Iris appeared in the moonlight a dozen yards from the figure. It didn't react to her presence, and simply continued moving along its path. It was closer than the cart now, and at its current trajectory would pass just by the corner of the barracks and continue towards the edge of camp beyond. The light of the moon was behind it and its face was shrouded in shadows, but in the silhouette she could make out what looked like clumps of dirt clinging to a shaggy head of hair.
"Hello?" Iris said a little quieter than she meant to, but the figure still didn't react. She swallowed, and spoke louder, "excuse me, are you alright?"
The figure stopped and stood motionless, then its head turned towards her. She took an involuntary step back under its sudden gaze. Though it was too dark to see its eyes, she could sense intent from its aura. It wasn't surprised by her presence, it felt threatened, but not afraid. Sensing these details was a new sensation for Iris, she had continued her infrequent aura training with Victoria over recent weeks, but was nowhere near the level of sensing passive emotions or intentions. She had only ever felt them when Victoria had deliberately conveyed them with her aura -- did that mean the figure was communicating?
"Hi," she took a wary step forward, "my name's Iris. I'm here to check on the camp. Is everything alright?"
She sensed contemplation in the figure's aura.
"Do you need help?" she took another cautious step forward.
The figure's aura conveyed aggression. Anger. Iris was filled with an overwhelming sensation of being a trespasser on land that did not belong to her -- on land that belonged to it. The figure shifted, and took a step towards her, then another, not just with its good leg but with the one it had been dragging before. The figure fell forward into a sprint, radiating an aura of fury and violent intent. Iris threw her bag back from her waist with one hand as she withdrew her greatsword with the other, then blipped to meet the figure. She appeared beside it for only a fraction of a second, her sword slicing through its thigh and severing a leg before she blipped again and appeared several yards beyond it.
After collapsing to the ground with a soft thump, the figure turned with its hands to face her and began to crawl. With the moonlight now shining on its face, she could see the empty sockets where eyes had been, and the pale, lifeless flesh of its sagging face. Equally pale, almost skeletal hands reached out towards her and buried gaunt, dirty fingers in the soil as it dragged itself forward.
"Wait!" Victoria shouted as Titus burst out of the barracks with Eli and Autumn close behind.
“You were supposed to blip back inside!” Eli shouted at Iris.
The soil behind the crawling man bulged and fell away as something massive rose from beneath it. At first it appeared as a rising mound of dirt, but it soon split apart into the fingers of a large, fleshless hand that slammed down onto the crawler and pulled him back into the ground. His body disappeared beneath the surface of the upturned soil, but before his pale outstretched hand could disappear, something larger began to rise.
Iris saw the featureless lump of soil that formed the head, then the shoulders, torso and arms, and finally the trunk-like legs as a mass of soil the shape of a rounded, hulking person as it climbed out of the ground. Embedded in its torso was the crawler, his body and half his face buried in the soil as one gaunt arm stretched out towards her. Across the soil golem's body were more like him, arms jutted out at awkward angles and grasped at empty air, and eyeless faces bulged from the soil often with mouths agape in permanent silent screams. The golem stood as tall as three men, and was disproportionately wide for its height.
The golem charged at Iris, but she didn't blip yet. She saw the glow of white and red magic from in front of the barracks, and held the golem's attention until the blasts rung out. First a bolt of red magic slapped into the golem's head, blasting it away and sending a shower of dirt off to the side, but that didn't slow its gait. Three spears of blinding white light embedded deep in its torso, then exploded in an eruption of dirt and rotting flesh that revealed the interlocked bodies within that held the golem together in a poor, misshapen imitation of a skeleton. Still, the golem charged forward.
She blipped into the air behind it and brought her sword down through its left shoulder, slicing through soft dirt and the hard bone of the corpses beneath it. The arm began to fall away, but it was caught by the outstretched arms of corpses within the golem, which pulled the arm back into place as the soil moved to reconnect. The swiping arm of the golem that had been meant for Iris instead only met the ground, where it scooped up a large handful of soil and slammed it into its own chest where it quickly filled the gaps left by Titus's attack.
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Iris landed in a crouch behind the golem, glaring up at it while it slowly turned to look down upon her. She had seen Autumn charging forward before her last blip and knew what was coming, so she stayed in place to hold the golem's attention. A large arm dropped clumps of dirt as it swung over the golem's head and down towards Iris, where she waited until the last instant to blip away. Just as the strike landed on empty soil, Autumn was came flying from a running leap. Now clad in stone armor, she swung a long two-handed hammer in an underhand strike that hit the golem just below where its head would be while she flew over its shoulder. The hammer ripped through the golem and exploded out its back, bringing with it a disembodied hand that clung tight to the upper handle of the hammer.
Autumn tucked the polearm of the hammer close to her chest so she could land with a roll, then recoiled back and held the hammer at arm's length when she stood and saw the clinging arm. In her moment of distraction, the golem whirled around with a low swinging arm that caught Autumn from behind, knocking the breath from her lungs and flinging her forward against the trunk of a tree. It stomped after her and reached out with a massive hand to grab her, ignoring the red and white explosions blowing chunks off its torso from behind.
Iris appeared from a blip just below its arm with momentum that carried her slash upwards, cutting clean through the arm just before the wrist. She blipped again, reappearing from the side and using her remaining momentum to carry her feet first into the severed hand so she could kick it away before it had a chance to reattach to the golem. The hand landed a few yards away, with Iris dropping to her feet just in front of her opponent. The golem's other hand crashed into her back, large fingers wrapping around her shoulders and torso and lifting her from the ground. A blast of red magic exploded at the golem's shoulder, but it wasn't enough to disable the arm. Iris was thrown hard into the ground, pain shooting through her abdomen as ribs were cracked.
The golem released her and pulled back its arm, turning to swipe Autumn out of the air as she leapt towards it for another strike. She too was driven into the ground, and this time the golem stepped forward and crushed her beneath its foot. Titus stepped out into the clearing and outstretched both his hands, which glowed with a blinding white light before erupting into a continuous beam of crackling white magic that cast long, dark shadows through the night. The beam appeared to stop where it contacted the golem's shoulder, but soon dug its way through the soil and rotting flesh to erupt out the other side. Titus moved the beam in a slow, deliberate line across the golem's chest, attempting to cut it in half. The golem raised its stumped arm to block the beam, but that was only enough to momentarily interrupt it before the arm disintegrated and the beam once again punched into the golem's chest.
Titus abruptly stopped his beam attack before his mana emptied, and flicked his hands forward to flash two quick bolts of light, one each striking Iris and Autumn where they lay on the ground. They both released sharp groans of pain as their injuries healed, but to Titus that was a pleasant sound to hear -- it meant they were alive, and that the healing had worked. Quickly following his healing bolts was a red bolt from Eli's staff that exploded on contact with the golem's torso, sending it stumbling back.
Behind Eli, Victoria emerged from the shadowy doorway of the barracks. Her eyes were glazed over and framed by bulging, twitching veins that had begun to glow purple, her outstretched hands cradled three floating tarot cards, each upside down. They depicted a man in a chariot, a robed skeletal figure wielding a scythe atop a corpse-like steed, and a towering spire struck by fire and lightning. She walked past Eli without acknowledgement, her supernatural gaze locked on the half dismembered golem, and strolled past an exhausted Titus gasping for breath as his mana recharged. The golem, even without its head, seemed to stare her down as she crossed the clearing. It lumbered forward to meet her, ignoring Iris and Autumn as they climbed to their feet. Victoria stopped as the golem approached, preparing her next move.
"Slow it down!" she shouted.
Iris and Autumn met each other's eyes and nodded. Iris blipped forward and sliced through the golem's leg just above the knee, just as Autumn slammed her shoulder into the lower leg to knock it away before it could reattach to the golem. Autumn came out of the tackle in a roll, while Iris blipped a healthy distance away. The golem collapsed into a crouch on its stumped leg, still wholly focused on Victoria.
An aura emanated from the golem and washed over the clearing. It conveyed vague but intense sensations defiance, fury, and ownership. Purple trails of magic swirled in the air between Victoria's hands and the floating cards, the intensity of their glow steadily and quickly rising. Two of the cards abruptly burnt away with purple flames, while the remaining card -- the tower -- rotated upright. Two new upside down cards replaced the others, one depicting the sun with a face, and the other a winged figure pouring water from one chalice to another. Accompanying the new combination of cards was a bright flash of light from the glowing purple swirls of magic and a powerful burst of aura that erupted out from Victoria and hit the golem like a powerful gust of wind. It stumbled one step back, then crumbled into a pile of lifeless soil and corpses. Victoria collapsed to her knees, her arms and shoulders hanging limp as she breathed deep and laboriously.