Father Thiago had quite the reputation. Over the decades he had been called upon to perform exorcisms, and to heal the impoverished sick. Those that did not have the financial means for healers, potions from their local apothecary, their families became desperate for the wellbeing of their loved ones. These were the targets for gathering more followers, all at the cost for their devotion, tithe, and arrival for weekly mass.
Oftentimes those that were sick just needed medicines, herbs, a very simple form of healing. Father Thiago saw their lack of education to be the perfect type of people to seek the Gods, His Gods, and if he could perform convincingly enough, they would believe unwaveringly in him, and tithe away whatever they had left. It built him up in the community to be a trusted, highly demanded Priest, and some of the city looked to him for help when the local authority had a crime that went beyond their understanding.
A man of his word, and God, he would be elated to please the local officials, and to bill them as necessary. There were other Churches, other spiritual practices that did honestly help the community, but Father Thiago had imprinted himself very deeply, and very quickly over the years. Then, there is Father Thiago’s main interests. The Supernatural. Exorcisms are a good way for him to find potential specimens to collect. Evil spirits, Demon possessions, creatures that the Father had managed to spellbind and collect as one would trinkets, some form of a hobby. He then would experiment upon them, their magic, stripping them apart layer by layer until nothing is left and he would incinerate them in holy flame. A prayer later, and he had already forgotten the beast, leaving detailed findings in journals he stowed away beneath the floor of his chamber.
Years of harvesting the supernatural, he encountered so many evil beings. He believed deeply that he understood them all, the magic, their biology, even the spirits that manifested. He also knew how to destroy them. This knowledge could only make him more necessary to this city. The latest message from the precinct had potential. A wealthy man murdered in his own home, with magic that went beyond the simple minds of the officers. It seemed typical enough, until they mentioned old magic. Ancient. This could prove worthwhile, especially if he did come upon something new to pique his scientific interests. Gathering together a band of lower ranking Priests that would be forced to listen to his demands, Father Thiago rode out to the mansion, taking stock of his bag of trinkets.
The mansion is unremarkable to him, a basic littering of gaudy architecture filled with things he did not believe this Mister Roche even used, or read. Reaching the second floor to find the deep remaining stains of blood, where most everything else had been cleaned up by the maids. Father Thiago moved about, having remembered the details about the ink on the desk. It had been instructed by the authorities to not clean it up, since it held the residue of the magic used.
Approaching the ruined papers and dried up black ink, he gazes upon it skeptically. He reaches a bare hand to hover the stain, murmuring a few archaic words, and almost instantly his hand is struck by a force of dark residual energies. Scowling at it, he moves his hand to turn and see his flesh along his palm and fingers with the beginnings of a blistering rash. Disgust welled up into him, this is powerful magic after all. Rarely did spells, old and sitting for almost a week like this, have this lasting effect. Whatever this thing is wanted to linger here, perhaps haunt it, he presumed.
Unacceptable, “Lay down the runes of Karzcophe, we will be summoning this wretched entity.” Turning his demands to the other Priests, the group would begin to use blessed chalk, newborn animal blood, and their God’s symbol to create a summoning circle in the middle of the study. The ink is a good conduit, the creature seemed overly arrogant and made the mistake of letting their magic remain active here. Once the task had been finished, each Priest took point around the circle, standing just outside the markings. Standing inside of it would make them directly connect to the activity, and anything that came through. Father Thiago stands to the North of the circle, facing it, taking papers that were soaked in ink he tosses them into the circle as the final necessity to link to the creature.
“Our Lord Karzcophe, God of all that is True and Sacred, we call upon thee,” Father Thiago began, arms outstretched in praise, “We beseech thee to call forth this damnation that has defiled your people, so that we may purge Your world of its existence and bring ourselves closer to you!” The Priests began to pray in unison, following scripture that had been written many generations ago. Father Thiago begins to focus his arcane on the ink, blood, the chalk, divine magics beginning to wash through them, feeding it to create a blinding white pool in the summoning circle. The other Priests prayed from the bottom of their bellies, using all their abilities to aid in strengthening the Fathers' incantation.
Light fills the room, forcing their faces to raise to the Heavens, and not notice the fragments of bone shards gradually piercing through the edges of the circle. A dozen or so form into the markings, fading the magic at each punctured location. By the time Father Thiago felt the magic from himself buckling, it's far too late. The bone shards in one fluid motion rip through the light, and as all the bone shards meet in the center of the summoning spell, the light shatters and darkness erupts as a geyser of black fire.
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Abyssal flames spill along the ceiling, eroding into the walls, and rapidly spread downward to reach towards the Priests and envelope them into the flames. It is not the normal fire humans had learned to create from flint and stone, it is instead a plague of death that withers the men of their lives, essence, tearing the screams from their mouths. Their robes turn to wax and melt along their bodies, burning them as they deteriorate. Father Thiago is somehow untouched, forced to watch his brethren be overwhelmed in a blaze he felt all around him. Whites showed all around his aged brown eyes, his lungs beginning to burn with the stench of rotting flesh. He begins to cast his spell to counter the abyssal fire, a single hand raising in the air ready to throw into the fire a sphere of light.
“Liam Thiago…”
A voice calls to him in tones of sensual mockery, and from the black flames he witnesses the entity begin to form into a humanoid shape, its lower face remarkably similar to that of a young woman, while the body drips with a consistency of syrup in a inky robe without exposing hands nor feet. It knew him? Perhaps his fame had gone beyond the city, directly into the gates of damnation. Father Thiago does not wait, instead thrusting downward the sphere of holy and it instantly shatters into fragments that quickly dissolve uselessly. How? How is this thing able to negate his holy magic?
The entity advances upon him, reaching past the summoning barrier to grip him by the throat. He struggles against a hand as black as a starless night, its claws digging into his vertebrae. Choking, it leans close to him, lips like that of a whore in their supple design, and spreading further to show sharp carnivore teeth, “You were far more easy to find than this one had anticipated.” The voice from it is warm and inviting, speaking in third person, with that edge of taunting in its sensuality.
“It seems you cannot resist your own hubris.” A trap had been laid with the basic tools to interest him, unusual power and uncertainty of the thing it came from.
“Why?” Father Thiago manages to choke out from the creature's grip, one of his hands moving behind his back as he starts to conduct a stronger spell while it's distracted in conversation.
“Maria De León.” A name. Father Thiago rifles through the names he knew. It sounded familiar, but.. wait. Maria. A memory from a little less than a year ago, of a prostitute who worked in the red-light block of the city. He had come across her while traveling to a sick call, a beautiful red haired girl, with striking green eyes. Unable to rid her from his thoughts, even just from one look at her, he began to feel haunted by her. As a man of the cloth, this is unacceptable.
He had taken the time to ask around the red-light block about her, and learned that Maria is a pure blooded Succubus. It set the Priest on a mission, where he abducted Maria easily during her shift on that same corner, attempting to purify her, before dissecting her as he had done all the other supernatural beings. A dissection that did not go purely, as he did things with her he had not physically with the others. He perverted his own work, but felt he had been forgiven after he burned the remains. Familiarity is in his gaze and the creature then smiles wider, grotesquely stretching the skin of their face, “The Succubus,” Father Thiago disgustedly spits the words out, causing the creature's smile to fade.
“Maria, belonged to this one. Your City grants the inhumans to live among you safely. Your laws protect them, yet you found your own volatile addiction to mutilating and snuffing out their lives to be the higher authority.” It spoke eloquently, each word while thickly accented, is spoken in a way so that even an infant would understand.
The grip at his throat tightens, revoking him the ability to speak now as the thing leans closer, their lips barely a fraction of an inch from brushing together, “This one has come to cleanse you from this world, so that you may join the countless others waiting for you in the pits of true salvation.”
Father Thiago thrusts his hand forward with the spell completed, finding the magic and his hand lurching into the liquid mass of the creature's form. He grins triumphantly, waiting several moments to see the inevitable burst of power tear it apart. However, somewhere in the black flames all around them, he can hear a maid somewhere in the mansion scream an awful sound. The creature had transferred his spell, forced it in the maid where they would combust into holy light and burn out of existence.
The entity is amused by the maids death, hoisting the Father off his feet as the being reaches to his shoulder with its other hand, “God has forsaken you, Liam Thiago. And She will be your mercy.” Father Thiago had no ability to curse the being, he could only seize as it began to tear him apart, limb from limb, and ate him piece by piece. The creature did not allow him to bleed out, instead keeping his heart and brain functioning so he is forced to watch. He prayed in his mind as hard and intently as he could, but nothing took his pain away, he felt perhaps his suffering would grant him the Great Eternity. No, in the last moments of his mortal life his soul is stripped from the chunks of his remains, and forced into a storm of immortal suffering within this entity.
Bloodied hands lowered to the beings sides, and it turned to look at the remaining Priest who had dragged themselves to prop against a wall. The Priest chokes as it watches the entity stare at him, is it assessing him? Determining what to do with him? The thing steps back into the flames, melting into it, bringing the black fire to shrink and simmer out of existence. It had come and gone like a nightmare. Except this had been no dream.