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[img]https://i.imgur.com/WVq7Llm.png[/img]
[color=59849f][h2]Amerigo Spadoni[/h2][/color]
[color=50849f]Furino Estate, Castle Gardens, Present Day[/color]
[@AWildSquirtle][@Estylwen]
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In truth, the shambling mass of hot ash and fetid breath was [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Whhj7q2Rmmk][i]half-right[/i][/url] regarding the prey it had stumbled across, an admirable eclipse of the demonic average by any measure. A pair of tempered steel eyes flickered between the crawling mass as it first appeared, top edge cresting the roof of the estate, and his three protectorates— two of which were very much as terrified as it claimed. They were drawing close, which was good...

His sword, nowhere near so white-knuckled, remained level and steady as his smirk had not yet faltered. Their engulfing seemed at once fast and terribly slow, each shift in the dimensions of the ashen blob eating more space than it necessarily covered. A noxious liquid was leaking from the many yellow-toothed maws that were scattered along its breadth— keen vision picked a drop [i]hissing[/i] as it met the stone of the estate's roof. Sure enough a tiny waft of vapor rose to join the smoke in the air.

[color=50849f]"A shame..."[/color] he muttered to himself, shrugging off the coat that had till now been draped quite fashionably over his shoulders— revealing the lean and strong swordsman's frame beneath a simple shirt of cotton, as he wrapped the discarded jacket over his free arm. A bit ad-hoc by his standards, but when faced with acidic spittle like this, even a bit of a bastardized sword-and-cape was preferable to sword alone— he couldn't yet [i]see[/i] how quick the bile might burn through, but an extra medium between it and skin could buy the crucial second he might've needed. [color=50849f]"I'd paid good money for the sheepskin, only to waste it on the likes of [i]this.[/i]"[/color]

As well, it could serve to obscure his or any other form that might be necessary, from at least one angle— in the time he'd taken stock of affairs here on the ground, the chittering, crawling ash had all but formed a dome atop the unlikely quartet in the courtyard, surrounding them with more of those glassy eyes, rotting teeth, leaking pile, and of course that incessant chorus of airy, ashy voices. Unseemly. Unsightly.

Their lips puckered. Amerigo's stance shifted, as lightning-quick glance over the shoulder reaffirmed to him that Aubri had the two children well in hand, and was beginning to shift them away. Good, very good, that meant the lion's share of the thing's attention would fall to the only one here presenting threat—

The spittle was loosed from every angle, as the foreigner's silver hair was tossed through the air in a wild dance as held his ground, slipping, rolling, pivoting around the flying jets of acid. Okay. It was big, sure, but looked and sounded very airy— and it had spread its mass around them in the dome. It wasn't terribly affected by his blade's presence alone, but that stood fairly to reason—

A few streams came too close for comfort, and he caught them on the edges of the black fabric dangling from his forearm— immediately, the fluid produced a noxious, billowing stream of white, and he felt the balance on his arm shift. One theory tested. Time for another. He whipped the coat forward as he darted to the side, sending a few droplets back towards the closest set of eyes. He wanted to know how this thing liked having its own bile thrown back into its faces, since it so kindly had covered everything it showed him with weak points like eyes and mouths.

The white bone of his sword flashed, and another spray was intercepted by a tight parry even as he moved himself again off-line. This time, there was no great release of steam— the bones of the sea evidently much sterner in the face of this assault than cloth. That was to be expected, that was indeed very good. While he had only ever known the artefacts carved from that sacred material to offer their protection against the arcane in a radius about as far away as the tip of his sword at full draw—

[color=50849f]"You're right! [i]Very[/i] surrounded! Surely it seeks to wear us down from every angle!"[/color] Amerigo finally crowed his belated response to his employer, catching him and the two little ones out the corner of his eye. Seemed the accent thing was short-lived after all. No skin off his back. His hungry smile had yet to fade— if anything, the warming of his blood had only stretched it back further. [color=50849f]"But I [i]wonder[/i], Aubri—"[/color]

—Therefore, what else was a man to do but bring that blade to meet the ash, and its test of the Shade-borne structure into range?

His footwork had seen him spiral away from that initial position, as evasion inevitably demanded. By now, he was about halfway from one of the dome's edges, a smattering of beady, vacant eyes leering at him. He was a dozen feet or so askew from the other three, at enough of an angle that they weren't terribly easy to focus all the caustic pelting upon as a whole. Good. This would be the opportunity, before it caught onto that idea and began to herd him into them. He dodged past another stream—

And rather than continue his winding [i]ballo[/i] of pivots, sidesteps, and redirections, shot straight forward with all the speed he could muster, the tanned leather of his coat buying him a crucial second, buying him those last few yards. He cast it off his arm as he was suddenly before the nearmost "face", the tattered fragments sailing to blind the eyes. Fundamentally, nothing about this demon had read as "dense" to begin with by Amerigo's measure. It had been a mass of pumice and cast ash, riddled with hollow tunnels and crevasses between each face, perhaps aiding in that breathing he'd heard. It had then [i]stretched[/i] itself around them to form this dome, spreading that mass of ash thinner. And that, combined with [i]so many[/i] mouths and eyes... 

[color=50849f]"How deep might I need to cut to free us four coins from this flimsy purse?"[/color]

Meant that he was certain the vicious bite of his opening swipe through them all, fast as a thought, would [i]hurt like hell.[/i]