The Power of Names

The scythe passes through her head, the ghostly form quavering slightly where Lawna's aura touched it, however there is little sign of damage.

The melodious voice appears again, completely uncharacteristic of a being of her appearance.

"Nice position you put her in... I approve."

She strokes Enthriss' face, the ghostly version of her tail wrapping around her right leg.

"Why do you insist on attacking me? Have I tried to harm you? You simply walked in on me and struck me through the back, extremely rude I might say. Do you mind if I take this body?"

Summoning the scythe back to my hand, I stab it into the ground behind me and pull out my pistol. Pulling back the hammer, I begin channeling power into it, beginning a prayer to empower the magical bullet further.

"Mine Goddess, Erona, Lifebringer and Creator of All, In the circle of power governed by truth, I do beseech of thee; Strike down this demon with your might. Uncreate this beast that should never have seen the light of your Universe. BY YOUR MIGHT, GRANT ME THIS BOON. BY THY WILL, LET THIS BE DONE."

With that I focus on my nethermancey, pulling a decent amount of mana through to empower both the spell and bullet.

The bullet rockets for the end of the pistol, the magics merging badly and creating a fizzing, crackling mess as it passes through the end. You feel the pull of the nether as usual, and thankfully nothing appears to be passing through.

The bullet hits the deamon's head once more, a direct hit in the middle of her forehead, however as it hits a strange set of runes fan out from the wound, seemingly dampening the blow, this does not stop her form being flung backwards however, her head clicking back and a howl escaping from her lips as the strange chain attaching her to the ground pulls taut.

She scrambles back upright, now in a quadrupedal stance, her yellow eyes flashing angrily as the tattoos on her body writhe and change form into strange runes. You have never seen runes of this type before, a strange language that you do not recognise, however you can understand their meaning perfectly.

The runes read:

-TRUECASTING INITIATED-

The deamon screams at you, the runes beginning to form into a new shape.

"WHY DO YOU ATTACK ME?! I HAVE DONE NOTHING TO HARM YOU!"

Charging another bullet, I once again intone the prayer, but this time I instead wreath the scythe in the nether energy, focusing on something that would harm demons. I throw the scythe, mentally keeping it on course as it spins through the air, aiming to go through as much of her body as possible.

As soon as it passes through her, I shadowstep to it, aim the gun at the back of her head and fire.

The scythe boomerangs away from you as the letters finish forming: Absorption. The scythe smashes sideways through her stomach, her form becoming somewhat corporeal as it hits. She screams once more, her melodious voice becoming cracked and broken. Her eyes begin to blaze a yellow so bright that you have to squint to carry on watching her as the scythe passes out the other side of her, headed straight for Enthriss' torso. The deamon lunges at you, the text changing once more as she casts two spells simultaneously, one via mana and the other via prayer. The runes now read: Elemental Call: Fire, and the prayer reverberates throughout your head:

"Erona grant me thy strength to slay this heretic who uses thine name against thy people!"

The runes flare up in mock flame as an eruption of fire emanates from her body, blowing Enthriss' now limp form across the room and into a corner. She convulses, the magic burning her in the process, before the absorption spell takes effect and she releases it in the easiest way possible: as a breath attack.

This of course merely happens as a blur to you, and instead all you see and hear is the incantation of her prayer and a fast flame wave and breath attack slamming into you, throwing you to your back. (PRAYER IS STILL INCANTED: YOU CAN STILL USE IT). As you fall backwards you see Glissa leap to the back of the room, then howl out.

"YOU DARE." I reach out, wrenching the scythe back towards my hand. Sitting up, I check her position and catch the scythe.

Flipping to my feet, I stalk across the room towards her.

The deamon is writhing in agony, but not from any wound that you appear to have caused. The chain that was connecting her to the ground has snapped, and she appears to be fading rapidly. She launches herself off towards the south whilst scrambling through the ruins, a strange motion akin to a dog limping.

She shoots one scornful look back at you, and you see the runes skitter across her body into a rune formation that reads:

-SOUL LINK - RECOMBINE -

You see Carilasou standing in the ruins, a bemused expression on her face as the soulknife that she just threw at the deamon passes straight through thin air, shattering on the remains of the walls. The deamon has vanished.

She calls out to you.

"Oh dear it got away... Would you mind fixing that dear? Oh, and your priestess as well?"

With a grunt of irritation I stalk out to join her.

Slamming the scythe tip-first into the shattered floor and shoving one hand into the pocket of my trenchcoat, I flick my hat up slightly with my thumb.

"Yeah yeah... So, tell me about this demon-witch I'm killin'.

To the right of you, still some distance away you see a young-ish (late teens?) boy standing with his mouth agape, obviously amazed by the happenings. He appears to be an anthromorph, and by the tail flicking out behind him it appears that he is of the fox species. His hair is short and messy, it's light tint carried over to his tail and ears. You can see red fur on his bare arms. His clothes are ragged and torn, and he has an old trilby perched on his head, his ears poking out of crudely cut holes.

Carilasou's eyes flicker to the boy briefly, and you can almost hear the cogs turning in her head - she's plotting. She smiles slightly, before pointing back into the building.

"First, the priestess if you please? I'd rather not have someone of her station dying as we discuss other matters."

She resumes preening herself in the mirror.

You see the priestess wave slightly dismissively before returning to her preening. As you drew closer you get a better look at her, she is a lizard anthromorph.

I just stand there frozen to the spot, mouth gaping and making no effort to hide myself.

"What in the..." I think to myself. This is by far one of the most surreal things I've ever seen. I'm torn between fascination, confusion and absolute terror. The result of this seems to be that I have frozen to the spot, and I'm not sure I could move even if I wanted to. I just kinda hope they don't see me...

I wave my hand absently.

"She's fiiiiiine. She'll sort herself out. The witch?"

She looks at the scythe holding man sternly, pointing back at the priestess.

"I don't call bleeding out all of the floor fine. Move it."

I wrench the scythe out of the ground and wave it vaguely.

"Do I look like a medic?" I sigh and facepalm.

I reach into the nether and create a hand of (hopefully non harmful) energy to grab Enthriss and pull her over to me

Something goes wrong as you pull into the nether, and instead of forming the hand you instead latch onto something... else.

You pull through a high imp, possibly one of the largest things that you could pull with a spell of this size. The imp lands next to you and instantly begins incanting, an incant that you recognize from experience as a flame orb.

It is roughly 4 feet tall, red and scaled with bulbous bug eyes and black spines crossing it's body. Its build it uncharacteristically large, with scarily large muscles rippling under its skin.

Carilasou raises an eyebrow at the creature, evidently surprised by it's sudden appearance. She drops her hand, the mirror still held in it and places her palm on the surface of the mirror.

The DC to cast the spell was 5. Your rolls:

2 - Hand doesn't form
6 - Summon high being
9 - Partially forms

Epic fail rolls make up for your 18 spam from the other day.

You see the man pull his scythe out of the ground and wave it vaguely, before a creature suddenly blinks into existence next to him in a purple haze, and begins casting something.

I sigh and shoot the thing point-blank in the face with a glowing white bullet, vaguely hoping to interrupting it, before swinging my scythe over my shoulder to come down hammer-like on the thing's head.

I focus my death aura on the scythe in the hopes of killing it with a near-deadly blow even if I don't succeed in slicing the thing completely in two.

The attacks hit at the same time as a great rush of earth, presumably from the high priestess. The creature is immediately eradicated.

She turns back to the man in the trenchcoat.

"You're going to refuse point blank to go and pick her up aren't you?"

You feel a sense of relief rush over you from nowhere as the imp dies, something that you have never experienced before. You see Carilasou's hand is still on the mirror, and she looks troubled.

I sigh and trudge back into the church

Towards Enthriss

Enthriss is lying in a corner, dangerously wounded. The down on her legs has burnt off and the right side of her body is smouldering. You can see major burns all up her body, and she is whimpering feebly. You can make out the sound of a nursery rhyme form the rhythm of the whimpers.

Next to her is her staff, which you hadn't seen up until now.

I sigh, put the scythe across my back, bend down and pick her up, throwing her (gently) over my shoulder. Picking up the staff with my other hand and putting it over my shoulder, I stroll back over to Carilasou.

You stroll back across to Carilasou, who is wearing a very obvious "I am displeased" face.

You see the man with the scythe stroll into the church and return again, holding what appears to be another priestess, an obvious bird anthromorph. From what you can see of her she has talon-like legs and a large dark blue claw instead of her right arm. The man appears to be carrying a maple staff which you assume is hers. She appears to be dying.

The high priestess takes one look at the injured woman before her hand is passing over the mirror again, her lips moving in some form of incantation but with no sound being emitted. She looks around at the various groaning people dotted around, those who had been watching the fight and caught in the blast before turning to face the nearby gawking fox anthromorph. She points at him.

"You! Come here! Quickly!"

Her hand passes over the mirror again and the dying priestess' body glazes over, almost as if she was frozen. She beckons to the fox anthromorph with her hand, before turning to tend to the now glazed over priestess.

I sigh and hold her still.

She begins a prayer to the goddess of healing, Rianne, however you cannot seem to make out the words even though they are at full volume. As the prayer is completed strange runes cross the surface of the staff in the man's hand, black symbols swirling up and down the stave. The frosty priestess begins to glow.

You not notice that the staff is extremely well sanded maple heartwood.

I begin to whistle.

That's nice.

I advance cautiously.

She turns her head towards the approaching anthromorph.

"Hurry up! NOW!"

She turns back to the man.

"And you, do something useful!"