“I’m not gonna do that!”
The clerics were looking at her horrified. It would have been amusing if not everybody else also were looking at her like she was a crazy witch. Well, at least the witch part was true. Crazy were probably debatably. But how could they tell the difference with her face and body covered in mud?
Ariel proceeded to lay out the bowls on the ground before her. There were ten but so were they. She was not really sure if the minion counted but it was better to be on the safe side. She glanced up and saw Tane and Sir Roane looking at her at a distance. She waved them further away. The chance of them ruining the concoctions were still high even if they had to be part of of it. The least they could do was not ruining the ritual for the rest of them.
After she had mixed the ingredients in the bowls – leaves, earth and water – she had boiled them to a mushy paste. Now she just needed the last ingredient.
“You have to” she said. “She needs a sacrifice from each of us. If you want to stay alive”.
“We never have had to do something like that before. We have been crossing over in ages”.
“We are near a temple. A temple you haven’t discovered before even though it’s only two days travel from your base camp. This is serious power. And my guess is you haven’t had that many civilians over here except for your mages”. More specifically a witch who accidentally woke up Mother Nature.
Ariel did not particularly feel the need to disclose that. They probably suspected but she was not going to hand her head over on a silver platter. She smiled and pulled out a knife. She cleansed the edge in the small bonfire she had made to boil the paste. None of them smiled back.
“Okay, I guess I’ll go first”.
The small cut in her thumb yielded more blood than she usually would have used. She watched them fall into the bowl where they for a short instant formed a triangle pattern before being absorbed. Ariel did not even taste the paste. The sense of being united with all the elements were too strong. Being absorbed as a part of Mother Nature always had that effect on her ever since her run in with the elementals.
“Did you see what happened to her? She almost disappeared, became transparent. I’m not going to drink that. It looks a lot like blood magic”.
“There is no such thing as blood magic, brother Sengey. As a cleric you should know better than believe popular fiction. It is merely a symbolic sacrifice”. Ariel recognised Kaluna’s voice while her consciousness returned. “I’ll go next”.
“Think of it as quid pro quo”.
Nothing spectacular happened to the mages when they copied Ariel’s ritual, but Ariel could feel their presence for a brief moment. The same went for the soldiers, clerics and Abalone. Left were only the shadow priest and his minion.
“Let’s get this over with, witch”, Sir Roane said with a shrug. She was sure he was mocking her. “I know you’re dying to see whether or not I bleed blood”.
“Actually I’m more interested in whether or not you will survive the ritual, you know, you being undead and all”.
Sir Roane snapped the knife out of her hand. “I’m not an undead. You have seen too many zombie movies”.
“Nah, you are way too clean looking to be a zombie. No rotting flesh. I would have pegged you more of a vampire type – maybe the glittering kind”. She grinned and Kessler gave her an imaginary high five. Even Kaluna covered his mouth.
Nevertheless she dug her heels into the ground and braced herself with her arms as the minion cut his thumb. The dark fluid could possibly be blood but Ariel couldn’t really be sure from her vantage point. In her imagination it was everything ranging from harmless liquid to otherworldly ooze.
He drank the whole content without taking his eyes from her. “Satisfied?” he said placing the bowl on the ground in front of her. Then he touched the ground.
Ariel skittered back from where she sat as the ground began to darken, but instead of withering the grass began to grow into thorny flowers. Tane kneeled as well and laid his hand on the ground. The same thing happened except the thorny flowers bit into his hand until he bled. He pulled his hand back fast but he didn’t look surprised.
With a satisfied look at Tane, sir Roane stood up. “You think I haven’t done this before, Ariel?” He held out his hand for her.
“Symbolic, my ass!”
“Don’t touch that, Kessler!”
“But he made flowers grow!”
“Black thorny flowers. I have to agree with Kaluna, Kessler. You probably shouldn’t touch it”. Abalone poked one of the flowers by Tane with her sword. It hissed and withered, leaving dark petals behind.
“Uhm…we are not done. I think”, Ariel said a bit shaken. She had never encountered that reaction before. “Tane needs to do it as well”.
“No he doesn’t” sir Roane said as he helped her up.
“They are linked”. Brother Belle’s tone of voice was equally full of curiosity and disgust. “You really have to enlighten me about how that works some -“
“If all the witchery is done we have a job to do. Where did you say that entrance was again?” Alegra’s voice was unimpressed.
Ariel was not.