As soon as the dwarf stepped on to one of my tiles the lights in the room dimmed, the orchestra went silent, and the tiles in my arena started to glow with a white light. I bowed to the team, a small smile on my face. “Welcome to the ballroom, I hope you enjoyed your stay. I do hope that I can entertain you,” I smiled, then pointed my glaive towards the tiles closest to the wall. “Watch your step, or you might find yourself leaving a lot quicker than you expected.”
Most of the team ignored my warning, half of them were keeping their eyes on the crowd, which forced the entire team into my area, and the other half kept their eyes locked on my location, but the human turned. As he watched, the tiles turned yellow, then red, then fell away. His eyes narrowed, I could see the cogs working in his head. At least one of them was paying attention, this would be a short fight otherwise.
Now that I’d introduced my mechanic, it was time to put it into practice. The dwarf was already advancing on my location, and I really didn’t want all the work Bella and I had put into this to go to waste, so I slammed the shaft of my glaive down on the ground, signalling the orchestra to start. “Impatient are we?” I said with a smile, “Fine, lets dance.”
As soon as the music started, panels all around my area went yellow, which caused the dwarf to pause for the first time. He really should have paid attention to my warning. My mechanic was simple, in theory. Every three seconds a certain selection of panels would change from white to yellow, the yellow panels would go red, red panels would fall away, and fallen panels would reset. It was a constant progression.
If you paid attention, or you knew the pattern, you could easily avoid falling in a pit. It was similar to crossing the dance floors, but it was made more difficult with the addition of combat. I had a couple surprises prepared for the teams that pressed me, I just didn’t think I needed them, not yet.
“What the devil is this?” The dwarf grumbled, he was eyeing me up, but the yellow panels gave him pause.
“It’s a shifting pattern,” the human replied quietly, “you have to keep track of your footing, the red panels will fall away.”
“That’ll make this easier then,” the little halfling replied. He lifted his hand, pointed my way, and… nothing. I felt the magic attempt to grab hold of me, but between the freedom of movement enchantment on my dress, and minor innate magic resistance, it failed to take hold.
I wagged a finger at the wizard, “None of that now, it wouldn’t be very entertaining if I fell for my own traps so easily.”
While the halfling huffed, both the dwarven warrior and elven archer closed in on me. I lightly stepped on the red tiles, maneuvering so the dwarf was constantly between the archer and I. I had both the timing and patterns completely memorized, so unless I REALLY screwed up there was practically no chance of being caught in a pit. The dwarf and the elf though, were being extremely cautious. The two of them kept glancing at their feet nervously, and they completely avoided the red tiles. Not a terrible idea, but they were going to have to be a little more confident if they wanted to present me a challenge.
I lightly hopped over one of the two-foot square spaces, and advanced on the dwarf. Stopping within range of my glaive, but outside the range of his axe. The man hunkered down, bracing himself behind the massive shield. “Not going to dance? Just going to sit there like a lump, how boring.”
“Perhaps, but I’m going to drag this fight as long as possible to see what you’re capable of,” the dwarf replied.
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I laughed lightly, “No you’re not. You know why?” The dwarf raised an eyebrow at my provocation. “You’re terrible at multitasking.” I gestured down at the panel at his feet, which had just turned red. The dwarf’s eyes went wide, and he started moving towards one side, so I intercepted him with my glaive. In panic he took a step back.
“Baldur not that…” the human saw my plan, too bad he was too late to actually prevent the dwarf’s demise. The panel behind him was down, and the dwarf stepped into empty air. He scrambled back, arms windmilling, and he might have even recovered if I wasn’t there. All it took was a gentle nudge on his shield to send him tumbling into the abyss below.
“Bitch!” the elven woman growled as she pulled back her bow. She was going to be an issue, unless I acted quickly. I didn’t have anything to deal with ranged damage dealers yet, so it was either close the distance, or get poked to death.
I took off at a sprint, zig-zagging my way across the floor trying to close the ground. Thankfully the first arrow went wide, but she was experienced, I couldn’t expect to get lucky again. Instead I held my glaive across my chest, and brought my legs around to protect my vitals with the vambraces. It was far from a perfect defense, but it would save me from getting shot in the heart, or neck. The next arrow caught me in the arm, and nearly threw me off my feet. She was playing it smart, a knockdown arrow like that could send me skidding into a pit, if I wasn't careful.
I was running out of options, so I did the only thing I could to interrupt her, I threw my glaive. It was a stupid choice, it was my only real weapon in the fight, but it gave me an opening. She dodged to the side, nearly stepping in a pit in the process, and in the second or two it took her to recover. I closed the distance.
“None of that, girl,” the human said, stepping in the way. If he had two arms he might have been a threat, unfortunately that single blade wasn't enough. I raised the three arachnid legs on my left side, and intercepted the blade with my vambraces. The rogue looked surprised, then panicked. “Fuck! Bridget, watch out!”
The woman straightened up, tried to raise her bow, and caught my fist in her midsection. She doubled over, in both pain and surprise, allowing me to grab her by the back of the head and smash my knee into her face. I left her there, stunned, as I stepped back to retrieve my glaive. The polearm managed to embed itself in the floor a few feet away, the etheric glass blade had sliced through the panel effortlessly.
I turned back, just in time to see the elf’s panel collapse, sending her tumbling into the darkness. It looked like the human had attempted to help her, dropping his weapon and reaching out to drag her to safety, he was just too slow to do it. He looked up at me, sheepishly, “It was worth a try,” he said with a shrug. I just gave him a small smile in response, then jabbed my glaive into his face. The man’s form slumped, then dissipated, sending him back to the projection room.
Across the room, the little halfling, the last adventurer standing, was hopping from tile to tile, swearing. He waved a little knife at me as I approached, but didn’t make any other moves. “Aren’t you going to cast something?” I asked, slowly keeping pace with the tiny mage.
“I have! Four different spells, you shrugged them all off!” I stared at him for a moment, I didn’t remember any spells being thrown at me. My confused face only seemed to enrage the halfling even more, “I’m a binding mage, holding people down is what I do, but everything I threw at you just bounced off!”
I lightly stepped away from a panel before it collapsed, “Oh… you know it wouldn’t hurt to learn a combat spell. That way you could at least protect yourself that way if someone had a free movement enchantment.”
“Don’t you get on my case too, that blasted orc is always…” I swept my glaive through the halfling’s head, causing him to dissolve.
I took a deep breath while the panels all reset. All the lights in the room came back up, while the orchestra slowly wound down. I’d discovered a few weaknesses in my strategy, which we could work on for next time, but I still managed to stop the adventurers' advance without revealing any of my more advanced tricks.
I felt a little giddy, so I turned towards Bella and the spectres, raised my glaive, and shouted, “Victory!”
They cheered in response. It felt good.