[Take an opportunity attack and cast Ray of Frost on Sister Margrite.]
Father Velholme makes an opportunity attack against Cirrus Mist: Miss.
The heavy ceremonial scepter swings down at you in a wide arc. Father Velholme’s momentum works against him, and you step out of the way as he lurches forward with the swing. You have only a moment to line up the shot. You raise your finger at Sister Margrite, steadying your aim with your other hand. You have to be careful; you cannot miss. The needle is in her hand, and she is poised now to pierce the next child in line.
In the air, in the lamplight and the rust-red luster of the moon, you see little droplets of blood, floating in a stream from the prick in Sabine’s flesh toward the infant crying on the altar.
Cirrus casts Ray of Frost: Natural 20.
Critical Hit!
Cirrus deals 14 frost damage.
Your Ray of Frost pierces through Sister Margrite’s neck. The blackened hole mists in the summer air, and the ray crashes into the stonework behind the altar, smattering frozen blood upon the wall. Flesh and bone and sinew go brittle and shatter, and Sister Margrite’s head falls in front of the line of placid children.
Your first kill.
Father Velholme’s eyes bulge.
“Devil child!” he yells. “You doom us all! God give me strength!”
Again he raises his scepter aloft.
Wisdom saving throw: 12 + 1 = 13.
Failure.
Cirrus is paralyzed.
Light floods your senses. It is the filtered light of stained glass, the light of the orphanage’s church. Here, in a ruined, open chapel under the full moon, a variegated pattern casts strange light upon you from a nonexistent window.
Eight frames of eight stained panels color your face and the surrounding overgrown soil. The golden sun and its red rays; the green earth and Lathander’s golden path.
You cannot move. You cannot even blink.
Again Father Velholme stands in front of you. “Too long on the vine, wicked thing. Wither now.”
He reaches out his flaming hand to grasp your head.
With every ounce of strength in you, you try to break free of his spell. You call upon your devil’s blood. You call upon your desire to leave this land. You call upon your fate.
Wisdom saving throw: 7 + 1 = 8.
Failure.
His burning hand engulfs your face. The flame fills your mouth, your nose, your eyes. The illusory light of the stained glass window catches on his hand, deep unearthly gold. In stained red light you feel your insides putrefy.
Father Velholme casts Inflict Wounds with advantage.
Critical Hit!
Father Velholme deals 22 necrotic damage.
Cirrus is reduced to -13 hit points.
Father Velholme releases his grasp on your head. Pus runs, tearlike, down your decaying cheeks. The last bit of flesh melts from your jawbone, and motionless, you hear it land dully on the ground.
“Accursed thing,” Father Velholme says, wiping his hand clean with a handkerchief. “Return to the mists from whence you came.”
In your final moments, you see the man walk calmly toward the altar. He takes the silver needle from Sister Margrite’s headless body, and one by one he pricks the foreheads of the remaining eight children. With each child he repeats the same prayer.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Another wing for the true child of light.
Like red beads run along a string, the drops of the children’s blood flow through the air toward the infant.
Carmine wings for a golden child.
Your siblings turn to ash, and the beating of the infant’s ninefold wings scatters them upon the wind.
All hope fades from your soul.
You die.