knock him down, topple him into the grinding maw of toothed gears and furious machinery gnashing beneath you all - yet there is a strange, unnatural taste of ditchwater in your mouth, the taste of iron and rust pinching the throat, and you know that the Magician, Thelemy Maskelyne, has countered you with a rite of his own.
The iron taste is of blood - an involuntary shudder, as you see yourself transfixed by a length of steel through your chest...
>>5694612(Your status is SEVERE WOUND - stabbed by cane sword)
You hear Mariamne cry out, the slow clank as she hefts the shrouded muzzle of the machine gun - but the roar of its gunfire is abruptly silenced. Even though you are impaled upon the cane sword of the treacherous magician, you can see in Mariamne's eyes a fearful distress that exceeds your own. The machine gun clatters to the ground. Mariamne raises her hands desperately, gargling, reaching, clawing as if she had stepped into quicksand... as if she were submerged, drowning...
>>5714963There is the glint of breathless triumph in the wicked magician's eye. Thelemy Maskelyne - whose grip is still tight upon the cane sword jutting from your flesh - cannot resist a gloating, jubilant sense of exultation, cannot resist a final boast at the culminating ease of his victory:
-Well, this is a very theatrical mishap! A stage accident! I barely did anything; you charged onto my sword! Aha, ha! As for her (he gestures at the choking, drowning Mariamne) - well I am afraid that is going to take some time. It is a very slow succumbing, my dear - it is easier if you don't try to gasp and struggle so... But I suppose two sacrifices are better than one. What better means to consecrate my new, wondrous machine...
His glee is abruptly curtailed - for despite the jagged and welling pain of the wound, the blade still stabbed into your chest, you seize the magician by the lapels of his coat; and in one sudden harsh pitching motion, the world tilts as you topple together off the edge.
