Fic update - MAGE
May. 16th, 2004 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sparkindarknessComputer's not fixed. But it's healing. Slooooooooooooowly.
Still, brief run by to post some fic. Because there's a limit to how much unposted fic you can have. And besides, there's just too many cliffhangers hanging about.
Continued from waaaaaaaay back here:
Mage #5
Previous 'episodes' can be found through the Mage section of Memories
Messy didn’t even cover it. Even Matthias’ eager rush slowed as we came across the scene of carnage. The first of the human security guards had lasted bare seconds against the rage of the werewolves. Their internal organs scattered across the ground like some macabre decoration. Sleepers always died quickly when the supernatural fought. The lucky ones did anyway. The unlucky merely wished for death.
Janos had drawn his wand again, muttering chants in languages I couldn't even recognise, calling on spirits to hide us from hostile eyes. On the plus side, if it didn’t work, we probably wouldn’t know it, mages died pretty easily to werewolf claws as well.
“If we keep to the edge and the shadows we should be able to ease round the fighting and reach the main building.” Matthias’ eyes gleamed with eager anticipation in the lurid glow of broken lights.
“Fighting? More like a slaughter! Shit, no-one said we’d be part of a massacre.” Sebastian looked like he was going to be sick. Poor Virtual Adept, join us in the real world for some time, you’ll find it’s not pretty, and not getting any better for all the net heads with their heads plugged into virtual space.
“We go now or we go back. This isn’t the time for debate.” I pull Nik to the front and start edging forwards. If we can just reach the wall...
Nik pulls us up short, unfocused eyes looking to a different time. Within seconds a squadron of new fighters pour out towards the embattled werewolves. These aren’t poor sleepers running scared from the horror of werewolves, I’m not even sure if they’re human. Janos growls besides me, only Nik’s hand on his arm stops him launching an attack. The Dreamspeaker is severely not happy.
“The fomori will hold the werewolves... give us time to do what we need. But they outnumber Gaia’s fangs more than five to one! I’ll not leave if the serpents look to slay the Garou.” I swallow... do I really want to get involved in this fight? But I nod.... I owe Janos that much, right?
We reached the wall without anything trying to eat us. A bonus, that. Of course we were now facing a thick stone wall. Not exactly the best thing. “Ok, and we reach the door, how?” No way we can fight to it, most of the fighting has reached the main entrance.
Sebastian just grinned, muttering maths equations under his breath. Maths equations! “Just give me a minute to re-programme reality, here, just a bit of complex hacking, and we’ll have our own door.” Magic with maths. I don’t think I’ll ever understand technomages.
“No!” Nik scrabbles at Matthias’ hand. I feel magic in the air. One of the guards has a gun pointed at the back of a monstrous werewolf’s head. At the last second he trips over his own feet, the shot going wide, hitting one of his fellows. Matthias grins, rattling his dice smugly in his fist.
The wounded guard is nearly torn in two by a giant black coated wolf-man. The werewolf howls, literally howls, in triumph and throws the limp body at two more inhuman guards, rushing to join the fray. The throw is perfect, knocking the them both sprawling... one straight into Janos. I feel his spell stutter. The guard’s eyes widen as our cloak of invisibility fails.
I slice my palm, letting the blood flow as I call the Quintessence out of my Avatar, the Awakened soul within me and all mages that empowers our will with magic. The blood drips on the guard, burning through flesh and clothing like acid, shining as it sears like fire. It is neither - it’s quintessence, pure magical energy. The lifeblood of the Lord and Lady that runs through us all. It screams and rolls away from me and the flow of sweet blood from my wrist, not even noticing Matthias until the Euthanatos’ knife reaches his throat.
“Bombard them! Keep them back!” Matthias screams, a strange combination of panic and excitement riding his voice. I feel him glow as he calls on his own store of quintessence to strengthen his spells. The dice roll, chance twists, and one of the guard’s guns dies. I desperately followed his lead, lighting up with what little quintessence I had left to throw a fountain of burning blood at the confused guards. Other screams rose where my blood touched flesh, joined by ever more as Janos called out to spirit’s of fire and threw Quintessence enhanced flames into the fray. Nik’s eyes flickered between times to shout hurried warnings and hasty predictions.
One guard nearly reached me before I plunged my athame forwards, forcing the life within his body to twist and tear itself apart. I had run out of Quintessence... Nik cried out in pain as he sliced into his own arm, drawing on the pain to twist time around him. Suddenly he was a blur of motion striking at a guard who has seized Janos in vile tentacles. The monster fell away long enough for Janos to use the last of his Quintessence in a fierce bolt of flame straight to it’s head.
Paradox rode heavily on the air. There seemed to be more guards pouring into the fray for ever one we destroyed.
“Got it! Bloody thing was three feet thick! Quick!” Sebastian, waved at us desperately, not that we needed telling. I think we were all through the hole before the echoes died. Nik was the first to roll back to his feet, holding the penknife he’d used to cut his arm as a weapon against the half dozen guards who were chasing us. Sebastian had other plans. He grinned and opened his lap top. “This door’s closed, boys.” He tapped the enter key, I felt him light up with Quintessence. A series of complex mathematical symbols suddenly ringed the hole, followed quickly by a shimmering sheet of power that covered the opening completely. The first guard hit it. It was like watching someone hit a brick wall.
“Cool.” Nik slipped his penknife back into his pocket, looking duly impressed.
“Yeah, well it won’t last, so we better get moving.” Not a bad idea. Matthias was already wandering off down the corridor.
“What was that?” Chances of me understanding the answer? Pretty much nil, but if you don’t ask, you don’t learn, right?
The Virtual Adept grinned, “force field against polyester. I always try to keep the programme on my computer, it’s so useful.”
“Polyester?!” Even Janos laughed at that one.
“Well, I’m not big on using mojo on living things, but just about everyone wears polyester, right? They can get through, they'll just have to strip down to do it.” He grinned. I shuddered, that was not a mental picture I wanted to hang around right now.
Matthias, meanwhile, had reached a door. He threw his knife into the air; it landed with its point facing the closed door. “That way.” Nik was quick enough this time to grab him just in time...
“One minute, I’m getting some really bad predictions coming from that plan. There’s a nasty surprise waiting for us.” See? Told you he was a seer.
“Well, we know about it now, no surprise right?” He tried to open the door again. This Euthanatos is just a little too eager.
“Knowledge without action is as useful as money in the desert.” Janos added his hand to pulling Matthias back. “We need to prepare. We do not have enough Quintessence to burst in and trust to hope. And Paradox rides above us, just waiting to destroy us.” Enough Quintessence? More like none. And Paradox? I don’t know about the others, but I’m holding back the ‘dox with my will alone, and that barely. We’ve bee stretching reality way beyond where it wants to be here.
“Ok, what’s the plan?” He can think. There is hope for him.
“Bombardment.” Nik grinned. It wasn’t a pleasant grin. “Spend a couple of minutes out here building up your biggest, nastiest effects then let them loose the minute the door’s open.” Then the Euthanatos grinned. You know it’s a bad idea when a Euthanatos smiles...
I knelt, athame clutched in my hand, and willed my magic into it, willed the force of life and traced it with anger. Pushed anger through it, anger and hate and death. The body would not be healed. It would be torn asunder. Blood vessels would rupture, spilling their precious fluid. Muscles would tear. Organs would twist and break. I felt the power build until I could not longer stand it. I opened my eyes, to see them all nearly vibrating with power. Nik kicks open the door.
I have a brief moment to see the room, complete with alert guards, before unleashing the magic. The effect is incredible. Fire flows, chance twists madly, bodies virtually explode without anything seeming to touch them, the ground twists and flows into razor points and ridges, minds are overwhelmed with incredible fear, utterly unable to fight back in the face of the terror. The carnage is short, but total.
Seven bodies lie on the floor. Four of them guards, the other three in suits. Office workers? Normal people? I have a sudden hit of doubt... I mean Sistech’s bad and all, but most people working there are just regular people. I turn to the Dreamspeaker. “Please, tell me they weren’t human?”
He takes a deep breath. I think the same doubts have been hitting him. Matthias has already ran over to the computers in the room, not that there’s much point, they’re extremely wrecked. Still, he’s pulling apart cupboards, looking for any info he can find. Nik collapses to the floor.
I run over, athame ready... I knew we’d been getting off too easy! Lord and Lady thank you, he wasn’t hurt. At least not really. There was the self-inflicted cut in his arm, but that was all. No, Paradox had finally claimed its due. He looked like someone on some really bad acid and in the middle of a really bad hang over at the same time. Oh and someone who’s just had their middle ears replaced with gyroscopes.
Which is why we didn’t see him coming. He had four arms, all of them bulging with unbelievable muscles. His flesh was covered in slime covered spines. The spines were sharp enough to cut to the bone, the slime was noxious and toxic, managing to burn you while being slippery enough to defeat any grip at the same time. The creature was easily twice as tall as a man, even taller than the werewolves outside, yet moved like oiled silk, smooth and graceful, almost unnaturally fast. In one hand he held a sword as long as I was tall. It gleamed with silver rather than steel.
Matthias avoided the swing of the blade by luck alone, catching only a backhand from another fist that sent him sprawling across the room. Sebastian screamed as the third fist swung his way, “RUN X!” His computer bleeped a with flare of magic, and he disappeared, re-appearing eight feet to his left.
The thing spun, and its fist caught Janos as he rose from the bodies, sending him flying across the room. I called my magic and tried to rip the unnatural creature’s body with the power of life, just managing to knock it off balance. It saved me, the blade slicing deeply into my stomach rather than cutting me in half. Sweet gods, it hurt! I felt blood run down me in a stream. Almost reflexively I called the power of it - the very power of life itself given form. I forced my will through the pain to knit my flesh back together, even as the blade came round for a second stroke...
A sword caught the monster’s blade before it landed, parrying the blow. I gaped up at a red furred werewolf. Its face was twisted in a snarl, it’s muscles bunching as it forced the blade up. In an almost surreal state from blood loss, I saw the golden torc around its neck gleaming golden in the light.
The two monstrous combatants entered into a blur of combat. The werewolf was faster, but the monstrosity had four arms with which to fight. And the flickering blade in its grasp was silver. I lay, almost transfixed, forcing my flesh to heal as the combat raged above me.
For what seemed like hours, the combatants danced. I dragged myself as far away as I could, watching with increasing horror as the monster’s fists managed to connect again and again with the werewolf. I gasped as the silver sword drew blood, slashes among the russet fur. The wolf man seemed to be tiring, loosing speed as the battle continued. It was only a matter of time...
The monster caught the werewolf’s sword arm in two of its own. Its mouth split into an unholy rictus of broken teeth as it brought its silver sword down to finish it.
The sword collapsed. I blinked, hardly believing my eyes. It had turned to water! My eyes darted to where Sebastian crouched cradling his keyboard. He gave me a thumbs up and nodded to Matthias, who was just pulling himself out of a healing half lotus position. One glance, and the Euthanatos thrust his hand in his pocket to draw out a pair of dice. He rolled them across the floor. Snake eyes.
The monster slipped in the puddle that had been his sword, loosing his grip on the werewolf. It’s arms pinned, the werewolf thrust forward with it’s huge jaws, biting off most of the creature’s face. That one simple moment, and the battle was over. Crippled, the creature couldn’t even look as the werewolf brought down its sword in a killing arc.
I staggered to my feet with Sebastian and Matthias. Sebastian knelt over Janos, there was a brief moment of panic before he gave us the thumbs up. Only unconscious. Gods, thank you!
I reached the werewolf just as it collapsed. Bloody rents showed dark through its vibrant red coat. I moved closer slowly... always approach fang bearing creatures with caution; just a rule I have. I concentrate on the fallen creature, looking at it through the pulse and glow of life shared by all living creatures, focusing through the resonant power of its own spilled blood - feeling it call to its living kin. I breathed out, slowly, relieved and anxious together. It lived.
"Does he live?" I looked round in surprise, Janos was leaning heavily on Sebastian, his eyes weren't focusing right and he had a cut across his head that was bleeding far too readily, but he was conscious.
"He lives. Just. He's conscious too... just about anyway."
"Pity." Sebastian was trying to hold his lap top steady and prop Janos up at the same time. I gave him a look which told him exactly how I felt about that. "Will he wake before we leave?"
"Yes, because I intend to heal him." Sebastian opened his mouth, even Janos looked a little worried. I spoke before either could comment. "I'm not leaving him to die after he saved my life. I'm better than that."
"I'm not having the karma of abandonning him on my soul after he saved us." Matthias was backing me up? Shows how little I know about him, right?
There was no more argument. I'm amazed they even raised an argument in the first place, to be honest. I knelt next to the fading man beast and traced a circle round him in his own blood. I could feel the paradox already bearing down on me like a great weight. this would push me over the edge. I was physically and mentally exhausted and completely empty of Quintessence. I had to trace the ritual patterns in the sticky blood and waste precious minutes meditating and raising my power before I could be guarenteed success.
It wasn't perfect. The wounds didn't want to heal. They seemed almost to fight my magic. The affect of silver on werewolves? Whatever it was, it made the spells far harder, and built up even more Paradox as reality itself seemed to deny the closing of these injuries. But it was done. He was weak, he'd lost a lot of blood and there were still enough wounds in his coat for him to really need medical attention. But he'd live.
He stood. Towering over us, I wodnered what we looked like. Me near trembling, trying to hold off the Paradox just a little longer. Matthias covered in bruises, Janos clinging to Sebastian for support, Nik collapsed on the floor... A long tense moment passed.
The werewolf nodded to us, just bowing that huge wolf head. "I will remember this," he growled through his bestial mussle. I think we were all too tired and too shocked to say anything, at least to say anything before it turned and limped away.
"Did we just make a friend?" I asked Janos, he was the only one who really knew anything about werewolves.
"Maybe. But you don't gossip when the river bursts its banks."
Right, think about it later. Now we just have to get home before Paradox slices and dices us. What fun.
Still, brief run by to post some fic. Because there's a limit to how much unposted fic you can have. And besides, there's just too many cliffhangers hanging about.
Continued from waaaaaaaay back here:
Mage #5
Previous 'episodes' can be found through the Mage section of Memories
Messy didn’t even cover it. Even Matthias’ eager rush slowed as we came across the scene of carnage. The first of the human security guards had lasted bare seconds against the rage of the werewolves. Their internal organs scattered across the ground like some macabre decoration. Sleepers always died quickly when the supernatural fought. The lucky ones did anyway. The unlucky merely wished for death.
Janos had drawn his wand again, muttering chants in languages I couldn't even recognise, calling on spirits to hide us from hostile eyes. On the plus side, if it didn’t work, we probably wouldn’t know it, mages died pretty easily to werewolf claws as well.
“If we keep to the edge and the shadows we should be able to ease round the fighting and reach the main building.” Matthias’ eyes gleamed with eager anticipation in the lurid glow of broken lights.
“Fighting? More like a slaughter! Shit, no-one said we’d be part of a massacre.” Sebastian looked like he was going to be sick. Poor Virtual Adept, join us in the real world for some time, you’ll find it’s not pretty, and not getting any better for all the net heads with their heads plugged into virtual space.
“We go now or we go back. This isn’t the time for debate.” I pull Nik to the front and start edging forwards. If we can just reach the wall...
Nik pulls us up short, unfocused eyes looking to a different time. Within seconds a squadron of new fighters pour out towards the embattled werewolves. These aren’t poor sleepers running scared from the horror of werewolves, I’m not even sure if they’re human. Janos growls besides me, only Nik’s hand on his arm stops him launching an attack. The Dreamspeaker is severely not happy.
“The fomori will hold the werewolves... give us time to do what we need. But they outnumber Gaia’s fangs more than five to one! I’ll not leave if the serpents look to slay the Garou.” I swallow... do I really want to get involved in this fight? But I nod.... I owe Janos that much, right?
We reached the wall without anything trying to eat us. A bonus, that. Of course we were now facing a thick stone wall. Not exactly the best thing. “Ok, and we reach the door, how?” No way we can fight to it, most of the fighting has reached the main entrance.
Sebastian just grinned, muttering maths equations under his breath. Maths equations! “Just give me a minute to re-programme reality, here, just a bit of complex hacking, and we’ll have our own door.” Magic with maths. I don’t think I’ll ever understand technomages.
“No!” Nik scrabbles at Matthias’ hand. I feel magic in the air. One of the guards has a gun pointed at the back of a monstrous werewolf’s head. At the last second he trips over his own feet, the shot going wide, hitting one of his fellows. Matthias grins, rattling his dice smugly in his fist.
The wounded guard is nearly torn in two by a giant black coated wolf-man. The werewolf howls, literally howls, in triumph and throws the limp body at two more inhuman guards, rushing to join the fray. The throw is perfect, knocking the them both sprawling... one straight into Janos. I feel his spell stutter. The guard’s eyes widen as our cloak of invisibility fails.
I slice my palm, letting the blood flow as I call the Quintessence out of my Avatar, the Awakened soul within me and all mages that empowers our will with magic. The blood drips on the guard, burning through flesh and clothing like acid, shining as it sears like fire. It is neither - it’s quintessence, pure magical energy. The lifeblood of the Lord and Lady that runs through us all. It screams and rolls away from me and the flow of sweet blood from my wrist, not even noticing Matthias until the Euthanatos’ knife reaches his throat.
“Bombard them! Keep them back!” Matthias screams, a strange combination of panic and excitement riding his voice. I feel him glow as he calls on his own store of quintessence to strengthen his spells. The dice roll, chance twists, and one of the guard’s guns dies. I desperately followed his lead, lighting up with what little quintessence I had left to throw a fountain of burning blood at the confused guards. Other screams rose where my blood touched flesh, joined by ever more as Janos called out to spirit’s of fire and threw Quintessence enhanced flames into the fray. Nik’s eyes flickered between times to shout hurried warnings and hasty predictions.
One guard nearly reached me before I plunged my athame forwards, forcing the life within his body to twist and tear itself apart. I had run out of Quintessence... Nik cried out in pain as he sliced into his own arm, drawing on the pain to twist time around him. Suddenly he was a blur of motion striking at a guard who has seized Janos in vile tentacles. The monster fell away long enough for Janos to use the last of his Quintessence in a fierce bolt of flame straight to it’s head.
Paradox rode heavily on the air. There seemed to be more guards pouring into the fray for ever one we destroyed.
“Got it! Bloody thing was three feet thick! Quick!” Sebastian, waved at us desperately, not that we needed telling. I think we were all through the hole before the echoes died. Nik was the first to roll back to his feet, holding the penknife he’d used to cut his arm as a weapon against the half dozen guards who were chasing us. Sebastian had other plans. He grinned and opened his lap top. “This door’s closed, boys.” He tapped the enter key, I felt him light up with Quintessence. A series of complex mathematical symbols suddenly ringed the hole, followed quickly by a shimmering sheet of power that covered the opening completely. The first guard hit it. It was like watching someone hit a brick wall.
“Cool.” Nik slipped his penknife back into his pocket, looking duly impressed.
“Yeah, well it won’t last, so we better get moving.” Not a bad idea. Matthias was already wandering off down the corridor.
“What was that?” Chances of me understanding the answer? Pretty much nil, but if you don’t ask, you don’t learn, right?
The Virtual Adept grinned, “force field against polyester. I always try to keep the programme on my computer, it’s so useful.”
“Polyester?!” Even Janos laughed at that one.
“Well, I’m not big on using mojo on living things, but just about everyone wears polyester, right? They can get through, they'll just have to strip down to do it.” He grinned. I shuddered, that was not a mental picture I wanted to hang around right now.
Matthias, meanwhile, had reached a door. He threw his knife into the air; it landed with its point facing the closed door. “That way.” Nik was quick enough this time to grab him just in time...
“One minute, I’m getting some really bad predictions coming from that plan. There’s a nasty surprise waiting for us.” See? Told you he was a seer.
“Well, we know about it now, no surprise right?” He tried to open the door again. This Euthanatos is just a little too eager.
“Knowledge without action is as useful as money in the desert.” Janos added his hand to pulling Matthias back. “We need to prepare. We do not have enough Quintessence to burst in and trust to hope. And Paradox rides above us, just waiting to destroy us.” Enough Quintessence? More like none. And Paradox? I don’t know about the others, but I’m holding back the ‘dox with my will alone, and that barely. We’ve bee stretching reality way beyond where it wants to be here.
“Ok, what’s the plan?” He can think. There is hope for him.
“Bombardment.” Nik grinned. It wasn’t a pleasant grin. “Spend a couple of minutes out here building up your biggest, nastiest effects then let them loose the minute the door’s open.” Then the Euthanatos grinned. You know it’s a bad idea when a Euthanatos smiles...
I knelt, athame clutched in my hand, and willed my magic into it, willed the force of life and traced it with anger. Pushed anger through it, anger and hate and death. The body would not be healed. It would be torn asunder. Blood vessels would rupture, spilling their precious fluid. Muscles would tear. Organs would twist and break. I felt the power build until I could not longer stand it. I opened my eyes, to see them all nearly vibrating with power. Nik kicks open the door.
I have a brief moment to see the room, complete with alert guards, before unleashing the magic. The effect is incredible. Fire flows, chance twists madly, bodies virtually explode without anything seeming to touch them, the ground twists and flows into razor points and ridges, minds are overwhelmed with incredible fear, utterly unable to fight back in the face of the terror. The carnage is short, but total.
Seven bodies lie on the floor. Four of them guards, the other three in suits. Office workers? Normal people? I have a sudden hit of doubt... I mean Sistech’s bad and all, but most people working there are just regular people. I turn to the Dreamspeaker. “Please, tell me they weren’t human?”
He takes a deep breath. I think the same doubts have been hitting him. Matthias has already ran over to the computers in the room, not that there’s much point, they’re extremely wrecked. Still, he’s pulling apart cupboards, looking for any info he can find. Nik collapses to the floor.
I run over, athame ready... I knew we’d been getting off too easy! Lord and Lady thank you, he wasn’t hurt. At least not really. There was the self-inflicted cut in his arm, but that was all. No, Paradox had finally claimed its due. He looked like someone on some really bad acid and in the middle of a really bad hang over at the same time. Oh and someone who’s just had their middle ears replaced with gyroscopes.
Which is why we didn’t see him coming. He had four arms, all of them bulging with unbelievable muscles. His flesh was covered in slime covered spines. The spines were sharp enough to cut to the bone, the slime was noxious and toxic, managing to burn you while being slippery enough to defeat any grip at the same time. The creature was easily twice as tall as a man, even taller than the werewolves outside, yet moved like oiled silk, smooth and graceful, almost unnaturally fast. In one hand he held a sword as long as I was tall. It gleamed with silver rather than steel.
Matthias avoided the swing of the blade by luck alone, catching only a backhand from another fist that sent him sprawling across the room. Sebastian screamed as the third fist swung his way, “RUN X!” His computer bleeped a with flare of magic, and he disappeared, re-appearing eight feet to his left.
The thing spun, and its fist caught Janos as he rose from the bodies, sending him flying across the room. I called my magic and tried to rip the unnatural creature’s body with the power of life, just managing to knock it off balance. It saved me, the blade slicing deeply into my stomach rather than cutting me in half. Sweet gods, it hurt! I felt blood run down me in a stream. Almost reflexively I called the power of it - the very power of life itself given form. I forced my will through the pain to knit my flesh back together, even as the blade came round for a second stroke...
A sword caught the monster’s blade before it landed, parrying the blow. I gaped up at a red furred werewolf. Its face was twisted in a snarl, it’s muscles bunching as it forced the blade up. In an almost surreal state from blood loss, I saw the golden torc around its neck gleaming golden in the light.
The two monstrous combatants entered into a blur of combat. The werewolf was faster, but the monstrosity had four arms with which to fight. And the flickering blade in its grasp was silver. I lay, almost transfixed, forcing my flesh to heal as the combat raged above me.
For what seemed like hours, the combatants danced. I dragged myself as far away as I could, watching with increasing horror as the monster’s fists managed to connect again and again with the werewolf. I gasped as the silver sword drew blood, slashes among the russet fur. The wolf man seemed to be tiring, loosing speed as the battle continued. It was only a matter of time...
The monster caught the werewolf’s sword arm in two of its own. Its mouth split into an unholy rictus of broken teeth as it brought its silver sword down to finish it.
The sword collapsed. I blinked, hardly believing my eyes. It had turned to water! My eyes darted to where Sebastian crouched cradling his keyboard. He gave me a thumbs up and nodded to Matthias, who was just pulling himself out of a healing half lotus position. One glance, and the Euthanatos thrust his hand in his pocket to draw out a pair of dice. He rolled them across the floor. Snake eyes.
The monster slipped in the puddle that had been his sword, loosing his grip on the werewolf. It’s arms pinned, the werewolf thrust forward with it’s huge jaws, biting off most of the creature’s face. That one simple moment, and the battle was over. Crippled, the creature couldn’t even look as the werewolf brought down its sword in a killing arc.
I staggered to my feet with Sebastian and Matthias. Sebastian knelt over Janos, there was a brief moment of panic before he gave us the thumbs up. Only unconscious. Gods, thank you!
I reached the werewolf just as it collapsed. Bloody rents showed dark through its vibrant red coat. I moved closer slowly... always approach fang bearing creatures with caution; just a rule I have. I concentrate on the fallen creature, looking at it through the pulse and glow of life shared by all living creatures, focusing through the resonant power of its own spilled blood - feeling it call to its living kin. I breathed out, slowly, relieved and anxious together. It lived.
"Does he live?" I looked round in surprise, Janos was leaning heavily on Sebastian, his eyes weren't focusing right and he had a cut across his head that was bleeding far too readily, but he was conscious.
"He lives. Just. He's conscious too... just about anyway."
"Pity." Sebastian was trying to hold his lap top steady and prop Janos up at the same time. I gave him a look which told him exactly how I felt about that. "Will he wake before we leave?"
"Yes, because I intend to heal him." Sebastian opened his mouth, even Janos looked a little worried. I spoke before either could comment. "I'm not leaving him to die after he saved my life. I'm better than that."
"I'm not having the karma of abandonning him on my soul after he saved us." Matthias was backing me up? Shows how little I know about him, right?
There was no more argument. I'm amazed they even raised an argument in the first place, to be honest. I knelt next to the fading man beast and traced a circle round him in his own blood. I could feel the paradox already bearing down on me like a great weight. this would push me over the edge. I was physically and mentally exhausted and completely empty of Quintessence. I had to trace the ritual patterns in the sticky blood and waste precious minutes meditating and raising my power before I could be guarenteed success.
It wasn't perfect. The wounds didn't want to heal. They seemed almost to fight my magic. The affect of silver on werewolves? Whatever it was, it made the spells far harder, and built up even more Paradox as reality itself seemed to deny the closing of these injuries. But it was done. He was weak, he'd lost a lot of blood and there were still enough wounds in his coat for him to really need medical attention. But he'd live.
He stood. Towering over us, I wodnered what we looked like. Me near trembling, trying to hold off the Paradox just a little longer. Matthias covered in bruises, Janos clinging to Sebastian for support, Nik collapsed on the floor... A long tense moment passed.
The werewolf nodded to us, just bowing that huge wolf head. "I will remember this," he growled through his bestial mussle. I think we were all too tired and too shocked to say anything, at least to say anything before it turned and limped away.
"Did we just make a friend?" I asked Janos, he was the only one who really knew anything about werewolves.
"Maybe. But you don't gossip when the river bursts its banks."
Right, think about it later. Now we just have to get home before Paradox slices and dices us. What fun.