Anima could feel it.
A body both hers and not. Ghostly appendages, eight in number, growing more and more intimately known as her own arms and legs. A heart beating in tandem with hers, like a sister organ residing in a counterpart
Arethil, what veil separating each world thinning rapidly and letting each be known to the other. This imposition a weight as crushing as that of being watched from before, and then more so. Like the squeezing of a fist about her entire body, a smothering and a suffocation of the soul within.
Anima couldn't stand. She dropped down to her knees, hands and arms limp at her sides, head hanging down.
A new field of vision crept in from the periphery of her own, as if she her whole life had been looking exclusively through a tube or keyhole, only now to have such limitations slowly removed and the true expanse of perception revealed. This new field of vision saw the world in a manner wholly alien; dull and drab colors and vague outlines for materials inanimate, colors lurid and shimmering for things afflicted with life and mortality.
And she saw with her own eyes the street upon which she had sat. And there with her sister eyes she saw the back of her own head, from a vantage higher than the street and not far behind. Her color a swirling teal.
Anima turned her head. Looked over her shoulder and up.
The Symbiote stood on top of the building behind her, eight massive spider legs spread out for purchase upon the roof. It looked down at her, and she through its eyes that were her sister eyes knew that it was doing so. Horrified screams from the small pockets of
Elbion citizens still in the vicinity.
The Symbiote's sight moved. Up from Anima and towards the Midnight Dream, therein an assortment of colors, many of which were fading or morphing outright to the dull and drab of the wood and the brick and the cobblestones and the clay and all else. Three signatures stood out the most, each a pulsating yellow. And one among those three burned with the intensity of the sun.
In a split second the massive Symbiote crawled down from the building to the street and rushed over and past Anima and the crucified woman that was its body nearly missed colliding into her. The Symbiote rammed the front of
The Midnight Dream and caved in the front end and partially the red clay roof and with its front four legs began to thrash and break open the building further and clear a way. Debris flew in arcs small and arcs enormous all across the street and the surrounding buildings like ruinous hailstorm.
The Symbiote ignored Luc and ignored what few other living patrons there were. Instead it reached a leg forward and impaled the stunned Senior of the Black Circle upon the tip and extracted him from the tavern and turned and slammed him down onto the street outside.
The Symbiote slashed and stabbed and slammed and skewered and altogether brutalized the body of the Senior with its two frontmost legs, his screaming cut short violently and suddenly as the assault began. A great shower of blood and gore and innards and organs flying and scattering and splattering about as he was torn apart in every conceivable sense of the word. The other members of the Black Circle inside the ruined tavern, one standing and one lying, each as stunned as the other, frozen in paralyzing dread from their own bloody task.
Anima watched, through eyes of her own and through the vision of the creature, how the Symbiote stabbed the Senior over and over like a mother given the chance to punish her daughter's murderer.
And she felt the phantom blood drenching her hands.
The euphoria in her heart.
* * * * *
Claire hurried along through the streets. Oh yes it was time to be done with this little endeavor. You simply
couldn't win them all, could you? Of course Trajan would understand. Oh but don't pretend like there aren't other magical catalysts out there ripe for the stealing. Even better, said other magical catalysts likely wouldn't sprout spider legs and run off and terrorize a city, now would they? Her dear Kha. She had a rather poor sense of what ought to be pursued and what ought to be swept neatly under the rug and cleanly denied. Why, what wasn't "true" could hardly damage one's pride, now could it?
Oh well. She'd come slinking back to Claire soon enough. Of course she would. And it would be lovely to have a nice little "I told you so" at her expense.
And Claire had Willis with her. Just in case that
monster decided to double back around to try and eat the most beautiful woman in all of Elbion currently. She could push Willis forward and let him do his thing while she made for the city gates. Fighting
monsters simply wasn't the flavor of danger she yearned for, oh no no no. Hers was a delicate balancing act with potentially hostile people she could convince and cajole and coerce, all with varying degrees of subtlety and sexuality.
Monsters? Ha! Surely you jest!
Huh. Willis seemed...oddly nervous. Where did all that lovely confidence go?
"No." Claire thought for a second. "To the second question. Oh but she'll just
fine, love. For all her other niggling faults, she's not stupid. She'll find out quite well and quick that she's volunteered herself for a fool's errand. Why, even if she did find a way to incapacitate that monster what is she meant to do then? Hmm? Pick up the Vicar and toss her over her shoulder and just, what,
walk away? And that's if the giant spider legs even disappear or are cut off or what have you. I mean, honestly, she acts like we actually need to
do something about this, like it simply won't be taken care of eventually by the locals. Like its
our fault or something. Ha, ha, ha! Can you imagine?"
She talked a lot. Oh but did it feel good to vent a little, even if she had plenty more where all that came from.
* * * * *
Kha ran. Her lungs burned but she ran.
She yelled at everyone she saw and didn't stop. Asked them if they had seen it. If they had no idea what she was talking about they obviously had not. Those that had, unanimously with faces contorted by some degree of dread or outright horror, pointed her along the correct path.
Kha ran. This street and that street and followed the fingers of bystanders and witnesses who had seen the thing, however briefly.
She pulled out disk-shaped chunks of lavastone from a pouch on her belt as she ran; these particularly good at taking and holding her various enchantments, easy to work with. But she had no idea what to use. What would work? Would anything work against that creature? Was there some special trick or some condition that would cause those legs to retract and disappear or something equally worthwhile to her end goal?
The staples, perhaps, start with those. Lightning trap, to potentially stun. Ice trap, to potentially freeze. Light trap, to blind or confuse.
She didn't know how she was going to extract the Vicar from Elbion, and she knew she didn't know. One problem at a time, Kha. All in order. Minute after minute, second after second, solve this, then solve that. There probably wasn't enough time to send a bird to Dio and have him contact the wagon team and direct them to wherever the creature was going. Ugh. Both herself and Claire didn't really think Anima and Luc would deliver the pendants tonight. Well, yes and no. Possible, yes, but unlikely. Damn it! They should have been fully prepared just in case.
But even then, they didn't expect the Vicar and the Symbiote to...change. The Black Circle certainly had no problems even remotely like this with the Vicar, according to Claire.
Tick, tock. Make the best of a bad situation. You can still do this. Time doesn't wait for anybody.
And Kha ran through the city.
* * * * *
The crows watched from their perch the happenings down below in and around
The Midnight Dream. Heads cocked at the same angle.