Clumsywordsmith — Roleplayer Guild

There was a strangely thick throbbing feeling in the back of Nestor's skull – his vision swam, then went black as the stony guardian tossed the Demonspawn and Artie aside like so much unwanted chaff. Curling himself into a bit of a ball, his entire form braced for what everything within him confirmed would be a bone-splintering impact against solid granite walls... only to find his second flight cut blessedly short as the air around him fills with the thrumming voice of a strange power that his addled wits could not quite piece together.

And then he was landing, scudding, sliding over tablecloths and books alike, finally coming to crash very unceremoniously into the Hellhound's ribs. The creature gave a noise somewhere between a yelp and a growl – I wasn't sure which – and hoped to the seventh circle of hell and back that it would understand the circumstances. But still made an effort to shamble back to my feet, brush the debris from my jacket and reorient myself. Death Girl was standing there a little ways off – not bratty death girl, that is – though I made a mental note in the midst of it all to perhaps look at her a bit more kindly in the future. Or her dog, at the very least. (Nestor had never found himself especially enamoured of children – though ageless, scythe-wielding children were perhaps a sight more interesting in the scheme of things.) But then it made sense, the strange stench of the magic. My head began to clear a little, and all in an instant the realisation hit me – or maybe it was simply my muffled hearing returning in full force – that there was still work to be done. Artie had seemingly wasted no time in taking off in a mad dash back into the fray.

“Well played, Miss!” The Demonspawn calls out to the Elfen woman, offering a respectful inclination of his head, before turning and assessing the current situation at hand – just in time to see the first of the statues splinter, begin to topple and then burst into a shotgun of deadly rock shards; he turns and dives back to the marble floor, attempting to bowl the Necromancer over with him.

I wince as I feel the heat of the explosion singe over my back, something hot – painful, scalding brand of iron pressing into my shoulder blades – and then it passes as I stagger back to my feet, winded. Draw a breath.

“I am uncertain how a Necromancer handles business... Some of us... well, we prefer to fly by the seat of our pants...” His words are puncuated by the rocking of the floor beneath them as the second Anubi leaps backward and drives its blade into the floor, sending another wave – this one of molten rock and ash – spewing through the echoing halls of the library. Fortunately not in their direction. Nestor staggers, retains his balance and calls out over his shoulder as he darts toward the nearby rows of shelves: “More often figuratively than the literal of today. And I can't promise I won't need saving again before its over!”

With that, he is gone, moving with an unnerving grace as he slips past the first bank of shelves. (Veti's climb had inspired me, the Golem's launch had invigorated me, and the pulsing adrenaline from the pain that lingered still in my twitching shoulder had intoxicated me. It seemed we needed still to buy the giant a little time to finish his transformation, and my mind was pulsing with idiotic plans at this rate.) Lunching himself from the side of the bookcases, Nestor makes a mad dash across the open floor – his movements are marked by little more than a shadowy blur, a speeding figure seeking to plant himself behind the Anubi before it notices.

A brief moment before breaking from cover, an icy voice whispers from somewhere near Seymon:

“Nice shooting, baldy – seems our Nestor is trying to kill himself again; maybe keep this one distracted hmm?”

Nestor, however, does not seem overly concerned with whether the Wight responds in time or no – his move is already committed – and incapable of making out any of the other operatives in the shower of dust and general haze (aside, of course, from the still mutating form of Dunn, and somewhere a vaguely humanoid shape that might be a golem) – he releases the compact form of a sleek crossbow from its place at his hip; a brisk metal snapping follows, then in a blur he aims into the vague distance above his head and squeezes the trigger. (A neat trick, that – or so I'd always thought – but Veti's mountaineering skills had put my grappling hook to shame... still, would do in a pinch. Would have to get my man to design me a pair of detachable werewolf claws, I thought absently as I began to climb. And why the hell was my shoulder hurting so much?)

The Demonspawn's ascent is rapid, well placed – despite the speed of it all – aiming to put him somewhere in that awkwardly unreachable location just below the shoulder blades; a long, thin knife – blade glowing the same sickly blue as his sword a little while before – is clenched between his teeth. His insignificant size in relation to the giant Anubi now perhaps his only hope, he struggles upward – ascent not abating despite the spike of rock protruding from beneath his right shoulder.

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