Time to clean house. You bring the tamed ostral out of the forest's edge, point her in the direction of the camp and scour her mind raw with rage. She lets out a piercing shriek and runs full pelt for the fort. You keep hold of her ruff until just before you reach the fort, then let go and hit the soft earth harmlessly (the wonders of a bronze body).
Distracted as the wizard is by his ruminations, he hears the ostral's sry and is ready for her when she enters the camp. Before she can get within kicking range, the wizard raises his right fist (the one wearing the garnet ring) and thrusts it at the ostral. An enormous tongue of fire licks out of the stone on the ring, wreathed in ink-like smoke, and strikes the ostral dead in the chest. You faintly pick up the scent of roasting flesh and burning feathers, though you suppose it must be far stronger to mortal senses. Seen through your particular vision, you also witness the extension of the formerly dormant spirit within the ring, lashing out in an expression of destructive glee.
You get into position behind the mage as he prepares to blast the ostral with another bolt from his ring. The ostral, overcoming her pain and filled with your particular brand of fury, launches into a series of deadly kicks. The wizard dodges the first few, but the last kick tears open his left arm with the ostral's talons. Seeing your opportunity, you leap with surprising agility for your size and weight. The wizard turns in a beautiful medley of surprise, fear and indignant rage just in time for your axe to land right between his eyes.
...
You place your tiny bronze hands around the sword you are bound to. The weapon feels
right, and you know why. A portion of your spirit is trapped in the blade, separate from the part you control and the part operating your body. You strongly suspect that, weak a spirit as you are at present, you cannot split your life force much more than this. Nor can you extend your own influence very far. Perhaps ways will present themselves for you to grow in power - you certainly remember a surge of strength in the last moment of the battle when the rage in the wizard finally rose. The fear and surprise did little for you, of course.
Even so you now have possession of the wizard's wand and ring, a probably dying ostral, his spell notes and his corpse.
You touch the ring and wand and instantly make contact with the spirits within them. The ring spirit seems barely sentient, powerful, chaotic and without the capacity for real higher thought. Bestial. Not filled with rage as you were, but instead an animal cunning. Crafty, chaotic, cruel. You could imagine the spirit laughing when the wizard died, had it such capacity.
The wand tells a different story. The spirit within is cold as before, but the greed within burns hotter. You can feel its intelligence, alien but perhaps not malevolent, in every fibre of your being during the contact. It speaks to you in a wordless language you both understand, making an offer and a request. The wandsprite has paid attention throughout its long service, unlike its lesser comrade in the ring. It can teach you much about the summoning arts and how to control your fellow spirits, and even a little about this world. In return it desires its freedom - not freedom to be banished back to the Grey World as another powerless minion, but freedom to act in this one as you do. It can give you much aid and guidance, but in return it demands incarnation as an imp.
You have the advantage - the wandsprite appears to have no offensive capabilities and few means of interacting with the outside world. You could glean much from its teachings, including how to create other imps (for how else would you conclude your bargain?). Of course, you could also try and force it into compliance. The original bindings that would force obedience are not keyed to you, so you must convert it to your service by force or diplomacy. The same goes for the ring, but you are honestly not sure how much of a mind it has to bargain with or threaten.
What will you do?
Status: Bronze Miniature.
Strength: 1 man!
Mind: 1 man.
Bodies
Bronze Statuette: Str 1, Damage Resistant.
Foci
Bound Sword: +2 Str to attacks w/ bound sword. If destroyed, banished.
Innate Powers
Possess Corpse: Possess a mostly intact corpse and animate it. Does not retard decay.
Wrath: Inspire irrational anger in a being capable of emotion.
Calm: Draw the anger out of a being capable of emotion.
Minions
1 dying ostral.
Items
Wandsprite - A Grey spirit imbued wand of sight and scrying.
Ring of Fire - A Nightsprite infused ring.
A wizard's corpse.
Author
Topic: You are an Imp! (Read 8135 times)