The smoke was unusually heavy in this next part of the city. The fires still raged. I don't think they're going to stop. What the fuck did Jack *do* exactly?
Egil was soloing it now, but he wasn't worried. The path of trying to accommodate these different organizations was just a string of failures. The story was always the same: chase something big, an asshole shows up, and tears everything down. Politics gets in the way of everything, and he was terrible at them. Time to stop being the victim.
He looked around, and noticed a horse stable. Am I close to the edge of the city? He wasn't exactly sure where he was at the moment. Maybe I could ride out, summon some allies, similar to what Lindir did, to make his crew.
With the fae alarm sounded, the fires, etc. Egil imagined everyone should be pretty distracted.
Between Lindir's impressive show of force, and the feeling Egil had, channeling that energy... it was glorious... but he was always accused after. Granted, this time he fucked up. Still though...
He wondered about the first summoners. They were all effectively mages and druids before the demon wars. They had the cross section of skills that their descendants seemed to relish in shunning. This type of willful, institutionally enforced ignorance was irritating, and right now, feels like an insurmountable challenge to operate in.
Maybe its time to take the chains off. Explore the unexplored. Its not like I'll personally go completely off the rails. Yeah, there will be mistakes along the way. There needs to be a better way, than to always be expected to fight for even basic existence. I need to lay low and marshal my resources.
He tried to fill in what would happen while he was doing this...
He imagined Jack's demons showed up to finish Egil off. Saw the blood stain, but no body. Then Lindir and Anya showed up (hopefully) saw Jack's demons and blood stain. No body. They must have hid it.
Thus starts the schism within the guild. Jack lost his physical pariah, who 'died' too early to be anything other than a 'victim.' Anya and Lindir exploit this, and continue investigating the fires.
Will they actually burn themselves out?
The problem is Jack won't be able to play off Egil's desperation.
Egil has seen this play waaaayyyy too many times. He can't be known to have survived, until at least after another prevailing theory about the fires takes hold.
He walked up to the stable door. Should be easy pickings.
Even then, there's also the issue with the church being hyper pissed at the guild about the angel summoning. Wait... are the fires meant to be a distraction from that?
But why did Jack summon an angel instead of a demon? Yeah, they're more powerful, but completely uncooperative.
At the very least, demons enjoy the thrill of causing change. But... Jack doesn't want change. He's an institutional guy... aggressively so.
Egil swung the door open, and was immediately enveloped in the noxious embrace of a miasma of putrefaction and smoke. He stumbled backwards. The smell seemed to hang in the back of his throat. His diaphragm contracted, escalating into a dry heave, followed by coughing.
He looked at the empty void of the doorway. ...what in the hell was in there? Did they die of smoke inhalation?
The city really was going to shit, fast. He looked around, no lights aside from the moon in every direction. Continuing on foot still, wasnt really a good option.
Ok. Time to do things differently. Lindir, I credit you with this one. No more clockworks as the main force. Time to diversify.
Egil clapped his hands together, closing his eyes. For the next trick... he slowly pulled his pulling his palms apart from each other. This channeling method was meant to be symbolic of a vacuum. With the right intent... this time a black spark erupted: energy siphoned from the entropic layer.
Shadow pooled onto the space. A simple, amorphous, cloud-like search demon. It was humanoid in only the vaguest sense. A variation of an imp. Shadow given form. It was, thankfully, incapable of smell.
He channeled his intent into the stable. Imps were naturally curious little buggers, so it was just a matter of pointing them in the direction of a mystery.
It danced, flashed, and morphed over towards the stable, periodically bouncing between the forms of ink in water and that of an imp.
Egil tapped into his link with the new companion. Even though he was now seeing what the floating imp saw, the rule "perception is reality" applied here. The image was more-or-less the imp's interpretation of its surroundings first, followed by the summoner making sense of that. This wasn't present in the clockworks, who lacked any personality, and presented all information without any tainting.
Upon seeing its first horse corpse, the imp expressed shock and dismay. Demons thrived on entropy and chaos. What was more chaotic than life? They didnt usually have problems dispatching other beings, but they didnt stick around once 'the party was over.' Seeing an area settled into slow, stagnant, processes of decomposition tended to unnerve them.
The summoner felt the imp's overwhelming desire to enact change, and he silently reassured it over the link, change would happen here.
The stable had four corpses in it. One of which was human... interesting. The imp's intent matched that of the summoner's, and proceeded towards the human body.
Nah, nah, nah. He switched his intent to disinterest. Its super unfortunate, but this will need to be left to the authorities to sort through. Egil, himself, could very well be a fugitive after tonight. Let's not deviate from the plan.
The imp examined each of the horses. All intact.
The imp flashed the image of a reanimated horse in the summoner's third eye. The prospect of riding a corpse made him cringe. No.
He mentally flashed the image of biomechanical growing throughout the horse, with its flesh replace with polished bone plates from the other corpses. Something that wouldn't rot.
The imp signaled its disagreement, showing the moon flashing into the sun and back, three times. Then it flashed an image of it yanking on the horse's leg without actually moving it. The horse wouldn't actually have a personality? Oh yeah, its the clockwork scenario all over again.
He wondered about any potentially good alternatives, when suddenly the imp interrupted him with an image of it bathing one of the horses in shadow. Then an image of the summoner riding the horse. The horse flickered periodically.
The summoner expressed more curiosity. The imp flashed another image of a soldier running up to the horse with a spear. He stabbed into the beast. Instead of suffering a mortal wound, it collapsed into the form of black fabric caught in the wind. It enveloped the weapon, rapidly flapping over it, until reaching the weapon's owner.
Enveloped, the soldier fell to the ground. Wow! The summoner smiled at the image. This horse was capable! Another soldier appeared in the image, frantically tossing away his sword, and drawing a bow.
The fabric flickered out of existence, then back, in full horse form, on top of him, crushing him instantly. The first soldier was still alive. He scrambled to his feet, and the horse turned to him, lowering its head in an apparent ramming stance. Instead of rushing forward though, its head seemed to morph into a black spike, impaling its adversary through the chest.
The display didnt stop there. The horse's entire form fed this 'spear,' like sand of an hour glass, and reformed its shape at the other end of the 'spear.' As if to seal the sales pitch, the horse then kicked its back legs into the soldier, causing him to tip over so hard he bounce on the ground.
"Sold!" The summoner expressed enthusiastically. This would definitely be able to handle larger ambushes.
The imp expressed the name for its species: a 'phase walker.' Its primary motivations could be best be described as independence of form. So in other words, in order to keep its interest in this world, its needs to be able to leave its horse form daily, and move, free of restrictions. When traveling, its sufficient to let it assume whatever form it desires, while still heading in the summoner's desired direction.
The imp expressed agreement. It also stated the creature cant reside in the same location two days in a row.
Egil tried simplifying this list of rules into a guideline: its a creature of chaos. Dont let its surroundings bore it.
The imp agreed again.
"Go for it!" He expressed.
The imp's floating high above one of the horses, higher than the roof in reality could possibly allow. Then it dropped fast and hard at the horse's eye.
The summoner could feel the imp's identity displace across the horse, and into the shadow layer, making 'a call to action.' There was an answer. The imp shared the awareness of this new creature with the summoner; creating another link.
He could feel the corpse of the horse melt away, giving form to this new 'phase walker.'
He sensed joy from the imp. It wanted to change its surroundings, and succeeded. There was now life where there had been originally stagnant death.
The imp rode the new horse out of the stable victoriously. Its figure was miniscule, compared to the side of the phase walker's back.
Its frame was solid black, its eyes a lively white.
The imp raised its tiny hand, expressing the desire for a high five. The summoner smiled, making contact with the imp's miniscule hand, with his palm. Following that, the imp transitioned itself to Egil's shoulder; expressing a desire to stick around.
So far, so good...
The man rested his hand on the side of the phase walker's face, who snorted in response. Maybe this won't be so bad.
"Let's get out of here."