A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 47: Clockwork

Trying to climb up the huge mechanical man was not made any easier by the fact that it moved around quite a lot, swinging its blade and casting spells at the darting, dancing, teleporting Caleldra. The Animator apparently did not consider the rest of the party to be all that much of a threat. At least, he did not until Althaia, the fastest climber by virtue of sheer strength, made it onto one of the shoulders and charged at the cockpit. The head of the mecha turned towards her, and blasted concentrated force from its equivalents of eyes to knock the nymph right off. Althaia went tumbling to the ground, only barely managing to slow her fall by grasping onto the creature before she hit the floor with enough force to take her out of the fight. As it was, though, she was winded but unharmed. At least, that was true until the machine stepped on her.

Slasjowskew fared slightly better, turning visible on the shoulders and burying a knife in the 'eyes' of the machine. The entire mecha shook with the attack, stumbling back, but its left arm dropped its shield with monastery-shaking force and burst up to grasp the Yuan-ti, grabbing him and attempting to hurl him away. Slas managed to hold on to its hand, though, keeping himself on the machine, and now attempting to climb its arm, a far harder proposition given how much said arm was moving.

The two drow were not as fast as the yuan-ti and the nymph, which in the end put them at an advantage. Caleldra shattered another one of the monster machine's spells, and sent it back reeling with telekinetic force, distracting its pilot from knocking them off. The ranger doubled her efforts to get up the thing before her arms were too tired from hanging on. She heaved herself up and around the metal head hopefully just beyond his vision. Atop his head seemed just as good a position to attack from as his shoulders were. Holding on tight, she flipped herself down to stab him in his previously unstabbed 'eye.' Selene's hands gestured briefly until a swarm of spiders began to pour from her body and into the workings of the machinery. She directed the swarm to burrow its many bodies into its head and hoped for the best. Selene imagined that it would at least be incredibly irritating.

The creature began to sway and shake. It was so much more violent than before that the less-well supported Ashyr, with a yelp of surprise, found herself losing her grip and flying off to the side. Unlike with Althaia, though, Caleldra screamed when she saw Ashyr falling, and caught her before she suffered a similar fate. Ashyr eyes bulged with quite evident shock. She actually flashed the imposter a quick grin of thankfulness before she saw the distant look on her face.

Uh-oh.

"Caleldra!" Ashyr shouted in surprise as she fell the rest of the way to the ground. Thankfully, she was dropped in such a way that she could roll out on the ground to harmlessly disburse her momentum. The ranger would not have been so lucky if the fetch had not caught her.

Ashyr landed in time to see the mecha shift its stance away from where it had stepped on Althaia, and Althaia's body was still there. She was almost a gooey pool rather than a nymph, but since she was still present and not ethereal, she was still alive and conscious. The nymph dragged herself along the floor, leaving a trail of blood behind her. She managed to pull herself out of the middle of the floor and away from being stepped on the second time, and after healing herself a little, blacked out, no longer in the fight but still in the war. Ashyr bared her teeth. Perhaps being killed instantly would have been better for the nymph psychologically. Not that Ashyr thought too hard about that; there was a monstrosity to kill.

Meanwhile, Selene managed to keep herself tethered to the machine, but a few bursts of steam from inside it seared her flesh rather painfully. The younger drow groaned through clenched teeth. Ow. She automatically scrambled away from the hot spot that the steam had left. Selene was willing to take a little damage, but she wasn't just going to sit there and let it hurt her. The mage repositioned herself until she was in clear view of the stabbed eyes. Then she slung a strongly corrosive spell directly into his head where the spiders had already burrowed. She was completely prepared to get flung off after this by casting feather fall on herself again. Selene hoped she would be falling because this thing fell as well. She did not relish the thought of having to climb up here again.

It seemed that though Caleldra had suddenly dropped Ashyr, it was mostly out of a confusion of emotions. Once she got over her shock that she had acted too quickly to save the drow, she looked back down to make sure that she was okay. Satisfied that she was, the fetch added her force to Selene's corrosive spell, angling it more efficiently inside the cockpit. Meanwhile, Slasjowskew managed to clamber up the creature's arm in order to send his own projectile, a bolt from a wrist-mounted crossbow, towards the head.

The combination of attacks had the desired effect, and machine began to break down. The head shattered and, with it, control over the body ceased. It was definitely a good thing that Selene had the foresight to feather-fall herself; sensing the impending collapse of the monstrosity, Selene took a running leap off of its shoulder to get herself well away from falling debris. Her spell made it entirely unnecessary for anyone to catch her. She still rolled out on the ground when she landed to avoid the uncomfortable sting that landing directly on her feet would have caused. The mage recovered herself, and slowly rose to her feet with her usual haughty expression. Her robe shifted back to how she usually wore it - though it may have become slightly more ornate.

Slasjowskew once more disappeared, whether by invisibility or simply being covered in fragments of the machine. The entire thing collapsed into a pile of parts that slowly began rolling, grinding, and shifting back into a factory, albeit a much more ruined factory than before. Well, all except the materials that had made up the head. Those remained unmoving in the center of the mechanical maelstrom. Then, they burst outward. The tall, powerful figure of the Mechanical Clockwork Animator himself tore out of the cockpit. He appeared to be wearing a full suit of armor, including a faceless helmet, underneath his robes. "A fine job you have done, wrecking my machine." He said in his curiously oily grinding voice. "But I can make as many as I need to." Raising his arms up, the parts around him began once more to coalesce.

Caleldra was having none of that, though. "Stop him!" She hissed out as she sent a burst of psionic acid at his form.

Selene did not need Caleldra's guidance to know that they had to stop the Animator before he animated himself a whole new monstrosity. Even as the Caleldir lookalike hissed at them, Selene flung out her hand in a now familiar gesture and shot off her own corrosive spell at the guy. "Oh no you don't!" She commanded with all the authority of a drow noble behind her voice.

Ashyr waited a moment to stay out of the way of the ranged attacks. Then she ran in right on their heels with her swords ready to shred their foe.

Slasjowskew slithered his way out of the mess, looking half-dead and bleeding profusely. Still not as bad as nine-tenths dead Althaia though. He cast one look at the eight foot tall figure of the Mechanical Clockwork Animator, and simply groaned. Still, he threw a few halfhearted ranged attacks at the metallic figure, which did pretty much no good. Then, he collapsed, turning invisible as he did so.

Selene and Caleldra's attacks were a little more effective, at least distracting him from forming another mecha. But that was all they were: a small distraction. The Animator shrugged them off without his exterior even being dented. He turned towards Selene and Ashyr. "It seems that I will have to do this the old fashioned way." He muttered. Pointing at Ashyr, the tip of his finger popped upwards, and before the drow could react, there was a loud bang. A piece of burning hot metal buried itself in her left shoulder, knocking her with such force that she almost fell backwards. "Bang." The Animator said nonchalantly.

"Fuck!" Ashyr spat. Her natural magic swelled, and the wound mostly closed up again. It still smarted, as she had taken other injuries besides that one. She quickly realized that the bullet remained inside her shoulder. It would have to be dug out later, unless Althaia had some funky magic to remove lead. Until then, her left arm was useless. Despite this, she charged forward again.

He returned Ashyr's charge, sending an extraordinarily potent punch into her stomach. The debris around them made it too difficult for her to dodge in time. She stumbled to the side and out of the way of another punch directed at her. The ranger was hurting, but still very clearly determined. Crimson eyes shot defiance at her foe. Althaia and Slas were down; Ashyr felt like it was up to her to take this guy out.

-Let us help you.-

She heard the tandem male and female voice in her head like a soothing whisper. Well, alright then.

With a snarl, she hurled Yin's dark blade at the asshole who shot and punched her. Again she saw the pleasing female form, the one that reminded her very much of herself. For what better fighting companion could there be other than a vague copy of herself? She held on to Yang and joined his sister in a vicious assault against The Animator.

The Animator stumbled back from the assault, only to turn around and shoot several bullets into Yin. It did no good at all. "You drow thief! You have stolen Yin and Yang from us!" He leapt away from the blade's manifestation, only to run right into Selene's acidic spell, and then another of the same from Caleldra.

"Ha! Stole? They practically jumped inside me! Heh..." Ashyr retorted through clenched jaw. The ranger didn't seem very comfortable at the moment. Sweat dotted her forehead and threatened to drip down into her eyes with the pain and effort.

As the two drow and Caleldra continued their attacks, his face mask began to drip with acid, and the metal began to run liquidly down his body. "You have bested me." He said in a hollow tone. "But I am nothing compared to what awaits you! No one ever leaves the Monastery unmarred!" The robes and mechanics melted into a puddle, and the factory ground to a halt. Ashyr was more than thankful; as entertaining as a hard fight was, she only had so much stamina.

The room was silent as a tomb.

Caleldra touched down to the floor. "Another down. Now, to the library." She stated. "After you two repair your fallen friends, of course. They seem to need some help."

"I am fine." Slasjowskew said, appearing in a sitting position. "I drank a few potions, and should be good in a minute or two. But the nymph is in a hard way." Althaia, of course, was still unconscious, and looked like Caleldir's (or rather, Caleldra's) legs had when crushed by the millstone.

The older drow wearily made her way over to where Slasjowskew and Althaia and practically flopped down beside them. She reached over to the nymph and pumped her last healing spell onto her body. Satisfied that she could do as much for the paladin as she could at the moment, she let her armor melt away from the wound at her shoulder (everything else remained as it was). It hadn't fully closed when she healed herself before; there were too many other wounds across her body that the healing magic got distracted by. She still felt that it should have been enough to make her arm useable again. That wasn't the case. But, they had won. There was time to get everyone back into fighting shape.