strangetrip | Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

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Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

At the crest of the mountain, Coc'zac sat atop Nazu's head looking through a glass that Hotor held to his eye. Vokva sat beside them, little more than a pile of bones atop a pile of rocks, and Hafur paced behind them, holding the troops in check. They milled in the pre-dawn gloom, skeletons, wights, zombies, wraiths, and all manner of undead creatures. Periodically, Nazu swept the space behind them with their tail bowling over anyone who'd gotten too close.

The first pinpoint of light had Coc'zac's teeth chattering with excitement in his disembodied head. Today was the day he'd been planning for. Soon, soon the Inn and its occupants would be his. Nazu unleashed a heavy sigh tinged with poison and necrosis. Fortunately the troops were all dead already, and Coc'zac didn't have anything in the way of arms to hit them with.

It fell to Hafur to gesture the troops forward as punctuation to Coc'zac's 'rousing' speech, and together they crept through the portal, avoiding its fizzing and popping edges demarcated in what would be neon blue, if they could still see in color. They couldn't properly hear either, but they were aware of the noise and the danger it marked.

Once they were all through, the advance scouts, four bands of skeleton archers swept quietly as they could through the shadows to take up position around the main buildings, prepared to pick off anyone who exited--for example for a pre-sun jog. And once they'd settled into wary, silent waiting, occasionally interrupted by the pop of a joint or the clatter of toe bones on stone, the next wave rolled in finding shadows to hide in until the residents emerged with the wights taking point.The bone naga and three flameskulls slipped through the lobby doors and stealthed toward the offices, assuming to find the command center there.

It wasn't long before the invaders caught the notice of the residents, and then shouts began to echo through the grey light and journals filled with messages and reminders of siege plans. Several strongly worded messages urged the kids and those without weapons or fighting skills to head for the Temple where the Hallow spell would protect them from unholy undead things.

And so the battle for the Madonna Inn began...

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Corbie snapped up as straight and tall as she could stand, all five-feet-three-inches of her. "Yes. I can do it."

Molly nodded her head once. They could do this, there wasn't really an option to not do it. Just as she was about to draw the circle she saw an archer out of the corner of her eye. She spun around and threw her energy into her lights to blind the beings.

"That should hold them off for a bit." Molly was satisfied with that and went to draw the wide circle, using the spells to keep Corbie and Mildmay safe while they worked the wards.

"Okay, that's done. Just make sure you guys stay inside the chalk lines."

Corbie heard Mildmay mutter something that sounded rather like 'fuck this for the emperor's snot rag,' but he didn't try to stop Corbie, keeping watch as she drew sigils on the ground and began muttering under her breath. She knew in theory that she could ward this building, but it was the first time she'd tried to do something this big and under these circumstances.

She had to focus, or it wouldn't work. She had the circle's protection. She had another pair of eyes watching out for her. She could afford to let the rest of the world fall away for just now.

She got to work.

Molly watched for a moment as Corbie worked to make sure that she was okay. Once she was satisfied that she was, Molly turned her attention into making the Temple disappear.

She muttered the veiling spell but before she could complete it she felt an arrow pierce Harry's coat. It didn't penetrate past the material and into her skin but she felt the bruise begin to form just below her shoulder blade. "Hey that's a dick move shooting at my back!" Molly reached around and pulled it out of the coat and tossed it on the ground. Her eyes narrowed in anger, "dispertius" and a crater erupted under the skeleton archer that had fired the weapon.

While Molly was focusing on making the Temple disappear, Corbie threw herself into making sure it didn't take any damage. She'd practiced and practiced for the past year, keeping things in, keeping things out, giving permissions to some things and not to others. It was so hard to concentrate with death at her back and explosions in her ears and her hands shook.

The longer you fuck around, the longer Mildmay will be in danger.

That centered her. There were people inside the Temple, sure, but thinking of the whole building was too much. Thinking of those people was too much. Thinking of him... she could do that.

So she drew and she chanted, and she did her best to ignore the noise.

The magic snapped into place with an almost tangible pop. And Corbie sat stunned for a minute before she whooped in victory.

While it was gratifying to see an arrow go whizzing past and slamming into an invisible wall, it also meant that it was time to get to safety. Under normal circumstances Mildmay would never get pushy with her. In this case, though, she didn't argue being herded back toward the Temple.

Molly went back to veiling the building when she saw Corbie do her victory dance. She laughed softly as she finished the spell. It had to be done delicately not to screw with Corbie's wards, but fingers crossed, it should work. The only way to tell is if the supernatural bad guys react to a suddenly disappearing building.

Not long after Corbie, Molly went back inside but she stayed near the door to look out the window. There was a slight haze, which was normal as that was how it looked when you were looking out of the veil. What caught her attention was the archers suddenly paused and shifted the direction of their arrows. "Hot damn, it worked."

Corbie's heart still hadn't slowed down, so she was laughing with an edge of hysteria to it as the fact that she could have gotten seriously hurt or even killed really started to roll over her. The fact that most people here could still get injured or killed at that. She had no idea where Jackson was, and she was trying not to think about it, because he was probably out there shooting things.

She really couldn't handle it if he got himself killed. Again.

She put her hands over her face and tried to calm down. "Fuck me, I guess so."

Molly understood exactly how Corbie was feeling and not just because of empath. It was a been there done that bought the T-shirt with Harry feeling.

"Damn straight. We're bad ass wizards. But don't mind me if I have a heart attack when this is over." Because you had to push everything aside and deal with the here and now before you could collapse and freak. Lesson 52 from Harry.

'Badass' was a weird word, and while Corbie more or less absorbed what it meant by hearing it in enough contexts, she didn't think she'd ever be comfortable using it to describe anybody. Probably especially herself. "I'll prob'ly go down first, so don't worry. I won't mind."

"You did great out there." Molly turned away from the window to look at Corbie. "Way better than I did the first time I was under attack and doing magic."

Corbie ducked her head and lowered her eyes to the floor. "Mil'may wouldn't've let anything happen to me," she mumbled. "I couldn't let anything happen to him either."

"Making sure someone you care about doesn't get hurt definitely helps you focus." Molly had to agree but then a mischievous grin came out and she waggled her eyebrows, "It also helps focus the yay we survived, let's celebrate with fun sex after the battle."

Or that was just her.

Corbie laughed, a laugh that had a nervous edge to it since there still wasn't any guarantee that they weren't all about to die. Her face going pink was something else entirely. "Well, wouldn't be the first time I met a soldier in need of a good fuck. I just never expected to be one."

Molly snickered, "you and me both."

Then she got a little more serious thinking about what they'd just done, "but it's good to feel useful. I mean sure I've helped out Harry before but I always felt useless being the defense person, but this was different. This felt like I added value and not just something to do."

"I only got to spook some horses for a diversion at Summerdown," Corbie murmured in agreement. "I mean, not that I really knew enough to do much else and Felix didn't know what the fuck he was doing, but." She shrugged.

"But this feels like accomplishing something." Molly replied again. "Maybe it's that it's something bigger. Mostly I've been helping Harry and it's pretty much helping to keep his ass out of the fire, this is..." She turned her head to look at the kids and others in the Temple, "bigger."

"It's... more real," Corbie murmured. Summerdown had been big. Summerdown had been about saving a whole country. But it hadn't felt real, not all of those people and all that land. But she knew all of these people by name, by habits, by story some of them.

And that, she supposed, counted as bigger, too.

Molly dragged her gaze back to Corbie with a nod of agreement. "Yeah. I wouldn't say the stakes were higher because the fight in Mexico with Harry had some pretty high stakes. It's just that these stakes were more meaningful."

At least for her. She knew that for Harry, saving his daughter was a hell of a lot more meaningful, but she had just been a name then to Molly. This was different.

Corbie nodded, then she glanced around the space at the people here. "I think I'm gonna check on Annie," she said. The little girl hadn't been one of the first people here, and she was wearing that hero costume she'd worn on her first day. Corbie would bet money she didn't have--and didn't need here--that Annie could use an adult. Or someone who could pass for one.

"And I promised that I would check on Miguel when I got back." Molly nodded at Corbie. "See ya later. Let me know if you need anything."

After checking on Miguel, Molly would distance herself from the others. The emotions were heightened all around the inn and it was beginning to take a toll on her.

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Inn-world Combat: The Dread Reign

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