Ok, maybe exploded was an exaggeration. It would be more appropriate to say that the door accelerated with great haste from its designated and proper place in the doorway, and upon discovering that one of the current members of the room was obstructing its flight path, it in a great fit of rage at its long awaited dreams of flight being interrupted, flew into a great many pieces. Actually, maybe exploded was the correct term for it?
That is to say in less flowery speech that Sarah kicked the door with such force that it flew out of its frame, hit one of Steve's attackers, and 'then' shattered. Steve would like to think that the person who intercepted the door spent their last few moments congratulating themselves on surviving an attack by a wild flying door, because they certainly didn't survive the spear that flew out of the doorway moments after.
Steve had always been under the assumption that only something on the scale of say a 'ballistae' would be able to pin someone to a wall using a projectile. As it turned out, his bodyguard could comfortably say that she could throw a spear with the same force as a piece of ancient field artillery. The fact that the spear had passed through the remains of a door, a shield, armor and then somebody before embedding itself a few feet into the wall was really just so much icing on the cake.
Steve was certainly impressed. He was also wondering how Sarah planned to save his ass, when she had just imbedded her trusty spear a few feet into the wall on the other side of the room from her.
On the bright side, the open doorway provided enough illumination for him to make out the rest of his attackers. He had been expecting a crack team of elven commandos in black leather. What he was seeing was a bit more... unconventional. On the bright side, it certainly seemed a lot more multicultural, which always warms the heart.
If he had only one word that could fully describe all the women around him, with the exception of the blonde elf, it would have to be Insectoid.
If there was one defining feature he could say about all the creatures of Sapheros thus far, it was that they were humanoid.
He supposed it was because they all originated from elves that for the most part the changes to Sapherosians seemed to be superficial; things like hooves, snouts, size, fangs, eyes, wings, fur, facial structure etc. The main point though, was that at the end of the day, they were only about half as animal-esque as they were human-esque; He was pretty sure the Lizard-kin for example were still 'technically' mammals.
The people around the room from him seemed to have taken the concept of being half elven and half 'something else', and run with it. Run really far with it. The one in the corner was the most striking exmple. She had a spider's body. From the waist down. If you were to remove that one small feature, you had essentially a human body, give or take a few fangs.
Other than the spider lady in the back and blonde elf lady on the floor, the rest were all the same type of insect base, Wasps.
They had wings, a wasp's black and yellow insectile thorax sticking out their ass, black eyes and antennae; aside from those small features they looked human, as in healthy tan flesh and hair where he could see it. The skin he could see was covered in black tattoos, but still human looking for the most part. Apparently exoskeletons weren't stylish right now unless they were on your ass.
Most were wearing helmets with those stylish little plumes and the were all wearing bronze armor that reminded him distinctly of something a Greek hoplite might wear. It didn't cover the thoraxes though.
The short swords and shields certainly rounded out the image.
They were also all slightly distracted by the werewolf who had just pinned one of their number to the far wall. Steve couldn't blame them; she looked pretty pissed and pretty happy at the same time. Pissed someone had invaded her master's room. Happy she got to kill them for it. Never let it be said Sarah was an individual without depth.
One spider woman, one blonde elf with a nose bleed and seven wasp women against a dude who was still in bed and an unarmed pissed off Sarah.
Everyone decided to move at once. Steve's movement involved throwing his sheets over two of the wasp women who were on his left before grabbing the still stunned blonde elf and pressing his gun to her head in the classic hostage taking pose.
Sarah's movement apparently involved hurting someone, because he heard a wet squelch and a high pitched squeal. It was a strange sounding squeal; the voice sounded like it was two tones at once. Weird. Was that was Sapherosian's though an insect should sound like?
In retrospect, it may have just been easier for him to stay in the bed and let the situation resolve itself. He had certainly considered staying in bed, but as it stood he wasn't entirely sure Sarah would be able to kill all of her opponents and emerge unscathed.
The loss of Sarah just could not be allowed to happen. She was his most useful ally. That was to say she was his only ally. It wasn't like he was particularly in danger either; his kidnappers wanted him alive after all so he was pretty much free to be a spanner in the works.
He hefted the gun at the spider woman who had stayed back from the fray. It occurred to him that she had likely climbed up the building and dropped web to allow the wasps to gain access without alerting any guards with the droning of insectile wings. She was also likely the one would have tied him up and carried him out if he hadn't woken up. So he didn't really feel guilty when he urged lightning to fly forth and roast her.
The lightning burst into existence with that familiar smell of ozone and the incredibly irritating voices in his head, which were now thankfully muffled by the anti-magic rune on his neck.
He watched it leap at the spider... and fizzle out without so much as a crackle to show for it.
So much for his 'godlike powers'. He certainly had enough witnesses to charge the weapon up, so why wasn't it bug-zapping?
Spiderwoman turned from the fight between Sarah and the wasps to face Steve, no doubt alarmed by the sudden flash of light in the dark. Steve saw his reason for the lack of splattering pretty quick. A tattoo on the spiders face was alight. It didn't take a genius to figure out that it was an anti-magic rune even if it weren't the same as the one used by him and Bridgett.
It most certainly implied a goddess had sent this little abduction party. Was it a team effort between the elves and the insects? Probably.
He thought about all this just before he flipped the safety off the gun and pulled the trigger. Tired he may have been last night, but certainly not tired enough to not bother to learn how what was probably the most powerful weapon on the planet worked.
The thing had no recoil and made no sound, so his attempts to fire it out the window during his investigation earlier had resulted in him pulling the trigger and assuming it didn't work. Then he had aimed it at the wall. No result. Then he aimed it at one of the weird bat things that were flying outside. Then it worked. Organic stuff was the only thing it harmed apparently.
The same thing that had happened to the bat earlier now occurred to the spider woman.
