Servant of the Siphen

Part 12

Nielle and Marie, their plasma rifles at the ready, took point as the shuttle set down and the rear hatch opened.  Behind them were Tegan and Rhona, and then Isamura, with Caroline picking up a weapon and jogging after them once the shuttle was powered down.

The town square was not busy but here and there people were slumped over awkwardly, having obviously fallen asleep in mid-step.

Isamura could sense that they were near the centre of the magical field.  In fact, they all felt an odd sense of familiarity as they stopped at the door to Meg’s shop.

The front of the shop was unlit but a faint glow seeped through the edges of an interior door.

“Rhona, Nielle – go around and cover any other exits,” Tegan ordered.

While those two turned and circled around to the back of the shop, Isamura quietly applied a bit of magical coercion to the lock, allowing the rest of the team to slip inside.

Suddenly the front of the shop was flooded with an unearthly bright light as the door behind the counter flew open and a silhouetted female figure stepped out.

It was not Meg, but behind her they could see the trader sprawled on the floor, unmoving.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you back here so soon,” the woman said.  ”You’re supposed to be out looking for someone.”

“It was you that sent us into that ambush,” Caroline stated.

“Yes, I suppose I did."

"Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Talestra, enchantress of darkness and servant of those you call, Siphen.  I underestimated you once, I won’t be doing that again.”  Without warning the woman hurled herself across the counter, knocking Caroline to the ground in a blur of motion and immediately turning to attack Isamura.

As the others scrambled to bring their weapons to bear, Isamura cast a crackling discharge of energy at the enchantress.

Talestra barely flinched.  The spell burned a neat round hole in her shirt, but it barely left a welt on the skin underneath.

“Is that all you’ve got?” said Talestra, glancing down at the hole with an unimpressed expression, and taunting, "Show me some real magic!"

"You asked for it!" Isamura said with a smirk, casting another spell into the fray.  To her horror, the spell seemed to rebound, darkening her vision.  Muttering curses, Isamura dispelled the curse, but Talestra had already moved on.

Tegan fired a burst of plasma from her rifle at close range but incredibly the energy seemed to refract away as if hitting some sort of barrier.  Talestra snatched the rifle away and tossed it out of a window.  Glass tinkled noisily to the ground.

"Your toys won't work on me," she said with a sinister smile.

Marie charged in with a scream, landing a fierce blow to the mid-section.  The woman grunted at the force of the blow, then cast a dark spell which knocked Marie back so hard that she spun into the frame of the front door.

Caroline and Tegan pulled Talestra to the ground and attempted to subdue her, but were similarly knocked away by a blast of dark energy.  The enchantress got up and gave a sigh of mild irritation.  "I'm not even warmed up yet here, come on, who's next?"

Isamura hit her with another, stronger blast of energy at the same time as Rhona and Nielle fired their weapons from the back of the shop.  The combined streams of magic and plasma seared at Talestra’s clothes, setting them alight.

Talestra staggered for a moment or two under the onslaught then repelled the energy outwards in a powerful burst which brought shelves crashing down and sent everyone to their feet.