“NEVIN!”

She did not have time to merge into the aura sight, and study this being - the one of twisted, disgusting, bloody-coloured waste. Her mind did recognise the one sitting on the altar as being connected to that she had destroyed outside. But she was not enraptured by Nevin had been. Instead she caught the glimpse of the being in her periforole as she slowed to stalk the building. And there was also a: Man, to the right.

All it took was for her to launch back into a run, charging for he who charged her friend.

Luckily her speed was better than most, and she had never come to a complete halt. She slammed into him with a mighty sound, and pushed him to the ground between two pews. Her screech sounded again and she went stabbing at his eyes with her beak at the same time as stabbing his heart with her dagger.

For this man was nothing. He would never get her friend.

There was a shout - a familiar voice, calling a familiar name, and for a moment the panic in that voice almost broke Nevin of the grim entrancement that the creature in the middle of the room had wrapped the alchemist in. But then there was a pulse, as crimson light sprang into Nevin’s eyes, and his magic began shrieking in terror and joy, and the almost freedom was washed away.

No - no this thing it was pulling - Nevin broke from a part of his unnatural fascination, stumbling forward. Unseen, unfelt, dozens of threads slid from Nevin’s skin, surrounding him in a writhing mass of crimson threads, tendrils, and cables, almost like he was a sea anemone. The blue being in the middle of the room began to glow, a cobalt shine breaking forth, and in the air above it blue and red began to swirl together.
Nevin knew, somehow utterly certain, that if this thing managed to complete whatever it was doing, then something utterly terrible would happen. Something he knew he absolutely must not let occur - because he had seen red swirling in that pattern once before, the night when the outsider had taken over his body and destroyed the cultist village. Whatever this tendril being was doing, it was easily as bad as that, if not worse.

So Nevin broke into a run, vaulting over any pews that got in his way - and when he was close enough, his threads shot forward, racing for the being. The creature let out a soul-shivering squeal as it was pierced countless times, Nevin’s threads somehow splitting through its skin with ease. Crimson spread across the blue body, washing it away - and with a loud, ear splitting crack, the blue hanging in the air above vanished.

For a moment the red in the air - the red that grew in the trees, in the plants of this forest - hung motionless. Then it fell, no, then it drove down, washing around Nevin. The mage glowed with the unnatural light - and then crimson began to shine, the brighter red battling the darker as Nevin began to shake, mouth open in a soundless scream as he fell away from the carcass of the creature.