[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]WARNING: IF YOU FIND BLOOD DISTURBING UH THERE'S LOTS OF IT. ALSO THE WORDS "BODILY ORIFICES" IS USED.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Winter 534 ADR[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif][A Summoner Dies][/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The circle had been drawn. The dust had been cast. The blood had been spilt. She was naked, as the ritual demanded. It was the most ambitious summoning that a lone summoner had ever attempted. She would do it, and she would do well. She was Firefly: last descendants of Frostcunt and the oldest line of summoners in the world. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]She took a deep breath. Her sister did not know about her attempt; it would be stopped in its tracks if she had known. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The summoning platform under the Residence was only just big enough for the circle she had drawn, and she had had to prepare for weeks beforehand. The atmosphere in the underground was uncomfortably warm, but necessarily so. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]She tiptoed delicately through the thick layer of blood coating the pattern and stood at the centre of the circle. She picked up a blood-drenched orchid and threw it into the air, beginning the dance with the ease and grace of a summoner trained from childhood.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The steps came easily. Harder was not slipping on the slippery coating of blood, and dancing her way through the three smaller circles with the correct steps. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The familiar twang of her power working, the rising of the blood in her veins, alerted her to her success. She stumbled, nearly missing the next step of the dance, as the bound guardian force Truli leeched power from her blood, and the room whirled around her.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Two other guardian forces rose from the circles and surrounded her, vying for her attention with Truli. She gasped, falling to the ground, sliding across the wooden platform, her body slick with blood. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The dance had been completed before she fell, and the guardian forces swarmed around her. The guardian forces fused with her body, seeking the warmth in her veins. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The first thing she knew was cold. She did not
feel it, for she knew that she could no longer feel. The cold was not merely the absence of warmth. It was bone-deep, primordial. The coldness that existed in the demon realms that existed before existence and would go on existing long after everything else faded and died. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The second thing she knew was knowledge. Her mind had expanded past her human shell, and even as she learned new things she knew that her knowledge was not boundless. It was limited, almost woefully so.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The third thing she knew was purpose. It penetrated deep, spread to every limb and lit her body on fire. A cold, dispassionate fire that burned only by the strength of her iron will. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]She rose from the floor. She crossed to the centre of the circle. She did not walk, but floated on the strength of the beings inhabiting her body.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Light exploded from her every bodily oriface. Long, thick wounds opened all over her body. Blood flooded from every cut and dripped onto the circle, mingling with the blood of innocents, forcibly taken.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]Her body, suspended over the platform, acted as a gateway. With the knowledge granted by the alien presences tearing her body to pieces, she knew what would happen: she was a literal gateway. Her limps were ripped to pieces by an invisible force, the pain worse than any she had ever felt in her life.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]A limbless torso, out of her mind with pain, the guardian forces deserted her. Truli lingered for the briefest moment, crouched over her blood like a dog guarding its food. As insanity took its hold over her, the ethereal being faded out of the world as a monstros black form exploded from her abdomen. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, sans-serif]The house fell around her.[/FONT]
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