Of course, if they hit it a few times with blasts as powerful as the initial lightning that created the dust cloud, it might not matter all that much in the long run. Half of the thing could turn to dust before the actual core was exposed.
“Get it moving,” Wayne ordered, still backing away as the snake grew larger.
Eva didn’t argue. The snake’s unnatural stillness ended after a slight nudge out into the hallway. It slithered out, body winding back and forth as it pushed its scales against the ground.
Arachne moved up to Eva’s side, using her body to help cover Eva from any enemy fire while helped to hold the obelisk. The two of them charged out in a slight crouch so as to keep behind the snake’s bulk. Eva paused for just one moment to vaguely gesture with a nod of her head into the still settling cover of dust.
“Serena is lying there, if anyone cares. Can’t tell if she’s alive or not.”
Keeping herself low to the ground, Zoe sent out another dust clearing gust of wind. She was careful to keep a wall of the dust between them and the stairwell. No need to make it easy on the nuns.
Serena had a brick-sized hole in her stomach. One bloodied brick was stuck half in her side along with several smaller shards of stone.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” the vampire said with ragged breath.
“No time to argue,” Zoe said. She flicked her dagger towards Serena, levitating her just above the ground.
Wayne appeared at her side. Without a word, he incinerated the ground that Serena had been lying and bleeding on.
As one, they turned and ran to catch up to Eva, Arachne, and the snake.
They emerged from the cover of the lingering dust between the room and the stairwell. There was a sharp cry of “Basilisk,” from one of the nuns. The lightning cut off almost instantly. The few bolts that hit the snake did only marginal damage to the stone scales.
Tuning her ears’ sensitivity ever so slightly, Zoe heard the rustling of clothes moving farther away. They were retreating up the stairwell. Probably to set up an ambush that could take out a basilisk without exposing themselves to its gaze.
The nuns were obviously not yet aware that its gaze was entirely impotent.
“Don’t dawdle,” Wayne grunted. “There aren’t many here, but if they call for backup, escaping will be problematic.”
Zoe had no intention of slowing down. Neither did the snake. It crashed its bulk into the closed stairwell door, turning it to wood pulp as it started its scramble up the stairs.
The second floor wouldn’t be so bad. While there were plenty of augur rooms to set up ambushes in, Eva should be able to spot anyone inside with her blood sight. Wayne would be able to seal the doors by melting the handles. Zoe could toss up a few barriers of solid air around the doors for good measure. It wouldn’t stop anyone permanently, but it would delay them.
And delaying them was all they really needed. Once they arrived at the top floor, they should be home free according to Wayne.
At the staircase’s landing, the stairs looped back. The basilisk turned with the stairs, offering Zoe her first good look at the front of it.
She did not like what she saw.
What she had originally thought to be only marginal damage–judged by the lack of debris coming off the basilisk when it got hit–looked far worse now that she got a better view.
The scales that had been hit looked like a slab of meat being pulled apart. Each spot was roughly the size of her head. Not what she would have expected from a stone carving.
Both spots that had been hit looked like they were trying to repair themselves. As Zoe watched, one thin strand of meat latched on to the opposite side of the wound and started growing. It didn’t make it very far before disintegrating into dust.
The anti-magic qualities of the Elysium Order’s lightning at work, no doubt.
Whatever Eva had done to the snake was too far out of Zoe’s expectations to accurately predict anything.
Though, Zoe thought as they came up to the first basement level’s landing, Eva’s plan appears to be working well so far.
Just before exiting the door–or making a new exit as the case may be–the basilisk was overcome by the same unnatural stillness that it had when Eva stopped it earlier.
“Four hiding in the room immediately on our right. Another three in the room after that. They’ll probably wait for us to pass before pinching us against whatever lies at the end of the hallway.”
“Wayne and I will take care of that.”
“You concentrate on keeping your monstrosities from murdering us,” Wayne added with a disgruntled grunt.
Eva didn’t rise to his comment. She might not have had the energy to. There were small beads of sweat forming on her forehead.
Zoe almost asked why she hadn’t just handed the obelisk off to Arachne when the answer became obvious. Arachne was a front line fighter. If and when the basilisk fell, Arachne would need to rush in to take its place. Doing so with an obviously weighty obelisk wouldn’t be easy. Probably. That would have been Zoe’s plan, anyway.
With a short nod towards Wayne, Eva released her hold over her basilisk.
It didn’t hesitate to charge straight through the door, taking part of the wall with it.
Lightning rained down the hallway. The majority of it sunk into the semi-organic scales of the sculpture. A few bolts did get past, but they were ones that had been angled upwards. Though she kept low anyway, Zoe doubted she needed to duck to avoid anything. The snake’s bulk was simply that massive.
Purposeful or not, the few bolts that missed the snake did impact the ceiling. Most only left scorch marks.
Zoe and Wayne had to pause their blocking of the side rooms to erect quick thaumaturgical shields around themselves. Almost as an afterthought, Zoe tossed a quick shield around Serena as well.
The vampire was visibly looking better than she had only a minute ago, but it didn’t look like she was quite ready to walk just yet.
After shielding Serena, Zoe thought to put up a shield around Eva as well. Her spell stopped mid-cast.
Arachne, ducking low at Eva’s side just behind the basilisk, plucked a stray brick right out of the air without so much as glancing in its direction. It would have struck Eva in the shoulder otherwise.
Pulling herself up to her full height, Arachne reared back and pitched the brick like it was a baseball.
It zipped through the air before coming to a stop with a meaty thud. Zoe’s enhanced ears picked up a masculine groan.
A monk perhaps?
The lightning stopped a moment later–nuns rushing to his aid?–but not before a stray bolt struck the still standing Arachne square in her chest.
Shards of carapace exploded off her front and back.
Wayne was on point in incinerating every piece that detached from the demon. They didn’t have time to land before an orb of intense heat enveloped each individual shard. Several of them were flying towards the two of them, but they wouldn’t be anything a shield couldn’t handle. It was more likely that he was incinerating them to keep them out of the hands of the Elysium Order’s augurs.
Zoe couldn’t begin to calculate how hot the flames had to be to disintegrate Arachne’s carapace, but it obviously was not inconsiderable. She caught sight of more than a few pages of his tome going up in flames as his eyes twitched back and forth between each piece. Judging by the twitches of his eyes, he had altered his mental perceptions as fast as he could go.
“Arachne!”
Eva set the obelisk down on the floor, making sure not to damage the structure. The second it was down, she had her dagger out and aimed at Arachne’s chest. The demon caught her hand just before she could plunge it in.