“Holy fuck!” Jay cursed as the dragon hit the clearing.

The ground shook in a miniature earthquake that that made her teeth clatter. A few of her companions and soldiers nearby actually lost their footing, though they all quickly got back to their feet. The trees around them creaked ominously, though none fell to Jadis’ relief. A cloud of snow and dust washed over them, obscuring the sight of the dragon for a moment, though only a short one. From her multiple perspectives, Jadis could still see how well the dragon had faired upon making landfall.

She was glad that they hadn’t bothered covering the clearing in Aila’s traps as had first been suggested. Her spells needed a flat, solid surface to rest on for them to work, and after the dragon had hit the ground, there were few flat surfaces left. The huge creature had wrecked the clearing, churning the frozen dirt into a mess of rubble and debris. The dragon itself, even bigger now that she was seeing it so close, had its forebody half buried from the impact. Even still, its massive bulk filled the open space. Its snake-like neck coiled back over its body, head twisting and turning as the stunned creature tried to make sense of what had happened.

“Now!” Ricket shouted, his hands pounding hard against Jay’s armored thigh. “Do it now! Now!”

Shaking off her own moment of stunned awe, Jay hefted her hammer from the ground and in one smooth motion, turned and swung it at the block of wood holding half of their trap in place. A hundred and fifty feet away on the other side of the clearing, Dys did the same, cutting the wooden block clear of the tree they had prepared for the dragon’s arrival.

Jadis and her allies, some of which were decidedly temporary, had chosen this clearing for a good reason. It was large enough that the dragon fit within it, but only just. The many tall trees ringing the open area would hem the dragon’s movements. More to the point, there were several exceptionally large specimens of towering pine trees ringing the clearing.

Ricket couldn’t do much in the time given. Most of his traps could do even less against a target that made the average blue whale look small. However, as the crazed half-elf was quick to say, when in doubt, stick with the basics.

Two colossal trees on either side of the clearing let out horrendous creaking sounds as the last supports holding their bulk upright were torn away. Jadis hadn’t been so sure about the aim or positioning, but as her two selves backed away from the falling trees, she saw that Ricket had been spot on. The man really did have a skill for making traps. Several, in fact, many of which were geared towards increasing the odds of his traps going off correctly. Just as he had promised and they had all hoped, the two trees, each one close to three hundred feet tall, collapsed on top of the dragon struggling to regain its senses in the middle of the clearing.

There was a crunching sound as the trees toppled over and on top of the back of the ice dragon. The trunk of each tree had to weigh hundreds of tons, more than enough to crush most anything in the world, Jadis imagined.

Except, the dragon was not crushed. The trees fell heavily on top of the stunned beast, pinning its wings and knocking its head to one side, but the dragon was not crushed. It didn’t even look like any bones had been broken.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Ricket cried out, a mad grin on his face as he clenched a fist in triumph. “Almost perfect! If only I had time to make some netting…!”

“Yes, fine, congratulations,” Jay shouted as she picked the crowing trapmaker up. “Now get to your post!”

She then tossed the man towards the rearguard group, wasting no time as she surged forward towards the dragon. They had a limited amount of time to act and they could not waste a second. They had to kill the demon as quickly as possible before the dragon could recover its senses and blast them all with its wintery frost breath.

Or before the horde of demons figured out the ruse and overwhelmed them.

As Jay rushed out of the cover of the trees, Syd and Noll were already on the move. The tree they had been waiting in had been in a good position to see the distant Dryad grove, but it was also in the right spot to put them near the dragon’s head. With the two giant pines pinning the dragon down, at least for the moment, both therion and Nephilim leapt from their tree, aiming to land on top of their temporarily motionless prey.

As Syd sailed through the air, a couple of hundred feet off the ground, the thought that what she was doing was absolutely crazier than Ricket’s obsession with traps flickered through her mind.

Like a graceful cat leaping from one bookshelf to another, Noll landed on top of the dragon’s neck. Syd’s landing was more akin to a dog being catapulted into a pool. But what she lacked in style she more than made up for in aim. Syd’s free arm wrapped around the snout of the dragon as she landed squarely on the frosty beast’s head.

“Well hello there,” Syd called out as she stared into the creature’s massive left eye.

The dragon let out a deafening roar, loud enough to make Syd’s ears ring and her teeth shake in her head.

“Yeah, that’s about the response I expected,” Syd winced, barely able to hear her own voice.

From below, Jay saw that Noll had already made his way down the dragon’s neck towards the festering wound in its shoulder. Seeing it with Noll next to the wound for scale gave Jadis the context she had lacked before. The demon was a lot bigger than it had appeared from a distance. The huge tentacles that squirmed out from the bloody wound were long and thick, each one at least twenty feet in length, if not longer. From what Jay could see, there was no sign of the demon’s core. The only parts exposed were the mass of writhing tentacles. They had expected as much, figuring the demon wouldn’t leave its weak point exposed. That meant they would have to cut away the excess and get to the core within.

In the same moment that Noll reached the infested wound, an overly large arrow fired from Kerr’s bow rocketed through the air to strike the writhing tentacle mass. As much as everyone had agreed Noll would be able to kill the demon quickly, everyone had also agreed that killing it as quickly as possible meant that more than just Noll should be attacking it. Even if the arrow didn’t hit the core, Jadis was sure that Kerr’s insanely powerful arrows would do a great deal of damage to the demon’s health pool—

A flash of blue light appeared in the air around the festering demon. Kerr’s arrow bounced off of a glowing blue shield that had encapsulated the exposed tentacles. In the next moment, Noll’s large, curved sword bit into the magically conjured shield, but to Jadis’ shock, his blow was also deflected.

“Okay, I guess that explains why the dragon hasn’t pried the demon off on its own,” Jay said under her breath.

Jadis’ view of Noll and the demon was lost in the next instant as the dragon’s foreleg ripped its way out of the ground. It had only been a scant few seconds and the dragon was already starting to rise despite the titanic trees pinning it. Noll and Kerr were going to need time to break their way through the demon’s shield. Jadis was going to make sure they got that time.

With a small exertion of her will, Jadis spent the magic to activate her Mirror Shine spell. She wasn’t sure how useful it was going to be against a creature that had to have a high Resilience stat, but considering her own Eldritch attribute had reached comical levels of power, she had a strong suspicion that it would have some effect.

As all three of Jadis’ bodies shone with an inner light, Jadis’ suspicions were confirmed. With Syd grappling the dragon’s face, it had an up-close, unavoidable view of Jadis’ spell. Again the dragon let out a deafening roar as it began shaking its head back and forth, trying to get the Nephilim hugging its face off. As its freed left foreleg started to reach up to swipe at Syd, Jay swung her hammer.

The goal was, per Jack’s insistence, to not kill the dragon, only free it from the demon trying to possess it. Jadis had every intention of following that request. However, that didn’t mean she couldn’t break a few of its bones.

Just before Jay’s hammer struck, Syd used her lance to smack the side of the dragon’s temple. It was a nothing blow, not even enough force behind it to scratch a scale. More than enough to trigger Mirrored Strikes, though.

Jay’s war hammer struck the side of the dragon’s icy foreleg with a crack that reverberated through the trees like a cannon. Jay was actually thrown back, rebounding off of the dragon by several yards. Where her hammer hit, the dragon’s scales were shattered, its ice blue natural armor breaking like eggshells. The dragon’s arm, a body part big enough that it could crush houses by its weight alone, was knocked to the side.

“Holy shit,” all three of Jadis said at the same time, surprised by her own power.

“Yes, that is a lot of demons,” Stavros rumbled next to Dys, completely misunderstanding the reason for her exclamation. “I pray your plan works.”

“It will,” Dys spared a glance for the armed and armored leader of the Roiling Reavers. “Just stick to it and we’ll all make it out of this shit alive.”

“We will,” Stavros said as he brandished his scimitar. “Just remember your promise for leniency.”

Dys didn’t reply, already moving to intercept the rapidly approaching demons. There were several hundred, more than enough to overwhelm their much smaller numbers under most circumstances. The bone thieves and twisted wretches were in the front of the pack, their numbers led by several possessed frost drakes and at least one manticore that she could see. A much larger number of bramble fiends were bouncing through the forest behind them, their legless bodies unable to keep up with the other, faster demons.

With her Mirror Shine already activated, Dys charged towards the oncoming horde, activating her Knight’s Daring Charge skill. With superhuman speed she met the horde, rushing the lead demons.

A frost drake that had gotten to the fore of the pack opened its mouth to bellow its freezing breath. It never got the chance. Dys’ axe cleaved into its open jaws and through its skull, killing the possessed beast in a single blow. Dys’ pace never slowed as the drake fell to the ground.

Dys crashed headlong into the demons, her armored bulk tossing some to the side and outright crushing others. With her axe held out before her, she pushed through the front of the horde and turned, heading west as she trailed damaged and dead demons behind her. As she charged, Dys found that she had to purposefully slow her pace. She wanted the demons to follow her, after all, and if she moved too fast, they might give up the chase.

Looking back over her shoulder, it didn’t seem like there was much chance of the demons giving up.

The whole raging mob was on her heels, their attention caught either by the Mirror Shine spell or the damage she had done to them. Likely a combination of the two. As Dys’ path wheeled to the left and the demons followed, she made sure to slow and strike at some of the more dangerous-looking demons that were following her, such as the other frost drake and the manticore.

It was an absolute marvel to Jadis that she had the luxury to pick and choose her targets as she led a literal host of bloodthirsty demons on a merry chase through the woods. It was a testament to just how fast someone with over two hundred and fifty points in Agility could move. It wasn’t just movement, though. Jadis found that her reactions were faster, too. Even her thoughts were moving faster, allowing her to observe the chasing demons with an almost detached air. They were just so fucking slow now.

Was this what Noll felt like all the time?

Jadis had to admit, she liked the feeling of power and control that being so much faster and stronger than the demons gave her. Abruptly, she slowed, spun, and slashed her axe across the neck of the manticore bounding after her. The beast’s head popped off like a cork from a wine bottle, a spoiled vintage pouring from its open neck. Jadis grinned fiercely at the ugly sight.

“Yeah, this is why I’m here,” she growled before picking up her pace to continue leading the demons along.

Swinging wide around the western side of the clearing where her other selves and Noll struggled with the ice dragon, Dys led the small army of demons towards the base of a small hill. Large boulders littered the slope, creating a natural barrier that would be difficult for any land-based creature to cross. Dys brought the horde straight to the rocky slope, leaping over a large section of the forest floor that had been marked with a wood branch sticking up from it.

Dys watched and waited as the demons charged her, their myriad terrible forms growing close. As the first of the demons crossed over the demarcation point, she smiled and waved one hand in salute.

“Surprise, motherfuckers!”

As soon as the demons set foot past the point marking the danger zone, powerful force traps were triggered. Some were spikes several feet in height, others were larger zones of phantom chains, and others were wider circles of many smaller, sharp and cruel spikes more akin to caltrops. No matter the case, as more and more demons passed over the line, more and more of Aila’s force traps were triggered. The power of her traps were such that many demons died outright to the lethal traps while the ones who were caught in the chains were crushed by the demons following behind, completely unable to get out of the way.

As the demons surged towards Dys, heedless of the danger or the deaths of their kin, the darkening forest was lit up by the crack of a lightning bolt. As Nora’s staff-enhanced spell tore through dozens of demons in a single go, dozens more were blown to pieces as Aila tossed one of her explosion-modified force bolts into the mob.

By then, some of the demons had turned towards where the spells were coming from amidst the rocky terrain of the hill. However, as those demons rushed towards the rocks, many found themselves suddenly impaled or dismembered by nearly invisible swords and spears.

Willa and her soldiers, along with Stavros and his Reavers, lashed out from their secure hiding spots amidst the boulders. With Sorcha’s translucency spell masking their presence, the demons barely noticed that the martial forces were there. With brutal efficiency, the two groups put down the demons that approached the hill, protecting their backline while the mages rained down arcane death and destruction.

After a few heartbeats watching the gory show, Jadis noticed that a growing number of the demons were turning their attention away from her shining form and starting to head for the hill. Too many, in fact. Seeing that it was time to refresh the demon’s interest in her, Dys flexed her powerful legs, then leapt into the air.

“Keep your fucking eyes on me!” Dys shouted at the demons as she landed hard amidst the horde. “I’m the one you want!”

Dys moved like a wrecking ball, bowling over demons or crushing them underfoot as her Mirror Shine blinded them to all other enemies. Most turned away from the translucent, barely visible soldiers and mercenaries to focus on her. Acting as a distraction, she ran back the way she came, rushing through the slower bramble fiends, grabbing all of their attention as well. Once she was sure she had enough following her, she ran back to the same killing field, dragging the demons behind her. Once again, the mages struck at the demons, killing dozens with each blast of magical energy.

“I love it when a plan comes togeth—”

Dys’ words were cut off mid-sentence as a blast of powerful wind tore into her. Blinded by the whirling snow and dust, she struggled to breathe as the very air in her lungs was sucked out of her. Reacting quickly, Dys hurled herself to one side, rolling head over heels across the ground to come up on one knee. Looking around, she quickly spotted the source of the miniature tornado that had been conjured around her.

An elf with light blue skin hovered fifty feet in the air over the killing field. His long silver hair twisted wildly in the wind, as did his tattered robes. He carried a staff in one hand, a strange silvery light shining from the crystalline head. His chest was exposed, revealing a gaping wound where the right side of his torso should have been. Black tentacles filled the space, creating a false body made from demonic flesh. For a brief moment, Dys saw an emerald green eye flash brightly under the tentacles before disappearing from sight.

“So glad I found you,” the elf called out, an almost beatific smile on his drawn face. “So glad.”