Runes can be used in a multitude of ways, it can be used in enchanting by etching or carving the runes on an object and filling it with certain materials, drawn into a ritual circle or even traced in the air by hand using a mana infused fingertip.

-The basics of Magic

BOOM

Another lightning bolt ripped across the small, newly blooded battlefield, the rolling thunder echoing off the mausoleums ringing the hill, making her ears ring. She rolled under another swipe of the shadowy demons’ claws and backed away, quickly taking stock of how the rest of the battle was going.

She, Will and Am were keeping the big demon busy, hoping that killing the priestesses would banish it as none of their weapons seemed to have any discernible effect on it and magical attacks just seemed to fill it out a little more. It was now taller by about a foot or two, and sharper around the edges, as if it was becoming more real.

The rest of them were fighting the priestesses. Pip had manged to bury his axe in the back of one their heads near the start which had caused him to be struck by multiple bolts of purple lightning and he was now lying smoking in one of the far corners. Dwarves were rather tough, and Pip was from one of the hardier clans, so she hoped he was still alive. The priestesses had rallied and killed half of her city guards with some weird tentacle creature before it had been dried out by Vanya, and was now a pile of dust.

The priestesses had summoned some Hell Hounds now, and seemed to be conserving their strength to only defend against Vanya and maintain their shield against the archers, letting the pack of Demons whittle her sides numbers down. The other Demon, however, had vanished, which was slightly worrying, but she couldn't worry about that right now. She rolled again as the deceivingly long claw like fingers made another swipe at her. This creature was just not meant to be part of this realm. Its' entire being was a sort of copy of something. It looked like a child's drawing of a man, but in a shadow form. The long fingers were sharp as claws, as one of the archers had found when it had sliced him in two with a languid swing. It was also deceptively fast, looking as if it moved through water, but the limb moved faster than it appeared to, suddenly appearing in front of you even though you could have sworn it had just drawn it back to prepare for another swing.

She grit her teeth and hoped the priestesses were killed soon. The shadow suddenly moved. Reality rippled slightly as it dove at her. She watched in slow motion as it approached, the runes covering her armour reacted to her senses, and flared with a blue light as they activated, forming energy into a disk in the way of the claw. The claws slowed slightly as they reached the shield, but just kept on coming, seeming to absorb the energy and grow. The slight slowing allowed her to leap backwards, and it just grazed her arm, leaving a long burning gash on her forearm, the armour around it melted and sizzling.

Alyssa cursed in frustration, realising that the demon was just getting stronger over time, just waiting until it was strong enough to take them. She looked towards Am, hoping she had some idea of how to hurt it. Am had some small measure of true sight. Some contact and combat allowed her to figure out the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. Alyssa raised an eyebrow in her direction, backing away from the Demon. Am squinted towards the shadow creature and shuffled towards her, succinctly summing up the relevant points "It's protected against energy based attacks and physical attacks. Only way to kill it is holy light, and our light priest is out."

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Alyssa grunted in frustration, looking around trying to remember where Pip had fallen in the chaos of the battle.

A gruff voice interrupted her thoughts, "It'd take more than that to knock me out" Pip stepped up behind the Demon, raising his Sun blessed axe. We had managed to circle around the central fire, and Pip had risen from where he had fallen, smoke still rising from his armour and hair, his helmet lost somewhere in the darkness.

A harsh, bright light rose from his axe, emanating from the Sun god's sigil etched into the flat of the axe head. As the glow steadily got brighter, the shadow turned, screeching, trying to get away, but the light was relentless, slowly filling the hilltop with pure white light, slowly turning a warm yellow, as if the sun was rising on top of them. The shadow slowly seemed to fade getting quieter as it went, its body turning into thick, ropy strings, looking like a giant paint brush was slowly sweeping over it, brushing it out of existence.

As the demon slowly faded out of existence, Pip collapsed in exhaustion, Am catching him and laying him down gently. Alyssa turned towards the priestesses and the hellhounds. The priestesses had been whittled down to three, including the one that had been holding the statue, who she assumed to be in charge.

Alyssa strode over, casually dispatching one of the four remaining beast with a swipe of her sword through its neck as it strayed too close, growling at her. The hounds were huge, coming up to her elbow. Their skin was fashioned from rock, red hot magma dripping from their teeth and shining in between cracks in their skin and coal black eyes.

The priestesses looked exhausted after summoning so many demons on top of the backlash they must have sustained from their ritual breaking. Alyssa might have been impressed if she hadn't known that they drew their power from blood sacrifices. The remaining three beasts now circled around the huddle of priestesses looking drab in their red robes in the afterglow of the sun spell Pip had summoned.

Her remaining band gathered in a circle around them, a stab of guilt entering Alyssa's heart when she noticed there were only two archers, two melee units and the mage remaining from what she had recruited from the city guards. Now Will was free, a trio of arrows shot towards the hounds at once, killing two as it went through one of the holes that acted as an ear, missing one and taking the other in the eye.

The priestesses started whispering quickly, a low rumble of power rising from them. Another burst of arrows from Will were deflected by a magical gust of wind, which managed to avoid both Alyssa's and Vanya's attempts at dispelling the priestesses spells.

As the rest of the remaining archers started firing arrows, with Alyssa and Vanya trying to prevent the priestesses from working their magic, one of the priestesses suddenly stabbed herself in the heart, gurgling slightly as she fell. A massive burst of magic blasted out of the remaining two, the self-sacrifice to their dark god having provided them a last ditch burst of power. Alyssa blinked as the wind stared howling madly, a short snap of a door slamming before it was suddenly quiet. The priestesses were gone, having used the sacrifice to portal themselves out.

The living city guards looked around as if still expecting a fight but as they saw her more experienced team relax, sank down to the ground in shock or just stood, staring at their dead friends. As Alyssa also relaxed, she started getting her team cleaned up, her burning arm prompting her to pull out some bandages from the pack Pip had brought up with him and left on the side, distributing them before binding up her own until a Healer could take a look at it.

She froze. "Curses! Am! Where did the other Demon go?" She asked, knowing that she was the only one who had likely noticed. Am stopped, her face going blank, looking over her memories and picking out the information she needed. "It followed after the person that they were going to use as their sacrifice that ran down the hill." She instantly ran down the hill, Alyssa on her heels and Will and Sir Caleb on theirs.