Good...---
The church creaks and groans, as if a massive weight is pressing down on it. A piercing, humming noise replaces Kiril's hearing - as if an explosion had just gone off by his ears. It feels like an intense effort to just to stand.
Suddenly, every window in the church shatters, and a black mist comes tearing into the holy building. Father Patryn falls onto his back in his effort to scramble away. Kiril finds himself in a lethargic state, barely able to process what is happening. Out of everyone here, only Amalia and Sandor seem to still possess their mental faculties - but even they can do nothing as the mist breaks Lucien's circle, putting out the fire consuming the corruption in his soul.
For a second everything goes dark as the mist fills the room, but Sandor casts a spell that sets the winds howling - and the mist is violently expelled from the church.
Stunned by the blast and the loss of his senses, it takes Kiril a second to process the change in the room.
Lucien stands in the circle, whole once more. His skin has turned black as an ancient Assamite's, and his presence radiates that same incredible power he remembers out in the field. The scant amount of light in the church provided by candles and torches seems to be sucked away by his very presence, but the moon shines with unusual brightness outside, illuminating the scene in a way unhindered by Lucien.
Sandor struggles to get onto his feet, clearly afflicted by the same lethargy currently affecting the others in the room. Amalia tries to do the same.
Lucien reaches out to Amalia and the beautiful Cappadocian gasps as two massive rents are torn into her abdomen, through which gushes sweet vampiric vitae - more blood than even a mortal would bleed, Kiril understands that Kupala simply takes the elder's life essence from her and leaves her powerless before him.
Sandor immediately begins a casting, running through a massive series of complex incantations and motions with surprising speed and efficacy. Even Kiril, untrained in the sorcerous arts as he is, can feel the magnitude of the casting in the works - and how it is centered on the man's former childe. Something like this could very likely destroy everyone in this room, and if some of the rumours about Sandor were true, most of Sofia.
As Sandor runs through his castings, his war ghouls rush Lucien with the same blinding speed they'd used to dismantle Barrabus.
Lucien begins walking towards Sandor.
The first two war ghouls - who had been inside the church with the others - dart around Lucien and attack him from the side, each swinging clawed arms and stabbing with those scorpion tails of theirs. With incomparable grace, Lucien jumps into the air and lays a hand on one of the tails as it speeds past him, lifting himself off it as lightly as a feather, throwing himself forward. With the other hand he flicks the second war-ghoul.
The one he touched screams in pain and folds over, a black rot visibly spreading outwards from the point Kupala had touched, devouring the war ghoul's flesh.
The one he flicked is disintegrated outright, its body dissipating into black dust.
Even as Kupala moves through the air with the momentum from his jump, two more war ghouls burst in through the ceiling, all rage and and terror incarnate. Before they can lay a single hand on him, Kupala somehow twists in midair and strikes them both once each at the center of their chests, both of the ghouls' bodies imploding from the force of the blows.
Kupala lands lithely on his feet when the final war ghoul - the one who first struck Barabus, Kiril realizes - leaps in front of Sandor to protect its master.
It strikes at Kupala, the point of its tail hitting the demon's chest - and shattering, exposing the delicate flesh underneath.
The injured war ghoul screeches in pain and falls back, looking almost pitiful in its damaged state. Kupala motions towards it and the thing is abruptly twisted in half, its misery ended.
Kiril's attention turns to Sandor, who has seemingly completed his casting, his war ghouls having bought him enough time to do what was needed. The Vovoide of Arad blazes with a sorcerous power that confirms every hushed rumour spoken about the terrible might of the Tzimisce
kolduns. Sandor speaks then - "I'm sorry Prince Kiril! I'm afraid I won't be able to compensate you for what i'm about to do!"
---
Sandor closes his eyes, and unleashes every bit of power he has within him - the Dragon's Rage, the most powerful ritual any Tzimisce Koldun can ever cast, made to destroy cities, the pinnacle of Koldunic sorcery channeling the most primal of natural energies. He closes his eyes... only to open them moments later. What he sees drives him to his knees.
Kupala stands before him, unimpressed. In one hand the demon seems to hold his ritual - stopped with a single, intangible motion, held in stasis, compressed to a single point within his almost closed hand.
With the other hand, the demon grips his throat.
"I am the greatest spirit to inhabit this land,
koldun. You would use the power of my own making against me? You are a fool then, to think I would be vulnerable to such magicks."
Sandor feels a burning pain begin to spread outward from Kupala's hand.
"I cannot stay in this body long, your poor childe already begins to unravel beneath the weight of this small bit of my soul. Still, it is enough time to do what is needed, yes?
For a moment there is terrible pain, and then there is nothing. Sandor feels weightless, and it is with horror that he looks back and sees his physical body fall to the floor and crumble to dust, while his soul remains in his former childe's grip.
"Now, feed your childe your knowledge. He will need it for what is to come."
Kupala opens his mouth, and inhales deeply. Sandor feels himself pulled into Lucien. Then he feels nothing. Nothing at all.
---
If that thing comes for us too... all I have to say is that I think being eaten by you will be a preferable experience altogether.Kiril cannot help but agree with Husayn's assessment of the situation. Yet Kupala does not even acknowledge the Prince of Sofia's presence.
Instead it turns towards the pile of burnt remains that is Barabus. The grating, painful voice of the demon fills the church as it addresses the remains.
"For your service I reward you with life. You are no longer needed. Thank you."
Barabus is immediately reassembled into his old, living form - where he falls to the ground, gasping and sweating black ooze. The stuff comes out of his eyes, his mouth, and even his skin - and Kiril sees that as it leaves him, it travels to Kupala and sinks into its body. Soon Barabus lays shivering on the ground, untainted by the demon's powers.
Then the demon disappears. The lethargic weight leaves the room. Nothing is left behind but a terrible sense of loss.
---
Lucien finds himself regaining consciousness in the city of Arad, where he sits in Sandor's throne at Castle Arad. In his lap is an obsidian stone.
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Topic: Monstrous Mistakes - Kiril and Lucien (Read 193144 times)