Reincarnation Wars - IC *Still Recruiting*

[Conor77]

Conor and Alex, for a moment, stare at the fiends. The fiends stare back. The rest of the party clumps down the stairs, hitting the bottom before noticing and pausing along with those already there. There was a pause, during which only the gurgles of slime demons keeping their shape could be heard. And then both sides, as if one, charged.

And then there was chaos. Lightning raged from Jacob and Jaime, white and purple tearing through the hordes of weak foes. Meanwhile, Erik started wading through enemies, with such strength in his staff arm as to tear some enemies entirely apart, while belching his own lightning from the other hand. Alexander extends his mind into the future, seeing easily where the imps and axe-wielders will attack him from, allowing him to block and strike with near-impunity. Necron also slashes with swords made of light, with only time for a few kills before recognizing the lightning of an old friend. William takes the time to make another of himself out of stone, before he too goes into close-combat. Even Tristan fights with a sword, after sheathing the area in fear-inducing flame. Only Conor and Rob hesitate, protected by Jacob, who may not be able to shoot beams of lightning into the crowd of fighting friends, but is threatening enough to protect his allies from the brunt of the demons.

This would seem extremely effective, and at first, it was. But sheer numbers can be a powerful factor, and these demons had fought in numbers for their entire lives. They were good at it. Lemures and Manes slipped up the fighters' feet, while Dretches tore at hair and eyes, and Khazra goat-men whipped axes towards them, so that they had to block more than they could attack. The strife is heightened by a huge blaze that roils though the area, started by Tristan, causing fear and panic to sweep through the demon ranks. But even though the fiends could take fire all day, Personae were less able to take the heat. Between burning and smoke, they were driven deeper into the depth of the battle, fighting on all sides. They were having a bit of trouble, as Tristan's flame stopped and he dropped to the ground wheezing, being saved by Necron's spell.

Alexander noticed something wrong first, when his visions of the future (now looking like a giant mass of spaghetti from all the action around him) stopped appearing, in distorted ways. A few seconds later, the rest of the room heard a clear, loud, BongBoooongBoboooooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnggggg

Conor had decided at last to move, ringing Belgaer in a near perfect triangle. But the bell wiggled during the last stroke and rang twice during the last ring. Devils began to drop to the floor, drooling, uncaring of where they fell. Their hearts beat fast and their lungs take in huge gulps of air, blood filled with adrenaline. But it is useless. They are worse than dead, their souls trapped inside their bodies, minds shut down by the voice of the Thinker.

Psychic powers stop, passive mind-protection effects began to project weird distortions, and inside everyone's mind, the ringing starts louder, hedging out the voices of their Personae. for a few seconds, it is unbearable, as it just gets louder and louder and louder...

Until it stops.

The party looks around, many of them with hands to their ears, to discover that between the bell and their fighting, fully over half of the fiends are gone, blasted, sliced, slashed, or brains fried away.

The Personae recover first, hefting weapons and charging before the devils can regroup to recover their numerical advantage.