Rebirth of the Nephilim

Taking a split-second inventory of her surroundings, Jadis made a decision. The woman pinned to the altar had to be saved, and whatever the Demons were planning to use her for needed to be stopped. The latter, Jadis knew she could do. The former… had no clear answer. But Jadis knew without doubt that she had to try.

Abruptly changing direction, Jadis aimed her Jay and Syd selves for the altar. She purposefully slowed her descent, making sure not to fly down too fast, since she needed to draw fire. She didn’t want to risk the Demon shells firing the lightning bolt too close to the sacrificial woman. Her Dys self, however, went full force at the northern dome.

Hurling the two rocks at the metal hexagon, Dys was pleased to see the metal dent and deform inward from the shattering force of her throw. Rushing into melee range, she grabbed hold of badly bent spike with her bare hands and yanked hard, using her great strength to try and pull the damaged outer piece apart from the greater structure of the shell. While the brass-colored metal did creak and groan under the pressure, the hexagon resisted her initial efforts for a few moments. Long enough for the static charge of another impending lighting bolt to force Dys to let go and back away.

The blast of magic electricity aimed for Syd this time, but Jadis was prepared for the attack. The moment she felt the incoming flash of lightning, her Jay and Syd bodies sped up dramatically, diving to the ground with earth-quaking force. The lighting went wide overhead, striking nothing as it eventually reached the limit of its range. In the meantime, both Jay and Syd were already moving, closing in on the altar from two sides.

Jadis could hear the screaming. Hoarse and desperate, cracking with pain and terror, a voice barely audible above the grinding of stone monstrosities marching across a rotted plain. But Jadis could hear her.

Flying forward, Jay and Syd pushed past the unrelenting simulacrum that reached out with rocky limbs to slow her, ignoring them completely. As she neared, Jadis barely had time to take in the horrifying condition the woman was in before the smell of rancid flesh and human waste stung her noses. Reaching the altar, she wasn’t so foolish as to try and pull the woman away; there could have been a trap built into the enchantments carved into the stone that would trigger the moment the sacrifice was tampered with. Besides, looking at the iron spike that had impaled the woman, Jadis wasn’t sure she would survive the removal. Instead, Jay and Syd moved to take out the simulacrum that were carrying the altar so that at least it wouldn’t be able to move any closer to the defender’s walls.

It was as Syd was thrusting her swords staff through one of the stone Demons that a sharp pain struck the inside of her right ear.

“Fuck!” Syd cursed as she rapidly swiped her weapon up at the pain.

More pains broke out across Syd’s face as her blade seemed to find nothing. Thin cuts like razor wire caused blood to well up across her neck while it felt like sharp spikes went for her eyes, which she barely closed in time. The sensation of daggers poking at her eyelids was rapidly becoming one of the worst feelings she had experienced.

Simultaneously, Jay felt weights settle on her shoulder and back, accompanied in the next moment by the scraping sound of something or someone trying to get through her helmet. Jay jumped back from the altar, one hand reaching blindly for her head as Syd also leapt away. Doing so, Jay caught hold of something soft, yet completely invisible. Hurling it at the ground, she saw the splattered form of a semi-transparent scythe wight fade into visibility as its life force departed.

“Gods damned invisible Demons!” Jay shouted as she shot over to her other self and began swiping at the air. “Fucking assholes!”

Jadis was livid. Somehow, the scythe wights had gone completely unnoticed by both her normal vision, and her Succubus eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was some ability that the translucent Demons had, or if a spell had been cast over them, but clearly the wights had been waiting for someone to approach the screaming victim on the altar. It was honestly the most subtle trap Jadis had seen the Demons use yet, and the fact chilled her soul. If someone with less durability than her had reached the altar first, there was a good chance they wouldn’t have survived the ambush.

Almost as if she were both reading her thoughts and was of a mind to disprove her line of reasoning, Lucia abruptly slammed onto the top of the altar. With a shouted word, the Paladin waved her flamberge in an arc, causing a glowing aura of white sparkles to cover the area. Every Demon in a range of fifty feet lit up like they had been doused in glittering diamonds. Aside from the obvious simulacrum, eight scythe wights who had been invisible up to that point were revealed. Three were on Syd, two on Jay, and the last three were on the altar, surrounding the impaled woman who was still screaming in terror and pain.

Lucia immediately hacked the closest scythe wight in half before it could even process that its cover had been blown. The other two leapt at the Paladin, swinging their wickedly curved limbs to strike at her head and neck. Lucia parried one while dodging the swing of another, then swung her flamberge in a low sweep that caught both Demons below the knee.

Jadis didn’t have the time to track Lucia’s fight further, though, as she had her own Demons to deal with.

Even though her eyes were closed, Syd was still able to accurately slash at the stealthy wights who had been struggling to cut through her neck and pierce her vulnerable points. The fact that one had likely tried to pierce her brain by shoving its scythe tip into her ear made Jadis’ skin crawl, but it was easy enough to push the disturbing thought away as she dispatched the attackers. Her Jay self was acting as her eyes, which was how she was able to not only take out the wights, but also saw the bulky simulacrum swinging at her from behind.

Syd dodged to the side before shoving her sword staff through the open mouth of the unrelenting simulacrum, causing the blade to burst out through the back of the stone Demon’s torso. Placing her foot just below its circular maw, she kicked the creature away as hard as she could, sending it flying through several of its hostile kin in a crushing heap.

Jay, meanwhile, was ignoring the scythe wights who had latched onto her entirely. None of them were able to get through her armor, so they were effectively no threat. Instead, she focused on killing the simulacrums that were still surrounding the altar, just to make sure Lucia wasn’t overwhelmed. Despite her speed, there was only so much she could do to keep the bulky Demons away, and she was afraid that one or two were going to get past and interfere with healing magic the Paladin appeared to be attempting. So, dedicating her two selves to the task, Jadis threw all other cautions to the wind and began tearing through the simulacrums, in many cases bodily tackling them to the side, which had the added benefit of squashing the remaining wights who were still trying to claw through Jay’s helmet. The battle on the ground turned into a wild, confusing, and destructive melee. But so long as Lucia was able to save the impaled woman on the altar, Jadis would buy her all the time she needed.

While everything on ground level had been happening, Jadis’ third self had not been idle. The domes were still a threat to be dealt with, and Dys was making progress.

Making sure to keep her boots off of the dome, just in case the enchantments woven into her armor would be enough to trigger a repelling reaction, Dys dug her fingers into the edges of the brass hexagon and wrenched the metal up and away from the stone hexes it was attached to. It took all of her strength to peel the metal away, and she had to back off a second time when another thunder bolt ripped through the spike in an attempt to dislodge her, but eventually Dys was able to break the seal. Hurling the fully detached hunk of brass away, she was finally able to get a look inside the improved Demon dome.

The pulse of magic was almost overwhelming to Jadis Succubus eyes. It was like watching a tangled, branching network of blood vessels surrounding a beating heart. Each pulse sent a wave of magic energy through the structure, flowing along the mass of arteries that connected to each one of the many hexagons that the dome was constructed from. The central mass that took up the middle of the space glowed so brightly that Dys nearly dismissed the spell enhancing her vision, just so that she wouldn’t be blinded by the power on display.

The magic her Succubus eyes allowed her to see was only an overlay, however. There was no need to rid herself of the advantage the spell gave her. Instead, Dys focused past the magic and gazed only at the physical, though doing so almost felt like a mistake. Once she was no longer distracted by the powerful magic beating like a heart, she was left with the sacrificial obelisk hanging suspended in the center of the dome, upon which five screaming sacrifices were being burned alive.

A surging mass of some black substance appeared in the space immediately before Jadis and she backed away before it could touch her. The bubbling slurry of dark matter reached out towards her like a melting hand, forcing her back and away from the opening she had made. Jadis wasn’t sure what the substance was, but since her Dys self was barehanded and without her axe, she didn’t want to touch it.

It was pure chance that Dys had backed away in a direction that let her see the southernmost shell and its glowing brass spike. The surge of electricity was imminent, so Dys threw herself to the side, desperate to avoid being struck by the lightning again.

The bolt of crackling energy grazed Dys’ body, and she winced at the pain as the electricity once again went right through her metal armor. However, as she quickly recovered from the shocking attack, Jadis realized that the power of the spell was greatly diminished. Compared to the lightning from before, this bolt was nowhere near as bright, nor as large. Checking her health, Dys saw that she had been barely damaged, even less than what she had expected from a glancing blow.

“They need all three, or the spell doesn’t work right,” Dys said to herself, the conclusion obvious. “I bet these shitheads won’t even have enough juice to hit the walls from here if I take out another spike.”

With that thought in mind, Dys abandoned her attempted push into the northernmost dome and dove to the ground, looking for a suitable boulder for use as a weapon. She’d focus on taking out the lightning rods first. Then she and the other could deal with whatever monstrous growth was taking up the inside of the shells.

“I can’t free her!”

The shout came moments after Jay tossed another simulacrum away from the altar she and her other self were guarding. Turning for a moment to look, Jay saw that Lucia was still standing over the impaled woman, one hand glowing with healing magic. While still horribly injured, the human woman looked better than she had moments before, as the healing had done its job restoring her to a state that was no longer on death’s door. Nevertheless, the iron spike in her stomach was unmoved, and Jadis wasn’t sure that trying to take it out was a good idea.

“Will it explode if the spike is removed?” Jay called out, uncertain if Lucia had the capability to read the runes etched onto the altar’s surface.

“I have no idea,” Lucia called back, her voice loud but calm. “I don’t want to risk it. Her internals are too damaged for me to pull this out, regardless. She needs a true healer or else she will likely die in the attempt.”

“Alright, what do we do?” Syd shouted as she broke a simulacrum’s arm off and used it to beat another one over the head.

“Can you move the altar?”

Move the altar? That… was plausible. If her Dys self was available, she would feel more confident in the prospect, but with just two of her bodies, Jadis wasn’t so sure. Still, it was worth a shot.

Getting her hands underneath the stone altar on opposite sides, Jadis strained to life the huge edifice up into the air. While her flight carrying capacity appeared to be able to handle the job, albeit with severely reduced speed, Jadis found that her arms were shaking under the incredible weight. Just holding onto the stone structure while it was in the air was proving to be an insurmountable challenge. She might possibly be able to hold out long enough to carry the altar a few hundred feet before her muscles gave out, but that was all. Not nearly enough distance to get the woman to safety.

As Jay and Syd set the altar back down, Jadis remembered the little present Amarantha had given her a short while ago. Syd had stowed the bottle inside one of her belt pouches, and while her Jay self and Lucia hacked away at the simulacrums that were still attacking, she fished the glass vial back out.

“Thank you very much, Ammy,” Syd said before downing the Strength enhancing potion in one gulp.

Jadis felt a surge of power rush through all three of her bodies as the alchemical mixture took effect. She could practically feel her muscles bulging as new strength rushed through her. The effect was almost euphoric, and Jadis had to wonder if Amarantha hadn’t put something more than just an attribute enhancement in the potion.

“Alright, let’s get this thing out of the way!” Jay and Syd both shouted before lifting the altar into the air.

As Lucia flew around them, Jadis worried that the Paladin was going to have to take another lightning shot from the domes. That, or she herself would suffer the brunt of another spell, which would likely kill the poor woman still impaled in the stone she was carrying. However, as the two remaining shell spikes crackled with purple energy, Jadis grinned with vindictive triumph.

“Should have shot me when we were still on the ground,” Jay started.

“Because now you’re too fucking late,” Syd finished.

With a tremendous roar, Dys bombed out of the sky with a thousand-pound boulder, smashing it straight down on top of the forward dome’s brass spike. The metal rod broke in half as the massive rock crushed the hexagon, knocking it down into the interior depths of the shell. The magic that had been building up around the forward dome fizzled out immediately, while the southernmost shell released what energy it had gathered. The lightning blast arced for a hundred yards before fizzling out, unable to come even close to where Jay and Syd were hovering above the battlefield.

“Alright,” Jay let out a relieved laugh. “We’ve declawed the shells. Now we just have to deal with the interior.”

“Right,” Syd nodded to her other self’s assessment. “But… what are we going to do with this thing?”

Both of Jadis frowned as they continued to slowly float the massive stone altar to the southwest, away from the domes.

“Now would be a really awful time for this thing to explode, wouldn’t it?” Syd said after a beat or two of silence.

“Why the fuck did I just say that out loud,” Jay winced in anticipation.

When nothing immediately happened, Jadis felt a wave of relief pass through her bodies. If the altar was going to detonate, certainly, it would have done so by that point. However, she felt her selves tense right back up when an unexpected voice called out a question to her.

“Do you always talk to yourself like this?” Lucia asked as she slowed her flight to hover next to Syd.

“Only when I’m awake,” Syd grumbled as she tried to rebalance her grip on her sword staff and the altar. “Only when I’m awake.”