"To Hells with you!" Amadeo points a finger, a beam of black energy coalescing at his fingertip and shooting forth. Dane ducks under it and keeps charging, bringing the blade of his greatsword down across Amadeo's chest as it glows with an ethereal energy, though Hope uses the dagger to parry the strike somewhat. The wizard cries out as his wound bleeds heavily.

Tyrion aims carefully, eyeing their opponent before letting loose another bolt that hits the bronze armor and bounces off, Dane again resisting the pushing effect. "You're next, halfling."

Hope leaps forward, driving the dagger to Dane's neck. He swings his sword to block the blow and shakes his head. "You might have had a chance if you'd just kept running."

"I'm done running from you!" Her eyes flare with her devilish blood.

"I never said it was me you're running from." Dane steps back, preparing for another strike as Anna quakes in her shoes. Pushing through the fear, she reaches out a hand, healing energy releasing from her fingers to Amadeo. But the wound goes untouched.

"It's not working!" She shouts, the crushing dread weighing more heavily than before. "W-what did you do?!"

Dane holds up his sword, the curved hook gleaming with Amadeo's blood. "This blade lets me take away my victim's ability to heal, if only for a moment. But a moment's all you need."

Amadeo grasps his chest, clutching a strip of cured leather from his component pouch and running it over his face. That familiar ethereal armor shapes itself over his form along with the blue glow as he attempts to back up out of Dane's reach, but the giant is having none of that. The greatsword swings again, carving another slice out of the wizard as the glow leaves him. He winces from the pain and continues moving away to maintain distance before stopping further back.

Dane turns to Hope. "You really should look after your companions better, little one. Wouldn't want them to end up like...What was his name? The orc who thought himself a martyr." That sword moves toward her at speed and she dodges aside, the force of the would-be blow colliding with the cobblestone and cracking it.

Hope glares daggers at him as Tyrion rushes behind Anna and aims again. "Ignore him, Red! He's just trying to get under your skin!" The bolt flies, Dane blocking it effortlessly with his sword as Hope stabs with her dagger. He parries it as well and grabs her arm, holding it by the wrist and using the weight of his sword to pin the arm in place. "Stop your useless struggling and submit."

She jerks her arm away and spits at him. "You're gonna burn, do you hear me!?"

Anna does not move, instead reaching a hand out, first to Amadeo to send him healing energy again. This time, the energy flows through his wounds to help close them. Her other hand extends to Dane. A glow erupts around him, his form covered in bright green lights. "Take him out!" She calls out, moving behind a cart and crouching down, her heart about to beat out of her chest from the strangling fear.

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From his position further away, Amadeo shoots another ray, the black energy this time colliding with Dane's form. The veins in his neck pulse and turn black as he groans from the pain brought upon him. "Hope, you've got to get out of there! He's too dangerous!"

"That's why I have to hold him off before he can get to anyone else!" Hope readies herself as Dane scoffs, his blade glowing with a violet light as he strikes upward at her, slicing a jagged cut through her chest. The wound, much like Amadeo's, bleeds heavily. And as her eyes meet Dane's, she sees him as she once did; the giant towering over her tiny form. The dagger drops from her grip and she cries out, burying her face in her hands. The world seems to fade, replaced by visions of Loheim burning, the giant and the lich looking on in passive silence at the devastation, Mr. Logroth's body collapsed on the ground. Her heart pounds in her ears as she cries, filled with a fear she has not felt since childhood.

"Hope, get up!" Tyrion backs around an overturned stall and peaks out to fire again, the bolt catching on the armor and poking a small hole where previous bolts struck near the chest. Hope does not move.

"Come on! Get up, Hope!" Anna slings a rainbow colored force, but it misses Dane by inches. "You'll have to do better than that, elf."

"...e." A voice, quiet as the grave, echoes around Hope. "...ope." Louder now it calls as the villge dissolves around her. She turns, the visions fading as a light begins to fill the world in her mind. A hand reaches out from the light, ethereal in form but blazing with an energy she can't identify. The voice is unfamiliar, yet comforting. She reaches for the hand as the voice becomes clear. "Rise, my champion!"

Her eyes burn from the tears as Dane stands over her. "Hope!" Another voice, this one more familiar. She looks in the direction of the person calling her name, seeing Kiriel standing several feet away. "Catch!" They call, tossing a thick bundle with a hilt sticking out. Instinctively, she reaches for the new weapon, gripping the hilt and swinging. The bundle unravels to reveal the shimmering steel of Valkyrie, which collides with Dane despite his attempt to block it, cutting deeply into his armor and leaving a bleeding gash across his chest.

His eyes fall on the holy weapon, one eyebrow raising even as he presses a hand to the wound. "Well now. This is interesting."

Amadeo grabs a small pepper from his pouch and holds it tight, his eyes shimmering as he steps in front of Hope. His mouth opens and out spews a blast of flame that hits Dane in an outward cone.

The giant backs up at the initial blast and chuckles. "Very well...I bid you farewell, little champion and companions. Perhaps the next time we meet, I'll find you all tougher opponents." The world goes dark around them and they hear a screech. Moving out of the hemisphere of darkness, Hope watches as the griffon lands by its master, who mounts up before they take off into the sky, flying away south and west.

Amadeo, who has up till now stayed defiant, finally collapses to his knees. "Gods, that hurts." Hope drops Valkyrie and clings to him, arms holding the frail man tightly to her muscular frame. "Is-Is everyone alright?"

"I'm fine!" Anna shouts from the cart, peeking her head out cautiously.

Tyrion just nods his head, falling onto his butt and sighing. "Gods, that was intense."

A pulse reverberates out from the devilkin, soothing Amadeo's ache before he looks down. "Uhh...Hope?"

She sits up, looking down at his chest. Where blood had been, now there is only the remnants of a fast healing scar. "What? What just happened?"

"I believe, Miss Hope, that what you're seeing are the effects of a paladin's divinely graced touch." Kiriel steps up with a gentle smile. "You, my dear, have taken the first steps into a whole new world."