First appearance: S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan · watch it on YouTube
Ahyan is a towering minotaur mage, a professor and recruiter for the Academy of Assassins, and the former mentor of Alma. Pulled into the Void to fight their own pupil for a coveted position, Ahyan spent most of the match trying to talk Alma out of it, pleading with the Acolytes for mercy and outfoxing the younger mage with old tricks. They lost in the end, but on their own terms, with a quiet “I’m proud of you” that turned a deathmatch into a graduation. Along the way they became, by Gerald’s own account, the first champion ever to thank him.
Story
The Student and the Master
Ahyan walked into the arena in S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan still calmly wrapping bandages around their forearms, looking profoundly unimpressed by the student boasting across the floor. “I thought I taught you better than to boast,” they told Alma, and offered them a way out: go home and save them both the trouble. Alma answered with insults about their age and memory, then won the race to act first and hit Ahyan square in the chest with a bolt of fire before they had finished their wraps. “I see you haven’t learned to wait your turn,” Ahyan sighed, cloaking themselves in protective blue light. With a somber look and a simple “Alma, don’t go anywhere,” they froze their student in place, mid-crouch, and begged them to forfeit. When Alma refused, Ahyan let out what the Grandmaster called “the exhale of a thousand ancients.”
The Void had other plans for both of them. A chaos event sent a huge silver magnet swinging down from the sky, and it dragged Alma, held rigid in full armor, straight into its face. Ahyan, who never goes anywhere without a weapon, was hauled up after them by a dagger, a knife, a hammer, a set of manacles and a steel mirror. Pinned side by side ten feet in the air, Ahyan scolded, “You embarrass me, Alma. I taught you how to get rid of this,” and freed their student. Then came the move that made the Grandmaster blurt out, “hell, that’s fucking awesome”: Ahyan cast lightning at the ground and used it as a rope, swinging down toward the Box of Chaos to sacrifice the ceremonial dagger they had received on graduating from the academy. Long dark fingers inside the Box caught the other end. “Why is your lightning on me?” asked Gerald. In exchange he gave Ahyan a sleeveless chest piece shot through with crackling blue lightning, armor that shrugged off the magnet’s pull. The Grandmaster snapped it onto them, perfectly fitted. Ahyan thanked Gerald, earning his stunned “You might be the first person to ever say thank you,” and then handed him a business card for the Academy of Assassins (“we have benefits”). Gerald, touched, replied in kind with a healing potion labelled “Gerald1972 at yahoo.com.”
Chairs, Darkness and Snow
Ahyan pulled free of the magnet just in time for the hosts to join in. The Grandmaster and The Arbiter produced metal chairs and swan-dived off their platform. The Arbiter over-spun his corkscrew and only tapped Ahyan on the shoulder, which the Grandmaster put down to minotaur strength. A posing contest followed, and Ahyan, baffled by the request for a selfie (“What is a selfie? Do you want a shelf?”), bumbled around fending people off and came out looking, in the Grandmaster’s words, “accidentally cool.” When a blinded Alma blasted them backward with a gust of wind, Ahyan braced against the floor, closed their eyes and tracked Alma by their loud pandering. “And that will be your downfall, my dear.” Their life-draining touch, cast by sound alone, landed perfectly (“Who needs eyes?”) and leeched a huge chunk of Alma’s life into Ahyan. Walking blind toward their student with hands outstretched, they turned to the crowd: “Have mercy on Alma.”
Alma would not stop. Volcanic eruptions burst across Ahyan’s body, and Alma tried to smother them in magical darkness. Ahyan simply unravelled the spell, stared straight at their student and accepted the fight at last: “All right then, if you want to fight, like the Grandmaster said, I will honor your decision.” The stare left Alma shaken. Ahyan raised an old champion’s spirit from the ground beneath the arena, stepped through the mist to tap Alma on the shoulder, and, with every weapon lost to the magnet, threw a lightning-wrapped punch that Alma dodged with an impossible, slow-motion backbend.
The arena turned to ice and darkness, and the only warmth came from torches inside a temple. Ahyan slipped badly on the frozen ground. Alma took the temple and flooded the snowy courtyard with sickly green radiance, mocking Ahyan’s old dislike of snow. The hit was so big that “That’s massive” got a “That’s what she said?” (“I’ll allow it.”). Badly hurt and glowing faintly green, Ahyan stepped through the mist into the temple (“It isn’t very nice to treat your elders that way”) and reached for Alma’s life again. Alma tried to stop the spell, so Ahyan turned time back inside their own body to the moment before the radiance struck, shook off the sickness and pushed the spell through. The Arbiter was delighted: “Grandmaster, time magic.” Moments later, after a lucky roll of his own (“Redeemed. I don’t want to hear it. Suck it, Doug”), the Arbiter hurled a dollhouse-sized metal chair like a boomerang through the temple roof and into Ahyan’s head. “Is it raining chairs out there?” Ahyan picked it up as their one and only weapon.
The Final Lesson
With both fighters near the end, Alma brought up potions class and the A-minus Ahyan had once given them. Ahyan stood by it: Alma’s potions were always a little too potent. Then a plague of locusts filled Ahyan’s corner. Down to their last breath, Ahyan sank to their knees, long blue hair falling over their face, and looked through a gap in it at Alma with quiet determination. They gave their student permission to finish it.
Ahyan: “I’m proud of you, Alma.”
The Arbiter landed beside the body, praised the fight (“I respect the time magic, especially”), slung Ahyan over his shoulder and flew off.
Dried Blood
Ahyan returned freshly raised from the dead, and admitted it was “a strange feeling.” They told Alma they deserved the position after all and wished them an illustrious career as an assassin. They refused, with great dignity, to raise the old potions grade. When Alma admitted they had never learned the life-draining spell, Ahyan pointed out that they would have taught it if Alma had only waited a little longer. When Alma hinted at something “weird” from their first year, Ahyan declared, “Those are secrets for another story.”
Personality and Abilities
Ahyan is a tall minotaur with gold bands and rings pierced through their horns, bandaged forearms and long, wavy blue hair that flows majestically even when there is no wind. They carry themselves like a tired, principled teacher: patient, dry, faintly disappointed and deeply unwilling to hurt a student “for nothing.” Their integrity runs all the way down to grading. They are also unfailingly polite, which made them the first champion to thank the Box of Chaos, and they even tried to recruit it.
In a fight Ahyan is a cunning, adaptable mage who claims to know every one of their student’s spells, attacks and strategies. They bind enemies in place, drain life from a distance, unravel hostile magic, slip through mist to reappear at an opponent’s shoulder, call up spirits from the ground and wrap their fists in thunder. Their signature trick is time magic they call Restore Balance: turning time back within their own body to undo harm. They favour creative uses of their magic, such as using lightning as a rope. After the Box’s gift, they wore a sleeveless chest piece threaded with harmless blue lightning that resisted force. By the end of the match their only weapon was a tiny metal chair.
Relationships
- Alma: Ahyan’s former student. Ahyan tried to spare them throughout, then gave them permission to win and told them they were proud.
- Gerald: Ahyan sacrificed their graduation dagger to him, thanked him, and swapped business cards with him.
- The Arbiter: He struck Ahyan with two chairs, admired their time magic and carried their body from the arena.
- The Grandmaster: She fitted Ahyan’s new armor with a snap of her fingers and approved of their networking.
Memorable Quotes
- “I thought I taught you better than to boast.” (S3E2)
- “I taught you everything you know, you fool! You don’t think I know every one of your spells, your attacks, your strategies?” (S3E2)
- “Thank you, Gerald. This will come in handy.” (S3E2)
- “What is a selfie? Do you want a shelf?” (S3E2)
- “Is it raining chairs out there?” (S3E2)
- “If you have Counterspell, then of course I have Counterspell, Alma.” (S3E2)