It was instantly disorienting, but the darkness that suddenly covered Cyn’s eyes was not entirely solid. It was as if a thick smoke or black cloud had taken up residence in front of her face. Regardless of what it was, the effect was the same. Cyn could just barely discern a difference in light levels in the direction she looked, and was otherwise completely blind. She knew there was only a few precious seconds to orient herself before the magic missiles would hit, but before she could even get her bearings she felt a warning vibrate through her mental connection to Spam.
Acting on instinct before even fully registering what the familiar was trying to communicate, Cyn threw herself backwards as the frog’s warning audibly echoed with a croak. She had only a fraction of a second to lament her poor choice of direction as her mind finished processing the warning, before she found herself impaled on a pair of partially raised daggers. When throwing herself backwards, Cyn had assumed whatever the threat was would be coming from in front of her.
Luckily, the Doppel rogue was also unprepared to have its target move towards it midway through an attempted assassination. Instead of the intended strike to her head and neck, one dagger became buried in one of Cyn’s shoulders, while the other carved a long line across her back. Cyn’s momentum also sent the pair of them tumbling backwards towards the ground. As they collided, she drew her own dagger and blindly attempted to stab at the Doppel behind her. Cyn wasn’t sure if she struck it or not, as by the time she hit the ground the Doppel had disappeared entirely, the dagger in her shoulder along with it. Blooddrinker was no longer in her hand, though, and still blinded she had no hope of finding it.
Mentally locking onto Scott, Cyn used Soul Slip again. “I can’t see!” She blurted out the words the instant her Soul Slip ended, leading to a string of curses from the Guardian to join in on the sounds of metal striking metal. She had no idea where the magic missiles were, and based on the sounds she assumed Scott was still fighting the Doppel warrior and possibly the Doppel guardian, but she seriously needed someone else to help since the Doppels were ganging up on her and she was now blinded.
The best thing Cyn thought she could do with her current predicament was to stand as still as possible now that she was near a few members of her party again. Just until her vison returned. She felt like a sitting duck, but with her mental awareness of everyone’s position and health she was not totally useless. Her own injuries were not serious, at least not in Cyn’s opinion, and when she felt Sam take a large blow to his health beside her she did not hesitate to start freely making use of her new skill, Siphon.
Focusing on how the skill felt again wasn’t an option, but at least Cyn was able to determine that her party almost certainly had less raw health than she did as the Warrior and Guardian took damage she suspected may have been intended for her. Cyn did not know exactly how much health anyone had, but based on how her perception of them changed as she repeatedly healed both the pair of them. It felt like she was giving them more health than she was sacrificing. Since that did not make sense to her, and they had not evolved, Cyn assumed they just had a smaller health pool.
As Sam roughly picked her up and moved her a short distance, the Warrior losing some health in the process, a kill notification popped up. Unsurprisingly, the System interface could still be ‘seen’, despite her inability to see anything else. Cyn quickly dismissed it, since she was not sure what Doppel it was for. She only knew it was not the one that was mimicking Hex, since that creature had the highest level of them. Becoming steadily more annoyed by her blindness, Cyn tried to summon a Light Ball right in front of her face. Her logic was a bit of a stretch, but Light mana should, theoretically, banish darkness. To her genuine surprise, it worked. The soft golden glow quickly cut through the cloud over her vision, and Cyn had to dismiss the Light Ball before the glow burned into her eyes to blind her in a different way.
“Focus! Work together to bring them down one at a time!” Still trying to get her bearings now that she could see again, the sound of the Guardian’s power-filled voice bellowing over the arena made Cyn flinch. It wasn’t nearly as bad as listening to the Cadaverous Puppet Bloom, but her passive skill made any kind of mind magic uncomfortable to experience. Even when it was ‘friendly’ and did not affect her.
Looking towards Scott, Cyn saw him standing over the corpse of the guardian Doppel, the flagpole he was rewarded with in the Trial of Luck jammed into the body and standing upright without Scott’s support. Thankfully, the Doppel’s mannequin appearance did not make the scene too grotesque, although the dark ichor that was leeching out of its wounds would probably become nauseating if Cyn spent too much time looking at it. The golden flag itself had a glowing white shield symbol on it. Before Cyn could see much else happening, Sam had picked her up again to deposit her near the flag, the object feeling like it was putting off a pleasant warmth.
“I’m good, worry about yourself.” Sam hesitated at Cyn’s words, but quickly nodded and took up a defensive position beside her, with Scott on her other side. The Warrior found himself almost immediately grappling with the mirror image of himself, the creature choosing to use the sword Sam had long abandoned. The Guardian was focused on using his shield to deflect the steady stream of Magic Missiles and arrows coming their way.
To one side, barely within Soul Slip range, Cyn could feel both Dana and Hex only taking small chunks of damage. Since the pair seemed safe enough for the moment, she instead focused on continuing to support Sam and Scott. Outside of keeping Sam healthy, her options were limited in relation to the warrior Doppel. He was fighting too viciously with Sam for Cyn to get a good hit in without risking injuring or getting in the way of her party member. Instead, she chose to start creating and using small mana needles to intercept the Magic Missiles. They were a little hard to aim for, but being able to take out a few before they reached the Guardian helped tremendously as Scott was able to maneuver himself to pincer the warrior Doppel between himself and Sam.
Cyn heard an explosion go off in the direction of the Archer and Rogue, Hex taking a significant chunk of his health points in damage and a kill notification appearing, but all of those things were drowned out by her familiar’s warning croaking through her mind. This time, she took the fraction of a second to actually absorb what Spam was warning her about before once again trying to dodge backwards. The rogue Doppel did not blind her this time, and had also chosen to attack from the front. That meant Cyn was able to watch the air in front of her ripple, the Doppel materializing with daggers raised as she hopped backwards. Her movement did not interrupt the attempted assassination, throwing the Doppel off balance as its daggers slammed downward onto empty air and causing it to stumble.
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As the Doppel stumbled, Cyn caught sight of Blooddrinker. The dagger was glowing red, embedded into the ribs of her attacker. Is it just too stupid to remove it, or is there another reason? Surely it would have fallen out on its own? Or not, since it’s actual body is not flesh. I think. Before Cyn could take any further action against the Doppel, Spam launched itself out of her pouch and landed on the creature’s shoulder. With a second ripple of air, both vanished.
The pain was instantaneous, almost bringing Cyn to her knees. Her connection to Spam did not feel stretched, but instead warped or twisted, like a joint forced to bend in the wrong direction. Based on the mental screeching coming through their connection, she had no doubt the bubblegum-pink familiar, wherever it was, was feeling the same pain. Thankfully the agony was fading rapidly as their familiar bond adapted. It only took a few seconds for Cyn to be able to think clearly again, and for Spam’s emotions to shift from pain to annoyance. She tried to activate her Tabard of Small Familiars to bring Spam back to her, but it failed. The frog felt like it was simultaneously not far away at all, and unfathomably distant.
As she was still recovering, the Doppel mage took advantage. Cyn was struck by a pair of Magic Missiles, doing significant damage to her health. Gritting her teeth, she managed to intercept the next pair with needles before they hit her. Unable to do anything more about the vanished Spam, and concerned about Hex, Cyn shoved the lingering pain aside and used Soul Slip to move to the injured Rogue.
“... hit you! How the hell was I supposed to anticipate you getting in the way?!” Cyn almost collided with Dana mid-rant as the Archer helped Hex off the ground. She quickly used Siphon twice on the Rogue before channeling Restoration on herself. Her health was not too low, but between the vanishing Doppel and the one slinging Magic Missiles Cyn felt like she should keep her health in a safe zone.
“Hate each other later.” Cyn quickly interrupted before Hex could respond like he clearly wanted to, the Rogue instead silently scowling and yanking his arm out of Dana’s hand once he was on his feet. He looked like he had been through hell, even having a few arrows sticking out of him. Cyn could guess he had been hit, or at least clipped, by one of Dana’s explosive arrows meant for the archer Doppel. Regardless, now was not the time to fight about it.
As a third kill notification appeared, Cyn turned to survey the arena. Scott and Sam had clearly finished off the warrior Doppel they had been fighting, and were now charging at the mage Doppel. Cyn saw movement to one side, and after turning her head and staring a heartbeat she caught sight of the final enemy, the missing rogue Doppel. The creature was flickering in and out of sight erratically, looking like an animation missing a significant portion of its frames. It did not appear to be aiming at anyone for the moment, and instead looked to be grabbing all over its body. Trying to grab or dislodge Spam, presumably. Cyn did not know exactly what her familiar was doing, but it made a good distraction.
Dana and Hex were already running to join the others, and Cyn chose to run behind them instead of using Soul Slip again. She did not want to accidentally end up in the way as the Warrior and Guardian moved in sync, remaining close together. The Archer and Rogue quickly pulled well ahead of her.
Oh, that’s just unfair. As Cyn watched, Sam managed to grip the Doppel in a bear hug from behind as the creature was dodging the Guardian. Before either could take advantage of the position, the Doppel appeared to blur. It was only for a fraction of a second, but whatever skill it used allowed it to slip easily out of the Warrior’s grip. The Doppel managed to create some distance from the pair as they recovered from the confusion of having the creature get away from them so easily, but its freedom was short-lived.
With a sudden burst of speed, Hex closed the gap between himself and the mage Doppel. Before it could react to his presence, the Rogue struck. However, instead of becoming embedded into the creature’s body, when Hex’s daggers made contact with its skin they were deflected and the sheen that covered the Doppel appeared to shatter. Hex did not hesitate when his first attack failed, following up with a second, more vicious attempt as his target tried to pull away.
The Rogue’s second strike made contact before the Doppel could mount another defense, both daggers slicing through its neck and nearly decapitating it. Cyn flinched lightly as the image of herself crumpled, the illusion flickering before disappearing completely as a fourth kill notification confirmed its demise.
“Is that it?” Dana looked around cautiously as the party moved closer together.
“Obviously not. There was no bell.” Hex’s statement was flat, but Cyn wasn’t sure he was actually trying to be rude to the Archer. His tone made Dana scowl, but she did not comment on it as the Rogue wiped off his blades and looked around the arena too.
Cyn did not see the rogue Doppel that had been flickering earlier, but it was definitely still around somewhere. “Your Doppel is still alive, Hex. It keeps disappearing, then coming back for a few seconds to try and stab me.”
Hex cocked his head to the side, but did not look directly at her as he continued to scan around them. “Like... going invisible?”
“I don’t think so. Spam is with the Doppel, distracting it I think, and it feels...” Cyn hesitated, trying to find the right words. “It feels like Spam is both really far away and nearby at the same time. I really don’t know.” The Rogue frowned at her words, looking puzzled, but as he opened his mouth to speak again, he was interrupted by Sam.
“There!” Cyn and Hex twisted in time to see Sam point briefly, before the Warrior charged. Following his indication, she could see the missing Doppel near the Hungering Hedges, as far from the party as it could possibly get. It was no longer flickering, and instead was standing almost completely still before grabbing at its side with a blur of speed. Directly where the clearly visible, bubblegum-pink frog could be seen.
Cyn watched in horror as the rogue Doppel managed to roughly grab ahold of Spam in one hand while the familiar was dangling from the creature’s side, hanging on to the hilt of Blooddrinker with its mouth. The Doppel’s second hand held a dagger, rapidly moving towards the familiar. With the pair currently able to be seen, and much too far away to do anything else in time, Cyn desperately tried to activate her tabard again before the weapon could make contact.