Izabel tracks her prey through the winding streets of Reillis. Her keen green eyes sweep over the procession from the Mausoleum of Divinity, taking note of its armed guards and lingering on the ornate casket held in an elevated yet protected position amongst the throng.

Crouched atop a roof on the side leaning away from the street the procession is on, her appearance is undisguised save the obstruction the slope gives her and the shade thrown across her face by her green hooded robes. Beneath that, she has a fairly regal appearance, if rugged. Her long brown hair is tied back so as not to get in her eyes or nose or mouth, and her brow is furrowed as she leers at her prey.

As the procession pushes through the street, reception amongst the populace is mixed, as it often is. Those who believe what the Mausoleum pushes listen intently as the aging Speaker of the Damned bleats his lies of doomed men and lost divinity. Izabel’s people, those who follow the Church of Eidetic Man, dismiss, turn away from, or even jeer at him from the sidewalks. They know that though the Gods are dying, Man shall rise in their place. Some, she knows, must suspect that the casket is empty regardless, as it often is.

Though she admires their skepticism, they may be wrong today, Izabel admits. The Mausoleum routinely parades these fancy caskets around the capital of Reillynd, preaching their faith, but they are more often than not totally empty. Stage props. With the Church of Eidetic Man looming, threatening to rob them of their divine corpses, they have been much more cautious in recent years. This time, though, Izabel is told that they’re using this procession as cover to bring in a new, fresh corpse from a recently deceased God.

A decent idea, she must admit. But unfortunately for them, their aging internal infrastructure has long been infested with the Church’s moles. She was given a few days of notice to assemble a team to interfere. When the time is right, Izabel’s crew will spring their ambush and abscond with the casket in tow.

Another corpse for their armory.

For now they wait for that moment. The procession is populated with a handful of competent guards and warriors, but Izabel believes her own crew of powerful warriors will be enough to overpower them regardless. She can sense them now, scattered across the adjacent rooftops and those across the street, skulking like her. Three close friends and allies, followers of the Church. Only her attunement to their Vim Signatures allows her to note their locations. They slink from building to building as the heretics trawl onwards.

The procession is populated by dozens of true believers, half as many guards, and a handful of notable people lounging atop the autocart where the casket lies and the Speaker preaches. One she knows is the Speaker’s personal pet warrior, a hulking man with a stupidly large double-bladed sword, idly murmuring to the other two passengers, two blindfolded women. Supposed Seers of the Dead.

The Speaker himself is a titanic, aging man with a wrinkled face and a receding hairline. His fanciful robes sweep out from his shoulders at such an angle that he appears to take the shape of a cone. The hefty autocart’s entire front half is swamped by his garb. He pays no mind to the conversation occuring quietly behind him, extending two meaty arms outwards to punctuate his words as he booms into the street.

These processions take hours of the day, and their routes tend to fluctuate in real time as the Speaker of the Damned searches for more potential believers. Thus, Izabel’s hunt takes her on a tour of Reillis, which she knows well. The city’s outskirts are gray and simple, stone and lumber, but the city grows more complex, ornate, and advanced as one approaches the Mizser’s Palace. Metal and glass construction, buildings that sprawl beyond 3 stories, and lavish decorations make up the buildings nearest the center, including the Mausoleum itself. The streets themselves swell in size and shrink in complexity as you approach the city’s financial and cultural heart, to accommodate the transportation methods more commonly used there.

An ideal ambush would take place before the procession enters the wealthier inner districts, where Izabel’s party could escape into the disorganized streets of the flea markets or weave their way through an organically arranged residential district. Timing it so that the procession’s members are at their most exhausted and least alert before they get too close to the center of the city is the trick.

Before long, Izabel sees her opportunity. The procession begins to squeeze through a congested, narrower section of street. She’ll strike as the first guards enter a more open stretch, and force her way through into the squeeze and retrieve the casket. Yesss.

The assembled warriors in her ambush party have no established symbol besides Izabel leaping into action. So she must leap into action. She intensifies her inner flow of Vim and abandons her perch atop a 3 story roof. Sliding down a stone gutter, she waits for the correct moment to use her abilities. With a surge of power, she magically adjusts her trajectory to launch her off the building’s face and into the street. Another twist of power and she rotates her trajectory again, sending her straight downward halfway across the street as she hardens her legs for the landing.

Her legs, Yield Circuits flooded with Vim, shudder only slightly at the impact, cracking the beaten bricks when her boots crunch into them. Dust is scattered and people look on in surprise. She raises her head to stare down the guards, then lifts her eyes to the Speaker’s perch. He scowls at her oldly.

The procession stops at the sudden commotion as civilians scatter and Izabel stares them down. The guards ready their weapons in preparation, and then Izabel’s warriors strike.

Ethereal golden hammers rain from the sky, while gauntleted hands appear from the shadows. The hammers break bones and shatter weapons, while the hands trip guards and tangle them amongst each other. As the first formation of guards collapses into disarray, the Speaker of the Damned raises his voice in outrage.

“The heretics of Man have come to lay claim to the Holy Dead! Dash their broken bodies against these lowly streets! AaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” he screams, and summons a pair of ethereal guitars and an extra set of arms to play them. As his music fills the streets, the next ranks of guards surge forward to accost her with increased vigor. The effect is opposite against her, before she hardens her mind against it. Bystanders begin to scramble away or glaze over in face of the spectacle.

Another volley of energy hammers from the sky and physical hands from the shadows accosts the guards, but this time they resist the onslaught and soldier on mostly unharmed. Some stop and draw crossbows to take potshots at her comrades’ general directions, while the majority advance towards her.

Izabel withdraws a cylinder of metal from her robes’ deep pockets and extends it into an ornate bo staff. She swings it around, touching the haft to her shoulder blade and imbuing it with Vim. Her enemies scream forward. She takes a step forwards, whipping it out from behind her and forward to discharge a powerful impact into the leading guard, smashing his jaw and sending him rolling to the side.

Imbued with her Vim, her signature weapon is controllable a short distance away from her actual body through her trademark Vim Motif. So she sends it a foot away from her to smash into some other unfortunate guardsman who is unable to predict the movement of a weapon without a wielder.

Simultaneously, she lunges forwards and sinks her fists into another guard’s chestplate, sending a surge of Vim into his body. His own Vim, untrained and untested, in comparison, recoils with his pain and her invasion is successful - for a moment, she can control his trajectory and redirect his momentum. She sends him stumbling into the men behind him and brings her staff back to parry an overhand polearm swing from another Mausoleum guard. Clang.

The weapons are stalemated for a mere instant before she redirects the energy imparted by the attack in line with her direction and sends the polearm hurtling into the air. Unphased, the guard draws his dagger and lunges for her midsection, but she spins her staff about her and smashes it into his face, flinging him back into his fellows and buying herself a brief reprieve.

The Speaker’s magic music intensifies as the massive warrior hitching a ride atop his autocart clambers off it and begins to push through the noncombatants in the procession. The eight or so guards still standing after the continued harassment from her rooftop friends seem to wait in time with the music as it builds to new heights.

The final push approaches, and Izabel’s comrades leap from their own rooftops to aid her. Two crashes announce their presence.

Marcus Effaeh, wielder of ethereal hammers, thuds to the street on Izabel’s left. His imposing body is coated in shining plate armor and reinforced with further ethereal protections. Golden hammers of various sizes and shapes orbit him. He crosses his arms in dismissal at the Mausoleum opposition arrayed before him.

Adam Nantan appears to her right, diminutive in comparison to Marcus but with an intimidating swagger of his own. His dark red robes drink in the light around him, and his gauntleted hands furl and unfurl at his sides. He wears a simple crow faced mask to hide his features. Izabel knows that even if she listens closely, she’ll never manage to catch the sound of his breathing.

“Izabel the Inescapable, come to bring her brand of brigandry to another poor band of the Mausoleum’s faithful,” the big warrior begins. “The Seers said we would be interrupted. I am Maritus, Acolyte of Speaker Jarud and Devoted of the Mausoleum. I’ve been itching to run into one of you Church dogs for a while now. I’m going to beat you into paste now.”

It should be minutes before any city guards arrive to break up the conflict, far as they are from the more heavily guarded center. Plenty of time to finish it, Izabel thinks. Speaker Jarud really starts laying into his magic guitars and the last leg of conflict begins with blistering intensity.