"Uh- Why isn't she doing anything?" I finally asked after a long moment, the brilliant white light so bright I had to keep my hands up to shade my eyes.
"I think she's drawing energy from the shroud and tower into herself," Sascha replied, shielding her own eyes.
"Can she do that?"
"I'm no mage, but I'd say, she's doing it already," Sascha scowled at me.
"What?" I scowled back. "I don't know these things."
"This one came willingly," Carrisyn whispered, her voice carrying through the room easily. "She is tainted."
"What's she talking about, now?" Alarice demanded.
"Why do you all keep asking me?" Sascha sighed in exasperation. "I already told you I'm not a mage."
"She's accepted the souls of the riven into herself," Zelaeryn finally said.
"That seems bad," I stared at Zelaeryn with concern. "Is that bad?" The giant blue demon freed the blade from her scabbard and held it defensively in front of her.
"Yes, that is very bad. We will have to take her down before she gets any more powerful. If we even can at this point."
"About time I get to take that insufferable bitch down a peg or two," Alarice grinned, nocking an arrow, and sending it flying toward the countess in the blink of an eye.
"No! Wait! She's my ride!" I protested, putting my hand out as if to stop the inevitable. The arrow vanished quickly into the white light, disappearing as if it had never been. Faster than I could blink four more arrows had been loosed. The dull thunk of the string propelled the arrows toward their target, vanishing as if they had never been long before striking home.
With a war cry, the demon hefted her huge blade and charged forward. A thought suddenly presented itself to me and I went cold with realization. "No wait!" I yelled again to no avail. Why was no one listening to me? The demon was already swinging the blade, a blue flash of magic following the massive sword on its trajectory, crackling along the edges where it contacted the white light enveloping Carrisyn. I grimaced and steeled myself for the pain which never came.
"She is not actually here," Sascha whispered as Zelaeryn stood in surprise, the sword having passed cleanly through Carrisyn.
"She's got some sort of crystal things inside me!" I stamped my foot in frustration. "If anyone hurts her, I take the shot! Could we think about the half elf, please? Fucking hell, people! Seriously! Listen to me before you all just start trying to kill shit, 'k? Ya bunch of psychopaths. Goddamn!" I shook my head, no delusions in my mind any of them had paid any attention to me.
"She's on the other side of the shroud!" Sascha shouted to Zelaeryn. "We have to pull her through to our side!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" I raged. I hated not knowing things that seemed important. I had no idea what this shroud was, but it seemed like something I should have gotten a memo about.
"The sarcophagus!" Lysabel exclaimed, pointing at the ground. "That's the anchor!" Much to my displeasure the blue demon did not shout the name of some weird superpower before adjusting the backswing of her blade. Cutting through the white glare with the blazing sword she brought it down on the sarcophagus with a grunt of exertion. Every anime power required the wielder to yell the name of their power in a very dramatic way before using it and the fact Zelaeryn didn't do so made me rather sad. Though, come to think of it, I never once yelled a pithy name for my powers to activate them, either. Though somehow, I guessed if I screamed 'Utter Lack of Skill or Common Sense, Lead With the Face Wave!' it would most likely not inspire feelings of awe or dread in my enemy.
The sarcophagus held against the demon's blade for a long moment, but Zelaeryn's strength was simply unmatched and with a sigh and then deafening crack the stone exploded in a shower of rubble. The white light held for a moment longer before fading, leaving Carrisyn standing wreathed in white flames in the center of the darkening room.
"Now!" Sascha shouted.
"Didn't you hear me?" I yelled but it was too late. The group of alpha predators unleashed everything they had on the silent figure excepting Lysabel and Sayuri who merely stood and stared.
Each arrow from Alarice, sword blow from Zelaeryn and magenta bolt from Sascha struck home with devastating force yet still Carrisyn didn't move. It wasn't until I heard a scrabbling sound, like wood clacking against itself coming from the stairs behind us I was able to tear my eyes away from the placid, motionless, seemingly unharmed figure.
I always found small animal enemies in video games to be quite frightening. Those rats that would jump at you without warning or strange demon foxes dancing around and magically teleporting out of the way right as you cast a lightning bolt where they'd just been scared the crap out of me. They made me flail around impotently and inevitably jumped me when it was most quiet, thus causing me to jump as well and nearly pee myself.
The prospect of skeleton enemies in video games, however, was always underwhelming. I mean, they were supposed to be scary, but at the end of the day they were just bones. With no muscle or tissue to make their bones move and thus cut you in half with a sword the threat they posed bordered on the ridiculous. They also always made noises like shrieking which seemed unrealistic for beings without voice boxes or lungs or even, in fact, throats of any kind to produce said otherworldly noises. Needless to say, I found their existence to be whimsical at best.
The skeletal enemies pouring from the open stairway, however, were absolutely terrifying. White flame enveloped their bodies, giving them an otherworldly glow as they came mindlessly forward. I could only assume the fires burning in their empty sockets and wreathing their blackened bones was some sort of magic which gave them animation. They were also fast, far faster than the clunky, ridiculous monsters I'd seen in video games. They were also coming right at me.
I leapt back nimbly and pulled my daggers from their sheaths, barely aware Carrisyn had finally begun to move behind me. I only became acutely aware of her movement when Zelaeryn flew through the air and slammed into a dresser against the tower wall with enough force to shatter it into splinters.
"We're surrounded!" I shouted needlessly. I dodged the blade of the first skeleton easily and followed through, spinning in a tight arc to block the thrust of the second skeleton before using my other dagger to sever the head from the first. My smugness at my own skills was short-lived as the headless skeleton pressed the attack, causing me to leap aside to safety before the blade could strike home. Of course it wouldn't need a head, I thought with a scowl. It was a damn skeleton, it's not like it had eyes to see me with anyway.
A second later a giant white panther leapt past me to the attack, tearing at the knot of magically animated enemies with its massive paws, tearing others apart with the terrible jaws. Zelaeryn had picked herself back up and rushed back to the attack against Carrisyn, joined by Sascha. Lysabel drew her blade and battled back against the flank of the skeletons to keep them from encircling us while Alarice's bow sang, each arrow driving home with enough force to stagger the creatures.
Not wanting to fall behind in either the kicking bony ass or taking names department I waded back into the fray, my daggers a whirl as I kept to Sayuri's right, keeping the skeletons from overwhelming her as she tore them asunder. My daggers were a blur as I cut and dodged, one blade tearing up under the ribcage of a hapless skeleton and striking cleanly where the heart would have been. With a sigh of what seemed like gratitude the flames limning the skeleton guttered and died out and the bones dropped listlessly to the ground in a pile.
"Go for the heart!" I shouted, dodging beneath another blade, spinning, and stabbing my dagger backward between the ribcage of the off-balance horror who collapsed with the other. A second later Alarice had adjusted her shots and the mass of horrors began to fall quickly. With seemingly no interest in subtlety or a lack of being able to be so due to her lack of opposable thumbs in her cat form Sayuri tore the skeletons apart in the center while I and Lysabel weaved and took them down on the wings.
Finally, our combined skill and savagery won through and the last of the skeletons fell and shattered, adding to the pile of bones littering the chamber floor. With nothing but minor cuts and bruises to show for our efforts we turned back toward Carrisyn. Though Zelaeryn and Sascha had kept up a steady assault they'd made no progress as the sorceress simply stood unmoving in the center of the room.
"Did she fall asleep?" I gasped, my arms tired and sore from exertion. As if in answer to my question her eyes opened and the fire wreathing her burst back to life in a conflagration which forced us all backward, away from the heat and savagery.
"The bargain is struck, the payment extracted," Carrisyn said, her voice deep and guttural. "Deliver the heart!" Carrisyn pointed at me, the fire licking upward from her eyes creepy as hell.
"I'm using it!" I shouted my reply. "You can have it after I'm dead!" Wait, I thought, that wasn't what I wanted to say at all. I sighed internally. Goddammit. I couldn't even say anything cool when I needed it. It was the perfect chance for something pithy and I screwed it up.
"What deal has she made, riven?" Zelaeryn asked, gasping for air as she struggled to her feet. The exertion of her ultimately fruitless attacks had drained her, but the fires erupted from her blade brighter than ever.
"I can't do anything," I shook my head. "She's got that crystal thing happening."
"It's abominable she did that to you," Sascha growled. "She fell further than I ever imagined."
"Don't worry!" Lysabel exclaimed from the other side of Sayuri. "It's not really Carrisyn anymore!"
"It's not?" I cocked my head, eyeing her brightly glowing form.
"She is the riven, now," Zelaeryn agreed.
I peered at her for a long moment as she began to stalk forward, her arms spread outward, palms up as fire danced along her body. If it really wasn't her that meant I could finally kick her ass for all the shitty things she did to me. A part of me thrilled at the notion, the chance to finally get revenge for all that hell she put me through was exhilarating. Another part, maybe the Stockholm syndrome victim part, was hesitant.
"Carrisyn," I finally said soothingly to assuage the part insisting quietly she was just misunderstood. "Just put down the…souls of dead mages or whatever you've got going on and let's talk, 'k?" Bolts of fire exploded from her hands, causing us all to dodge out of the way, narrowly avoiding them.
"I don't think she wants to talk," Alarice grinned. "Good. I was always more a woman of action anyway."
"You're my ride. I need you. But ride or not, I'm about to kick your ass," I growled at her, pointing one of my daggers in her direction threateningly. The Stockholm syndrome victim within me finally shrugged and vanished as if to say 'well, we tried'. The reality was, no matter who someone was, you didn't start shooting white fire at people willy nilly and expect me to not bring the smack down on you. Blue fire erupted from my fingers, crackling as it spread down the chains to my daggers. With a cry, we all leapt to the attack.