A quick movement just beyond the crawling mage caught Syd’s attention. She reacted at the same moment the twang of the crossbow being fired resounded in the smoke-choked air. Lifting her arm, she blocked the projectile with her left vambrace. Only, instead of bouncing off the thick cold flame steel of her armor, the bolt sank into the metal like it was a hot knife passing through butter. Syd let out a grunt of pain as the flared steel tip of the bolt pierced all the way through her forearm to come out the other side, dripping with her blood.
The time for threatening words was over. The cultist’s ranged attack had been able to pierce straight through her considerable defenses, which meant she couldn’t afford to let the woman take another shot. Especially since she could already feel the effects of some kind of poison trying to take hold of her.
Syd lunged at the cultist with the crossbow. The woman had ridden forward, putting herself between Syd and the mage still crawling on the ground. Or perhaps it was the doing of the mount, as the cultist seemed wholly focused on reloading her weapon. As Syd crossed the short distance, her sword staff extended before her, she felt unexpectedly sluggish. Still strong, still fast, but slower than she was a moment before. It was hard to tell an exact number, but she could sense that her Agility had been affected by whatever toxin had coated the bolt still piercing her left arm. She was still more than fast enough to close in on the enemy before she could reload her crossbow, though.
The woman’s mount reared up as Syd thrust her weapon at the cultist. The blade of her sword staff went through the horse’s chest, piercing flesh and bone, then the leather of its saddle, before the tip exited the cultist’s thigh. The woman fell off the possessed beast’s back with a cry of pain, her crossbow tumbling out of her hands when she landed hard. Clenching her teeth, Syd pivoted on her right leg and used her colossal strength to hurl the impaled horse several yards away. Before the crossbow woman could grab her weapon off the ground, Syd kicked with her left leg, slamming the cultist’s side with her boot and sending the woman at least thirty feet away across the battlefield.
The cultist’s tumbling body had the added benefit of knocking into the back legs of one of the spearmen that Jay was fighting; a great boon, since the poison Jadis had just been stricken with was not making her other fights any easier.
The magic the cultist mage had used to empower the Demons and her fellow cultists was powerful. Demons that she knew she should have been able to easily overpower were living through attacks that should have killed them. They were faster, stronger, and moving with a focused ferocity that was difficult for Jadis to defend against. Dys was still swarmed by stranglers, bone thieves, and wights as she fought with nothing but a dagger and her bare hands among an ever-dwindling number of forest allies, while Jay had the necrophile and his spear-wielding cronies to contend with.
Jadis wasn’t sure how many seconds had passed since her Jay self had engaged in battle with the three supercharged cultists, but she hadn’t managed to land a decisive blow on any of them. They hadn’t gotten the better of her, either, so she supposed that meant it was something of a stalemate. It didn’t feel like one, though, as she pushed herself to kill or incapacitate at least one of them before they could strike her in a weak spot and turn the tide of the battle.
As the magic of whatever poison she’d been infected with took hold and Jadis’ movements slowed down from the reduction of her Agility, Jay found it far, far harder to avoid the attacks of the Corpsefucker. His blade flashed with dark light as he switched between one-handed and two-handed attacks with an expert’s fluidity. His strikes were fast and precise; the Demons were wild brawlers but not this man. He was a trained swordsman, or at the very least he had high level skills empowering his performance. Jay, by comparison, had no weapon skills to aid her, and her training was that of a neophyte. The advantage that kept the man at bay wasn’t her skill, but her greater reach and height.
“Getting tired?” the necromaniac asked in an almost conversational tone. “You may lie down, if you wish. It will be easier for you. And your body will be less damaged for later.”
“Gods, you just don’t shut up, do you?” Jay snarled as she swiped at the man with her axe.
Both Corpsefucker and the shieldless spearman leapt away from the swing to avoid losing their heads, but the shield bearing spearman stepped in on her right, using the opening to shove his spear tip into Jay’s armpit. Her armor was weak there, and she felt the cold touch of metal as he pierced her skin with his weapon, followed by the hot gush of blood running down her side.
Jay tried to swipe her arm at the man, intending to either break his spear or rip it out of his hands, but the speed reduction she was suffering from allowed him the time he needed to pull back before she could catch him. Corpsefucker then tried to attack her while her attention was turned, but Jay was able to bring her axe down in time to parry the blow and knock his sword away.
Just as the shieldless spearman was stepping forward to strike Jay, Syd’s gift crashed into the back of his knees. The rolling cultist woman took the man out at his legs, causing him to fall flat on his back in a clatter of armor. The collision of the two cultists provided just the opportunity Jadis was looking for.
Roaring with all the same fierceness of the silver bears still fighting the Demons, Jay swung her axe at Corpsefucker and the shielded spearman, forcing both to leap away or be struck down. She knew her wide swing wouldn’t hit, not with her reduced speed and their demonically empowered bodies, but that wasn’t the point. She just wanted to make sure they were far enough away from their fallen companion that they couldn’t do anything to stop her next move.
Abandoning all attempts to defend the wild beasts of the forest, or even herself, Dys charged towards the two fallen cultists. Activating Knight’s Daring Charge, she rushed at her targets, taking several steps on all fours as her fingers dug into the muddied earth. Several wights slashed at her, but Dys ignored the Demons’ attacks as they failed to get past her armor and Fortitude. Before either the kicked cultist or the spearman could get to their feet, Dys was on them.
The man’s chest deformed like an aluminum can as Dys punched him with a pounding jab. Somehow not yet dead despite having a bowling ball shaped depression in his torso, he tried to grab hold of her arm. While his grip was strong, he was still far, far too light to be able to hold back Dys’ next action. Reaching the woman who was still pushing herself up off the ground, Dys grabbed hold of her leg and whipped her up into the air so that she was thrown over her shoulder. Dys couldn’t see what was behind her, but Jay could, so the woman-turned-projectile crashed directly into the shielded cultist, knocking both back and away.
Rolling off of the man she had just caved in the chest of, Dys kicked with her foot at Corpsefucker as he tried to slice at her with his fell blade. The clang of steel rang out as her boot blocked the attack, then a second metal-on-metal sound echoed as Jay’s axe slammed down onto the supine cultist. The back spike of the axe head pierced through the man’s skull, killing him instantly as Mirrored Strikes was triggered.
Ripping her weapon out of the dead man, Jay blocked the next attack by the necrophile, giving Dys time to roll to her side and get to her feet. At the same time, she scooped up the spear the dead cultist had been using, since it was a far better weapon to use than her spare dagger.
For the next few seconds, Jay and Dys had the sick swordsman all to themselves.
It was finally the necrophile’s turn to be on the backfoot as Jadis launched a two-bodied flurry of attacks on the man. Her speed reduction no longer mattered so much as she swung her weapons with a coordinated efficiency that no training could match. Corpsefucker was forced to parry and dodge, constantly falling back as he used all of his abilities to avoid being struck by a double blow.
Seeing her other selves dealing with the sword wielding piece of scum, Syd was put in the position of either joining them to help quickly finish the freak, turning on the two cultists who were still struggling to their feet, or searching for the mage who had slipped away into the smoke and flames during the commotion. Just as she resolved to search for the mage, a fourth option reared its ugly head.
One of the cultists who had been knocked to the ground a few moments before by Syd’s attack struck at her unguarded side, burying the point of his short sword into her left hip. She instinctively knocked the man away with her left hand, causing pain to shoot through her as the bolt in her forearm broke against his armored body and his sword was ripped from her side. Turning to face him, the man steadied himself after landing on his feet, his short sword in one hand and a shield in the other. With his guardsman armor, he almost looked like any typical imperial soldier, except for the madness visible in his shining eyes.
Syd was forced to fight the man, a delay that she couldn’t afford since she could see that the two cultists further on were already getting back on their feet. As soon as they did, Jay and Dys would lose the advantage they had against Corpsefucker, and it would be that much harder to finish the fight. Feinting a thrust at the shielded man, Syd briefly considered turning her back on him and just attacking the other two. She would have, without question, if her speed hadn’t been diminished. As it was, she wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be able to land another critical blow on her while her back was turned. It was a hard decision, one that Jadis knew could change the course of the battle.
Fortunately, it was a decision she didn’t have to make.
Tegwyn charged into the left side of the sword and shield cultist, running the man in front of Syd over as he rammed his horns into his body and smashed him into the ground. The bark-skinned ram’s head stayed low to the ground, dragging the unfortunate spearman across the dirt, smearing the cultist across the land for several yards before lifting his head and tossing the ruined body off to the side. The Dryad’s trajectory led him straight into the other two cultists, both of whom leapt out of the way. The man on the left was clipped by Teg’s horns, sending him spinning like a top, while the woman who went to the right was speared by Thea, who was still riding on the Dryad’s back. It didn’t look like her spear had hit anything vital, but the cultist had still been cut by the serrated spear, which meant its powerful toxin would already be working its way through the woman’s system.
Turning around, Syd prepared to charge the necrophile from behind so her three selves could finish the man off. The sight that greeted her, though, sent a chill down Jadis’ spines.
“Burn, Interloper! Burn!”
The deranged mage screamed in mad delight as she clutched onto the back of the cinderman’s bloated body. Where her arms and legs made contact with the Demon, the woman’s skin was bubbling and blistering from the heat. The cultist’s health was hardly Jadis’ concern, though. What did concern her was the visible aura of red magic pulsing around the Demon as the mad cultist empowered it.
“Shit—”
Syd’s curse was drowned out by the deafening roar of fire that came from the cinderman as it spewed its flames at Jadis. What before was comparable to a flamethrower was now closer in nature to a rocket engine as a wall of fire dozens of yards wide rolled across the ground towards Syd.
In the split second before the flames hit, time seemed to slow down for Jadis as she realized she was about to be burned alive. Again.
Just how often was she going to be set on fire, anyway? This very well could be the last time, she realized, if the Demon’s attack killed her.
Jay and Dys couldn’t stop the cinderman’s attack. Even if they weren’t engaged in a fight with Corpsefucker, they wouldn’t be able to close the distance and kill the fiery Demon in time to stop the flames from washing over Syd. There was no way to stop the fiery attack, nor was there any seeming way to avoid it unscathed. Syd could try to dodge out of the way, but with her reduced speed, she was going to be hit. Further, if she dodged out of the way, the Demon could choose to turn its flaming attack towards the others, which was the last thing Jadis wanted. In that moment, she realized she really only had one option. The only question was, would she be able to survive the flames?
Jadis knew her health pool was just barely above a thousand points the last time she had checked. She had healed some from the effects of a few hastily guzzled healing potions, but she’d also suffered damage in the recent fight. At less than half of her normal health, she wasn’t sure the flames were survivable. She still had an ace up her sleeve, though. One that she dearly hoped would make the difference.
Gritting her teeth and closing her eyes, Syd dug the tips of her boots into the ground before charging forward directly into the flames.
The searing pain of being immolated by the cinderman’s empowered flame attack was, sadly, not the first time Jadis had experienced the sensation. Having been terribly, even mortally, burned several times in the past, she was no stranger to the feeling. It was, without doubt, the worst pain she had ever experienced in her life, but it was a familiar one. So, even as the fire heated her armor and cooked her flesh, Syd had the mental fortitude to keep running forward.
Jadis watched her health pool sink like a stone as each excruciating half second passed. From one thousand points, to eight hundred, to five hundred, then three hundred. When her health reached two hundred points, she triggered her failsafe spell, the Ceremony of Licentious Regeneration.
In an instant, Jadis’ health pool shot up from one hundred and sixty-eight points to her maximum of two thousand six hundred and forty. By the time she had taken two more steps forward, her health had dropped back down by two hundred and fifty points, showing that she absolutely would not have survived the charge without her failsafe spell. She put aside the unsettling thought, however, as by that point Syd had burst through the flames to come out the other side.
Syd was fairly certain that her eyelids had melted shut at some point during her mad dash through the firestorm, but the sudden surge of healing her ceremony had provided had fortunately fixed that problem. While Jadis was certainly able to guide her Syd body with the help of her other two selves, she was doubly glad Syd wasn’t blinded for the fact that retaining vision through that pair of eyes meant she was able to see the dumbfounded expression on the madwoman’s face as she burst out of the flames and shoved the point of her glowing hot sword staff through the head of the cinderman.
The look of confusion transformed into horrified agony as Syd’s charge carried her sword staff through the Demon and into the cultist’s chest, just below her right collar bone. As Syd continued forward by another step, she tore her weapon through the cinderman’s head completely, killing the creature and snuffing its augmented flames while simultaneously lifting the woman high into the air. The moment of time lingered as the realization that she had utterly failed in her mission to kill Jadis dulled the woman’s eyes. Then life briefly returned to her face as a blood-soaked snarl stretched her lips.
“We will kill you, Interloper. The Playwright has your name in his story! You and everyone you love will die!”
Syd’s reply was as simple as the cultist’s was dramatic.
“Nope.”
In the next moment, Syd slammed the woman down to the ground and stomped on her head with one booted foot.
The effect on the remaining Demons was immediate. The aura that had been empowering them vanished as soon as the mage’s life was snuffed out. Their movements immediately slowed as their strength flagged. Their threat was diminished by the cultist’s death; the necrophile’s danger, however, was not.
Corpsefucker’s form did not deflate, nor did his attacks weaken. Whatever spell had been cast upon him and the other cultists had not faded when their mage had been killed. Jay and Dys were still hard-pressed to defeat the empowered swordsman as her Agility had not been restored when she had healed herself with her licentious regeneration. Jadis still needed to get her third self into the fight if she wanted to finish the job.
Unfortunately, the pressing matter of being on fire took precedence over slaying the necro-freak. Syd had caught the cinderman’s spew directly in the face, and her whole body was still very much on fire.
As her Syd self made a mad dash for the little stream that was running through the middle of the ruined meadow, her Jay and Dys self tried to maneuver the sword-wielding cultist into a position where he couldn’t see both of her selves coming. The man was too skilled to let that happen, however, as he constantly dodged and back peddled to avoid being flanked by the two giants. He also seemed to be very aware of the effects of her Mirrored Strikes, as he used his sword to parry her attacks as little as possible, instead choosing to avoid her attacks entirely whenever he could. Whether he had some insight into her abilities or just preferred to avoid her blows, she wasn’t sure, but either way he was doing a frustratingly good job of holding her off.
“Getting tired?” Jay goaded the man as she jabbed her stolen spear at the man’s face.
“You can lie down now, if you want,” Dys jeered as she swung her axe at his side. “It’ll be easier.”
“It is your end written here, not mine,” Corpsefucker replied, though his tone wasn’t as calm as it had been before. “The will of Samleos will be done. You will fall before him and beg for his sweet oblivion in the end.”
“Pretty sure the only one going to fall right now is you,” Jay and Dys both said as the two swung their weapons at the man at the same time to keep his attention forward.
“I will—” the necrophile’s next words were cut off as he let out a scream of pain.
Meli leapt back from her position behind the cultist as he made a half turn and swung his sword wide at her retreating form. His movement was hindered by the crossbow bolt that the Dryad had shot at point-blank range into the back of the man’s right knee. Meli had, at some point, scooped up the crossbow that had been dropped by the other cultist and had run up behind Corpsefucker while he had been focused on Jay and Dys. Staying low to the ground, she had gone undetected until she had fired the bolt directly into the weak spot of his armor.
“No!” the man yelled out as he tried to recover from his blunder by turning and catching Jay’s spear with his blade.
He succeeded in stopping her overhead strike, but Jay grinned while his face fell. A blocked attack was still an attack.
Dys’ axe ripped through the man’s body just above his belt, bisecting him in a spray of blood and gore that made a wet splat sound as the two pieces landed on the ground.
Right before she shoved her spear into the man’s face to finish the job, Jay snarled a final parting message at the dying Corpsefucker.
“Tell Samleos, I write my own story.”
277