Binding Utterance
14th of February 2007 A.D.
Not here, it might see..
The shore... No, it can still follow you even if it does not know and then it will know... the passage...
... get out of range... too far...
The plan forms in desperate haste, a swarm of scattered thoughts between you and Song of Perennial Hours Intrinsically Ascending, gathered because they must be, because there is
no time.
The Station, both of you think at once, never as glad to have claimed it as in that moment. Like a curtain spun from moonbeams, like a song when the singer finds a new flourish the world parts for her and she's gone much to Murphy's surprise though the others know enough to guess at least even before you shout to Harry to hang in there.
She's back inside an instant, drawing a curious look from the gnarled giant, though it does not seem hostile, only weary. Something tells you it might not have taken a more overt show of Essence as well. Hopefully this won't count... As the lead glass case, taken from some very surprised master spirit binder flies over the water you catch it with your mind only to send it skimming into Harry's arms.
Opening the case he reveals a set of instruments at once timeless and strange, a knife half of obsidian, half of silver, quick-strike matches wrapped cylinders of earth-shaker fat in place of candles, a compass that opens like a mechanical spider able to mark several interlocking circles.
"Come on, come on..."
The Sword of Love shines muted silver half raised as Harry Dresden tries to draw a circle in earth that shakes and smudges with every serpentine twitch of spirit-roots a pair of gulls burst from a hidden perch with raucous, hungry calls. Something large and heavy footed is hurling its way through the underbrush, you don't need sharpened senses for that, but the work is still agonizingly slow even as all the candles strike flame against a stone.
Harry uses 1 Willpower -> Now at 7/8
Harry doesn't get angry, he does not curse, he does not even sweat as he's trying to get the keratin spike on the bottom to deploy, but you can
see him struggling and you know sure as your own name that the moment his will falters, the moment that circle ceases to serve as a proper focus, that thing is going judge him wanting.
Harry uses 1 Willpower -> Now at 6/8
Silver too shines the bell in the wizard's hand as he rings it once and calls to the thing that looms above even his height: "I am magi, one of the Wise, and I am worthy of your respect."
A wordless detonation is the only answer, if breath it be than it is the breath of a waiting hurricane. Yet through it again the bell rings, true and clear and for all the pain on his face none of it shows in his voice: "I am magi, one of the Wise, and I know your nature and your strength."
Harry takes 1 Bashing Damage -> Now at 7/8
This time the answer comes from the right along the shore: a boar hurls itself out of the thicket and there is no way,
no way it could stop before the circle. Its sheer mass enough to skewer Harry and hurl him into the surf.
"Karin, no!" your father calls, not a shout, but a command just the same.
She lowers her gun... and the boar stops, in defiance of nature and physics right before the circle, for older Laws are now at play. The beast's breath makes the flame of the nearest to it waver, but there it stiffens again under Harry's will. His expression is calm again, serene. These are the laws in which wizards put their faith.
Harry uses 1 Willpower -> Now at 5/8
Slowly, with wordless solemn ceremony he takes the knife and turns it silver side, cutting a shallow groove into his palm even as the riot in his blood sends it gushing out as the spirit begins to walk towards him with tectonic inevitability.
Harry takes 2 Bashing Damage -> Now at 5/8
"[
Tumult!]" The word is not spoken elegantly or eloquently, but it is undeniably
spoken in no mortal tongue but in that which was before all of them, the ground shakes and the air whips into a storm about the giant, where some of Harry's blood had fallen water bursts free striking the spirit in the knee upon which it is hobbled. Just as the boar before it, the spirit stops without slowing, waiting.
"I am Harry Dresden, and I give thee a name, honored spirit. From this day on, be thou called
Demonreach." The name echoes strangely upon a place that before had been unnamed, but not without the ring of truth. The spirit, Demonreach now, bows the topmost part of its avatar in an approximation of the bow Harry gives it before motioning towards the tower and sinking into the earth with a crack of stone.
"Come on over everyone," Harry calls, though he's not fooling anyone with the way he leans on the staff.
What do you do next?
[] Explore the island, looking for the missing grace
[] Head right to the tower as the spirit instructed
[] Harry attempts to call the spirit again to question it
[] Write in
OOC: This Harry does not have soul-fire. What he does have is a girlfriend who speaks Enochian. No one who knows him is likely to be surprised at the first word he learned in that language, though some may be given to heavy drinking regardless. 
