Automatons, motion breathed into vague facsimiles of blessed, incarnate form, arose as a swarm around the Lions, a dervish within the tomb. Blades flashed, clattering and clicking artifice threatened to engulf the force, a death by a thousand cuts to herd their troop into the wooden golem the witch had chosen as her initial champion.

Iron whirled. Streaking comets fell upon the shadows. Sparks flashed as the dolls tore against a mighty shield, only to receive a crushing blow to scatter them in turn.

No matter how sharp or chaotic the wind that surrounded them, it would break upon a wall. Istvan knew well the value of harassing from the flanks, encircling, nipping at heels to tire and overwhelm a foe, pulling their attention and strength apart thread by thread. It was how he had built his prestige within the Demet lands, how he had wrangled common brigands into dedicated raiders, how he had hunted mighty stags in the forests, flanked by well-bred hounds.

He knew the game, and how it in turn was broken.

"I have your backs!" he called, bashing aside another of the lessers as he stomped over to guard the rear of the party, filling the hole left in the "vanguard's" rear line as they focused on the largest of this Witch's examinations. Between his large frame, crushing blows, and sweeping range, he was sure he could lock this area down.

---

Lirrah's explanation wasn't doing much help in clarifying the situation as well as he would have wanted, but the reality was quite inherently absurd to begin with. And her panicked response was doing more to get him more worried about her than his comrades fighting inside the tomb, all intensifying as Irian knelt beside her as her legs gave out. His chest tightened in response to Lirrah's own spasming heart, lending her back a supporting hand. Possibilities began to reek in his head if the witch she mentioned had placed some sort of curse on her, or a disease had rottenly found the time to emerge, or just a common panic-induced incapacitation. He had dealt with the third one many times before in his own compatriots, but Mayon had mercy on his soul if it were the other cases, because he couldn't.

An indecisive sigh weaved through his clenched teeth.

"Got it. Don't worry, take a deep breathe, everything will be alright." Irian gave a gentle pat on Lirrah's shoulder before standing back up. "You can recount that if you're still worried. I will be right back."

It was worse than described. The cacophony of clashing steel with unsettling clickers of whatever made up their ghastly peels caused an instinctual rush of chill up beneath his own. And there were way more than just the one large one described. He came in just in time for these little hyper-demons to pop up from the debris.

"What a horror show." Irian mused, readying a glowing arrow aiming straight at the closest target to him, the tip bursting at the seams with magical undercurrent; the explosive arrows ready to bust open these hollow dolls. The shot would be fired at the joints, before two more were readied at the same time, reserved for any opportunistic ones attacking the main party.

@Octo

Although she was more outwardly calm than the merchant that had run off to get backup, Gisela was still internally panicking. This was a witch, and even if they were only being played with or tested, she was a mage with a fairly restricted repertoire of offensive spells. Even if she wanted to try anything, there was no way to target only the dolls whilst excluding their controller, without including all of her allies in the targeted zone as well.

Both were bad choices. And not being able to contribute against someone like this left her with far too much time to worry, eyes going back and forth to check that nobody had gotten injured and in need of attention just yet. Something that she still remained at liberty to do due to the defender right in front of her, ensuring that even if one of those little dolls did push through the ring of knights pushing out towards Tabitha or engaging the much larger enemy--

--it was promptly shattered, even the magical reinforcement not standing up to the force that could be brought down from above in a single swing. As expected, the demon looked rather bored by this lack of a challenge.

Well, this was just great, Roger thought. Just as he angled his spear to deflect his foe's incoming forelimb, he saw things had gotten much more complicated.

The twisted construct was already proving to be a stubborn foe, but now it was only one worry among many. Discarded dolls rose out of the rubble around them, much more crude-looking than the first one but also far more numerous. The Lions would not be able to focus everything on the big one, but would have to split their attention. Having already moved to engage the big doll, Roger wasn't in a position to fend off the smaller ones- he would need to trust in the strength of the others to handle that.

His spear had so far proven ineffective against the doll's hard body, but the Steel Princess had already singled out a weakness- its joints. Velvetica commanded those fighting the large doll to strike at the joints in order to disable the limbs. Complying with his commander's order, Roger raised his spear, gripped it overhand, and thrust it into the doll's nearest elbow joints. The Steel Princess' tactical acumen had always paid off before, and he trusted that it would continue to do so, even against a foe they had never fought before.

@VitaVitaAR

Again, Kayliss could not express enough just how much she hated cryptic mages at this moment. It was heartening to see at least one of her knives doing something to the primary doll, though she'd likely need to close to melee range to land a telling blow on it. The additional dolls rising to their feet was just adding insult to injury. That bitch just couldn't help herself but overcomplicate something needlessly complicated already. Despite her irritation, Kayliss barely twitched her lips as she drew her short sword and parrying dagger.

She was better suited to fighting single opponents in open battle, and was already engaged regardless. There was no point in her disengaging to help some of the others hold back the oncoming horde. Best to pinpoint weaknesses on the largest doll and bring it down as soon as possible. With that in mind, she followed the lead of Urden and Roger and dashed in after them.

As the mercenary and the griffin knight made their attacks, Kayliss juked around them and towards the back of the main doll. The Crownsblade pinpointed the two shoulder joints from the doll's back, moving in. Both of her blades flipped around point-first, and she drove them towards one shoulder each, aiming to impale both of its upper joints.

The Witch seemed entirely unphased, even as several of her less massive dolls shattered. Hard impacts or sharp edges seemed quite sufficient for the smaller ones, as Velvetica quickly realized.

Starshine's edge cleaved cleanly through a doll's torso, and she adjusted her grip in order to swing the blade back before the doll fell. One arm was severed, and moments later the blade cut through that black face and parted the doll's head entirely.

It no longer moved after that, but it was easy to tell that simply cutting it in half wasn't enough. The upper half had continued to move, to try and reach her, even in the single moment between its bisection and the final blow.

"These dolls need to be thoroughly disabled!" she took a step back as another lunged for her, swiftly responding by skewering it through one of its empty eyes and then cutting the head from its shoulders, "Destroy the head and arms, or as much of the torso as possible!"

The giant, inhuman doll's limbs twisted in patterns impossible for a living being. It was certainly far more durable then the smaller dolls, but...

Urden's axe spike slamming into one of its joints definitely gave it something of a jolt, and shards of white came scattering from the impact. Those were definitely cracks in the joint, and the afflicted sword arm twitched in an awkward fashion unlike its smooth motions prior before bending backwards in a bid to skewer the mercenary through his head.

Roger's thrust spear, too, found its purchase in the doll's joint. While it caused less direct visible damage to the construct's limb, at the same time it wasn't without an effect. It interrupted the motion of the doll's attempted counterattack, and while there was less visible damage that hardly meant none.

Before either of its strikes could complete, the sharp daggers lodging into is shoulder joints caused the doll to momentarily go rigid. The damage here was obviously, cracks lining the joints. They had not yet shattered, but it wouldn't take much more to do it.

It swiftly abandoned its attacks on the men and bent its arms at damaged elbows, in a bid to reach Kayliss and cleave her apart.

And yet, Velvetica saw her opening.

Light danced along Starshine's edge. Cape flapping behind her, the Steel Princess darted forward, the tip of her blade finding the joint in the doll's middle limb on its right side. The point, aided by the magical energy enrobing the sword, penetrated the doll's exterior, and with a flash the light was released.

The joint crumbled, and the doll staggered as one of its legs fell away, offering a clear opportunity to the others to press their assault!

@Raineh Daze@Rin@AzureKnight@Psyker Landshark@The Otter@VKAllen@Eisenhorn@Crimson Paladin@Conscripts@HereComesTheSnow@Octo@PigeonOfAstora

Urden wrenched the axe back from the joint with a grin, hefting and resetting his position as his allies beset the slaughter doll from all several sides. 'Hector' landed another spear strike, which created the opening for him to get himself situated for another heavy handed, aggressive strike, the doll's seemingly single minded efforts to change targets based on whoever hit it last meant he could have the rare luxury to ready himself for another braced, charged swing. Sure enough, the Crownsblade made good on her own talents, lashing out at the weak points that had not been targeted yet and doubled up. Given she favored two weapons instead of one, it made sense, though the slaughter doll seemed to very much not appreciate the fact that it was being assailed so heavily.

Boss jumped in before the slaughter doll could really focus its assault on the Crownsblade, and put that fancy sword of hers to real good use. The thrust practically disintegrated the afflicted limb and ended up causing the slaughter doll to stagger and create a significant opening. The damage to the torso, and the sight of some of the smaller dolls having been destroyed in a similar manner, meant he had an opening to confirm that the others could finish the thing off. With it staggered, he hefted the axe and eyed where he had first struck with the blade half of the weapon. If a crack had formed from there, and the repeated blows to the limbs could have softened it up, so with a grunt he aimed a downwards slam with all the force he could muster, aiming to smash the thing down and pin it in place long enough to let the others get killing blows in once and for all. With the amount of limb damage already, Urden favored his odds to hold it in place long enough to let the others finish the thing off.

Lirrah couldn't much answer Irian, and could only sputter unintelligibly in response to his trying to comfort her, but she appreciated it all the same. She wanted to close her eyes. She wanted to deprive herself of one sense to mitigate the flood of information that was turning her brain into soup, but every time she tried, she imagined that danger would pounce on her and catch her unawares. Her eyes were her only weapon against the fear, but also her greatest weakness.

The Lamia, it appeared, was looking back at her on occasion when there was a lull in the combat. What did she want? Maybe she was looking down on Lirrah for being a weak coward. Perhaps she was disappointed in how pathetic the tiny merchant really was.

Well, Lirrah had come all this way. She'd helped out a lot. She'd done more than anyone could have expected, so ducking out now should be completely acceptable, right? Why was everyone always looking down on her?

Lirrah's perfectly polished and manicured nails raked the stonework beneath her, roughly chipping and grating as tears fell from her eyes.

The night, as a whole, stretched her thinner and thinner over the proceedings, and this was the breaking point. First, she was only illuminating the enemy. Then, she was shooting them in the back while they fled. Then, staking her life in a potentially trapped tomb. The Witch? Ridiculous. It was too much for her tiny Nem heart, especially after all of the other things. She'd snapped, and now all she could do was claw at the ground as paranoid thoughts ran through her head about how everyone she had gotten to know in the Lions would hate her. That is, if they got out alive at all.

How could they all be so brave? How were they not clawing at the ground in anguish? Not rolled up in a whimpering ball? It made Lirrah feel like the odd one out, but this wasn't normal. There had to be some madness behind their courage. Some failing that somehow made her cowardice acceptable. But the woman who saved her life was heading up the charge, so if they were the flawed ones, what did that make Lirrah?

Damn. The doll's limbs were still functional enough to make a strike against her. Kayliss hissed in frustration, desperately twisting back to try to avoid its grasping arms. She wasn't going to make it before the slash connected-

The commander's thrust saved Kayliss, her strike slowing the doll enough to allow the assassin to whirl back and evade the doll's strike completely. Urden's continued assault pinned the doll in place and gave her time to recover, coming up in a crouch from her frantic evasion. Kayliss narrowed her eyes as she planned her attack, flipping her short sword and dagger around into reverse grips before leaping up into the air.

She came plunging down onto the pinned doll, this time aiming for a presumably lethal blow by thrusting the tips of her blades through the shoulder joints she'd already damaged. With any luck, Kayliss's blows would destroy the joints completely and sever the doll's arms from its body, neutering its threat near totally.

They finally began to make progress on the monstrous doll. Kayliss struck at its joints, giving Velvetica an opening to destroy one of its limbs. The fight wasn't over yet, though. The creature's tough exterior was still holding together, and it still had plenty of limbs with which to make trouble.

So far the Griffin Knight's spear hadn't done much damage, but his attacks had at least managed to disrupt its attempts to strike at Urden. It also looked like the joint he struck had sustained some damage- perhaps another blow would worsen the wound.

Seeing that the creature was momentarily momentary imbalance from losing one of its limbs, Roger swung his spear at the joint, hoping to take advantage of its staggered state and further disrupt its balance. Perhaps the impact from swinging it would have more effect than stabbing at the hard porcelain body.

---

While some dolls fell where they stood, others had different ideas. Despite having half its torso blown out by an air burst arrow, the smaller doll rose from the cold ground to have at the wood elf, its cold lifeless eyes reflected his own. Only through a last second block using a combat dagger on one hand and his own bow on the other would Irian avoid a bloody spill.

He could feel the doll's strength pressing against his own, as evident as he edged his eyes closer to it's.

"How're you doing, eh?" He gave the doll a sneer, before gaining the strength to push the doll away from him. His hand quickly sheathed his knife, drew an arrow endowed in his homebrewn magic power and loosed an easy shot onto its head. This one should kill it for good.

Turning to the larger doll, his allies' efforts had bore fruits. Quite good ones in fact, having disabled one of its limbs, and sharks are smelling blood in the water. Kayliss's own handiwork also bore results in the form of a crack in its arms. Anticipating a full break in the arm, Irian drew another one of his air burst type arrow and drew it to standby if that arm were to sever. Such an arrow right to its torso from the broken rift that generated from its arms could severely damage its body.

The sound of cracking, crumbling porcelain.

The doll reeled as the joints of its foremost set of limbs snapped and shattered, its bladed arms detaching at the shoulder as it staggered backwards. While it wasn't likely such an entity could suffer pain, it had to be aware it just lost its main form of offense. Unable to even sacrifice its limbs as a shield, the arrow struck it squarely in the chest.

The eruption of magically enhanced air pressure blew open its body with a flash of light, scattering fragments of white to the ground and exposing a black hole rimmed with jagged edges. The upper half of the doll left the ground, balancing on its rear limbs only briefly from the impact, exposing the catastrophic damage to its torso. While it was still in one piece, the gap revealing whatever darkness laid inside of it took up a significant portion of its body.

Hewing the head from another of the smaller dolls, Velvetica straightened. It was no longer moving, slowly teetering back.

And the Witch, Tabitha, was clapping.

"My my, what a fantastic performance! Disarming my spider doll that way, such quick thinking~"

She smiled brightly. Velvetica narrowed her eyes. This 'test' had only served to slow them down. They had to-

"However, it isn't much of a test if it ends here, is it~?"

-The doll straightened.

Its three remaining arms suddenly lashed to its sides, snatching the bladed limbs of the smaller dolls. With a swift, effortless tug, it ripped them from its fellow constructs, gripping the razor-edged appendages in each of its remaining hands.

The giant doll was not finished, yet.

"Tch...! Aim for the damaged spot in its torso. It'll be too difficult to-"

A blade hurtled towards her. Velvetica swung Starshine up, and with a resounding clash was sent skidding backwards across the floor.

But she didn't lose her footing, nor did it do more then give her a brief pause.

"-disable all the remaining limbs, so break it apart!"

The remaining arms were blurring, lashing out, thrusting towards the nearest attackers.

Defense, or evasion, were key.

@Raineh Daze@Rin@AzureKnight@Psyker Landshark@The Otter@VKAllen@Eisenhorn@Crimson Paladin@Conscripts@HereComesTheSnow@Octo@PigeonOfAstora

Urden watched the slaughter doll recoil under the barrage of attacks, its main means of offense apparently disabled. About damn time, as he watched the enchanted arrow strike true and put some serious hurt on the damned doll. It had been blown up and back briefly, revealing the black void inside of the thing. If he were a learned man he might be able to give some thought to what all that meant, but he wasn't, so he was just going to accept it worked, because it clearly did, but the clapping interrupted his train of thought. He was still closest to the thing, having wrenched his axe clear in time for the aforementioned arrow to have done its notable work. Apparently the test wasn't done yet, and of course the slaughter doll and its creator had more tricks up their sleeves. Stealing weapons off the small dolls that were left, Urden made ready to keep up the attack when the thing lashed out in all directions, forcing his hand sooner rather than later.

Too close to evade, he wasn't that quick, and Urden very obviously lacked heavy armor to simply ignore the attacks. Rather than make some effort to dodge, Urden made an attack of his own, aiming to intercept the incoming attack with his own. He would pit his own axe and strength against this desperation attack by the slaughter doll, he wasn't going to be put on the back foot without a damn good reason. And if this worked he could keep up the initiative of attacking the doll rather than letting it create any sort of breathing room for itself. Orders were to aim for the damaged torso, and that wouldn't happen by letting it turn the momentum against them.

This was getting more tiresome than it already was. And Kayliss regarded this entire situation as utterly so. The fact that the doll wasn't finished even with its primary armament disabled wasn't surprising, but still irritating. If Kayliss didn't have to actually face the damned thing herself, she'd say it was simply good design. But considering she was on the other end of it at the moment? Her temptation to hurl a blade at the Witch herself instead was growing by the second.

Fortunate that she only had to deal with one arm while Velvetica and Urden were dealing with the other two. Kayliss stepped back from the initial strike, bringing her short sword up to parry the next few. The commander's orders were sensible, yet vexing for her personally. Kayliss wasn't exactly equipped for outright destroying something, especially wood. In this scenario, her best chance to fulfill her orders was to create an opening for someone better suited to the situation to make use of. Such as the archer that had made such an impressive hole in the doll to begin with.

The bladed limb came in again, and Kayliss raised both her short sword and dagger to catch it between them this time. With a grunt of exertion, she twisted her blades, aiming to disarm the doll of its latest weapon. In that window, hopefully one of the others would spot the opportunity and take it.

The large doll had been severely damaged by the Lions' many blows. Unfortunately, not unlike a wounded boar, being (figuratively) bloodied and maimed seemed to have sent it into a frenzy rather than slowing it down. It had armed itself with the arms- in both meanings of the term- of its fellow constructs, and was now frantically swinging the blades.

Roger took a few steps back from the doll. Getting close would be highly dangerous with its frenzied attacks- best to keep at a distance where he could use his spear's reach to strike when an opening presented itself, and if need be, deflect incoming blows before they could get within reach of him. So long as the others were able to hold off the horde, the four of them should be able to fend off the doll's three arms and get in some counter-attacks...

At least that's what he thought before Urden opted to forego any attempts at defending and instead attacked directly, meeting the doll's blow with his own blow. Even if Urden was able to stop that one particular arm, that'd still leave him in reach of two other limbs. With Kayliss moving to attack a second limb, Roger quickly made the decision to go to the third. The Griffon Knight thrust his spear in the path of the doll's blade, intent on deflecting it away from himself and Urden.

@Eisenhorn

With the fight against the dolls going well, Gisela started to calm down. Of course, it was impossible to ignore that there was an unspeakably powerful mage with reality-warping abilities standing right there, but... she didn't seem too mad about what everyone else was doing. Or interested in exacting immediate violent retribution against the hundi for having the temerity of being an inferior magic user in her presence that was declining to assail her dolls.

And nobody was getting hurt, that was also a bonus.

So, leading her protector further towards the back--best to keep the medic out of danger when she wasn't in a position to cause massive explosions--the mage came across the small merchant on the ground. That was, err...

"Are you well? Injured?"

---

Any joy he had when the doll's torso burst open from his shot was snuffed out when it got into a desperate but deadly frenzy with whatever limbs it could salvage from its dead comrades, creating a wicked eldritch of a creature, or...thing. Combined with the witch's excited congratulations, it pissed him off. This was some sort of game? Messing around with people's livelihood for fun? The wood elf wanted to shoot that woman dead where she stood before his own rationale calmed the ego that she was much stronger than he was, and such act would just doom everyone involved. But a long sigh still escaped his lips nonetheless.

That audible exhale seemed to disappear once the doll continued its warpath, and the eyes of the far forest zeroed in on its torso. An assembly of porcelain still in one piece despite suffering such catastrophic damage, held together by seemingly nothing. An empty void. But was it actually empty? Regardless, whatever that is in there, if it hadn't collapsed to his explosive arrows by now, maybe it would need more explosive arrows.

Standing from a further distance than the other melee-oriented combatants, Irian took more time with his few aims, aiming for the cracks and holes created by his own handiwork seconds prior, loosening the arrows only when he felt a bullseye would be certain.

Such fun they were having.

Letting the attacks of the little ones wither and die against the wall of his shield had given him, by now, fairly robust insight— all things swung a blade, be it by flesh or by thaumaturgy, in a discernible pattern. As automatons it was rare for them to tire, but such was little concern to the southron knight. No matter how spirited and endurant the assault, eventually the dolls ran out of arms, ran out of blades.

When such time came, it was a simple matter of crushing them. Didn't matter how— flail, bash, or sabaton heel, all worked well as anything else. Swinging his flail low, he sent a pair in a high, scattered arc, the pieces clattering to the floor a beat later, in the mage's wake. A glance over the shoulder, as Velvetica's orders sailed in from behind.

Couldn't have said it better himself. A fortune for their fellows that he was old and wise enough that his hot blood—

"Ma'am." he grunted, punting one of the lesser dolls clear from her path as she skidded to a halt close by. "Almost done back here. Go enjoy yourself."

— hadn't boiled over at the opportunity to earn some petty glory by excelling in breaking something to shards, limb by limb. For the Goddesses' sake, the rowdy youth that had boisterously presented a bandit's head to an early holding court would have gotten them all stung to death by these little bees.

A rising star like theirs, burnt out by a rookie mistake like that? Bah.

No.

Kayliss's efforts bore fruit, and one of the doll's newly-acquired weapons was torn off the arm it was attached to at its base, far less durable then the larger doll itself had proven to be. And yet, it raised its arm and threw the one it was wielding down sharply, in a bid to hit the assassin with it.

Urden was of course able to block one of the thrusting limbs, but the other was swift to swing in from the side, in a bit to skewer the mercenary through his torso.

Sir Roger's timely intervention was key, clashing with the razor-edged blade and sending it off-course, the doll recoiling and shifting back with its two remaining weapons in order to resume its frantic thrusting, attempting to re-arm itself with another pilfered limb from a nearby doll.

Starshine blazed bright once more.

"Thank you, Sir Istvan," Velvetica responded, her blue eyes narrowing at the construct, "I shall indeed."

Her opening was in this very instant. With the remaining dolls distracted, and the monstrous one temporarily in retreat, she had only an instant to make her attack.

She would ensure the doll would be finished.

The blonde girl took one step forward, her cape fluttering as she moved, raising Starshine parallel to her head, the hilt in both hands. An opening, on the side where she removed one of its limbs, its arms lunging for Sir Roger and Urden.

The girl erupted forward. Strike swiftly. Strike truly. Pierce.

The light built, brighter now, along Starshine's blade, glowing more intensely by the moment, illuminating the chamber, the broken forms of the fallen dolls.

She reached the doll's undefended flank in an instant.

"Shatter!"

With Velvetica's command, Starshine's light grew brighter, casting the entire room in its glow, and with a flash it erupted forward. A chunk of the doll's waist was suddenly gone, evaporated in a single blow, the construct teetering, unable to hold up much longer as further cracks ran through its frame.

It was still a threat, but now its crumbling body had been sent off-course, its limbs flailing. A sold blow to the upper torso would finish it...!

"Finish it now!"

@Raineh Daze@Rin@AzureKnight@Psyker Landshark@The Otter@VKAllen@Eisenhorn@Crimson Paladin@Conscripts@HereComesTheSnow@Octo@PigeonOfAstora

Urden knew damn well that if the others hadn't followed in turning the attack back on the doll he'd probably be in fairly dire straits and adding a number of new scars to his collection, but fortunately it seemed his allies understood the need to make sure that the slaughter doll wasn't given the chance to start building up momentum. The others kept the smaller dolls off them, which was necessary to let the handful engaged with the slaughter doll to remain doing so, meeting the limbs it was trying to use to overwhelm any one of them alone. Sure enough, Boss lunged in again, that fancy sword of her flaring up once more before unleashing a blast that tore out a chunk of the slaughter doll. Having battered aside the attack, he shifted his grip again, eying up the situation as the Boss barked orders once again. Simple too, bring the thing down, and he stepped in at the side of the doll's waist still loosely intact, shards and cracks aside.

"You got it, Boss!"

With that, the mercenary aimed the axe squarely for its side, aiming to finally shatter the damned doll in one more good swing. It's what he did best, really, crashing and smashing through defenses, his own be damned. And with it off balanced and barely holding together, he was inclined to suspect that it should only take one more arm shuddering swing to finally break the thing into a bunch of broken shards and finally stop coming after them. Then the Witch could go on about some cryptic nonsense and wander off, and as far as he was concerned that would suit him fine. Still, that remained to be seen, for now, focus on the task at hand. Finally putting this damned slaughter doll down once and for all.