"Oh, oh dear," Felix says, doing his best to cap off the flow of freezing gas to save what's left now that the cloud is gone. "Did that cloud just do what I think it did? What do we do?"

As Arkady steps over to Sir Parasim he says "Cast it out." He resumes praying and anoints the invaded knight with holy water then lays on one hand (he has the bible in the other).

*Tagging his 'god help me' aspect for +2*

"Sir Vanire, please tell me you can get that thing out of him. I really don't want to preform surgery today."

Nate moves over to Sir Parasim to check his vitals and stabilise him if he can.

Sir Parasim drops to his knees, gasping and choking.

"I have... no idea how to get it out," admits Vanire.

Arkady, however, does have an idea, and does his best to expel the cloud...

Arkady: Mysteries: +4 Roll: +1 Total: +5
Cloud: Endurance: +0 Roll: -1 Total: -1

Cloud immediately expelled, no aspects necessary

There's a screeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaam from somewhere inside Sir Parasim as the cloud leaves... tearing its way out through his left ear. It looks a good deal redder than it did before. And, if anything, a little bit smaller.

Sir Parasim falls to the ground. Nathan reaches to check his pulse:

Nathan: Wilderness Medic: Survival: +4 Roll: +3 Total: +7

It doesn't take Nathan long to realise that Sir Parasim was probably dead before he hit the ground - that cloud wasn't inside him for more than a few seconds, but in those few seconds it did some nasty things to his internal organs. He won't have functioning lungs anymore, and his heart is no longer beating - and given the fact that the cloud came out of his ear, it's even possible that it took some fairly direct action against the brain.

Felix and Vanire leap to the attack, with freezethrower and magically enhanced sword respectively...

Felix: Guns: +2 Visor: +4 Roll: -2 Total: +4
Cloud: Fists: +4 Roll: +2 Total: +6

Vanire: Weapons: +4 Constrained by Mysteries: -1 Roll: +1 Total: +4
Cloud: Fists: +4 Roll: +1 Total: +5

Narrowly dodging both attacks, the cloud strikes back against the wielder of the annoyingly cold weapon:

Cloud: Fists: +4 Roll: +2 Total: +6
Felix: Athletics: +1 Roll: +3 Total: +4

Cloud: XXXXX (Mental: OOOXO) Expelled from Sir Parasim Red
Vanire: OXOOO OO
Sir Parasim: Dead
Felix: OXOOO O

Arkady is somewhere between pleased and surprised when casting out this thing works; but quickly realizes that it killed Sir Parasim on it's way out. Coldly angry, he continues his efforts to send this thing back to the Devil before it can do more harm.

+Once again, trying to tag the same aspects against the pretty fair chance he'll need to.+

"You're losing your patience now, aren't you," Felix says, stepping back as much as he's able to get out of the way of the attack before going back on the offensive, thrusting as much of the freezing gas at the cloud as possible. "Do us all a favor and freeze."

Spend a fate point to boost or reroll the next attack as needed.

Arkady: Mysteries: +4 Roll: +3 Total: +7
Cloud: Endurance: +0 Roll: +2 Total: +2

Felix: Guns: +2 Visor: +4 Roll: -2 Total: +4
Cloud: Fists: +4 Roll: +1 Total: +5

Vanire: Weapons: +4 Constrained by Mysteries: -1 Roll: +1 Total: +4
Cloud: Fists: +4 Roll: -3 Total: +1

No need to tag any Aspects, the Cloud's done for.

The cloud dodges away from Felix's freezethrower, only to be immediately impaled on Vanire's sword as Arkady continues to chant in Ukranian. It emits one final scream before just... evaporating into nothingness.

Vanire glances around the room for a moment, waiting for another threat to materialise - when one does not, he relaxes slightly. He checks Sir Parasim's and Adus' pulses (in that order) - but both are quite thoroughly deceased.

Arkady glances at the sword on the floor, then starts to perform last rites on the dead. Starting with the one he saw die (Sir Parasim).

Felix moves to find a place to sit, his hands shaking from post combat adrenaline.

"Well. That was something. What was it?"

Nate closes Sir Parasim's eyes and places his sword in his hand before getting up and switching off the video recorder.

"I don't know. I'll have to think if I've ever heard of anything like that before."

(Roll Mysteries for giggles.)

Sir Parasim's sword is nowhere to be seen.

It certainly was on the floor recently, right over there... but it isn't, now.

"I'm not entirely sure what it was," says Vanire, looking around at the floor for something. "The lady Sephrenia might know more, but she's nowhere nearby... we're just lucky it wasn't particularly smart." He glances up at Arkady and nods. "I don't know what you were doing, but it was really effective. Is there any chance you might be willing to teach some of us?"

Nathan: Mysteries: +1 Roll: +1 Total: +2

Nathan has no idea what the Smoke Cloud Thing was.

Finishing what he was doing, Arkady gets up and looks at Sir Vanire. "Teach you." He then glances at the floor, and says "I was recognizing that sword, where ever it went." Then he looks back and says "Sorry. Well. That was a rite called Exorcism. It is basically a prayer, to call upon the power of God to cast out demons who are manifesting in this world." He looks thoughtful, then shrugs. "I could be teaching it, in time; but would it work for the servant of...another power? I am not knowing how he would choose to answer that, and it is dangerous enough to be confronting dark powers in His name without Him taking offense."

Does Arkady, with a bit more education along these lines, have any idea what it was he just faced? Tag Walking Library if needed.

Arkady: Mysteries: +4 Roll: +1 Total: +5

Walking Library: Arkady has the equivalent of a Good-quality library in his memories

Arkady takes a moment to contemplate what he had just seen. A creature made of fire and smoke, that kills by invading the lungs of its target... that can hide unseen within someone, or be summoned inside of them, leaping out (and killing the host)... that is immune to both normal weapons and fire (at least to the temperature of a torch, possibly further), but has no particular love of cold... and then one must also take into consideration that the exorcism worked on it...

Arkady is not sure what the creature is called; he can't quite match it to any particular legend or story that he's ever come across before. In all fairness, it might not have existed anywhere before he got on the colony ship, there's a long time interval there for such a creature to come into being... and he already knows more about it than he knows about most of the things he has heard about.

Vanire nods. "I quite understand," he says. "If you do get your god's permission, though, I can easily find you any number of interested students."

"Well, then," Felix says. He looks towards Sir Parasim's body. He lowers his head, taking a moment of silence. "Sorry I wasn't able to do more..."

He shakes his head.

"We have a possible lead, though. What was it Adus said? A Rendorish poison called Darestim?"

With a wry grin, Arkady tells Vanire: "Well, if they are considering converting..." He looks over at Adus as Felix speaks, and then says "He was telling you what happened to the Queen when the demon appeared? That is interesting."