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Facing off against three guardians, Socks immediately pounced on one and tackled it to the ground. Meanwhile, Alhorn faced off against another… which just left me to face the last one on my own. Well, it wasn’t just me- we had the backup of the rest of the party after all.
Even though I could tell this guardian had superior equipment, I was determined to go about the fight as usual. It carried a mace along with a shield. I prepared to do the same thing I did with every guardian, starting with disarming it. I stood in just the right position, twisting my weapon to throw the mace out of the guardian’s hand… but that was just my intention. It came with much more force and at a faster speed than expected. I just barely leaned out of the way, the mace deflecting off of my shield and slightly throwing me off balance.
I couldn’t say the attack was faster or more complicated than Khyrmin’s, but she didn’t put as much force behind her attacks. Technique could triumph over force, but I had to know what I was going up against. From what I felt, I had no doubt that swing could have crushed my breastplate. More importantly, something strange happened as our weapons crossed. It was hard to describe. It wasn’t like it had overpowered me, exactly. I could guarantee this guardian didn’t have more than five or six hundred Strength. However, when our weapons met mine was pushed away as if it was nothing.
The guardian followed up with additional attacks, and I activated Martial Trance to be sure of myself. I took a good look at the trajectory of the attacks and tried to disarm once again. Each time, my weapon was pushed away as if I’d struck a solid wall… or something more than that, because I had confidence in breaking through a solid wall. Regardless, it didn’t feel like impacting something moving. However, as I dodged the attacks I learned something. All of the attacks from this guardian continued along the same trajectory from start to finish. That seemed natural, of course, but as an experiment I dodged earlier than normal. After the attack had started, I was several feet to the side ready to take further evasive action. Instead, the mace just swung through empty air. That wasn’t normal- while the guardians weren’t strong on tactics they at least normally reacted to things. While significantly changing the trajectory of an attack was difficult, this was different. It carried out the exact arc I predicted from the start of the attack with no deviation. Well, at least to the accuracy of my judgment, but the point was even if I swung at full power I could at least turn a sideways swing from striking the torso of my enemy to head or legs. As far as I could tell, these attacks didn’t deviate by even an inch. Well, it made it easier to dodge them… but I still had to be cautious, because I wasn’t sure if it couldn’t change its attack instead of just not doing it.
My idea of what was happening became more certain as Kasner intervened. Seeing that I had not yet disarmed it, he attempted to provide an opening by creating exceptionally slippery ice under the guardian’s feet as it stepped forward, causing it to slip. It was taking a wide swing, and normally I would have expected its attack to angle downward as it slipped… but as I dodged backwards away from the attack, I saw something else entirely. The mace continued as normal… while the guardian itself seemed to be leaning on the mace… or hanging from it. Then once the attack reached the end of its arc it suddenly fell.
I took the opportunity to jump on top of it since it was in a pile on the ground facing away from me. As I wrapped my fingers around its wrist I found they slipped off. Fortunately, they slipped up its hand towards the mace, which I grabbed onto. At that moment, I found myself moving with the guardian as it tried to sweep out my legs or something like that… and the mace continued onward in something like a quarter circle. Then it stopped, and I yanked. The mace came out of the gauntlet, but the guardian rolled away from me.
I’d thrown away my own mace to grab onto the guardian, but I also tossed aside the one I just stole. I couldn’t say it wasn’t cursed, after all… and I didn’t want to try using a new weapon on the spot. As I readied myself to face off against the guardian, Socks suddenly appeared in my vision. Her teeth clamped down on the guardian’s arm and her head swung as if to fling it into the wall… but instead its arm just slid out of her mouth. The armor itself was clearly magical as well, though I wasn’t exactly sure what type of magic it was.
The guardian punched at Socks’ neck, since it no longer had a weapon to use. Its attack was probably even more ineffective than Socks’ bite, because its fist just sank into her fur. I wasn’t even sure if its arm was long enough to actually reach her body from where it was… but it did then grab a handful of fur. Socks spun around in a circle and flung it into the wall that way. From that I learned that not the entirety of the armor was slippery… but it should have been obvious that at least the palms of the gauntlets weren’t.
Everything was taken in stride, and the guardian seemed unphased by being flung into a wall. I supposed it was basically made out of metal, and without anything following up to crush it into the wall I wouldn’t have expected any real damage. I moved closer and readied myself for the guardian’s attack. It punched at me- potentially dangerous if it hit my head, but I saw no lightning or any other crazy stuff happening with the punch. I grabbed the fist, sliding my hand up to unravel the fingers… and then off the end. I thought I’d gotten a touch at the inside of the gauntlet, but my fingers still slid off like butter… or anything else.
When the guardian spun around to face me again, I was ready for another try… but then light shone directly in my eyes. I knew Alhorn had better control than that, and though I didn’t register where it came from at the moment I was momentarily blinded. I stepped away, but I couldn’t properly dodge without seeing the attack. I heard a thud and screech, and a moment later I was able to see Alhorn in front of me. At this point, normally people would see him turn around to smile, blood dripping from his mouth… then we would all admire his sacrifice.
But of course, Alhorn wasn’t dumb, and he also had armor. And a shield, actually. He’d deflected the attack away from both of us. He’d stabbed out, but the guardian likewise deflected his stab… but then Alhorn shoved forward with his shield, knocking the guardian onto its back. With an order from Halette, Socks threw her whole body on the guardian- no matter how slippery it was, it was still held down by her weight. Then I saw thick ice forming up around the parts of the guardian that still stuck out. Then there were a few moments of quiet, but I could still feel more magic pouring out of Kasner. Suddenly, one of the gauntlets popped off, a large amount of ice spilling out from inside the guardian. Well, that was one way to deal with it I supposed. It would probably still need to be properly dismantled, but it was unlikely to be able to do much while completely frozen from the inside.