Emurlahn was waking slowly through a small alley; this was his second season in Murderville, but it felt quite familiar already. He still had to get a real home though, until now he had been living in a small room in the less friendly part of town.
He was really considering the Fortress of Dew though, the resent murder of the last two residents had made the price quite affordable.
A sudden bang shattered the silence. Emurlahn turned around just in time to see the bullet crumple to dust through his mage-shield. He threw himself down behind a huge garbage-container; the shield would probably take a few more bullets, but he wasn't going to take any chances.
This was the part about Murderville people found the hardest to get accustomed too. The first lynching especially. All the people in town just met, and then some random pour soul was killed. And when they finally got the killer someone else would start killing.
Emurlahn looked up over the container, a shade was sitting on the roof a few hundred yards down. Emurlahn used a spell to make a lot of smoke, the cover made it possible for him to get closer to the killer; unfortunately the killer noticed insane amount of smoke, which was to be expected, and had started retreating.
Emurlahn caught up to him in an abandoned warehouse; he still couldn't see who the killer was, but that didn't matter. He flung a Annihilate Life Spell towards the killer. He dark bolt of arcane power vanished just before hitting the killer. Damnit. Emurlahn then tried a Transmute Gas Spell, making most of the air around the killer to carbon-monoxid.
Emurahn was sightly shocked, he had never expected the killer to be a so skilled mage. Then the spells started flying, from both sides. They seamed to be of equal strength, which again surprised Emurlahn. Now it was just luck and endurance that could decide the battle.
Of course the luck was not on Emurlahn's side, and after a few spells a paradox was invoked, and of course it was a manifestation. The demon attacked Emurlahn with ferocious strength, and the distraction was just what the killer needed; while Emurlahn removed the demon the killer sneaked out of the building.
As Emurlahn followed out of the building he ran down through the street that it was most obvious that the killer had used. As he turned the corner he felt something at his back. He turned his head slowly around. "You! But? How?" This was the only words that came out of Emurahn's mouth before the killers spell made all of his guts boil, and then explode, making a gigantic bloodsplatter in the entire alley, with a slight shade of a human body against one of the walls.