The Faithful continues....

The group scattered into the woods with the creature that was once Tamarind close behind, howling, pausing only once to relieve herself against a tree. I stopped to take my bearings and began to wonder where the Lancer-beast had gone to when he came loping from the woods. He was on me in seconds, ripping, biting, clawing, but a quick shout of "I’m the referee, you can’t kill me!" sent him scurrying away after another poor person. I noticed then that the Tamarind-beast was on the ground, looking dead, and West stood over her, silver knife in one hand, a look of glee on his face. He saw Lancer and set about him with the blade, swiftly dispatching him / it. Both Tamarind and Brandon changed back to normal, and for a moment I wondered if John was about to get done for murder. But our recently changed friends began to murmur and groan. Somehow they were still alive.

   Back at the house we started to wonder what had caused it. All fingers pointed at Stephenson, especially as there was a spell in his book just like it. Even the house was no longer a safe place it seemed, and the number of worried looks increased, especially when all the lines of investigations came to a dead end. There seemed little left to do but follow the map and see where it led. Light was failing at this point and the woods turned quite foreboding in the murk, which may explain why most people scattered in different directions despite ‘following the map’. Mr. West kept his head, though, and soon found a box buried in a dried-up river bed. Inside was a sheet with the same kind of symbols drawn on it as were on the stones. It was the key to the translations.

   We were almost in the house when Samuel Stephenson stormed out of the woods, hurling threats in our direction. After seeing his trick with the wolves no one wanted to bundle him, but a few hardy souls refused to run away into the building. He wanted his cube back, as well as his others stuff, and he promised us that if we did he would be merciful and make our deaths swift. It didn’t seemed much in the way of an incentive to hand over his items in my opinion. Oddly, Stephenson stepped on the electrified grid without a single hair standing on end but he seemed unable to enter the building, which was quite handy. Maybe we were safe, I remember thinking at the time, but that was about to be proved wrong. Samuel spied Perry cowering behind everyone at the back of the hut, and with a grim smile the man in black muttered arcane words under his breath while making odd gestures with his hand. With the smile changing slowly into a mocking grin, Samuel walked away, leaving us confused and worried.

   I felt a cold touch on my arm even though no one was near. I shouted out a warning - part of me thought it was just my imagination but I wasn’t taking any chances - and people fell quiet and wary. Perry’s shouts started everyone and he dropped to the ground, clawing at the air, bellowing for help as cuts began appearing over his skin. An idea rammed into my mind and I snatched the shovel from Spencer, swinging it above Perry’s prone body. It connected with something solid and unseen and knocked it away. Perry was on his feet in seconds and out of the door, not looking back, not waiting to be attacked again. However, the invisible foe picked another victim and started on Fr. Case, tearing his flesh. This time people rushed to help, and with the pick axe, shovel and knife set about punching / thwacking / stabbing the crap out of the intangible beast (and occasionally the priest). The imperceptible creature soon left him alone and picked another, attacking Bartholomew. But before he could be helped the unobservable monster moved to Perry again, who was close by, and tore into his body. Blood started to be drawn up into the air, revealing a mass of pulsating tendrils and devilishly sharp talons. Nails, Spencer and West finally had a target and made swift work of the beast, yet it was too late to save Perry.