"Do you see what happens to traitors? Serve me, and through me you serve Osiris-Ra!" Sura hissed. He knelt down, placed one hand in the sand hoping to communicate with the sand dwelling insects for information on Laktos' whereabouts.

The insects were silent, as were the Cultists. This was a sacred battle, they knew now - most had realized just how important Sura was.

Sura stood back up and made several mirages of himself and walked them around, hoping to draw Laktos out by thinking they were actually him and attempted a surprise attack.

The trick worked.

Laktos flung himself at one of the mirages, falling through it, only to turn and face the several images of Sura about him.

"Fight me, you coward," he spat.

Sura made all the illusions bar one vanish. The final one got into a battle ready position hoping to trick Laktos in believing it was the real one. Sura then rose sand spikes behind his mirage, meaning any attack that went through his mirage would result in being impaled.

"You forget the eyes of the scarab," yelled Latos, backing away confidently. "You must realise that the broken sight of the beetle can see through any illusion!"

The Cultists, once watching, had each scampered off. This was a little too serious for their tastes.

Sura creates another sand storm to obscure vision again. He then sent the sand spikes through the mirage at Laktos, aiming to bring the impalement to him.

The sand was raised, but hit only the air - Laktos had dodged elegantly, throwing his body to the side. As he rolled, he threw something at Sura. A blade of glass glanced Sura's clothing, shredding it, but missed the flesh - such as it was - itself.

Laktos was proving to be more difficult than he had originally thought. Sura then used his magical arsenal to incinerate Laktos' arms and legs.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:53, Tue 29 Dec 2009.

Sura felt a massive amount of energy leave him, and he fell to the floor, a wreck; he had the raw power, but not the finesse needed to successfully control such a spell. The world spun, and his head throbbed. He felt dreadfully cold, as if all the heat had left his body. The sun was so far away..

He was rewarded with screeching and screams. An acrid, smoky stench filled his nostrils. When Sura had finally composed himself, a few minutes later, Laktos's entourage had their heads bowed in reverence towards Sura, and Laktos himself was charred beyond all recognition.

Sura slowly made his way over to examine the corpes and Laktos' possessions

The corpses were burnt, nondescript, caught in poses of horror and extreme pain. Rings of molten gold were caught around the necks - the remains of the pendants of Osiris-Ra - but the Blades of the Sun were entirely unharmed. Laktos, Sura saw with a shudder, must have been boiled from the inside - the carapace was still up, the Gloves still, logically, caught beneath.

He would have to crack Laktos open.

And so Sura did. Without a flinch, he uncovered his newly earned rewards.

This was more difficult than it seemed. Unfortunately, the sacred scarab armour was did not make Laktos as deliciously crackable as a lobster, and he remained sealed within his chitanous tomb.

Sura used sand to creater impacts on the armour, hoping the force will break it.

The shell bent and twisted under the repeated blows of Sura, but eventually crumbled under several dozen powerful strikes. Inside, Laktos's flesh had been completely boiled - blisters and scathings covered the entire length of his body. The fabric of the dark robe he'd been wearing had completely melted away, fused with the broken flesh of the Cultist.

Sura delighted in this sight and searched for his possessions - mainly the blades of the sun and the gloves.

Covered in thick red-black gloop, still exceptionally warm to the touch, was the Blade of the Sun. Even covered as it was in the boiled gore of Laktos, it still shimmered silver, albeit slightly. Sura felt an immediate sense of homecoming as he weighed the thing in his hands.. as if it were made for him.

Access to the Gloves of Nakhutan was more difficult to obtain; Sura would have to either crack the armour surrounding the arms, or otherwise gain access to the hands.

He took his new blade and tore at the armour around the arms.

Slowly, surely, the arm began to crack, to peel, and beneath it Sura saw white stained, rather meekly, by black and red - as if boiling blood could not fully tarnish the thing. They were the Gloves.. such powerful Gloves.

Sura peeled them off the dead Laktos. He grinned and put them on.

The Gloves were sticky with the fluids of Laktos, but slipped on smoothly. As soon as Sura felt them on his hands, he began to experience a strange sense of power, felt maniacal chirping and clicking - like that of an insect - just beyond his range of hearing..

Sura took a moment to analyse the gloves power before seeing who/what was around him.

Strangely enough.. at the moment, there was nothing about him. There were no steps on the sand save his own, no shadows against the sun-bleached stone. The City was quiet. Perhaps the Cultists were distracted elsewhere, or maybe they'd decided to give him this sacred moment.

Sura stood up, took one last look at Laktos and moved on to find the cultists.