First appearance: S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan · watch it on YouTube
Alma is a wild-eyed, hyperactive earth genasi sorcerer who came to the Void to prove they had outgrown their teacher. Pitted against their former mentor Ahyan in a duel the Arbiter summed up as “two birds, one stone,” Alma spent much of the fight frozen, blinded, slammed into a giant magnet and hit with a metal chair. Through all of it they insisted it was part of the plan. Then they ended the match with one perfect shot.
Story
The Arbiter summoned Alma to The Dread Fortress as half of a master-and-student pairing, and they arrived buzzing with young, ferocious, super-hyper energy. “Tonight, I will prove once and for all that I have become not the student, but the master,” they declared, and followed it with a scream. Ahyan, a tall and deeply unimpressed minotaur, told them to go home for their own good. Alma shot back that their teacher had “gotten weak with all your years” and had a bad memory besides. The Grandmaster wondered aloud whether expertise or passion would win. The Arbiter declared himself “a fan of the underdog.”
The fight took place at one of the Grandmaster’s temples, a crumbling shrine on a pillar in the sky with a long drop on every side. Alma moved first and hit Ahyan square in the chest with a fire bolt. They then crouched, vibrating with magic, waiting to teleport above a strange silver disc plunging from the sky. Alma correctly recognized the disc as a magnet. Before they could act, Ahyan froze them in place with a spell, and the paralyzed Alma was yanked body-first into the magnet in full armor. Hanging ten feet in the air beside their teacher, Alma insisted: “I’m just, I’m waiting to make my move. This is all, it’s part of the plan.” With a boost from The Acolytes, they strained to break free, and the spell wiggled “like when Captain America starts to pick up Mjolnir.” Ahyan finally released them out of sheer embarrassment.
Things got worse before they got better. The Grandmaster swan-dived from her platform and cracked a metal chair over Alma, knocking them off the magnet and onto the ground. Moments later, a paparazzi storm of Acolytes tumbled into the arena and blinded both fighters with camera flashes. Blind and hurting, Alma found Ahyan by the sound of their teacher asking what a selfie was. They blasted Ahyan toward the edge with a gust of wind (“It’s like Titanic”), then turned to the crowd: “Is this not the bloodshed that you’ve asked for? Are you not entertained?” They stubbed their big toe on a rock mid-speech and played it off as entertainment. Ahyan, eyes closed and aiming by sound, drained a huge chunk of Alma’s life with a spell Alma had never learned. Ahyan begged the Grandmaster to talk Alma out of the fight. She refused, saying that if this was what Alma wanted, they would fight.
What followed was a blow-for-blow magic duel. Alma set Ahyan erupting with tiny volcanoes and then smothered them in darkness. Ahyan cancelled the darkness and stared Alma down until doubt crept in. When Ahyan raised an old champion from the ground to fight for them, Alma sent it back with a wave of their hand: “No, not today. Go back into the ground.” The Arbiter called it the first time anyone had used Counterspell in the arena. When Ahyan teleported behind Alma and threw a thunderous punch, Alma bent backward Matrix-style and sprang back up: “You gotta be a little faster than that to get an old Alma.” After the Arbiter conjured a blizzard, Alma teleported into the warm torchlight of the temple. From there they bathed the courtyard in sickening green radiance, leaving Ahyan nauseated and badly hurt. Ahyan struck back by turning back time inside their own body, pushing another life-draining spell through Alma’s attempt to counter it.
For the finale, Alma got intense and focused. They reminded Ahyan of the A− they had received in potions class three years earlier, for brews that were always “a little bit too potent,” and unleashed a plague of locusts. Ahyan sank to their knees, down to their last breath. Through a gap in their blue hair, Ahyan’s eyes gave Alma permission. Alma made finger guns and fired a single magic missile, which wove around every locust and went straight into their beloved professor’s heart. “I’m proud of you, Alma,” Ahyan said, and fell. Alma wiped away tears before the Grandmaster lifted them into the sky as the victor. Afterward, a freshly revived Ahyan agreed that Alma deserved the position after all. Ahyan still refused to change the potions grade.
Personality and Abilities
Alma has gray skin cracked like dried mud around the face and charcoal black hair, and wears gray and white elven armor. They are young, loud, cocky and endlessly confident, and they treat every disaster as something they meant to happen. “I’ve got you right where I want you,” they told Ahyan while badly wounded, adding that they were only letting their teacher think they would win “so you feel good about yourself in the morning.” Underneath the bravado they cared about their professor, and they cried when it was over.
Alma studied wild magic sorcery under Ahyan at an academy that Ahyan calls the Academy of Assassins, and picked up the rest from “the big book of magic.” In the arena they used fire bolts, teleportation, gusts of wind, volcanic immolation, darkness, sickening radiance, locust swarms and magic missiles. They could also counter an enemy’s spell outright. They never learned Ahyan’s life-draining touch, and they kept one spell hidden even from their teacher: “I didn’t even show you my Wall of Light.” Their fighting style is fast and aggressive, with a showman’s taste for playing to the crowd.
Relationships
- Ahyan: Alma’s former mentor and professor, whom they killed in the arena and who told them, dying, “I’m proud of you, Alma.”
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Refused Ahyan’s plea for mercy and honored Alma’s choice to fight. After the victory, she lifted Alma into the sky, saying, “It is you that kept us warm, that kept our hearts ablaze.”
- The Arbiter: Summoned Alma and openly rooted for the underdog.
Memorable Quotes
“You gotta be a little faster than that to get an old Alma.” (S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan)
- “Tonight, I will prove once and for all that I have become not the student, but the master.” (S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan)
- “Is this not the bloodshed that you’ve asked for? … Are you not entertained?” (S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan)
- “No, not today. Go back into the ground.” (S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan)
- “Well, I know my brand of potion making wasn’t for you, but… this next trick will be right up your sleeve.” (S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan)
- “I will prove to you all that I, Alma, am the greatest sorcerer of all time.” (S3E2 — The Student and the Master — Alma v Ahyan)