Chapter 1-3: Warlocks (1/2)

Okay, Prestidigitation wove me up a suit of magecraft simple clothes, which would last until Renewal, basically a plain set of undergarments, t-shirt, and thigh-length shorts, taking four separate castings. It at least made them black...

I looked around, and saw a pile of stuff over to the side, walked over carefully on the cement floor.

A pair of flats that looked exactly my shoe size, and a stylish woman’s purse.

I put the slipper-like shoes on, and yes, they did indeed fit perfectly. I picked up the purse, and slung it across my chest, as I couldn’t have it dragging at my side right now.

Okay, here I was, the 1/1 glass cannon, ready to take on the world... ability damage and everything.

I padded over towards the door as quietly as I could while tottering and trying not to feel as if my guts were going to rip open, and heard somebody hustling this way.

I flicked up an Elemental Dart, once again noticing how different and much more smoothly the magic felt now. I picked lightning damage randomly, as a guy burst into the room, looking at the table, and seemed surprised to find there was nobody on it.

He also had black eyes with purple irises.

I drove the crackling, vivic-encircled, human blood-red BanefiredDart into the side of his head without hesitation.

He went tumbling over to the side, twitching and convulsing, his skin ripping open and vivic energy gnawing at the edges of his Sinbound Pact. He clawed for the gun at his side, managing to half-draw it as he tried to scream... and the second Dart followed the first one into his cranium, and down he went.

He seemed to be in a hurry...

“

” someone called nervously from down the hall. I had no idea what he was saying...

Pistol. Sneakers. Jeans with tight seams. A leather jacket and belt. T-shirt underneath.

I waved at him once, twice, thrice, four times, and his clothes leapt off him and off to the side. It was okay, because he was already starting to disintegrate.

Purple-black flames burned through his skin from the Runes of the Pact within him. I could see his spirit held inside them as the lines started to congeal into claws. He was looking at me in hate and rising panic, and started to writhe and silently scream, struggling against the spectral claws that were dragging him Down, Down, Down...

His body was burning away to a smear of ash and slime, along with the remainder of his other clothes. I watched him writhe and struggle as his Pact dragged him away through the floor, and he was gone.

“

” the guy at the end of the hallway outside called out.

I spent full power, summoned a full flight of four Shards, and swung out into the dark hall.

The Hell. My Shards look like this?...

These sort of looked like obsidian teardrops, surrounded by silvery light and a faint nimbus of the proper hues. Shards were supposed to display in a predictable ROYGBIV color scheme...

Whatever...

The hallway was totally dark, but the guy down there had Devilsight from his Pact, and I had Darkvision. He met my eyes, his jaw dropped in shock, and I let the Shards go.

Pure force damage, four streaks of silver slamming into him for 7d6+18 damage or so. He didn’t have a chance before the Shards tore into him and ruptured everything inside his chest cavity.

I turned around and looked the other way, at the end of the hall, and was pretty sure I saw something moving down there.

Wonderful... When it raineth, it fuckingith pours...

I tottered my way down the hallway, the dead guy’s clothes adjusting to fit me as I moved, including the sneakers. His wallet I dumped into the purse, and I’d scooped up the rings, bracelet, and golden necklace and earring he’d been wearing automatically when they were left behind after he was dead.

I followed suit with this dead guy, his wallet and precious metals. He had a silver belt buckle, of all things, and didn’t seem too happy to see me looting him as his spirit screamed and writhed and was taken Down.

I looked back, and there were definitely lurching forms in the hallway down there. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my Renewal was looming in front of me...

Wonderful, wonderful. The shadows meant more than half a dozen, and I could not risk being caught in a room, given the shape I was in. If there were a bunch of them...

I gingerly made my way down the hallway at the bend he was standing in, hearing a... motor? It had been another person’s years since I’d heard such a thing...

There was an open door there, looked like a real old design of a fire door; wow, so classical here, and I moved towards it, pulling up four more Shards with a grim expression on my face.

I stepped out into the doorway, and took in everything at a glance.