Lydia rolled, trying to get back to her feet, only to have her leg kicked out from under her, sending her crashing to the floor again in a clatter of heavy armor.
The Drow easily dodged first one, then a second arrow, before stabbing out and driving its sword deep into Cam’s chest.
Cam let out a gasp of pain as he dropped his axe, the sight of the sword standing out from between his ribs shocking him into immobility.
Barret and Jian were having little more luck with their Drow as it flashed across the intervening distance between them. It threw tiny three-sided daggers at them, each cutting the air with a ripping sound like silk being cut with a razor, before shredding Barrett’s cheek, shoulder and upper left arm.
The throwing knives sank deep into his flesh, the poison that coated them paralyzing him as he fell forward and began to bleed out.
Arrin and Stephanos fired Magic Missiles and poison-laden arrows at the mutated Drow as it closed the distance between them, its magical shield flaring and dying. Just as it closed with Jian, Arrin ran out of mana, while Stephanos didn’t dare fire, for fear of hitting his friend.
Jian and the Drow exchanged blows, his two scythes flashing and barely beating back the Drow’s single blade. It grinned at him and lunged closer, flowing past his guard like water around a boulder. One of its spider-like legs suddenly flashed out, stabbing him in the left forearm and piercing his leather bracer with ease.
He grunted and dropped that scythe, his fingers spasming nervelessly, as the Drow lunged forward, mouth opening wide, fangs aimed for his throat.
Jian closed his eyes reflexively, only to hear a hiss of displaced air as something passed over his shoulder at tremendous speed. A thunk announced its impact into the Drow’s open mouth, the quivering fletching of Stephanos’s arrow brushing Jian’s shoulder as his eyes flared open again.
The Drow stood motionless, the arrow embedded deep in its throat. The tip pierced the base of its brain and quivered, the mutant creature’s forward momentum vanishing as suddenly as a sparrow hitting a window.
It collapsed backwards, and Arrin frantically chugged his remaining mana potions, one after the other, hissing at the pain of the mana migraine that threatened to drop him to his knees, as Stephanos stood rooted in shock, his bow string still vibrating from the killing shot.
“I…I …he was…” he muttered, and Miren screamed at him.
“Help me!” she begged, sending another arrow flashing forwards, only to be batted aside derisively by the Drow that stood over Cam.
Stephanos shook himself out of his shock and fumbled another arrow from his quiver. The Drow-made bow granted just enough of a boost to his archery skill that he’d known he could make the shot, releasing it to blur through the air. The projectile had barely missed slamming into the back of Jian’s skull, instead killing the Drow as they danced their dance of death.
Now Stephanos growled, heaving back on his bow and taking aim at the Drow as it slowly twisted the blade in Cam’s chest, tearing his last breath free, before shucking the suddenly cooling meat that had been their friend off its blade and onto the floor.
***
The creature had started to spin its blades in the air, one passing where the other had been a second before, flashing from left to right, over and back, twirling and spinning in a blatant demonstration of his skill over those he faced, until a scream of rage echoing from above drew its attention to its Drider master.
She fell, wrapped in her own web, to impale herself my naginata and smashing the building I stood atop into rubble.
“Mistress!” It howled, before a blur of light drew its attention back just in time to block a pair of arrows that split the air, hurtling towards it. It blocked one, then the other, just barely, but as it growled its hatred at them, it missed Lydia and Arrin.
***
Lydia kicked out, putting all the additional strength points she’d invested to become a tank to good use, buckling the Drow’s knee and sending it crashing to the floor. It lashed out, one arm bracing itself and the other sword crashing down to skitter off her hastily lifted shield in a shower of sparks that lit the cavern briefly.
As the sparks died, Arrin’s Magic Missiles lit his target back up. He’d downed two potions, both granting him an immediate jump of sixty points of mana. Combined with the boost in his regeneration, that had left him with sixty-four points. He’d forced all of it into his spell, overcharging the usual requirement of thirty mana by more than double. The resulting trio of missiles had blurred the air as he fired them straight up, only to flip over and smash down again with tremendous force.
The Drow had been wearing a conical silver helmet that ran down its cheeks, leaving its mouth exposed, and it was there that the missiles struck, one after the other.
The first smashed his lower jaw open and down, lips blasted free, teeth shattering, and its tongue was blown backwards, its foremost roots tearing free. The second missile tore the lower jaw free of the cheek muscles that tried to restrain it and sent its teeth slicing into its face as they shattered under the force of the impact and subsequent explosion into miniature bony fragmentation grenades.
The third and final missile shredded the last remnants of the lower jaw and punched downward, piercing its throat and burrowing deep before exploding. The resulting blast sent the Drow onto its back, blood fountaining upwards from the severed jugular.
It thrashed frantically, discarding its blades and grabbing at the pouch at its waist, desperately yanking a ruby red potion out, even as others fell from the torn fabric, followed the tinkling sound of glass breaking and bouncing across the floor.
It pulled the vial up, its head unable to rise on its own, as damaged as the
