Emmaline glared at the misfiring pistol in disgust. The terror still gripped her but action felt better than cowering in fear. Lightning stabbed down in angry flashes, all but blinding them. Leaves exploded upwards from the fallen tree, blazing and burning like incendiary snow. Howling wind whipped the burning leaves around them, embers stinging like insects. The lightning was definitely coming faster now, rolling booms reflecting through the bowl, dazzling blast lighting the smoke in flashes of gold and purple.

A cultist stumbled out of the smoke, an elegant sword raised. Neil chopped down with his blade, the cultist's eyes widened as his torso fell away in two separate pieces, the enchantment laid on the blade not entirely spent. Emmaline stumbled onwards, disoriented by the calamity unfolding around her. She found herself within the circle of the standing stones. Disturbingly the air was clear here, as though a great funnel of wind had cleared it, spiraling upwards like the base of a tornado. Strange stars glittered in the sky above, somehow malevolent and hostile. 

The still air stank of blood and burned spices. The source of the first was obvious. Brandt and Gert lay lashed to the stone, bodies daubed with blood in runes that made Emmaline queasy to look at. Jagged slashes tore their throats, emptying their life blood over the stone and into channels cut into the dirt. The hooded figure they had seen from afar stood over Johann, bloody knife raised, an ugly liquid chant spilling from it's lips. Emmaline had the sudden chilling impression that the chanter was speaking to the storm, and the even more chilling realization that the storm was listening, gaping mouths and vast eyes forming in suggestion in the walls of smoke. Johann met her eyes, his face frozen in a rictus of blind terror. Emmaline threw the useless figure at the magister with all her might. The weapon turned awkwardly in the air and the figure turned to face Emmaline. The headdress was a helmet mounted with the skull of some great elk, or perhaps a beastman. Ugly runes had been caved into the ivory and a veil of chainmail, glass beads, and human teeth, hung over the magisters faces. Only the eyes were visible, wide and human, and completely insane. It slashed down with the knife, tearing Johann's throat open and ending his scream in a wet gurgle. The storm boomed as the ritual neared its climax.

"Fuck!!!" Emmaline screamed in very unheroic fashion, and then shouted the words to a short cantrip. THe pistol in the Magister's hand pulsed a gentle gold, and the other spell caster began to laugh in triumph, great tendrils of smoke and congealed rain reaching out of the hellish wall of smoke and burning leaves. Lightning snapped down from the sky, striking the pistol Emmaline had galvanized. The pistol, the Magister's arm, and a fair portion of their shoulder exploded in a spray of bones, hot metal, and burning sizzling blood mist. An arcane backlash hurled Emmaline off her feet, pitching her back into the swirling confusion of smoke and chaos.