Snippet #1492747

Huh... fancy new threads, Neira thought absently to herself. Nothing like a few extra bits of magic to get things started, perhaps. She was off at the word shall, not terribly concerned with whether or not her construct was keeping up (it was, barely). She leapt the battlements and slammed her fist into the face of a white-robed child without pause, the extra momentum sending the halfling straight over the wall and down the other side. Neira smirked, dropping to all fours as her psionic sense informed her of an incoming blow.

Human, big fancy sword. Go figure. Almost lazily, Neira directed her construct to block it with a massive arm, and slipped around the thing, jabbing two pointed, armor-encased digits at the soft flesh of his throat. It wasn't so hard working with one of these telepathic golems, not when you were used to flinging rational, calm-sounding thoughts around in the middle of a fight anyway.

The sweet metallic smell of blood was in her nose, and Neira inhaled deeply. They may not taste any good, but the smell of dying flesh-creatures was damned-near intoxicating at times. She reveled in it, and in the unholy sheen of the crimson rivulets winding slowly down the sleek black casing of her arms as gravity compelled the vitality of her victims to kiss the stone below. With a brutal twist, she broke the same man's arm and dropped him in just enough time to leap away from the incoming crossbow bolt. Right... probably best to forgo most of the exquisite fun and just kill them now that they were gathering their wits about them.

Leaving her construct behind with instructions to simply help the others in the way that made the most sense, Neria utilized her diaphanous wings and launched herself airborne, seeking the offending crossbowman with both eyes and mind. Ah, there he was, ruddy little bastard, presently turned and trying to fire down at someone on the other side of his short battlement tower, really just another story or so taller than the wall itself. Grinning, she dropped down behind him. "Didn't your mother ever teach you that it's rude to point that at people?" she asked of his bolt-thrower. "I always did hate ranged combat..."

The man swung around, and she realized with some surprise that he already had the thing loaded again, and he shot her point-blank. Neira moved, but not before the bolt thunked into the side of her lower abdomen, just above her waist. The armor plating that protected her sides just so happened to end there, but the combination of it, her leathers, and the extreme close range meant the bolt didn't have enough momentum to go very deep. Neira looked down at the protruding bolt with bored disdain and wrapped her fingers around it, tugging it from her skin with nary a wince before examining it as though she didn't quite know what it was. Looking up at the crossbowman, she shrugged. "You're going to have to do better than that." Lunging, she slammed her elbow into his solar plexus, then in a display of poetic irony that struck her, shoved the bolt into the juncture between his neck and chin.

"Ranged weapons," she muttered beneath her breath, shaking her head.

---

Faera was caught off-guard by the sheer effectiveness of the magic in her armor, and found it hard to keep the giddy delight from her face as she ran instep with her sister, grasping Tala's hand as they jumped, just to make sure she would land somewhere safe. As soon as her feet touched the battlements, though, she immediately dropped her smile and fell back on her training with Beelzes, using her ears and nose to get her bearings as quickly as possible. Legionnaires landed all around her, but she shifted about, picking out the panic of the guards and feeling a twinge of pity.

Then she remembered what the Children and the dragons had done to her home, to her parents, and at least this was enough for her to move. The weather was clear today, which meant that water wasn't going to be as useful a resource. She could still condense it from the air, but that would take a lot of effort. Instead, she picked out one of the places where enemy archers were posted, and, checking to make sure she couldn't hear any harpy wingbeats, raised her hands in the manner of one conducting an orchestra.

With a few small gestures and one great sweep, she sent a gust of wind right for them. The resounding yells as the archers struggled to keep their footing told her that she'd hit her targets, and she sustained the local whirlwind until the noise of scrabbling boots on stone ceased. Closer to her position, she heard someone moving in to attack her and had a moment of panic before remembering her construct and pleading with it to help her. She needn't have been quite so polite, but at any rate the golem's arm swung heavily at the mace-armed orc, and she was safe for a little while longer.