The ringing continued as the flock of half-bird, half-human creatures beat their wings and lifted off the golden sands. Shawn set his legs apart on the solid ground of the roof and pulled out a javelin. He tossed it into the oncoming crowd, taking one down with it: it spiraled down with the crooked javelin stuck in its chest. It kicked up a small bit of the golden sand as it crashed into the earth.
I pointed my staff forward and uttered the incantation to Rock Throw. A part of the roof was ripped from the surrounding stones and sails forth. The hunk of rock slammed into the body of one of the harpies. The stone twisted the creature’s body and it fell into a bloody mess to the ground.
Shawn held his shield up, and the wooden burl grew. Roots took hold of his flesh as they crawled their way up the length of his arm to his shoulder to support the weight of the tower shield that formed on his wrist. He planted his feet on the ground and set the tower shield in front of him as the first of the harpies reached him. Its claws raked against the wood: tearing lines across the green roots. As it zipped by, Shawn reached out and grabbed hold of one of its legs, and slammed it onto the roof. The whole building shook at the force of the impact as the harpy’s body broke against the stone. To finish it off, Shawn stamped on the small of its back. He drew another javelin, and jammed it into the torso of the next, as he held back half the tide. Shit...only half? Doesn’t he have an aoe taunt or something? The rest were heading toward me.
Seeing this, Shawn tossed a javelin toward me, and I caught it. It’s a spear, right? I wield it in my right hand while keeping hold of the staff in my left.
“From the domain of Paimon, I call for you, thou daughters of the wind, dance around me.”
A shell of wind breathed to life around me. It was stronger than I anticipated: perhaps enhanced by Wind Affinity: even if it were at a very low level. The problem was...the dome only lasted, at most, a couple of seconds. Before I even had a chance to cast another spell, the dome of wind was dying down. At best, it just provided some momentarily reprieve in this situation. The floes of wind were too scattered to do anything to the harpies, if I could somehow concentrate it, or make them stronger...but weren’t the values set at the time of casting? It occurred to me in that moment, that I actually had no clue how magic functioned. I understood spirits acquiescing to the caster’s requests, but that’s where my knowledge of the process ended.
A harpy swooped down, and raked its claws across my face: its curled talons scraped against my Repel and kept those dark daggers away from my flesh. Another swooped down in a tackle that nearly knocked me off the edge of the roof. I stabbed forward with the short spear and drove it off of me and to the ground. Another harpy’s swoop knocked me off balance, and a third drove into my stomach and swept my feet, and I fell backward into the sand. There was some distance between us, finally.
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““From the domain of Paimon, I call for you, thou daughters of the wind, dance before me.”
I incanted as the harpies dove down toward me. The dervish whirled to life collided with the closest two and threw them into the side of the building. The first got up, the other struggled to find its feet, as another harpy fell upon me. I jammed my spear up and ran it through its exposed stomach. The first thing I heard when my hearing began to recover was the pained whimpers in my ears as they collapsed. I tossed it off of me and rolled out of the way. Two harpies landed on the ground behind me, as a pair swooped down above.
One of their talons wrapped around the shaft of my staff and carried it away. Shawn must have noticed this because it didn’t make it more than a dozen feet in the air before a javelin came flying out, and then spiraled to the ground in a mass of feathers, and crashed into the sands. Dozens of harpies fell upon me. Their claws and beaks cracked my repel and began to tear into my flesh. I grabbed hold of my wand in my pocket, and pocket as the first claw sank into the actual flesh of my thigh.
“From the domain of Paimon, I call for you, thou daughters of the wind, dance around me.”
The burgeoning gust of wind pushed those furthest away back. A beak bit into my cheek tore a chunk of flesh loose, and gobbled it down like a ravenous hawk over its prey.
“Gnomes, servants of Gob the Magnanimous, I beseech thee to bombard my enemies.”
I chanted while the dome of wind still held firm. Pain flooded my body momentarily as the dome instantly died down and a great expulsion of energy from my body caused a small blast that sent the harpies and pushed the harpies that piled on me away violently. The one that had been straddling my left leg took the worst of it: its own leg had been blown off at the knee, as my own knee was twisted and shattered.
Pain, like nothing I had ever felt before in my life, robbed me of all senses, as all I could do was clutch my shattered leg and scream. A shadow loomed over me, as Shawn leaped down from the room and landed beside me.
“You oka—“ he looked at my leg, set his shield up in front of me, and set his legs apart over my body. “It’ll be alright, I’ll get you out of this.” He stated confidently while I writhed and sank into the golden sands. “Pick up your wand. There’s still 20 of them left.”
I whimpered as my shaking hand groped blindly through the grains, digging until my fingers found the familiar grooves of the wand's handle. A harpy battered against Shawn’s shield, and a pair of claws raked against his shoulders. Rivulets of blood rolled off his face as part of his ear had been torn clean off, and the pink of the optic nerve shone through a rather bad scratch down the left side of his face.
“Snap out of it, Lawrence. All you can do now is fight, so you can live.”
“I’m...I’m scared. “
“Scared? That’s not an excuse. Stand up, lean against my back and I’ll hold your weight. We’ll fight like that.”
He stepped forward, and I pushed myself off the ground.
“Are you sure?” I asked as I kept my left leg stiff. I held all my weight on my right. “I’m pretty heavy.”
A harpy swooped down. Shawn pivoted his body to slam the tower shield into the face of the bird creature.
“Do it!”
I had no choice. I fell back, and he caught my weight. I had no choice but to put my life in the hands of this man I barely met. I pointed my wand forward as I watched his back, and he watched mine as those vicious harpies circled above.