Again, like below, darkness begins to emanate from the fastest of the babaus. However, with sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows, the spell is not powerful enough to make the chapel pitch-black. Instead, the chapel becomes murky and shadowy, the babau's magic sucking the color out of this sacred place of worship.
Hinagiku is up!
Xanderghul takes in the room, with special attention drawn to the irregular ripples of magical energy in the room. He purses his lips into a frown. Opening his mouth, he chooses to address the demons first.
"I li bi hashum? Bilki ashi beruzg da ash ashashom snogi burzasharzogra gu krulki i bâshi. Uti bok thri'hi shushi gu lokhi, arz i'hi ish bi thri."
When Xanderghul speaks Abyssal, he sounds... different. He sounds like a born leader. He sounds like one of those seductive, persuasive demons who convince people to accept wishes that end up destroying their lives.
Despite her training and expectations, Hinagiku cannot help suppress the feeling of disgust that arises through her mind. Though she seems undisturbed on the outside, it takes her a few second to fully recover.
Knowing that Ary will follow and defend her, the monk quickly steps into the room and goes for the closest babau whom she quickly takes down to the ground with a single kick to its knee.
And, as she adopts a defensive stance once more, she whispers under her breath to the others.
"Careful with the other door, it also least in this room."
You can hear chortling in your head in response to your threat. 'I'mp pukhul gluk bushi ish gabi! Thri'bi ashega thrish!
As Hinagiku moves into the chapel, one of the babaus eagerly moves forward to attack her. Its overzealous lunge is deftly sidestepped by the dexterous monk.
Ary and Ehren are up!
Ehren steels himself as he steps through the pooled blood and into the chapel proper, anticipating the slaughter within. As usual, however, the depravity of demonkind knows no bounds. When he sees the poor boy nailed to the mad knight's shield, his revulsion is evident even on his stony facade.
"They were all poisoned. Scorpion venom, most likely," he says of the bodies littering the chapel, with forced calm. There was nothing they could do for the slain crusaders now, but their grisly fate at least gave them some idea of what to expect.
Reaching out with his hand, Ehren evokes a blinding flash of light that spills over the knight and two of the murder demons. They needed to rescue the boy, but to do that, they would need to get close to his captor. Fortunately, this spell would have no effect on him.
Ary is up!
Ary rushes into the room, barely catching sight of the multiple holes all over the bodies of the fallen, but nodding in agreement with Ehren's assessment, she flits past Hinagiku, bringing Faith crashing towards the nearest Babau. Her eyes widen in horror at nearly everything that is going on - the squire, the man's skin, the very fact that the Demonscope is already under assault - why would they nail the bodies up? - even Xanderghul's vocal shift. "There's something under his skin... or he isn't who we think he is. Daisy, we may need you to knock him out." Ary whispers to the others, before calling over the din of the babau. "Ser Calain! If you're still in there, fight whatever is doing this!" Golden motes flutter out of Faith and settle in the wound in her stomach, the healing energy suffusing the worst of her wounds, as she prepares to be caught in the center of a dozen babau.
Ary's lumbering blow lands with great force sending the babau flying across the pulpit. Ser Calain turns to respond to Ary, grinning madly, the flesh on his face rippling as if it were a pot of water about to boil. But he is cut off as the babau crashes into the ground and the altar itself suddenly bursts with great light, temporarily blinding those too close to the center.
The mad knight shields his eyes with one arm, while holding his tower shield aloft with his other, completely obscuring his face. "Watch it... don't want any collateral damage, eh? Heh heh heh." The squire's blood drips from his shield down onto the floor in a steady trickle.
He backs up until he can feel the wall behind him, then side steps slowly towards the stairs, keeping his shield raised in the direction he remembers Ary and Hinagiku were. As he does, the other babau start to close in on Ary and Hinagiku. One spears its lance straight through Ary's cape. As she pulls herself free, another teleports in behind of her.
Another spear clangs off of Ary's breastplate when Xanderghul rushes around the corner with his allies and takes in the scene, hardly bothered by it. Of course he's seen worse. Once, he saw demonic clerics work together with demonic circus performers to hoist still-living, immolated humans on the end of spears as torches for a fiendish performance. The clerics kept them alive and the burning humans were used as props. The performance was a triumph, but Xanderghul had had artistic qualms with the constant screaming.
He only recently learned (or learned to care) about what to do in a situation of a suspected possession, though. Doing some quick calculations in his head, Xanderghul begins to do the work of how to deliver a protection from evil spell in such a way that the discharge of energy will reach all the way to the insane knight.
Isilme is up!
Isilme rounds the corner and takes stock of the situation. She manages to keep herself from wincing as she sees the squire nailed to the shield.
How to free him? she thinks, going over everything in her head. In mere moments she reaches down to her belt and pulls out one of her scroll cases, freeing a scroll from it. Dimension Door would allow her to escape with the child far enough away that the demons wouldn't be able to find him before returning to join the fight.
She readies the scroll and prepares to close with the knight.
Another babau appears, this time, further behind the heroes in the pews.
Round 261!
Valaria is up!
Val steps to the side to get a better angle and twirls her knife once before sending it flying at the babau twice. "Just try not to get surrounded by these things while you're trying to help him," Val says as her knife flickers back to her hand. "I'll cover your asses, so do your thing."
Valaria's starknife whooshes towards the babau, a war-cry ending with a triumphant thud. Meanwhile, the fallen, blinded babau on the pulpit struggles to its feet. Hinagiku and Ary are both too distracted by the many babau closing in to react. It stabs out, catching Ary in the side. Its spear drives into her flesh, leaving a bleeding wound. The other blinded babau merely stands in place, rubbing its eyes furiously with its free claw.
Hinagiku, Ary, and Ehren are up!
A look at Isilme new face and Valaria's words are enough for Hinagiku to understand she has something planned to help the poor squire. And so, she focuses on tripping down as many of the babaus as possible. Stepping forward, she reaches for the closest one’s arm. But, because of Ehren’s spell, she grasps the air. Her second attempt is more successful; she bends down swipe at the two closest babaus, bringing them down to the ground.
As darkness continues to suffuse the chapel, making the interior appear as if it were murky night despite the brilliant light shining through the stained glass, Hinagiku knocks down two of the babaus on the pulpit to the ground.
Ary and Ehren are up!
Knowing that the grounded foes were unlikely to get back up safely, or at the very least, to require them to teleport away, wasting their time entirely. Either was workable. Which meant bringing down other nearby foes was immensely more valuable to the group than spreading her focus.
Radiance arcs unerringly towards the Babau, pivoting in just the right way to cleave into the creature's flesh - without tricks they stood little chance against Ary's strikes, now. Between rote strikes, she shifts her attention to the knight moving towards the stairs, keeping an eye on him.
Seeing that Xanderghul is in the middle of casting a spell and has two murder demons closing in on him, Ehren trundles further into the room, stepping in front of the wizard protectively. Invigorated by Valaria's performance, he greets the closer babau with a punch right to its emaciated torso.
"After we'd killed the trolls, we started to search the town, but the only real place to go was the crypt. There was a ghost there that had Faith... old Faith, the green one. Alrys Bishop." Ary says, chewing her lip, "Lucas's dad. The crypt was my family's Crypt and the cult had set up in there, tormenting the kellids and the crusaders that had fallen in the town. I talked with Alrys... and we took up his curse, and the curse of his comrades, promising to eradicate the demons inside and get their revenge." Ary says, pausing for a moment before continuing, always willing to give Nurah time to catch up with her notes.
In the chaotic fray of combat, the babau failed to notice Radiance headed for them until it was too late. It falls to the ground, unconscious. Not missing a beat, with an audible whip, Ary pelts her shield into the next enemy, and is rewarded with a grisly crack. The babau goes flying across the altar. Meanwhile, there is no defense the demons can muster against the brutish might of Ehren's fist, though without divine magic nor haearn oer, the welt heals over partially nearly as soon as it appears on the babau's abdomen.
Even as one babau falls, however, the rest continue to close in on Ary and Hinagiku. The babau Ary threw across the pulpit stands back up and charges at her, spear first. A gore-filled wound is the result of its deadly jab, as another leaps onto her back, savagely tearing its claws down the side of her neck. Ary shakes the demon off, but she can identify the effects of the babau's poisoned claws almost immediately. While she is distracted by the mental effects of the poison, a further babau send an arcing strike through a small hole in Hinagiku's defenses. She shakes herself out of it, smashing her shield into the babau's side before its spear can lance through her friend.
While this is all going on, Ser Calain gains his sight, and heads up the stairs into the choir loft, his manic grin still plastered across his face. That smile vanishes as soon as Xanderghul finishes his spell. Black smoke flows from his eyes, nose and mouth, roiling in a thick cloud. But rather than the shadow demon that one would expect to find expelled from the wayward knight, something new entirely unfurls its enormous wings in the air before him. It is a gaunt, hairless humanoid has gray skin and the tattered wings of a raven. Instead of eyes, empty pits of smoky blackness stare from wide eye sockets. Its fingertips are stained black and the air around it ripples with unseen energy.
As the last bits of the monster's essence fall from the knight's lips, Ser Calain stares up at it with wide eyes. Overcome with horror and despair, the crusader knight begins to sob openly.
That monster is a rare entity referred to as a Son of Perdition. Monsters from the Abyss, Sons of Perdition are not demons, but they behave very similarly to invidiaks. Both are incorporeal monsters that covet the bodies of mortals. Sons of Perdition are very rarely seen in their true forms, as they have the ability to become invisible at will. Using such powers, or so the stories go, they manipulate beautiful physical specimens of morality and paragons of virtue and righteousness into giving up their bodies willingly to them using deceit and cunning.
Sons of Perdition can only be truly harmed by blessed weapons. As incorporeal Abyssal monsters, they have a lot of resistances and immunities, most similar to invidiaks. Sons of Perdition have also been reported as being able to cast darkness, though not as potently as shadow demons can. They are also capable of producing a thin fog that further weakens a creature's ability to resist its possession. For this reason, Sons of Perdition are more likely to specifically seek out strong willed mortals (particularly charismatic or religious ones) to possess, where-as invidiaks are as wolves, picking on the weakest sheep to claim as prey. Most alarmingly, sons of perdition possess an evil aura that is undetectable by normal means. This would make them brilliant spies, except their possessions typically are less subtle than invidiak possession. It is as if their very existence within a mortal's body corrupts it from the inside out.
Sons of Perdition possess an incorporeal body that is charged with pure evil. When it touches a corporeal non-demon, the opponent’s flesh withers where touched and the son of perdition’s unholy taint corrupts the flesh. Each strike provides the demon with a sense of how vulnerable its opponent is to its possession ability. These wounds do not heal normally, and require potent healing magic to reverse. Once touched, a person is vulnerable to becoming possessed, though the monster can be exorcised using the spells banishment, dismissal, dispel evil, or holy word.
The first sons of perdition came into being when a small group of angels were discovered consorting with temptresses from the Abyss, committing unspeakable carnal acts. Unrepentant of their lasciviousness and rebellious against the laws of Heaven, their corrupted souls tainted their beautiful, perfect forms. As fallen angels, the sons of perdition lost nearly all of the powers once granted in Heaven. They were embraced by the raw forces of corruption and evil in the Abyss, however, and endowed with new powers that would not only serve their covetous desire to regain physical bodies, but would promote the cause of evil and chaos as well. Chief of these strange powers is the ability of a Son of Perdition to disguise themselves as an angel, though they dislike taking on the beautiful forms they once possessed. These original fallen angels gain their power from the very essence of the Abyss, so they are often found wallowing there in their own corruption, seeking opportunities to force the misery of their damnation upon others. They are constantly on the lookout for a means of leaving the Abyss to slake their desire to possess physical bodies in the realm of mortals.
Newer sons of perdition are spawned from the corrupted souls of those the fallen angels taint due to extended or repeated possession. If the host creature goes truly and utterly mad, it dies and its soul becomes a son of perdition. The creature can only be returned to life by casting dispel evil on its body, followed by a true resurrection.
Your character is entitled to knowledge in the full Son of Perdition statblock.
Xanderghul and Isilme are up!
As soon as Ary recognizes the spell Xanderghul has cast and the quivering as smoke begins to roil out, she calls up onto the balcony, "Calain! Force it out! You did not do this! Take control!" Then, seeing what bursts forth, she calls to her allies, "A Son of Perdition! Calain, it chose you because you are strong! Avenge your allies!"
"Isilme, Ehren, hit it with something to keep it from becoming invisible as soon as you can!" she calls to her allies, as soon as it appears. "Its touch corrupts your body, if it summons fog, we need it gone, immediately, or we risk more possessions."
"You're welcome!" cries Xanderghul, shifting a step closer to Hinagiku and readying his crossbow again. His mind flits through the spells available to him. He didn't have a terribly large toolbox today, but he still had a few tricks up his sleeve, when it came down to it.
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"Ary, cover me!" Isilme calls out as she sprints through the middle of the room, scroll at the ready. As she runs down the length of the pew, she gracefully hops onto the back of the pew and jumps over the nearest babau, taking advantage of the opening Ary had created for her. She runs past the fallen babau and ducks to the left of Ary, rushing for the end of the pew to jump up to the choral loft above.
In the back of her mind she prepares to use a small measure of the arcane magic she had learned--a spell designed to replicate Val's ability to parry attacks--to ensure she would arrive safely.
As she reaches the end of the pew, Isilme leaps into the air, reaching out with, and turning her starknife to let it slip between the balusters, and giving it a quick twist again, trapping it on the far side of the rail and allowing her to use the starknife as a brace to scramble the rest of the way up. Clearing the rail with a small hop, she crouches down by the weeping knight and the squire. Looking up at the expelled demon, she grins "If you will excuse us, I believe you have company to deal with, and we have somewhere else to be." she gives a small bow and then finishes the incantation on the scroll. Focusing on the location where they had fought the Balbans, she reaches out to touch both the knight and the squire, hoping to free the boy in the process of teleporting.
"And away we go!" she says just as the magic begins to take hold, causing the three of them to disappear in a flash.
Isilme leaps through the air, intercepting a babau's spear as she goes with her starknife. After pulling herself up and over the bannister, she reaches out to grab Ser Calain, and with a small pop, they are gone.
You reappear in the darkness below the mausoleum. Ser Calain first reaches for his pack to pull out a sunrod. Striking against the cavern wall as one would a match, it crackles into light, illuminating the still recent battlefield. He blinks a few times, taking a moment to get his bearings. "Thank you. Now please, we need to help Aluxar-" he turns, and is surprised to find the boy still in Isilme's arms, though he is bleeding more heavily now due to his now open wounds.
"Commander, is that you?" calls Captain Parker, attracted by the light. She comes around the corner, surprised to see Ser Calain there. "Ser? Oh gods, what happened to your squire?"
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the chapel, Ehren finds himself flanked by two babau. One demon steps back as the druid lunges, and with a quick snap it delivers a lightning fast slash of its claws. It rips across his stony chest, its envenomed claws seeping poison into the flesh beneath.
Round 262!
Valaria is up!
Val clicks her tongue as the horrid creature emerges from the knight's body. "I think I prefer invidiaks." Part of her wants to lay into the monster with her dagger, but Ehren is in a difficult spot and her friends take priority over rushing down the enemy leader. She continues to hammer the same babau, trying to take it down before it can drive it's claws into Ehren again.
Valaria's spinning knife parts the air with a humming whine before carving a jagged wound in the belly of the babau in front of her. Further away, a babau's claws glances off Ary's chestplate, eliciting a grimace of pain and forcing it to turn away slightly. Before Hinagiku can react, another babau leaps to its feet, and leaps back onto the altar behind of it. Pulling up its spear, it aims it right for Hinagiku's throat.... does Ary have her back?
Hinagiku is up!
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"What happened to the squire is a tale best not shared today, Captain," Isilme says, hoping to spare the knight the pain of dealing with it at this moment. "For now we must heal up the child and get both of them to safety immediately. I must return to the others as they continue to press onwards."
Isilme digs around for a scroll again, tossing the empty parchment of the dimension door aside thoughtlessly. She would need to tend to the child's wounds quickly, and unfortunately she had no potions with which to do it. Fumbling with the magic for the second time today, it takes her a moment to get the cure spell loaded into her ring again, causing her to sigh with exasperation.
When she finishes she lays her hand on the squire, channeling healing energies into him to close his wounds.
As the babau begins to stand to strike at Hinagiku, Ary immediately slips between the two, attempting to shove the creature bodily away from her ally with brute strength.
Snapping the babau's body with the intensity of her blow, Ary watches the demon fly over the altar and crumble to the ground. It doesn't get back up again.
Captain Parker's eyebrows crinkle with confusion at Isilme's appearance, but when she recognizes her voice her face brightens with understanding. "Yes, of course."
As Isilme works with her ring, Ser Calain looks relieved when she asks him not to recount the horrible things that had happened above. He stares at the floor, downcast. "It... it.. appeared as an angel. It said it was here to help, but only if I helped share my body. How could I be so stupid?" His eyes widen as Aluxar starts coughing, roused out of unconsciousness. Her healing was only enough to staunch the flow of blood, he was still gravely injured.
"Ser Calain..." he says, looking up at the knight groggily. "Ser Calain, it is you again. I knew... I always knew... you'd win," he says with a small smile, wincing in pain as he tries to turn to get a better look at him.
The knight gestures to Isilme to hand the boy over to him. As he cradles the injured squire in his arms, he starts to cry again. "Hush, now, you need to rest. Don't strain yourself."
Hinagiku is up!
Momentarily distracted by the emergence of the son of perdition, Ehren hisses with pain when he feels the babau's claws carve into him. Right away, he recognizes the effects of the scorpion venom he identified earlier; unfortunately, his wild shape does not possess the poison immunity of a true elemental. Even so, his body has more than enough vigor to resist the worst of its effects.
"Understood, Ary," Ehren replies, having just the spell ready for the occasion. Even surrounded by murder demons, it would be simple enough to cast.
Hinagiku is up!
”Thanks Ary, but I think we should step back and regroup.” Hinagiku whispers softly while doing her best to keep her focuse despite the innumerable attacks aimed at her and her commander and simultenaously keeping her mind from focusing too much on individiak-like oni. She would need to keep an eye on it, but she couldn’t let its disturbing appearance disturb her awareness of the foes surrounding her.
And then, following words with actions, Hinagiku retreats toward Ehren, and in a flurry of kicks starts to take more babaus down. As she takes down the one closest to Ary, she quickly switches weight from one foot to the other, lifts one right up and brings it crushing down onto the oni's skull.
As if butted by a great ram, the babau recoils awkwardly from Hinagiku's strike, its very vision unsteady as it struggles to get back to its feet from the ground. Behind them, Ary faces off with another babau. The ranger reads the attack in its sunken little eyes and easily deflects its spear with Faith.
Ary and Ehren are up!
Xanderghul frowns. "A retreat against a demon is fool's play unless you can avoid its detection, and even I can't help all of you with that. It will be easier to force them to retreat."
Ary arcs Radiance towards the demon still standing, giving nothing but contempt to her grounded foe, before pivoting and bringing radiance back through the other babau. She lunges with Radiance, but misjudges her foe's location, before taking a step back, guarded by Hinagiku to stop at her side. "Daisy means that we have to close ranks, the babau are taking advantage of our exposed flanks to strike at our vitals." Ary says to Xanderghul as she steps into range of guarding the mage.
Ary's swift, advancing step leaves the fallen babau unable to defend against her golden blade.
Ehren is up!
With Isilme having apparently spirited Ser Calain and the squire away, Ehren takes it upon himself to follow Ary's suggestion. Sparing the babaus only enough attention to avoid leaving himself open to attack, the druid points a hand in the son of perdition's direction. The ghastly creature is suddenly caught in an absolutely harmless burst of greenish flame. The flame clings to the son's body, forming a faint but very visible outline.
A babau flips up from the ground, landing several feet from Ehren. It lunges forward, but the druid slips away from its strike, leaving the demon a bit overextended. Simultaneously watching over both Ehren and Ary, Hinagiku is quick enough to intercept a babau as it attempts to leap onto the Commander's neck.
Above, the Son of Perdition vanishes into thin air, though its form is still vaguely outlined in greenish flame. The monster flies lazily into the air. "Ooh... you stole that one," it coos in an eerily human sounding voice. "No matter, you've brought plenty of fresh bodies to choose from!" It circles above as the babaus continue to try to encircle and stab the heroes to death. With a thrust that would skewer through a man cleanly, one dancing babau oversteps its mark and misses, thrusting it through the back of a pew to Ary's side. It rights itself, sending pieces of splintered wood into the air as it moves back into a defensive position.
Xanderghul is up!
Arm still extended after casting his spell, Ehren meets his attacker with a jagged elbow, more an afterthought than a real counterattack.
The babau deflects Ehren's arm with the haft of its spear, then poises to strike back.
Xanderghul is up!
Running short on intelligent combat options, Xanderghul lets one hand fall from his crossbow while he reaches around to his haversack. He unsnaps its side pocket, plunges in a hand, and withdraws a curved wooden wand. Stepping away from the babau that he intends to use it on, Xanderghul points it at the demon standing nearest the pulpit. Focusing his own magical energy through the wand, he speaks its command word, calling forth a burst of necromantic energy that threatens to completely ruin the babau's eyes.
The babau proves too resilient for the wand's magics. Meanwhile, another babau bites and claws at Ehren in rapid succession, but the druid simply fends each strike off with his armored arms and fists.
Round 263!
Valaria is up!
"Watch your head, Rocky!" Her dagger soars out again and again, slamming into the babau and trying to finally send the creature back to the abyss before it got another chance to attack the druid.
Valaria's cry baits the demon into turning towards her, just as her starknife lands dead center in its forehead. It falls to the ground, evaporating into ichor, and her blade reappears safely in her hand. Meanwhile, another babau lurches to its feet. It leaps at Hinagiku, only to launch itself straight into Faith's trajectory. It crashes into the shield, sending shockwaves up Ary's arm.
Hinagiku is up!
Just after slamming the claws away with her shield, Ary immediately pivots, bringing the shield skittering along its forearm and driving it away from the Babau's guard, hammering into its flesh with the cold iron holy symbol.
Hinagiku quickly brings down a fist toward the standing Babau. And, as soon as she sees an opening, Hinagiku swiftly slides in between the babaus surrounding Ary. Relying on the incredible defensive synchrony she has with her commander, the monk weaves herself in between faith’s arcs and starts taking down the babaus one at a time. After twisting wrists, kicking knees, and dragging feet, she comes back to her position next to Ehren and Ary.
”Sorry Mr. Xanderghul, but Ary got it right, they are surrounding us.”
Ary's weighty strike hits with a resounding thwack. Then, after a quick strike to one babau that leaves it caked in its own runny ichor, Hinagiku knocks three more demons to the ground as another spear thrusts into Ary's shield, just as she had practiced.
Ary and Ehren are up!
"If you want a new body, try to come and take it." Ary says, shifting her stance from the wide, low stance that guards her allies, to the tall stance that allows her to stand firm in contempt of her enemies. Her unerring strike cleaves through the shadow of a babau, directly after, reducing the impact of her words, though the next strikes drive home.
"Thank you, Ehren." Ary calls as the creature begins to flicker with light, "Be mindful, that it retains most of the elemental resistances it had as an Angel... the only thing that works is cold, and even then it's resistant to that."
Ehren is just about to about to raise another pillar of divine flame when he hears Ary's advisory. The revelation that they are dealing with a fallen angel is horrifying yet unsurprising, all things considered. Taking a step back, the druid decides to alter his approach somewhat.
The earth elemental's emerald eyes suddenly ignite with white light, filled with the rich energy of the ley. Likewise, chromatic light spills out from the hairline fractures all across Ehren's stone body. With his accumulated natural power he changes his fire spell into its direct elemental opposite. A massive column of impossibly cold water surges upward, sending frozen droplets flying in every direction. It washes over the babaus, while also reaching high enough to strike the son of perdition.
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Ary's momentous strike whips around into a babau, leaving them thrashing on the floor in death's grasp. As its body dissolves, the darkness that lingers close to the front of the chapel dissipates, the pews shining with brilliant multi-colored light.
Without a moment to spare, the Lord-Commander smashes her shield into the next babau behind of her, sending it flying into the altar. Before it can even get back up, a roaring current of ice cold water surges up to the ceiling, catching all of the babau on the pulpit in its grasp, and leaving the Son of Perdition screaming and moaning in pain. When it vanishes, the altar has been washed clean of all but two demons. Only a few odd scattered spears remain, completely cleansed of blood and demonic ichor.
The two fallen babau leap back to their feet and pace backwards. Hinagiku ducks below the thrust of one spear, while the other hesitates on what to do.
"Heh heh heh. It'd be rude for me to not accept your offer, Lord-Commander. I'll cherish your scream as I impale your friends on those lovely cold iron spikes of yours." responds the Son of Perdition, having regained its composure after Ehren's blast. It circles once, then dives towards the ground and into the murky shadows of the babau's magic. Reflexively, Ary focuses and Faith explodes out with a mass of golden motes, surrounding herself and her friends... but it is no use against the fallen angel. Darkness overwhelms the glow of the spell Ehren had cast upon it, and the creature completely vanishes as a result. Just a moment later, Ary can feel its claws dive through her breastplate. Its essence feels icy cold and she can feel a burning sensation as her flesh near where it touched her turns black and starts to necrotize.
"Curses and damnation upon you, Bishop," the Son of Perdition snarls, losing its cool demeanor to frustration. "Tricks and divine magic won't protect you for long. You. Doshi. Gem shul bok bushi im pu shishi kil bilki bu ushilki am"
"Babau. Teach her that there is no hope for those who oppose us."
At that moment, the hesitant babau's face cracks into a wide grin. It dances in place, attempting to dispel whatever magic was protecting Ary against the machinations of the Son of Perdition.
Xanderghul, Valaria, and Hinagiku are up!
Isilme hands over Aluxar to Ser Calain gently to avoid straining the squire's wounds.
"Stay focused on the present," she says, placing a hand on his shoulder. She knew that the horror of it all could still cause the knight to go into shock if he wasn't given a task to occupy his mind. " Get Aluxar to safety and then aid in the battle as best you can, we need every hand out there, you included."
You two get moving down the tunnel," she says, looking first at Captain Parker and then at Ser Calain again. "I must get back to the others. We still have a ways to go before we have assured the demonscope's safety."
Uttering a quiet prayer to Desna, she uses her goddess's blessing to hasten her footsteps to allow her to return to the fray more quickly, then looks to the Captain and Knight to see if they need anything else before leaving.
Ser Calain is able to swallow his own psychological pain for the time being and focus on his duty thanks to Isilme's words. "Agreed," he responds, and he stops crying, his brow furrowing with determination.
Captain Parker salutes as Isilme prepares to leave as fast as possible.
"Our Lady of Valor be with you. If you were sent to secure the demonscope, please, do not tarry. It is clear to me that this is an infection festering from the inside. The Spire started flickering the very same moment those monsters teleported into the keep," says Ser Calain as she makes her way off.