Rebirth of the Nephilim-Chapter 647: Shattered Expectations
“Go!” Jay said as she surged forward, leading the charge towards the rear of the workshop.
As her other two selves had handled her duties from other ends, Jay had been waiting across the river for the right time to attack. Thea, Bridget, and Meli had been waiting with her, and Wilhelm, Lucia, Halvor, and Rein were stationed only a short distance away in their own hiding spot. As Jay gave the signal, all eight of them leapt into action. The only barrier to their entry of the workshop was a river, and that wasn’t much of a barrier.
Wilhelm and his team darted out from the dock they had been hiding under, sprinting full speed across the water’s surface. Water walking was a Divine spell that Lucia possessed, which turned the river into a highway for the fast-moving quartet. Jadis wouldn’t have traded her Succubus wings for the spell, but she had to admit that the effect was pretty damn cool to watch. Wilhelm had described it as though he was running across a bowl of porridge that was inside of a rolling wagon, and Jadis could see what he meant as the man’s boots dipped slightly into the river’s moving surface. Still, even if one of the group tripped and fell, they wouldn’t go under the water until the spell wore off.
Jay could have used her wings to fly across, but the timing of the ambush coincided with a fortuitous event, so she saved the two hundred magic points and went with a different option. With Thea under one arm, Bridget under the other, and Meli on her back, Jay ran forward and leapt from behind the crates they had been hiding behind, soaring across the river thanks to her prodigious strength. When she came down, Jay landed feet first onto the deck of a passing cargo barge, which had the fortunate timing of being between their side of the river and the workshop at that moment.
The timing was rather unfortunate for the vessel and whoever owned it, though, since Jay’s armored weight crushed several of the crates that were packed onto the barge, but that was a minor concern. With another powerful push of her legs, Jay and her companions were in the air again, crossing the rest of the wide river with the second leap.
Jay slammed into the dock of the workshop with a bone-jarring crash. Her boots went right through the wood planks, but the stone river wall beneath that section took her weight. Thea, Bridget, and Meli all surged forward as soon as Jay had landed, their priorities clear. Thea smashed her shield into the closed door, breaking through the lock like it wasn’t there as Bridget and Meli followed inside behind her.
Jay glanced to her right and saw Wilhelm and his companions enter through the large warehouse-style doors that the boats came in and out of. Her gaze didn’t linger, though, as she was already moving. Putting her shoulder down, Jay slammed into the wall between the door her lovers had entered and the large opening that Wilhelm had gone through. Jadis wasn’t concerned with property damage; getting inside fast was all that mattered.
The interior of the boatwright’s workshop was quiet, aside from the movements of her allies. Half-finished boats, stacks of lumber, and all manner of tools were scattered about the space. The west side of the building had a sort of office-like space where various seats and a few tables with papers had been placed. Thea and Bridget were already clearing those spaces, making sure no one was hiding. Wilhelm and the others were on Jay’s right to the east, and they were doing the same by making sure no cultists were in the workshop on that side. For her part, Jay didn’t concern herself with checking the first floor. The basement was her target.
Moving to the middle of the building, Jay spotted the floor hatch that led below partially hidden under a boat set on top of a couple of sawhorses. Jay tossed the clutter aside with a swing of her arm before lifting her hammer overhead. With a single blow, she crushed the hatch inward. The crash of broken wood was paired with the crack of a magic barrier being broken, and Jadis was silently gratified to know that her predictions were correct. She had guessed that the cultists would secure their ritual site with more than just mundane locks, so she had gone in prepared to use her Break the Bulwark skill.
Only seconds had passed since Jay and the others had crashed into the building, but she could already hear the shouts of the men and women below as they reacted to the noise of their violent entry. Speed was more important than stealth at this stage, so Jay jumped down into the dark hole, ignoring the wooden ladder entirely, so that she could clear the way for the others to come behind her.
As soon as she landed on the wet stone floor below the workshop’s main area, Jadis silently thanked Bridget for her Light the Way spell. The hall before her that stretched perhaps twenty feet was completely dark. Without the enhancement to her vision that Bridget had granted her, she wouldn’t have been able to see a thing. But thanks to the blue-tinted glow of her orc lover’s magic, Jay was able to spot the two men who waited for her in the tunnel with swords drawn.
Jadis recognized them as the pair who her Syd self had seen enter the building early on. The bearded man with the lower CLR was closer, and he rushed forward with his sword aimed at Jay’s knee, likely in an attempt to cut her at a weak spot in her armor. His speed was surprisingly high, and he moved with a precision that showed not just years of training, but also the effect of one or more system-given skills.
Jay slammed the butt of her hammer against the side of the man’s head, catching him easily thanks to her far superior speed and greater reach. He stumbled hard and hit his shoulder against the damp wall as blood flowed freely from his dented skull. Before he could even think to recover, Jay caught his sword arm with her left hand and squeezed. The sound of bones breaking echoed along with the clatter of his sword falling to the floor. In the next instant, Jay used that grip to drag the shocked man towards herself. In one smooth motion, she tossed him up the hole above her, where he was caught by a set of giant spider legs before disappearing from sight. Jadis knew that Meli would be able to wrap the disabled fighter up in her webs without issue and gave him no more thought.
As she turned to face the second man, the thud of boots landing behind her signaled another ally’s arrival. The scarred man was already trying to back up, the fear in his eyes apparent. Jay didn’t chase after him. There was no need. In the next instant, the golden glow of Wilhelm’s sword lit the tunnel. The Hero darted ahead and slashed expertly with his weapon, disarming the guard with a single swipe. Jay wondered how the often-times mild and unassuming Wilhelm would handle disabling the cultist; for a moment, she was worried he might go easy on an unarmed opponent.
Those worries proved entirely unfounded as the Hero promptly smashed the pommel of his sword into the other man’s face, breaking his nose in an explosion of blood. Following the move up with a knee to the groin that made even Jadis wince, Wilhelm took the thoroughly incapacitated man by the collar and threw him at Jay with a casualness that demonstrated his own hidden strength. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢
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As Jay tossed their third captive of the day up to Meli’s waiting arms, the Hero used his sword and some sort of skill to break through a second magic barrier that was blocking the door at the end of the underground hallway. Wilhelm pushed forward boldly, weapon held high. Beyond him, Jay saw the movement of many cultists scrambling in purple-lit shadows. Without hesitation, she followed in after the Hero.
The space Jay stepped into was wider than she thought it would be. Based on where she was facing, she guessed that the basement area spread out to go under the street outside. The riverside workshop was never meant to have a cellar space to begin with, so the size of the room was custom to the cultists’ purposes. The roughly circular space had a completely flat and seamless stone floor, a feat only capable via some form of Arcane magic. A pillar stood in the center, reaching all the way up to the slightly domed ceiling. Metal stakes and chains hung from the pillar, and Jay could see that an unconscious man already had one arm manacled to the bloodstained column.
The rest of the room’s details Jay did not have the time to examine. The cultists inside had all of her attention.
Screams and shouted orders echoed in the enclosed space as the men and women who worshipped Samleos responded to the attack. The language used was Voltonian, so Jadis didn’t understand much, but the tenor of shock and anger running through the air was easy enough to parse. Several of the cultists ran to the far side of the room, fleeing her and Wilhelm’s entrance, but just as many surged forward with swords and daggers raised.
Whatever ritual that they had been ready to perform had involved some unpleasant preparations, as many of the cultists were naked and covered in dark red liquid that could only be blood, based on the smell. The fact that none of the cultists were wearing armor was definitely to Jadis’ and her allies’ advantage, though. She had a small hope when she saw their state of dress that the majority would not be able to put up much of a fight. Then the two men in front met Wilhelm’s sword with their daggers and she was forced to abandon that optimism.
Dark energies surged through the daggers as they met the golden light of Wilhelm’s God-given sword. The crackling screech of evil power was loud enough to make Jay wince, but the Hero reacted as though he was prepared for the unexpected counter. His sword swipe turned into a parry, followed by a series of rapid strikes that kept both of the attacking cultists at bay, even as he turned the attacks of lesser opponents away with quick and efficient movements. Jay could only spare a glance for that fight, however. Her attention was on the mage she had spotted entering the workshop earlier.
The well-groomed man was near the back of the room, flanked by several cultists who were all holding staves with eleria crystals set into their bulbous tops. He had no weapon or staff in hand, but the silver bracelets he wore on either wrist shone with a light that Jadis’ Succubus-empowered eyes recognized as powerful enchantments. His hands moved in arcane patterns, and Jadis knew that a spell was being cast. Darting forward, she aimed to cut the man off before he could cast whatever destructive magic he was conjuring.
From the crowd of cultists who had fled to cower on one side of the room, a changing figure charged at Jay with a guttural snarl. The thing, whatever it was, grew in size as it leapt at her, its form morphing even as it attacked. Jay turned her charge on one heel, meeting the attack with her hammer, and blocked a set of powerful jaws that bit down hard on the haft of her weapon. She felt herself pushed back by the weight of the beast, so Jay pivoted with the motion and pulled the creature around so that they both slammed into a wall with stone-shattering force.
In the split second of stillness that followed their impact, Jay got a small glimpse of the monster she was entangled with. A mix of tawny fur and scales covered a large, quadrupedal body that rippled with muscles. A long tail with venom-coated spikes twitched angrily at its rear, while wide paws tipped with massive talons clawed at her armored torso. Three horned heads that looked like a mix between a lion and a goat met her gaze through her helmet. Two of the heads had locked their powerful jaws onto her hammer, but the third growled at her with bared teeth that sparked with unnatural flames.
“I told them that I could smell a nosy bitch rooting around our trail,” an inhuman voice came from the middle head. “It was that smuggler from Tiaga, wasn’t it?”
Jay didn’t bother with the banter. With a swift tilt back of her head, she slammed her helmet into the transformed Fetch’s nose, causing a crack that rocked the beast, though its hold was not broken. Instead, a chorus of angry growls came from the heads as the shapeshifting cultist shifted its back paws and used its tail to try and take Jay’s feet out from under her.
The attack was unsuccessful, as the transformed Fetch didn’t have the strength or leverage to pull her leg out. However, Jay found herself struggling to push the chimeric monstrosity away. It only took a glance to see why. Divine magic was surging from the cultists who had gathered by the arcane mage, and she could see that they were energizing both the Fetch and the other melee fighters with Divine power. Jay still felt she had the upper hand in Strength and certainly in Speed, but the enemy had closed the gaps by a fair amount.
Looking at the Divine casters also drew Jay’s attention to the mage centered in their midst. The man’s blue and silver aura was bubbling with a sickly darkness as he finished forming a rune circle in the air. As he did so, the monstrous Fetch abruptly pulled back, practically melting as it dodged to the side and gave the mage a clear shot at her.
A beam of extreme cold lanced towards Jay’s chest, freezing the humidity in the air into mist even as lightning crackled in the core of the ice. Jadis swung the head of her war hammer forward, intending to block, or at least deflect, the magic away from her, but the move proved unnecessary. Before the beam could strike her, a floating shield made of a solid, steel gray color appeared in the air in front of her. The ice and lightning spell was blocked entirely, fizzling uselessly against the magic aegis.
Jay turned her gaze to the side for just a moment, quickly spotting Thea in the only doorway, with Bridget just behind her. Her shieldmaiden met her gaze and gave her a single nod, before moving in with her physical shield raised before her. Bridget kept right behind her, lantern lit with arcane flame, and even in the short second that Jay glanced at the pair she saw her orc lover swing her weapon and take the legs out from under two of the cultists who were trying to swarm Wilhelm.
“Proteggetemi! Distruggerò il luogo del rituale e li ucciderò tutti!”
Jadis didn’t need to understand Voltonian to get the gist of what the well-groomed mage was saying. If a clean win wasn’t likely, self-destruction was always an option for the followers of Samleos.
“I hope you enjoy your watery grave,” the Fetch laughed in chorus, painting a much clearer picture of what was about to happen.
“I hope you didn’t think this was our entire plan,” Jay shouted back at the shapeshifter, causing its malicious laughter to die.
From the wall behind the mage and his cohorts came a rumbling sound. The single second of recognition that fell across the man’s face drew a feral grin to her own faces. Jadis had to admit, it felt good to execute a plan that worked exactly as intended.
The stone wall exploded outward, sending several of the cultists falling forward, though the mage managed to get a icy shield up in time to block the debris. From the hole that had been created charged several figures. In the lead was Ludger, who trampled over one unfortunate man who had fallen in the way before he slammed his shield into the mage’s protective barrier, sending him flying back. Before the bearded wizard could regain his feet, the shadow of an armored giant loomed over him.
Dys chopped down, shattering the magic barrier before the bladed head of her axe bisected the mage’s right arm. As the man screamed in pain, Dys raised her eyes to meet the trio of monstrous Fetch eyes staring at her.
“Surprise, motherfucker.”
