The thunderous crashes from the battle within the dilapidated old Temple were the only reports on how the two brutes within fared. Throughout, Karuka stood in silence, just watching the building as though if she stared hard enough eventually the wall would evaporate and allow her to see what was happening. She didn't like being pushed to the side of a fight; she'd been known to step into fights that had nothing to do with her so deep ran that antipathy.

She'd met Molotov because of that tendency, and he'd taught her how to fight. She'd watched Damon Kaosi destroy the universe because of that tendency. She had hit the guardian spirit of the Liviol Sanctum on its nose because of that tendency. It would not have been unlike her to challenge Amiya on her own, despite the great disparity of power.

But instead she had turned her back and fled. It was all she could do to keep put, and her fingertips tapped rapidly in the little indents her hands had worn into the wood of her staff. Waiting was torture, it was hel.

But it was even worse when an abrupt silence fell upon the clearing.

The redheaded woman took a step forward, acting on impulse for a second before checking herself and sparing a glance to the paladins huddled together. The consensus of their conversation...

Damn it all, I knew I shouldn't have left him in there alone. She'd chosen to let the ghoul have his thrice-damned pride instead of standing and fighting. She'd chosen wrong.

Booted feet flew over the dying grass, and an amber hand grasped the handle of the heavy stone door that had contained and isolated the combatants. It didn't budge under an insistent tug, so Karuka set her feet and pulled with all her weight. Even so, it only cracked open enough for the slender woman to squeeze through.

Fragments of stone clattered down; rubble wedged in the door frame had made opening the door any further impossible for her merely average strength. What little light managed to penetrate the grave interior of the chapel drifted down hesitantly in cold little beams that were too afraid to touch the floor.

Bodies littered the floor. Some were dressed in the dark robes worn by Durogath's cultists, others sported the crisp white robes of the clerics of Sintyre. A little wisp of something smoke-like caught Karuka's attention, and much to her surprise it was the image of a man. There were others in the building, and it took the Irish lass a moment to realize she was seeing the spirits of men who hadn't been ready to die. It wasn't the first time she'd seen a ghost, but it had been a while.

Shaking her head, Karuka started walking down the rubble-strewn aisle, toward the figure impaled on the altar. Dust and death clogged the air, making it an oppressive endeavor to draw every breath...but that wasn't the worst of it. The most oppressive part of having entered the chamber was the dreadful silence that enshrouded the now-abandoned battle scene.

Nimbly, she picked her way through the rubble scattered in her path, eyes fixed on the ground to prevent her from stumbling. She was almost to the altar when a shadow moved at the edge of her vision and caught her attention. Her bright blue eyes snapped up, piercing the darkness to catch sight of a man in a robe. His cowl covered his face so that she couldn't see anything but his mouth.

A moment passed where she and the mysterious figure stood looking at each other, he considering her with a calm patience, she glaring upon him with suspicion. His hands didn't move, he was utterly still; her feet set themselves shoulder width apart for balance and her right hand clenched upon her staff in case it was foe she found herself face to face with. She wasn't backing down from another fight this day. She heard him make a soft sound, but whether it was a scoff or a chuckle she wasn't quite sure. Then he turned away and simply vanished.

Karuka turned her head back to the altar to see if what she thought she'd seen through the gloom was real, and a sinking feeling in her gut told her it was. Before her, as dead and decrepit as any other broken body in the room, was the body of Seth Dahlios, pinned like an insect by a gigantic sword. The sword the malevolent redhead had wielded, to be precise.

His soul was there, like many of the other mens', but his was different. Although ragged and tattered, incomplete, it railed, it raged, it slammed against the body and shoved at the blade impeding it. The other souls drifted. They'd quit. He would fight until his body turned to dust and blew away.

Karuka dropped her staff with a hollow clatter, hurrying up to the altar to see if there was anything she might be able to do. "Hold on," she told the spirit, unsure if he could hear or understand her at all. "I'll...I'll do something."

She reached for the sword, to pull it from the corpse, but the instant she touched it a voice screamed into her mind, lashing out at her. How dare she, a little impudent wretch dare to touch it, the Angel Slayer?

Startled, she let it go for a second. She'd never seen a weapon that could speak to someone before. Then her eyes narrowed and her lips curled back in a snarl. She grabbed the sword again, and this time her slender fingers wrapped tightly around the cold grip. Again, the sword started screaming and railing at her, but she only clenched her hand tighter.

"Shut the Hel up." In one smooth motion she withdrew the Angel Slayer from Seth's body, then stepped back to see if that made any difference at all.