Rinnie retrieved her arrow but otherwise ignored the skull spider and headed for the door to the next room while the rest of the group gathered around it. Most of them had already seen one before, but Cadenza crouched to take a closer look. Without touching it, she used magic to turn it over and about, examining every inch of the little cyborg.
“Hopefully they just left this behind as a sentry. I’d rather not fight another group of them,” Tiriana said with a scowl on her face.
“I find these things curious. What is their purpose? Scouting? Yet, how would they communicate? There is much we still need to learn about them. Tiriana, did you notice any communication enchantments when you inspected the last one?” Cadenza asked, letting the spider drop to the floor.
“No…but if it used technology instead of magic for that, I wouldn’t know what to look for,” Tiriana answered. She turned to Sera. “Do you see anything you’d recognize?”
“I’m not an electronics expert, but…typically there’d need to be an antenna for its transmissions to get anywhere. It would probably look like a long rod or wire that’s only connected to anything on one end. There’s nothing like that on the exterior but they might have been advanced enough to put it inside,” Sera speculated, basing her guesses mostly off of modern day smartphones. While they had no exterior antenna, they were obviously still able to function, so maybe this thing worked the same.
“That’s assuming they can even talk to each other. The last one we found didn’t seem to have alerted the armored nachzehrer about us,” Vivi pointed out.
“We already know they have at least three specialized types in use. It’s possible only specific nachzehrer are equipped to receive from these…or maybe they have to record the information and physically return with it to report,” Cadenza suggested after considering their input. “For now, let’s assume there are nachzehrer present and that they know we’re here. Better to be overly cautious than to be caught by surprise.”
“If you’re done back there, we’ve got trouble up ahead,” Rinnie said over her shoulder. The rest of the party moved up to meet her.
“Nachzehrer?” Layla asked immediately, but Rinnie shook her head.
“One big monster and dozens of little ones. Big one is the size of an elephant. One eye where the trunk would be, bladed tusks, clawed paws. Telekinetic. The small ones were dragging monsters to it and it was lifting them to its mouth without moving,” Rinnie rattled off succinctly. Cadenza stepped forward and opened the door a crack to get a look for herself, then closed it and turned back.
“If it has telekinesis it can likely also project its own barrier…and the minions suggest it’s got some kind of leadership ability,” Tiriana concluded after hearing Rinnie’s description.
“That, or they’re its young. Hard to say, but the strategy remains the same. Layla, you will engage it directly while the rest of us clear out the smaller monsters. Tiriana, provide fire support but be ready to project a barrier to defend our backline. Rinnie, pick off the smaller creatures but keep an eye on that big- we’ll call it a cyclophant. I want you to blind it the moment its barrier is out of the way.
“Sera, I’d like you to blur Layla’s image to make her a more difficult target. Since the cyclophant has only one eye it most likely has no depth perception- work that into your illusion. And Vivi, I probably don’t need to tell you this, but stay ready to heal anyone if they get injured.” Cadenza needed hardly a moment’s thought to decide the party members’ roles in the fight ahead. Her instructions were clear and confident, enough so that Sera missed her chance to point out she’d only cast an illusion in combat once before. “If everyone’s ready, let’s go.”
When no one spoke up, Layla threw open the door to the next room and charged the cyclophant before Sera could even begin to prepare her illusion, forcing her to scramble to catch up. She managed to blur Layla’s outline by the time she was halfway across the room and continued refining the illusion while the warrior covered the remaining distance until she was immersed in a cloud of vague armored figures, her own body blurred enough to blend in. The cyclophant sent a telekinetic blast Layla’s way but only brushed her shoulder, pushing it back for a brief moment.
It was immediately clear why she hadn’t bothered to wait when Layla reached the cyclophant. It stood to its full height and swung its tusks at the tiny Amazon in front of it and Layla showed the degree of agility enabled by fully articulated plate by neatly side stepping the attack and replying with the spiked end of her poleaxe. It slowed to a stop inches from the cyclophant’s hide and Layla withdrew the weapon before the monster could take advantage.
Sera got a good look at the beast while trying to maintain her spell. It was as big as Rinnie had suggested, with one massive eye and tusks shaped like scimitars. The cyclophant’s brown hide was tough and thick, with sharp barb-like hairs that easily could be weaponized loosely spread across it. The smaller creatures surrounding it had similar hides and barbs, but they were bipedal and hunchbacked instead of quadrupedal.
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Before those smaller monsters had a chance to react to Layla’s assault, Rinnie and Tiriana joined the fight. Rinnie drew her bow so quickly it was hard to even track her movement, then a shaft sprouted from the head of a monster deep inside the room. Spears of ice formed around Tiriana before shooting towards their targets to mixed results- there seemed to be some variance in their hides or magic resistance, as some of the icicles pierced through to lethal effect while other merely shattered.
The monsters were quick to respond, shifting the attention from Layla to the women actively attacking them. They turned as one and surged towards the group of adventurers at the door- which is right when Cadenza entered the fray. She stepped forward with a baton in one hand and waved it like a conductor, then stabbed it forward as if calling for a staccato note. Simultaneously an amorphous cloud of gray shot from the canister on her hip and smacked a leaping monster right out of the air. With her other hand Cadenza formed a knife, calling three of her swords from their sheath arranging them into a fan shape. Wherever her arm swung, the floating swords followed as if physically tied to it.
Rather than relying on her armor, Cadenza danced across the battlefield avoiding the mindless beasts hellbent on killing her with nimble footwork alone. Her iron sand she manipulated like a shield, interposing it between her and any creature that grew too close while her swords cut down monsters meters away, growing further away and then receding at her will. At the same time, Rinnie and Tiriana continued firing into the crowd of hostile monsters. Tiriana was forced to pause occasionally to block any monster that bypassed Cadenza, but Rinnie was always quick to notice and shoot them so that Tiriana could return her attention to the hoard.
Deep inside the chamber, Layla kept the cyclophant well occupied with swift strikes and expertly timed parries. Its lack of depth perception and difficulty identifying the real Layla amongst a crowd of doubles reduced the threat greatly, but Layla remained careful, avoiding some strikes and redirecting others with the haft of her poleaxe. Although the cyclophant was mixing in telekinetic jabs and waves of force, it found itself unable to land a solid hit even then. It quickly realized wide area attacks had the best chance of hitting, but Layla was an unmovable object, shrugging off these dispersed attacks and chipping away at its barrier.
Abruptly, the cyclophant changed tack. It backed away from Layla and yanked a monster corpse towards her telekinetically. Layla ducked under a monstrous horned camel the size of a bull and then rolled backwards to avoid the follow-up slash of the cyclophant’s tusks. Sera clicked her tongue as she tried to match Layla’s quick movements- her crude illusions lagged behind, causing the horned camel to sail through them, and when Layla rolled, they fell far enough out of sync that it took Sera several seconds to adjust and recover.
She realized after a moment that she should have been operating them on a delay on purpose from the start. The cyclophant’s lack of depth perception meant that when Layla rolled backwards it couldn’t tell and it struck out against the illusions, not realizing that Layla was well behind the rest of the figures. If Sera waited a second or so before adjusting her illusion, Layla could strike the cyclophant and fade before it retaliated. It didn’t matter if it realized the trick- knowing it was hitting nothing wasn’t going to help the monster locate Layla.
After Sera had that epiphany the cyclophant, already outmatched by Layla, was put further onto the defensive. The Amazon warrior struck with impunity and stepped away right as her mirror images mimicked her, confusing the monster into striking thin air. Blow after blow landed against its barrier and it became more and more panicked with the depletion of its best form of defense. Now fearing for its life, the monster let out a warbling yell that drew the attention of its minions, but Cadenza, Rinnie, and Tiriana had been systematically reducing their numbers the entire time.
There were few enough monsters attacking her now that Rinnie was easily picking off the ones that got through alone, allowing Cadenza go on the attack. Within an ever-thinning crowd of hunchbacked cyclopes, Cadenza recalled her iron sand and put her baton away, signaling a shift from a balanced fighting style to total offense. Her now-freed hand took control of the remaining three swords in her sheath and the veteran adventurer turned into a whirling buzzsaw slicing through several cyclopes with each graceful swing.
No help was coming for the cyclophant. It waved its tusks wildly to ward off Layla, who advanced implacably towards it while easily avoiding the creature’s poorly-aimed swings. Finally, it barrier failed and Layla’s poleaxe stabbed into its lower leg, prompting an enraged scream. The cyclophant readied itself to charge, but Rinnie was faster. From tens of meters away she loosed an arrow that sailed above where Cadenza was fighting and towards the towering monster on the far side of the room, catching it in the eye as if drawn to it just as it swung its head into position.
Blinded, the cyclophant stumbled, trying to rear back right as it had been about to kick off with its back legs. Layla darted in as it lost its footing, bracing her poleaxe against the ground beneath its jaw. The cyclophant didn’t even see its death coming. The blade at the end of the weapon, aided by gravity and mass, speared directly through the monster’s brain, emerging from the top of its skull.
The few cyclopes remaining fell into confusion with their leader’s death. As they turned to run, Tiriana and Cadenza both launched a final attack at their backs. Spears of ice and razor-sharp swords pierced their backs as they fled, rapidly reducing the number of survivors to zero.
Sera dropped her illusion, breathing heavily. She saw Layla in the distance lifting the cyclophant’s head and tearing her weapon free. Rinnie began retrieving her arrows from the many corpses they inhabited, and Cadenza pulled her swords back with a curved finger, whipping them to the side to cast off the blood of their victims. Tiriana, having fought only with conjured weapons, just strolled forward casually to take a closer look at the monsters they’d killed.
“So…does anyone need any healing?” Vivi asked rhetorically.