Brain Freeze

As the monster charged forward, Zulema once again used what little she could see of its shimmering teeth to hook her scythe into its mouth and swing herself onto its translucent back. The beast reacted strongly to her touch and responded by trying to buck her off. He was enraged by the feeling of his prey getting the upper hand on him and responded by swirling turbulently like a whirlwind, violently whipping up the white powder of snow around him. He swung his massive arms at the empty air in front of him, trying his hardest to reach her but being unable to do so without losing his clumsy balance or finding himself coming close to crashing into one tree of many. His wild flailing failed to shake away the priestess who was clinging to his rear where it was impossible to reach her. The erratic movements were almost enough to throw her off, but her scythe was now acting as a rein to hold herself onto him. Her eyes began to glow as she clasped her hand down on top of where she guessed his head might be.

"Down," the priestess said quietly, attempting to force the beast to relent.

Zulema was concentrating her ability on the mad monster, using the thaumaturgic magics to relax his thrashing muscles. She focused, trying to maneuver the inner workings of his mind, but as she drove herself deeper, she quickly realized the fatal mistake she had just made. Where normally, she could shape and manipulate the senses of others by blocking the brain's perception of bodily awareness, unfortunately, it stands to reason that the same could not be so easily done to an ineffable thing from another plane.

The monster’s mind defied conventional description—a pit she found herself straining to climb out of. It’s not like she hadn’t tested her ability on animals in the past, in fact, during the countless times she would go out of her way to help them, she usually found herself doing the work of an amateur veterinarian. Their minds were always simple and easy to manipulate—primitive brain functions that have no real defense against thaumaturgy. But his was a vacuum void of sanity filled with abstract notions of abhorrent trauma and gruesome death. The only thing she could really perceive were his murderous instincts. Intense impulses that overpowered and countered her attack on his mind. She desperately wanted to pull away but the damage was done. The opposing thoughts driven forth from the creature had caused an electrical surge of mental anguish to shoot through her brain that she could barely handle. A scream rose in her throat and the temporary counter-incursion was enough to weaken her grip on both her weapon and reality.

Mind in crippling torment, the young priestess came tumbling down onto the frozen ground. The beast took this chance to swiftly grab her by the head and began to drag her brutally through the snow as it strode deeper into the endless maze of forest. Grunting wildly, he continued pulling her battered body through the dirt, leaves and snow, punishing her for trying to fight back. Slamming her up and down as he moved, her powerless body landed continuously with a thump, sharp rocks jutting painfully through her armor and into her legs, arms and abdomen, cutting into her soft skin underneath. He was seemingly avoiding putting just enough pressure to keep his massive weight from crushing her head.

Severe pain shot through Zulema from head to toe as the assault on her mind ended and the one on her body began. Try as she might, she could barely withstand the monster’s abrasive handling. Shouting in agony, she helplessly beat her fists against the grip he held on her head, helmet and all—The most she could do being to brace herself while holding fast to his grasp in a pitiful attempt to keep her head from being ripped from her body.

The thing let loose a shrill, threatening howl that reverberated weirdly through the mountain wood. A haunting, ululant cry dripping with a primeval rage stemming from millennia of imprisonment in an eternally dark confinement, forced to bear witness to sacrilegious rituals as its ancient blood stained the secret ground in unhallowed consecrations. Cursed ceremonies that could only be performed to the appeasement of nigh-immortal dreamlike beings that walk the stars in the dead of space.

And now he was loose upon the world again. A cry to remind himself that he was free.

The paralyzing question of why he hadn't killed her yet had left Zulema addled. Her powers had failed, leaving her trump card all but useless. She was being taken further and further into the mountains where there was a lingering stench of copper in the air. She was far away from the safety of her camp, leaving her with the shaky thought of the impending doom that was coming. The only hope left to her was that she was likely to freeze to death or succumb to her injuries before the monster had its chance at whatever it was planning to do with her. The pain and shock assailing her body was intensely agonizing and had left her considering what her final thoughts would be of: The family she was leaving behind. The priestesses she made friends with. The church she would be letting down.

All the lingering decisions that had led her up to that point had filled her heart with guilt, at first, but the final thought of her sister moving on from her death and one day settling down had filled her with a sudden, lasting peace—even as she felt her head being crushed against the trunk of a tree.

The monster had suddenly changed whatever plans he had for the ailing priestess. There was a bitter transition in the air that was heralding a worse danger. Something in the dark that had managed to intimidate him, causing him to stop in his tracks and shift tactics into attempting to finish off his prey sooner rather than later. Balancing on a single arm, he swung the young priestess in the other and bashed her body against the nearest hard surface he could find. He repeated this motion a few times, slowly staining the bark and melting the floor below in the hot blood seeping from her helm, in a desperate attempt to incapacitate her before whatever he sensed could reach him. The onslaught finally stopped when he dropped her beaten body, then—grabbing her again by the torso—brought her dangling head towards his guillotine of elongated teeth.

And just as he was about to close his malignant maw and snuff out her dwindling life, a sudden force had sent the beast hurtling towards a thicket of small trees, burying him in a crushing pile of broken trunks and powder snow.

Zulema had meanwhile been sent flying from the monster's hand and landed harshly in a clearing a few feet away. In her twilight state, she could barely see what had hit them. Blood was pooling in her vision while an unnatural buildup of frost was slowly starting to bury her, making it difficult to ascertain anything that was about to happen. A cold, oppressive heaviness was clouding her faculties and the only thing her mind was telling her was to let go and sleep. As her eyes struggled to stay open, a hazy pair of lupine feet entered her vision.