Veiled Powers, Hidden Purpose
Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
Rather than step upon the path, you spin into existence a dream-forged visage in the shape of an
angel, more than a figment but far less than the truth of such a being. In seven beats of feathered wings it reaches the walls of the manse. As it descends there is a shimmer in the air like the haze of heat above a forge and the false angel is simply gone as though it had never been, not burned or slain in any manner you can recognize.
The smell of burning flesh grows thicker in the air. You can hear something hiss at the very edge of your senses, like fat sizzling in a pan. From the way Ser Richard's stance shifts ever so slightly on the balls of his feet and Rina's fingers reach for her talisman, it is clear they also hear it.
It's not a sound...
Before the thought can do more than touch the edges of your mind, something digs its way out of the ash-shrouded soil. First the dome, then the hollow eyes, and finally the jaw loose and unhinged. The skull drips with oils you would rather not guess at, fire kindling upon it as soon as it begins to float in the air, like the wick to some macabre candle.
"So you come at last, Fool," the thing nods towards Benerro. "The Yoked Fire," here it clearly means you. "And the thieves..." the last part of the word hisses like a death rattle as the thing beholds Zherys and Teana. "Do you think you can hide stolen fire behind..."
You never will find out what the skull had meant to say to Teana, for the High Speaker takes the moment to cast a spear of
dark lighting through its eye socket, turning the bone to dust.
"Strange how the use of the word 'fool' uttered in battle so often precedes defeat," the Archon of Volantis proclaims in dust dry tones.
As the six of you walk down the path, the ground around it begins to churn as if a thousand other dead things were trying to gnaw their way to the surface, though nothing emerges. You are tempted to tear them out of the earth with a spell, but stay your hand when Rina calls: "It's not real, only a figment!"
A figment hiding what, you wonder, as Benerro calls to his god to
dim the light of false flame that all might see through it. What had before been a field of featureless grey is revealed to be covered in flowing fey script writ in bone-white ash upon dark stone polished to a shine, and circles of binding, dozens, scores of them interlocking and flowing into one another. What was the servant of Ymeri trying to summon forth here?
Carefully you step forward and upon the edge of one circle you read not the name of some fiend or spirit of fire, but
Laenor Serenmir, a mortal name... the name of one Awoken you realize a moment before you hear Teana gasp. "Something's pulling at me..." Hands tear at the air... no, at her shadow.
A false image all but flies off the path to stand in one of the circles, only to fade like smoke before a gale wind. Teana flinches in pain at the shadow's demise, but looks on with grim determination. "That thing's inside the house. We have to kill it."
"I would advise that we deal with at least
some of the circles first, lest we be caught between the Herald N'gath and enthralled mages." Zherys interjects.
What do you do?
[] Try to wipe out as many of the ritual circles as you can
[] Rush into the manse
[] Write in
OOC: Again, the votes are there to give structure, but a write-in is perfectly fine. 
