[h2]Gisela[/h2]

This was bad. Very, very bad. Oh, it was easy to recognise that this was a Witch on an intellectual level, just from the description alone, and treat her as any other nigh-unassailable threat. As an [i]idea[/i], they weren't invincible, particularly if you had no illusions about killing them off for good. There had been more of their number, once upon a time. It had just cost an entire army before assembling a force that actually had a hope of winning.

And even then, a number had survived. Like this one.

On a magical level... this was terrifying. Part of it was just the heightened sensitivity to mana that came with being a mage, working [i]with[/i] magic your entire life. The rest? Well, that was how she [i]couldn't[/i] feel anything, which was something that would pass entirely without comment unless you had reason to expect that you would feel something. All [i]Gisela[/i] could feel was the dissipating remnants of whatever magic the doll-like girl had been doing before coming down here.

Her actual presence? Silent. Too silent. She was someone whose presence [i]should[/i] have been loud and heavy, impossible to ignore. But maybe that was fine, that was something that most powerful mages at least got [i]some[/i] grip on over time, if they didn't have [i]her[/i] particular issues. But to not give off any indication while doing something blatantly magical? Controlling that abomination beside her... maybe [i]that[/i] was what had set everything off a minute ago. But just [i]existing[/i] should have been a magical conflagration. That wasn't a natural body, a living one. Methods of immortality all took magic in some capacity, they couldn't be [i]this silent.[/i] But she was. That doll gave off nothing, not a whisper. Whether the Witch was controlling it remotely or it was her actual body, she wasn't using any [i]magic[/i] to do it. Not as magic was understood and studied, anyway.

And that was terrifying.

So, Gisela did exactly what any normal person would when confronted with someone that made them feel like a child again, and hid behind the nearest large, adult-seeming figure. In this case, that meant the amused arrival of one demon, stepping out into the world, a staff of some exotic-looking wood in hand. At least the steel caps on the end looked hefty.

"I'd fight this one for the fun of it, but I take it you don't want that?" the red-skinned warrior asked, amused by the hundi apparently trying to burrow into her back.