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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ellinor" data-source="post: 5973521" data-attributes="member: 14561">30x02Nyoko hadn’t expected the Mother Superior to submit easily.  But the Mother Superior was still acting like she was in charge.   And now they were surrounded by a dozen guards with katanas.Prime Inquisitor Yudai began to grow magically, as Nyoko had seen him do before, until he was gigantic, nearly filling the space between two of the columns.  “Unsettling, isn’t it,” he said, in a booming voice, “for the Mother Superior of Kettenek to find both law and justice against her.”Nyoko agreed, but that wasn’t what unsettled her most.  From months of research, she knew what this woman was capable of; some of the rumors were—literally—petrifying.  She’ll kill us without a second thought.  With that thought echoing in her mind, the Honored Adept Nyoko drew her bow and loosed an arrow at one of the most revered religious figures in her country.  It hit its mark.  Right in the Mother Superior’s chest.  The mother superior pulled out the arrow as if it barely stung.  “You dare to challenge me on my holy ground?”  She raised her hands as if directing an orchestra, and suddenly dozens of spikes, three feet tall, shot up from the ground in the middle of the room, piercing pillows, sending feathers flying, making it hard to maneuver.  “AUGH!”  yelled Unsuku, as one stabbed upward into her arm.  Tavi was hit, too.  Nyoko looked down.  One had torn the leg of her pants.  A trickle of blood ran from her thigh.  Across the room, more spikes shot up.  One went straight through Yudai’s enormous foot.  They trapped Kormick where he stood.  Something else was happening, too:  Rose was clutching her ears, as if to keep out a loud noise.  But all Nyoko could hear was the clash of katanas, as the guards heaved forward, attacking Savina and Mawu in the back of the group and Kormick in the front.  One of the guards who had been standing on the dais dashed at Kormick, sliced across his front twice with incredible force, and dashed away, slicing Yudai’s ankle and Arden’s shoulder in the process.  Arden stabbed as he went by, barely catching his arm.  The other two guards from the dais moved with similar speed—faster than Nyoko’s eyes could follow. Nyoko had never seen anyone move that fast before, not even an Adept.  And Kormick clearly hadn’t either.  He was in bad shape.  But there was nothing Nyoko could do to help him.  She ducked behind a pillar and kept shooting arrows at the Mother Superior.Savina began to run for Kormick, but beside her, Mawu groaned.  Blood bloomed from Mawu’s gut and stained her robes.  She coughed in pain.  Savina stopped running, took a deep breath, grasped both of Mawu’s shoulders, and prayed aloud:  “May Alirria open your heart.”  The blue light of healing coursed through her hands.  Mawu reached down to feel her gut, as the healing took effect, and looked Savina in the eyes.  Then she looked past Savina at the three guards rushing them.  “I have something for you,” she said, calmly drawing something sharp and shiny out of the bag at her waist. The guards turned and fled.At the corner of the dais, Mena and Brother Funaki were back to back, fending off guards.  “Everybody move!” Mena yelled instructions from her higher vantage point.  “Arden!  Look out!”  she yelled, too late.  Arden got another swipe from one of the fast-moving guards.    “And Justicar,” Mena yelled to Kormick, who was on his knees, bleeding and trapped by the spikes, “pull it together.  I need you to not die.”  Kormick wrested himself from the spikes and stood up.  “Aye aye,” he said, and held up his warhammers just in time to release his electrical attack on three approaching guards.Twiggy and Tavi were in the middle of the room, unleashing fire.  Tavi threw his sword into a knot of muscular guards, and it burst into flame before re-forming in his hand.  Twiggy cast something, and they all fell over.  One landed on a spike.  Brother Ono picked up another in a wrestling hold and pinned him on a spike.  Mother Satsuki touched a third and green-black necrotic energy spread from the spot where she touched him.  He fell where he stood.  The Synod members know this is their fight, too, Nyoko realized.  “THEY WON’T STOP THEY WANT TO KILL US THEY WANT TO KILL ME!”  Rose yelled, grasping her ears and doubling over in pain.  Something was clearly very, very wrong with Rose, but Nyoko couldn’t tell what—only that Rose was panicked, in pain, and too far away to help.  Twiggy—who was closer—ran to Rose’s side and shielded her.  A curtain of flame burst from Twiggy’s orb, immolating a couple of guards.  And then Nyoko felt something too, something in her head, something sharp, not a noise, exactly, but . . .Nyoko blinked, hard, and then looked around.  Yudai had somehow gotten on to the dais, and he hit the Mother Superior, hard.  Savina prayed, and a blinding shaft of light hit the Mother Superior.  The Mother Superior shrieked as the light blinded her.  Now she can’t see to defend herself, Nyoko thought, aiming her bow.  Finally maybe an advantage… …but everyone else was getting pummeled.  Tavi and Twiggy were stuck on spikes.  The fast guards almost seemed to be bouncing around the room, leaving wounds on everyone.  Mena had been hit so many times her armor was gurgling, its whispering mouths choked with blood.  Arden, who had joined Nyoko behind the pillar, hit the Mother Superior with a flying dagger, and again it seemed barely to hurt her at all.  Nyoko realized: every time the Mother Superior was hit, the guards were somehow absorbing it.Kormick saw it too.  He yelled “They’re—” but before he could say anything else, he had been turned to stone.  The Mother Superior could channel the might of Kettenek to turn people to stone.  Nyoko had heard the rumor, but she hadn’t believed it.  Now she knew it was true.“A Justicar, turned to stone by a criminal.  I don’t understand Kettenek,” Arden muttered.A group of guards was closing in on their pillar.  Nyoko tried to slow them down with arrows.  Another group was closing in on Mena and Savina up near the dais.  One of them, a tall one, jammed his katana down into Mena’s chest.  Tavi ran at him, and stabbed his flaming sword into his back, and he fell, but it was too late.  Mena dropped to the ground.  Savina knelt beside her.  Rose clutched her head and screamed again, and Twiggy fell to her knees, and Nyoko felt it again, too, that thing in her head.  She heard the roaring of the angry crowd outside.  She heard a whisper, saying something . . . she blinked hard again, and the whisper went away, but the rioting crowd stayed loud, as if she was in the middle of the fray . . . Nyoko tried to concentrate on the very real fighting around her.  She saw Mena regain consciousness and stumble to her feet.  Then one of the guards charged at Rose.  He sliced her arm with his katana, and there was nothing she could do.  Blood covered the side of her robe.  She was obviously in pain . . .On the dais, Brother Funaki created some sort of explosive swirl of color and light, and one of the bigger guards collapsed.  Sister Sweet Scent said a few words and a gust of wind whipped across the Mother Superior’s eyes, which were still blank and blind from Savina’s assault.  But the Mother Superior snarled and clenched her fist, and more spikes grew in the floor.  It left barely a foot of moving space in the whole sanctuary.  The whole room was hazardous.“BE QUIET!” screamed Mena, and grasped her head, and then—like Kormick on the other side of the room—she turned to stone.Kill, came the whisper in Nyoko’s head, and this time she could hear what it was saying.  Make the sacrifice of death . . . Kill Roseanna di Raprezzi . . .</blockquote>

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