The Power of Names

"Well my Goddess, would you then do me a favour and PLEASE FUCK OFF, NOW."

"Right... right." Heading downstairs, I pay for another day in the room and ask the innkeeper if the room keys hold a locator charm.

She replies that they do not, with a somewhat suspicious tone, however she lets it pass and hands you the keys.

I sigh heavily and pocket the key, not bothering to explain, heading out to search the slums once again.

As you walk out of the inn and back towards the slums you feel yourself starting to overheat massively, centred on your chest. Sweat pours down you as the flame rips through your body, roasting you from the inside out.

You sense something slam into the flame coursing through you, halting it in it's tracks. Your body is in agony, as if you'd just been branded all over, although it isn't getting any worse.

I fall to my knees, looking around for any sign of who could be doing this to me. I reach for my gun.

Lawna?

You dash after her and appear next to her as she surveys the now burnt church.

"Huh... Smelly in here isn't it?"

She begins wandering towards the high priestess standing outside, who is -still- looking in the mirror.

" 'Sup oldie?"

She yells towards the priestess, who looks up, mildly annoyed.

"Do what?!"

"WOODEN STAVE AROUND SOMEWHERE!"

You can see nothing wooden at this particular moment in time.

"How near?!" I stagger to my feet, looking around.

Pulling through enough nether energy to make magic visible, I look for the trail, then pull through more energy and blast apart everything in a four foot radius within twenty feet.

You feel a detonation up on a nearby roof, and the burning sensation subsides almost immediately. Turning round you see the roof on your right smouldering.

Your ankle suddenly gains the sensation of pins being stuck through the flesh, and you look down to see two grells gnawing it.

I reach over my shoulder and grab my scythe, swinging it down at the things at my ankle. Pulling more power to me, I pull everything in the blast radius past me.

The wood chips rip through the Grells, eliminating them.

You feel a strange sensation inside of you, emanating from your near chest.

"You... are so lucky I was here to slow that spell."

Odd... I would have thought that would have pulled whoever was casting the spell through as well... That was my intention.

Throwing my scythe through the massive hole I just created, I port to it.

And yeah, I think before I jump. Praise be to Lawna.

The entire top half of the roof has been decimated, and standing in the centre of it, perfectly untouched is a long staff, runes encircling its entire length. Scattered around it are the remains of a set of candles.

Then you look up.

Floating about 20 feet above the pole is a young (15?) boy, back bent at a near 45 degree angle and light flaring from his eyes. He appears to be chanting in a strange language that you cannot recognise.

You hear shuffling next to you, about 20 feet to the right.

You cannot discern the type of wood.

"Well, how did we not notice that before?"

Pulling out my revolver, I begin loading silver bullets into it, filling three of the six chambers, leaving one empty between each, glancing to my right as I do so.

"Any ideas how to trace this demon witch from her pissy servant-fucks? As you saw, I royally fucked up on that one last time."

"Possibly. I'll need to be closer."

The shuffling ceases.

I gesture to my right, pulling on power to pick up the wood chippings and launch them at high speeds in the direction of the noise. I toss the scythe at the boy in the hopes of interrupting his cast.

The wood chippings fly off as directed, but seem to vanish from existence around 1/2 a meter from the location of the noise. The scythe flies through the air , however something seems to alter it's course and it curves down towards the ground. (I rolled a 4 on the dice ><).

"Careful, something is -seriously- wrong here."

I growl quietly, but stop. Closing my eyes, I focus on sensing and revealing whatever it is to my right. Raising my left hand, I slowly close it into a fist, surrounding the boy with steadily increasing power in an attempt to crush whatever is shielding him.