I heard some nervous shuffling at that, and urgent whispers I ignored as I continued.
“You see that white flame that is devouring your companion there? That’s vivic flame, some nasty stuff, the unnatural energy of the Prime Plane. The undead are going to find this out in the morning, but the ones who died found it out already... because they aren’t coming back.” I paused for that little note of dreadful hope to sink in.
“Vivic energy eats energies of other realms and feeds them to the Land. It particularly loves the energies of the outer planes and the negative energies of the undead.
“Now, what you doomed sots are, is conduits right to the heart of the energies of the Outer Planes. You, my fine, fine Sinbound friends, are potential furnaces of vivic energy. Lots and lots of lots of vivic energy...
“That much energy is worth a lot of money. It’s worth influence, and it’s worth not shooting you in the head on general principle.
“Also, if you use that energy for Good purposes, you know, the kind you aren’t supposed to be able to do, you are cuckolding the Glooms hard and deep.
“Think about it, my purple-eyed cuckolds. Think about how much power you could put out every day, if that’s all you did, and if it all got converted into useful energy for the Land...
“You could make grand magic items. You could make farms bloom and feed tens of thousands. You could chase away Corruption and Taint, turn the world green, and even worry away at the edges of the Haze in the sky.
“And if you do this with a clear heart towards doing Good, you know what the Powers behind your Pact are going to do?”
I let that trail off, as the killers up there did the math.
“That’s right, they are going to give up on your Pacts, and you are going to be free.” And my voice dropped lower... “And when the Shroud breaks, and you are still alive, and you have been doing that for who knows how long, and wasted so much of their time and power, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they cut your Pact off immediately, and your soul goes free.
“TRUTH!”
This time there was no cursing. There was gunfire, and motion.
There was an outraged shriek, and the hissing and burning of powerful magic as the daemon and the Priests there were caught in shocked surprise by the guns of their Sinbound turning upon them.
Into this fun situation came a sudden Light.
The Mick walked out from behind a curtain, coming in from crimson-misted gaseous form, trailing rivulets of blood from the abruptly-deceased guards back there in the air. His white outfit blazed with Eternal Light at IV, lighting the whole dais up, revealing the pale-faced Priests in their robes of black, the Sinbound who had now taken up position behind pews to shoot at them as they scrambled for cover at the edges of the dais, altar, or pulpit, and the blob of shadowy darkness clutching onto a halvyr child in rags atop that altar, sending out raging blasts of shadows towards the revolting Sinbound.
The Mick chopped one of the Priests right in two, crosscut up from left hip to right shoulder, blood spraying in the air, the tactical armor under his robes notwithstanding. With one gesture of a white-gloved hand, the crimson spray swirled and became a deluge, catching up two more of the Priests in a river of blood that swallowed them and their screams, and sent bare, spotless white bones to the floor in a spray of scarlet.
“A Blooded!” the daemon swore, a multi-jawed head with at least four eyes partly separating to glare at The Mick as he strode closer. The surviving two Clerics and their disciples started to aim at The Mick, and suddenly a torrent of bright white fire pounded the length of the room, and sent them all up against the walls hard.
“A gift for ye,” The Mick smiled, as the blood of the dead, starting to burn with vivus, shot up like serpents to his hand, and he tossed it idly at the mass of shadows.
The shabnodaemon was no fool. The purpled blasts of the guns of the Sinbound could do nothing to it, but that vivic fire, carried by the blood of the dying, was going to eat it alive. It swirled off the altar with deceptive speed-
I poked precisely, a combination of sleight of hand, Concentration, and True Seeking for the perfect move at the perfect moment, and little Collin popped right out of its amorphous embrace as the daemon slid past my previously-invisible self, delivering him right into my hands.
Pocket, picked. Not so different from the dexterity exercises for Casting, really.
Despite itself, the shabnodaemon froze for a moment in utter shock that I was right there, that it had lost the baby to Sleight of Hand, of all things... and there was a score of glittering jetsilver tears circling around my forehead, which all seemed to swivel and condense towards it.
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A Crown of Stars normally allowed me to shoot only three Shards at a time with full attention, or one shot casually. But Spellwarping, well, that took the whole spell all at once, and turned it into a Shardray.
It had Spell Resistance much like the anotxgin had, in the 25 to 28 range.
I was coming down on it able to beat a 30+. And yeah, this time the Holy Metas applied to the base spell.
Twenty-two d8's, +50%, Consecrated for max dmg of 264, + 154 at +7/die, +10d6 of Kickers, slammed right into that shadowy blob, and tore it apart like the stars claiming the night. A weird tripartite mask-like face clattered to the ground as drifting stars fell down atop it, and the black, bloodstained stone began to turn white.
There was a clatter of five guns hitting the floor, and four men and a woman came out from cover and knelt down, their hands behind their heads, without a word being spoken.
The thirteen Shards burning with all sorts of nasty death and circling in front of me didn’t need me to speak, after all.
“Stand up, and pick up your guns,” I told them. Their black and purple eyes stared at me, The Mick stepped up, and they picked up their guns carefully, holstered them, and stood back up.
The rest of the team was walking in now, shining Lights over everything that dispelled the gloom in here, while the Wall of flames from Heaven snuffed out, not even leaving any superheated air behind.
“You’re absolutely no good to us either dead, or defenseless,” I went on calmly. “Master Fred, take their pictures. Don’t smile, we need this to be clean and clear.”
All their heads turned, and fixed on the man with the Hellscars walking up, his eyes also black, meeting theirs without fear, and I watched their breaths quicken.
Every footstep he was taking, the stone was turning white, like a trail of purity being left behind him.
“I want you to loot this place to the ground, and then I want you to get out of here. I want you to tell everyone and anyone what happened here. I want you to deliver all that money and those guns and weapons and stuff to the people that you know should have them, if they want to be able to make this area a place that people can live again.
“I know you know how to do it, and what to do.
“When you turn up at Heavenbound Hall, they will have your pictures, and they will be waiting for you.
“You are the last wielders of your Pacts. We don’t want there to be any more, and you don’t want your Pacts to be taking you. Are we understanding one another?”
“We are,” the oldest of the Sinbound, his black hair starting to gray, declared, looking back and forth between me and Master Fred, and the whiteness spreading under Fred’s heels. “This... redemption... will it work?” he had to ask.
“I can tell you nothing but the truth.” He winced, but nodded slowly. “That all depends on you. It is the power of mortal will. But... you can know, at the last, that if you do this, you are going to make them pay a price far greater for your soul than they imagined.
“How Good a bargain you make that for yourself... is up to you. We can only show you the path. Walking it is all on you.”
He turned to look at the other four. “And if we don’t come?” he asked, realizing I was going to give him the cold truth no matter what.
“According to the Angelos, there are two other creatures on this world who can grant Daemonic Pacts. We will hunt you down, in time. You can only pray there’s five hundred other people as stupid as you before the Shroud comes down... and that you aren’t going there, Pact or no.”
His face hardened, and he hesitated. “We... have done a great many sinful deeds, Lady Traveler...”
“You are hard, well-trained people. Survivors. Killers. You have lived in a world of magic and death for many years to get where you are.” He nodded slowly. “Now, it is a time to turn that view on itself. To do the things you should have done, instead of the things that you did. Most particularly, things that require a great deal of time, patience, and power. Lots and lots of power.”
Purple-black Sinfires came up around all their palms, and they all stared at them thoughtfully.
“You will have ideas. We will be able to help. You... will be able to help!
“Think on it. I expect that you should know many, many ways to help, to not be what you are, and to be ready to skewer the Lords of Sin mightily, indeed, once you realize how.”
Despite themselves, they had to smile slightly. Their leader even bowed slightly to me, and waited until Master Fred had taken pictures of all of them. “May we go?”
“One thing more.” I approached them, and held out my hand. “Your hands.”
Slowly, still cautious, they reached out and put their hands atop mine.
“TRUTH.
“HOPE.
“VALOR.”
They cried out together, driven to their knees, but their hands did not slip away from mine at the ringing Absoluteness of the three Words of Creation that I knew.
“These were taken from you. It is time to feel them again.” I met each of those eyes of purple in the black. “It is Truth, there is always Hope, and you need only find the courage and energy to grasp it!
“Now go stick a burning stick up the rectum of Sin. I will see you at Penitent’s Hall!”
They got up, half-stumbling, tears streaking down faces that hadn’t felt that kind of emotion in decades. Everyone else watched them wander past, and the storms of emotions released behind the hardened walls within them.
------
“That was extraordinarily forgiving,” Sir Pellier murmured to Father Bower, watching the Senior Sinbound leave.
“Those Words...” the older Harsite murmured, shaking his head. “I don’t understand those Words, or even how she can say them...”
“There’s a lot of power to them, and more understanding.” He looked at Helix, who was dazed, staring at Traveler, and probably only now realizing just how dangerous the younger halvyri truly was. He had been improving steadily, and last night and today would only be helping him on his path... but those three Words had proven more crushing than even watching her butcher hundreds of thousands of undead the night before.
Helix wanted to be able to say those Words, too...
“Marvin, I want to be able to say at least one of those Words before I die,” Father Bower admitted softly.
Sir Pellier’s eyes glittered. “So do I, Amos, so do I.”