A bite of the serpent's appeal,
Pain which physicians never heal, 
Produced with evil seeds in wait,
Lost is innocence: gone is faith,
Eyes hungered for the tainted meal.

It had all gone so swimmingly, each player doing their task. Allies were summoned, conjured as they appeared to take into the fray. The water elemental although taking tooth and nail, seemed to avenge itself by pummeling its foe in the style of pugilists. Slamming itself into the chosen dog all the while a shark seemed to have joined in on the fray with pointed teeth. All of them took their marks, taking after how the warlock took after Jill's bullet and began to punish the hound. The beholder seemed to forgo his sword for a novel cast of lightning, the electricity jolting all at once across the line of three enemies. Each dog suffering after the other in exquisite pain that made the masochist scrape his tongue inside his mouth with a hint of jealousy. To feel the lash across ones flesh was a searing agony, but to experience the shock coursing through every neuron? Indeed the fallen had a burning desire to be the one receiving such a storm by Cynthia and Dyn. For this worthless mongrel failed thrice to obey and bite, for all the teeth that gnashed and growled, no such head could lead the attack without the inner quarrel. Thus with a heavy heart the Warlock was struck with impunity, unbearably unscathed for all his masochist drive.

Yet along came a dark angel, a cursed blessing that stirred the oceans into frenzy. A mistress clad in darkness and nothing more, a seducer in the shadows bearing fishnet stockings improper naked and yet clothed. Indeed like Venus, from the castrated impotence of a titan, born from the sea. Oh how the waters parted in her wake in her rapidly rabid advance, washed in foam and darkness as pure as tarnished silver. From those pale lips the kraken's ink, the essence of nyx that flowed so thickly from her harlequin smile, sweet pitiless salivation. In the darkness the duo dabbled, two wretched beauties as twisted as they were flawed. Enveloped in their danse macabre, a tango of death and domination. Whip and net intertwined as dark tendencies wove the odd couple together much to the impairment of the dog's vision to see the grey and pallor sight. His rhythm returning the whipping lash around his own body as the weapon snaked around his chest and waist as if directed by the will of the umbramancer. For all the disappointment in the hound's failure to strike back, Koan's presence beside him was more than welcome with the tides of darkness the perverted goddess brang. her hips gyrating in open carnality as she recited her orders like a vedeic mantra.

"My lady of agony... Shall we play with our misbehaved mutt?" Nothing would be as sweet as a private show in the dark. The others had avoided the summoned void, keeping to the underlight that was filtering through the sunless, airless sky of sea. But Koan understood him, and he yearned to understand her, a puzzling paradox of madness that tugged at his dark self. The nature of the clown was not that of a fool, not by those eyes, not by the way her dervish twirled in time to deliver the eldritch blasts those puppies so deserved. Dark magics filled the waters, what pact did she make with her soul? What taint did manifest in her mystery? Who was the master of this mistress? One above her that sent him to her in conniving and conceiving an wicked intimacy between them? A child of anemones beneath the blood-fed waves, offspring of dark and darker still.  

And yet alas, it would seem the heavens would intervene from this trysted lariat. Beatrice, sweet Beatrice, from the celestial planes on high, breaking the moment with spellbinding beauty that outshone the darkest purgatory. The colours of the pattern, woven with the brother of death's curly locks, scintillating so from the crystal until alas their dog toy could growl no longer at the barking mad darkness. And behold, the tri-headed hellhound before the dangerous duo was lulled into a trance. Slowed from wrath and ruin into a sluggish apathy, much to the disappoint of 'Sauron' who frowned at the conflicting nuances in both women's demands. One goaded, urged, demanded of his lash to strangulate and harm until no more struggle would come from the whelping, but the other who had so wrapped the worthless mongrel around her fingers like the twirls of her own hair so desired that no such harm should come to her pet. Her pet? No, it was their pet, for only pain, only delicious pain could be fed to such a ravenous beast, a glutton for punishment. So why should the pain stop? There would be no pleasing Beatrice in the bounty of purgatory, but the golden apple of Dis was placed upon the Warlock's hand, just as much as the wispy shadow whip. From Adonis to Paris, fairest of all for the fairest. To Koan alone he whispered low in tutting: "How disappointing. She has taken away our toy..."

"Then to the shadows with you Curs! Shadow Banish." A whip untwisted with a flick, circling like a shark as it swung around like a lasso from the darkness. The master's symbol of dominion over the lesser beasts, the primal reaction to abhor the sting of the cruel lash. A crack resounded, and then another, twice fold was the whip cast and recast away at the uncharmed hounds remaining in the fray. And from their own shadows did rise the greater beasts, morphed into forms befitting their owner's nature. The jaws engulfed them, sealing shut as the twin heads of Orthrus emerged to snatch away the other dogs and leave the last one hypnotized before the warlocks. Jill had so taken away their fun together by demanding this dog untouched, but now he had forced the issue as the others disappeared from sight for the moment. They would return for as long as his concentration held, entrapping them in the realm of shadows in the belly of their fabled cousin. The hexblade had no intention of sharing their toy, what greed marked this target theirs and theirs alone was wiped as radiant Jill took control of the situation with a spell rather than by instilling a fear and natural submission to the plaything.

"Now we have no choice do we?" A smile of lunacy beamed at Koan in pride. 
A compromise between both ladies, the one in control would be kept from the harm of the other dogs sensing their brother's stupor. 
But now it was fair game for the rest of them to ravage until the seas ran with blood to bring forth the Furies.


[hider=Mechanics]
Action: Cast Banishment on Hellhounds A & C.
	Cerberus A vs Charisma DC 18 = FAIL
	Cerberus C vs Charisma DC 18 = FAIL
Outcome: Both hounds banished for 1 minute (10 rounds) or until concentration end. 
[/hider]