She'd meant to be far enough away not to catch him with the tendrils—hadn't counted on him coming closer on purpose.
Six seconds can feel an eternity when disaster is imminent and you can't do any thing to stop it. Surrounded on all sides by a shadowy ring of tentacles, Ness is helpless to watch them flail at anything in reach, crushing skulls and pulping desiccated meat and curling wickedly at Cedric's ankles. Desperately, desperately she tries to pull them back to her, or to dissipate them to shadow, but magic unleashed works until it's done with her, not the other way around.
A tendril touches him, and Ness almost screams again—and then it dissipates into nothing under the light of a shearing green barrier. The shield springs into Fade-green light around Cedric, protecting him from the last battering tentacles before they subside into shadow again, and she nearly collapses to the floor, grinning at him, almost manic from relief.
"You could have done that sooner," reproachful, but without bite: she's too glad she hasn't gotten him killed.
A scraping groan of rock behind them leaves no time for banter. The golem advances.
Ness turns to face it again, thinking quick. She lifts an abandoned dagger, hefts the shield awkwardly in front of her to face the golem—can't help herself then, takes her eyes off the golem, to make sure Cedric is still safe under his shield. The golem swings its fist toward her like a bat.
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She'd meant to be far enough away not to catch him with the tendrils—hadn't counted on him coming closer on purpose.
Six seconds can feel an eternity when disaster is imminent and you can't do any thing to stop it. Surrounded on all sides by a shadowy ring of tentacles, Ness is helpless to watch them flail at anything in reach, crushing skulls and pulping desiccated meat and curling wickedly at Cedric's ankles. Desperately, desperately she tries to pull them back to her, or to dissipate them to shadow, but magic unleashed works until it's done with her, not the other way around.
A tendril touches him, and Ness almost screams again—and then it dissipates into nothing under the light of a shearing green barrier. The shield springs into Fade-green light around Cedric, protecting him from the last battering tentacles before they subside into shadow again, and she nearly collapses to the floor, grinning at him, almost manic from relief.
"You could have done that sooner," reproachful, but without bite: she's too glad she hasn't gotten him killed.
A scraping groan of rock behind them leaves no time for banter. The golem advances.
Ness turns to face it again, thinking quick. She lifts an abandoned dagger, hefts the shield awkwardly in front of her to face the golem—can't help herself then, takes her eyes off the golem, to make sure Cedric is still safe under his shield. The golem swings its fist toward her like a bat.