Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Davron was creating a pentagram around himself, preparing to use conjury against Exador. Excellent.
“Aargh!” Exador screamed as a rapid barrage of razor-sharp ice bolts pummeled him. The bolts appeared to come from Gandros’s direction. At least, Randolf assumed they were pummeling him, as no one could actually see Exador inside Crispin’s smoky cloud. Suddenly Exador was coughing loudly. He must have inhaled after his scream; that would have drawn Crispin into his lungs.
Randolf shook his head; that was not going to be pleasant. Suddenly there was a new whistling sound as all of the smoke and soot began streaming into Exador’s nostrils. Once inside the demon’s lungs, after being initially inhaled, Crispin was able to pull the rest of his smoke and ash cloud to himself inside Exador. This was a standard djinn attack; Crispin would not only be attacking with lightning from inside, but also increasing the air pressure inside Exador. Mortal creatures generally exploded; that probably would not happen here. Exador would probably shift to fire or some other insubstantial form.
Yep, there he goes, Randolf noted to himself as a huge blaze started inside the smoke cloud. He shook his head while reciting his spell. The wind, combined with Exador’s giant flames, were reaching out to the whipping tapestries and drapes. In moments, the upper walls of the foyer were a conflagration to match the pillar of flame in the center of the foyer.
“Fiat Completum!” Randolf screamed at the top of his lungs while thrusting his staff towards the flames of Exador, releasing his spell. Greenish-black tendrils each about six inches in diameter extended quickly from his staff and began wrapping around the flames.
Randolf really had to concentrate now, chanting under his breath to direct and manipulate the spell. He had to force the tendrils to wrap around all sides of Exador’s flames, as well as above and below. He was going to need to get this in place quickly. The two insubstantial beings were now at a stalemate.
Tureledor’s force bolts were now useless with nothing to impact upon; however, the stream of ice bolts was likely still hurting Exador, as the flames were sizzling as the bolts struck. While the bolts did melt, they were also poking holes in Exador’s flames. There! Randolf mentally yelled to himself. And now to squeeze. Holding his staff in his right hand, Randolf began making a fist with his left.
There was a horrendous scream from the flames as Exador began to feel the pressure. Randolf waved his staff in a scourging motion as if he were whipping Exador, which in essence, he was. The flames shifted back to the solid, winged Exador, who was red with fury and glaring with a hideous malevolence at Randolf.
“You sycophantic sociopath! How dare you!” Exador raged. The archdemon pointed at Randolf and giant bolts of lightning flew from his large index finger, crashing against the shielding of Randolf’s pentagram, even as Exador’s body was pummeled from behind by more force bolts from Tureledor.
Randolf laughed. “Wizards use pentagrams to protect themselves from demons, in case you were not aware of this.”
“To the Abyss with your pentagram!” Exador screamed at ear-splitting levels before he started choking again as Crispin again tried to fill his lungs when he inhaled. Perhaps at some point Exador would learn better, Randolf thought, grinning. Around a smoke-formed djinn, breathing was a seriously bad habit.
Exador dove to the floor with both fists forward, slamming hard into the floor while screaming a very loud, very deadly curse word. The ground rocked with the impact, far more than Exador’s actual weight would have caused. He had done some sort of geomantic spell; that was obvious now as cracks began radiating out from the impact point of his fists.
The foyer shook with the force of the quake and the smaller tremors that followed. It had to have been some sort of ground-quake spell. Randolf began whipping harder, which naturally caused Exador to scream in pain again.
“He’s got two columns!” one of his fellow councilors shouted over the communications link. Randolf could not tell which one it was, but he turned his attention enough to see that a crevice had reached and opened up the ground under at least one of the nearby columns. Crap! The columns were definitely load bearing, and were starting to collapse.
“I will work to prop the columns up!” Gandros shouted over the link.
“I’d help, but I’m trying to redirect the crevices from Lenamare while he works on the wards!” Jehenna shouted.
Randolf glanced at her; she was gesturing and chanting rapidly to redirect or ameliorate a very large crevice coming at her and Lenamare.
He turned his attention back to the ground at his feet. His pentagram had successfully stopped a crevice at its borders. Small cracks began appearing all around the pentagram, but not inside. It could block these because the pentagram had been tuned to Exador specifically and it was his magic causing the crevice. He had not been sure whether that level of indirectness would work without a true name, but it was.
Randolf glanced at Davron even as he kept on scourging Exador. Davron’s pentagram would not be tuned; fortunately, no large crevices were splitting off near his position. Red tendrils were now twisting out of Davron’s staff and were heading towards Exador.
CRACK!
A cracking noise far worse than the windows breaking, came from above. Randolf glanced up to see the ceiling cracking open. He mentally cursed; between wooden beams that were rapidly charring, the tie rods now most likely burnt from the flaming wall curtains, and the shifting of the columns, the stone roof was about to give way.
Exador cursed loudly as Davron’s red tendrils began raking him with a new level of pain, added to what Randolf was inflicting. Randolf looked at the demon to see his right fist swing out towards the columns on the other side of the room. As if in slow motion, his giant fist struck through first one column, and then another. There was a large groaning and creaking noise as the archways above the two struck columns began to give way under the weight above them. The archways lurched and suddenly there was a terrific cracking sound from above as the ceiling stones gave way.
“Gandros! If you can keep the side wall from collapsing, I’ll take care of the roof tiles!” Jehenna shouted over the links.
“Will do!” Gandros replied, even as the ceiling stones began falling down into the foyer. Jehenna gestured and flung the largest stone away from the area of the fight into an empty part of the room. The ceiling was rapidly fragmenting in a chain reaction. She was going to be busy.
Randolf whipped at Exador with renewed emphasis.
Exador screamed and stared directly at him again. “Okay, you lying deviant! I have had it with you and playing in your world! Time to come play in mine!” he screamed in pain and rage. He twisted his left hand in what almost looked like a rude gesture, and suddenly a circle of flame appeared on the floor halfway between the two of them.
Randolf blinked to see a portal exactly like the one the greater demon had used to kidnap Talarius. He glanced over to see that Ruiden was still stuck under a great mound of ice.
“Let us see how your pentagram works when there is no floor under it!” Exador shouted.
Randolf suddenly realized that the circle of flame was expanding to move under his pentagram. It was an extra-dimensional space. Dung droppings! It was highly unlikely that the pentagram would notice it. It was not an attack targeting him or the pentagram; it was just a void that would happen to come between him and the floor onto which the pentacles were inscribed. However, Randolf’s body would still fall right through it, as would all of his gear.