As soon as the moment of insanity is over, Aykon falls to his knees as he feels drained and barely able to move. He says a momentary prayer thanking God for watching over him and then forces himself to his feet. He sees Verrigan's body and Shyla's body and although the fear of Shyla's situation grips him, he also is not too sure he can trust Verrigan even though he seems dead.

He staggers over to Verrigan's body and forces his partisan through the creature's heart one more time to confirm he's dead. Once he finds this relief, he then hurries over to Shyla. His own body is barely moving but he is more concerned with Shyla. He places his hand on her throat to check for a pulse but without even thinking, he releases a wave of healing energy over her with what he has left in him.

(( Healing Wave - 10EP, adding 5 ether to increase effectiveness of healing ))

When Aykon plunges his weapon into Verrigan's back, he lets out a howl of a death rattle and then goes limp, before suddenly turning to ash. Aykon then goes over to Shyla, preparing to heal her, when he suddenly senses imminent danger. Looking up quickly he sees Verrigan still alive, standing across the room with that wicked grin still on his face. He immediately clasps his hands together, and then chains glowing with a dark blue energy suddenly burst out of the floor and wrap around Aykon. The astral chains begin to pull him down into a pool of darkness, and as his efforts to escape from his bonds prove futile, Verrigan waves goodbye.

"I'll give you credit for wounding me."

The vampire seems to be favoring the side which Aykon had pierced before.

"Lament, for this is your reward. I doubt I'll see you again, but if you ever show your face here again, I won't go so easy on you next time."

Before Aykon can even spit out a retort, the darkness over takes him and everything fades to black. An undetermined amount of time passes before the esper suddenly comes to. He immediately feels as if he's in a tight space, and the atmosphere is very stuffy. It takes him a second to regain most of his senses, however. He realizes he's in his natural form now, he must've been unconscious for a while. On the one hand he has the benefit of feeling fully rested, but on the other hand he has no idea how long it's been, or where he is. His equilibrium is telling him he's laying on his back, and from the tight quarters around him, he feels as if he's in a long box.

[Life & Ether fully restored. You gain 100 CP.]

((I sense a Kill Bill congruency here! ))

As Aykon comes to, his first urge is to frantically move about but then when he is about to start moving he realizes the stuffiness and determines that an unnecessarry use of air could be a bad idea. After he has a moment to adjust his senses to the environment, he begins to postulate about just what is happening in this situation. If he was right, he would give Verrigan an "F" for originality.

Placing his finger along the closest wall to his left side and begins following it upwards until he can feel where it intersects the top part of the box he is in. Upon doing so, he tries to determine if there is a seam to separate the two that his finger could get into easliy. If so, then the escape from his current surroundings seemed somewhat more hopeful.

He was trying to manage his breathing so that he did not use up any unecessary oxygen.

It all sounds about the same, which is to say pretty sturdy. However, best he could tell, the left side near his elbow was possibly the weakest spot structurally.

(Keep in mind that you're in your base form right now. So at the very least you might want to transform at some point, but no real rush, heh.)

Aykon contemplates how to handle this situation in his human form but he decides there is nothing to be gained from doing things slowly or taking on any assumable risk. It might be a rather nasty surprise outside of this box and his base form couldn't handle it.

Releasing the seal on his powers, Aykon's right hand becomes awash with green currents of energy. The currents wrap around his arm like tendrils enveloping everything as they move. He closes his eyes and opens his eyes as his Esper form. He is analyzing the container from the instant his eyes can. He is checking for any wards since Verrigan and his employer had been very crafty about such things.

((Warding check, Roll: 15))

The power of Aykon's transformation causes the casket to tremble violently, and yet it does not give from even this. His Esper Sight immediately allows him to see through the veil of reality, and thus he can see through his wooden bonds, and even see some of the room he's in. The first thing he notices, however, is that the casket he's in is wrapped in chains which are glowing with the power of ether. In fact he had heard the chains rattle when he transformed and shock the casket. The energy cloaking the chains is dark gray in color. It looks almost smoky in nature, while still giving off light as all spiritual energy does. While transformed, an Esper can see both the spiritual world and the physical world. This is the true nature of Esper Sight. So it was that with Esper Sight that they could see the spiritual energy of all things, which is called ether. This particular ether is very unique looking to Aykon. For he had never before seen ether of this color and consistency before, until he had come Adair Manor. However, seeing it now on these chains, he recognized it. It was the second time he had seen this curious ether before. He'd have to remember to pay Verrigan a proper thank you when he got out of all this. For now he'd have to figure out a way to break the ward on the chains so he could get out.

(You were already able to identify the ward with the check you just made. So now you'll get a bonus to disable it, if you decide to deal with it that way.)

Aykon smirks as he notices the predicament he is in, it seems like transforming was a better judgment this time. Yet he also gained some satisfaction from knowing that Verrigan feared him enough to create such a complicated ward. He would not be misjudged next time the two meet. He was certain there would be another time. Although he knew that Shyla was far from him, there was nothing he could do until he escaped this bondage. This being the case, Aykon cleared his mind as much as possible and began analyzing the ward around him. Although the ether that was used to make it function was of an odd type, it was one that he had become quite familiar with in time. Furthermore, the structure of the warding, regardless of how complicated, was created using the same kind of warding formula as the others. If he only could analyze the modified structure of this one, he would reach the key to unlock it. He felt his eyes being moving around the connections and interlocking joints of the ward and studying them with the same analytical speed he had used before. Hopefully this would be a quick fix.

(( Warding, Roll: 18 . Have I mentioned that I have been loving these rolls! *pets quickdice* - You have served me well.))

Aykon continues to analyze the structure of the ward, until he's fairly sure he has a good understanding of how it works. Finding the weakest point in the ward that he can locate, he feels confident that he can now deal with the ward.

(You now have a larger bonus to disable the ward.)

Aykon's analysis has been successful, the surgeon's scalpel of ethereal energy appears in the Esper's hand once again. He snaps the connected lines of the weak point in the ward with a finnesse that comes with his recent exposure to this science. Once the weak point snaps, Aykon steadily snaps the supporting points to cause a complete deconstruction of the wards. Once complete, the scalpel vanishes from his hands.

((Warding - Roll: 16 - Attempting to disable the ward without raising any alarms. ))

Aykon makes a couple of quick mental and etherical incisions with his spiritual scalpel, which seems to sever the bonds of the chains themselves, as they fall from the casket and clatter to the floor. At this point, a swift blow to the top of the casket with his Esper Strength should be enough to pop the casket open.

(No check required, just pop that sucker open and hop on out!)