Pentacles and Pentagrams

Having turned her back to the circle, Matilda was only dimly aware of Caissa’s movements as she prepared to leave. For someone so eager to leave, she was sure taking her time getting the hell out of here. Did she get off on this? Winning her small victory in annoying a teenage girl into submission? She decided not to indulge her with another glance, instead working dutifully on her potion, determined to ignore her until she left.

She was just finishing up the brew, setting it to simmer for the remaining duration of its preparation time, when it dawned on her how peculiar it was that the demoness was no longer speaking. When she finally did speak, the accompanying sound of motion filled her with dread.

There wasn’t much Matilda could do. She was a lot smaller than Caissa, to say nothing of what demonic strength she might have possessed. She felt like she was moving through molasses as she wrapped her fingers around whatever she could reach, that being the contents of the potion she’d been brewing, and hurling the mug’s contents towards her assailant. There were no supernatural properties to the potion, as it wasn’t finished, save that it was rather hot. Not nearly hot enough to burn, unfortunately. Tilly had effectively thrown a pot of coffee in Caissa’s face.

If that didn’t at least stun her for a moment, she’d be unable to do much of anything to avoid the grapple. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like Matilda was dropping to the ground and curling to the fetal position, flailing wildly, but in fact, it was a purely strategic endeavour. She tumbled and twisted to the ground, aiming to get her legs between herself and Caissa, kicking wildly. She was definitely no boxer, but she had strong legs from years of running. Hopefully this would give her enough time to reach her staff and conk her on the head with it.

It all happened so fast, she wasn’t even sure what was going on. A lot of people talk about the fight-or-flight reflex, how time seems to slow down, but that isn’t really right. You can just cram a lot more thinking into such a small amount of time. For example, Matilda was thinking about how strange it was that a goetic demon, once freed from its circle, would be deterred from attacking her by a pot of ot liquid and a randomly-placed kick or two.

She lay there, pushing herself up against the all and scooping up her staff in case she got a second wind and tried to drag Tilly back with her or something. She leveled the long length of walnut on the circle and prepared to rain fire, but it proved unnecessary. Caissa was retreating, uttering a threat as she went.

A normal person would have taken the victory and ran with it, not wanting to further earn the ire of a potentially dangerous demon, but Matilda thought a whole lot less with her brain then she should have.
”C-can you take a check?” She grinned, allowing the staff to clatter to the floor as she vanished. She sat there for awhile, staring at the circle. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten out of that alive. Slowly, she gathered up the courage to cross the floor of the small room, and pick up the book that lay there. She flipped through it, sighing with disappointment. It was in a language she couldn’t read, even if she wanted to. And it was probably garbage to boot. Still, she might have it checked out. She looked again at the ruined circle. Her work had been sloppy. She couldn’t let it happen again, if she were to attempt this again. Come to think of it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. It seemed that Paimon’s brat hadn’t been strong enough to squash her like a bug. What if she had gotten the right number?

She shuddered at the thought.