Dys and Syd leapt from the rooftop and immediately spread out. While Dys ran to the left, Syd dashed to the right, both charging through any mire hounds that were unfortunate enough to get in Jadis’ way. With so many eyes, it was impossible to hit the Dead Head Matriarch from a surprise angle. It had literal three-hundred-and-sixty-degree vision, so a sneak attack wasn’t going to work. Instead, the plan was to hit the Matriarch from multiple angles, hard enough that at least one attack should be able to punch through.
As Dys and Syd maneuvered into position on the east and west ends of the intersection, Jay stayed on top of the roof with Aila and Eir. Since her Jay body was missing her torso armor, Jadis elected to have that part of herself overwatch the battle while staying next to her two backline mages. Eir would be able to heal Jadis immediately if needed, and Jay would in turn be able to offer immediate protection if she and Aila were targeted by attacks. From that high vantage point, Jay was also able to keep track of the others of her group who were maneuvering to get into position for their own parts in the plan.
Glancing up into the magically lit night sky, Jay saw the light shine off of Severina’s white wing as she circled high above. She didn’t see any sign of the other three Seraphim who were supposed to be backing their push, but the plan was already in motion. They couldn’t wait for the winged trio to arrive. Jadis just had to hope that their support wasn’t needed, or that the Seraphim would arrive in time to help if it was.
Raising her hammer high into the air, Jay made the signal letting both Severina and Noll know that she was ready. A second later, she dropped the hammer. Then all hell broke loose.
Dys and Syd sprinted forward, using Knight’s Daring Charge to move as fast as possible into close range with the Dead Head Matriarch. Weapons raised, they struck at the same time, their coordination as perfect as inhumanly possible. In the same instant, Noll attacked from the north, having previously circled around to get to the top of the city wall. His curved sword slashed through the air with lightning speed as he attacked the Demon in conjunction with Jadis’ dual attack. From above, barely a moment behind, Severina divebombed the Matriarch with her shining sword stretched out before her, aimed like the tip of a lance, as she flew at incredible speed towards her target.
Walls of magic appeared around the multi-headed Demon. Stone, ice, water, and even the ghostly translucence of pure arcane power flickered into existence as spells were cast with frightening speed by the Dead Head Matriarch. Dys’ axe crashed through a barrier of gray stone only to be caught by a shield of water just behind it. Syd’s sword staff pierced through two layers of ice, shattering both spells completely, then was stopped by a prismatic barrier shaped like a diamond. All of Jadis’ colossal forward momentum was halted as the Demon’s layered spells blocked her attacks.
From Jay’s perspective above the melee, she saw Severina's attack break through a layer of ice that had appeared in the air to block her but then slide off a water barrier that forced the Seraphim to spread her wings wide and pull out of her dive before she smashed bodily onto the ground. Noll faired slightly better, as he cut through an arcane energy shield followed by a stone barrier, but even his attack was forced to halt as the array of defensive spells knocked him off his trajectory and he had to leap back from his charge.
And then came the Demon’s counterattack.
Every one of the Matriarch’s disembodied heads that had not cast defensive spells had instead been drawing offensive runes in the air. As one, the Demon’s spells activated, blasting the area surrounding it in an absolute avalanche of arcane power. Explosions of fire and lightning burned the air as orbs of stone and water hit with concussive force. Spikes of ice shattered in a spray of shrapnel while translucent pure magic rippled the very fabric of reality.
“Holy fuck!”
Jay cursed through gritted teeth as she wrapped her arms around Aila and Eir, covering them completely to block any stray spells or shrapnel from hitting them. Both women had their own protections, like Aila’s Spectral Armor spell, yet Jadis still acted to protect them with her high Fortitude. Even though her magic reserves were limited, and she knew Jadis could take a hit, she felt Aila will her spell shield into life, the circular barrier of arcane energy covering Jay’s back. She also felt Eir’s hands on her chest, filling her with healing energy just as quickly as she was losing health.
Jadis wasn’t sure how much damage the Matriarch’s spells did. As her Dys and Syd selves tumbled away from the force of the magic explosion, her bodies wracked by burning heat, freezing cold, and paralyzing electricity, she watched her health pool jump up and down for several seconds. One instant she was at near full health, the next she had dropped by a thousand points, the next after that she had regained five hundred. The war between the Demon’s deadly magic and Eir’s healing was intense, almost as much as the sensation of being blasted. However, in the end, healing won out over damage as after a handful of seconds, the effects of the arcane spells ended while Eir’s divine power continued.
“Half,” Eir murmured just loud enough for Jay to hear in the echo of the explosion, letting her know that her magic reserves had dipped to the mark of halfway empty.
“Thank you,” Jay squeezed the elf slightly before letting her and Aila go.
Spinning around and putting her head over the edge of the building, Jay caught her first glimpse of the aftermath of the Dead Head Matriarch’s mass cast of spells.
It was pure devastation. The cobblestones of the intersection had been turned to loose rubble while the statue that had once been in the center was completely gone. The stone buildings on the two southern corners survived, but the eastern building which had already been damaged was looking even worse, which was a serious concern. Both buildings still stood, though, as did the city wall to the north, despite being heavily scarred by the spells.
All of the lesser Demons who had been in or near the intersection were gone, destroyed by the Matriarch’s power. The only creature left other than the Matriarch was the sole dead head that it had given birth to moments before, as that lone Demon had been inside the eye of the storm. Most of the mire hounds’ mud remains were splattered further out from the epicenter of the arcane blast, creating small hills of muck against the walls and in the streets.
Dys and Syd rose up from these piles of befouled earth, weapons still in her hands. Despite the power of the Demon’s spells, she had maintained her grips on both sets of arms and her awareness. With any and all damage she had suffered already healed by Eir’s power, Jadis immediately leapt into action, charging straight back at the Matriarch.
The failure to cut through the Demon’s initial defenses had been expected. They were all experienced enough to know that a Matriarch of such a potent variety of Demon would likely have strong enough spells to block the attacks they made, as well as have the power to counterattack. However, magic wasn’t infinite, and the store of reserves the Dead Head Matriarch possessed wasn’t bottomless. With the first strike made, it was time for the push.
As Dys and Syd charged once more into the fray with the Matriarch, Jay looked for Severina and Noll. Sev was easy enough to spot, as she had dodged the brunt of the spell attacks by dint of the fact that her own dive had resulted in a glancing blow, so she had already been flying away when the Demon’s attack spells activated. Jay saw her winged form circling around to come back in on another dive, this time coming from the south. Far beyond her armored figure, Jay saw three more beings flying in close formation, the center one wielding a flaming sword.
“Better late than never,” Jay mumbled as she turned and scanned the area for a sign of Noll.
It took a moment, during which Jadis’ two other selves collided with the Matriarch in an explosion of more shields and spells. In the flash of fire and ice, Jay spotted her mentor’s figure stagger to his feet from where he had landed against the city wall to the northwest. He looked unsteady for a moment, showing that the magic attack had been able to cause some damage to him despite his incredibly high CLR. However, after a shake of his shaggy head, Noll pulled a small vial from his belt pouch, popped the cork, and downed the contents in one gulp. With a single flex of his shoulders, the old wolf sprinted back into the fight, his curved sword flashing with the light of the Demon’s magic.
If Noll needed healing, Jadis had to trust that he would make the right call and come to Eir instead of pushing his limits too far. She couldn’t waste time watching over him, not when she had other problems to focus on. Namely, the Demon Matriarch that she just couldn’t seem to hit.
Dys sliced her axe in a diagonal blow that was meant to cut one of the Demon’s tentacles and sever a head from its grasp, but was blocked by another ice shield that materialized before her attack could land. The head she had been aiming for whipped back and away from her reach while another moved in from her right, eyes glowing red as a stream of fire blasted from its open mouth. Dys jumped back and to the left, avoiding the flame attack, while simultaneously swinging her battleaxe at the next closest head. Another barrier appeared, this time made of stone, causing just enough of a deflection to prevent her from cutting down her target. In the next instant, another head’s eyes glowed blue as multiple arcs of cutting water were shot in her direction, forcing her to dodge again.
The Matriarch was no longer attacking in one giant blast, but it was still spamming the myriad shields it had in its arsenal to prevent her from landing any decisive blows, while simultaneously casting smaller spells that Jadis was still forced to avoid to prevent herself from being overwhelmed. As Dys dodged around in a dance of death, Syd did the same on the Matriarch’s other flank, with much the same results. Only seconds had passed, but the fact that the Demon was holding her off for even that long without taking any damage was both impressive and intensely frustrating.
Still, the more Dys and Syd attacked, the more heads the Matriarch dedicated to attacking her. And, as Noll dove into the attack from another side, even more of the Demon’s attention was split. When the old wolf’s blade succeeded in slicing one tentacle, cutting a head off from the Demon’s control, Jadis could see that it was only a matter of time before they wore the Matriarch down enough that they would be able to get at the abomination’s core. And, as Severina made another flyby attack that split a head that had been attacking Syd in half, the Matriarch seemed to realize its situation too.
Suddenly all of the heads that had been occupied with Dys and Noll switched to full defensive measures. At the same time, every extra head that had been circling around the Demon to cover blind spots swarmed Syd. A barrage of water, lightning, and ice spells were blasted in her direction, forcing her to stumble back. While she tried to dodge out of the way, many of the attacks still landed, sending painful spikes of electricity through Syd that were amplified by the water soaking her. Worse, the ice spells crusted her armor, clogging the joints and making it hard to move. One particular ice spell caught her in the head, covering her helm in a layer of frost that she couldn’t see through.
“Fucking got ‘em!” Jay shouted in excitement as the Demon focused on her other self.
It was exactly the response she had been hoping for.
Kerr’s arrow sped through the air like a rocket, unhindered by any shield or spell. Jadis and Noll had been careful to position themselves so that the Matriarch’s heads that focused on them would leave a large gap, big enough that there would be nothing between the Demon’s body and the southeastern building where Kerr stood. It was a perfect opening, one that the archer took full advantage of, just as they had planned.
The Demon’s body shuddered as Kerr’s empowered arrow pierced its exposed chest. Jadis knew the strength behind one of her lover’s arrows was enough to fell most enemies in one shot. She didn’t expect that to be the case for a Matriarch, however, she did expect the arrow to go right through the Demon, taking a huge chunk of health with it.
What she did not expect was to see the arrow go barely a few inches into the Dead Head’s flesh. The momentary confusion cleared as Jadis saw the runes carved into the Matriarch’s skin shimmer and glow as if in reaction to the damage done. Some kind of flesh-reinforcing spell had blocked the arrow, at least partially.
Jay scowled at the realization, but she didn’t panic. She could see that the Matriarch was already pulling its heads back, reacting defensively to being struck. That just gave her Dys self, Severina, and Noll more room to maneuver as they pressed their attacks. When the spell-casting Demon responded by lashing out at them, another opening was made, and Kerr took a second shot.
This time, before her arrow could land, the lone dead head that had been born no more than a handful of minutes before, stepped in the way of the shot. A spell rippled into life, the Demon’s first attempt at casting; a red shield made of flames. The first spell became the last as Kerr’s arrow went right through the flame barrier, piercing through the dead head’s broken body. In the next instant, it collapsed to the ground, once more a corpse. However, its purpose had been fulfilled, as it gave its life to protect its putrescent mother.
With the second arrow blocked, the Matriarch pulled all of its tentacle heads in close to its body. Walls of ice and stone appeared around it in a dome ten feet in diameter. Shaking off the effects of the spells she had been struck with, Syd joined Dys and Noll as they ran up to the spell-born shell and began pounding on it, trying to get at the Demon hiding within.
Jadis didn’t believe for a second that the Matriarch was trying to get away. No, it was buying time, gearing up for another powerful spell. She could feel it under her skin and in her bones. It was that same prickling sensation that she got when she stood too close to the overwhelmingly powerful spell walls of the capital. A massively intense spell was being cast, and whatever its effect was going to be, Jadis didn’t want to give the Demon time to complete it.
As all focus was put onto the entrenched Matriarch, Jay almost missed the shadow of movement going up the side of the eastern building where Kerr was perched. By the time she did notice, the large, multi-limbed figure had already made it to the top of the partially collapsed roof and was making a straight shot for the archer, who hadn’t noticed the shadow’s approach as she was focused on the attack in the street below.
“Kerr just won another bet…” Jay murmured with a smirk under her helmet.
Just before the Demon could strike, it froze in place, completely unmoving as all its limbs locked up in a familiar effect that came from a certain goblin’s paralyzing spell.
From the shadows of the other side of the roof came the glow of a blue lantern. The light worked at odds with the partial translucence effect that Sorcha’s spells had given Bridget, but that hardly mattered now that the trap had been sprung. A burst of azure flame struck the paralyzed Greater Demon, lighting the creature up and making all attacks against it deal additional damage. An instant later, Thea was stabbing her venomous spear into the face of the stalking Demon, her partially obscured body having been almost completely invisible where she had crouched in the shadows by Kerr’s feet. As Thea and Bridget both began beating on the motionless, horse-sized figure, a third woman, also partially transparent, leapt onto the Demon’s back and began tearing into the creature’s spine with sharp claws. Meli struck fast, slicing away at the enemy with so much speed that Jay could barely see her movements.
They had known there were two Greater Demons lurking around the Dead Head Matriarch. Since both had been described as acting as assassins that struck at the back lines and at perceived vulnerabilities, Aila had suggested they make an opening to lure one or both of the Greater Demons in. Better to tackle the enemy on their terms, rather than get hit from behind when they were focused elsewhere. So, they had laid two traps, one on either roof that overlooked the intersection.
Kerr had, naturally, wagered that the Demon would go after her since she would be seen as a lone target on the other rooftop. Jadis had bet against her, guessing that the hit-and-run style tactics of the two Greater Demons meant that they were likely smart, and would probably see a single archer standing alone as an obvious trap. She figured that they would avoid Kerr and instead try to sneak up on Jay and the two mages, which was why Aila had placed arcane spell traps all over the back and sides of the flat roof they stood on.
Jadis wasn’t disappointed to be wrong, not when they had managed to catch a Greater Demon so neatly in their ambush. The one errant thought that crossed her mind as she glanced at the attack was which Demon had been caught in their plan. She assumed it was the Shrieking Cur, since what she could see of the large creature looked like it was the same color as the mire hounds, and it had four vaguely wolf-like legs and an upper torso with four arms, so it was basically the same shape as its smaller kin.
When Sorcha’s spell wore off a few seconds later and the spine-tingling screech of an inhuman beast came from the severely wounded Demon, Jadis figured her assumption had been right.
Before the Shrieking Cur could do more than shake Meli off its back, Kerr turned around and, with an almost indifferent gesture, shot the Demon in its head. That was apparently enough to finish the job, as the eight-limbed centaur collapsed onto the ground in a heap.
Jadis could already hear the complaints coming from Bridget about Kerr stealing kills. However, she didn’t focus on the group across the street. Her attention was on the sphere of spell shields that her other two selves, Noll, and Severina were tearing apart. She could still feel the power of the spell building in the air, and she was sure the other two could feel it as well. They were all working hard to break the dome and get at the matriarch inside before it could finish its casting.
“Sev, back up!” Dys shouted at her Seraphim lover. “Give me some space!”
Severina took to the air, her wings flapping as she moved away from the top of the stone and ice sphere where she had been hacking at it with her sword. Leaping on top, Dys held up one hand while tossing her axe into the air. Jay’s throw was spot on, as her other self caught the huge hammer she had thrown, and in the next second, Jay caught Dys’ axe, completing the weapon exchange. Dys immediately began slamming the massive maul down onto the magically generated barrier. Cracks formed across the surface, but even with Syd there to trigger Mirrored Strikes and Noll’s not inconsiderable help, it still took several more seconds for them to break through the Matriarch’s exceptionally durable shield.
When the dome finally broke, Dys and Syd tore through the shattered stone and ice, pulling it apart. Noll struck at the figure within before even Jadis could attack, slicing the body into pieces with an almost supersonic stroke of his blade.
“What the fuck?” Syd cursed in confusion upon seeing the ruined corpse. “Where’s the Matriarch?”
The body inside the dome, now lying on the ground in multiple pieces, wasn’t the Matriarch. It was the newborn dead head Kerr had killed with her arrow. The Demon had already been dead when they pulled open the shield sphere, though for that split second it had looked like it had been standing upright. At a glance, Jadis realized why. The corpse’s legs were half buried in the disturbed ground, propping it up and making it looked like it had been standing on its feet when in reality, it had just been planted into the earth like a stake.
“It’s gone under the ground,” Noll growled as he started backing away from the broken sphere.
“Fucking shit,” Dys cursed as she realized the old veteran was right. “Did it retreat?”
The ground inside of the dome showed signs of spell work, having been pulled up and then smoothed back down as the Demon had tunneled away without them seeing. Where the Matriarch had gone, Jadis couldn’t tell, but what she could still sense was that ever-increasing feeling of a massive spell being cast. It had grown to the point that Jadis’ hair was starting to stand up inside of her helmets.
“You can feel that, right?” Aila asked from where she stood next to Jay. “That spell… it’s so…”
“I can feel it,” Jay said as she gritted her teeth in frustration. “But I don’t know where that damn Dead Head went! It’s going to cast now, I’m certain. We should back off before—”
“No!” Aila cut her off. “That’s not coming from the Matriarch!”
Aila was holding her hands up, with either arm stretched out to her sides, as though she were trying to feel something in the air. Turning her head to the east, Aila looked in the direction of the stone pillars that mostly blocked the view of the Demon Prince Vinea. When Jay’s eyes looked that way as well, she saw that all of her companions on the other building had their heads turned towards the massive wyrm as well. Beyond, she could see a faint movement, though with as obscured as the Demon was, she couldn’t tell for sure what it was doing.
The other thing she saw caused a swell of panic to crawl up inside of Jadis’ hearts. Or rather, it was a thing that she didn’t see.
“Where are all the mire hounds?”
All of the lesser Demons that had been running through the intersection had been blasted by the Dead Head Matriarch’s magic, but that was just a small number compared to the greater horde of Demons that were flowing into the city. Even with the ones that were being killed off as collateral damage in the fight between her group and the Matriarch, there should have been hundreds of the lesser Demons charging through the streets to get at them or other targets. Except, despite the fact that the spell-slinging Demon had gone full defensive for almost a minute, no more mire hounds had flooded into the intersection. In fact, she couldn’t see any of the other Demons at all.
“Move!” Noll shouted, his gruff voice turning the command into a snapping bark. “Now!”
Just as Dys, Syd, and Noll scattered, the ground under their feet trembled, then shook like an earthquake, causing them to stumble. And then the world heaved.
Jay could do nothing but watch as her mentor and her other two selves were tossed twenty feet into the air as the ground under their feet lifted. What had to be literally hundreds of tons of rock was violently thrown upwards. Then, even more violently, the circular section of the ground that encompassed nearly the entire three-way intersection, slammed down.
Dys, Syd, and Noll were smashed down into a pit that was at least thirty feet deep. The crash and rumble of sundered stone shook the teeth in her heads as Jadis was thrown down onto the ground. Even her Jay self fell to her knees as the world shook. Aila and Eir clung onto her, their hands holding on for dear life as the building under them trembled like it might collapse. While Jay clutched onto her two lovers, her Dys and Syd selves had no one to hold onto at all, not even themselves, as they were spread out from each other in their attempt to flee.
As the spell ended and the world settled, Jay gasped for breath while checking her status sheet. She’d taken a hit to her health, but overall, the damage wasn’t bad. Barely anything, really. She’d lost no more than a hundred points from the attack, even if it had rocked her heads unlike almost anything else she had experienced. Since so little damage had been done, though, she had to wonder what the purpose of the spell was, other than sticking her into a big fucking hole—
“Jadis! Run! Run now! Get out!”
Jadis’ thoughts froze as Dys and Syd looked up, rolling over from their prone positions on the compressed earth beneath them. Jay followed suit, her eyes wide as she saw Severina hovering over the hole, screaming down at her two selves. Noll was already moving, clawing his way up the side of the pit, but Dys and Syd were only just then reacting. Using every ounce of Strength within her selves, Jadis threw her two bodies forward and into the air, trying to get clear of the hole.
Above Severina, its form cast in the shadow of the night, was Demon Prince Vinea. The colossal wyrm had lifted its head high, the tumbling of the broken wall it had pushed its ugly face through just another noise that had blended in with the sounds of the spell. Jadis hadn’t noticed it had moved. Nor had she realized that the spell being cast hadn’t been coming from the Dead Head Matriarch, but had actually been coming from Vinea.
With its five-pointed jaw closed, the Demon had positioned itself so that it was looking directly down into the pit it had created. Then, with a groaning noise that vibrated inside the bones of every creature within a mile, Vinea opened its mouth. From it spewed forth the horde of mire hounds that it had been holding back for just this purpose.
Before Dys and Syd could clear the lip of the pit, they were buried alive under a landslide of Demons.
229