Bloodwalk

"This is foolishness, High Oracle. You know that, don't you?"

Morgy

Meanwhile, your people are dying as we speak." Sameska did not answer.

The other oracles stood ready to act, though Morgy

Curious, she raised her hands to test their barrier. Weaving her spell, she sent waves of light against the translucent veil of magic.

Screaming as she pushed herself harder, she fought the combined wills of the oracles and the old magic they wielded. She stumbled backward as her spell failed and the light faded. Breathing heavily, she glared at her hands as if betrayed. She slowed her pulse and stretched her neck. Her muscles spasmed as she collected herself. "I can feel each of you," she said quietly, her words amplified in the chamber. "You're hiding something from me." Sameska looked up then, peering at Morgy

The oracles' heartbeats pounded in her mind, a cadence within the harmonies of the Weave that flowed through her, but another rhythm pulsed there as well. A multitude of hearts seemed to thunder together, dispersed and hidden. She dismissed the shadows and opened her eyes knowingly, realizing the true source of their fear and sickening righteousness. Demurely, she approached the centermost oracle and knelt down to speak to her eye to eye, only the shimmering veil of magic between them. "They're hiding here, aren't they?" she said, seeking some reaction in the young woman's solemn expression.

"Those too old or too weak to fight. You're protecting them, hiding them somewhere in this place while you sit here and wonder if you've made the right decision. Defying prophecy, betraying the faith of your high oracle, and gambling with the lives of your people." The oracle remained outwardly stoic, but Morgy

She knew that if she had learned any lesson from her mother, it was that faith did not exist without doubt. Morgy

For a fleeting moment, Morgy

Misty blades flashed and rippled in the rain, driving Quinsareth back, hard pressed to deflect the attacks of the wraithlike creatures Morgy

Quinsareth fought to control his breathing, reining in his anger as he skipped backward. He tried to recognize a cycle to his opponents' unstable corporeality. Patterns rose and fell in his mind, found but quickly abandoned. He counted the breaths carefully, numbering each parry, deftly wielding the large shield and Bedlam as if they were a buckler and foil. Indeed, the unarmored opponent carried such a blade, looking more like a dandified fop than a warrior. The fop's blade passed within a hair's breadth of his neck as he arched backward to avoid the slice. Angrily, he began to count out loud, slowing his backward motion and quickening his defense. "One… two… three …" he breathed, then crouched, rolled forward, and slashed left and right. The hunters' blades thrust harmlessly over his head as he carved through flesh and bone, crippling the two along their upper thighs. He knew he could not kill what was already dead, but he could slow them. He sought to immobilize them that he might bypass Morgy

The arcane missile seared into the fop's neck, quieting its cries to a wet gurgle as it fell on its back, shaking as its spirit turned to a pungent, thick smoke and dissipated on the wind. The body left behind flopped in the rain like a landed fish gasping for air. Quickly sca

Turning to Elisandrya, he could not read the strange look in her eye.

Her defensive stance and firmly set jaw seemed at odds with her beauty, but at the same time complimented her strength. He could forget himself in her face, he realized, and he forced himself to turn away from her. In that moment, Eli's eyes were eclipsed in a rushing darkness as chaos broke their brief glance. Quin found himself ru