This is the ideal of a mismatch. These soldiers may be heavily armed but they are not prepared to stand up to spellcasting like this. They manage one disciplined barrage, one ragged one - and then they break. Within moments the survivors are in flight. Boldness gives you a wild thumbs up and races after them, leaping up onto interior buildings and racing along through the upper gallery, using the chaos to get a better look at where the points of organization are. She has a strange weapon in her hand and is aiming it down amidst the anarchy below. Her target is sure to be flushed out at this rate...

But just as things are going your way, you feel a new spell take hold - and your hands are too full with battle casting to do anything about it...

[Friction: [b]2[/b]]

It is a terrifying feeling, being on the wrong end of a Prophecy spell.

The timeline burns bright and inverts as knowledge is ripped from present to past. Everything rearranges around it. Chaos becomes organized. Initiative reverses. Perfect stealth is rendered irrelevant; that spell told them exactly where you were going to be and when you were going to be there. It is eminently, [i]wonderfully[/i] well constructed - even a glimpse of the business end of the spellwork tells you that this spell is one of the keys of the arsenal of the Endless Azure Skies.

And into the field, amidst the wreckage of the retreating warriors, comes a champion.

He is a serpent, as large as an ogre, with four mighty arms and scales a richer blue than the sky. Armour heavy with divine calligraphy rattles and clanks with the trophy skulls of a primordial time. A sword like a sharpened pool table rests over one shoulder and eyes that burn with the heat of sacred fury radiate outwards. His aura is powerful enough to cause your scanner to explode from the weight of it. With a glance he stills all panic in the room. With a glare he lets it be known that he has taken your measure. With contempt, he unbinds the spell powering the acidic cloud.

This warrior is to a paladin as Lord Death Despoil is to a wizard. 

He hefts his blade and - one handed, points it across the room at you.

"I am the Furnace Knight, champion of the Endless Azure Skies," the words burn with the might of a divine curse. You can feel the weight of it smashing in against you - compelling you to step forwards, aim your pistol, engage this creature in futile single combat, all thoughts of retreat and cunning forgotten. You might resist still - your divine ward was well chosen - but it weakens quickly in the heat of the Knight's presence. "I stand uncursed in the light of the Azure Goddess. I have your scent now, Child of Crimson, and neither you nor your kind shall escape me."