Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 115, Pregnant
Perception: Failure.
Nillien wanders into one of the stores on the side of the road, her mind in a whirl of confusion. She was distracted, thinking of the Fey she had killed, the sweet, almost euphoric taste of his blood in her mouth. The shop was full of sealed pottery, much of it filled with cheap wines and beers. If there was anything of use to her in here, she would likely have to search more thoroughly for it.
Disturbed by the way she can still remember the taste of the man's blood. Nillien takes the opportunity presented by the beverages to try and locate a jar of honeyed mead or rum, not having much experience with alcohol, but knowing that they are sweeter and would thus probably taste better. Hopefully, they could even wash the taste of sweet blood from her mouth. As she searches, she mainly focuses on finding a sweet alcohol, but may stop to examine anything that strikes her senses as being magically imbued.
Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 115, Pregnant
Perception: Success.
While not finding anything outright magical, Nillien does find a small sack of coins beneath the counter. She also finds a strange pendant made from what looks like a bullet and a silver chain on the floor, and she wonders what the bullet might be used for and why it had been used as a pendant. The bullet also gives off a very faint magical aura, and has a strange symbol carved into the head. She also manages to pick a bottle of cheap rum from among the shelves, downing some of the strong drink quickly to wash the taste from her mouth. Unfortunately, her supernatural powers gave her no immunity to alcohol, and with so little experience with such spirits, she had no tolerance either, so the stuff gets her a little drunk. Not too bad yet, but after the foul taste of the liquor clears from her mouth, the taste of blood is as strong as ever.
With a strange mix between a whimper and a giggle as she tastes the blood still in her mouth, Nillien stows the coins in her satchel before looking at the bullet. Eventually giving up on trying to figure it out, she merely puts it on before turning about, back to the exit. As she does so, however, she also snatches up another jar of alcohol in another attempt to blunt the taste of blood. Maybe it would just require more than one jar? Drinking the second jar of alcohol, she wanders back out of the store to look around for movement. If she doesn't see anything, she'll begin window shopping, the urgency of the situation blunted slightly by the bubblyness she feels from the alcohol.
Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 115, Pregnant
Perception: Success.
Stepping outside and glancing around after grabbing another bottle of rum, Nillien found that the street was still clear of anything moving. Glancing about, she spotted a strange shop, with a large sign on the front. The sign had a number of odd symbols, some of which Nillien recognized from when she'd spied on her mother teaching her sister as magical. The door on the front was closed, but opened easily when Nillien tried it.
The room was covered in shelves, with many small baubles and such covering them, along with quite a few books. There were also numerous stands behind the large wooden counter, with more books and larger objects on them. A door stood in the back of the room, with a large iron padlock on it, and Nillien couldn't help but wonder what might be on the other side.
Drinking the second bottle of rum in another attempt to flush the taste of blood from her mouth, Nillien comes across one of the bigger problems with growing up in the desert. Namely, since alcohol dehydrates people, desert nomads never drank it as their water supplies were tight enough as it is, and even when they stop at towns on the borders of the deserts where water is plentiful, they don't drink much as there bodies aren't used to it. As such, Nillien quickly finds herself rather inebriated by the time she reaches the magic store and even begins to voice her thoughts out loud in a slurred, giggling voice, Hey! thish looksh like a lotch of good shtuff! Shome of itch problablibly magicamal! I wonner whachit doesh? She starts, reaching for one of the nearby trinkets before noticing the lock, Hey... Hey... My mom hadge a chesht wish a lock like thach. Shish shaid itch hadge all shorts of magimical booksh 'n shtuff. Mahybe deres shome good shtuff back dere, too. She slurrs out before she stumbles towards the door. As she gets there, the begins falling over and barely catches herself by grabbing hold of the lock, Howsh I getch thish open? Mahybe wish this? She asks herself before grabbing her new tail and trying to poke it into the lock. At the same time, a small bit of her spiritual fire, which is currently splashing about erratically inside of her, breaks off and flows from her tail into the lock.
Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 114/115, Pregnant
Despite her inebriated state causing her to have much less control over herself and her powers, Nillien finds that the bolt of energy, siphoned through her new tail into the lock, easily breaks the thing. In a flash of white light accompanied by a loud metallic snap, the padlock shatters, spraying the area with shrapnel, but luckily leaving Nillien herself unharmed. While her mind might be more than a little distracted, the powers of her spirit, especially those of the one she'd joined with, were fully functional and able to protect her if necessary.
With the remains of the lock now scattered throughout the room, Nillien is now free to try and get the door open. It doesn't occur to her in her drunken state, but the noise of breaking the lock may have just alerted something unpleasant to the young desert girls presence.
Oh'sh Kay'sh shen... The door'shopen. I wunner whach inshide? Would any magimacal objectsh pleash tell me where shay are? Itch would help a bitch. Nillien slurs out as she stumbles into the room, asking the contents to identify themselves despite the fact they can't talk. She then proceeds to glance about the room for any sign of magical objects or tomes trying to alert her to their location, spiritually or otherwise.
Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 114/115, Pregnant
Perception: Success.
Perception: Failure.
As she opens the door, Nillien glances around for a moment at the various objects that are sitting on stands and shelves. Had she been sober, Nillien would have immediately recognized them as objects of dark magic, both from their spiritual aura and from the uneasy feeling they left in her stomach, but inebriated as she is, Nillien doesn't understand what she is surrounded by immediately. She does recognize that many of the objects are fairly powerful, however, causing her to fixate on the closest one.
She can't tell what the strange object sitting in the glass case, the large mass of spiky, glowing, blood red crystal hypnotizing her. She carelessly opens the large glass case, not noticing the protective runes covering the wood. Her hand reaches for it instinctively, despite the spirit that she had joined with suddenly crying out for her to stop. The instant her hand touches the glowing crystal, the world goes black, and Nillien collapses to the stores floor, clutching the crystal in her hand, and oblivious to the sound of heavy boots in the stores initial room.
When she awakens, she stands in a barren void. It is much different from the empty, weightless void she had encountered the young miners ghost in. This is much darker, and more real, with a barren, desert-like land that stretches for miles around her, and a sky clouded with black clouds that allow only slivers of weak red light to slip through, bathing the entire land around her in a hellish glow. The land is uneven, numerous hills with rocky outcroppings dotting the area. Trees dot the strange land as well, in small clusters or alone, but each and every one of them is lit up like a torch, the flames burning brightly but never consuming the wood from which they spring.
Before her, perhaps ten feet away, is a cluster of massive stones that look oddly familiar to Nillien, the glowing red clusters of strange crystals drawing her toward them. The crystals form a massive throne, and on that throne, Nillien can just barely make out a strange figure. She can hear chains rattling as the figure shifts, suggesting that it was bound to the throne. The young priestess suddenly notices that her head is clear, the effects of the alcohol gone. She has no idea where she was or how she'd came to be there, but she knew that if she wanted answers, she'd likely have to approach the strange figure that sat on the crystal throne.
Huh? What...? Where is this place? Nillien asks as she comes back to herself. As she notices the slivers of light, her movement towards the thrown becomes much more pronounced as she realizes that, wherever she might be, those could be signs of the rising dawn. Therefore, she is more interested in hiding in the throne's shadow than anything else. As she moves to the throne, though, she pauses as she notices the figure. Wh-who are you? Where am I? She asks, closing her eyes to try and examine the area with her spiritual senses, at the same time, she siphons off a little of her power to run it along her skin and through her body, hopefully granting her at least some resistance if the sun starts pouring through the clouds.
Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 111/115, Pregnant, Blessing 1
(Giant wall of text, ahoy. And yes, you can win this fight. No, it won't be easy. Yes, there will be multiple stages. So don't go Vegeta and blast it in the face with everything you've got in one round. No, your character won't die if you lose the fight. Yes, I am terrible at naming things. Did I miss anything?)
Her energy courses through her, strengthening her slightly. As she reaches out with her senses, Nillien is horrified to find that, like the void from before, this place was full of nothing. Here, however, the emptiness was more pressing and menacing, akin to the feel of vertigo as one stands on the edge of a cliff, but with an undertone of outright malice, seemingly emanating from the crystalline throne. As her senses touch it, not only does she feel a sense of utter and profound wrongness, but a vast and undeniable power.
As she spiritually examined it, she heard the chains rattling as the being bound to the crystals rose. It took a thunderous step toward her, the barren ground quaking as its foot touched the dead earth. The light fell on it then, revealing the being in all of its dread glory, and Nillien feels her stomach sink with the terrible realization of what this strange place was: A prison. The crystal had been used to contain a being of great power, and great evil. She recognized the creature standing before her from stories she'd heard as a young girl, tales that had often sent her scampering off to her mother whilst crying in terror, and that she'd seen send shivers of terror through hardened warriors and experienced wizards alike.
It stood over twenty feet tall, covered in dark red scales, with six massive black spikes jutting from its back in two columns. Massive reverse-jointed reptilian legs supported it, with three massive toes ending in razor sharp claws. A tail, almost the length again of the monster, wound behind the beast, ending in a bladed spike that looked like it could impale ten of her cleanly and still have room to spare. Long muscular arms, ending in huge hands that could fit around Nilliens head and crush it like an egg, hung down to just past the monsters waist. Its head was so completely alien to her that Nillien had no point of reference to compare it to, being completely round in front but with a large crest in the back, while two bull-like horns jutted from each side of its head, and a single straight horn struck out from its forehead. Its eyeless face was dominated by the massive gaping maw, filled with razor sharp teeth that fit together in a manner more like a guillotine than what she would think would be useful for eating anything, and dripping a disgusting green fluid.
Yes, she recognized this creature, and Nillien knew that this must be some sort of nightmare, because the daemon before her was supposed to have been utterly destroyed long ago, by the gods themselves no less. Before she could turn and flee from its foul presence, the abomination waved one massive hand, and a wall of black flames surrounded the crystal throne, the daemons prison, trapping Nillien in with the beast, both physically and metaphysically. The monster took another step toward her, the ground shaking and catching alight in its wake, and Nillien realized that this was no nightmare. She truly was trapped here, alone, with the daemon god of war, Alronok. Realizing this, however, Nillien felt her terror melt away, knowing that if she fell to the monster, she would suffer a fate far worse than death, allowed her to let go of her fear and face the daemon standing confidently.
Stunned at the sheer malevolent corruption blazing like a sun to her spiritual senses as she feels at the creature, Nillien is unable to do more than shudder and shake herself for several moments as the creature's presence awakens a primal urge to flee. Freezing up, Nillien is shocked back to her sense as she feels the tremor run through the ground as the creature steps forward. Opening her eyes and glancing upward, Nillien immediately regrets not running as soon as she saw the creature and begins to move to rectify that when the black fire suddenly blocks her escape. Now with escape now longer an option, the urge to flee is turned to one to fight given that she has no other hope of survival. Still, her defensive urges come into play first.
Knowing that, with the daemon able to summon flames wherever it chose, she has no chance of dodging, Nillien is forced to try and block. Remembering what happened back in the mines when she first encountered a massive demon there, Nillien tries the same thing here. Siphoning a decent portion of her spiritual energy, Nillien extends it out into a spherical wall of untainted spiritual energy surrounding her self like a bubble. Hopefully it would be strong enough to hold back both the creature's physical assaults as well as any flames it uses.
Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 102/115, Pregnant, Blessing 1, Holy Wall 5
The bubble of protective energies surrounds Nillien as the daemon takes another thunderous step forward. If it notices her wall of energy, it doesn't show it very much as it stretches out a single massive hand. More black flames gather in its palm before shooting out toward Nillien, striking against her shield.
Spirit Check: Nillien wins.
The deceptively small blast hammers against her shield, the dome barely absorbing the powerful attack. The daemon emits a high pitched roar and takes another step toward her, its chains rattling as it moves.
Whimpering as she feels the bubble of energy around her shudder with the creature's blow, Nillien closes her eyes and draws a portion of spiritual fire into her right hand. Aiming at the massive glowing form of malevolent energies in front of her, she releases the blast of spiritual fire, hoping that the spells binding it already had weakened it enough so that it wouldn't be able to effectively resist her blast. She knew that, even with it weakened, she would never be able to kill an immortal such as this, but, if she could damage it enough, she might be able to stun it long enough for her to escape. Thinking about her previous experiences in a mental plane, Nillien suspects that, given what happened with the last spirit, what the god has planned for her and her physical body is probably worse than death.
The daemon, chained to its crystalline prison, is unable to even attempt to dodge Nilliens attack. The bolt of flame strikes it directly in the chest, burning the daemon and causing it to emit another horrifying shriek. It lets out another blast of black flame, this time in the form of a stream.
Spirit Check: Nillien wins.
The wave of black flames washes over her shield, surrounding the vampire priestess beneath her protective globe of energy. Despite the flames pressing against her defensive bubble, she manages to hold the barrier against the monsters powerful attack, though this one is just barely resisted. Once the flames clear, she notices that the daemon is now much closer, one of its massive fists raised to strike out against her defensive shield. Fortunately, she has time to react before it strikes, either by moving out of the way somehow, or landing another hit and hoping that her shield holds.
Seeing the blazing energy rear back one arm, Nillien simply cowers behind her wall. She doesn't know if she can move the wall, but she does know that if she leaves it, the thing will be able to hit her with the black fire. Simply put, if she stays, she might survive. If she leaves... well it just won't end well. Trying to scoot as far away from the arm as she can while still remaining within the protective bubble of energy, Nillien Siphons off another large portion of energy into her right hand, yet holds it. Extending her arm towards the daemon's raised fist, she waits until she senses the blaze of corrupt energy rushing towards her as the beast swings its arm before launching the bolt of fire at the arm. Hopefully, with the arm being closer to her, she should have a good chance of hitting it. She is also hoping that the impact might soften the blow against the barrier as well to prevent the chained daemon from bursting it.
Nilliens Status: HP = 68/77, P = 66, EP = 72/115, Pregnant, Blessing 1, Holy Wall 5
To-hit: Automatic Success.
Damage: Epic.
Nillien times her strike perfectly, the bolt of holy flame striking the arm just below the wrist. The blast not only halts the blow before it reaches her shield, but burns through the daemons massive arm. The priestess nearly lets out a cry of victory, thinking the daemon destroyed, as the arm is severed just below where the manacle holds its arm. The monster lets out another of its loud screams, and recoils away from her.
It turns away from her, clutching at its severed arm and emitting another shriek. Then, however, Nilliens relief turns to horror, as she watches as the daemons arm swiftly regrows. And now, the manacle that had been restraining it was gone. With another shriek, it reaches across with its free arms and tears the other manacle from its wrist. Now, its arms free, Nillien knows that it is much more dangerous, with much more of its power freed to use against her. It begins reaching for the collar around its neck, the chain around it tense and strained, leaving it open for Nillien to strike at, or perhaps strengthen her defenses, though she feels the fatigue of using so much of her energy beginning to build.
Yes! There goes its... oh no... no, no, no, no, no! Not good! Nillien thinks as she watches the creature rip off another manacle and start reaching for the one on its neck. Managing to keep a small thread of rational thought, however, Nillien realizes that she has to stop the daemon now, before it can fully free itself. Fully immersing herself in her spiritual site, Nillien is forced to hold down her revulsion and primal fear as she lets her mind begin to fully gaze on the creature. Scanning the thing's body, she tries to find the one place where its malevolent energy seems to be stronger than anywhere else: the daemon's spiritual core. Knowing that if the creature escapes, she won't be able to win in the fight, Nillien shaves off a significant portion of her remaining spiritual energy before focusing her full intent onto the daemon. Purposefully, Nillien draws the energy from her body into her hand before forcing into into a single finger to compact it further. Despite feeling as though the energy will blow off her finger at any moment, Nillien carefully raises her hand to point at the point on the daemon where she believes its spiritual core resides. Releasing the energy in one concentrated needle of spiritual fire, she focuses her entire will on simply guiding the needle in towards the creature's core, never pulling back, even when it seems the daemon's corrupt aura is starting to engulf and eat away at her mental guidance. If all goes in her favor, the bolt of spiritual energy will strike the daemon's own energy and cause a reaction. Her spiritual energy, being almost completely pure, will hopefully cause a temporary instability in the daemon's core, maybe causing the core to even detonate and shatter the creature's current form. While that would doubtfully be enough to destroy the creature due to its immortal nature, it hopefully would at least put it out of action long enough for Nillien to escape. At the very least, it might knock off some of the creature's essence and allow Nillien to pull the essence away from the creature and thus weaken it.
Closing her eyes and opening her senses, Nillien feels the daemons immense power locked within the crystal, tied to the physical form she was fighting by a thin thread of energy. The sheer amount of its power boggles her mind, the daemons spiritual might being beyond anything she could have possibly imagined, completely defying anything she could compare it to except a god. She can also sense, however, that most of its spiritual might is locked away in the crystal, though the destruction of some of its bonds had allowed it to access more of its power. Probing with her mind, she finds the point where its avatars power is collecting, just where the thread of energy connects to the body.
Her bolt of fire, a concentration of her own spiritual might as great as any she'd ever thrown, lashed out from her finger, striking true directly in the center of the daemons body and burning right through it. She can sense the chord connecting it to its power snap as she eliminates the source of its bodies power. The daemons body, cut off from its source of strength, lets out one last high pitched scream as it falls to the ground. Its form slowly crumbles to black ashes upon the barren ground, the chains falling to the ground as the thing they held fell apart, and the black flames around her seem to be dissipating, causing her to breath a sigh of relief.
Her sigh turns into a gasp, however, as she sees the massive hole her blast had burned into the creatures crystal prison after it had exited the daemons body. the charred hole was in the center of the throne, and cracks were swiftly growing out from it. She had forgotten that the crystal was a spiritual entity, and could therefore be damaged or destroyed by her fire, and she could now only watch in horror as the daemons prison cracks. She feels its power rushing out of the hole in the massive crimson throne, causing the hole to widen. Its body, only ashes at this point, rises anew in an instant, standing before now with its full power ready to bare against her, the only obstacle remaining before it can forever escape its prison.
It rises one massive hand, preparing to strike her down, and its movements are so swift, that she can't react fast enough to try and stop it. The blow, magnified in power, smashed right through her wall of energy, not even slowing it down, and Nillien is unable to even draw in breath for a final scream of terror before the blow lands with a thud. Then, rather than pain, Nillien feels completely the same, as though nothing had happened to her. All she could see was darkness, and Nillien wondered if this was what oblivion was like, the final destination for her after the daemon had devoured her soul. Then, she notices the feel of dust beneath her feet, and the bits of color on the edges of her vision.
Looking around, she is still in the strange barren world, and, taking a step back, noticed that the darkness was just a large black coat, worn by someone standing in front of her. The figure in the black cloak also wore a black hat, and his head seemed to be surrounded by shadow, hiding any hair they might have. One of their arms reaches up, topped by a hand encased in a metal gauntlet, which was actually holding the daemons arm. The figure pushes against the daemons arm, forcing it up and away, and then, in one fluid motion, draws a long curved sword from its belt, the blade having been hidden from Nilliens view before by the mans coat.
The warrior rushes forward, his left hand hammering into the daemons chest and sending it reeling backwards, before he raises the sword over his head. Then, in the blink of an eye, Nillien watches as the warrior cuts the daemon-god in half diagonally, going from its left shoulder down to its right hip. The daemon doesn't scream this time as its body dissipates once more into ash. Then, her realizing that her spiritual senses had been closed as she'd prepared for the death blow, she opened them again.
The young priestess immediately regrets it, however, as she watches as the powerful daemon gods spirit is consumed by her apparent rescuer, a daemon himself. This one, however, was an order of magnitude more powerful than Alronok had been, making the evil creature seem insectlike in comparison. Once more fearing her doom, Nillien tries to turn and run away.
Only to have her eyes open. She can feel the boards of the floor of that magic shop beneath her, the bottle of rum in one hand, and the crystal piercing her flesh in the other. The alcohol was gone from her system, so she was completely lucid as she looked upon the tall masked man standing over her. She recognized him, the memory of her time in the daemons prison being fresh in her mind, as the second daemon to enter it. This time, however, his blade was sheathed. He stood stock still over her, waiting for her to react in some as far as she could tell.
Looking up at the man, partially glad he saved her, but mostly terrified that she would be essentially an after dinner mint for the powerful daemon, Nillien quickly begins to scramble back away from him. Hopefully, the daemon would be too lazy after his recent meal to care about someone as weak as her if she made herself to inconvenient to eat. As such, she quickly tries to scramble over to the door so that she can at least put a wall between herself and the man. If he was strong enough to kill the daemon god that had been bound to the crystal throne in a single blow, there would be no way for her to even stand a chance against him. All the while, Nillien unconsciously whimpers in fear as her eyes remain locked on the daemon god before her.
