Chapter 25: Fighting with the Illusion Mage

October 15

The group is just finishing healing Neiia when someone tries the door. The group’s watchman Agnarr shouts an alarm, and Kieron stops her singing and begins to put on her helmet. Two men in leather armor come through the door and start coming after Agnarr. Neiia notices the men and manages to knock one down. The other guy also comes to close combat, and after that, Neiia knocks him down too.

Agnarr fights with the enemies, and Neiia keeps knocking enemies down. At the same moment, one fighter and the illusion mage come from the side. The illusion mage has three mirror images with him and a really large acid ball in his hands. The illusion mage tries to throw the acid ball at Neiia but fails and is about to hit his own comrade in the back. The comrade, who clearly doesn’t trust the mage, notices this and tries to throw himself to the ground. Kieron notices this and fortunately decides to support the enemy just enough that he can’t get out of the way of the acid ball, and the acid ball hits the comrade in the back. The acid ball explodes, and the enemy takes quite a lot of damage. Kieron, the illusion mage, and Neiia decide to jump away from the center of the acid ball and don’t really take damage.

Agnarr suddenly loses sight of the enemies in front of him and thinks they were illusions, so he starts looking for the illusion mage in front. One enemy apparently disappears when Agnarr pulls his axe out of its chest, but he stumbles over the other enemy.

Ertak gets a little acid damage but also gets his healing spell ready and heals Neiia quite well. After this, everyone except Ertak is on the ground. Ertak moves to pick up his shield, Kieron puts on her helmet and jumps up and draws her weapons.

Neiia makes enemies fumble when they try to get up. Ertak and Kieron join the battle. Around the other side of the corner the mage is audibly casting a spell, and after that, acid fumes start to be visible from there. The fighter on the ground has put his weapon away, pulled out a magic potion bottle, and drunk it. Kieron has hit the fighter a couple of times, and he starts shouting, “I surrender, don’t hit me, I’m not evil.”

Ertak and Agnarr fight against their own enemy until Agnarr hits it well, and it also disappears. Agnarr “knows” that the illusion mage is there behind the door, so he starts running in that direction; Ertak follows.

Kieron says that since that one surrendered, she could go after the mage before the mage gets to make a big acid ball again, so she runs around the corner after the mage. The mage tries to slash at Kieron with an acid spray but doesn’t hit. Kieron knocks out two images and then manages to hit the mage. The mage is frightened that Kieron’s strike almost goes through, so she steps backward and casts new mirror images for herself. Kieron steps forward and knocks out two mirror images while Agnarr appears behind her but doesn’t hit. The mage starts running away past Agnarr but comes face to face with Ertak in the next room. Kieron drops one of her weapons and runs after the mage. When Kieron catches up to the mage in the corridor, she throws her sword at the mage, but again it doesn’t penetrate the mage’s magic armor.

Agnarr also runs after the mage and sticks his axe into the mage’s back. The mage tries to step to the side and gets free from Agnarr’s axe. The mage then tries to cast something on Ertak, but nothing visible happens. Ertak tries to get around the corner after the mage but falls to the ground. Agnarr then tries to get past another corner after the mage, but he also falls. Kieron throws her sword at the mage, missing, but then she draws her pistol and shoots one image away with it while the mage tries to do something to Kieron. Agnarr gets up and tries to get after the mage but doesn’t get to hit her. The mage starts to flee, and Agnarr goes after her. Agnarr catches up to the enemy just as the mage has opened the door and hits her in the back. Agnarr hits the right image directly and does quite a bad injury to the enemy’s back.

The mage continues to flee, and Agnarr stays on her tail. Agnarr removes the images, and as the mage is turning around, she falls unconscious to the ground. Agnarr and Ertak go up and start taking the mage back down to Neiia and Kieron, who has returned there. Neiia examines the illusion mage’s belongings while Ertak starts interrogating the fighter.