Even with his power diminished by the loss of the sword, Elzevir’s control over the fluctuating Pipers flickering away, they still obeyed his commands. Bringing their instruments of bone to their lips they played their sickly duet, the sound of the discordant song commanding the dollmakers regiment of puppets to the attack. They lumbered forward, holding their arms up high with blades for claws coming out from the ends of their stubby hands.
Raziel watched the toys come towards him clinically and with a dispassionate air, his emotions turned off. Elzevir could not know the forces he had tampered with and now faced turned back upon himself. The doll makers last ditch effort to save himself and his twisted way of life was a failure before it had even begun.
Around the blue wraith, the entire world trembled violently in reaction to the paradox caused by such close proximity of two Soul Reaver blades. The flocculating force of the distortion so much the room around him seemed to blur.
As the largest of Elzevir’s toys, a large stuffed doll shaped like a bear, came lumbering up to him clumsily swinging its arms wide; Raziel struck. With the physical Reaver in hand he easily sidestepped the clumsy swing and sliced the puppet across the mid section. On impact the thing burst into blue flames instantly and it fell in two pieces.
Not slowing his momentum, Raziel charged at the next toy and destroyed that one with just as much ease, carving it to pieces with the sword and allowing its energies to consume the remains. They all fell before him with ease and their advantage in numbers was quickly neutralised.
Very soon Raziel had an opening and he took it. Kicking a toy aside that had obnoxiously been trying to block his way, he ran at the pipers controlling them. The one on the left dropped his instrument from his lips when it saw Raziel was coming straight at him, raising an arm in defence. It caught the Reaver’s crossbar when it came down and held the blade away from itself. Raziel pressed down firmly, pushing the blade further and further towards the creatures face.
Its comrade, still playing its pipe, leapt up with a kick aimed at the blue wraith’s head. Raziel ducked, pulling the sword away and then rolled, diving underneath the attacking creature. As he did so he brought the Reaver up and around in an arch. He felt it connect and the two ethereal blades, one inside the sword and one outside screamed in unison.
One blow with the combined Reaver’s was enough. The piper’s entire body, sliced straight down the middle, seemed to explode out to either side. Blue fire surged across the two halves, consuming it utterly.
There was no freedom for the Archon that had been encased in the strange flesh. Struck by the Reaver, its essence went the same way as anything else dealt a mortal wound by the blade; drawn down inside and devoured.
The remaining piper, the only thing between the dollmaker and his end, stiffened and stared in what might be fear and horror at the smouldering remains of his fellow. Raziel, holding the hilt firmly in both hands, inexorably began his march towards them both.
“Attack!” Elzevir was screamed incoherently, eyes wide and face muscles twitching. “Attack, attack, kill, stab, murder!”
The piper seemed to pay him no heed but stood there staring at the remains for a moment longer before slowly raising its gaze up to Raziel. Its eyes were locked on the sword. Then without warning it leapt straight at him, spinning around itself in a blurring set of kicks aimed at keeping the blue wraith off balance and unable to find a target.
Raziel swung backwards out of range of a kick powerful enough to take his head off, lashing out with the sword in a long arching sweep. The piper arched its back to avoid the swing and Raziel pounced in that instant, leaping up high and coming down on top of the pipers face. With as much force as he could summon the blue wraith slammed his heal into the creature’s skull.
With a loud crack the piper slammed into the floor and rebounded and while it was stunned from the blow, Raziel delivered the fatal thrust. Bringing the Reaver down he slammed it as hard he could into the creature’s chest cavity.
Perhaps the creature’s smile turned wistful as it died, essence consumed by the sword, Raziel couldn’t tell. It almost looked relieved.
He put the thought out of his mind and tore the Reaver sharply to the left, slicing the creature’s head and shoulders clean off.
As it fell engulfed in blue fire, Raziel turned to look up towards the real enemy.  There was nothing left to shield the little man from the wraith coming towards him. The end came for Elzevir a little anti-climatically for Raziel’s taste. He didn’t even need to strike him with the Soul Reaver. The dollmaker’s scream was cut off, blood gushing from his lips. With staring eyes wide in horror he gazed down at the sight of the blue wraith’s arm stuck in his chest.
Raziel held it in there for several long agonising moment and then with a sharp jerk he brought his hand back, dripping blood and gore. Wrapped tightly in his talon’s grip was Elzevir’s shrivelled heart. It thumped once outside the body and then was still.
The dollmaker died instantly, his eyes gone blank. Raziel let the body unceremoniously drop down face first onto the floor with a loud thud.
With Elzevir dead, the remaining puppet toys stiffened with him and then collapsed as well; once more mere child’s playthings.
.
“It was done. I had fulfilled the need Alicia had set for me and destroyed her tormentor. Perhaps now the spirits of the sacrificed children might be laid to rest.”
.
With an ethereal moan, a glob of spectral light that only Raziel could see began to float up free from the dollmaker’s corpse. His soul was unfettered from his flesh and was being drawn to the spectral realm and to the wheel of Fate.
Raziel had a worse fate in mind for the detestable little man’s spirit. With deliberately purpose he reached up and drew down his cowl. Elzevir’s soul struggled violently to prevent itself from being in and the blue wraith almost supposed he could hear one finally shriek of despair from the little man was the energies were assimilated inside him.
As before when he consumed a soul of a powerful foe, he felt a surge of new reinforcing energy flow through him. His mind whirls with new thoughts and experiences, Elzevir’s life and power intertwined and laid out for him to see. It was a repulsive life but still his wraith like nature did manage to squeeze some useful power from it.
.
“By consuming Elzevir’s repulsive soul, not only did I end the spell of deeper and horror he had inflicted on Willendorf and the bloodline of Ottmar but some of his power was bestowed upon me.”
.
As the power and energies resettled within himself, Raziel looked down at his free hand, flexing the talons as he worked through the new concepts he had absorbed. He placed the physical Reaver down on the ground and this time, was able to let go of the hilt without it attempting to hold onto him. The flocculating of temporal distortion began to subside around him as he moved away from it.
The blue wraith crossed over to one of the toys lying face down on the floor before him, still intact. He stared at the teddy bear and then reached down and lay the flat of his palm against it. He could feel the energy within and how, with the knowledge and ability, he pulled his hand up and the captive spirit within came with it. The toy twitched once and then went still against, the soul lifting free.
It stayed there, an orb of ghostly energy floating in his grasp.
.
“I now possessed his means to imprison a soul or spirit within selected physical objects, a skill I had no motivation to employ. But conversely, what would be imprisoned could also be released.”
.
He drew down his cowl and absorbed the soul, which by now in its abused existence, was merely a mindless mass of energy. With that he felt himself fully restored from the excretions of the battle. He would need the strength soon, he was certain. He knew what he had to do now, which this new skill.
The doll containing the soul of Alicia still lay in the lap of her corpse, right where he had placed it. Fortuitous indeed and ironic, that the soul of the man who imprisoned her in this object, would be used to set her free.
He picked up the doll in one hand and looked at it.
.
“And yet here was my dilemma.”
.
Raziel cast a glance from the doll to her dead boy. There was no hope of restoring her to life, he was no necromancer. Then he looked around at all the others toys scattered around the room, remembering the others all throughout the house and the many hundreds more nailed to trees in the outside forest.
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“Releasing all these trapped souls would not free them, only condemn them to have whatever energies they had within sucked dry by my former master. A fate hardly better then corrupting possession of the dollmaker.”
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It was a no win situation for these souls, either being rejoined to the Wheel of Fate or being entrapped forever.

“And yet it was better, for even with my master’s appetites, he at least returned the soul to the land of the living to be reincarnated once he was done with it. That was more of a chance then Elzevir would give by hording their essence.”
.
Raziel was firmly convinced that the Wheel of Fate was a system that had to be destroyed but now he saw that while it was the cause of so much strife in the world, it was hardly the worst fate a soul could endure.
.
“In this instance, for their souls to truly find peace, that dreaded Wheel must turn.”
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The soul was more tightly anchored to this doll and it took some effort to prey it free. The realising mechanism seemed to be the nail crudely nailed to it and when Raziel pried that off, the soul within seemed almost to drip from the doll like water from a sponge.
Alicia Ottmar was dead, her ghostly form a faint translucent outline; the mere suggestion of a presence. She floated there no more physically real then Ariel was.
The spirit of the former balance guardian, as if summoned by that thought, manifested beside the ghost of the girl. Her face was set in its purified state and smiling sadly, she laid hands upon the translucent shoulders of the dead girl.
Alicia opened her spectral eyes and looked at Ariel, face frowning in confusion. Then she looked down at Raziel, equally perplexed. Finally she saw her body. Her ghostly form twitched and writhed back in obvious horror and stunned terror at the reality.
Ariel caught her in her arms, the two ghosts seemingly able to touch one another. She held the girl’s spirit to her like she would a child and Raziel could hear an echoing despairing wail. Alicia wept for her lost life and Ariel let her cry and spill out her grief.
Then, once Alicia’s wails had mollified somewhere, the former balance guardian gestured across the room to where Elzevir’s eviscerated corpse still lay flat. Alicia followed her gazing and seeing her enemy and murderer dead the face of the ghost lit up with joy.
“Go now.” Ariel told her softly and with great compassion. “Take the children away from this place. Let the fear that kept you bound be lifted.”
Alicia was still staring at the dollmaker’s body. Once she had starred her fill at the corpse, satisfied finally with having ultimately won in his game despite her death, she smiled wildly. Her expression was one of intense relief and pure joy.
“Thank you.” She replied, her voice echoing as if inside an underwater cavern. Ariel let her go and slowly the spectre of the girl began to float upwards and as she ascended her ethereal body began to emit a bright glow.
From all around him, Raziel saw that a similar light pulsing from all the collapsed dolls around him. As if summoned by the freed girl and called to their liberation, the souls of hundreds of children taken over nearly two hundred years of torment floated up, unshackled from the dollmakers enchantments.
Like fireflies the freed spirits gathered in the air around him, gently floating freely upwards. The spirit of Alicia carried on up through the ceiling and the sprits followed her gleefully. As they floated free Raziel felt the house around him shudder and groan as if its supports were being pulled at.
Quickly he raced for the door, grabbing the Reaver out his way outside. As he moved through the house back to the front door he saw more of the spirits freed from the various rooms of torture Elzevir had entombed them in. Twisted dolls and toys gave up their captives.
Every single toy was releasing its hostage spirit and allowing them to float freely up and away from this dark place. Emerging outside the front door of the manor house, Raziel skidded to an abrupt stop when he saw that similar lights were rising from all around. From the forests surrounding the lake of lost souls came more souls then he could count all at once, all rising up high into the air. Turning the blue wraith saw Alicia once more, hovering high over the manor. The souls of the children were gathered all around her like a swarm and she held her arms wide to accept them.
The souls all condensed in on her and then as one, they vanished and faded away; leaving only the faint sigh of relief of her unbound soul echoing on the wind.
With her passing did the sense of decay and overbearing evil seemed to lift. It was as if the souls took the evil that had infested this place with him and with its passing, reality flooded back in to fill the void. The sense of a relieved burden almost seemed glow from everything around him.
Raziel stared after her soul for a long while, before he sighed and shook his head.
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“Farewell Alicia Ottmar. If there is any justice in this world when the Wheel of Fate is done with you, your next life will be a peaceful one.”