Chaos Rampant [Insaney, anyone else]

(OoC: I'd like Insaney to be able to reply first, since his character is the star of this little show. After that, though, anyone else is welcome.)

BiC:

The city around her was quiet in the early morning air. Seafaring had been temporarily forbidden by the city of Chry, making one of the warehouses in the dock ward perfect for the ceremony. Standing atop the apex of the warehouse roof, Tierra took one last look around for passerby before going inside and sealing the entrances. She couldn’t be too careful; demon summoning is a nigh forbidden practice in every kingdom, allowed only in the specially sealed rooms of high class magic academies.

Tierra stacked the heavy crates storing Jevon-knows-what against the hinged doors inside the warehouse, creating walls even where a door opened outward. Then, she bolstered the sliding doors both by jamming their sliding tracks with iron spikes and by welding their seams with the astral substance of her Shaping. The only ways in or out of the warehouse were a window over a stack of crates on the dock side of the warehouse, or the trapdoor going atop the roof of the building.

Already sweating, Tierra began her work. Carefully, she laid down a geometric summoning circle drawn of ink one part honey, two parts wolf’s blood and two parts wine of atropa belladonna’s berry. In full, the circle was twelve feet across, surrounding alien and powerful symbols of the same ink.

Next, the lady mage surrounded the circle with a seven-pointed star sewn of powdered pumpkin and sea salt to prevent misfortune or evil from crossing in either direction. To protect herself and the area around her, on each of five sides around the star, she aligned long sticks of cinnamon and clove incense so that each stick was bound to the points of the ones on either of its sides. Around the incense, she sprinkled a triangle of honeysuckle petals and toadstool slivers to hedge out impurity and to confuse the conjured spirit should it attempt to escape, despite the other wards.

Finally, on either side of the entire array, she set up a pair of circular mirrors which faced one another, in perfect alignment with the circle’s center. Altogether, this setup was simple, yet powerful, and made to expert standards. If she were an academy mage, her teachers would be both proud of her work and horrified of her ambitions.

Normally, even Tierra would not have been this cautious. She was familiar with demon summoning and binding. She knew exactly how dangerous the practice was and, why it was outlawed. The runes inside a circle are critical to the summoning. They control exactly what type of creature is summoned. The runes inside this circle were new to Tierra, and according to her research, could be used to summon very old and powerful demons. Therefore, exceptional care was necessary.

Tierra’s goal was to conjure a demon, then force it to teach her a new Ruination spell. She would conjure it already trapped in her wards, and then bind it. Binding a demon essentially consists of keeping it in one place and sometimes torturing it until it gives in to the summoner’s demands. Since convincing a fiend to do anything could potentially take weeks without the aforementioned torture, the magess had already brought enough food and water for a prolonged stay in the warehouse. Everything was prepared. Everything was perfect. It was time to start the summoning.

She lit the incense and stepped back, then raised the small athame’s blade to her left hand. With a single stroke, a few drops of blood flew from her left hand and landed inside the circle. She knelt down and laid her hands on either side of the ring.

“Ur,” she began. As she spoke, the word escaped her throat and echoed freely against the inner walls of the warehouse. The runes and the circle lit from inner puce light; three near invisible barriers around the conjuring ring caught and refracted this light, informing anyone present of the protection they provided. One was fourteen sided, in the shape of a seven-pointed star. Another was five sided, and formed a perfect pentagon. The last was three sided, but seemed to shift its dimensions in ways that denied Euclid. Her own blood sizzled inside the circle as she continued the incantation.

“Rogh vana irteth. Eilsen wre,” she chanted. Each word seemed to blossom with a life of its own as it left her lips, bouncing almost playfully throughout the room in an unending resonance. Sickly purple smoke burst from the ink inside the wards.

Without warning, the jewel in Tierra’s collar blazed with inner light and shuddered violently against her skin. In her ear, the wind shrieked in Gilda’s voice, “Fool child!” She was so shocked, Tierra could almost feel her heart stop. Her sweat turned cold and she was numb instantly. Tierra could tell she was panting, but only from the swaying of the room around her. Her muscles seized. Gilda, the spirit of her earcuff, had never spoken to her without it first being asked of her. Gilda had never shown the slightest inclination of interest in the world around her. Why should she? The spirit was immortal. Gilda’s voice now, though, was deeply disturbing. She was terrified. “Flee with your life!” The spirit screamed, “Flee!”

In less than one second, working on nothing but adrenaline and fear, Tierra was on her feet, running for a stack of crates on the dock side of the warehouse. In three more seconds, she was barreling through the broken shards of what was a moment ago a window. She hit the ground running.

OOC: Il join as soon as this Insaney joins kk count me in and il use Grief.