Pushing open the doors to the inner courtyard of the castle the group found something truly strange as they gazed upon the interior of the castle.
Scattered all around the courtyard were creatures of a mixed nature, iron mechanisms and joints were nailed into parts of living flesh, one creature in particular caught the attention of Niss.
It was a large, ball-like shape, about a meter off the ground, standing upon two iron legs with metal feet. The legs were drilled directly into metal sockets, connecting to the bottom of the flesh ball. Inside the center of the lump of flesh, there was a large humanoid eye surrounded by metal rivets seemingly holding it in place. Below the encased eyeball, there was a disgusting, smiling gap of flesh that contained razor-sharp teeth.
On top of the strange metal eyeball were more sockets leading to its metal arms. Metal rivets and brackets constructed and held this lump of yellow, decaying flesh in place. In one of the arms of the strange creature, it held a short dagger, and behind its back, two shorter arms gripped what looked to be a quiver containing some short javelins.
There were several other similar creatures in the courtyard, one was more like two boxes of flesh stacked on each other separated by a large cog wheel in the middle that was able to rotate the two boxes individually, It had spiked metal gauntlets attached to its arms, a set of these on each box and legs coming from the bottom section that allowed it to move.
Another creature was in the shape of a common knights shield, a kite like shape but instead of the usual wood that was encased in metal for a shield it was instead flesh and eyeballs, two eyes on the left and two eyes on the right side, it had six metal legs three sprouting from each side while each side also had two arms holding a total of four lengthy spears.
There was as many as eight of these bizarre abominations, each one unique in some way, none of them conforming to the same construction as the previous.
"Ewwww!" Siarra could not help but shout getting slightly behind Niss as she did.
"Siarra they are just constructs of some messed up Artificer." Niss said as he calmed her down.
"Well i've never seen such horrifying things! They have live eyeballs! It's so gross!" She cried.
"Well lets clear them out quickly then, I'm guessing this dungeon has attracted some sort of monster with artificer talent and that means we could get overwhelmed if we don't thin them out and reach the boss of the dungeon before more are created." Niss was explaining things logically but even he shuttered at the gross nature of these constructs, he had seen some constructs used as workers/slaves before but they were very simple and involved a lot less human features and flesh.
"BEEP! BOOP! BEEP!"
"BEEP BOOP BOOP BOP!"
The constructs began to alarm back and forth, strange bells and sounds came from them as they panicked and looked towards the castle intruders.
"I'll take on some alone you three work as a group like before! Curt, watch over the girls and alert me if they overwhelm you guys!" Niss took charge verbally as he jumped forward physically, imbuing his aura and summoning his dark chains.
WHIP!
PING!
The blade of the kama Niss had thrown in an arc towards the first creature pinged off one of the pieces of metal the encased the flesh of the construct.
Reeling his kama back and swinging it behind him to gather more speed he gripped the chain in front of himself with both hands sending a wave of mana through it and swung it forward again. With insane speed the blade slashed directly into the flesh of the construct severing it in half right between the eye and it's mouth, gray blood poured out as it slid apart and fell to the ground.
Another construct had leapt forward swinging three spears at Niss. In response, Niss had one hand free from the chain and with a quick flick of his mana, a barrier off earth rose from the ground meeting the spears of the construct and blocking it's advance. On the other side of Niss four spinning arms in a cyclone of spiked gloves swung rapidly at him. Jumping up onto the barrier of earth he had erected to shield him, he raised it even higher into the air giving himself the high ground.
Throwing his kama down onto the spear wielding construct it was blocked and pushed aside, however that was not all Niss was planning to do, he thrust one hand out and blasted a huge wave of air to his left, as his body spun violently to the right, he gripped the chain attached to his kama as hard as he could. The result of this was a menacing spinning slash that sent the kama at high speed in a circle around his pillar of earth, slashing violently through the air, all the spears of the construct below him were slashed clean in half, the arms that extended towards him with spiked gloves now lay in a heap of metal on the ground.
The two constructs were stripped of their offense capabilities and Niss did not waste any time, finishing them off quickly with a few strikes of his blade as he jumped back down to the ground.
Siarra had imbued her own staff with her ignite spell using it to blast small bouts of flame and push back the few constructs that were surrounding them, Curt had drawn a mace that he had never used before but without a front line he needed to at least have some melee presence to protect the girls. Smashing his mace into the eye of a construct, Curt blasted it away from himself with a powerful wind kick. Lys was going all out raining down ice spears from the sky like she was a group of twenty archers, the constructs in the back were riddled with holes where their flesh was exposed and covered in shattered ice where spears had struck their metal bits.
'Oh good they have this under control. Niss thought to himself.
He was slightly worried about not having Trevor as he was quite the formidable front liner and Niss was more focused on speed and takedowns rather than defense.
'I guess I should have more faith in them, they have been getting a lot stronger following my advice this past week.'
As Niss was thinking about his group and their composition, another construct had flanked him.
SLASH!!
"Uuhhgg!"
Niss felt the tip of a spear trying to pierce his back, however his aura infusion was quite strong now that Nyx had worked the kinks out for him. Even taking a direct attack to his back only a light slash was seen on his skin.
'Ahh, I really need to stop making this mistake. Damn distracted brain can't you focus on yourself for a minute?' he thought.
Spinning around he chanted his chain spell again. Not using it to create chains for himself but instead to chain this construct to the ground. Where it was holding its spear it's hands were suddenly gripped by the dark chains yanking them downwards to the ground where they sprung up from.
"Ggggggzzzzzzhhhhh BEEP BEEP!"
"Shut it! I'll put you out of your misery quickly."
SHINGGG!
Niss had embedded his kama deep into the eye of the construct, twisting it violently causing it to rupture and the whole construct to go slack in front of him. Releasing the chains he glanced around and saw the others had finished their fight as well.
"Wow good job Niss. You took on four by yourself, that was kind of hectic for a minute." Lys said to him.
"Let me see your back, I will fix you up real quick." Curt said as he circled around Niss.
"Ahh thanks Curt, I got a bit distracted checking on you guys mid fight." Niss laughed it off lightly.
"You don't need to worry so much Niss we can handle ourselves, the three of us have each others backs while you and Trevor are usually up front occupied anyways, Curt has gotten good at pushing things back to make space for us." Siarra smiled at him as she briefly talked about their strategy.
"Yeah, I'm just used to Trevor having eyes in the back of his head to call things out." Niss replied.
"Well don't worry, you have your own style and Trevor will be back with us soon enough, don't focus so much on making up for his absence." Lys spoke up again, she had her usual colder tone in place but Niss could tell she was just still focusing on the dungeon.