Veil of Smog, Chapter 1

[Esprit15]

Sarah smiles and approaches the spirit.

She gestures to one of the globular spirits, tracing her fingers through the air and beginning a cant in a harsh, unfamiliar language. As her fingers trace through nothing, silvery threads spring from her fingers, forming a runic circle in the air before her. “Ahg ayet, Pater Noktis, prewzik tod gweohmeg-”

The conclusion of the last syllable matches perfectly with the drawing back of her finger from the circle. A flash of grey light springs forth from the circle, briefly illuminating the spirit before fading away.

Spoiler

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Countermagic: Necromancy/Spirit/Life - All abilities connected to the manipulation of lifeforce are suppressed. Resisted by Dodge.

“Have to make sure to turn off any weird little abilities first. And then…” Sarah vanishes.

In her relative time, Sarah steps relaxedly, taking aim at the spirit and then loosing an arrow. As the arrows leave her immediate vicinity, they quickly slow to a near stop, hanging in the air like a brick doesn’t. She continues circling the spirit, loosing an arrow every couple of seconds. Loukas was right that silver wasn’t strictly necessary. But the material enchanted well, and that had its own useful properties for those who had the resources to procure the metal.

The young ones here had potential. Shroud’s prickliness at her skills being attributed to magic was cute. If she could just be broken of that little hatred, Sarah knew where her abilities could be well suited. The old alchemist was yet another one of hers somewhere down the line - not that he needed to know. But that skill he possessed with magic was no joke. There was a dull pang of pride at a descendant finding his way to his own magic. The zenko’s magic was one she had read about but never had the chance to observe practiced by a native user - Overmorrow studied it and taught her what he knew last they had worked together, but that was some centuries back. And the cursed kid- ah, out of arrows. She looks at the thick ring of silver tipped sticks, inching toward the spirit. “Well that’s enough of that.”

On the other side of the spirit, Sarah has appeared in an archer’s pose. The spirit, which moments ago was lazily floating in the air, is quite suddenly pin cushioned by a couple dozen arrows.

She vanishes for a moment, and almost instantly the arrows vanish from the first spirit as the other spirit is similarly filled with arrows. This time though it seems that in spite of no magic being incanted, the arrows didn’t care for the semi-intangible nature of the spirit, having stuck into and damaged it all the same.

“If you want to see some more magic performed, maybe a curse removed, stick around after the show, I hear it will be a roaring good time.”