First Blow
Maher blinked in surprise as he reached the top of the hill and saw what awaited them there. The... creature... gargoyle... whatever it was... well Maher had certainly not been expecting to run into such a thing. In hindsight he considered that he should have thought of it, they were targeting a Lich after all, creatures of magic as well as undead would likely be placed in their path. He knew little about the construct except the abstract theory behind the magic that animated them studied in passing as part of his magical training over the years. His father had believed that focusing on a single path of magic without at least the briefest knowledge of other practices was the mark of an ignorant magician. Still Maher had never studied the other disciplines in depth, water he knew, and he had studied anti-magic as part of his training with the templars, for the rest he knew only slightly more than a non-practicioner, certainly nothing as complex as the creation of a construct.
As the creatures wings buffeted the group and Maher heard the now familiar sounds of undead approaching from behind, his sisters 'voice' in his head interrupted. So she was going underground, he knew how much his sister hated not being able to see the sky. He smiled slightly at the thought and returned the equivalent of a mental grin along their shared link. He then shook his head a little and refocused his attention on his surroundings, he had more immediate worries than his sisters discomfort after all.
He heard Thalien bark orders and falling back on the military discipline he had learned as part of the Templars Maher found himself moving to comply. The four man group had no formal leader but the orders had a degree of sense to them and frankly it appeared no one else was stepping up to make order from the chaos of the situation, at least until Erasmus chimed in with his input. Maher suppressed a shudder as his attention was called to the 'magical dead zone' around Erasmus, Maher had unconsiously stepped away from the man when he had cast at the undead earlier it seemed easier to forget the mans influence and simply move to avoid it by instinct, with it not called to the forefront of his mind Maher suddenly felt... smaller... less than he was. He had learned to fight without magic of course, but magic had been ingrained as part of his life since early childhood, and strength of arm alone was not going to defeat the creature before them. Still Erasmus' suggestion was sound and so Maher began moving right as he studied the gargoyles form.
All magic shared some components, the more complex the spell the more components it tended to contain, Somatic and verbal tended to be the most common followed by certain materials imbued with magical properties and runes or other written forms given power. The least common tended to be less tangible, souls, divine favour, direct access to the wells of power themselves. How a spell was put together granted insight to how one might counter it.
Try as he might however as he studied the gargoyle Maher could not see any external signs of spellwork, so they would need to breach the outer shell to really counter this creature which was likely using some of the less common components, it appeared intelligent after all, there was only one way to do that that he knew of even with his admittedly limited knowledge of such magic, implanting a soul to power the construct. All in all it did not bode well for the group.
Regardless they had to try, not doing so meant death... and surely worse. Moving to the opposite side of the Gargoyle from Erasmus, Maher raised his hands and began canting and making arcane gestures. "Mystic river grant me strength, your waters pure and cleansing... Sunder thou prohibitive dams, let your cleansing power flow... BREACH!" Maher finished as he flung out his arms towards the Gargoyle mixing properties of anti-magic with a torrent of compressed water as its carrier... with a little luck he might weaken or break whatever protective magic was contained in its outer shell, with a lot of luck he might breach the outershell itself, at least he believed that was possible and poured his intent into just such an effort...