As everyone else reached the bottom of the stairs, the bones began to shift and move toward the center of the chamber, as if carried along the current of some invisible river. They combined to form a single creature, with six long ‘heads’ made of bones sprouting from a massive cluster, each head ending in the massive skull of a different creature, which all gave a roar that shook the ground when they fully formed. Without a word, Ester ran ahead, spear in hand and channeling divine magic around herself. Tahir and Naevys followed after, with the Winged Serpent flying overhead. When Tahir looked back, he saw Clement ambling along, and couldn’t see Raline at all.
Bringing his attention back to the undead, Tahir spotted Ester reaching it first, and immediately slamming her glaive into the central cluster of bones with a burst of divine energy. Bone shards flew, burned and broken from the impact, but the creature itself didn’t budge. Ester pulled her glaive away, and leapt back as a couple of the heads snapped their jaws in the place she stood. The other heads kept track of Naevys and Tahir as they approached, looming and ready to strike when they got close enough.
Naevys flicked the wand in their hand, casting a spell and causing fog to spring up around them, obscuring their location and making the head tracking her hesitate before diving in. The head watching Tahir had no such reservation, and it lunged for him, the jaws of some massive wolf opening wide. Tahir waited until the head was a few feet away before shifting to the side, using aura to avoid the head by inches, and swinging his blade across the bones that made up its neck. He got a deep score into the bones, but didn’t dislodge any, leading him to believe that cutting wouldn’t really help him here, at least not with aura alone.
He looked around, making sure another one of the heads wasn’t trying to lunge at him before he started to cast a spell. Right as he did, a gout of flame emerged from the fog and rolled across the creature’s form, distracting it long enough for Tahir to get his soulflame spell off without any problems. This time, as he ran his staff across the blade, glimmering white fire erupted along the blade, brimming with diving power.
Overhead, the Winged Serpent flew well out of the creature’s reach, flapping its wings. With a heavy gust, several of its feathers flew across the spread of bones, stabbing into them like knives. The serpent continued to fly overhead, gathering spiritual energy for a second volley.
Taking stock of the first exchange, this thing was huge and bulky, but its heads had quite a bit of maneuverability, making it rather dangerous to deal with in melee. Tahir could attempt to deal with it from range, but leaving the creature with less targets would only make it more likely that they’d get harassed by several heads all at once. He’d leave the Winged Serpent to continue its volley of feathers. When he glanced around, he could see Clement still far back, seemingly casting a powerful spell, and he still couldn’t see Raline.
With a deep breath, he rushed back into the fray, moving toward the center cluster of the creature as two more heads swung around to bite him. He ducked under the first, and pushed forward in quick burst of aura to dodge the second, finally reaching the center and striking it with an upward swing, feeling his blade carve through the bones much easier with the divine magic of his soulflame and dislodge more scored bones from the pile. The heads going after him quickly recovered and came for him once again, only for both of them to slam into the central cluster, missing Tahir as he jumped high in the air and landed on one of their necks. Tahir tried to take a swing, but the neck he stood on recovered faster than he expected, and whipped back, knocking Tahir off. He rolled along the ground, quickly recovered and ran to make himself a harder target.
A surge of magic drew his attention toward Clement, who’d finished the spell he cast. He pointed his staff at the creature, and a bolt of blue lightning exploded out, crashing against the undead in an instant, shaking the ground with the force of it. Afterward, electricity still surged through the amalgam of bones, coalescing around several points along the necks and central cluster. “I’ve identified its weak points for you, you can thank me later. For now, do draw its attention again before it gets mad at me for blasting it with lightning.”
Naevys replied by quickly blasting more fire toward one of the points. Where it collided, an additional burst of lightning accompanied the flames, significantly scorching a large swath of bones. Raline appeared out of nowhere, not too far away from Tahir, and fired off a bolt of divine energy, also aiming for one of the glowing points on a neck of one of the heads, and the resulting burst of magic separated the neck from the cluster, causing it to grow still. Before it could retaliate, as quickly as she appeared, her form shimmered and she was gone.
While Tahir tried to figure out which point to go after, he heard a cry and Ester’s direction and his eyes widened. She’d been caught by one of the heads, keeping the jaws from clamping down on her with her bare hands and her aura as it lifted her into the air, while another closed in from below. Before Tahir could try to aim for a point on the neck that held her, one of them snaked around and tried to devour him while he was distracted.
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He didn’t have time to dodge, so quick as a blink, he formed his aura in front of him like a rampart, which the head slammed into and sent him skidding back. The weight the earth spirit gave him prevented the head from sending him flying from the force, and for a couple of seconds it pushed Tahir back, before he was able to stop its momentum with a heavy swing, and before it could recover, he slammed his sword through the skull and pinned it to the ground. While it squirmed and tried to wrench the skull free, Tahir blasted one of the motes of gathered lightning on its neck with a divine blast from his staff, causing it to burst and breaking this head off as well.
That exchange took most of Tahir’s aura, so he sheathed his sword after retrieving it from the motionless skull and looked toward where he last saw Ester. She still struggled in the mouth of one of the heads, but the one which tried to bite her from below lay in pieces with no indication of how. The other two heads dove in and out of another cloud of fog that Naevys conjured to hide in as they struck with their sword and bursts of fire. Ester had gotten a good grip on her glaive again, and repeatedly struck at the skull and neck, each hit flashing with divine magic wherever it made contact.
From above, Tahir saw a brief flash of light, and the divine shield around him - around everyone, which had been growing dimmer since the fight started, refreshed, glowing strong once again. Tahir nodded up to the Winged Serpent as he began to cast a spell. A spell he’d cast before, but he lamented the lack of the fire spirit’s affinity to reduce its cost at that present moment. Fire surged around him, coalescing into several motes of flame that swirled. With knowledge granted from the Winged Serpent, and the supposed authority granted to him by Odium, he infused the flames with divine magic, the fire burning bright and white.
The magic seemed to catch the creature’s attention, as both of the heads going after Naevys abandoned them to rush after Tahir. He planned to time a dodge instead of running, in order to keep casting his spell, but a blur of white and feathers filled his vision, as the Winged Serpent flew down, rapidly wrapped itself around Tahir, and lifted him up in the air to avoid the reach of the heads. They did, narrowly, feeling the jaws slap down by his feet as the Winged Serpent pulled him out of the way of danger. With that, he could complete his spell, sending the motes of divine fire shooting out and homing in on the creature. Each one colliding with and exploding across the bones, hitting many of the weak points Clement outlined with his spell, and giving Ester the leeway she needed to escape the jaws of the head that held her.
She leapt from their grip, grabbing onto its neck and pulling herself up. In one swift motion, she stabbed down with her glaive onto a weak point on its neck, destroying the head. She continued to move, running along until she reached the main body, and began gathering energy in her glaive. The remaining two heads turned their attention back to her, but before they could reach her, she jumped high using aura to dodge them. At the peak of the jump, white spectral feathered wings sprouted from her back and kept her aloft.
While the heads were distracted, Raline appeared and tossed what looked like a dagger, directly striking another weak point and breaking the head. Shortly after, a bolt of lightning flew out from Clement’s direction on the remaining head and broke it as well. After the final head fell, the central cluster of bones began to rattle and shake once more, possibly reshuffling itself in an attempt to create more heads. Before it could, however, Ester struck, diving down from the air like a meteor and colliding with the cluster on another weak point, blasting divine power throughout. A bright pillar of divine lightning rose up to accompany her blow, smiting the undead creature in a blinding spectacle that evoked the same feeling as staring directly into the sun.
When the light faded, and Tahir’s vision returned, what remained of the bones grew still and collapsed. Ester stood among the pile, and with a sweep of her glaive, dispersed what remained of the necrotic miasma the bones emanated. Seconds later, everyone felt a tremor, and a sudden glow at one end of the room drew everyone’s attention. A gilded set of double doors, previously hidden, appeared and opened by themselves.
“Everyone alright?” Tahir called, as the group all walked in to gather around Ester, who was breathing heavily where she stood. The Winged Serpent set him down a few feet away from her.
“I’m surprised you’re the one asking that, considering you took one of the hardest hits.” Clement replied. He had a wry smile on his face, but Tahir could tell by his slightly sunken eyes and the way that he seemed to lean against his staff, that the spell he cast took quite a bit of mana from him. “Still, that spell right after was a sight to behold.”
“Indeed, it was certainly more than I expected to come from you.” Raline said.
“It was impressive.” Ester stated, seeming to recover from the strike. “As was Clement’s. I assume that spell is unique to Hibris?”
“Quite. Revealing the weak points of your foes and rewarding you for targeting them. Much like the fog of war that Naevys conjured, but it makes me a rather tempting target instead of hiding me.”
Naevys shrugged their shoulders, taking stock of the situation around them. “We did good, I’m not feeling anything else in here with my divine sense. Is everyone alright to start making their way back, or should we take a break for a while?”
“Let’s stop for at least a bit, just in case we run into something while heading back up - or something from below comes to see why the door just opened” Tahir suggested.
Everyone else agreed, so they spent a while resting and recovering from the fight.