A5G

Into the Land of Twilight

The golem's head moved, tracking and rapidly shifting between different illusions. It attempted to do something, red lines glowing across the armor before it abruptly crackled with static and fizzled with no apparent effect. For a moment it paused, whatever subroutine buried in its artificial mind navigating through the problem.

"ERROR. TERMINATE."

It swung the oversized warhammer with titanic force, the aftereffect cracking like a bullwhip as it passed through the probing illusions. The golem wielded the weapon with textbook mastery, its grip alternating between wide and controlled swing as it just barely missed the pillars it passed by.

Ignoring the illusions that was already struck once, it advanced onto Engelbert with a mighty overhead swing. Metallic ring echoed from the impact, the hammerhead meeting the flat of the blade before sliding past, the momentum bleeding ineffectually instead of crushing the knight under.

At this moment Fia seized the opening, a rapidly creeping layer of ice rising underneath the golem. It reacted with unnatural haste, stomping and kicking off just out of the area. The rime caught most of one leg, coating it up to the knee though unlike the illusory invaders earlier the golem was nowhere as vulnerable to the cold.

As if finding a priority target, the cyclopean crimson gleam fixed onto the sorceress. The golem stomped twice, breaking off most of the ice before it bowled forward. It tackled past Engelbert whose attempt of obstruction lasted a grand total of 1.3 seconds before he's bodily shoved aside, shouting compaints about not being made out of a ton of steel.

It was slightly clumsy, crushed ice sticking to its heel making its footing kinda precarious, but even then it stomped forward with the unwavering surety of a mindless creation of magic.

Into the Land of Twilight

"Surely it shouldn't contain enough energy for that kind of damage at this point?" Engelbert voiced with some skepticism, though there's no time to wait for answer when the golem itself roused into activity. Stepping forward ahead of the rest of the party, the knight draw his own sword into a high guard with the tip pointed at the sole enemy. "Seems that it's displeased by our presence. Leave it to me!"

Closer and closer, it was increasingly apparent that the golem was... big. Made him felt like a malnourished teenager before a barbarian wildman. Would be so much better if Forbann was here, but he felt that the golem wouldn't allow anyone to disengage to get the big oni.

Oh well, time to earn his keep.

He'll maintain a defensive posture, to deflect incoming blow away should the golem attack the moment it got into range. Test out how strong it was, exactly. Once the capability was gauged, he can engage it for real. Engelbert was likely weaker than the golem as far as raw physical might went, but he should be resilient enough to not be instantly swept away.

Into the Land of Twilight

"Ah, welcome back!" Engelbert jovially greeted the newly awakened, seeing their eyes flickering back into consciousness. And without any extra shade-inflicted grievous wound either! "Right about time, I believe we are overstaying our welcome- The shrieking howl from the nearby ruin punctuated the statement, the knight gesturing to that general direction. "So let us be on our way, eh?"

The group hurried, curiosity momentarily dampened by the powerful urge of not getting horribly murdered in an illusory world. Following Sir Gray's lead, they rapidly left the more severe spectral infestation into an eeriely quiet part of the ruined town. A large-ish building emerged from the darkness, bigger than any other structures he had seen so far, seemingly untouched by the shade's presence. Whatever enchantment that protected the stone had long since ran its course, rendering the building as mundane - if well built - as any other. Engelbert spared one last glance outside before passing the threshold into the building, the gnarled tips of the dead tree's branch barely visible in the distance like countless crooked fingers clawing at the night sky.

A corvid sat at the remnant of a wall across the munincipal building, though the knight showed no sign of noticing it as he turned and stepped inside.

While he doubted he'd spot anything that may be lurking within before it did, Engelbert didn't slacken on the watch. His glances darted from empty hallways to dark corners, alert for any sign of nefarious intent revealed by the strong beam of Vesemir's lantern. Nothing was apparent though, even as they reached the destination and the elf almost smugly produced a keycard to open the way. Soon enough, however, the latest roadblock made itself known.

"That glint, its weapon is entirely metallic. If it can swing it effectively, even a glancing blow will be devastating." Engelbert observed, sizing up the silent guardian. Actually... looking at the door behind him, and then back at where the golem stood, the thing must be at least half a fold larger than a regular human. He increased the potential threat level of the golem up by a notch, the more mass it could move around the deadlier it would be. "I've dismantled my fair share of golems, but it mostly bears down to giving them severe enough beating until they stops moving. Golems usually still have more vulnerable precision parts to help them move efficiently, these can be damaged even if the outer shell is tougher."

It's more energy efficient to make use of mechanical advantage than to magically animate an empty shell after all. Not to mention how the latter was vulnerable to disruption, physical and otherwise. He wondered how the elven golem would fare after millenia of neglect, but considering how well-preserved everything seemed to be... they'll have a fight in their hands soon.

"I can keep it occupied, does anyone have heavy enough attack to properly damage it?"

Into the Land of Twilight

Seems that despite the illusory nature of the battle, the participating fighters were still shackled by mortal limitations. Willpower could only get so far, the axeman visibly slowed before momentarily halting in place. One could see the laborious breath, the wince from the pain and distraught eyes looking at his falling comrades. But then steel return to his gaze as he took a step forward, weapon raised... only for another pair of arrows finding their way through his eyes.

The rotund soldier unceremoniously fell, no possibility of rising from that. For the most part Roxas went through the entire exchange unharmed, save from some throbbing toes from kicking a steel axehead.

On the other side, the two soldiers watched with despair as the orb of frost intensified. They raised their hands in a desperate bid to halt the incoming attack, the attempt completely ineffective as the temperature dropped into frigid hell. Frostbite rapidly ate into them, freezing flesh and veins alike, their range of motion dropping rapidly until only a pair of half-frozen corpses remained.

The swordsman at the center was stilling already, unnaturally quickly considering the wound. The first to succumb to arrow too were unmoving, and with the last combatant felled it was as if a pulse ran through the area. The view turned blurry, scene of slaughter distorted by black shadows, the ever-present distant whisper taking a cacophonous turn. Only the light ahead was unaffected, a lighthouse that seemed to intensify with every passing second.

Into the Land of Twilight

The first snap of a bowstring served as a signal, the flanking men charging at once. On Roxas' side, the lead swordsman staggered with an arrow piercing his chest. Another found its mark soon after, the projectile whizzing before punching through mail and shirt alike to find purchase in the flesh underneath. He faltered, falling to his knee with a wet gurgle, crimson spittle flowing out of his mouth.

As if uncaring of his fallen comrade, the axeman continued the charge and raised his poleaxe up high. A wide swing was incoming, partial blindness to be compensated by the sizeable arc. The third arrow found purchase in him, somewhere lower in the abdomen, yet whether drunk in adrenaline or the presence of a beer belly the man wasn't much hampered by the damage at the moment.

At the center, Tillius was up against a massively outclassed soldier that perhaps gained a moment of clarity of the fact mere moment before the shield impacted him like an unyielding rampart. Likely not expecting to be on the defensive, he only managed a token swing before his balance broke and he fell backward. A short stab gutted him through the belly before he's halfway down, the simple mail shirt not quite matching up to orcish strength. He impacted the ground, air driven out of his lungs for a moment before reality caught up, then a high-pitched squeal escaped his lips not akin to a pig in a slaughterhouse.

On the other side, a cone of frost buffeted the last pair of soldiers. Woefully unprepared for the sudden onset of winter, the two of them froze in their tracks - literally and figuratively - with ice rooting their boots and frostbite eating at any visible patch of skin. Both of them yelled in confusion, stumbling from their previous momentum before falling flat face-first thanks to their frozen footwear. The fall broke the rime holding them in place, yet even then they had trouble standing back up from the iced ground. Like fishes in a barrel, should anyone have the range or reach to get at them.

Into the Land of Twilight

Thankfully, healing magic seemed to work just fine in the illusion. The wound on Roxas' arm slowly knit back with a wet squelch, the pain receding accordingly. Still largely hidden behind Tillius' hulking figure, the act went largely unnoticed by the incoming assailants. However, the lightshow conjured by Fia was an entirely different matter.

"MAGE!"

The cruel rictus on the soldiers' visage twisted into a different, equally exaggerated wariness as they saw the conjured sphere of light, their charge slowing as they started to scatter away from ground zero in a concerningly disciplined maneuver. Five pair of bloodshot eyes followed the conjuration as it beamed forward, sinking into the ground before torrential blast of searing light erupted in its place.

The sudden brightness illuminated the soldiers, the dark-red splatter and ashen stain on their tabard, the beads of sweat running down their forehead, fresh rivulets of crimson dripping down between crooked teeth. The damage itself was minimum, the frontmost three suffering from some minor burn and laceration, but the magical opening was far from ineffective.

They howled, disconcertingly uniform, momentarily overtaking the noise of distant screams and crackling pyre, shock intermixing with anger as the advance staggered into a halt. Weapons were brandished more to threaten than to gain any advantage, the men too busy trying to blink away the dark spot in the middle of their vision with limited success.

"Harridan! I'll tear out your eyes and feed it to your friends!" Yelled one of them, squinting as the squad continued to try surround the trio albeit much clumsier than before. One of the sword-wielder halted some distance away at the front, momentarily gobsmacked by the sheer size of the tower shield before him while the rest split into a pair of sword and poleaxe on each flank. They'll be in position soon, and likely wouldn't hesitate to begin the assault after.

Into the Land of Twilight

Engelbert couldn't fully shed his worry, but once again the Gray Flame's wisdom shone through not unlike the blazing lantern that illuminated the immediate surrounding. It didn't take long for the first party member to break free of the phantom's grasp, and more soon followed. One of them even bumped at him before exaggeratedly rolling back, fully alert and clearly high-strung from the experience. The knight waved, trying to diffuse the tension and maaaybe stop the foreigner from touching the others.

He wasn't sure why, but he trusted their guide.

"Welcome back. How are you feeling?" He greeted, gesturing noncommitally to the rest. "As you can see, not everyone's out of it yet. They should come back soon though."

If not, well, hopefully there's an alternative method to wake them up. Until then, all Engelbert can do is to be an anchor to ground them to reality and maybe keep the morale up. He's pretty good at that.

Into the Land of Twilight

The lantern intensified, a luminous radiance akin to a miniature star blazing in their midst. The darkness receded, though not entirely - pitch-black spectral remnants remained, undaunted by the light, forever doomed to repeat their last moments over and over again. Engelbert felt their influence trying to worm into his mind, only for it to find no purchase to latch to as it splashed powerlessly away.

A pair of pale-blue orbs lit within his helmet, the night taking a different tone as his perception expand. The miasma was... everywhere. It hung around them, dark mist that obscured and pressed down on the sphere of his sixth sense, rendering it considerably smaller than usual. The phantoms were the greatest concentration of all, their hazy shapes turning into disturbingly clear pitch-black creatures that, as if aware of his sudden perception, turned to stare back.

Engelbert cuts off the sixth sense then and there, the knight not curious enough to find out what will happen if he kept it up. At least they seemed to lose their interest once his senses receded back to mortal limit. An important thing that he noticed, however, was how black tendrils of miasma extended from the creatures and insidiously slithered into some of the party members.

"Hmm. Gentlemen? I'm afraid the warning was a bit too late." He said, voice lower than usual. Only the first real actions and they've met a significant hurdle already. Now this was a pickle... just because he's aware of what's going on didn't mean Engelbert was in any position to do something about it. "Some of us seems to have lost all senses. What do we do? Shake them awake? Carry them away?"

Into the Land of Twilight

Engelbert listened, looking down at the freshly carved flower secured with a knot to his left wrist. A pair of flaming blue glow lit within the visor slit, confirming that there's indeed some very faint trace of magic in the little flower. So it's not just some random gift.

Quaint.

"I see. That was very thoughtful of you, Lady Roxas. Thank you, and I apologize if my first impression came off as less than pleasant. Our party is certainly much better prepared than I'd expect." The glow faded, the knight returning his attention to the few that went to chekc the tree. And what did he knew, it talked! Should be unsurprising, if there's a sentient tree somewhere in the world it'll most likely be found in this forest. So, the other at the entrance was another ent? A scholar may be curious enough to figure out why they're identical, but for Engelbert it's sufficient that he could tell the difference. Just to avoid them, of course. He wasn't sure how big of a difference these ents were to the waldschrat native to the woodlands of his old home, but it likely was equally hard to put down and he'd rather not do that if given the choice.

As the group regathered after the small ent interlude, Tillius brought up another valid concern for the night march. More valid to some than others, but still a good concern. In response to that it turned out they're not to set out immediately, taking their time to depart around midnight instead. That should be enough rest for those who need it. Coupled to some more fun, totally-not-horrific facts about their destination, it certainly sounds more and more appealing to depart at night.

"All things considered, I have to agree that night march is likely our best options." He hedged, jolly but with a hint of finality in his tone. "We just have to step more carefully then! It would be embarrasing if we get more injuries from sprawling roots than the phantoms that populate the city ruin, yes?"

@Visyn @Conscripts @Mas Bagus

Into the Land of Twilight

The trip was unexpectedly smooth, the ancient road unusually dry when the ground around it had turned into muddy mush. Whether it was masterful engineering or subtle spellcraft, Engelbert had no idea but he appreciated it nonetheless. They made good time, passing by increasingly small village and hamlet until the only sign of civilization left was the unyielding road stretching from beneath their feet to the yawning chasm that was the primeval forest left largely untouched for longer than some kingdoms have existed.

Something in the road prevented nature from encroaching upon it, leaving a single path into the depth of the greenery like the waiting maw of some massive verdant beast. Despite the infamous reputation it was a forest like any other, rich scent of petrichor rising after the heavy rain with the ever-present sound of birds and other critters forming a chaotic symphony alongside the rustling of wind. With frequent beams of sunlight piercing through the canopies, it made for a picturesque scenery where it's almost too easy to forget the danger lurking in this place.

At least until Engelbert spotted yet another tree that was an almost exact copy of the previous, down to the grooves of the root and the arrangement of branches. Twisted magical insanity was rife in this place. Was it a downside or an upside, for having a flawless recollection?

As the sky darkens and the shadows painted the environ in a brand new sinister light, Gray led them to an open glade that was perfectly fit for a camp. It looked like a localized fire raged a few decades back, likely from lightning strike though Engelbert wouldn't discount the torch of a doomed treasure hunter to cause the incident. Nevertheless, it cleared a section of the forest before it peters out and the natural growth hadn't reclaimed the place yet. There's a few shrubberies here and there, but it's a relatively defensible spot once the carts were arranged to wall off the camp.

The knight spent the first few minutes helping to clear the place, heaving and uprooting the largest shrubs. His greaves sank an inch or two into the loamy, still slightly damp soil, but with his assistance what looked like a couple hours of work was finished within minutes. Insects, creepy crawlies, and on one occasion a family of rabbits scattered as he pulled the obstacles off, casually tossing it to the outer edge of the glade before rejoining on Vesemir's call.

"Tonight, Ser Vesemir?" Asked Engelbert with a slight tilt of the head, peering down on the map. It's... hmm, looked like it was actually close enough to feasibly reach, but a night march was an entirely different beast than daytime. "It would be quite dangerous, if only from the risk of someone tripping and breaking their ankle. May I know the reason why?"

As eccentric as their boss were, Vesemir was nothing if not logical. If he wanted a night visit, he should have a good reason why.