I drew the power from my pool of Vigor, enhanced by the energy filling the hall, and let it flow through my flesh. My Frozen Armor grew thicker as I used my recent experience to better shape it. Small plates appeared over weak points in my defences. The forearms and shoulders bulked out to absorb more hits. Carefully articulated gauntlets appeared around my hands as each joint of the fingers misted into a separate ice plate.
While I reinforced my armor, Vesma ran around the outside of the hall, hitting each gong she passed with her spear and building up a wall of noise that echoed all around us. The anglers turned their heads at every one of the ringing tones. Confusion filled their postures as the echoing cacophony filled the world around them.
I took the opportunity to charge the nearest pair of anglers. The first one didn’t see me coming, and I caught it by surprise. My blade flashed into its side, but the blow didn’t cut as deep as my last one. The creature whirled around and gnashed its teeth as it swung its claws at my head. I parried the attack, spun the Sundered Heart around, and sliced off the creature’s hand. I stabbed it through one of its bulbous eyes as the creature stared at the bloody stump. There was a spurt of thick ooze, and the angler collapsed.
The other one’s attention was fully on me now. It swung its lure, and I had to look away to avoid being hypnotized by the mesmerizing light. While I was distracted, a claw hit me in the leg and took out a chunk of my armor. A second blow carved a gash in the ice across my chest and staggered me. My foot hit a body, and I fell with a splash onto my back.
The angler vanished into the water only to appear immediately next to my head. A claw darted down, and I rolled aside. The blow caught me in the shoulder, but my reinforced armor absorbed its force. Fragments of ice flew as the angler struck again and hit my forearm.
I got to my knees and summoned an Ash Cloud around the angler, but this one was smarter than the rest. It vanished into the water beneath the cloud and reappeared beside me. It lunged with its clawed grasp and squeezed my forearm with horrifying force. My Frozen Armor shattered and left my flesh exposed. The claw tightened, and pain shot through me as blood ran down my arm. The Sundered Heart wobbled in my hand as my grip on it weakened.
I brought my other hand around until it almost touched the angler’s arm and unleashed a fireball that seared the scaly limb and brought a stink of scorched flesh. Fire might have been mostly ineffective against a water creature, but the monster still released its grip on me and backed away.
I clutched my sword with both hands and swung it at the space above the lure. The blade sliced through the strand of muscle that kept the glowing orb attached to its head. The lure flew away and splashed into the shallow pool.
I could target the angler now without worrying about being enthralled by it.
I advanced on the monster, parried a swing of its remaining claw, and stabbed it straight through the center of its face. There was a hiss of metal sliding through fleshy cartlidge and then a splash as the angler collapsed lifelessly.
Kumi continued singing her healing song while Vesma kept up the bell-ringing to support the rest of us. But Labu was in trouble. One of his companions had fallen, and now the prince was cut off again. He ducked and weaved as he stabbed at the advancing monsters with his barbed spear, but one of them appeared behind him and swept out the prince’s legs. He fell to the ground, and the creature bent over him with a malicious grin of vicious teeth.
Water sprayed from my footfalls as I sprinted across the pool. I shot a fireball into the angler’s side that drew its attention away from the fallen Labu. I followed the fire with thorns as I got closer and riddled the angler’s face with splinters. Blood seeped from a dozen tiny wounds as the monster let out a low, angry hiss and stepped over Labu.
I called forth the power of water to reinforce my armor once more. The Sundered Heart blazed with flames as I swung it at the creature’s face. The angler dodged aside and showed itself to be more nimble than the others I’d met. It made a low swing with a claw that might have knocked my feet out from under me, but I jumped over the blow and lashed out as I went. The blade of the Sundered Heart hit the creature’s wrist and dropped a clawed hand into a pile of corpses behind it.
The angler reared back, but I wasn’t going to give it a chance to recover. I dived straight at it and swung my blade in a flurry of blows. It tried to block one, but that action let me cut off the remaining claw. I ran it through just as it started to vanish into the water.
I drew my sword out of the angler’s body and went to crouch beside Labu. He bled from a wound on his chest as he labored to breathe with a rasping sound.
I laid my hand on the wound, touched it as lightly as I could to avoid causing pain, and drew on the power of sap. Sunlight Ichor flowed across Labu’s skin and gave it a golden sheen that glowed as it caught the light that came in through the open roof of the hall. The prince’s wounds started to heal, slowly at first, and then faster as I fed more Vigor into the technique.
“It’s the last one,” Vesma called out.
