Within the dome, Leona, Lehanna and Kyran were locked in a chaotic battle against the various enemies that had squared off against them. At first, the attack methods of the party would seem rather effective as the first few masked assailants went down pretty quickly. Kyran worked on dodging the incoming blows from the two sword wielding enemies who found themselves slowed by the Angel of Peace, giving him enough space and time to launch his spells. Both swordsmen dropped relatively easily, all things considered. However, when he went to press his attack upon the remaining two assailants, he would find that his magic seemed less effective than it should have been. His lance attack and his vines hit true to their targets, but seemed not to do as much damage as he had intended.
Furthermore, the rebels seemed to be almost indifferent about trying to protect themselves. The spells hit square, yet they continue to stay on the offensive, hurling further spells of lightning and mist upon him. That wasn’t the only odd thing that Kyran would notice, however. Though his lance spell had spread out and pierced quite a number of enemies, none of the wounded targets were bleeding. There were injuries to be certain, and his lances and vines had certainly caused damage to their attackers, but there were no drips of crimson plasma pouring from the wounds, nor did their clothes appear to become saturated with any kind of bodily life fluid.
In fact, Lehanna, Leona, and Mythica alike would notice similar things in their own individual battles. Their first attacks would be effective enough to down their first opponents, but with each subsequent spell their magic seemed less and less effective, almost as though their attackers were adapting to the magic damage being inflicted upon them and building up resistances to it. As such, the more enemies they managed to fell, the more difficult it became to deal effective damage to those who remained and were seemingly able to endure much more punishment than those who had fallen before them. Additionally, they would likely notice after landing a few damaging spells that none of their targets were bleeding.
By the end of their current round of spellcasting, Leona would have slain both of her enemies, though the pugilist had been far more difficult to take down as her wind magic seemed to become less and less effective with each strike. Similarly, her summon’s flechettes were still dealing damage to the assailants in the windows, but it was taking increasingly more of them each time to deal enough damage to take them out. Still, between the flechettes and Key’s own multitargeted attacks, the enemies inside the buildings were finally dealt with one by one, leaving the remaining assailants outside on the ground to engage the group.
For Lehanna, her inferno attack would hit nearly all of her intended targets at once simultaneously, causing all of them to light on fire, burning away their clothes and then some. In fact, their very flesh began to burn away, revealing a subsurface layer or what appeared to be some sort of metal that melted and popped, leaving the enemies so disfigured that they couldn’t even move any longer, their malformed bodies crumbling to a semi-melted heap onto the ground.
The only one who remained was the assailant toward the back carrying the tome. They had been further away, causing the flames to take slightly longer to reach them, and by the time the snake-like whip of fire had connected they seemed to have developed a magical resistance to the flames. Its clothing and skin layer melted away, but the metallic frame beneath held true. As far as the dome, while Kyran’s lance would hit the barrier, it did not penetrate it. In fact, much like the masked assailants themselves, the longer his spell remained in contact with the barrier the stronger it seemed to get. Whatever it was going to take to remove the structure, he would get the distinct feeling that attacking the dome directly was not going to work as the source of its energy was coming from elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Lehanna’s heightened sense of hearing picked up a rather odd sound above the chaos of the battle. It was faint, but she would still manage to pick it out: a strange sort of ticking sound. Should she elect to follow the noise and try to pinpoint it, she would find that it grew louder as she approached the fallen bodies of the enemies before her. It was a meticulous metronome that seemed to click about once per second, almost like the ticking of a clock…. Or more accurately, some kind of bomb. Either way, she could be reasonably certain that if the three of them did not find the right way to bring down the barrier or protect themselves from the incoming explosions, things were sure to get very dicey very quickly.
Outside the dome, much further away and out of sight from the rest of the party, Mythica was engaged in a battle alongside the two VIPs in her charge. Much like the others, she would notice that her time magic seemed to become less and less effective with each strike. The man wielding the hammer was caught completely off guard by her teleportation behind him, finding himself on his knees with a bullet in his brains before he really got the chance to react. Her barrier to deflect the wave of sonic energy was successful, forcing the sound mage to be tossed right off their feet and blown back a number of meters by the effects of their own spell. However, by the time she returned to the mage controlling the vines, her spells were significantly less effective. Her own chains rushed toward this attacker much like their vines had done to her. The chains snagged her prey temporarily, but after only a moment they were able to shake them off. Retaliating quickly, and seemingly ignoring the damage they had received from the attack, the assailant stretched their hands out toward Mythica, their fingers stretching out into ten long, sturdy vines that raised themselves up and began to whip themselves at her one at a time.
As for the VIPs, Norwood and Leonida were busy with their own battles. Leonida was living up to his title of Cardinal, unleashing a number of light based spells, his body glowing with a bright golden aura of holy energy.
“Light of Arcanos!” he cried, raising his hands toward the sky and summoning an intense ray of glittering light into the air that rained down upon the area, causing the masked fighters to recoil and shrink away in pain. Bit of their clothing disintegrated, exposing the pseudo-flesh beneath to the sunlight until it too burned away, revealing the metal plating beneath.
“What the hell are these things?!” he asked, frustration in his voice.
Norwood grunted as he used his sword to carve his way out of a water spell that had been sent his way. It was evident that he was more politician than fighter, strong enough to hold his own but nowhere near as powerful or well trained as the Cardinal was.
“Some sort of machines? Whatever they are, they seem to be adapting to our magic and building a hive resistance the more damage they take!” The Chairman needed answers, and while some could come from inspecting the bodies of the fallen he wanted to capture some of them alive to answer to the Rune Knights later.
Moving with careful precision, he did his best to take down the handful of enemies that were focused on him with his sword, swatting away spells and maneuvering himself to keep the buildings of the alley behind his back so it would not be as easy to flank him. One by one he whittled his targets down, patient through the grueling process of bearing through the increasing resistances they seemed to have until he had slain all but one. With sweat pouring down his brow, he roared with renewed vigor and tapped into some of his back up magic, pointing the tip of his sword at the final assailant before him and launching a blast of near point blank energy at them, causing the target to stumble and lose their balance momentarily as they recoiled from the damage. Norwood rushed the target while they were at the disadvantage, body slamming them into the exterior wall of one of the nearby buildings and pinning them there, the edge of his sword pressed against their neck.
“Yield!” he demanded.
“Yield and your life will be spared to face fair trial.” The assailant, dazed and quickly losing consciousness from how hard they had been slammed into the structure behind them, said nothing. At first, the only thing Norwood heard was the ringing of battle in his ears, but after a moment of being right up against the target there was no mistaking the sound.
Tick, tick, tick, tick…Boom.An explosion the size of a miniature nuke rocked the entire city. The Cardinal’s eyes went wide as he just barely managed to throw up a barrier before him just in time to block the worst of the blast, though he was still sent rocketing through a number of walls in buildings of the alley. If Mythica was unable to defend herself properly, she would be treated to much similar treatment as she, the Cardinal, and the remaining masked rebels alike were all caught up in the violent eruption that leveled the immediate area, putting a temporary halt on even the riots several blocks over as the people shrieked and dropped to the ground out of sheer instinct.
As the dust and smoke began to clear, the Cardinal limped out into the alley from the rubble, covered in blood and dirt.
“Norwood!” he called out through a cough.
“Norwood!! Maven!” Rushing toward where he had last seen the Chairman, Leonida’s gait practically screeched to a halt as his eyes fell to the ground in horror.
“Oh no…” There before him was the charred remains of the Chairman, barely recognizable through the blackened marks along his flesh and clothing where he laid in a lifeless heap.
Norwood was dead.
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@Mythica @Kyran @Leona Jarnefeldt @Lehanna Seraph You have until 12/6/2021 to post.