Izabel leaps into action with her team. The Speaker’s intensified music rages against her mind, but she throws it out as best she can and pits her Vim towards accelerating her at her newest opponent: Maritus.

Her boots glide over beaten stone as she magically redirects the forces pushing her downwards forwards to use as a propellant. Maritus sneers, spins his double-bladed greatsword, and takes a single stomp forward to meet her. His double-greatsword comes down in a sweeping overhand towards Izabel’s right, so she ducks beneath it and darts under it, then lashes out with her bo staff. Maritus stops the momentum of his swing through sheer strength and reverses the other blade of his sword into Izabel’s weapon, knocking it off course. This also brings the other side of his sword dangerously close, and Izabel is forced to jump backwards to avoid being gutted.

Her own speed and power are augmented by her abilities to redirect momentum and energy, but her opponent’s monstrous strength seemed to be able to compete with that just fine - strong enough to swing his blade at vicious speeds, and strong enough to contradict that speed on a whim. Izabel can only hope that’s exhausting, but if he’s any sort of Vim Adept that’s a vain wish. Speaking of Vim…

Maritus allows Izabel to dart out of his immediate range, only to unhinge his sizable (very big man) jaw and unleash a piercing roar highlighted with visible, highlighted waves of energy. It lasts a mere 2 seconds, but Izabel is rattled by the impact. Behind her, her companions shudder and are thrown off from their own conflicts with the Mausoleum’s remaining guards. The stone street cracks at Maritus’ feet, and glass windows splinter or shatter a good distance away. Maritus uses the opening to stride forward and backhand Izabel uncontested with a gauntleted fist, sending her stumbling with a CRACK.

Oh fuck, I hate growing new teeth, thinks Izabel dimly as she spits out a few, along with a healthy helping of blood. Maritus advances further, twirling his double-sided greatsword over his head and preparing to finish this duel quickly. Luckily for Izabel, her friends step in well before she can be cleft in twain - Marcus shoves his palm outwards and an ethereal golden hammer hovering about his head follows his direction to smash into Maritus’ armored gut with a CLANG.

Maritus gasps and pauses a moment to recover from the surprise attack. The remaining guards, yet invigorated by the Speaker’s magic music, don’t give him another opening. They fight rabidly, and he is forced back onto the defensive quickly.

Izabel wipes the blood from her mouth and prepares for the next exchange. She’s been granted a brief opening, so she darts to the right, redirects herself in an instant, and jabs the hard top of her bo staff into the side of Maritus’ armored right knee, a moment before his weapon catches up to her and forces her to dart away. Maritus groans, the impact forcing him to kneel a moment, before he twists his torso backwards in an attempt to lash out and strike her with his blade. Izabel flips away and darts in again, but Maritus climbs to his feet, turns, and smashes the broad side of his double-greatsword’s bottom blade into Izabel’s outstretching bo staff. His immense strength overpowers even her magically fucked-around-with attack, and she’s thrown backwards, forced to balance her momentum to avoid hitting the ground roughly enough to turn an ankle.

The dueling pair have reversed their orientation - Izabel’s back is now to the Speaker, and Maritus’ back is now to Izabel’s friends and the Mausoleum guards.

“Your momentum tricks are impressive, dog. Certainly useful - but nothing that could ever best me. Not while the Speaker’s sweet soul music rings in my ears,” Maritus rumbles.

“We’ll see,” Izabel simply says, and Maritus just grunts. There’s a brief pause as they size each other up again. Both have felt the other’s capabilities, and for each their win condition has shifted and clarified.

Izabel knows that her opponent - who quickly shrugged off one of Marcus Effaeh’s golden hammers of light and one of her own enhanced bo strikes - isn’t likely to be worn down in a timely manner by any of her skirmishing attacks. He’s too well armored, and likely enhanced biologically by the Mausoleum or merely his own training, or both. His energy shout makes it all the more likely he’ll be able to stun her and finish her off for good while she’s off balance, too. The shout could prove fatal should she try to draw it out, or finish it quickly. So she must negate or dampen the shouts effects on her.

She could utilize her specialized abilities to improvise some sort of repellant shield around her ears, but on such short notice it’d likely be spotty at best, costly to maintain, and conceptually unsound regardless of her luck.But she does have another idea. And if she’s right, it’ll kill two birds in one stone.

Izabel sets her bo staff upright in front of her, balancing on its own like a stanchion. The Vim around her ears swirls and drains away, pulled by her will elsewhere. She focuses that surplus energy on her own nerves, deadening the sensations they provide. Should she keep this going, depriving these areas of Vim and deadening herself to their feelings, they might shrivel, blacken and die given hours or days. But this is just anaesthetic. All it’ll take is a moment or two. Izabel raises her hands to the sides of her face, brushes her hair to the side, and rips off both of her ears.

Immediately, Speaker Jarud’s music becomes indistinct and murky, the effect on her mind lessened with incomprehensibility. With any luck, she’ll be able to resist Maritus’ scream as well, now. Maritus seems taken aback, and mouths something, but Izabel can’t make it out. Instead of giving him time to reassess his options given the new change, Izabel presses the attack, now bleeding from her ears (where they used to be, anyway) as well as her gums.

She can hold nothing back, now. She pours in Vim from her reserves to go faster on top of her momentum maximization, slips under Maritus’ sweeping left swing and smashes her bo staff into his chestplate around the gut. An instant later and she’s magically wrenching all her forward momentum to throw her back the way she came while she uses the moment of contact to magically thrust him backwards, creating enough distance in a moment to escape his still-deadly wraparound counterattack. Maritus regains his footing and tries another scream. Though he damages the street, buildings, and everything else just as potently as before, Izabel’s ears are no longer present to funnel the energized sound into their drums. She’s rattled, but not stunned, and his follow-up strike fails to catch her.

I can do this, she thinks, darting around for her next opening. She finds it, darts in, and thwaps Maritus on the back to send him stumbling forwards. She escapes his range, so he wrenches off his helmet and hurls it at her, surrounded by a glowing red cage of energy. She jumps over it, but he twists his arm and it slams into her from behind, bowling her over on its way back to its master, seemingly bound to him with this cage pattern.

Fuck, thinks Izabel. That’s what I get for premature optimism. Her armor mostly protected her this time, but she predicts the back of her ribs will bruise after that smack. The implications of this new thrown-control technique, though, are troubling…

Maritus hurls his giant double-bladed broadsword at her, its handle wreathed in an intricate red cage. The opposing massive blades clip the street at an angle, throwing up stone chips as it arcs upwards towards her like malevolent wreckage from some demolished Gnome vehicle. Izabel pushes off the ground with her bo staff, leaping forward and avoiding the first pass, but she knows there’ll be another. The magically-propelled weapon would quickly catch any other opponent, she realizes, due to its superior aerodynamics and physical maneuverability. The smaller missile will always catch the larger bird. Only through insane exertion and the perfect application of her power is Izabel able to gain a lead in maneuvering and speed over the whirling hunk of death metal.

She has enough energy to dodge it twice more, maybe thrice, before she risks losing her superpowers mid-fight - going Vimlost as it's sometimes called. A death sentence in a fight where empowered Yield Circuits are the standard and generally unpleasant all around. So she must use her chances wisely. Izabel sprints in a half circle around Maritus before backflipping over the pursuing projectile - that’s one - then dashes in towards him. He sneers, controlling the projectile with one mailed arm and raising the other like a club to catch her where he plans to force her to dodge. Too close. She turns herself around and blitzes backwards, sliding under the spinning blade in the process. She gains some distance when Maritus is forced to spin it around himself to keep it from clipping him, so without relent she darts in again, just a little faster than before.

The spinning blade approaches at around her waist level. Izabel empowers her bo staff with Vim and hurls it like a spear, and the two weapons connect. For a moment, her momentum powers grant her control over the sword*2’s position. She forces it into a lever’s angle, and hops onto the upturned end, using it as a springboard to propel herself barehanded at her foe. Izabel smashes her flying fist into Maritus’ face with such force that it breaks her own hand and sends the big man stumbling, clutching at his helmet as it has been turned to cover his eyes by the blow. Izabel lands roughly on the other side and clutches her hand in pain, watching her foe.

Shit, I should have gone for the throat-punch, she thinks, as Maritus fixes his helmet and starts screaming. He doesn’t stop after two seconds, either - it’s a constant sonic barrage that has her body feeling like mush as he stalks towards her. He doesn’t bother retrieving his weapon, instead clenching his mailed fists, ready to punch her again.

CLANG. CLANG, CLANG.

Three golden hammers strike Maritus in succession, and he stops screaming to retrieve his sword to defend from Effaeh’s second barrage. Izabel takes a moment to glance at her comrades - Adam Nantan has constrained the guards with a dozen shadowy grips, while Effaeh shouts and gestures to summon and throw golden hammer after hammer at Devout Maritus. Maritus still holds his own on account of his unyielding durability, but Effaeh is keeping him on the defensive and dealing damage through volume of attacks alone.

Izabel takes this chance to go after the Speaker. She can’t afford to spend Vim to deaden the throbbing pain in her hand, so she just ignores it as she runs towards the cart upon which he still plays his golden guitars and upon which the ornate casket she came for rests. Her favorite weapon still laying in the street, she draws a dagger from within her cloak and leaps for the priest - who shouts something and twists out of the way. His ethereal arms grasp at her, but she slips out of their grasp and smashes the side of her foot into the coffin, flooding its casing with her Vim. The twin Seers watch her, seeming uninterested, as she hops atop the wooden case while it begins to levitate backwards, further out of the Priest’s reach.

With her diminished Vim reserves, its not much of a getaway. The spell gives out a few seconds in, and the casket begins descending, slowly at first and then with some speed - before a dozen murky arms reach out of the cart’s shadow and catch it. Nantan must be heavily exerting himself as well, she worries. But for now, she’s shimmied away from the cart just fast enough that the rabid Speaker can’t reach her, even with his imposing frame and magical extra limbs. After a few meters he just gives up, and Izabel just awkwardly stares at the seething man as she trawls away at a few feet per second.

OK, now’s the time to get the Hells out of here before he comes to his senses, Izabel thinks. She reaches within her cloak and withdraws a flask of purple liquid, uncorks it, and takes a swig. Moments later, she starts to feel re-energized - it’s a serum high in Vim.

“Adam! Marcus! Break!” she shouts, dismounting from the coffin and flooding it with another spell, counteracting its downward momentum to make it more or less weightless. She hoists it over her shoulder like one if carrying a sofa as part of a 6 man team and pushes her way through the dumbstruck throngs of Mausoleum procession noncombatants. Some try to slow her down or drag her back, but she rabidly shoves them away and breaks free.

Unaccosted, miraculously, by the city’s guards or some Mausoleum retrieval party, she jogs her way down the winding streets of Reillis with a casket slung over her back and towards the rendezvous point. With any luck, they’ll all reunite in one piece and will have scored a fresh new God corpse for the Church.