The Heavenly Host

A booming laughter filled the room, emanating from the black cloud of soot over the now-hidden catamite’s corpse. The smoke and soot from the fireplaces continued to stream unendingly towards it, the streams then bending and rising directly up above the site of Crispin’s charred corpse. The upward streaming cloud was now as tall as Exador, and began to form a cross-like shape. At about waist height, the cloud suddenly lightened and changed.

Within moments, the upper half of the cloud had formed the upper torso of Crispin, or an older, more mature and hugely muscular version of Crispin. His gleaming muscles shone through the sleeveless, open front vest, and rock-hard abdominal muscles showed above a red sash that separated the human-appearing torso from the black cloud.

“Master,” the new Crispin said, nodding to Randolf, showing those below the top of his very elegant, formal red turban. “This infidel has tried to damage your property.”

“What the...?” Exador’s eyes were wide in shock.

“Here’s the thing, Exador,” said Randolf. “You have been a pain in my family’s side for a very long time. However, our closest allies could not move against you until you attacked one of them directly. You have now done so, unprovoked by myself or Crispin.” He chuckled. “You see, in order for the djinn to move against you, you would need to attack Crispin in a manner unprovoked by either of us. You have now done so, for which you have my greatest appreciation.” Randolf flashed Exador a very wide grin.

“My master is correct, demon. You have now given all of Djinnistan a reason to hunt you down and exterminate you like the vermin you are,” Crispin said, grinning at Exador.

“Crispin?” Randolf said.

“Yes, master?”

“I wish you to punish Exador for damaging my property,” Randolf said.

Crispin grinned widely, steepled his hands before him and bowed at his smoky waist towards Randolf. “Master, your wish is my command!” With that, Crispin and his smoke cloud quickly enveloped Exador. The sound of thunder and lightning resounded around the room even as the whistling roar of the air being sucked down the four chimneys rose to a level that drowned out the claxon.

“Quickly, everyone; we need to move fast while Crispin buys us time!” Randolf shouted across his link to his stunned fellow councilors. He had to twist his jaw to pop his eardrums; the air pressure in the room was getting quite extreme.

Crack! Crash! Crackle! Crash! Crunch! CRASH! The large upper windows in the foyer were being blown out by the very high air pressure in the room. Randolf had to brace himself as the wind levels within the room began to approach cyclone level. Fortunately, the air pressure had pushed the window glass outwards. Glass shards raining down on them was the last thing they needed while trying to cast spells.

Randolf shook his head and began casting a very local shielding spell around himself and his accessories before they all blew away. Gold braziers and similar instruments were heavy, but there were limits. He just needed to deflect the winds around his small area so he could actually cast some spells.

Once his local air shield was in place, Randolf flicked his wrist at the nearby brazier that Crispin had set up before his metamorphosis, lighting the components within. “Astuos trineptos, eskelon nor tufos!” Randolf began his incantation.

“Is that Herodite’s Horrendous Hellion Scourge?” Jehenna asked over the link, apparently to Lenamare, yet everyone heard.

“Sounds like it. I’ve never done it myself,” Lenamare said, having temporarily forgotten about the city’s wards. Randolf smiled grimly as he worked to cast the spell. Unfortunately, the most truly devastating spells against demons relied on a binding link between the master and demon. Thus, against foreign demons, most wizards were forced to use traditional non-demon spells which had varying effects.

Fortunately, there were a few demon-specific spells that could piggyback on a normal wizard link, such as the ones they all had as councilors. Herodite’s Horrendous Hellion Scourge was one of those. It was also seldom used due to its complexity.

He had to really concentrate on this agonizing spell, making sure he added the pre-prepared components to the brazier in order. He thus could pay little attention to what others were doing. He did note that Tureledor was sending force bolts into Crispin’s maelstrom. That was a great idea; they would have little effect on Crispin’s gaseous form, but would be able to do quite a bit of kinetic impact damage to Exador.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Davron was creating a pentagram around himself, preparing to use conjury against Exador. Excellent.