I felt a strange buzzing sensation in my head, and knew something was wrong.
I feigned a yawn and a stretch to notice thin red slits watching me from the ledge above. I stretched a bit more, to maintain the illusion, and then called Cordelia over to me. "Pretend to talk to me about anything," I said, and she blinked before asking me why we were doing this. It was just enough time to draw one of the wicked-looking daggers from her belt.
With one fluid motion, I spun on my heel, releasing the knife end over end into the gloom. A roar and the sound of a body dropping down the mountainside was my only proof that the blade had flown true. Cordelia and I rushed to investigate. "You'll have to tech me how to do that," she said, and I smiled until we came across the demon's corpse.
That's when the screams began.
*****
Our position could not be defended and so we retreated. I allowed the others to take off, leaving the pack of explosives behind. I'd killed a half dozen of the winged creatures already, and three more were chasing me back towards the cave. I'd taken a rake of a demon's claws to my cheek after stumbling on the slope down the mountainside, but I felt alive, blood flowing hot with the danger and excitement that battle always brings. I rolled to duck a swooping attack from above, lifting my sword to disembowel another creature coming from the opposite side, and then ran back into the cave, where Delilah was frantically concentrating on one of the Trump cards.
The screams of the demons reverberated through the cavemouth. "Now or never," I'd warned, and then as someone took my hand the world began to fade around us.
We'd jumped from the kettle into the fire, as we joined Mythos, Fayne and the others inside the keep, which seemed to be on high alert. We all seemed to be beat up a bit, but nothing serious, and thus begun the systematic cleansing of the keep using the high-powered explosives. Unfortunately, this tactic threatened to bring the whole place down around us on more than one occasion. Saul-as-Brand kept us going, and finally, we'd found the Font.
*****
In short, we had been stopped. The font was protected by a forcefield that we did not have the power to dispel, and there was no way around it. Even worse was that Herald/Gabriel had been suspended inside of it. We'd been stymied.
There was still a glimmer of hope. Mythos' increasing abilities with the Pattern, combined with that of a great Chaos master of a power called Logrus, might be able to shatter the shield. With any luck, we can find said person; but that will mean going to the ends of the Universe -- to Chaos...
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