Trial by Fire
7th of July 2006 A.D.
The first thing that hits you is the smell, the sour reek of rotten meat borne on a wind out of nowhere, but before you had even opened your mouth to speak Harry whirls on his heel towards the shadows between two dilapidated walls where the peeling paint now fades into a murk deeper than the evening shadows can account for. "Watch out!"
A man comes barreling out of the darkness beyond the world, you know his face for you had seen him once before in the company of a young Harry Dresden talking about Wizard's Sight, but this time he is not wearing overalls, but Kevlar and ceramic plates arranged in such a way as recall a dragoon's curias.
If he ever had a steed to ride it's probably gone now, Usum whispers in your mind unbreakable as ever and you have to admit he has a point. The old wizard is covered in cuts and bruises all across his neck and and jay and in places the plates of his armor are scoured by acid.
He looks up at the sky at the fading light and curses hard enough. "It's later than I thought they might be able to take this! Run Hos!"
"Vampires?" Harry asks alarmed.
"An' worse things, but at least they won't be able to bring in the fodder." The elder wizard stops, his eyes only pausing on you for a moment, enough to judge you are not a threat maybe and then he turns back towards the gate and.
The air... no
space itself ripples under the weight of his will an ethereal door trying to slam shut, but the darkness twists and recoils like a wounded beast.
"Fuego!" Harry calls out and a line of flame passes over the old man's head and illuminates what the alley had become.
Part of you really wishes he had not done that. Jammed between the buildings is a mass of squirming blackened flesh gaping maws that scream and chitter tongues as red as blood. You cannot even see where one one begins and the other ends until the fire drives them apart scampering on the walls with iron hard talons. The monster in the center of the blast is not so lucky, going up like it was dipped in gas.
"I said run, I can take them on this side!" Ebenezer shouts as he a blast of golden dust flies from his left hand coiling an twisting in the air like a living thing. Out of the corner of your eye you see the spell start to melt through vampiric flesh like wax, but you are far too busy disobeying.
With a deep breath you draw your sword, living brass light as and extension of your arm and breathing out you will it
burn. Balefire burns all around you, a beacon in the night, but it is strongest in your hand. It coils around your wrist like a serpent obedient to your will, it wraps around the hilt then tighter and tighter around the blade until it is as much annihilating flame as brass.
Lost 1 Essence
Wading into the forest of fang and claw and teeth you dance the dance of destruction. Though you do not know where their hearts are it matters not for where the fire touches it burns with the vicious light of your judgement. All is fire and all is screams to ash and dust falling. Distantly you realize the old man is weaving his ribbon of light around you, afraid perhaps that it might burn you.
They are on the verge of breaking, Usum helpfully notes as the fourth horror dies under his flame-shrouded edge.
Though eyes not of flesh but spirit you see the vampire crouching for a leap, a hideous black scab on the stone to your left, but you had already committed to far in your last strike, the weight of the your body wholly into it. Thus all you can do is move maybe half a step to the left, enough perhaps to blunt the blow but it still falls onto your back raking it with iron hard claws, but before you can turn you hear Harry shout "Ventas Servitas!" and a blast of wind tears it off off.
You take 2 Wounds
From the screams and the sudden flash of golden light you assume the old wizard got it, he certainly got the pair that were trying to use the half charred bodies of their fellows as shields, the magic drilling right through their skull.
Judging by the wetness you feel on your back you really should be in a lot more pain than you are, but there is no time to think of that now. The tide begins to turn the things start to scuttle back when out of the murk at the far end of the tunnel comes a scream unlike that of the vampires. Where they sound like maddened beats this is a melody that that harmonizes with itself in cutting notes and crushing silences.
Black tendrils that look like flesh
but are not, that look like smoke but are not, that look like shadow
but are not come pouring out of the darkness like a kraken out of the depths. Fear races though your veins then wit h a
twisting of your will it is gone and you can see the thing for what it is, hairbreadth cracks in the fabric of Creation already starting to heal over.
Lost 1 Essence
Be the ocean ever so vast a cupful of water cannot drown you, the thought passes though your mind and you do not know if it is yours or Usum's. It does not matter. It is after all true. You dance again, there is a lot more room for it, severing tentacles and driving sword and arm into the warped pseudo-flesh and malformed mouths. Fire sears the world's wounds closed, but there is a second horror behind the first and that one you but wound before it turns its baleful gaze on you.
Eyes like the distant glimmer of poisoned stars
Then in the midst of the swing you are not alone. There is a knight all in armor that gleams like silver and in his hand is a sword like and not like yours for it is not his, but a duty heavier than the mountains. And then your father is there. Amoracchius sings a dreadful harmony as it cleaves through That Which Should Not Be.
So it is not, the screams still, the gate closes in and it is almost as if the world sighs in relief. Only the many-eyed light of your soul and the quickly rotting bodies of the vampires remain.
What do you say?
[] To your father: I think I could have handled that, but thanks for the save
[] To Ebenezer: See I'm one of the the good guys
[] Write in
OOC: For anyone wondering that that golden power was, it was like Harry's pocketful of sunlight except longer lasting and able to be used as a weapon in conjunction with very fine control air evocation. Also for the record Molly killed the hell out of four Elite Red Court vampires and one and three quarters Outsider Horrors, the least of them but still Outsiders. 
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