Gwen's eyes widened and she turned, scanning the vaulted rafters. Shape after shape dropped: stone wings fanned out, gargoyles descending with the measured grace of predators. They screamed static and metal as talons sought purchase on the floor.
Wide shot—the chamber fills with stony beasts, ten spearpoint silhouettes cutting through the gloom like falling knives. Close-in—their eyes are coals; their beaks clamp like vice-grips. The minion behind the chest smiles, cruel and small.
Fred steadied himself mid-dart. "Okay. Plan shift." He breathed out, voice steady. "We clear the room—fast. Gwen, you anchor the middle. Ben—suppress and distract. I'll thread strikes between them and break their landing pattern."
Gwen's reply is a nod, a flash of purple. Her hands weave shallow sigils, not complex—enough to brand the air with traps without stealing every ounce of mana. Ben transforms and flickers, a wildfire puckering the space between him and a swooping gargoyle; his flame tail lashes, singeing stone wings, forcing one to bail and crash into the armor-strewn floor.
Fred dove like a pivot: four arms snapping through the space where wind cut a gap between two stone wings. He used both reach and speed—throwing one arm after another as anchors, catching talons and twisting. Kinetic lines: whip, counter, low sweep. A talon clamped his arm; Fred rolled, torqueing his shoulders into momentum that pulled the gargoyle from its perch. He slammed it into the floor; rubble chimed and smaller stones rattled like glass.
Gwen's mana constructs bloom—spinning, crystalline cages that close over beaks and feet. She loops a mana rope around a wing and yanks, letting Ben's heat finish it. Close-ups move faster: Ben's face is furnace-light; Fred's eyes are measurement and precision; Gwen's jaw is tight with concentration.
Ten gargoyles yield two, then four. The chamber becomes a symphony of impact and grit: stone shatters, talons nick metal, sparks fly like a million tiny stars. Fred's arms are a choreography of utility—one arm pins, two tear away, the last rips free a spear. He lines up every move like a marksman composing a shot. Each time a gargoyle flails, he calculates the angle and uses the stone's inertia against it. A gargoyle swings a beak; Fred's forearm blocks, bones rebounding with a hollow crash, and his lower arm locks the throat in a twist that sends the monster to crumbling dust.
Close-up—Ben, breath ragged, hairline sweating, aims a ring of fire that snaps like a whip across a gargoyle's back. That one flails, hits a rune glyph on the wall and sputters into harmless stone. The room begins to tilt in their favor.
The minion—still between Ben and the chest—whips up a wall of earth to shield herself. Ben finishes the gargoyle fight and rockets toward her, but Fred's precision grip reaches first. With a pair of arms he lifts, with the other two he pins—then uses the free hands to wrench the earth-wall like pulling a rug. The minion is toppled with a grunt.
Gwen's mana forms a restraint around the minion's wrists—not cruel, elegant; a binding made of twilight. She steps forward, voice both kind and cold. "You don't have to be a monster," she tells her with the iron patience of someone who has turned several foes to allies before. The minion's jaw trembles. Her eyes, just for a second, show a human flicker.
Fred snatches the chest with two arms—careful to avoid the coins that glow like caution lights. "I'll take it," he says. "We need to check what's inside and move. This place—" He nods to the stone rafters that still drip rain "—is a trap."
Ben collapses, panting from exertion and heat. "That was close." He holds a green coin up to the light, breath hitching. It hums. "We'll figure this out."
Gwen slides off a rune-bond cuff and looks at both of them. Her voice is a warm, cutting blade of resolve. "The boss will be back—and he'll be angrier. We get what we need and get out." She steps to the entrance as the cage's shadows loom, the minion staring once more at them before the binding fades and she slides into the dark—no longer an immediate threat, but no ally either.
They stack their advantages like stones: possession of the chest, presence of the coins, and the knowledge that the boss cannot fight until his room is cleared.