Church of the Three - North Jaga City. Troug, 3rd.

The church had fully mobilized for the upcoming ritual. Spread across the chamber guards and clergy both stood in small groups, only those essential for a skeleton crew serving the city were absent. Darius had insisted that most involved would have no energy remaining for the care of the citizenry afterward.

Most of the people there had heard or been told directly that they would be supporting a ritual to cleanse and purify a curse victim. While this was true, most thought that with the full retinue of varying skills and strength at their disposal that the subject would be some high ranking noble or at least a Master class citizen. None had expected to see the limp and ashen grey form of a small elven child.

The conversations all dwindled as Darius finished the last of his invocations. He had summoned elemental guardians to guard the primal cardinal directions. Though most present had known that this was a practice used in large rituals, none had borne witness to such preparations before. The more studied of the priests were speculating while taking mental notes of the runic configuration that had been set up, while others were merely taking in the sight of these rarely seen forces of nature.

In the east corner was a large earthen golem, otherwise known as a korred. They were normally quite small, but these elementals were all bolstered by growth magic that had been woven into their summoning. They had the legs of a goat with the stocky torso and muscled arms of a dwarf, their heads were more squared than circular, the edges softened a bit. The ears were long and curved, sticking straight back from under their massive mane of hair. The rest of their bodies were also covered in patches of hair, thickest in parts that were commonly more vital while the extremities such as arms, legs, and fingers had the barest covering.

In the southern corner lay a heap of fiery muscle. The salamander that had been summoned was ten feet in length. Its long body supported by thick red-black legs and lined with intense blue flames. The tail was in a constant state of shifting between motion and stillness, with each renewal of motion causing the fires to dance across its body. The head was flattened as was common with its more mundane cousins, with a wide line of orange for a mouth and large orbs of molten glass for eyes. Instead of the fine skin of the river salamander this one possessed skin more akin to a cobbled path with plates of heated stone running the length of its form.

In the alcove at the west side of the room was the ever-shifting form of a greater Undine. Its feminine body constantly shifting in various shades of blue, green, and white. It was seven feet in height and had features that were, while never static, always welcoming in their benign gaze. All features of the creature were obfuscated by the eternal mist covering various parts of its body, the streams of water flowing visibly under her stilled lake skin.

The corner to the north, where Darius had just finished this last summon, was now occupied by a whirling dervish. Though just now taking form from the offering of elemental air provided it was quite imposing. The scent of desert ozone was wafting on a breeze unfelt while static discharges were shooting across its ephemeral form. Though they possessed the least corporeal form on this plane their damage output when fully utilized could strike fear into most every mortal. Small flecks of blue, brown, yellow, and purple shifting in its every turning body. As it was a clouded culmination of the very air it was never quite in one place or even easily visible in the flickering light of the torches in the chamber.

“Ladies and gentlemen, servants of the Three, and assistants thereto; I have called you all here to aid me in this time of cleansing. We have with us a child, struck down by an enemy of the church. She needs our aid, and we shall provide that aid.” Darius spoke with raised hands while speaking to bring the attention of the assemblage upon him. “Apathy thinks to crush us all under the weight of her namesake. She thinks to stymie us in a sense of mired mental futility. We will not falter in our work as we know that such is the way of life. There is surely a great burden placed upon us as in life, but we are, each of us, blessed with happiness and joy equal to the woes we suffer. I say this not to drone on and on about what we all know, or to harp on such things that we may see already in our daily task. I speak of this to remind you, and to bring into the clarity of light the force we fight.”

Donovan turned slowly, sweeping his gaze across the room, his eyes holding the eyes of everyone for the briefest moment as if measuring their faith. None but one looked away, and Darius internally sighed. There would be no stopping some.

Darius continued, “The ritual will not be a long one, though we shall all feel its drain. I shall bear the greatest burden and feel the need to set to ease my compatriot, Donovan. This temple is his domain as a representative of the Three here in your city. I have asked that he refrain from actively participating with a select few of his aides to assist us in our recovery. I ask that you all take your places; if you have doubt of where you need stand step back and offer what prayers you feel come to mind. None shall be judged as inferior for a small conflict of faith.”

With those words Donovan and his small group of aides watched the priest and priestesses wander about near-aimlessly as at first, they seemed lost. Moments later the air shifted, and people began walking to specific spots in the room. Not one headed for a section of space occupied by another or indicated by any other to be a destination. They seemed to be guided by some inner force.

Donovan looked out upon the room from his elevated section near the entrance to the chamber flanked by large braziers of burning incense and saw that the people had all taken up spots bridging gaps between the various runes and sigaldry, not one was out of place. There was a palpable weight in the air, a weight of anticipation, as if a dam were filling to bursting.

“We begin.” Came the strong voice of Donovan at the foot of the table where the girl, Olea Munroe, as Darius had named her, was lying prone. He took out a small knife and cut along the flesh between his palm and his thumb before extending his arms to the side.

Blood flowed freely from the wounds, collecting in small troughs long ago carved into the floor. As the blood flowed from his hands and into the channels below the magic of the room swelled. A small gasp escaped the throats of everyone present sounding as if a great gust had blown across the plains, with so many peoples breathing being in tune.

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Lights shots across the chamber, ignited the patterns drawn earlier. The elementals each began to sound out somber tunes that quickly formed a melody, a song, a symphony. The volume rose slowly, dipping up and down. It was the song of the world; flowing streams, crackling fires, the ever-present wind rustling as it moved across the earthen body of their world.

Donovan was in awe, frozen in place as he beheld the sight. Soon after the glowing runes had become less prominent in his vision, he saw streamers of energy shooting from the chests of his collective clergy, beams of varying colors across the spectrum shot forth as if a rainbow had burst into being and was now being inhaled by a great maw of churning darkness.

A cloud of viscous red, orange, black, and yellow was rising from their patient attempting to fight back against the flow of energy pouring forth from his brothers and sisters. Donovan could not believe the curse had possessed such power before this moment. It fought like a living creature of hate, choking various flows and fully repulsing others.

From under the cloud Donovan could see Darius speaking rapidly, eyes closed as if in prayer. A small circle of golden light boomed from his core bursting outward to temporarily weaken the miasmic core of the foul entity. The effects of Sanctuary were not lost on Donovan as he had been aiming for the same spell these last few months. It should effectively reduce damage from all sources upon his target for the length of this trial.

Darius continued intoning some words that were fully lost to Donovan as the assemblage had all begun offering their own voices to the maelstrom of activity in the chamber. The elementals for their part had continued their own songs, adding to the strength of their magic.

Donovan could still see the cloud at the center of the room, but now he also noted that the child’s body had begun to glow. She had been the target of Darius’ spells and was now showing some small signs of recovery. Hope welled inside of him at this only to be slightly tempered by the presence of new blood, the girl had begun to bleed from several cuts and slices that had begun to appear on her body. The tanned robe she had been garbed in turning a violent shade of crimson even as the white glow turned and shifted. New colors joined the flow of her aura, greens, reds, blues, and even the bright golden glow of the divine.

Donovan heard his aides mutter as they had surely seen what he had if only a moment later. Just what was this girl, to have been so heavily inundated with the divine energy of the gods? Donovan knew then that Darius had not understated the importance of the ritual, nor had he misplaced the blame for the curse. To think that Apathy herself had cursed this child, what did that mean for the girl, the church, nay; what would this mean for their world? Donovan made a mental note to have a more serious discussion with Darius once he had recovered from this ritual.

As Olea’s blood dripped to the floor and started to pool beneath the platform it took on a nature of its own. The blood seemed to explode outward across the floor, as if a rock had been dropped from on high into a still lake only to cause a violent shower of water and then a cascade of ripples to spread; it was like this as her blood exploded outward in a riot of colored energies that rippled in waves among the collected peoples.

It was at this time that several of the participants sagged to the floor, some gradually and some in sudden losses of consciousness. With the various augmenting spells cast upon his person by those very same that were assembled, Donovan knew the fire of life still burned within them. No doubt they were suffering through the effects of their mana and stamina both reaching zero simultaneously. Darius had said this would happen to nearly everyone, thus the absence of a select few in the ritual.

A heartbeat later the ripple strengthened, and the wave hit the elemental guardians, their forms seemed to strengthen with this change. The fires of the salamander turning a blue-white, while the Undine’s color deepened to the color of a bottomless sea, the korred seemed to increase in both density and influence somehow, and the dervish seemed to increase in the power of its electrical discharges. In unison their song changed, picking up the hints of a storm rapidly swelling on the horizon.

At the center of the room the cloud had finally begun to shrink, even as the flows dropped in number the ability to counter them had almost died from the invasive curse. Olea’s own aura had begun to fight back as a beam of multicolored light was blossoming from her bare chest, most of the robe long ago having been erased by the foul taint of a self-loathing god.

The pillar that had taken shape above her was that of a multifaceted form commonly seen among the very same that supported the roofs of various religious temples. Lavish filigree and runes of shifting shapes and sizes were flowing across its surface, taking on many colors of the visible and invisible spectrums. Donovan had no doubt he would have seen nothing at all without the aid of his detection magic. It grew and grew, its colors changing ever faster as her body became paler with the lack of blood keeping it functioning.

Donovan had felt that stirring of hope before but now he was not so sure, the loss of blood suffered by the girl could kill her if they did not succeed soon, yet even as the thought crossed his mind, he saw a bright golden beam shoot from Darius into the unconscious girl before him. Darius recognized the spell as the seldom used Death’s Door. His heart soared at seeing it being used as it would guarantee her life if not the full expulsion of the taint.

The rioting colors and the ever-present war of song spoke to the determination of those still standing as the cloud exploded. The colors of malignance that had been present were fully eviscerated, leaving nothing at the core and soon that small amount that had been acting as its armor, now deprived of its internal fuel, fell from the realm of existence. The Ritual was finished.

Donovan descended the two stairs from the small platform at the room’s entrance and quickly made his way to the child even as he saw Darius fall. From his pouch he removed a scroll given to him by Darius at the start; a scroll of Greater Heal. He recited the scroll over the still bleeding form of the girl and watched as it turned to ash in his hands before flowing away on an unfelt breeze. They were successful.

The girl did not wake even as her color returned and her breathing came more regularly, though it lacked the strength and vigor of the true recovery. With the use of the spell to bring her health back from the level of certain death, she would no doubt have zero reserves of mana and stamina that were needed to fuel her body, and without at least some of either resource regaining consciousness again would take some time.

“Eric, take this child to the recovery room so that she may rest.” Donovan said as he turned to his brother Darius, the gulf between them in both dedication and resolve seemed ever wider on having seen the lengths to which he would go to save another soul. “Make sure she is not disturbed until she awakens naturally. Fetch me as soon as that occurs, regardless of time.” That last came out as more Command than actual statement as he saw his mana dip, but he knew the passive did nothing to influence his aide as it lacked the full force of will and Charisma the skill required.

“At once, sir.” With that Eric stepped forward flanked by two priestesses as they wrapped her body in soft cloth to take her for cleaning before they placed her in a bed to rest.