Pillars of Nature - Prologue. Prologue

Ella slid around the corner on the polished wood floors.

"God, I should have worn better shoes." She said to herself as she picked herself up and started running again.

She heard a roar coming form behind her and picked up the pace. She had to get to the dorms. She had to. The others had to get the book. If the five of them were together they could do it, but Ella knew she needed her friends help. The only problem was escaping her pursuer without attracting the attention of another Moute or Priest.

"Come out my child," came the eerie voice of the Moute that was behind her. "Don't run, you are just making it hard on yourself."

"Like Hell" Ella thought to herself as she turned down one of the hallways that was under renovation. In a school that had been a Cathedral for the Eutican sect of the Renoveric Church for over 400 years ago, parts of the building were always under construction. As Ella ran threw a plastic curtain she grabbed one of the lower bars of the scaffolding and swung herself up like the champion gymnast that she was. Her muscles burned under the kind of stress that she hadn't put them under in way too long. She swung her legs up onto a higher bar up on the scaffolding like she was on the uneven bars. She stood up on the bar and waited. It didn't take more than a couple of seconds before the Moute, Mother Ignatius, came threw the plastic, and she was not alone.

Walking in front of the Moute was a creepy looking beast. It looked like one of those lion-dog things that they have at Chinese restaurants, only this one wasn't a statue. It was covered in black fur and it glowed with a blood colored light from its eyes, under its mane, and from spots where the Moute's prayer beads were coming out of five places on its skin and then trailed all the way into the Moute's hand like a leash. Ella knew what that beast was, a Hellhound, one of the creatures from the shadow dimension. Mother Ignatius had summoned it here using a perversion of the power that Ella was now the Pillar of.

The Hellhound brought its large snout up into the air and sniffed loudly. By this time the dark beast and its master were right below Ella. She could smell the foul rotting blood smell that usually accompanied the dark powers of a practiced Renoveric spirit wielder.

“Don’t look up, don’t look up,” Ella pleaded silently, but in vain because the great beast did look up and let out a terrible roar that ripped through Ella almost causing her to fall from her elevated perch.

“Ah there you are,” snarled the haggard old crone that was Mother Ignatius. She threw up her hand that wasn’t holding the beads attached to the hellhound and anther five lengths of prayer beads shot from her hands glowing in the same blood like light. These however had a kind of sharp beaked snake head on the end of them and they were coming right at Ella.

“Fucking, moyguns!” Ella screamed as she called on the power of the element Spirit and jumped. Ella’s legs began to glow in an ethereal purple light and she jumped high into the scaffolding; out of reach of the moyguns. Moyguns where the beaked snakes that the moute had summoned. They are nasty little creatures that inhabit all of the hell dimensions including the Shadow dimension where the moute summoned it from.

“AHHHHHHHHHH,” The moute screamed in frustration and then banished the moyguns and the hellhound. She looked up at the smirking Ella and started chanting in some dark language. She raised both of her hands into the air and shrieked the last two words of the chant. The ten separate ends of her prayer beads sprang from her hands; they glowed the disgusting blood colored light and raced into the air towards Ella. Around the ends of the beads a vaguely humanoid shape formed. It was shrouded in black flowing cloths that covered its face and body like a burial shroud and just seemed to emphasize the evil maroon color of the holes where the beads came out of the creatures back. Its hands which came out form under the shroud were pale grey and seemed to be rotting. Ella knew what this creature of the shadow realm was also.

“Reaper” she said under her breath in a disgusted tone.

“Hum,” said smug a voice from behind Ella “You seemed to have made Mother Ignatius quite angry. I have only ever head of her summoning a reaper, but I’ve never seen it myself.”

Ella spun around on the platform to face the handsome auburn haired man standing behind her.

“Father Arresta.” Ella said nodding the man, but never taking he eyes off of him. He was on of the priests that worked at the school. He was young and well liked among the student body, well . . . he was liked the best of the teachers. This was mostly due to the fact that he was much easer on the eyes than the other moutes and priests whose average age was 63.

“Ella,” he said with a sneer and nodded back “Why don’t we just calm down and talk this out. There is no need to get all worked up.” He said in the kind of patronizing tone that always made Ella’s blood boil. She sent out her Spirit senses behind her and found that Reaper was floating just off the platform behind her, and the handsome priest was standing in her way in front of her. The only other direction was a twenty foot drop to the floor where the moute was waiting. She was trapped. “Shit!” she thought to herself.

“You know Father, How ‘bout we don’t.” Ella said an raised her pointer and middle fingers together in the shape of a gun and shot a beam of pure spiritual light at the handsome priest. The man seamed to have anticipated that she would try something like that so he ducked and rolled under the beam toward Ella. He popped out of his summersault right inform of Ella. The priest struck his palm in the middle of the girl’s forehead and realest a blast of blood red spirit light that almost ripped Ella’s spirit to shreds.

The last thing Ella remembered thinking before she passed out was “Damn him for being so fucking hot, it’s distracting.”