Amplified by the cold stone walls of the shrine, the sneeze could have been mistaken for a war cry, and Jasper knew there was no chance the maidens would miss it, unless they were genuinely braindead.

Such was not the case, though, for as he bolted to his feet, eyes fixed on the exit, he stumbled as a physical pressure bore down on his back, accompanied by an overwhelming feeling of nausea. Catching himself on the stone pews, he found himself transfixed as he looked into the black voids of the shrine maiden's eyes.

His eyes bled as he stared at the incomprehensible, visions of black stars and dead gods, of things that had no name, and the end of all.

"YTHRAMMOR EYRANOS WARAG?" He was jolted free of the vision as the shrine maiden spoke, a deep, sonorous voice at odds with her otherwise feminine appearance.

Assuming they were little more than zombies, Jasper hadn't expected them to be able to speak, but, unfortunately, her words were in no language he recognized. Still, if there was any chance of ending things without being forced to fight four enormous dino-freaks, it was worth a try. Steadying himself against the pew, he turned to face the creature, carefully avoiding its eyes as he spoke. "We mean no harm-" But he'd barely spoken a few words before the shrine maiden cut him off, bellowing with obvious anger.

"YTHRAMMOR EYRANOS WARAG?!"

"Run!" Spinning on his heel, Jasper bolted toward the door, swiping the blood out of his eyes as he ran, but the maiden was deceptively quick for her size. Rearing on her hindquarters, she flicked her long, slender tail forward so quickly he barely had even registered she had moved before it struck him.

His cast of Soul Sear went wild, the orbs exploding uselessly against the ceiling as Jasper was flung across the room. His fingers twisted with Spectral Wings, but his cast was interrupted as his lower leg caught the back of a pew, snapping the bone, but not before altering his trajectory straight into the ground.

"Umph." Despite getting the air knocked out of his lungs, Jasper had no time to recover before the tail whipped back toward him, this time with the long, ivory spike at the end angled toward his head. He flung himself to the side, sparks flying as the dino-centaur's spike struck the stone mere inches from his face, and completed his cast. Circle of Forgiveness.

A shadow flickered over him as the sinewy tail rose back in the air, and he dove for the cover of the nearest pew as it hammered down. But, with an ominous crack, the stone bench shattered, raining chunks of broken stone on him as he rolled to his feet. I've got to get some space, he thought desperately, as the tail reared up like an angry cobra, prepared to strike again.

Spectral Wings was generally his best choice, but it took a few seconds for the wings to form - seconds he didn't have right now. Seraph Burst didn't have that problem.

A storm of metallic feathers surrounded him as the spell took hold, scoring a series of deep, angry gashes in the shrine maiden's emerald scales as he zoomed past her, but his flight was short-lived. With a grunt, he smacked into the side of one of the other maidens, staggering her slightly, but not enough to knock her off her four legs.

Instead, it was him who hit the ground, rolling swiftly as the pillar she called a leg stomped at his head. Scrambling to his feet, he aimed upwards at the maiden's largely unarmored belly and released Soul Sear at point-blank range.

It was a little too effective, he realized a moment later as the white flamed orbs ripped through the protective layers enveloping her belly and dumped its contents directly onto his head. He fell to the ground, writhing in pain as a tidal wave of caustic acid washed over him, and didn't even see the massive foot stomping down on him.

"Ana Birināti!" A kick caught him in the ribs, shoving him out of the acid, accompanied by a grunt as S̆ams̆ādur intercepted the leg with his greataxe. The massive weapon, gleaming with the purple sheen of the spell Bēlet-Imtu had granted him, sank deep, slicing through the flesh like a hot knife through butter, until it lodged itself in the bone.

With a groan, S̆ams̆ādur sank to his knees as he fought to keep the massive leg off of them. "Little. help. Here," he wheezed.

His eyes were too clogged with acid and blood to see anything, but Jasper didn't need to see to cast the next spell. With a howl of fury and defiance, he whipped the ghostly scourge straight above him, raking it across the maiden's ravaged bowels, while flinging himself toward S̆ams̆ādur.

The axe was knocked out of the durgu's hand as he tackled him out of the way, letting the foot slam into the pavement with an earthshaking roar, but the shrine maiden's attention was not on them for long.

The maiden's bellows mixed the ghastly shrieks of the specters as they latched onto her opened belly, ripping and tearing at her flesh like it was set before them, and Jasper sighed in relief as he cast Circle of Forgiveness to heal the acid burns. One down, three to go.

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The thought had barely crossed his mind, though, when a bright pulse of white flared from the maiden's hands, searing his vision as effectively as a flash grenade. He bolted to his feet, ears straining on high alert as he blinked, begging his vision to return, but it took him a moment to notice what he wasn't hearing. Did she-

He flew through the air in a graceful pirouette as the maiden's tail smacked into him, her sharp spike narrowly missing skewering him like a shish-kebab, but his landing was not exactly Olympic quality. Stumbling to his feet, he glanced up wildly as the floor shook beneath him and saw the maiden charging toward him.

She was something out of a horror movie. Every step she took left a trail of blood and gore, as the organs and intestine hanging out of her ruined belly brushed against the pavement, while a purple axe still clung to an all-but severed leg. Her once delicate brocade and halter had been torn to shreds, leaving little more than bloody rags draped across an uncomfortably human bosom, but there was nothing human about her eyes.

Jasper quailed beneath her gaze, dark whispers filling his mind as the black voids bore down on him. Prey. Weak. Sacrifice. His mind screamed as his limbs refused to move and the ruined shrine maiden bore down on him with the speed and momentum of a runaway train.

Mine.

A different voice spoke over the frenzied tongues, a voice so soft he could barely hear it and yet imbued with so much power that the others stilled. With a jolt, he came back into possession of his body and lurched to his feet, prepared to run until he noticed Samsadur frozen in place beside him.

"Snap out of it!" His hand whipped across the durgu's face with a loud crack, but the man didn't even blink, his eyes wide and dark as he stared into the maiden's voids. With a curse, Jasper grabbed his collar and took off running, dragging the dwarf behind him as he cast Spectral Wings.

One step, two, three. The shrine maiden closed in on him as quickly as Usain Bolt racing a toddler, but just as her shadow crossed his shoulder, his back spasmed with the spell. Born aloft with a single flick of the shadowy wings, he spun to the side in a tight spiral as the maiden's spike whipped overhead. Soul Sear.

The dino-centaur reared on her legs with a shriek of pain as the white orbs bombarded her, but this time, Jasper didn't make the mistake of assuming she was down for the count. Dropping the still dazed durgu safely between two pews, he circled back, quickly averting his gaze as she spun to face him.

Despite the damage she'd taken, despite the blood still pumping out of her ruptured belly at a shocking pace, she rushed toward him with frightening speed. He shot past her again, nimbly dodging the crack of her tail as he fired another bombardment of Soul Sear, but despite marring the emerald beauty of her scales, the spell did little obvious damage.

He didn't know what else to use, though; assuming she could repeat the banishment spell she'd done before, casting Scourge of Despair would be little more than a waste of his essence. Purge seemed equally pointless, as Jasper doubted that the shrine maidens had bad enough karma to be judged by the spell, and he was equally skeptical that Punishing Hand would be strong enough to freeze them in place. There were really only two spells he could call on, and he wasn't ready yet to burn one of them.

Flame Charge. White flames tinged with a hint of shadow blossomed across his chest and arms as he dove beneath her tail and waved between her legs as he targeted her ravaged belly. The spell's effect was immediate, as the white fire leapt from his arms like a ravenous beast and spread across her torso. With a bellow of pain, she dropped to the ground, narrowly missing suffocating him by pure accident, and began writhing around in a vain attempt to put out the fires.

To his surprise, it almost seemed to work, as the white flames were slow to spread across her glittering scales, but Jasper gave her no time to recover. He struck again and again, his every hit spreading the flames more quickly than she could quench them until her motions began to slow, and the frenzied whipping of her tail stalled just long enough to give him a clear shot at her neck.

The glaive sliced through, and he darted into the air above her as her body gave one final shudder before stilling. He didn't trust it just yet, though, watching for another few seconds before he finally tore his gaze to the rest of the room - and what he found was not a welcome sight.

Ihra lay trapped beneath the body of a second shrine maiden, whose corpse was riddled with the tell-tale scorch marks of Tsia's lightning spell. Samsadur was hunched over, trying to drag her free, but from where Jasper hovered, he couldn't tell if she was breathing or not. He darted toward her immediately, but before he'd gotten halfway, he heard Tsia's scream for help.

Spinning around, he saw her pinned between the two remaining maidens, her flight erratic as she tried to dodge their frenzied tails. It was a difficult task for a good flier, and Tsia wasn't one. She lost the game of a chicken a second later as one of the maiden's spikes punched through her shoulder and slammed her into the ground. Damn it. Flinging Circle of Forgiveness in Ihra's direction, he left S̆ams̆ādur to tend to her and raced toward the princess.

With the white flames of Flame Charge billowing around his body, Jasper couldn't scoop her up, not without burning to a crisp, but he could certainly get their attention. He struck low and swift, raking his glaive across their backs, and though the flames were sluggish to spread across their scales, the two turned to face him, one dragging Tsia behind her as the girl struggled to pry herself off the three-foot spike jutting through her shoulder.

Sparing a quick glance over his shoulder as he flew, he was relieved to see Ihra struggling to her feet, and hope surged anew. Just got to delay them a little bit longer, he thought, as he looked back just in time to be broadsided by a tail the size of a cedar. Damn it.

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