The Rain poured down from overhead. The latent energies from the aetheric nexus combined with the rain clouds to form the beginnings of a fierce storm.
Grande and Sun Wolf stood silently in the places assigned to them in the druidic pattern, the newly drawn circles near the center, all the while getting soaked to the bone from the brewing storm. The remaining druids finished the last hurried preparations and took their places.
At Margat’s signal everyone except for the two in the circles began chanting. Fitfully at first but stronger as time passed once again, just like before all the mess started, the little sparks of multicolored light and glowing twisting threads again appeared in the air between the chanters. The threads looked wispy almost spider web-like with little pulses of stronger power running along them like rain drops in time to the chanting. The whole ethereal construct slowly began to increase in brightness.
At first nothing seemed to be happening near Grande and Sun Wolf, but as the pattern began to grow it seemed to stall and struggle almost beginning to fade away. Threads began questing out from the spell web toward the two of them. The threads stopped at the edge of the circle as if they hit an invisible barrier and began to circle along the border swiftly making what looked like a tornado of gossamer threads completely obscuring the heroes standing inside. The threads coming from the spiraling mass glowed more intensely than the rest of the pattern and the power that was contained there sped along the threads in large pulses and began to reinforce the faltering spell. This continued for some minutes with little change other than the temperature in the clearing slowly rising as the spell gained in power and its illumination increasing.
As the rain fell, hitting the flowing energy, it hissed and evaporated creating a low clinging fog that added to the mysterious air of the ritual. The strengthened threads and sparks flowed upward toward the storm in the sky in an outwardly spiraling pattern, mimicking the two pseudo tornadoes in the center that surrounded Grande and Sun Wolf. Lightning began to flash across the sky, some hitting the strands and being absorbed into the mass causing it to increase in size and brightness, with power actually seeming to flow back toward the center.
The wind which had been mostly limited to a light breeze started to gust with growing power causing the rain and fog to move chaotically about the clearing and the bordering trees to thrash about snapping limbs and kicking up fallen leaves.
The spell got brighter and brighter as each moment passes reaching into the storm tossed sky. It’s reach growing and ever widening the higher it got, the threads weaving in and out of each other. The surrounding countryside glowed with the multihued light of the web as if a psychedelic noon day sun had arisen. The lightning strikes happened with increased frequency and ferocity against the fragile seeming web as the storm surged to new heights.
And suddenly with a resounding crescendo everything seemed to happen at once. The magically charged storm above burst into a finale involving several rapid fire thunderclaps and a shocking display of raw elemental power and the druid’s spell web scattered off into all the directions of the compass breaking apart and fading away, dissolving into nothingness.
Silence descended onto the hill top as the last remnants of the storm and spell faded away. The candles guttered out, the magic sustaining them fading out.
The participants all seemed exhausted with Grande and Sun Wolf sitting slumped in their circles, more tired than they have ever been before. The spectators who were too injured or weak to participate in the casting came out into the newly dry clearing to help how they could.
While Betony ran over to her mother Crusader hobbled over to his friends, still favoring his side.
“You two ok? That looked pretty intense!”
“Si, I’m good. But man I am beat. I theink I could sleep for a week or two.”
“Da, the same for me. I will never volunteer for something like this again. I thought I was going to die a couple of times.”
“Yeah Sun Wolf eit was pretty rough. But It deid give me an idea for a name that I theink you weill all like.”
Crusader and Sun Wolf made eye contact and both rolled their eyes. “I can’t wait to hear it. I’m sure Roland and Betony will be thrilled to hear it too.”
“Yah, yah, get her I theink it weill be worth eit.”
Sun Wolf looked at Crusader, “He usual isn’t this proud of an idea unless it is really bad.”
“It almost scares me more than a tribe of Bigfeet.”
Betony came over a few moments later. “Roland said that you had something we all needed to hear?”
“Si. I have a great name for the team that I know everyone weill love.”
“If it is Grande and His Amazing Friends I will totally murder you.” She looked at Sun Wolf and Crusader’s puzzled expressions and shook her head. “Don’t ask.”
“Theis eis much better than that.” He paused dramatically and waved his hands like he was presenting a rare gem or the king of a far off land, “Storm Patrol.”
The three of them stood there in silence for a moment glancing at each other and back to Grande.
“That’s... That’s good.”
“Da. I agree. It is unexpected.”
Betony nodded her head. “I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be known by that.”
Roland’s voice clearly spoke in their heads. “I like it.”
Grande stood up straight and brushed the dirt off of his formerly white pants. “From today onward we weill be known as Storm Patrol!”
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