Illiana felt giddy as she stepped away from Cinder, finally acting on the feelings that had been growing between them since they’d been traveling together. Probably could have timed it better, but why wait? They could all die to either this latest abomination or to whatever waited in the next room. She couldn’t remember why, but this thing felt familiar somehow, as if she’d fought it once before.
Flexing her claws and rolling her shoulders, she watched the demonic skeleton as she strode into the room. The clattering of Barnaby’s armor assured her he was right behind her. Although headless, she felt the coldness of the skeleton’s attention settle on her. The great blade came off its shoulder and stood upright.
A flicker of energy and Illiana’s starself stepped forward without her flesh body. It had short tail, long elfin ears and a more medium build than Illiana remembered. The tail flicked, and she felt it on both bodies. Odd.
She dismissed the thought, no more distractions.
“Here we go!” Illiana exclaimed as her starself dashed toward the skeleton. She inhaled, preparing for the glitch switch. The skeleton turned, twirled the cleaver and gripped it with both hands. Illiana smirked. Her starself closed the distance and lept, hurling herself at the skeleton. The clever swung, bisecting the starry Illiana and to her shock she felt the metal bite through her midsection. The starself shattered in an explosion of sparkling light. Illiana, the remaining flesh one, staggered.
That wasn’t supposed to happen! Weapons weren’t supposed to disrupt the starself! The hulking skeleton rested its blade against its shoulder and started sauntering toward Illiana and Barnaby with unhurried menace. This was going to be more complicated than she’d hoped.
“Stick to the plan!” She shouted at Barnaby as she charged toward the undead demon, another starself splitting off from her to dash off at a 45-degree angle.
“What the hell are you doing?” Cinder cried out as an arrow struck black bone of the demon’s hip. It sprouted pulsing green vines that wrapped around the monster’s leg and anchored themselves to the stone floor. Only to be uprooted without effort by the monster’s next step.
Illiana angled her dash to run right by the demon while her starself made for the opposite wall. As the demon lifted the cleaver to strike she launched her body into a dive and glitched.
<fzzzst> Her starself became flesh and vice versa. Safely at range she pooled mana into a freezing ball between her hands as her starself dived, her insubstantial body compressing so the green blade passed over her.
“Have a cold one!” Illiana shouted as the icy spell shot from her hands. It splashed across its upper arm and shoulder, spreading crystalline frost over the black bone. The runes flared.
In a blur of motion, the demon launched itself into air. The sight of something so big suddenly airborne shocked her so much that she wasted precious moments watching that green blade falling toward her like a guillotine.
<fzzzst> She switched at the last moment and immediately felt the dissolution of her starself.
“Illiana!” Cinder shouted.
“I have this!” She shouted back.
Scramble attack. It is taught to every cub. The voice whispered and Illiana nodded in agreement as the memory of teaching dozens of young sabers how to fight. The fact this monster could disrupt the starself made it more complicated but it would still be two against one.
“Chill you to the bone!” She roared as a new starself slid out of her, their hands dancing in unison.
The demon bones lashed out with its left hand, shooting out a lance of fire at Illiana’s flesh body.
<fzzzst> Illiana switched, the flame passed harmlessly through her starself as her fleshself hurled a shrieking globe of icy energy back at the undead demon. It hit the monster’s chest dead center, spreading ice out along the ribs that immediately began to steam but didn’t melt immediately.
Together they sprinted toward the monster body and starself moving in total synch.
<fzzzst>
With every step they switched.
<fzzzst><fzzzst><Fzzzst!>
Every switch the soft sound of the glitching grew. The demon twitched back and forth, trying to keep track of which was which. It swung belatedly and Illiana’s starself dance away as her flesh self nailed it in the back with another icey blast. The pair of them ran literal circles around the monster. The ice slowing it down as Illiana sped up minutely with each glitch switch, their sound swelling sharp cracks that left after images hanging in space itself. The cloak grew shorter, exposing a lengthening feline tail. The legs that propelled Illiana grew a thick black coat of star dusted fur.
Locked in a feral state of live or die, Illiana did not notice the alterations to her body.
Barnaby, kneeling in front of the white flame was consumed with seeking the favor of his god.
The only one that noticed was Cinder, hanging back at the far wall, an arrow draw to her cheek. Her hands starring to tremble as she watched her friend grow more monsterious with every exchange of flesh for stars.
“Illiana!” She heard herself shout as she loose her arrow. Perhaps the dead demon heard the anguish in that scream or the impact of the arrow surprised it, announcing a combatant that it had forgotten about. Either way, it flinched giving Illiana the opening she needed.
The starself lept at the demon skeleton’s backside, its stars streaming around its ribs to hug its massive spinal column from inside the thing’s ribcage. The headless demon whirled nearly comically swatting ineffectively at its own chest as the Illiana’s shouted out a spell.
“I call on nature glorious wraith! Strike my enemies with <FZZZST!> Thunderious Rage!” Illiana’s fleshself appeared, clinging to the inside of the demon’s ribs, her being crackling with magical energy before:
CRACK-A-THOOM!
The energy exploded outwards, scattering bones like the shrapnel of a bomb. At its center Illiana floated, arms outstretched like she’d just broken free of magical chains. Then gravity remembered her and she fell back to earth. She caught herself only to stumble down to her knees.
“Shit!” Cinder sprinted to her, heart bursting with questions that she knew they did not have time for. “Illiana! You okay?” She asked as she skidded to a stop beside Illiana.
“Fine.” Illiana shook herself and then looked up at Cinder with radically altered features, her broad nose split her upper lip, whiskers sprouted above her black lips and dark fur framed her face. “Don’t let the bones…”
On cue the scattered bones began to rattle and move.
“Silk of the weaver! Sticky and Strong!” Illiana’s clawed, fur covered hands wove through the air and then flung mana out at the wall. A huge spider web crystalized into existence between two wall mounted statues.
Cursing a blue streak, Cinder snatched up the largest nearby bone and hurled it into the web. Once in it, the bone twisted and spun, only further entangling itself. Illiana lurched to her feet and followed suite, scooping up three bones that had be going for the cleaver that lay near the three steps that lead up to the door.
“Could we just open the door while this thing is disrupted?” Cinder as the pair tossed more bones into the web.
“Uuuh.” Illiana looked at the door and the pulsing magics within, they circulated in complex patterns, drawing on both the torch and another source that was likely behind it. The warding was powerful but not terribly complex, still. It might be easier to blow a hole in the adjoining wall. But then they’d have to deal with whatever nastiness was in the burial chamber itself AND the undead demon. “I’d need a lot more time than we have.”
While she spoke the demon’s spine had reconnected in the back part of the room and snaked toward Barnaby who knelt infront the ghost flame.
“Oh no you don’t!” Cinder shouted as she spotted it less than five feet from Barnaby. In a wild charge, she punted it with her boot at the last moment and sent it flying. The spine hit the wall and broke apart. Yet they immediately moved to reconnect. Just as the more than a hundred other bones scattered around the room were doing. Cinder and Illiana ran to and fro, trying to toss the bones into the web but often just breaking the clusters apart.
“Barnaby!” Illiana panted in great heaving breaths. “Please say you're almost done!”
The knight did not answer, but the timber of his chant grew sonorous and filled the chamber. Something, heavy like the cold attention of the undead but far warmer, pressed against Illiana and Cinder’s awareness as the knight’s armor began to glow.
The bones stilled for a moment, stopping their futile struggles within the web and there clattering movement across the stone. Illiana and Cinder traded surprised looks. It was working!
But no.
The red of the runes etched into the bones intensified, and the scent of sulfur rose through the room. The web burst into flames and all the bones caught within it rained down onto the floor. They bounced once and started to snap together.
“Ah shit!” Cinder reacted first, dashing toward the firey web. “Grab the leg bones!” She shouted, grabbing hold of a fully assembled calf and foot before running for an opposite corner of room. The bones were the temperature of red iron and she hissed as it burned her hands.
“Cold and Frost!” Illiana slammed a frost bolt into the demon’s hip. Grabbed hold of the connected femur and wrenched the bone free. She yowled in pain as burning hot claws raked across her back as she lept away. The bone sizzled in her grip as she took it to the entrance way and flung it down the hallway. A short figure ducked out of the way, Yaser, her servant. “Keep it busy!” She commanded the little man.
“Yes me lady.” The goblin scrambled after the limb and Illiana turned back to her friends, the goblin promptly falling out of her very memory. Instead she charged back into the room, berating herself for not learning more cold spells.
She made feline hiss when she saw the demon skeleton completely reassembled minus its legs. Using its hands, it was dragging itself toward the unaware knight. In the far corner, Cinder fumbled with her bow while standing on the limb she’d snatched. Her burned hands were shaking badly, but she manage to knock a thorny arrow and shoot true. The vines grappled the weakened monster were much more effective this time, the bones having to strain against them.
“Freeze solid!” Illiana cried, hammering the demon with ice blast after icy blast.
It slowed the headless skeleton further, but the damnable thing showed no sign of damage. It stopped crawling forward and stretched its arm out towards Cinder.
“Duck!” Illiana called out to Cinder, remember the lance of flame but instead as Cinder crouched to dodge, the leg she stood bucked. Cinder fell but twisted, managing to grab hold of the black foot before it flew out of range. It dragged her halfway across the room before she managed to get her feet beneath her. She skidded to within feet of the demon’s outstretched hand before stopping. The pair strained, Cinder baring her teeth, pulling with every muscle in her taunt frame and while the bones shook with effort. Illiana took a step toward her friend when the demon switched its tactics once again.
It let go, Cinder fell backward to the floor as the demon arm shifted, pointing toward its cleaver, which lay twenty feet away and unguarded. It flew into the bone hand and swung at Cinder just as she was regaining her feet. At the very edge of its arc, the blade slashed across her stomach. A scream of absolute agony pierced the air and Cinder fell, clutching her stomach. Barnaby’s shoulders hunched further, bowing his head. Meanwhile Illiana flew, falling onto all fours. The demon’s leg snapped into place and it used it to lurch towards the helpless Cinder. The cleaver came up, and fell as Illiana rolled between them.
“Mana to stone!” She cried, thrusting open palmed hands up toward the blade. A burning blue plane of force sprang into existence in time for the blade to crash down into it. A crack appeared through it, but it held. Illiana poured mana into the barrier as the cleaver raised for another blow.
“Barnaby!” Illiana screamed as the demon put a second crack in the shield. If she used thunderstrike now, Cinder would be right next to ground zero.
A soft, woosh, swept through the room, like blowing out of candle. The light dimmed but didn’t go away, this was a warmer tone.
“Fucking finally.” Cinder whispered, rolling out from under the plane of force, glowing arrow in hand and stabbing it into the black bone of the demon’s leg. A flash of the purest white pulsed through the skeleton, the red runes evaporating to mist in its wake. It reared back, over balancing and falling on its back. Writhing in pain, it grabbed at the arrow but the bones of its hands dropped away, clattering lifelessly to the floor. Its arm swiftly followed before it fell apart entirely.
The bones lay still.