The Heavenly Host

Tureledor was quickly surrounded by a shimmering globe; most likely a kinetic bubble to protect him from flying objects. Davron was shouting into a mirror, clearly shouting orders to his people.

Ruiden crashed to the floor below the archway and quickly stood to face the oncoming Exador. “Well, I hope that surviving a cleaving should be sufficient proof for everyone of your demonic nature?” Ruiden said.

“I am going to take great pleasure in disenchanting you, artifact!” Exador hissed, bringing his giant black sword around to strike at the sword golem. Ruiden raised his right arm and countered the giant blade.

Randolf shook his head. Exador was going into combat against four swords: two arm and two leg swords. This would be interesting, but he had work to do. His staff was now present and he began using its magical end tip to begin inscribing runes around himself in the stone floor. If he was about to go toe-to-toe with an archdemon, a good pentagram would be very useful.

∼

An extremely loud klaxon caused Trisfelt to jump up in shock from the chair in which he was seated at a table, reading over a large scroll. “What the hell is that?” he asked no one in particular, being alone in his suite. He quickly ran to the door.

The klaxon seemed even louder in the hallway. A page came rushing down the hall.

“What is that noise?” Trisfelt yelled at the page.

“It’s the palace evacuation klaxon!” the page replied, running up to Trisfelt.

“Evacuation?” Trisfelt asked.

The page nodded. “Lord Gandros has sounded the alarm to evacuate; apparently there is a major arcane battle going on in the grand foyer that is liable to cause death and generalized mayhem!”

“Worse than when the demons all exploded from the basement?” Trisfelt asked.

The page shrugged. “Apparently. Everyone needs to evacuate. You should see lit runes near stairwells with directions on where to exit. Gotta run!”

“Crap!” Trisfelt cursed. He needed to make sure the students got out. He prayed to... he had no idea whom that they were all close together. Where was Hilda? He hoped she was at home.

∼

Randolf finished his carved pentagram and was finally able to glance back to the battle. Things were not really going well for Exador; at least, he was not making any progress. Ruiden was a sword, a very sharp, very hard metal sword. In a sword fight, you fought to wound and kill the wielder of a sword, not the sword itself. Thus, Exador had nothing to actually attack; he was fighting a self-wielding weapon.

There was really nothing Exador could do with another sword to wound Ruiden. While Exador was also heavily armored, his armor had joints so he could move his limbs. This presented a weakness that the greater demon had used consistently against Talarius. Ruiden seemed to be using this weakness fairly successfully against Exador. Every so often one of the sword’s blades would bypass Exador’s guard and strike at a joint. Shortly thereafter, a flash of light would occur; presumably a healing spell. Actually, considering that Exador was going up against four blades, and the sword’s gymnastic skills were quite formidable, it was quite impressive how few such hits Ruiden managed to get in.

“How far away are you?” Randolf asked Crispin over the link.

“I have to get all the stuff outside our wards. Once I’ve got it all out, I can teleport it all to the foyer. I need about two more trips,” Crispin replied.

Randolf glanced over to Lenamare and Jehenna. Jehenna was busy casting a protective circle around herself and Lenamare. That was a good idea, Randolf thought. Lenamare was the keystone to the city wards; he needed to be protected. Assuming he got the wards up, that was.

At that very moment, Lenamare looked up towards Gandros. “Where in the Abyss is Damien?” Lenamare shouted. “I can’t reach him and he is a key part of the wards!”

Gandros shook his head. “No idea! What about the rest?”

“They are scrambling into place!” Lenamare shouted.

This was not a good way to communicate! Randolf quickly began casting communication links to the other councilors, with the exception of Exador, naturally. Tureledor was the first to connect.

“Should I launch an attack, or allow Ruiden to keep Exador distracted while everyone else gets into position?” Tureledor asked.

“Let’s get everyone into position and get protections up. If we go full arcane, the damage area is bound to get worse!” Randolf replied.