Rhonna: The Fire Pelt Cat Attacks!, Round 01

Cats and Dogs! Rhonna mutters as the goblins released their foul pets on her companions. Poor creatures! The goblins have bred and perverted them into violent monsters.

"Corellon help me!" Guy shouts as the three hounds charge towards him. Sharp enormous fangs, tear through the eldarin's priestly garment. Blood spraying through the beasts' gray pelt.

Rhonna shakes her head and falls a couple of steps back. This can't be happening. Not again.

Rhonna remembers the last time she visited the woods. Together with her friends, her sisters. The darkling coven of Sandpoint. That's what they called their little group.

She was just fifteen back then. Fifteen and rebellious.

They snuck out into the nearby woods one night. All six of them. Was Nualia among them? Rhonna can't remember.

Dancing and chanting. That's what they did. One of them found this strange ritual somewhere and they had to try it. It was a simple spell. An incantation of blood and bones.

Something came out of the ritual. Something unspeakable.

"Rhonna!" Lloyd shouts as he hacked through one of the hounds. The half-elf's sword barely made a scratch on the mongrel's thick hide.

"Do something!"

Lloyd's voice rattles her back to reality. Rhonna draws out an ornamental bronze knife, etched with symbols of the seven major constellations. She raises the weapon up into the heavens and points her other hand at Lloyd's enemy.

"Blue Phoenix burns your flesh, Celestial Lion burns your bones," Rhonna mutters a baneful hex against the goblin mongrel. "Serpent Warrior crushes your spirit…"

I promise Aunt Mathel never to do this sort of thing again, Rhonna thought to herself as she continued her cursing magic.

The knife begins to shimmer like a miniature supernova. Rhonna raised her other hand, pointing her fingers at the foul goblin beast.

The light from the bronze knife flowed through Rhonna's body. Like a river of celestial energy, it rushes through her veins. For a brief moment, Rhonna could once again hear the music of the stars, the celestial melody of the constellations filling her soul.

A powerful bolt of light shot through her fingers. The eldritch energy, magnified by the witch's hexing curse and the celestial stars, glowed like blue flames engulfing the rampaging mongrel.