The Destruction of Balaam
The chamber was in shambles. A haze of acrid smoke smelling of brimstone and ozone hung in the air. Sean looked around. The tapestries along the wall were smoldering. One showed a burn mark that looked like a series of chrysanthemum fireworks, which could only be a mixed force elemental strike. His teacher and lover, Izorpo, was gone, but she had put up a mighty fight.
Sean looked at the residue of the containment spells drawn on the summoning dais in the chamber’s center. He imagined how the fight must have gone as the Arch-Demon broke them and ultimately consumed her. He glanced around and saw her grimoire and phylactery, the crystal vial holding her blood which tethered her soul to the prime material plane, on a table.
Sean thought of the pact they had made, he, Apprentice to her, Master. They had both agreed to kill the other if a summoned infernal entity overwhelmed them. But this was more than just death; this was the complete elimination of her soul.
Sean would re-summon the Arch-Demon. He only needed to bind and contain it long enough to destroy Izorpo’s phylactery, then he would banish the Arch-Demon. Izorpo’s soul would diffuse, and she would cease to exist. The demon couldn’t hold her, but neither could she make the passage to the afterlife. Because of his love for her, he knew he must do this duty.
“I must release her.”
Tears streamed down his face and Sean’s anger flared. As a Priest of Wot, he knew how to destroy the Arch-Demon. The technical problem was binding him long enough, creating a strong enough containment. He had an idea looking at Izorpo’s phylactery; with her gone, what use was his own soul?
“I will avenge her!”
Sean expertly opened a large vein on his leg with a bloodletting lance. He mixed alcohol, his collected blood and quicksilver into a tincture. Sean used a fine calligraphy brush and painted a summoning circle and surrounded it with the containment sigils on the dais.
Sean stood, Izorpo’s phylactery in hand. “King Balaam, I summon thee.”
