The Huli Jing, a nine-tailed fox spirit, danced through the bamboo grove. She wore the guise of a lost maiden, radiating vulnerability. Thousand-Face Glamour. She was playing a game, teasing the dark shadow circling above.
The shadow was the Impundulu, the Lightning Bird of Xhosa lore. It did not play games. It was a vampiric witch-familiar, and it smelled the musk of the fox beneath the perfume of the girl.
"Come down," the Huli Jing called, her voice sweet as honey. Foxfire Beacon. She ignited small ghost-lights to confuse the predator.
High Voltage
The Impundulu shrieked. It sounded like tearing metal. Stormcall.
It didn't dive at the girl. It attacked the grid.
The bird summoned a localized thunderstorm. The air instantly smelled of ozone. Bolts of white-hot lightning arced between the bamboo stalks, indifferent to illusions.
Use of Thousand-Face Glamour is ineffective against area-of-effect electrocution.
The lightning struck the Huli Jing squarely in the chest. The maiden guise shattered like glass, revealing a charred, yelping fox with smoking fur. The Impundulu finally dove, talons extended. Speed 9 beat Speed 7. The bird pinned the stunned fox before she could scramble into her burrow, proceeding to drain her magic along with her blood.