Pain's Grip

This spell is a part of the Mourning Bell spell chain and is found in the Mourning Bell rune stone.

There is a reason necromancers speak of Pain differently than they speak of death. Death they understand. Death they have sat beside, studied, accepted as the most honest truth the world offers. Pain is something else entirely. Pain is not the ending, nay, it is the ending gone wrong. It is what remains when the passage that should be peaceful becomes instead a trap with no visible door. When the necromancer reaches for Pain's Grip they are not reaching for Serenity. They are reaching for something older, something that predates even the necromancer's understanding of their own magic. Those who study the deepest history of Nor'Ova whisper that Pain as a symbol carries within it the echo of a wound that was never meant to exist, it tells of a splintering so total and so agonizing that its resonance became a force unto itself. Whether or not the necromancer knows this history, they feel it the moment they call upon it. Something answers that should perhaps not be answered so easily. Yet the necromancer calls to Pain regardless, knowing well what is coming and the price to be paid. 

The spell descends upon the target not as a strike or a wave or a visible force but as a presence. The target feels it first in the body, a feeling that is a deep, radiating agony that has no single source and no obvious wound, as though every nerve has been reminded simultaneously of every harm they have ever endured. Then it reaches the mind, and the mind begins to do what minds do in the final moments, it conjures the worst, darkest thoughts. Every fear, every regret, every terrible thought that a person suppresses through the mercy of daily life rises unbidden and insistent. Finally it reaches the spirit, and the spirit, sensing what the mind already suspects, begins to pull away from the body in anticipatory terror of what is coming.

For the duration the target is caught in Pain's Grip completely. Each round the target suffers the following:

• Their movement is halved as the body refuses to cooperate fully
• They must make a Hard Mental Balance check to perform any action for the mind too overwhelmed by its own darkness to focus
• They lose 1d10 Soul per round that cannot be restored as the spirit strains against its vessel in spiritual terror
• Any healing received is halved as Pain does not release its hold graciously

The target cannot escape this alone. Each round they may attempt a Hard Spirit Balance check to break free, but they do so at a cumulative -1 per round they have been held as the grip tightens. Should any ally actively aid them, whether it be by speaking to them, touching them, grounding them in the present, then that ally grants a +2 to that round's check. Pain's Grip is most merciless when faced in isolation, but can be overcome with the help of others. Pain's Grip causes no real physical damage, but the one who suffers its trap is unaware of this due to the pain that they are forced to endure. The necromancer who casts this spell does not do so lightly. They know what they are calling. They know its origins. They reserve it for those who have earned it. and in their grey, enigmatic way, they are very particular about who that is. The necromancer is not completely spared either, for Pain collects from those who use its power equally, and for this casting Pain takes 1d8 Power from the necromancer per round that the spell is allowed to do its grim work.