Something inside Furio had snapped the moment Rondria died. Janna cursed herself for letting it happen. Other than apparent suicidal thoughts, he showed no signs of mourning. That they had fucked, that much Janna knew. Of course he had loved the tiny girl as well, that much was obvious now.

He was still useful though, perhaps even more so than before. Janna couldn't know how long he would remain in this state or if he would kill himself eventually. She could not let that happen.

She was very sad over Rondria's passing as well, having taken to like the girl and wanting to get her that sword and see her eyes when she gave it to her. None of that would ever happen now. She had taken her revenge though and even come out on top with three physically healthy slaves the size of Barbie dolls. They cowered by each other, looking up to her in fear. Already, she was in a mood again to have them please her but she had to move on.

That posed a significant problem though. Before, Janna had carried Rondria and Furio in one hand, and her sleeping bag with her things in the other. She could deposit the giantesses in the bag, but she feared that they would wriggle out and get away or be damaged somehow.

The solution she settled for was a tad radical, because it involved ripping her shirt open at the neck to expose her cleavage. Then she adjusted the strapping of her bra to make it tighter and have it squish her breasts together. If Laura ever tried that, she would be utterly out of luck because her breasts were too small. Janna's were more than sufficient though. Janna's were enough to kill people in between them with ease.

Furio stuck in perfectly. Not only did this give him a perfect vantage point over their route and provided Janna with a free hand, but it also made it impossible for him to jump to his death without Janna noticing. If by some movement of her he would threaten to be crushed, he was to call out, she commanded him. And even if she'd accidentally squeeze him a little too hard, her breasts were soft and he was only stuck in there to his midriff anyway. The dead-zone was further below, as some Thorwalsh had already learned that day to their sorrow.

The dutiful little broken man had his map spread out in front of him, holding it down so that it wouldn't be swept away by winds. Then one little giantess went in each pocket of her jeans, head first. Her pants were a tight fit, but stretchy enough, she judged. Their legs stuck out of the top, kicking. The third giantess went into her one hand and her sleeping back in the other, ready to go.

There was one more village ahead of her, then Thorwal and hopefully Laura.

She didn't need Furio to guide her, for there was a small but well maintained road leading along the coastline. Janna was glad to leave Merske behind her.

“Jan-na.” She told the giantess in her grasp, pointing to herself with the very head she was speaking to.

It took a few minutes but she got the names out of each one of them at least. That they didn't speak the tongue had been a grave disappointment, but who was to say she couldn't squeeze it into them.

The blonde was called Gharika, well Ghrarika actually, but it hurt Janna's throat to pronounce it correctly. The one with the red-brown hair was called Knorrholde and the black one Gruskona. Anything else though, they showed no signs of understanding.

The three might have been sisters or not, Janna couldn't tell. They were a little younger than Nagash, slightly smaller and a great deal softer. Nagash was tall, almost lanky, lean and hard. These ones were more girly somehow. Janna liked it.

Had they spoken the common tongue, she might have come to an arrangement with them. They'd be her slaves to be used and abused as she pleased but would otherwise be by her side, crushing and killing Thorwalers. Had they understood what she said, perhaps that whole Rondria situation might have been avoided as well. The three girls were deathly afraid of her and rightly so. She had really gone to town on them and they would have died if not for Furio. Torturing them was a lot of fun though. They didn't break as easily as common people.

Thorwal already came in sight even before Janna had set foot into Serske. Her heart jumped when she saw Laura, sleeping right in the middle of the seemingly half-smashed city. There was other activity though, sounds and smoke rising. That was queer and had her worried. What was Laura doing sleeping in a city full of armed miniature Vikings?

Maybe she was hurt, her brain concluded, mortified. Serske was almost forgotten. The village was queer though as well. Tiny by number of houses but filled with far too many people. Refugees, she judged, but that was beside the point. Only a few noticed her and fled, most just sat, many cried and more were drinking heavily. There were dead people lying around, some seemingly slain by others, some plainly having committed suicide. Dead, blue drowned people washed against the shore too.

A shield maiden looked up at Janna as blank as Furio before slitting her own throat with her sword.

“What's going on?” Janna asked right into the place, cold showers chasing down her spine.

“He's dead!” Someone lamented in reply. “He's dead! Our god is dead! Swafnir is dead! Our city is dead! Dead, dead, dead, we're all dead!”

“Stop it!” Someone else screamed at the speaker and marched off, straight to the shore and into the sea where the waves swallowed him.

Janna's hands were shaking so much she almost dropped the giantess. She ran, only her first foot hitting Serske and crushing a few who most likely had wished to die anyway. She was running so fast that she hand to use one arm to keep her bosom from heaving around and swallowing Furio.

Even before entering the city walls she could hear the drums and ominous chanting.

Boom, boom, boom-du-boom, boom, boom, boom-du-boom. The steady rhythm came from all corners of the city and every throat was chanting with it.

“We serve Gal'ka'Zul, we serve Gal'ka'Zul...”

“We do not fear expedience!” A fanatic voice echoed over the rooftops. “We do not fear sacrifice! We will build a world for Hranngar!”

“Ooh-rah!” The city answered before the chant resumed.

“Janna!” It was Furio.

Janna halted, almost slipping on the wet ground, looking down. Colour had returned to Furio's face and he looked a little more like his old self again, as far as she could see at least. She couldn't explain the sudden change, something must have triggered something else or something. Or maybe not. Her thoughts were racing with each other.

“Am I crushing you?” She asked hurriedly.

“Janna, don't go there!” He urged in terror. “There is something wrong!”

She gave him a look that said 'tell me something I didn't know' but he went on to explain unabashed: “Gal'ka'Zul is an arch demon! The Thorwalsh call her Hranngar, she is the enemy of Efferd, god of the seas and streams! Something terrible must have happened here, is happening here!”

Janna did not want to waste another second. On the south side of a huge river she had to cross there were houses but she never paid them any mind. She just jumped into the stream and marched through, climbed out and came rushing into Thorwal, wooden houses and ruins crunching beneath her feet.

“Laura!” She called out and shook her when she arrived.

Laura's eyes flicked open for a heartbeat and she looked around confused.

“What?” She asked drearily. “No, I'm not needed, let me sleep.”

Janna shook her again, harder this time but to no effect. She had already dropped her bag on the way and now she dropped the giantess as well.

“Laura!” She called again. “Furio, what is happening?!”

“Oh!” An unnaturally loud voice exclaimed before the mage could reply. “Another one! Hranngar, you are good to me!”

Janna spied the speaker striding towards the paved square where Laura slept. He was naked but looked like a leper, bleeding from a hundred wounds. From the way they were shaped it looked as though he had carved patches or pictures out of his skin or something.

“Thorgun!” Laura whispered. When she looked, Janna found her smiling sleepily as though she was high on something.

“What have you done to her?!” She roared at the little naked man.

“She is with us! She is helping us, oh, can't you see?!” He replied, utterly insane.

“Pactor!”

Janna felt a sudden warm sensation between her breasts and saw a lance of fire shoot out from there a moment after. The naked madman was taken by surprise ere the flames engulfed him. A nearby house caught fire and for a moment even the paved ground seemed to burn. When it subsided however, the naked person seemed unscathed, only his blood had burned away. He laughed in a way that froze the blood in Janna's veins solid.

One step and she was over the man.

“Janna no!” Laura shouted, very much awake now.

Boom. Pavement shattered and people who had followed the madman lost their feet. Janna had stomped so hard it looked like a bomb crater. When she withdrew her foot, expecting to see the man's exploded remains, she found him whole. For an incredibly unreal moment, he rose back to his feet, coughed and dusted himself off. Then he grinned to his entourage behind him.

“Janna, let him be!” Laura demanded urgently. She had found her feet as well, Janna saw, and she was coming over. She was not going to have that again though.

“Stop.” She raised her foot again. “Stop or I squish him like an ant.”

“You can't squish me?!” The madman laughed, spreading his arms in a gesture of invincibility. “Try it again!”

Boom. The crater only grew a little bigger.

“Janna?!” Laura warned but did not dare to come closer.

When she withdrew her foot this time, his menacing laughter was already greeting her. This was plainly impossible. Janna had seen tiny people survive her stepping on them, even relatively unscathed at times, but that had been because they had been pressed into soft ground while harder ground around had taken the brunt of her weight. On this hard, paved ground with sand underneath, he should have been reduced to a smear. No one ever survived one of her vicious stomps either.

“He is too strong!” Furio called. “Let me down! Pin him!”

He must have drank his little magic potion and refuelled some of his powers, she guessed. It was as good a plan as any. Her inability to crush the puny little man bewildered her. She stomped on him again but there wasn't even the expected boom and cloud of dust this time. Her foot stopped a little earlier than she had expected. It couldn't be, but it looked like this speck of a human being was actually holding it up, just by strength. By leaning onto him she could slowly drive him in to the ground, for what ever good that did her.

If Furio had a plan than so be it. Janna snatched him from between her tits, bent and set him on the ground quickly. She would want to make too much of a spectacle of it. Now she had to keep him safe too from any attackers. She hoped she could. She also had to keep an eye on Laura who was acting strange...

-

The giantess Laura was smaller than Janna in height as well as many other respects. Her arms and legs were less fleshy, her hips and shoulders less wide. Her buttocks and breasts were smaller, but that did not mean she looked any less female. She was more of a southern type, if Furio was any judge. Most importantly, their faces were different. Janna was beautiful in her own right, but her thick jaw and somewhat puffy cheeks could give her the appearance of a gargantuan peasant girl. Laura's face on the other hand was slender with the beautiful large eyes and high, well defined cheekbones of an aristocrat's lovely daughter.

Even in her rage, while she swung that large, somewhat phallic-looking stone at Janna's temple, she still looked cute somehow. That made little difference when Janna sighed and fell. They had spoken a weird language Furio didn't understand but it was clear that they were acquainted. It was also clear though, that Laura was under the influence of the pactor.

The pactor was damned in the eyes of gods and men. A mere mortal in pact with an arch-demon, bargaining his soul and afterlife for dubious powers in the here and now. Not even black mages dared venture there, bar a few very notable exceptions. Furio had seen him before slipping into a house just before Janna's fall, bleeding, naked, strange hints of scales on his flesh and a tentacle for one of his hands. He was deep in damnation this one, but even for such a creature he seemed a great deal stronger than he had any right to be.

Janna had collapsed first to her knees and then backwards which was good for a number of reasons. She buried the evil pactor beneath her rump and prompted Laura to try and move her to retrieve him. Meanwhile there was already one angry panicking giantess rampaging around and now two more slipped from Janna's pockets. Laura would have her hands full for now and so would most of the Thorwalsh.

The house Furio had entered was not exactly as stable as he would have liked. The roof was caved in on one end and the whole structure seemed to tilt just a little too much to one side for comfort. Still, he could not let himself be seen with his new white robes and white mages' staff. It was him against the pactor, he had no doubt about that.

“Thorgun! Thorgun!” He heard the giantess Laura say even while people screamed and shouted on account of the smaller giantesses.

Then there was his menacing laughter again.

“Oh Thorgun, I didn't want her to do it, I am so sorry! Oh Janna, look what you made me do! You are bleeding!”

“You have done well!” The pactor proclaimed. “She will serve our purpose greatly! Everyone, bring sea water, contain the ogres and find the mage!”

That wasn't good at all. Furio wasn't familiar with pactors because they were such a rare and spectacular occurrence. It was known that there was an un-sanctum somewhere by Maraskan, the graveyard of sea snakes, but it had never been found. The eerie, unholy aura he could feel let him guess that Thorgun may have created something similar here.

The air in the hut was rank with the smell of pig shit and something else. Sure enough, there was a small enclosure with the rotting carcass of a pig, just where the roof had caved in. It was not uncommon to keep livestock indoors. They provided warmth, and the people just got used to the smell. It clung to them like musk eventually, separating the commoners from their betters.

“Find him! Search the houses!”

There were voices outside the door. Furio panicked. Just in time he reached for a wooden hatch in the ground, just beside the enclosure. It led to an underground latrine ditch were the owners of the home used to dispose of their livestock's filth. He pressed his eyes together and jumped in, closing the hatch behind him. It was all he could do not to wretch on account of the smell.

“What is happening?”

There were two, a couple, perhaps man and wife.

“It is fine!” The woman said, haunted.

“Nothing's fine!” The man replied. “Hranngar?! I always thought that was some priest story to scare the children, and we're supposed to worship that now?!”

“Swafnir is dead, you saw it for yourself! Don't let anyone hear you talk like that or they'll kill us both! Thorgun has the giant bitches under control. Just do what he says, we'll be fine.”

“What does a mage look like?” The man asked next.

Up to his waste in filth, Furio winced.

“He wears white clothes or something, he should be easy to spot. He's not here, let's go.”

Then there was the sound of the door closing again.

Furio chewed on his lip while contemplating his options. Something had to be done, the whole mission was at stake, and much more than that. Janna and Laura in the hands of demon worshippers was bad news for anyone true to the twelve gods.

His mighty but utterly ineffective Ignifaxius had depleted much of the power Furio had regained by the potion. A blunder, a waste, but there was nothing to do about that now. He knew it wouldn't do to meditate until his powers were restored.

He closed his eyes and recalled what he had seen of Thorwal while stuck in Janna's gargantuan bosom. It was a large city, though half destroyed. There had to be alchemists here. He had to try.

The thought of whom he was doing it for never crossed his mind. It might have been Lee or Scalia, Janna, humanity, the gods or himself. It may have been a sense of duty, a reflex, or something else entirely. He didn't feel anything other than fear for the mission itself. All fell in place according to good reason as it occurred to him.

He left his staff, boots and robes behind in the latrine ditch. There was a set of woollen britches, a filthy shirt and a leather vest in the home that would make him pass for a common man any day of a week. There was nothing to do about the fact that he was a foreigner though but Thorwal would have it's fair share of those as well. The only item he took from his own gear was a stick of chalk. The pactor's powers would be diminished in a banning circle. That would be when he would strike.

After that, only the gods knew. But he had to try.

He rubbed some pig shit on his clothes and his body. It would make his appearance of a swineherd more believable and hopefully repel anyone from further investigation into his person. Then, he cut the belly fat from the carcass of the pig. Alchemists made soap and soap needed fat. Rotting pig's fat probably made for terrible soap, but most people would not know that.

When he was outside he made himself look stupid, half chewing his lower lip and letting some spittle run down his cheek from there. Men and women were all about in busy haste. Few paid him any attention at all. Armed people were searching houses and asking if anyone had seen a mage in white robes.

As if that didn't disquiet him enough, someone called: “Hey you there, foreigner, stop!”

He froze in his tracks and turned. A large, bare-chested Thorwaler in striped britches came towards him, iron tipped spear in hand. Furio felt dwarfed, even though he would not count small among Horasians himself.

'I am but a worm and now it's even my fellow man can squash me.' He reflected.

It was the lack of meatiness that gave him away, he realized. His clothes were a little too wide too. He was about two thirds of the mass of man that had addressed him.

“What business are you about?”

Furio put his tongue between his molars to hide his accent: “Pig fat.” He said as dull as he could.

The young spear man looked at the filthy, rotting belly fat in Furio's hands.

“Where to?”

“Alchemist.” Furio replied hollowly, half swallowing the word in his throat.

The man put his hand in front of his mouth: “Urgh, the smell of you! Well, you are going the wrong way. The alchemists are on the other side of the canal. Cross here by the market square and turn right after the bridge. The alchemist is working in one of the still standing houses.”

Furio nodded stupidly and turned to go. He felt the hand of the man almost touching him before it was drawn away in disgust.

“Have you seen the mage?”

Furio turned again: “Mage?”

With his tongue between his teeth it sounded more like a fart than any actual word. The spear man lowered his gaze and ushered him away with an almost embarrassed “hail Hranngar.”

Furio only returned some muttering and went.

Janna lay where she had, by the market square, but Laura had gotten rid of her shirt and bedded Janna's head upon it. Dried blood crested Janna's brow. It had something sad to see her like that. The three ogresses had been caught by Laura by then and were huddled together before her. She and the evil pactor were engaged in an argument over what to do with them.

“Let them live, they can help our cause!” Laura pleaded. “Let me play with them at least, they're so much fun!”

Furio had heard that sentiment before and couldn't suppress a smile over the frustrated look on the pactor's face. He explained that they were dangerous and uncontrollable, causing more harm then good and that Laura should crush their heads. Meanwhile Laura was stroking Janna's belly lovingly.

She did not relent to the man called Thorgun easily. Furio thought what might be stronger, demonic influence or his Bannbaladin. It wouldn't do to try and find out, not with the pactor alive. There was a makeshift bridge over the canal and he turned right as the soldier had told him to.

Guards were posted at the bridge but he only had to mumble “pig fat! Alchemist!” to have them let him pass undeterred.

“Alrik Oilboiler is that house!” A spear man in a mail shirt pointed with his other hand holding his nose.

They were laughing and made japes about him as he went. That was only right. It was stunning how much appearance made a man.

The alchemist emerged shortly after a knock on the door. His name had already suggested that he was a Garethian and that gave Furio some more hope. Alrik has the most common Garethian name by half, and a last name bound to a profession was as Garethian and low born as it got. He was an old man with white hair and beard, clad in dirty, common clothes and a leather apron. His hands were tainted purple and yellow from producing dyes. That was not good.

“What's it now?!”

The man looked greatly displeased. Pearls of sweat were on his forehead and his coloured hands shiny with fat.

“Pig fat!” Furio mumbled once more.

The old Alchemist took the fat in his hands and regarded it with distaste.

“What I am to do with this?!” He spat. “This stuff isn't fit to do anything with!”

He gave Furio a smack on the head. Furio took it like a swineherd was supposed to.

“Besides, I don't need any more fat.” Alrik Oilboiler went on angrily. “I asked for Wirsel to make the ointments.”

“Thorgun also wants magic potion.” Furio said through his tongue.

Alrik looked aghast: “What now?! First soap, then ointments and now I'm supposed to make that wretched demon worshipper a magic potion?!”

Now Furio was aghast as well. If any of what he had heard was true, blaspheming like that could get both of them killed, Alchemist and swineherd both.

“Ah, don't look so shocked.” Alrik spat. “They won't kill the last Alchemist in the city and I'm not bowing down to that demon. Tell Thorgun he can go fuck himself and his potion. I do not even know how to make one.”

He was about to slam the door in Furio's face but the mage put his foot in the frame.

“Let me in.” He whispered in his normal voice.

Alrik's old eyes widened.

It was almost as bad as Furio had expected. This Alchemist was not one to produce high-class potions. He produced dye, soap, ointments, paper, all low, everyday things. As it turned out however, he was not working in his own shop.

There was a huge trough with soap slowly solidifying in it, but other than that, the previous owner of this place seemed to have been fond of experimenting.

“So, mage, what is your plan exactly?” The alchemist asked from a chair, churning a bowl of something that might have been the ointments he had spoken of.

It had not escaped Furio that he had not washed his hands after touching his filthy, faeces-stained head.

“A better one than yours to begin with.” Furio nodded at the bowl. “It won't kill him.”

“How can it not?” Alrik protested. “The man is bleeding head to toe after cutting those Swafnir tattoos out?!”

“I saw a hundred metre tall giantess stomp on him several times and he went away unscathed.” Furio replied while going through a cabinet of ingredients.

“Fine.” Alrik grumbled and half-tossed the bowl onto the table before him.

“The whole city is mad, you know?” He went on softly. “It was bad when that Laura stomped into here, but Thorgun...he's torn out the very soul of this place and turned it into something evil.”

“I heard someone say that Swafnir is dead?” Furio inquired curiously.

“Aye.” Alrik shrugged. “The giantess crushed a huge white whale. I didn't see it, was here workin', but the Thorwlash have really taken it to heart.”

Furio shivered. A half-god sacrificed to an arch-demon. If he had ever questioned the existence of gods before, he would never now. It was why that wretched pactor was so unfathomably strong.

“I used to love this place.” Alrik mumbled. “Best fish and mussels in the world, if you ask me. Now it's all gone. What are you needin'?”

A magic potion to restore astral powers was one of the most sophisticated potions there were. Furio had to dig deep in his memory to remember how it was made. He had found mandrake and other plant ingredients on the shelf. That was easy enough. In a small cabinet the owner of the place had kept his more precious ingredients like diamond dust and meteor iron, both of which Furio needed. At the very back of it, dusted and covered in spider web, there was a little flask of a clear, watery substance with a tiny paper label on a string reading: “Snow from the first day of Hesinde.”

That was better than he could ever have hoped for. The snow was best used as snow, he knew, and snow of other days was the usual substitute in absence of a permanently enchanted cabinet to keep it frozen. Molten snow of the first of the month Hesinde was as good as it was going to get and a good enough substitute. The last ingredient, the blood of a magical creature, was easy to come by. Furio simply used his own.

“Were they here to look for me yet?” Furio asked in the by and by, setting up the mixture for distillation.

The potion was coming very well by anything he could say about it.

“Aye, shortly before you.” Alrik replied after passing a tube Furio was looking for. “What is the plan once this is done?”

Furio sighed and rubbed his temples: “I have to lure the whore's son somewhere and kill him, somewhere where no one else can kill me, preferably.”

That was all he was going to say. Alrik's love for Thorwal was obvious. He could not tell him that it was to be destroyed. If truth be told, he was unsure what would happen after Thorgun's death, if that would work at all.

Alrik scratched his white beard: “It will be evening soon. I have to deliver. Laura will be here to get her soap, like as not. It's too heavy to carry by myself.”

“Then that's when I shall strike.”

The potion did it's work after it was finally done. It was a potent one, owing to the great ingredients found in the alchemist's shop. Furio drank it without a second thought and felt it's effects immediately. It was so cold that for a moment he was sure that it would freeze him to death. He and Alrik walked together, across the bridge and to the market square. Laura was on top of Janna, pouring kettles of sea water down her throat. Her own lips were cracked, eyes red and fluttering.

Thorgun was besides, dealing with a group of concerned citizens who proclaimed that they would not work through the night as he had ordered. He gave their ringleader a swing to the jaw that had him take off and fly across the square before smashing into a heap of wood. His head was pulped, disfigured.

Alrik made Furio wait by the ruins of a contor, saying that Laura had a penchant for stepping on and crushing people in her way. After that, he went and made over to her.

“Laura!” He called. “Err, your soap is done!”

He bowed.

“Oh that's...” Laura blinked. “That's great!”

She stroked Janna's head again and kissed her on the brow before getting up and moving after the alchemist, painfully slowly.

“It is very well made!” Alrik swore as they went. “Very good smellin' indeed!”

The two conspirators gave each other a brief look as they passed each other. Now was Furio's turn. There wouldn't be much time. Alrik's laboratory wasn't very far from the market square. All it took was Laura coming over and stepping on him like the little filthy worm he was and all would be over. One arrow, one throwing axe, a jab of a spear, an axe swing. Furio shielded himself with Armatrutz before moving on. He was not a worm, he had to tell himself. He was a mage. He would not die easy.

The group of petitioners had gone away from Thorgun after he killed their ringleader, but Laura's absence was already causing trouble. Iron chains they had applied to the ogresses and the black-haired one had risen, lifting her captors with her.

“Rah!” The pactor spat and ran to help them.

The blonde giantess was now rising too and then all three were standing, fighting. The armed men and women stood back, weapons at the ready but unwilling to use them as it were. Laura had won and commanded the ogresses stay alive.

The tumult gave Furio the respite he needed. The piece of chalk was in his hand as he marched on. People were flying through the air, crashing on the ground. The blond giantess was stomping people like rats while Thorgun wrestled with the chains of the black one to bring her down.

“What's going on, what's that noise?” Furio could hear Laura ask.

Alrik had to capture her attention now. The ground was packed incredibly hard by the giant weight that had trodden and rested upon it countless times. It made a good surface to draw on, even with the cobblestones. His circle spanned ten meters and he proceeded to draw the dodekagramm, a twelve pointed star with interconnected lines, all the while mumbling the formula.

By the time he started to draw the symbols of the Twleve, Thorgun had wrestled down the first giantess and bashed her head in with his bare fist. The Thorwalsh were starting to attack in earnest too.

Furio observed the pactor as he made the final stroke with his diminishing piece of chalk. The demon worshipper noticed immediately. Their eyes met for a horrible moment.

“Kill that man!” He pointed and shrieked.

It was easy to spot which souls were possessed and which weren't. The regular people never took their eyes of the remaining two giantesses, never stopped fighting. The others, a group of perhaps fifteen, dropped everything and turned towards Furio at once.

The mage stood in the middle of his circle, awaiting them. Against the onslaught of weapons being thrown he crossed his arms and cast Fortifex. Axes, spears and arrows crashed to the ground before him. The attackers stood at the edge of the circle, frightful. Their tormented souls knew they could not enter. One man tried and went down the moment after, breaking to his knees screaming and clawing at his eyes. Then he died.

Furio saw Thorgun lower his head and smile. He wrenched an axe from one of the fighters and came on. He could enter the banning circle without problem, though his soles started to hiss and smoke upon the sacred ground.

The outside world changed, blurred, outside the circle. It's intended target was inside.

“Hahahaha.” The pactor laughed heartily. “I knew you'd be trouble, mage.”

He was grinning, looking Furio right in the eyes.

“Your patterns of evil are at an end.” Furio told him.

“Is that so?” The naked, bleeding man took a step forward.

Furio had no idea what he was playing at.

“Pact or no, I'm still a far better fighter than you and you did not even bring a weapon.” Thorgun smiled at him, raising the axe for show.

Furio gave him a pitiful look.

“You are no demon.” He said. “Have you forgotten that?”

Thorgun looked unabashed and took to walking forward towards him, raising the axe to strike.

Furio put his hand to his shoulders and extended his arm, two fingers stretched out, pointing at the pactor. Thorgun stopped, eyes white with sudden realization.

“Really?” He asked bitterly and Furio blinked to let him know yes.

The axe dropped from the Thorwalsh's hands. He stood upright, giving the mage a quizzical look.

“How did you beat me?”

“You had disadvantages.”

“What disadvantages?”

“You are mad.”

Thorgun never screamed when the flames engulfed him. It was a powerful spell, eating away his flesh even before he collapsed to his knees. Nothing but charred bone remained of him. The outside world returned to view, people looking at him frightened. It was brighter than he remembered. The sun, Praois' disk, was shining, standing high in it's zenith.

Laura and Janna were side by side in each others arms, looking at him in that same frightful way as the people. Their lips were better, he saw. Their eyes as well.

“Furio, what happened?” Janna asked him, scared.

“How much time has passed?” He ignored her.

Laura answered insecurely: “It is noon, the next day since people saw you walk in there.”

He smiled, wishing for a staff to lean on. He was weak in the legs.

“There were screams.” Janna went on. “Grey, weird shadows. There was an earthquake, half the harbour is gone!”

When he turned he saw that it was true. South of the market square had been a tongue of land with piers and contors and such. It was all sea now. So that was where the un-sanctum had been.

“Here.” A familiar voice said. Furio had never seen the old alchemist approach. He carried salt fish on a stick and a skin of mead which he received thankfully.

“Had us all scared shitless.” Alrik swore. “Even them big ones there, enough to make them act nice all of a sudden.”

He laughed. The banning circle was a half spell half ritual that was practised to perfection with special emphasis by the white guild and Praios church but rarely ever used. That it invoked a different passing of time was news to Furio, as he was sure it would be to most of his colleagues.

“The city had been returning to normal ever since you stepped into that damned thing. Heh, to think I wanted to end that fucker with some dirt in his ointment.” Alrik grinned as he talked into Furio's ear. “After your giant friends came to their senses they started questioning people. Everyone knows you're hero. There's some tall, very big-chested women want to have a word with you. No, not Janna. The normal kind.”

He gave a wink before wandering off, back the way to his workshop.

He hadn't lied. People were cheering him from afar now that it was over. A shield maiden with brown locks and tight, striped britches opened her shirt that she had bound beneath her bosom in a knot, letting it spill free and wriggling at him seductively. They all understood what had happened. Not the intricacies or the gravity of it, but on a basic level, they understood.

And they all had to die.