The Sacrifice

This was it. The end. Or so I thought to myself as I dragged myself across the muddy battlefield. I had bitten off more than I could chew with this job and was now paying the price.
The huge beast I had been hired to kill, a ragnarok, circled around my broken form, its yellow eyes filled with an uncontrollable hunger as it hissed with rage. The quill like spines on its reptilian back sparked with the red electricity that had been my downfall as it unfurled its hood and bared its fangs at me.
Shakily I pulled myself back up into a sitting position, coughing up some blood in the process. At least three of my ribs had to have been shattered from its last attack, and my body was still smoking from the intensity of the electric discharge it had sent through me.
I had only one option now. With some effort, I unclasped the lock on my spellbook and turned to the last page. Recognizing my movements, the ragnarok quickly swiveled its body and prepared to pounce. I didn’t have the time, I didn’t have the chance to sacrifice the proper materials or conduct the proper incantations to complete the spell. All I had a chance to do was open myself to the flow of magic and filter it through the matrix in my spellbook.
The world bent and warped around me, colors I once saw as bright and vivid grew grey and lifeless as time itself slowed to a crawl. Still on my hands and knees, I began to drag myself away, back towards my village, when suddenly, a voice rang out behind me. The voice. . . it still haunts me. It was impossible. It sounded both ancient and yet young, playful and yet firm, and dominating yet meek.
“Trying to leave so soon?” came the voice, and I felt compelled to slowly turn myself around to face its origin. There, perched upon the head of the ragnarok beast sat the figure of a young girl dressed in hunting gear, her brown eyes and wolf like ears indicating her to be a forest gnome. I began to open my mouth but no sound came out.
“You sought to use magic without abiding by the strictures of reality,” said the figure, its cold brown eyes boring into my very soul. I could feel it digging through my very being, my very existence, examining every aspect of who I was and who I could be.
“Any magus knows full well the consequences of not offering a sacrifice to fuel the ritual. Sorcerers give a bit of their natural magic, druids draw upon the life of the earth, and wizards like you” It said, leveling its finger at me, “offer materials to fuel the spell.”
I opened my mouth to beg, to plead with this child like creature, “please! I hadn’t the time to prepare my components, if I had waited but a moment longer I would have been eaten!”
The figure smiled, its mouth spreading open unnaturally. “I am willing to forgive your trespass once mortal, and only once. But in exchange of some aspect of yourself.” It was only then that I noticed the figure’s right arm was far too large for its body. It held its arm up and examined it with a critical eye. Yes, I think this will do quite nicely.” And as it spoke those words, I felt a pain far worse than anything I had felt while fighting the ragnarok, with a squelching wet tearing sound, my arm was quickly stripped away from me, layer by layer, piece by piece.
I turned and fled from the site back to my village desperately clasping at my severed arm in an attempt to staunch the bleeding. Never looking back to figure as it laughed in glee at my panic.