Chapter 188: 188
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"Back to your burial hole for round two. Are you ready?" Orison said looking at Gan.
The scout looked into the earthen maw, barely paying attention. The site was a double whammy of bad memories for him. He fell to his death there and the stint of demonic planar conquerors began there as well.
Unintentionally, Gan ignored his question and said, "There's red dots down there. They aren't moving."
The young mage replied, "We knew it was a possibility. That means their leader was connected enough to the mid-dimensions that he was either not affected by our time transposition or he remembers somehow. The gate won't fully become operational until I trigger the red moon rising thing. They can't be more than imps or whatever the abyssal equivalent is.
"Okay, I'm going to jump down in spectral form. I've got around ten seconds to warp a spirit trap into existence while taking control of the gate after going 'Dark Space' form. If it takes longer than that, the suction will reverse and I'll start unraveling as I eat myself."
"What does that even mean?" Roy asked.
"You'll find out soon enough. Just remember to stand on the symbols boss showed you earlier, when and as they appear." Gan said.
Stag added, "Let's get this over with. I'm due for a long sleep. Don't bother trying to get me up until I'm ready or I'm going to be cranky. You wouldn't like me when I'm cranky."
There was a strangeness to Stag's mood that tickled Orison's intuition but it wasn't anything bad, only hinting at a low level of unwanted result. At that late point in the game, it was no telling and there were too many variables to account for everything. He just crossed his fingers and as soon as the rest of his team had their repel ropes anchored deep into stable dirt, he made a run for it.
The elegant dive he had planned didn't happen as a large chunk of crust broke off under his feet nearly two yards from the lip. After pinballing off a couple of rock formations, he went two dimensional cut-out, ghost version. Gliding awkwardly to the floor of the cavern, he auto-corrected enough to glide past a few small humanoids that reeked of sulfur and threw small fiery balls of dirty essence at him.
Underneath the spectral covering, one of the balls slipped through and badly burned his left arm. Past the point of being able to dodge, he switched to devouring mode as an illusory sky with spectral trees sprung into existence around him. On the grounds of the eerie midnight setting with a bloated red moon dominating the sky, he spotted a small temple sitting precariously balanced on a crumbling cliff ledge.
Instead of fighting the first interloper, who was in the process of rushing the mirror's transition to its location, Orison grabbed the hand with his devouring intent coated one and pulled with all his might. Unprepared for assistance, the large demon suddenly had no resistance to step through, stumbling into the center of the ritual diagram that the young mage was still finishing. Turning to deal with him, the demon ignored the sounds just outside the temple door til an arrow tore through the side of it's neck, spraying steaming blood on the ritual diagram.
The demon was pinned by magic and supernatural principle, freeing Orison to deal with the horde of lesser demons intent on pushing their way through. Some were sucked up into the young mage's devouring intent, still gas-like from stepping through the portal while stronger ones with ripped up skin in the shape of a hand print found themselves partially flung into the diagram, where magic and supernatural principle slid and locked them into other positions within it.
Within the pyramidal diagram, Roy and Garret were getting into position on the brightly glowing symbols, flanked by raving demons as they fired or swung weapons respectively. A bit closer to the large demon in the center, Stag took his spot while looking cynical and a little sad. Gan took his spot on the other side, closest to the top and staring down the demon he'd injured as it snarled and spoke words so defiled that they caused the air to blister and minds that heard them towards evil thoughts.
Distracted by the lack of Gurrut's presence where he was supposed to be, Orison sent out his spirit sight to find that the orc blooded young man had slightly lost himself to blood lust by the slaughter and demonic influence in the air. Drawing on the ashen hand mark on his arm, the young mage sent a clear intent directly to Gurrut's spiritual seat to get himself where he was supposed to be. Done with that, he had no choice but to leave things to fate because his time in devouring form was almost expired.
Reaching into the gate orison grabbed a chain on the left-hand side, eating through it as small clawed hands tried to grasp at him earning themselves injuries. With a yank, a partially mummified person dragged itself on the ground, away from the gate. With a split second glance to make sure he'd grabbed the 'right' person, he leveled as much directed spiritual intent at the one still on the other side of the gate as he could.
"You want to live. Take control of the essence and pull the gate there," Orison demanded.
Soul cracked and spiritual seat damaged beyond recognition, the 'other mummy' complied almost mindlessly. While the mirror's image blurred to a new location, Orison canceled his form, feeling weak and decrepit from age internally. The forced warping of the Abyssal gate had taken quite a bit of his power and life force to accomplish.
Flinging a hand behind him while he kept his eyes glued to the mirror surface, the young mage pulled out a downy feather and threw it like a dart at the partially mummified person at the tip of the pyramid formation. "By this sign of your favor, restore this mortal within the bounds of this token's sacrifice."
Naked, shivering and traumatized, Santos looked around him as Orison bellowed, "No time for sight seeing, brujo. Take control of the ritual diagram and activate it... Now!"
While he barked orders at the man, Orison reached past the mirror's surface. Channeling a good deal of the loose miasma around him to form a black, light absorbing net to snag the contents of the small chamber, he dragged them through the mirror gate and used the miasma to shut it down. Turning with a smile on his face, the young mage checked Santos's progress to find that the man was peppered with caster bullets.
Filing into the temple was a number of Rowdies wearing the Wingright family crest. Gan returned the favor with three rapidly fired arrows that took out one as the other two bounced off shimmering fields of light. As Orison attempted to twist the miasma around him into a 'Sanctuary' effect, a towering giant of a demon appeared in the room.
Nodding to himself as if he saw it coming, Stag began shedding a powerful verdant green glow as he started turning translucent. "Unbar the doors to the Summer Lands, Great Ancestor."
While the Wingright acquisitions team was opening fire, the demon crowed in booming amusement. "You thought you could 'steal' a claimed Abyssal Will?"
Simultaneously, Orison and Stag spoke at once.
The young mage replied bitterly to the demon as magic propelled bullets shredded his team, "You would be surprised to how close I came to succeeding."
With a physically silent shout of words heard by every soul present, Stag intoned, "Open, gates of reincarnation!"
Though it couldn't be seen, a heavy scent of apple blossoms filled the air along with other, just shy of unpleasant, smells of abundant and fertile nature. The red moon created landscape buckled and rolled like a large boulder dropped into a pond before stabilizing. The giant of a demon turned towards the translucent, green haired man and twisted a large amount of dark, dull red energy before he and every other person in the room was hit by a shockwave of emerald spirit essence flavored with a sprinkle of potent faith power.
Protected from the brunt by the presence of the giant demon, Orison felt himself fill with a strong rejuvenation before his eyes were drawn by a shifting in the light eating net he held. While everyone was stunned with whatever Stag had done, Orison drew enough miasma that he knew most of the scenery outside had collapsed back to normal. A metallic, rune covered box lay in his hand that glinted ominously.
"Thank you, Al's misspent past time," he mumbled as he loaded three struggling orbs into the box.
A large and angry red one looked fit to break free but the power of the box sucked it inside. Soon after joined by a feeble pearly one that felt pure and a slightly stronger but still feeble gray one. With the power of the growing misty and illusionary miasma around him, he activated the transmutation box inspired from some gory dungeon crawler game.
Only able to be pieced together later, his action had a significant effect on the giant demon. With its connection to the planar will severed, the demon fell to around the same level as the one in the diagram. The demon began looking youthful and more humanistic as well. Orison highly doubted that was a good thing from the demon's perspective.
Many other things were happening but the young mage only took a split second to sort things out in his head before moving to action. Grabbing the mirror once more, he used the wispy miasma still left to drive through the mirror and connect to another source in another reality. Less than a second later, potent miasma, clear of demonic taint flooded the nearly invisible temple, expanding it into a vista of amalgamated parts.
Beginning to recover, a Wingright person attempted to open fire only to find out that he couldn't. His rifle had turned to chunks of ore in his hand and some force was taking hold to keep him rooted to where he was. Looking around at his other team members, he saw that two were missing and one had been turned into a primate. He was also very young, around ten, and the two who had stood staggered in front of him were a toddler and a baby respectively.
Santos, returned from the recently departed and still dazed worked off of last fuzzy thought. He activated the ritual. Miasma began pouring through the framework. The demons became charcoal filters catching all the unwanted particles and active, parasitic parts of the miasma while the cleaned parts were filtered to Orison's team.
While continuing to work on his own projects, he looked over with hope that the power would serve to bolster and safeguard Stag but there was no Stag, only a wilted piece of feather grass that turned to dust as he watched. Holding back the grief for when he had the luxury to explore feelings, outside of life and death struggles, he poured his focus into what he was attempting to accomplish.
Once again, the area around him dimmed and became illusionary as a huge blue glowing crystal pulled from the wall on his side of the mirror while a warm orange one formed on the other. Both were covered in ornate metalwork and magic symbols but Orison only cared about what they would do for his space as he fused them into it. Devouring force churning with a ferocity that Orison hadn't been able to illicit from it before, he vaguely felt the addition of invisible chains similar to his living laws. The usually almost completely dormant shadow in his bones practically screamed in joy at how 'right' such things were to claim.
With his team, minus Stag, recovering and taking charge of the situation behind him, Orison reminded them not to move from their spots. Making sure there was plenty of reserve for things he needed to do later, the young mage created a small stack of books and a few black balls with mysterious purpose. Once done with that, he turned back to the transmutation box that just broke.
The three orbs didn't fuse but they all had a much more neutral feel. One was still bent towards dark ends but not nearly as twisted. One was so neutral feeling that he wondered if it would turn into a world will but it kept its mysterious 'afterlife realm' like qualities.
Carefully, he walked between lines towards the large but oddly youthful seeming demon in the center of his ritual diagram. As potent, corrosive power began eating the edges of the sanctuary effects protection for his physical existence, Orison struck a bargain with him. He would serve the one known as NoxFlora for a thousand-thousand years and his followers would be her soldiers and do the dark deeds a ruler must needs done. With the choice between being a military arm of a greater force or a painful, twisted death, it was a no brain-er.
The demon's payment for service was the darker neutral will orb which sang with joy to be away from the hands of its tormentor. Unable to enact treachery under the sanctuary effect, a geas sunk into the demon's soul upon his flawless oath. For a sanctuary allowed no harmful action to be initiated but exchanges were inherently neutral. It was because of that, when a sizable amount of magically ignited explosive devices rained into the temple's surroundings, they detonated harmlessly, merely adding more cycled essence to the whole.
With mock pity, Orison ignored the hostile action and carried the dethroned demon lord over to where the other had been, laying him down gently. "There you go. You take a nice rest and be a good tap filter for us in a minute."
Reaching up with the miasma, the young mage drew the assailants above into the 'safe' arms of empty red symbols in the diagram. There were plenty to go around and few attackers to fill them. Among that number was a familiar face.
Orison gave a saintly smile and said, "Mr Lacquer, I'm stunned... I thought we were on friendly terms."
The man wanted to speak but his words were 'harmful'. It didn't matter much to the young mage. As soon as the sanctuary effect was canceled, all the built up corrosive essence slammed into them all.
Sparing a moment to check on Santos and promise to explain what was going on soon, the young mage waited until things had reached a certain point and had his team read the books he had conjured up from the miasma, only one per person, carefully crafted for them. After reading his own, a combination of magical spatial theory and a spattering of various other subjects, he relieved Santos to read one as well.
Done with that, he waited until the brujo recovered enough to take the ritual back over and pulled out the purely neutral orb. Hanging onto it tightly, Orison offered it up to Sammy, provided that she touch him with the grace of her true presence. For a second, all was disrupted as reality buckled under the powerful presence of a gray winged angel flanked by two others that Orison knew were Justice and Liberty. Two cherub-like ones wheeled in the background while two more groveled and were begging forgiveness from their great-grandmother.
As quickly as she came, she was gone with the lingering scent of sweet herb laced tobacco lingering in the air. Roy and Garret, who were at the back, weren't nearly as 'touched' as Orison had been due to Sammy being a smart and benevolent giver of 'attaboys'. Restarting the ritual, he had Santos join him in garnering the rest of what the remaining individuals in the diagram couldn't handle on his side handle and the filters still could until they crumbled to poisonous dust and tar.
Due to the nature of arrangements, since Gan wanted to go, he needed to go first. On the other side of the mirror portal was a deep underground area on Amoril that everyone could now pass in his team save for Orison himself. The reasons weren't clear yet but he intuitively felt like he'd have the answer soon. Be that as it may, with his side a little shaky, their parting was a quick and unsatisfying one with the young mage willing the rest of the miasma on that side to the scout. He only asked that a quarter and no more of goods acquired to be given to Mama Yaya.
Unable and unwilling to face Gan any longer, he called on Gurrut to summon his tribe. Unsurprisingly, the tribe had been ready to go a couple of days after his visit and had been waiting on the word. A lot more than Orison originally anticipated were going to stay but that was no longer his concern. He had fulfilled the promises he had made to their shaman in that alternate future for the grace of helping him recover from spiritual damage.
While the final parting between brothers occurred, he had Roy recording what essentially looked like a misty cavern with a magical mirror portal in it. At the last moment, Gurrut asked Garret if he wanted to come. Garret said that he did but-. Gurrut waited for nothing further and reached through to forcefully pull the teen to his side right before the mirror cracked as it ran out of the power that Orison had allotted it.
While he stared in shock, Orison felt a fluctuation of grayish silver essence and Santos was gone as well. Whatever had grabbed the brujo, it had sprung after having been in place for a very long time which didn't make much sense but there was nothing to do about it. Looking at Roy and then the fairly empty expanse of muck and deadly dust piles, they young mage felt very empty himself.
Using what remained of the miasma to create a few potions and brews, he suddenly felt frivolous. He used the remaining to create a hand held gaming system with a battery that was magic compliant and forced the rest of the miasma into it after making an over robe for Esme. Tossing one of the black marble-like balls he made earlier to Roy, he took one last look around.
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"Back to your burial hole for round two. Are you ready?" Orison said looking at Gan.
The scout looked into the earthen maw, barely paying attention. The site was a double whammy of bad memories for him. He fell to his death there and the stint of demonic planar conquerors began there as well.
Unintentionally, Gan ignored his question and said, "There's red dots down there. They aren't moving."
The young mage replied, "We knew it was a possibility. That means their leader was connected enough to the mid-dimensions that he was either not affected by our time transposition or he remembers somehow. The gate won't fully become operational until I trigger the red moon rising thing. They can't be more than imps or whatever the abyssal equivalent is.
"Okay, I'm going to jump down in spectral form. I've got around ten seconds to warp a spirit trap into existence while taking control of the gate after going 'Dark Space' form. If it takes longer than that, the suction will reverse and I'll start unraveling as I eat myself."
"What does that even mean?" Roy asked.
"You'll find out soon enough. Just remember to stand on the symbols boss showed you earlier, when and as they appear." Gan said.
Stag added, "Let's get this over with. I'm due for a long sleep. Don't bother trying to get me up until I'm ready or I'm going to be cranky. You wouldn't like me when I'm cranky."
There was a strangeness to Stag's mood that tickled Orison's intuition but it wasn't anything bad, only hinting at a low level of unwanted result. At that late point in the game, it was no telling and there were too many variables to account for everything. He just crossed his fingers and as soon as the rest of his team had their repel ropes anchored deep into stable dirt, he made a run for it.
The elegant dive he had planned didn't happen as a large chunk of crust broke off under his feet nearly two yards from the lip. After pinballing off a couple of rock formations, he went two dimensional cut-out, ghost version. Gliding awkwardly to the floor of the cavern, he auto-corrected enough to glide past a few small humanoids that reeked of sulfur and threw small fiery balls of dirty essence at him.
Underneath the spectral covering, one of the balls slipped through and badly burned his left arm. Past the point of being able to dodge, he switched to devouring mode as an illusory sky with spectral trees sprung into existence around him. On the grounds of the eerie midnight setting with a bloated red moon dominating the sky, he spotted a small temple sitting precariously balanced on a crumbling cliff ledge.
Instead of fighting the first interloper, who was in the process of rushing the mirror's transition to its location, Orison grabbed the hand with his devouring intent coated one and pulled with all his might. Unprepared for assistance, the large demon suddenly had no resistance to step through, stumbling into the center of the ritual diagram that the young mage was still finishing. Turning to deal with him, the demon ignored the sounds just outside the temple door til an arrow tore through the side of it's neck, spraying steaming blood on the ritual diagram.
The demon was pinned by magic and supernatural principle, freeing Orison to deal with the horde of lesser demons intent on pushing their way through. Some were sucked up into the young mage's devouring intent, still gas-like from stepping through the portal while stronger ones with ripped up skin in the shape of a hand print found themselves partially flung into the diagram, where magic and supernatural principle slid and locked them into other positions within it.
Within the pyramidal diagram, Roy and Garret were getting into position on the brightly glowing symbols, flanked by raving demons as they fired or swung weapons respectively. A bit closer to the large demon in the center, Stag took his spot while looking cynical and a little sad. Gan took his spot on the other side, closest to the top and staring down the demon he'd injured as it snarled and spoke words so defiled that they caused the air to blister and minds that heard them towards evil thoughts.
Distracted by the lack of Gurrut's presence where he was supposed to be, Orison sent out his spirit sight to find that the orc blooded young man had slightly lost himself to blood lust by the slaughter and demonic influence in the air. Drawing on the ashen hand mark on his arm, the young mage sent a clear intent directly to Gurrut's spiritual seat to get himself where he was supposed to be. Done with that, he had no choice but to leave things to fate because his time in devouring form was almost expired.
Reaching into the gate orison grabbed a chain on the left-hand side, eating through it as small clawed hands tried to grasp at him earning themselves injuries. With a yank, a partially mummified person dragged itself on the ground, away from the gate. With a split second glance to make sure he'd grabbed the 'right' person, he leveled as much directed spiritual intent at the one still on the other side of the gate as he could.
"You want to live. Take control of the essence and pull the gate there," Orison demanded.
Soul cracked and spiritual seat damaged beyond recognition, the 'other mummy' complied almost mindlessly. While the mirror's image blurred to a new location, Orison canceled his form, feeling weak and decrepit from age internally. The forced warping of the Abyssal gate had taken quite a bit of his power and life force to accomplish.
Flinging a hand behind him while he kept his eyes glued to the mirror surface, the young mage pulled out a downy feather and threw it like a dart at the partially mummified person at the tip of the pyramid formation. "By this sign of your favor, restore this mortal within the bounds of this token's sacrifice."
Naked, shivering and traumatized, Santos looked around him as Orison bellowed, "No time for sight seeing, brujo. Take control of the ritual diagram and activate it... Now!"
While he barked orders at the man, Orison reached past the mirror's surface. Channeling a good deal of the loose miasma around him to form a black, light absorbing net to snag the contents of the small chamber, he dragged them through the mirror gate and used the miasma to shut it down. Turning with a smile on his face, the young mage checked Santos's progress to find that the man was peppered with caster bullets.
Filing into the temple was a number of Rowdies wearing the Wingright family crest. Gan returned the favor with three rapidly fired arrows that took out one as the other two bounced off shimmering fields of light. As Orison attempted to twist the miasma around him into a 'Sanctuary' effect, a towering giant of a demon appeared in the room.
Nodding to himself as if he saw it coming, Stag began shedding a powerful verdant green glow as he started turning translucent. "Unbar the doors to the Summer Lands, Great Ancestor."
While the Wingright acquisitions team was opening fire, the demon crowed in booming amusement. "You thought you could 'steal' a claimed Abyssal Will?"
Simultaneously, Orison and Stag spoke at once.
The young mage replied bitterly to the demon as magic propelled bullets shredded his team, "You would be surprised to how close I came to succeeding."
With a physically silent shout of words heard by every soul present, Stag intoned, "Open, gates of reincarnation!"
Though it couldn't be seen, a heavy scent of apple blossoms filled the air along with other, just shy of unpleasant, smells of abundant and fertile nature. The red moon created landscape buckled and rolled like a large boulder dropped into a pond before stabilizing. The giant of a demon turned towards the translucent, green haired man and twisted a large amount of dark, dull red energy before he and every other person in the room was hit by a shockwave of emerald spirit essence flavored with a sprinkle of potent faith power.
Protected from the brunt by the presence of the giant demon, Orison felt himself fill with a strong rejuvenation before his eyes were drawn by a shifting in the light eating net he held. While everyone was stunned with whatever Stag had done, Orison drew enough miasma that he knew most of the scenery outside had collapsed back to normal. A metallic, rune covered box lay in his hand that glinted ominously.
"Thank you, Al's misspent past time," he mumbled as he loaded three struggling orbs into the box.
A large and angry red one looked fit to break free but the power of the box sucked it inside. Soon after joined by a feeble pearly one that felt pure and a slightly stronger but still feeble gray one. With the power of the growing misty and illusionary miasma around him, he activated the transmutation box inspired from some gory dungeon crawler game.
Only able to be pieced together later, his action had a significant effect on the giant demon. With its connection to the planar will severed, the demon fell to around the same level as the one in the diagram. The demon began looking youthful and more humanistic as well. Orison highly doubted that was a good thing from the demon's perspective.
Many other things were happening but the young mage only took a split second to sort things out in his head before moving to action. Grabbing the mirror once more, he used the wispy miasma still left to drive through the mirror and connect to another source in another reality. Less than a second later, potent miasma, clear of demonic taint flooded the nearly invisible temple, expanding it into a vista of amalgamated parts.
Beginning to recover, a Wingright person attempted to open fire only to find out that he couldn't. His rifle had turned to chunks of ore in his hand and some force was taking hold to keep him rooted to where he was. Looking around at his other team members, he saw that two were missing and one had been turned into a primate. He was also very young, around ten, and the two who had stood staggered in front of him were a toddler and a baby respectively.
Santos, returned from the recently departed and still dazed worked off of last fuzzy thought. He activated the ritual. Miasma began pouring through the framework. The demons became charcoal filters catching all the unwanted particles and active, parasitic parts of the miasma while the cleaned parts were filtered to Orison's team.
While continuing to work on his own projects, he looked over with hope that the power would serve to bolster and safeguard Stag but there was no Stag, only a wilted piece of feather grass that turned to dust as he watched. Holding back the grief for when he had the luxury to explore feelings, outside of life and death struggles, he poured his focus into what he was attempting to accomplish.
Once again, the area around him dimmed and became illusionary as a huge blue glowing crystal pulled from the wall on his side of the mirror while a warm orange one formed on the other. Both were covered in ornate metalwork and magic symbols but Orison only cared about what they would do for his space as he fused them into it. Devouring force churning with a ferocity that Orison hadn't been able to illicit from it before, he vaguely felt the addition of invisible chains similar to his living laws. The usually almost completely dormant shadow in his bones practically screamed in joy at how 'right' such things were to claim.
With his team, minus Stag, recovering and taking charge of the situation behind him, Orison reminded them not to move from their spots. Making sure there was plenty of reserve for things he needed to do later, the young mage created a small stack of books and a few black balls with mysterious purpose. Once done with that, he turned back to the transmutation box that just broke.
The three orbs didn't fuse but they all had a much more neutral feel. One was still bent towards dark ends but not nearly as twisted. One was so neutral feeling that he wondered if it would turn into a world will but it kept its mysterious 'afterlife realm' like qualities.
Carefully, he walked between lines towards the large but oddly youthful seeming demon in the center of his ritual diagram. As potent, corrosive power began eating the edges of the sanctuary effects protection for his physical existence, Orison struck a bargain with him. He would serve the one known as NoxFlora for a thousand-thousand years and his followers would be her soldiers and do the dark deeds a ruler must needs done. With the choice between being a military arm of a greater force or a painful, twisted death, it was a no brain-er.
The demon's payment for service was the darker neutral will orb which sang with joy to be away from the hands of its tormentor. Unable to enact treachery under the sanctuary effect, a geas sunk into the demon's soul upon his flawless oath. For a sanctuary allowed no harmful action to be initiated but exchanges were inherently neutral. It was because of that, when a sizable amount of magically ignited explosive devices rained into the temple's surroundings, they detonated harmlessly, merely adding more cycled essence to the whole.
With mock pity, Orison ignored the hostile action and carried the dethroned demon lord over to where the other had been, laying him down gently. "There you go. You take a nice rest and be a good tap filter for us in a minute."
Reaching up with the miasma, the young mage drew the assailants above into the 'safe' arms of empty red symbols in the diagram. There were plenty to go around and few attackers to fill them. Among that number was a familiar face.
Orison gave a saintly smile and said, "Mr Lacquer, I'm stunned... I thought we were on friendly terms."
The man wanted to speak but his words were 'harmful'. It didn't matter much to the young mage. As soon as the sanctuary effect was canceled, all the built up corrosive essence slammed into them all.
Sparing a moment to check on Santos and promise to explain what was going on soon, the young mage waited until things had reached a certain point and had his team read the books he had conjured up from the miasma, only one per person, carefully crafted for them. After reading his own, a combination of magical spatial theory and a spattering of various other subjects, he relieved Santos to read one as well.
Done with that, he waited until the brujo recovered enough to take the ritual back over and pulled out the purely neutral orb. Hanging onto it tightly, Orison offered it up to Sammy, provided that she touch him with the grace of her true presence. For a second, all was disrupted as reality buckled under the powerful presence of a gray winged angel flanked by two others that Orison knew were Justice and Liberty. Two cherub-like ones wheeled in the background while two more groveled and were begging forgiveness from their great-grandmother.
As quickly as she came, she was gone with the lingering scent of sweet herb laced tobacco lingering in the air. Roy and Garret, who were at the back, weren't nearly as 'touched' as Orison had been due to Sammy being a smart and benevolent giver of 'attaboys'. Restarting the ritual, he had Santos join him in garnering the rest of what the remaining individuals in the diagram couldn't handle on his side handle and the filters still could until they crumbled to poisonous dust and tar.
Due to the nature of arrangements, since Gan wanted to go, he needed to go first. On the other side of the mirror portal was a deep underground area on Amoril that everyone could now pass in his team save for Orison himself. The reasons weren't clear yet but he intuitively felt like he'd have the answer soon. Be that as it may, with his side a little shaky, their parting was a quick and unsatisfying one with the young mage willing the rest of the miasma on that side to the scout. He only asked that a quarter and no more of goods acquired to be given to Mama Yaya.
Unable and unwilling to face Gan any longer, he called on Gurrut to summon his tribe. Unsurprisingly, the tribe had been ready to go a couple of days after his visit and had been waiting on the word. A lot more than Orison originally anticipated were going to stay but that was no longer his concern. He had fulfilled the promises he had made to their shaman in that alternate future for the grace of helping him recover from spiritual damage.
While the final parting between brothers occurred, he had Roy recording what essentially looked like a misty cavern with a magical mirror portal in it. At the last moment, Gurrut asked Garret if he wanted to come. Garret said that he did but-. Gurrut waited for nothing further and reached through to forcefully pull the teen to his side right before the mirror cracked as it ran out of the power that Orison had allotted it.
While he stared in shock, Orison felt a fluctuation of grayish silver essence and Santos was gone as well. Whatever had grabbed the brujo, it had sprung after having been in place for a very long time which didn't make much sense but there was nothing to do about it. Looking at Roy and then the fairly empty expanse of muck and deadly dust piles, they young mage felt very empty himself.
Using what remained of the miasma to create a few potions and brews, he suddenly felt frivolous. He used the remaining to create a hand held gaming system with a battery that was magic compliant and forced the rest of the miasma into it after making an over robe for Esme. Tossing one of the black marble-like balls he made earlier to Roy, he took one last look around.
"Back to your burial hole for round two. Are you ready?" Orison said looking at Gan. The scout looked into the earthen maw, barely paying attention. The site was a double whammy of bad memories for him. He fell to his death there and the stint of demonic planar conquerors began there as well. Unintentionally, Gan ignored his question and said, "There's red dots down there. They aren't moving." The young mage replied, "We knew it was a possibility. That means their leader was connected enough to the mid-dimensions that he was either not affected by our time transposition or he remembers somehow. The gate won't fully become operational until I trigger the red moon rising thing. They can't be more than imps or whatever the abyssal equivalent is. "Okay, I'm going to jump down in spectral form. I've got around ten seconds to warp a spirit trap into existence while taking control of the gate after going 'Dark Space' form. If it takes longer than that, the suction will reverse and I'll start unraveling as I eat myself." "What does that even mean?" Roy asked. "You'll find out soon enough. Just remember to stand on the symbols boss showed you earlier, when and as they appear." Gan said. Stag added, "Let's get this over with. I'm due for a long sleep. Don't bother trying to get me up until I'm ready or I'm going to be cranky. You wouldn't like me when I'm cranky." There was a strangeness to Stag's mood that tickled Orison's intuition but it wasn't anything bad, only hinting at a low level of unwanted result. At that late point in the game, it was no telling and there were too many variables to account for everything. He just crossed his fingers and as soon as the rest of his team had their repel ropes anchored deep into stable dirt, he made a run for it. The elegant dive he had planned didn't happen as a large chunk of crust broke off under his feet nearly two yards from the lip. After pinballing off a couple of rock formations, he went two dimensional cut-out, ghost version. Gliding awkwardly to the floor of the cavern, he auto-corrected enough to glide past a few small humanoids that reeked of sulfur and threw small fiery balls of dirty essence at him. Underneath the spectral covering, one of the balls slipped through and badly burned his left arm. Past the point of being able to dodge, he switched to devouring mode as an illusory sky with spectral trees sprung into existence around him. On the grounds of the eerie midnight setting with a bloated red moon dominating the sky, he spotted a small temple sitting precariously balanced on a crumbling cliff ledge. Instead of fighting the first interloper, who was in the process of rushing the mirror's transition to its location, Orison grabbed the hand with his devouring intent coated one and pulled with all his might. Unprepared for assistance, the large demon suddenly had no resistance to step through, stumbling into the center of the ritual diagram that the young mage was still finishing. Turning to deal with him, the demon ignored the sounds just outside the temple door til an arrow tore through the side of it's neck, spraying steaming blood on the ritual diagram. The demon was pinned by magic and supernatural principle, freeing Orison to deal with the horde of lesser demons intent on pushing their way through. Some were sucked up into the young mage's devouring intent, still gas-like from stepping through the portal while stronger ones with ripped up skin in the shape of a hand print found themselves partially flung into the diagram, where magic and supernatural principle slid and locked them into other positions within it. Within the pyramidal diagram, Roy and Garret were getting into position on the brightly glowing symbols, flanked by raving demons as they fired or swung weapons respectively. A bit closer to the large demon in the center, Stag took his spot while looking cynical and a little sad. Gan took his spot on the other side, closest to the top and staring down the demon he'd injured as it snarled and spoke words so defiled that they caused the air to blister and minds that heard them towards evil thoughts. Distracted by the lack of Gurrut's presence where he was supposed to be, Orison sent out his spirit sight to find that the orc blooded young man had slightly lost himself to blood lust by the slaughter and demonic influence in the air. Drawing on the ashen hand mark on his arm, the young mage sent a clear intent directly to Gurrut's spiritual seat to get himself where he was supposed to be. Done with that, he had no choice but to leave things to fate because his time in devouring form was almost expired. Reaching into the gate orison grabbed a chain on the left-hand side, eating through it as small clawed hands tried to grasp at him earning themselves injuries. With a yank, a partially mummified person dragged itself on the ground, away from the gate. With a split second glance to make sure he'd grabbed the 'right' person, he leveled as much directed spiritual intent at the one still on the other side of the gate as he could. "You want to live. Take control of the essence and pull the gate there," Orison demanded. Soul cracked and spiritual seat damaged beyond recognition, the 'other mummy' complied almost mindlessly. While the mirror's image blurred to a new location, Orison canceled his form, feeling weak and decrepit from age internally. The forced warping of the Abyssal gate had taken quite a bit of his power and life force to accomplish. Flinging a hand behind him while he kept his eyes glued to the mirror surface, the young mage pulled out a downy feather and threw it like a dart at the partially mummified person at the tip of the pyramid formation. "By this sign of your favor, restore this mortal within the bounds of this token's sacrifice." Naked, shivering and traumatized, Santos looked around him as Orison bellowed, "No time for sight seeing, brujo. Take control of the ritual diagram and activate it... Now!" While he barked orders at the man, Orison reached past the mirror's surface. Channeling a good deal of the loose miasma around him to form a black, light absorbing net to snag the contents of the small chamber, he dragged them through the mirror gate and used the miasma to shut it down. Turning with a smile on his face, the young mage checked Santos's progress to find that the man was peppered with caster bullets. Filing into the temple was a number of Rowdies wearing the Wingright family crest. Gan returned the favor with three rapidly fired arrows that took out one as the other two bounced off shimmering fields of light. As Orison attempted to twist the miasma around him into a 'Sanctuary' effect, a towering giant of a demon appeared in the room. Nodding to himself as if he saw it coming, Stag began shedding a powerful verdant green glow as he started turning translucent. "Unbar the doors to the Summer Lands, Great Ancestor." While the Wingright acquisitions team was opening fire, the demon crowed in booming amusement. "You thought you could 'steal' a claimed Abyssal Will?" Simultaneously, Orison and Stag spoke at once. The young mage replied bitterly to the demon as magic propelled bullets shredded his team, "You would be surprised to how close I came to succeeding." With a physically silent shout of words heard by every soul present, Stag intoned, "Open, gates of reincarnation!" Though it couldn't be seen, a heavy scent of apple blossoms filled the air along with other, just shy of unpleasant, smells of abundant and fertile nature. The red moon created landscape buckled and rolled like a large boulder dropped into a pond before stabilizing. The giant of a demon turned towards the translucent, green haired man and twisted a large amount of dark, dull red energy before he and every other person in the room was hit by a shockwave of emerald spirit essence flavored with a sprinkle of potent faith power. Protected from the brunt by the presence of the giant demon, Orison felt himself fill with a strong rejuvenation before his eyes were drawn by a shifting in the light eating net he held. While everyone was stunned with whatever Stag had done, Orison drew enough miasma that he knew most of the scenery outside had collapsed back to normal. A metallic, rune covered box lay in his hand that glinted ominously. "Thank you, Al's misspent past time," he mumbled as he loaded three struggling orbs into the box. A large and angry red one looked fit to break free but the power of the box sucked it inside. Soon after joined by a feeble pearly one that felt pure and a slightly stronger but still feeble gray one. With the power of the growing misty and illusionary miasma around him, he activated the transmutation box inspired from some gory dungeon crawler game. Only able to be pieced together later, his action had a significant effect on the giant demon. With its connection to the planar will severed, the demon fell to around the same level as the one in the diagram. The demon began looking youthful and more humanistic as well. Orison highly doubted that was a good thing from the demon's perspective. Many other things were happening but the young mage only took a split second to sort things out in his head before moving to action. Grabbing the mirror once more, he used the wispy miasma still left to drive through the mirror and connect to another source in another reality. Less than a second later, potent miasma, clear of demonic taint flooded the nearly invisible temple, expanding it into a vista of amalgamated parts. Beginning to recover, a Wingright person attempted to open fire only to find out that he couldn't. His rifle had turned to chunks of ore in his hand and some force was taking hold to keep him rooted to where he was. Looking around at his other team members, he saw that two were missing and one had been turned into a primate. He was also very young, around ten, and the two who had stood staggered in front of him were a toddler and a baby respectively. Santos, returned from the recently departed and still dazed worked off of last fuzzy thought. He activated the ritual. Miasma began pouring through the framework. The demons became charcoal filters catching all the unwanted particles and active, parasitic parts of the miasma while the cleaned parts were filtered to Orison's team. While continuing to work on his own projects, he looked over with hope that the power would serve to bolster and safeguard Stag but there was no Stag, only a wilted piece of feather grass that turned to dust as he watched. Holding back the grief for when he had the luxury to explore feelings, outside of life and death struggles, he poured his focus into what he was attempting to accomplish. Once again, the area around him dimmed and became illusionary as a huge blue glowing crystal pulled from the wall on his side of the mirror while a warm orange one formed on the other. Both were covered in ornate metalwork and magic symbols but Orison only cared about what they would do for his space as he fused them into it. Devouring force churning with a ferocity that Orison hadn't been able to illicit from it before, he vaguely felt the addition of invisible chains similar to his living laws. The usually almost completely dormant shadow in his bones practically screamed in joy at how 'right' such things were to claim. With his team, minus Stag, recovering and taking charge of the situation behind him, Orison reminded them not to move from their spots. Making sure there was plenty of reserve for things he needed to do later, the young mage created a small stack of books and a few black balls with mysterious purpose. Once done with that, he turned back to the transmutation box that just broke. The three orbs didn't fuse but they all had a much more neutral feel. One was still bent towards dark ends but not nearly as twisted. One was so neutral feeling that he wondered if it would turn into a world will but it kept its mysterious 'afterlife realm' like qualities. Carefully, he walked between lines towards the large but oddly youthful seeming demon in the center of his ritual diagram. As potent, corrosive power began eating the edges of the sanctuary effects protection for his physical existence, Orison struck a bargain with him. He would serve the one known as NoxFlora for a thousand-thousand years and his followers would be her soldiers and do the dark deeds a ruler must needs done. With the choice between being a military arm of a greater force or a painful, twisted death, it was a no brain-er. The demon's payment for service was the darker neutral will orb which sang with joy to be away from the hands of its tormentor. Unable to enact treachery under the sanctuary effect, a geas sunk into the demon's soul upon his flawless oath. For a sanctuary allowed no harmful action to be initiated but exchanges were inherently neutral. It was because of that, when a sizable amount of magically ignited explosive devices rained into the temple's surroundings, they detonated harmlessly, merely adding more cycled essence to the whole. With mock pity, Orison ignored the hostile action and carried the dethroned demon lord over to where the other had been, laying him down gently. "There you go. You take a nice rest and be a good tap filter for us in a minute." Reaching up with the miasma, the young mage drew the assailants above into the 'safe' arms of empty red symbols in the diagram. There were plenty to go around and few attackers to fill them. Among that number was a familiar face. Orison gave a saintly smile and said, "Mr Lacquer, I'm stunned... I thought we were on friendly terms." The man wanted to speak but his words were 'harmful'. It didn't matter much to the young mage. As soon as the sanctuary effect was canceled, all the built up corrosive essence slammed into them all. Sparing a moment to check on Santos and promise to explain what was going on soon, the young mage waited until things had reached a certain point and had his team read the books he had conjured up from the miasma, only one per person, carefully crafted for them. After reading his own, a combination of magical spatial theory and a spattering of various other subjects, he relieved Santos to read one as well. Done with that, he waited until the brujo recovered enough to take the ritual back over and pulled out the purely neutral orb. Hanging onto it tightly, Orison offered it up to Sammy, provided that she touch him with the grace of her true presence. For a second, all was disrupted as reality buckled under the powerful presence of a gray winged angel flanked by two others that Orison knew were Justice and Liberty. Two cherub-like ones wheeled in the background while two more groveled and were begging forgiveness from their great-grandmother. As quickly as she came, she was gone with the lingering scent of sweet herb laced tobacco lingering in the air. Roy and Garret, who were at the back, weren't nearly as 'touched' as Orison had been due to Sammy being a smart and benevolent giver of 'attaboys'. Restarting the ritual, he had Santos join him in garnering the rest of what the remaining individuals in the diagram couldn't handle on his side handle and the filters still could until they crumbled to poisonous dust and tar. Due to the nature of arrangements, since Gan wanted to go, he needed to go first. On the other side of the mirror portal was a deep underground area on Amoril that everyone could now pass in his team save for Orison himself. The reasons weren't clear yet but he intuitively felt like he'd have the answer soon. Be that as it may, with his side a little shaky, their parting was a quick and unsatisfying one with the young mage willing the rest of the miasma on that side to the scout. He only asked that a quarter and no more of goods acquired to be given to Mama Yaya. Unable and unwilling to face Gan any longer, he called on Gurrut to summon his tribe. Unsurprisingly, the tribe had been ready to go a couple of days after his visit and had been waiting on the word. A lot more than Orison originally anticipated were going to stay but that was no longer his concern. He had fulfilled the promises he had made to their shaman in that alternate future for the grace of helping him recover from spiritual damage. While the final parting between brothers occurred, he had Roy recording what essentially looked like a misty cavern with a magical mirror portal in it. At the last moment, Gurrut asked Garret if he wanted to come. Garret said that he did but-. Gurrut waited for nothing further and reached through to forcefully pull the teen to his side right before the mirror cracked as it ran out of the power that Orison had allotted it. While he stared in shock, Orison felt a fluctuation of grayish silver essence and Santos was gone as well. Whatever had grabbed the brujo, it had sprung after having been in place for a very long time which didn't make much sense but there was nothing to do about it. Looking at Roy and then the fairly empty expanse of muck and deadly dust piles, they young mage felt very empty himself. Using what remained of the miasma to create a few potions and brews, he suddenly felt frivolous. He used the remaining to create a hand held gaming system with a battery that was magic compliant and forced the rest of the miasma into it after making an over robe for Esme. Tossing one of the black marble-like balls he made earlier to Roy, he took one last look around.
