A Demon Hunting We Will Go!

[Vanidor]

The wolf howls and the Angel comes forth. The warrior cautions and the trader baulks at the sight of the dancing head with its skittering appendages and sticky bloom of crimson blood. As the wolf surges against the stonework of the wall below, the head stops its capricious dancing and howls in response. It is an ear-shattering thing. Piercing to the soul, from something that was utterly without. This done the creature spits its mouthful of vitae at the approaching Knight, more to annoy than to injure it would seem, and utters a few 'words'. The sound of them are harsh to the ear. Grating. They even cause the remaining teeth in the Jons-Thing's head to crack and scatter. Small ivory flakes spray from that gash of a mouth.

The recently departed merchants stagger to their feet. The Constable attempts as well, but minus that appendage it struggles with the maneuver. The sword it carried is jammed into the stonework, acting as a crutch as it lurches. The hole in the face glimmers ethereally, as if something had passed over the Veil in order to animate the body. The eyes and wounds of the other two react similarly. Other than the rustle of their movements, the trio of newly animated dead are silent, arching into an attack against whomever is nearest when they rise (a feat that happens in moments), though the attacks are animated. Energy is needed to fuel the motions, and lifeless muscle sometimes does not react the way the Head and its ilk would prefer.

And so. Here it is that the man with the satchel is swinging it at Agnieszka. The full weight of its lifeless body behind the telegraphed blow. The woman lunges for Aleksei, phosphorescent coporescent glowing from the holes in her torso, and from behind her lifeless eyes. As for the Constable. It stumbles towards Kals, one hand in a rictus claw, sweeping for the young trader...

All the while, the Head cackles its insane laughter.

[Suede]

The bodies were rising, and something about that helped the trader. He'd seen the atrocities the drow had brought forth, so while his stomach insisted it had so much more to show him he was able to ignore it.

Kals also had a small advantage that really wasn't so small. He was a large man and it was accented by the way he stood over the rising corpses and Agnie nearby. And his foe? Well the thing seemed to be having trouble even standing with only one leg so he did something utterly simple and hopefully effective.

He took two steps back from the swing arm, dropped his grip on his bow and took advantage of not only his superior reach but the fact that a tall man needs a tall bow. He swung it like a staff at what was left of the body's head with a rotating swing of his upper body, bellowing out a shout of surprise and challenge. Kals wasn't sure if that would do anything, but he had no idea how to hurt something that was already missing any semblance of a brain.

[channe]

Right. A fight. A fight she can do. Winning the fight is a different story -- but oh, how do you win against the already dead? Nevertheless, it's only a satchel. She whispers a silent apology to the soul of the dead man, draws her sword, and attacks the thing, moving first for its torso. Maybe another death-blow will help...?

[BetaFlame]

Those Words hissed from cracked teeth rattled in his brain, eyes widening. A flinch of pain, and sudden those silver eyes shifted again, shot through with red streaks. Red seemed to race down his arms, like veins, crease and crackling along his skin. Rage flooded his mind, reaching through his body. The warrior-mind was no longer suppressed, and a grin split his face. The thing coming toward him was a perfect target. One hand gripped the scabbard, just below the exit of the blade, the other closed around the hilt and he stepped forward, meeting the thing head on. Its lifeless, thoughtless charge was met with excused swordform. The sword lashed out like lightning, fast and arching forth from the mouth of the sheath, blurring its way through the air in a green flash.

The unsheathing and strike blended into one fluid motion, Aleksei's entire body moving with the attack, which was aimed at the body's torso. He didn't really try to avoid the lunge, instead allowing his superior reach with his blade and arm length turn his offensive strike into a defensive counter attack.

[Dulcie]

The wolf was left snapping at the head the skittered away while the dead arose around her and her companions. It was eerily similar to some of the trials she had faced before, something familiar as unpleasant as it were. She'd chase after the head only for moments before her good sense took over her. She remembered that Aleksei had spoken to Drache about how he'd be able to capture the nightkin and she was quite certain that it resided in the head rather than in one of the animated bodies.

"Tell the witch to take care of the head" She'd speak to Kals' mind, not having a better word to describe Aleksei and what he could do. Moments later she would launch herself into the skermish that involved Aleksei, trying to use the weight of her body to knock his attacker down to the ground in order to free Aleksei of his distraction so that he could set to work with capturing the Nightkin.

[Vanidor]

The shambling dead are not swift, nor are they particularly sturdy, as Agnieszka would discover with the sweep of her blade. Blood will ooze from the new wound to the torso, thick and black. The creature tumbles backwards, before detonating in a flash of crimson light and shards of bone. The woman-corpse that lunges for Aleksei is almost immolated in a flare of emeraldine flames, whatever powering it burning free from the gash that splits the thing from one side of the torso to the other. The top half of the woman continues its course, the lower half flopping to the earth and spilling the entrails contained within. Against the Trader, the uneven Constable is easy prey. It is hard to walk when one is missing a leg. And harder to maintain balance when its head is hit. As such, the body here stumbles yet again, leaving the sword to quiver in the earth as the rest of the abomination crashes against the earth.

The Head pauses in its capering, malevolent eyes peering down at the useless flesh that had been dragged into this trap. If it had a usable mouth, it would have cursed. Had it hands, it would have gestured fiercely. Rudely, even. Instead if leaps down off of its perch, barking another string of words as it lands heavily upon the stained ground. Spiked appendages tap upon the stonework, drilling molten holes that steam with each strike. Another leap, and it lands upon the body of the slain Constable, hissing blood and broken teeth at Kals.

It hopes to finish its rite before Aleksei manages to get to it. And to do so, it drives its claws into the Constables torso, the head sinking until it fills the cavity left when the body's heart was removed for food earlier. More words. More power. It starts to bind itself to the body.

[Suede]

Kals is a man of practicality in that he prefers not to fix what isn't broken. In this case that would be his apparently successful strategy in dealing with eldritch horrors and their minions. The constable's body collapsed and the trader kept his distance well back as the head cavorted over and began to dig into it.

Kacela's voice ran in his head and he called out to Aleksei. "Kacela says you should give me a hand over here!"

And even as he said that he chose to reuse his amazing combat strategy and swung his bow around again as if it were a mallet, trying to knock the thing away from the constable's corpse before it could do whatever it was doing. At the least he could try and disrupt its efforts.

[channe]

Agnie's hand comes up to try to shield herself from the explosion -- and, as such, her eyes are spared from the explosion, but her skin is not; bits of blood and bone pepper the back of her arm and chin. When she again can look at the situation, the Head has jumped down and bound itself to the poor hapless dead Constable -- and she has her sword out, hollering --

"FECKIN' KILL IT --"

It doesn't matter what Aleksei is doing. It doesn't matter what the others are doing. What matters is that she has a sword, and that there is a body in front of her, and that she can slice at it with a thrust of the saber, in an attempt to damage the heart-area, the very part that the Head has claimed for its own.

[BetaFlame]

Aleksei could feel the Light filling him. The Celestial was old, older than he had realized. And she did not want to die to this thing. That is what the worst part of this BInding for her was. If he died, her physical body was killed. No reforming, no rebirth. Total death.

So, knowledge was imparted, and the man grinned. That same, slightly battle crazed, lopsided grin. The warnings about his companions were ignored. His mouth parted, and a single Word rolled out. A Word of Creation, from the days when the Gods were Primordial. It harnessed the energy of that time. Words, and names, had power. The power of this Word was Be Bound.

Spoken from a Celestial, it would only affect those impure, those who sought to be Evil. Kacela he did not worry for. She was Wild and part of the Primal herself. But the real question would be.. what lay at the heart of Agnie and Kals?

Aleksei was not foolish enough to think that even if the creature was bound it would for long. As soon as the Word left his lips his mind was forming the image of the binding circle he would need for the monster.

[Dulcie]

The damned fell quickly and the wolf surged with pride for the hunters she fought beside. It had been years since she had been on a hunt like this one and she found her companions formidable. Bone and blood spattered the battlefield and the wolf revealed in the chaos of it all. With Aleksei's attacker fallen she'd turn then, catching sight of the Nightkin turning it's eyes upon her Kals. He'd feel a fierce sense of protectiveness from the wolf and she'd be bounding over in his direction, joining Agnie in her effort to separate the head from the constables body. She'd come to flank it from the side before throwing herself at the creature, trying to push it away from Kals and into Agnie's blade.

[Vanidor]

It was highly possible that the entity infesting the Head and the body were as old, if not even older, than the one that inhabited Aleksei. The difference is that the thing that animated the decaying head and smashed body did not care if it perished here on this plane or not. If that shell that contained it died, It would simply return to the morass of energy and chaos that it had come from. Unless certain conditions were met that was.

Which is why it fought with such random abandon. Throwing itself into a situation that did not make any sense, just to animate an already broken body. The head would deflate from the multiple strikes against it, almost flattening against the torso of the constable. Into the body the Entity fled. It made bones tear and form into something akin to the claws that had carried the head along. It was MAKING the broken body into something usefu-

No. There are words here being spoken, amidst the blows and bites and pummeling. For a moment the body, which had been pulling itself to Its feet despite the damage, just stopped. The glow of energy that had been suffusing it continued, but it no longer pulsed and radiated. Oh, for sure it still FELT evil. Dirty. But it was contained. Something hold it. The Head... The Head shifts a small amount, and the dead eyes of Jons Feul STARE at Aleksei with palpable hatred.

No. It COULD die here. And now it knew it. Not that others could notice truly, but it started to struggle against the binding Word of Creation. It would destroy the body that held it first, and flee, rather than chance being Bound further and be obliterated. If it could.

[Suede]

Agnie stepping in and Kacela all but muscling him aside were acts for the best. For while Kals hardly had the reaction to Aleksei's word that the creature had, he still felt it like a blow to the head. The trader's arms went limp, loose fingers nearly losing his bow as he stumbled two steps to the side. One hand went up to catch himself on a nearby wall, where he stayed trying to wrap his brain into a proper thought as all the sounds ranged in around him.

He'd probably have made an effort to simply try to act before he'd actually understood what was going on if not for that protective impulse he felt around him, but he still moved before the world stopped spinning, turning to see just what was happening and setting his shoulder to the wall.

Well, that looked better than worse.

[channe]

Be Bound.

Agnie's fingers go numb; there's an instant migraine blossoming in her head, colors behind her eyes and an ache straight down to her bones -- but no time to tend to it, oh no, because she's seen the way the Thing has stumbled -- she looks to Aleksei, to Kals, but there's no time --

-- whatever Aleksei is doing, the Head is suffering. And that means Agnie has to get through the ripping pain in her head, has to grasp that sword harder, has to strike again. And she does, hollering.

[BetaFlame]

There was no illusion his would world hold it long. Aleskei, for all the tampering done him, all the changes, he was still mortal. The Words he spoke not meant for mortal lips would not carry the power required for a long term binding. His lips curl into a little smile. He had it. They all had it. He saw the flash of Agnie's blade, and made a decision. She needed this blow, and he hoped this would not cost them in the end.

Once more he reaches for the Angel within, grasping its power once again. "Agnie, strike for the Head, ignore the body," And with that, he pushes the power outward. The power seeps from his form, the silver that seems to suffuse his body flashing and vanishing as it turns to light. The light fades from around his form and reforms, clinging to the descending blade in Agnie's hand, runes and wards forming along its length. Not banishing runes, but runes designed to counter the evil that lived within the creature. The blade, for the moment, existed on the moral realm, and pierced the veil into the realm that harbored the power of the extra planar creatures, allowing her strike the very energy that gave the beast life.

If anyone was going to kill it, it was going to be Agnie now. Aleksei himself sinks to his knees, palms pressing on the ground. This was not the plan. Then again, the plan never seemed to last long, and he was not used to others being around for these sorts of encounters.

[Dulcie]

The wolf was doing her part trying to keep the head from escaping. As soon as the body went down she would have pounced on top of it, her massive paws pressing down on the body, trying to keep the head from escaping the flesh from any particular opening. She'd position herself to one side of it, trying to keep it so that the only direction that it could move would be towards Agnie's blade. Everytime the head would twitch or move she would shift her paws, those deep brown eyes watching the glowing in the body as Aleksei's words were spoken.