A placid meeting

The four dark figures around the column glared out from beneath their hoods at the figure standing in the entrance to the ciborium. The sound of the intruder's footfalls, boots on steel, still echoed softly in the cavernous room despite their creator having already stopped some moments ago.

Each of the figures assumed their ready stances, armor clad fingers glinting as they slowly descended to waist kept knives. They held their bodies like tightly wound springs as they waited for the intruder to advance, there were 28 paces from where he now stood to the edge of the tabernacle line.

The thin, bright ring of light in the cold steel of the floor delineated the holy boundary. Crossing the tabernacle line brought one into the sacred proximity of the host, held within the column at the ring's center. Only the most pious of priests and the Manus Misericordiae could endure the cleansing aura of the host within the sacred proximity, or so legend held. "Elin, thou will not trespass into this holy boundary." One of the figures rasped. The members of the order Manus Misericordiae rarely spoke aloud and Elin could hear the effort it took to produce the sounds, even from his position at the doorway. Elin took a step forward. The rearmost monk began to whisper a benediction on his brethren. Elin began his own chant, his baritone voice echoing through the chamber. "Domine Deus fortitudo salutis meae protexisti caput meum in die belli." The foremost monk hissed at the vulgarity of Elin's words, his free hand making the warding sign across his breastplate..

The air around Elin distorted for a moment as he seemed to wink out of existence, the air around him rushing into the void he left with a harsh hum. The monk in the front cast his eyes about the chamber, stunned. He turned and saw the head of the monk to his left slide off its neck. A dull thud behind him and another to his right signaled that the rest of his companions had been dealt with similarly. A detached feeling of nausea came over him as his view slid around and he began to fall with no hands, or body, with which to catch himself.

Elin approached the small port in the column, his boots echoing with tiny splashes. Bringing out a metallic canister from his pack, he twisted the top and pushed it against the port. With a hiss and a thump, the column ejected its contents into the canister. Grimly, Elin sealed the canister and turned to leave. A slender figure in full plate armor, wielding a too tall halberd, now stood in the entrance to the ciborium.

The mother superior surveyed the corpses of her monks with a soft snort of disappointment. She pulled her halberd back, as if to swing, then blurred forward toward Elin with inhuman speed. Elin's form winked out, and the mother superior twisted around bringing the pole of the halberd in front of her. The steel rang out as she deflected Elin's blade. She whipped the halberd around, its axe head cutting the air in front of Elin's arm as he jerked away slashing upward. The mother superior slid backward on her boots, assuming a high crouch with her weapon held in a guard position in front of her. Her left side burned where Elin's blade had sheared through the plate and bitten into her flesh. Her vision swam, and she noted that she had also been struck in the inner thigh; her blood was beginning to pool around her. Her strength left her all at once, and she clanged to her knees, the world becoming blurry and grey. She could see Elin through the slits in her helmet. As her eyes began to close, she saw him reaching for her helm. The mother superior was glad that she wouldn't have to explain what he would find beneath.