Daye (complete)

The Revenant

    NOW, the companions stood together, in front of the monstrous beast of darkness. It had the body of a dog, but the head, tail and wings of a dragon. Its maw was viciously wide, sporting teeth each a meter long.

Tendrils of pure shadows leaked from its body, pouring on the ground, and weaving their way towards them, everything they touched dissolving and hissing with steam.

"Seems easy enough," Orlan blanched, drawing the effervescent Flavus from its sheath at his side.

"We've gone through worse," Decide muttered through her teeth.

"We- we have?" Luca whimpered.

"It's just another creature of the darke," Arren grunted. "They can be killed, as you just saw. What makes this revenant monstrosity any different from that ghastly priestess?"

"Thank you, very inspirational," Petrouli sighed.

The monster then let out a guttural roar and charged the companions, plowing through the tall buildings of the city to reach them. But the exhausted group was able to move in time- darting down a small alleyway to the right, where they escaped into another street and hid under the crumbling awning of an abandoned shop.

"So what're we gonna do?" Petrouli asked frantically.

"If we can all manage to evade its attacks for long enough, I can raise a small barrier around it. It'll keep it contained for the most part." Arren offered, his red eyes glinting with confidence.

"For the most part?" Decide raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not even going to attempt to stop those tendrils," Arren grumbled back at her. "They'd drain me in a second. I'll leave the barrier permeable- so only we and that creature's magick can pass through."

"Fair enough," Decide shrugged.

"I can probably predict most of its movements- if I have the right spices," Petrouli added. "But I'll only be able to do it mere seconds before it actually happens. I don't know if that'll give you enough time..."

"That's fine, that's fine," Arren huffed. "What spices do you need? We'll find them."

The young prophet began to count off his fingers, as the sounds of destruction grew ever closer. "I'll need cinnamon, cloves, oregano, and maybe some thyme... but if you can't find any that's fine..."

His older companions rushed into the store, rummaging quickly through the shelves of flour and grains, until they managed to scrounge up a measly pot of cinnamon and a tin of cloves. They dumped the spices into his shaking hands and he drew a circle around himself, an unbroken circle of the strong-smelling powder, patterning the cobblestone ground with runes made from cloves. A flick of Arren's fingers and the spices ignited, sending waves of flavour spiralling into the air. Petrouli stood inside the circle, protected by his strong-smelling runes, and he breathed in the pungent mixture, his mind clearing and magick tingling at his fingertips.

"Go on, guys," he called out. "I'll be fine here."

"How'll we hear you though?" Luca wondered.

"Uhh... in your heads?" Petrouli guessed. "I haven't uh... done this before. We'll see what happens."

"Awesome," Decide commented, grabbing the companions as the revenant monster crashed towards them, their location given away by the perfumes of Petrouli's fire.

They sped away from the young boy, dodging falling debris and bricks raining from the sky. The once-pure blue was clouded with ash and smoke, the product of the many fires that had sprouted up around the city due to the monster's rampaging.