She stared at him a moment longer, glancing once at the blood-covered Rilyana. She knew that either way, if Jinn or the angel failed, that thousands could die, souls fed to angels and gods that cared little for mortal choice. With a final burst of flame, she seared the wall of thorns blocking the stairway, reducing them to little more than ash and tumbling char.
'Pharra's Alley, buried deep beneath where the skulls gather,' she said, the words cold and haunting as she said them, one burden lifted though it was quickly replaced by another. Rilyana's face twisted in fury, haloed by the eldritch light of the ritual. Quess took a defensive stance, raising her dagger as spells welled within her mind. 'Go now. Kill the angel… I shall take care of his whore.'
She wondered briefly if Jinn would hesitate, spare her a glance or a word before disappearing up the stairs and into the dark beyond, but his step was whisper quiet, and wordlessly, he was gone before even the ash had settled upon the stairs.
'He is a fool,' Rilyana growled, mirroring Quess's stance, hands poised and standing in front of the wooden chest defensively.
'No, he is a single-minded bastard with little thought for anyone or anything that gets in his way,' Quessahn replied, a cruel grin crawling across her steel-skinned lips as she kissed her blade again, invoking the names of ancient and powerful beings, terrible stars that streaked through her mind's eye like burning titans hurled from the heavens. 'But he means well.'
Quessahn stumbled back as the ritual circle flared with scarlet light, blinding her as the howling energy spun ever faster. More tremors shook the house, and she shielded her eyes, searching for Rilyana in the brilliant glare. She heard laughter within the circle, saw a pale silhouette with arms upraised, and Quess began to chant, tiny stars gathering along the length of her dagger.
The stars streaked toward the human, spinning around her and stabbing her with shafts of burning light. Rilyana screamed and writhed, batting at the stars even as she shouted her own spell. Force coalesced in the air between them and rushed from Rilyana's outstretched hand, slamming hard into Quessahn's chest. The eladrin crashed into the basement wall, the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth. She snarled, biting her tongue for more blood as she worked her next spell, speaking the words as the magic's red component stained her lips.
She traded burning shadows for numbing ice, foul curses for searing acid as they fought, neither gaining ground. The ritual pulsed onward, possessed of its own life. The steel skin she had summoned smoked from the human's last spell, hissing as the last remnants of a blast of acid ate through her enchanted flesh and drew blood through the arcane steel. Her legs ached with exhaustion, and her mind burned with each spell she cast, but she still stood.
'This is futile, elf,' Rilyana cried. 'You cannot stop this. All you do is earn yourself an early death.'
Quessahn's heart pounded and her legs felt heavy, every step seeming prelude to a fall that never came. Arcane patterns and constellations wheeled through her thoughts ponderously, pulsing with power in tune to the blood in her veins.
'Keep your condemnations,' she said. 'Unless I'm mistaken, your ritual is not yet complete, and death still hangs over your head as well.'
'Momentarily, I assure you,' the human replied. 'Once Sathariel takes the souls of the Nine, you shall see more clearly, and your deva will die… again.'
'You're scared. You tried to kill Jinnaoth despite Sathariel's warning. If he is to deliver the circle of skulls to the angel, why would you try to stop him?' Quessahn said as she stepped closer to the crimson light of the circle, seeing the fear hiding in Rilyana's eyes.
'Be quiet,' Rilyana growled, her hands steaming with magic.
'Afraid the angel might forget about you, eh?' Quessahn asked.
'Be quiet!' the human shouted, spheres of burning ice erupting from her palms.
Quessahn threw herself to the side, dodging the worst of the spell but caught by stinging shards of frost as the spheres exploded behind her. Ice rattled against her metal skin, testing the remaining strength of the protective spell and cutting her where it had become weak. She rolled forward into the crimson light, chanting as she turned and uttered a fiendish name to complete her spell. Sparks leaped from her runic dagger, fluttering on the air and growing. Batlike wings sprung from small, burning bodies, and the fiery imps screeched, instantly turning on Rilyana and surrounding her.
They scorched her with tiny claws and bit at her flesh as she swatted at them and fell back, stumbling over the body of Archmage Tallus as she fought to escape them. Quessahn scrambled to her feet and approached the chest. Pale, desiccated fingers filled the container, each surrounded by a soft blue glow. A single bloody digit on top still bore fresh blood, the finger of the archmage, she surmised. Ancient runes covered the chest, mysterious yet familiar, in patterns more akin to the old magic of more than a century gone.
'This can't be,' she said in disbelief. 'Mystra's Weave is gone, the ritual would never work! The magic must be here, in this house. It's been waiting for this!'
'Clever.' Rilyana muttered an incantation.
Quessahn felt her body grow lighter. The black steel on her hands melted away, revealing bruised skin and bloodied knuckles beneath. A wave of nausea left her dazed as the magic steel was dispelled, and she shivered as cold air hit her naked skin. She leaned on the pedestal and the chest, sickened further by the feel of cold flesh beneath her hands. Rilyana rushed forward and punched Quessahn, sending her sprawling to the floor. The spinning energies of the ritual streamed around her body as she gasped for air, shaking her head and rubbing her jaw.
'The skulls were once priests of Mystra, but they betrayed her, called upon Asmodeus, and promised their souls to him. He gave them a part of his power, an exchange that they betrayed in the end, though ultimately they failed. The immortality they sought became undeath, a curse. But they still had the archdevil's power, and their spell, their grand ritual, was left here, carved into a forgotten basement floor, waiting for their return,' Rilyana said, studying the wooden chest, as if making sure the eladrin had not somehow fouled the magic.
'In exchange for what? What did the skulls offer Asmodeus?' Quess asked, crawling onto her side and spitting blood. She knew the answer, having made her own dark pacts in recent years, but she wanted to keep the human talking and confident.
'Their souls, obviously, but also an invitation, one that they had no intention of fulfilling, but an invitation nonetheless. One that Asmodeus now wishes to answer,' Rilyana answered, kneeling before the injured eladrin.
'The prophecy…,' Quess whispered, one fist clenched around something cold and soft.
'Clever again,' Rilyana replied, returning to the pedestal. 'The skulls receive the damnation they deserve, Sathariel completes the prophecy, and I finish the ritual, joining him in immortality.'
Quessahn crawled out of the ritual circle and rose on her hands, panting from the effort. She clutched one fist to her stomach as if in pain. Rilyana did not follow, hurled no more spells, and seemed to pay her no mind as she attended to the ritual's progress.
'Why are you telling me this?' Quessahn asked nervously, drawing the human's attention away from the chest.
'Isn't that how this all works?' Rilyana asked, smiling. 'First I break your body; then I break your spirit. Besides, what fun is all this work without an audience?'
'I can still fight you,' Quessahn replied angrily.
'Indeed you could,' the human said, 'but to what end?'
Quessahn stared at the woman for a breath before lowering her gaze. Pain wracked her limbs, and she felt brittle, like the bed of a dried river, wasted by floods of magic without rest. Stealthily she turned her hand up in her lap and opened her fist slowly to see the severed finger she'd stolen from the chest. Its blue glow gone, congealed blood stained her palm as she looked up, noting sluggish movement near Rilyana's foot.
'A bloody end,' she replied at length and steeled herself to open the dam again, willing the first trickles of magic to well agonizingly in her mind.
Pain flowed through the skulls as they struggled to stand, Callak's legs failing as his suppressed mind grew stronger with every breath. They cursed in unison as the avolakia slithered out of the illusory skin of the old man, its alien form half hidden in shadow, tentacles writhing with a hideous grace. Green light glowed from its circular maw of hooks and tiny teeth, belching forth a wave of hissing liquid that flooded toward the skulls, spattering and popping across Callak's body.
