Word: fiducial

fiducial

\ fi-DOO-shuhl \  , noun;

1. Based on or having trust: fiducial dependence upon God.

2. Accepted as a fixed basis of reference or comparison: a fiducial point; a fiducial temperature.

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                The young woman was beautiful.  Her long black hair fell from her head like a curtain of ebony silk, perfectly framing her delicate face.  Her black eyes shown like mirrors, as if they could reflect the very soul of whoever gazed upon them.  Her pale skin stood in stark contrast to her ebony mane and eye, as well as her ruby colored lips, which held in a delicate smile could melt the heart of even the most cold blooded of men.  Her clothes clung to her voluptuous figure, modest enough to meet the standards of society, but daring enough to instantly catch the eye of any—man or woman—who saw her.  It was as if the gods themselves had lovingly crafted her every flawless feature.  And she was currently possessed by a particularly unpleasant demon.

                “Little help here!”  Caruss shouted to his companions.  Currently, her delicate looking hands were wrapped around the shaft of the large man’s war hammer, locking him into a contest of strength.  Caruss was resisting her push with all the considerable strength of his entire body, every muscle straining to the maximum.  And he was still losing.  The demon inside her gave her power that no human could ever hope to match, and it was bringing it down squarely on him.  The wide, wicked grin on her face even told him that the demon was toying with him, using just enough power to let the big man resist while still forcing him back.  Had the circumstances been different, Caruss would be red with embarrassment at losing to such a slender woman.  As it was now, his face was still red, but with exertion instead of shame.

                Before his powerful arms finally did cave in though, Lars managed to come up behind the demon possessed maiden, lashing out with both his blades at once.  And he hit nothing.  It wasn’t that he missed his target, had it been an ordinary foe, her entrails would currently be lying on the ground.  However, this one was quite a bit different.

                When they heard about the possessed girl, the trio had taken preparations.  Lars and Caruss had gotten their weapons enchanted to be very effective against demons.  However, this had a bit of a side effect in that until the enchantment was removed, the weapons would pass through anything without an infernal nature.  And it just so happened, that this demon knew how to shift its essence around inside its host.  This meant that at the moment of impact, all the weapon hit was the flesh of the girl, lacking any possession.  Caruss’ hammer may have worked, as the greater surface area would make it much harder for the demon to escape, which is probably why it was currently keeping the big man from doing much of anything. 

                “Gods damn it!”  Lars shouted as his swords passed harmlessly through the girl’s skin.  The irony of his words was lost in the heat of the moment.  “Hey, we could use some magic over here!”  He called out.

                “I’m working on it.” Grena said through clenched teeth.  Her preparations had been much different from her male traveling companions.  As a spellslinger, she had no real weapon to enchant, and her normal magic would probably not amount to much against a demon, even one who was residing in a human body.  As such, she was currently attempting to do something she was not trained to: channel divine energies.  Her preparations for the battle had been to research how to do this.  She understood the basics, but those didn’t really amount to all that much, since they said little more than to put absolute trust into the deity in question, and pray for some divine intervention.  While this sounded easy, getting a god to actually listen to those prayers was somewhat different, and the books she had read were more than a little vague on the subject.  This all meant to her not being able to do much of anything in the fight until she had managed to scrape together enough energy to matter.  As it was now, she would consider herself lucky if the demon even flinched at the amount of power she had gathered.

                “Well, work faster damn it!”  Lars shouted, again attempting to land a solid blow on the demon instead of the host. 

                “If you think this is so easy, why don’t you try it!”  Grena shouted.  She was not happy.  Grena specialized in combat magic, and hated being relegated to a support role as she was now. 

                “I knew we should’ve brought a priest along.”  Lars mumbled.  The only thing he hated more than situations like their current one was being right about something and not able to rub it into other people’s faces.  He had in fact, suggested enlisting the aid of a priest almost as soon as they had heard about the girl’s situation.  The others had dismissed the idea, as Grena felt very confident that she could get some power from the god she chose to believe in even without actually being a priestess. 

                “Oh just shut up and cut something!”  Grena shouted, clearly hearing her loud companion.  He never did a good job of talking under his breath, somehow managing to make himself heard no matter how softly he spoke.

                “Just remember Grena,”  Lars said mockingly while attempting to skewer the demon’s heart, “it’s all about trust.”

                “Yes, trust.  Like I trust you to shut up and fight, or else force me to put a bolt of arcane lightning up your rear end!” 

                Lars got the hint immediately, opting not to call her bluff, on the off chance it wasn’t. 

                “Why don’t both of you shut up and help!”  Caruss said.  His arms were clearly giving out, and he didn’t want to know what the demon would do to him when they did.  Lars came in with a different approach this time.  He inverted one of his swords, aiming to give a stunning pommel strike, hoping the demon would ignore it, allowing it to land and giving Caruss enough time to break free.  Fortunately, the demon did allow the non lethal blow to get through.  Unfortunately, this only served to get its attention.  The demon turned the girls head, looking right at Lars with its pitch black eyes.  It opened its mouth and began gathering infernal energy.  Lars’ swords may have been enchanted to work against such things, but he didn’t favor his chances of using them to guard against a point blank shot, so he pulled away quickly, narrowly avoiding the beam.

                This did manage to distract the demon for a brief moment though.  Just long enough for Caruss to gain the leverage needed to pull his hammer free.  It wouldn’t be long before the demon took hold of it again, and he made use of the chance to do something.  He poured all his remaining strength into his arms, delivering a powerful blow to the demon’s head.  It landed with a resounding thud, a white spark flashing at the moment of impact, a reminder of the enchantment doing its job.

                With the demon stunned, however briefly, Lars took the chance to attack as well.  This time his swords found their mark in the demon instead of the girl. The two of them continued their attacks, staggering them in such a way that one landed the moment the other pulled away, keeping the demon off balance and unable to attack.

                Meanwhile Grena had managed to gather up fair amount of energy.  Seeing her companions hitting the demon, she hoped it would be weakened enough for what she had to work, since she didn’t feel like she could hold onto any more of the divine energies.  She had certainly found a new appreciation for the clergy, but such thoughts could come later.  She used her string of beads to focus the energies into a large blade, firing it at what she hoped was the center of the demon’s body.  With the infernal being off balance as it was, the brilliant white blade struck home. 

                The girl let out a piercing scream, her own melodious voice a stark contrast to the rough, heavy demon’s voice.  Her entire body began to convulse and thrash around violently, the demon clearly trying to counter the divine power that had just been introduced.  But it had been weakened, and was not able to expel the energy.  It had no choice but to leave its host and return to the infernal plains from which it came.  Now free of the demon, the girl collapsed, unconscious.  The trio gathered around the fallen girl, each gasping for breath.

                “So, just how grateful do you think she’ll be when she wakes up?”  Lars said, looking over her prone form appreciatively.  The other two just rolled their eyes at him and walked away, not wanting to look at the girl ever again.  

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Ok, so this was not my original plan for this word.  I had originally intended this to be about a couple on some kind of trust building exercise.  But I came up with this because I think this was more entertaining.  The only problem with using these three is it reminds me just how restrictive 1,500 words is.  There is so much more I wanted to do involving a bit about the pantheon this world has and the like.  Oh well, maybe next time I use these guys I'll be able to do something like that.