Adventure of Wolfie 1

The sapphire vortex screams, a harmonic razor that tears through the freezing air of The Velvet Goat. The intruder stumbles back, blinded by the radiance, while the very foundation of the tavern shudders under the arcane strain.

The Scholar clutches his cloak tight, darting past the swirling debris and throwing himself out the splintered main entrance into the howling blizzard. Wolfie doesn't even blink, his expression as blank as a fresh sheet of parchment.

Wolfie pivots, stepping over a frost-cracked floorboard with the casual grace of a man late for his own funeral. He slips through the back door, leaving the intruder to wrestle with the localized storm in the growing darkness.

The back door swings wide, releasing Wolfie into the biting chill of the alleyway. Instead of the expected silence of the Hollows, he is met by the hum of a low, vibrating barrier blocking his exit.

The intruder steps from the shadows of a nearby stack of empty crates, his eyes glowing with an unsettling, necrotic violet hue. He holds an ornate, obsidian-encrusted orb that pulses in sync with the barrier. Wolfie halts, his boots sinking into the freezing slush as the air begins to thicken with the scent of ozone and rot.

The ground beneath the intruder begins to crack, radiating a dark, unnatural frost that climbs the tavern walls. The intruder tilts his head, an unsettling, hollow smile spreading across his face as he advances.

Wolfie lunges forward, his fingers clawing toward the intruder’s throat. A surge of celestial heat crackles in his palm, but the violet orb pulses violently, releasing a shockwave of necrotic force. The impact slams into Wolfie’s chest, throwing him backward against the rain-slicked bricks of the tavern wall. His vision swims as the arcane connection snaps, the divine sight he reached for flickering out like a dying candle.

Wolfie slides to the ground, his silver dagger skittering away into the frozen slush. The intruder stands over him, the obsidian orb glowing with a blinding, jagged violet light that threatens to consume the alley entirely.

Wolfie ignores the agony. As he rises, his sapphire irises flare with a blinding, ethereal light, the dormant authority of an Arch Angel surging through his weary veins. He ignores the violet orb entirely, reaching straight through the necrotic frost toward the intruder's neck.

The alleyway air hums with a dissonant chord. As Wolfie’s hand makes contact, the frost shatters into fine crystalline dust, and the necrotic barrier flickers, struggling to contain the raw, celestial pressure radiating from the sorcerer.