The sanctuary's runes glowed and burst to life, arcing across walls and floors like the lightning outside. Light beamed through the darkness of the foul wind, and the air creature writhed, surging upward to seek escape. Glass fell in a sparkling rain as the elemental abandoned its weapons and the helpless prey below. Trapped in the temple's net of spells, the wind quickly dissipated, destroyed by the magical wards of the temple. Silence fell upon the chamber, broken only by sobs and the scraping feet of those rising from where they'd fallen. Rain splashed high above where the glass dome had been, the wards preventing the weather from penetrating. Dreslya rushed forward to catch the dark-haired savant as the temple's white light banished the girl's strange possession. She caught the wounded priestess and lowered her to the floor. Ignoring the sacred circle beneath them, she inspected the girl's bleeding cuts and whispered prayers of healing to close them. Other oracles rushed forward to help. Dreslya rose, feeling slightly dizzy but relieved. Sameska stood as well, watching as rain slid across the invisible shield of power in the gaping hole above. Eyeing the chaos and disheveled oracles, she addressed the fearful and berated the blasphemous. "This is what comes of our betrayal! This is his punishment, his wrath in answer to our doubt! We must-" "No." Dres spoke quietly, but the runes in the chamber still pulsed to her command, amplifying her voice and vibrating in the floor. Sameska stumbled back as if struck. "Savras is not a god of blood and vengeance. We are taught to heed his words, not fear them."
She turned to speak to the oracles, ignoring Sameska. "I know that doubt still grips you, and I will not dismiss your fears as petty or trivial. I will ask none of you to join me at the gates to meet the evil that seeks to tear us apart." She paused, looking down at the blood staining the deep grooves of the circle and the shimmering glass spread across the floor. "But I will tell you this… I have been shown that a prophecy does indeed unfold before us, and we must decide for ourselves what parts we shall play in it." Dres retrieved her bundle from the floor and turned to leave the chamber. Every oracle watched her go, still shaken and contemplating her words. Sameska stared wildly at the glowing walls of the chamber, as if unseen judgment lurked in the spiraling patterns around her.
The ground rumbled and trees swayed as the foliage parted at the forest's edge, a dark tunnel yawning through the Qurth's ravenous undergrowth. Quin charged toward the gray darkness at the end of the path, deftly keeping his balance as the earth threatened to throw him down among the writhing tendrils of bloodthorns. Bedlam pealed a low scream amid bending wood and falling leaves. Its wail echoed down the wooded corridor, seeking wild freedom at its end. Massive shapes rose and fell in the darkness along the path, crashing through the forest and matching Quinsareth's speed. At the tunnel's end, through the misty fog in the clearing beyond, Quin detected several pairs of cruel white eyes surrounding the dim silhouette of a forlorn tower. They were the eyes of the dead in the field of stone the Pale Sisters had warned him about, the pets of the blood-witch. As he neared the forest's edge, he heard the tortured shrieks of undead beasts summoning him to their playground. Bedlam changed its tune to match their challenge and Quin smiled, giving in to the wild of the shadows in his blood. He leaped into open air above a steep incline, the forest exploding on either side of him in a hail of dirt, rock, and shattered wood. The long reach of the Pale Sisters' magic commanded the vines and roots that surrounded him. Twisting and lashing outward, they grew, summoning even more from deep beneath the field of stone. A wave of vines rippled across the ground and Quinsareth landed in the clearing between them. Running with Bedlam, he was ready to cut down anything that intruded upon the forged path. The white eyes of fiendish ghouls surged forward to meet the charge, cackling and moaning in hellish madness as the aasimar neared. They bounded across the field, their bestial voices quickly turning to roars of rage as a thick mass of vines snatched them from their strides. The ghouls fell, entangled by the Pale Sisters' thorny minions, and were crushed against the hard ground and broken stone of the field. All around Quin, the undead were caught in the Pale Sisters' embrace, and still their network of vines and roots grew, pushing ahead of him in a wall of living foliage. One fortunate ghoul landed safely on Quinsareth's clear path, hissing and lashing its long, smoke-tipped tongue as it loped toward him on back-swayed legs. It stared at him with blind eyes, tasting the air and smelling his scent. Quin steadily continued, staring the beast down and studying its strange movement. His hand tightened on Bedlam's hilt. The ghoul pounced into the air, thrusting its head forward to reveal yellowed fangs and proboscis tongue. Quin stepped onto a large block of crumbled stone and jumped. Reversing his grip on Bedlam, he swung the blade forward to slam its pommel into the ghoul's jaw. The creature bit off its own tongue as its mouth slammed shut. The monster's head flew backward, snapping bones, and its long claws scratched and grasped at Quin's armor as they collided in midair. Blindly, it sought soft flesh to rend as the pair descended to the stony ground. The aasimar ignored the ghoul's futile attempts to harm him. He continued his assault by sliding Bedlam's shrieking blade into the undead's emaciated torso. As the ghoul's back slammed to the ground, Quin rolled and thrust Bedlam up into the creature's chest.
Regaining his footing, he turned to see the growth of a shorter tongue in the ghoul's mouth. Its claws scratched at the sword holding it in place, hissing as the metal rejected its fiendish touch. Quin sidestepped the flailing claws and withdrew the blade, spinning it to cleave the beast's skull and cease its shrieking cries. The Pale Sisters' roots continued to surge, trapping the last of the Gargauthans' minions before quieting their entangling vines to a shuddering stop. Quin renewed his charge as the sound of a droning chant filled the air ahead of him. Ascending a low, fallen battlement, he stared down at the base of the tower to see hellish masks staring back-the gathered wizard-priests, surrounded by the black haze of spells inscribed on the tower's walls. Wind and thunder formed a ceiling for the scene, punctuated by the muffled cries and impotent rage of ghouls trapped beneath the Pale Sisters' heavy foliage.
"I will deal with him," Khaemil said, turning for the door as the aasimar became visible among the crawling tentacles of vine and wood.