Moving Parts

John didn’t have a readout for Candle’s health, nor did he receive any damage notification by way of his powers, but he knew the fox spirit had taken a heavy blow. He didn’t know if she could be killed, but that didn’t stop him from immediately summoning Senka.

The shadowy spirit manifested mid-sprint, her mind perfectly in sync with John’s without any words needing to be shared. She caught the flying fox, carefully cradling Candle in one arm while the other was shot out towards the now awake centurion.

A Black Thorn flew out at full speed, aimed squarely for its head. The construct snapped its shield up to block, but after just using it to backhand Candle, it was unable to stop the lightning fast projectile from hitting its mark.

20 DMG

The spike of darkness buried deep into the centurion’s forehead and John felt a surge of dark satisfaction from Senka at the bullseye.

“Candle, are you okay?” Senka softly asked her fellow spirit. Candle let out a weak yip and Senka thought to John, ‘Dismiss her. I’ll keep this one occupied.’

John wasn’t going to disagree with that plan and let Candle slip back into his aura so she could heal. The fox spirit transmitted one last grateful emotion, along with the impression of her licking his face affectionately before stilling into sleep.

“Senka will keep that one busy,” John informed K’mels. “Let’s finish this guy off.”

K’mels grunted in assent and nodded, “It’s as good as any plan.”

The warrior renewed his attacks, quickly hitting his stride as the rapid attacks kept the centurion from countering. In fact, to John, it appeared as if the construct was slowing down.

‘Have we critically hurt it? Or is the two-pronged attack giving it operational issues?’ he thought as he considered the situation. ‘It was prioritizing trying to stop us from just grabbing the flag from the other ones, even though it seems like they will activate when we try. We might be overloading its processors.’

Then, everything took a turn. Their opponent suddenly matched K’mels swings, catching one axe with its shield and the other with its sword. John dashed in while they struggled, intending to strike while the centurion was unable to defend, but it did something he hadn’t seen any enemy do. It let go of its shield, throwing it away to **** K’mels’ arm back.

With a route of escape now open, the centurion disengaged from K’mels and barreled towards John, sword poised to strike. John did not falter in the face of this aggression and stepped in to attack, as K’mels recovered and moved in to strike from behind.

Before John or K’mels could attack, the construct suddenly changed course, swerving to avoid both of them, and sped towards Senka and its awake fellow.

John scarcely had to warn Senka of this, their link allowing her to see it happen. Even as John pivoted to give chase with K’mels on his heels, Senka moved to face both centurions. Throwing up a Shadow Veil to impede the one she was already fighting, Senka cast Snaring Shadows on the first one, the dark vines growing around its limbs.

The thorns on the binding were not sharp enough to pierce its armor and Senka’s visible eye widened as the construct wasn’t slowed much by her binding.

‘I can’t stop it,’ she relayed to John at the speed of thought, the Gamer seeing the vines rip. Even with that advantage, John would be a second too slow to keep the centurion from reaching her. For a moment, he considered casting Fiery Pursuit, but at this distance, there was too high a risk of that hurting them in the explosion.

Then, a familiar magic brushed against John’s sixth sense, bright and warm, and the air around Senka shimmered from John’s perspective. He could only guess that the first centurion’s vision was only slightly distorted given that it just missed hitting Senka.

John turned his gaze up to one of the platforms above to see Vivian and Sofia, the redhead’s arms outstretched and the knight’s blade drawn. Before John could let his relief be known, the last centurion began to move, marching toward them.

“Guess that answers the question about whether they would activate if we sniped them,” John spat in frustration.

“Let them handle the one targeting them,” K’mels shouted. “We’ve got our hands full.”

John had to accept that as the best path forward and looked up at Vivian again. Their eyes met and she nodded, clearly understanding his intent. John tore his eyes away as she and Sofia readied to fight and got his mind back in gear. K’mels had overtaken him and pounced at the back of their first enemy.

17 DMG

Without its shield, it could only just barely deflect one of K’mels’ axes and the second bit into its shoulder. With the first no longer pressuring her, Senka conjured another Black Thorn and brought it to bear against the second centurion, meeting its shield in a mirror of how it met Shadow Veil.

Leaving Senka to keep that centurion busy, John joined the fray with K’mels. Wounded and without its shield, he hoped it would be easy enough to take down now that they could focus their efforts on it.

Waiting for the opportune moment, John readied his blade. The warning about teaming up crept into his mind as he did.

‘Does this count as teaming up?’ he wondered. ‘There was one bot for each of us, and Vivian already interfered by saving Senka so no points for us or the Order for beating that one. Are we going to miss out on points for hitting the one that hit Candle?’

In a way, John didn’t care all that much, especially if all of them lost out on points for this. He didn’t know how the points would be used to produce goods for the Golmerks, and he wouldn’t be too sad if he, Vivian and Senka didn’t win that bonus prize. They hadn’t known about it when they started this, and it wasn’t the main objective.

Seeing his opportunity to strike, John put thoughts of winning and losing out of his head and leapt into the fray once more. K’mels had the centurion’s attention and their exchange of blows gave him a bare moment when the construct’s back was right before him, an unprotected target open for a split second.

With a wordless shout, John surged forward, casting Verdant Surge with the first step, thrusting his blade with all his might. K’mels saw his attack and stepped back in time to prevent any chance that John’s strike would pierce through fully and gut him as well.

45 DMG

With all of John’s might behind the strike, boosted further by the Evocation, the greatwood sword ran through the construct, filling the chamber with a harsh grinding noise and the smell of burning rubber as sparks shot out from the wound. The centurion’s limbs twitched for a moment, before it began to fade away, leaving behind its red sash and sword, both falling to the ground between John and K’mels.

Before either of them could move to collect the bounty, the light of the room shifted for a few seconds; the platform Vivian and Sofia were on were plunged into darkness before a flash returned it to normal luminance. In the second after that, the third door burst open, Rowan and Teri arriving on scene, the squire and goblin only pausing for a few seconds before dashing down the stairs.

“Let’s get moving,” K’mels quickly said, stowing the sword with a tap of his foot and grabbing the sash. He wasn’t greeted with a prompt to equip it, nor did it vanish to wherever the loot went, instead remaining in his hand.

**** as he was to leave while there were fights still happening, he knew trying to convince the goblin to give up their chance at points would not go well.

‘Senka, we’re leaving,’ he bitterly thought, eyes scanning over to see Rowan about to engage with the remaining centurion on the floor. ‘We won’t be any good if K’mels gets too far ahead.’

Senka’s irritation shone through their link even as she allowed herself to return to John’s aura, launching her Black Thorn in one last attack.

Heading towards the exit, John didn’t see it strike the centurion a second after Rowan’s opening attack was blocked.

Thoughts about being penalized for aiding another team were the last thing on Vivian’s mind as she distorted the sight of the machine about to attack Senka. She didn’t know what could happen to the spirit if she took a mortal blow, but she wasn’t about to risk that happening in the first place. Only once the third construct down below began to march towards them did she think she messed up when her eyes met John’s.

But there wasn’t any time for battlefield conversations as John got back into his own fight and they had to prepare for theirs.

“I think that you have cost us the points for this battle,” Sofia calmly said as she readied her blade. “Though, if this was a real conflict, such a move would be commendable, so I truly have no complaints. Life is worth far more glory.”

“I wasn’t even thinking about that,” Vivian admitted. “I just saw Senka in trouble and reacted.”

“If you were my student, I would advise you to temper your reactions,” Sofia lectured as the construct marched up the stairs at a steady pace. “If your magic was more destructive, your hasty action could have caused more harm than good.”

Vivian flinched slightly at the critique, but still defended her actions. “If I hadn’t acted, Senka could have been hit.”

“True,” Sofia said. “I am not saying your actions were wrong, or misguided. Merely that they were made without a full understanding of the battle before us. And in this case, there was no time to make such a survey. But later, there may be. Such as now. How do you think we should proceed?”

Vivian peered down the stairs, doing her best to ignore John, Senka and K’mels fighting, and regarded the approaching machine. Without one of John’s displays, she had to rely on her own reasoning and observations to guess at their enemy’s capabilities. Thankfully, even with the convenience of Observe, she hadn’t let her mind grow dull when it came to puzzling out information.

“From the looks of things, it’s a close-range fighter,” she said. “And is meant to serve as a major blockage at melee with that shield. So a long-range attack before it can bring its sword to bear would be my plan.”

“And it’s not a bad one,” Sofia said, lightning arcing off her sword. “It has nowhere to dodge besides leaping from the stairs. The worst case for us in that eventuality is that it will have to make the trip up again.”

“If I may, I think I have an attack that it won’t be able to dodge,” Vivian revealed, placing her hand on her choker. She withdrew a page with an intricate spell array drawn upon it, full of sweeping lines and arcane symbols. The prior games didn’t offer a good opportunity to use this, either the situation not favoring it or there being better uses of her mana. But right now, needing a quick and powerful attack? It was perfect.

Sofia’s magic faded and she took a step back, giving Vivian a curt nod. “By all means, give it a shot, but what exactly is your plan, if it's not too long to explain?”

“I can focus the light around us into a concentrated point, like a magnifying glass,” Vivian explained, holding up her paper. “This lets me do it quickly, but it’s single use, and it will drain my mana. I figure it’s better for me to use up most of my remaining mana and clear a path than for both of us to become worn down.”

Sofia nodded and let Vivian proceed. The redhead walked to the end of the platform and held the array inscribed page out, angled so it was pointed directly at the approaching machine. It seemed to not consider her actions as a threat and kept its march up the stairs steady.

Vivian wasn’t going to let it get much closer in case it changed its mind. Placing the index finger of her other hand on the backside of the paper, right at the center of the array on the other side, and began to focus her mana.

She felt the array react to her magic, spreading the influence of her photomancy out around her. While such an act was possible for her to do, and she had done such before, the array took the mental strain off her, allowing her to more quickly take hold of the light. In a few seconds, she had reached her limit, and after checking her aim one final time, she focused all the light into one spot, the construct’s chest.

The area around the platform dropped into pitch darkness even as the robot’s chest piece lit up like a beacon, light reflecting off it as the metal grew red with heat. Vivian kept her brow furrowed for the few seconds she could maintain the spell. Her concentration, mana and the array itself reached their limit at the same moment, light returning to its normal transit. Blinking both due to the shift in illumination and the exertion, Vivian saw the construct’s still moving form begin to stall, its front still glowing red, rivulets of melted metal running down like wax.

Vivian was dimly aware of the third door opening, but she kept her gaze on the robot. Through the melting metal, she could see some of the machine’s internal mechanisms were charred.

“Certainly a display,” Sofia said as she came to stand next to Vivian. “A pity it’s a one-and-done sort of move.”

Vivian’s eyes fell to the page between her fingers, curls of smoke rising from the front. The mana that had flowed through it had burned away the ink, leaving smoldering cutouts in their place.

“If I had some better material, I could make a long-lasting one,” Vivian remarked. “And if I keep doing it, I should get better at managing the mana cost.”

“Practice does make perfect,” Sofia intoned then marched down the stairs. The construct tried to square up, but its arms just lightly quivered in place, locked into place by a ruined mechanism. With a dispassionate expression, Sofia drove her sword into its chest cavity.

There was a sharp popping sound and the robot collapsed, fading into nothingness, its shield and sash falling to the ground.

“Hardly an exciting end,” the knight sighed as she picked up the sash and let the shield vanish away. She cast her eyes down into the arena and Vivian followed her gaze. John, Senka and K’mels had gone and Teri and Rowan were fighting the last robot.

“If you don’t mind, I would like to observe Rowan’s fight,” Sofia requested. “It seems she’s taken up a new weapon.”

“I don’t mind getting a breather,” Vivian said. “And I don’t think waltzing through an active battle zone needlessly is a good idea.”

Sofia nodded, a small smile on his lips. “Indeed it isn’t.”

Thanks again for reading this little story. If you liked the chapter, please hit that thumbs up, and if you want to support my writing, check out my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/ScrapCrow. Get access to my chapters before they’re published here and join my private Discord.