Today’s snippet, titled “The Wish, part I”, is a piece I wrote about my PC in Mark’s new (Good) Pathfinder Campaign.
      Be forewarned, there may be mature themes and naughty language below.
– – – – – – – – – – –
      “Rhiallis!”
      A small hand shook her shoulder, hissing her name.
      For the space of two heartbeats, Rhiallis squeezed her eyes shut, wanting so badly to get even one full hour of sleep.
      “Rhi!”
      She cracked open one eye. Sadie crouched at her side, panic upon her face.
      “What’s wrong?” she whispered.
      “…I just wanted her back so badly.”
      A clatter in the far corner caught her attention and she rolled to her knees, careful not to wake the others. She blinked away the haze of sleep and her keen aasimar eyes focused upon the source of the odd noise. Rhiallis felt her breath catch in her chest.
      “S-Seraphina?”
      “He promised,” Sadie said, clutching her blade in her fist. “But he lied. Rhi – is she… is she evil?”
      Wetting her lips, Rhiallis opened her palm and concentrated. It was Seraphina. It looked like her – almost – and it seemed so fragile, so pale, so scared. Her naked flesh trembled slightly as she cowered there, avoiding the critical paladin’s gaze. But the truth was inconcealable – whatever the thing was, it was evil.
      “…it can’t be her. It bears the taint.”
      “It is me,” the thing said, plaintively. “Please… Sadie… it is me.”
      Rhiallis crept closer, Sadie at her side. She pulled the lightweight blanket she carried with her bedroll with her and as they approached, she shook it out, moving to wrap it around not-Seraphina’s thin shoulders. Hesitating, Rhiallis took a good look at the hin before her. Seraphina had been lovely, but this thing was… ethereal. Gorgeous.
      The blanket draped around her shoulders, the thing turned toward Sadie. Still she refused to make eye contact.
      “It isn’t her. It can’t be her. But-”
      Rhiallis pressed her lips together. She wanted to believe it more than she had wanted nearly anything, ever. Seraphina, along with Mira, had been her first friends after Viggo’s death. She had regressed, embracing the teenaged mentality with verve. Their carefree lust for life had been so passionate and after so long in the darkness, without him, Rhiallis had not been able to resist. She had never had friends like them before and to the end of her days, she knew no friend would ever mean as much to her as they did.
      “Seraphina…?”
      The thing reached for Sadie once more. “It’s me, Sadie… it is me.”
      “No!”
      And in the next second, everything changed.
      Not-Seraphina hissed, fangs appearing in her mouth, her eyes glittering with a crimson malevolence. Sadie cried out and Rhiallis reached for Radiance, in its sheath on her belt. Then, suddenly, the world turned over on itself. Rhiallis shot to the ceiling. She landed with a painful thud.
      “Ouch!”
      “What the-”
      The sounds of her friends – rudely awakened in many cases – slamming into the ceiling would have been funny under any other circumstance. Instead, they were trapped, all but helpless, and Rhiallis could not have been further from laughter.
      “You ought to be more careful what you wish for,” came a seductive voice. It was silk over gravel, deep and yet melodic. Rhiallis swivelled her attention toward the door of the hut and felt her jaw drop as an incredibly attractive human man sauntered through the door. He cut a fine figure in a tailored shirt that was open to the navel to reveal a rippling, muscled chest – so smooth and hairless you could eat from it. Close-cut trousers made their way down his powerful thighs, slipping beneath a pair of glossy black boots that knifed at the knee. Rhiallis resisted the urge to wipe imaginary drool from the side of her mouth. This man, too, was undoubtedly evil.
      “You just may get it,” he said, finishing the taunt. He lifted one hand and made an obscene gesture. Greasy black smoke appeared in the room; it was amongst them, around them, choking them, hurting them. And then he began to laugh.
      The laugh intensified, growing to fill the entire hut until it shook and in a haze of bloody power, the man began to twist and shift. His flesh melted away, a gruesome pile of pink and red at his feet. But they weren’t feet anymore – he stood on huge, taloned paws, like a reptile’s foot, only enormous. Eighteen feet tall, at least, he brushed the ceiling with thick black horns as he brandished his claws.
      “I got this!” Mira cried, twirling Agnes Forthright in her hand. Valiantly, she dove between the demon’s legs, preparing to deliver a devastating strike. Only she could not get off the ceiling no matter how hard she pushed with her legs and instead, flailed at his heavily armored skull.
      “What IS it?” Korael twisted around, trying desperately to draw her bow. Her hair was in her eyes and she could not seem to figure out which way way up anymore.
      “A glabrezu,” Aimsley said. “A demon. Kill it!”
      Celeste drew Snowblood, pulling herself along the ceiling. “Mira!” she cried.
      The halfling could not hear her now, for there was a thin trickle of blood running from both her ear and her mouth; he had torn her nearly in half with a flurry of attacks. Rhiallis’ heart broke as he tossed her to the floor – only to have her hurtle toward the ceiling and land with a sick, bloody thump.
      Her healing energies could only reach so far – but she did her best and with the help of a burst from Celeste as well, Mira’s eyes fluttered open. She shook her head, trying to get the fuzzy feeling out of her brain, and reached for her blade. It was there, beside her on the ceiling.
      She was torn. Destroy Not-Seraphina with Sadie? Or fight the demon, who had just mortally wounded her dearest friend? Rhiallis waivered.
      “I got Seraphina,” Sadie said. “Go! Help them!”
      Her decision made, Rhiallis dragged herself to the corner and out of the field of reversed gravity. She dropped to the ground – the real ground – and drew Radiance.
      “By the Flames of Fury, the Light of Righteousness – I shall bring upon you great vengeance and ravage you with holy flame!” Rhiallis’ incantation lacked the poetry of others, but it did the trick. She clung to the sacred power, just waiting for her chance to strike. Surely, the gravity field cannot last forever. And as soon as it goes down, I shall strike!
      Cole and Korael made it to the corner of the hut where the field was no longer in effect and began firing arrow after arrow at the glabrezu. Celeste dragged herself across the ceiling and smote him, dealing a series of scores that left the scaled beast bleeding. He fought on with demonic strength, unfazed.
      Still, Rhiallis bided her time. She could not get to him, not without being trapped on the ceiling, so she swung Radiance at Not-Seraphina and tried to find another way.
      “MIRAAAAAA!”
      This time it was Korael whose heart-wrenching shriek pierced the air. Mira had swallowed a healing draught and then leapt back into the fray, despite her grievous injuries. The halfling had suffered so many blows it was nearly impossible to tell where one wound ended and the next began. A small pool of blood surrounded her head, her eyes closed, and yet her hands clung to the enchanted blades she treasured.
      “Mira! No!”
      Rhiallis could wait no longer for the gravity field to break. She leapt forward, outstretching her wings in a fool hardly attempt to control the fall upward. It failed and she landed awkwardly, but a fury fueled by sorrow drove her forward.
      She reached the demon at last, and from her knees on the ceiling, she fought for all that she was worth. Celeste too, bloodying her blade upon the demon’s foul flesh.
      “Sera…” Sadie’s anguished cry drew her attention. The girl had just heard her friend, Mira, die an agonizing death and now, the thing that may-or-may-not have once been her sister, was defeated. The vampire in Seraphina’s body was reduced to a puff of greenish gas. Tears glistened upon the girl’s cheeks, but in her eyes there was room for nothing except rage.
      “Vi pit ekess uoinota, ihk wux ui guawysvern! Zyak nurti mobi nishka wux si spol.
      Vi pit ekess uoinota, ti ir, thur vakil! Nomeno reskafar geou smunsou vur krikvlic vur shirr!
      Si relgr unto wer aether ekess deliver coi jaka – vi nugriup pit – ifyugvreol wer kilg, tairais ihk charr!”
      Aimsley’s words were of a gutteral dialect Rhiallis had never before heard her use. Some words were familiar as Draconic, but others she could not place. Before she could stop to parse the few phrases she knew, a gaping maw opened in the floor of the hut. It was a monstrous gullet, lined with fangs like swords, writhing and grinding, and it was large enough to consume the eighteen foot tall demon with ease.
      Which is precisely what it did.
      “YES!” Celeste cried out, still kneeling on the ceiling. “Good job!”
      Rhiallis watched the thing disappear into the hole, but she did not feel triumphant, or victorious. Two of her friends, her very dearest friends, were dead (again).
      Aimsley had finally made her way across the ceiling and was trying to climb out the window. Celeste was just behind her now. Rhiallis began to crawl toward Sadie at the edge of the hut, where the gravity was normal, when suddenly she was on the floor again.
      “He’s dead?” Cole frowned, stepping toward the hole. “Wait? Where is he?”
      Korael moved to his side and peered down. “What? Where the in all the Hells did he go?”
      Aimsley’s scream, a heartbeat later, gave the answer they sought.
– – – – – – – – – – –

Note: Image is “King Jagiello Statue Central” by (Mulligand) from SXC.hu; edited by me