Lesser Key of Solomon [Mod]

[Pyxis]

Twenty minutes later, and still no new enemies had gotten close enough for Pyxis's sensory programs to notify her. They were there, in the distance, but not close enough to care unless she was actively seeking them out. And at the moment, she was only taking a halfhearted attitude towards doing that. She would walk down a few rows, then stop for a bit. And then that bit would turn into a few minutes before she finally moved on again. One or two of those 'breaks', Pyxis had pulled a book from the nearest shelf and looked through it. But she couldn't focus on reading enough to get anywhere with them. Needless to say, there was a lot on her mind at the moment. The battle with the Maya horde had only worsened that.

[Kitten4u]

CAUTION CAUTION
An enemy has appeared

Sleeping Table
Maragidyne
Megidola
Heaven Purge
Evil Touch

Null: Light, Darkness
Weak: Fire

[Pyxis]

After awhile, Pyxis finally pressed onward, continuing towards one of the larger blips on her radar in the distance. She still took a slow pace, almost expecting something else to waylay her before she got there. But nothing did, and soon enough she ran into the shadow she had been tracking. She happened upon a white table, with a staff, a cup, a silver plate, and a rapier-like blade floating above it. A Table type, and judging by the white color and reflective surface, one of the strongest. To her surprise, her identification systems immediately returned a match.

Sleeping Table.

A readout immediately appeared over her vision, describing the Sleeping Table as a powerful shadow encountered by a team of Users several years back, that very nearly wiped the floor with them. Apparently, it gave them so much trouble that it was the only "normal" shadow they made a separate file for.

"Here we go," Pyxis said. Whether intentionally or not, she'd asked for this. Now, it was time to accept that and fight it. Elpis materialized behind her, already shining brilliantly. The Persona, the spirit of home, spread her arms and summoned a rain of meteors to crash down on the Table, battering it but not destroying it. ...Actually, it didn't seem to have resisted it, but it didn't take very much damage, either. That...was all kinds of trouble. If it was shrugging off a Power Charged attack like that, then Pyxis was in for a long fight.

Rather than charge up another one, though, Pyxis decided to switch attacks and try to look for a weakness. The Table got a move off first, though, sweeping its staff towards Pyxis. An unsettling murky cloud coated the staff's tip, but whatever it would do, Pyxis never found out. The staff missed her entirely. Pyxis then directed Elpis to slash at the Table with her cresent blade. It had the same result: not resisted, but not particularly damaging either.

The table then gathered all its floating accessories together, raising them into the air and calling down a column of light from the sky. It crashed down on Pyxis before she had a chance to dodge, burning her with sheer brightness and intensity. Her armor, like usual, protected her from the worst of it, but even so it hit much harder than Pyxis expected. So, she had an enemy that could hit harder than normal, and also took far more hits than normal. Great. "Let's try the new one then," Pyxis said. A ball of light appeared between Elpis's hands, and floated from them over the battlefield. It started as a faint light, but then quickly flared to exceed even Elpis's brightness when fully charged. Beams shot out from the light ball, lancing through anything that resembled a target nearby. Books, bookcases, bits of rubble, and of course, the Sleeping Table itself. But the Table took no more damage than before, and countered by creating a mass of energy of its own, then bringing it crashing down on the battlefield.

While it wasn't as strong as the light attack, it still hurt much more than it should have. Pyxis took a second to brace and steady herself, before considering her options once again. All means of physical attack were met with a neutral response, which did little for how durable the shadow was. All she had left was...fire?

Might as well try it.

White fire appeared in Elpis's hands. The spirit of hope drew them back, then threw the flames at the table. They collided against its surface, igniting it and prompting a violent recoil that suggested that Pyxis had hit the mark. Hit a table with fire. Huh. Maybe she should have tried that first. But for whatever strange reason, the table had fire at its command as well, and responded to the attack with a volley of fireballs of its own. From there, the battle turned into a literal firefight and war of attrition, until Pyxis eventually managed to win. But it came at the cost of exhaustion and a lot more damage than she expected to take from a normal shadow at this point.

[Erithania]

Boom.

[image]

You're a winner.

[Pyxis]

Heat warnings were already dying down. Self-repair had initiated, with a little help from a casting or two of Dia. She wasn't going to get back up to full strength without going back and recharging, though. Energy reserves? Pretty low. Enough that she could survive fighting a few stragglers, but nothing like the last two battles. No, now was probably a good time to head back, while she could. She wasn't doing herself any favors by staying. Certainly not with her current mindset. Even as a machine, it was all too easy to be distracted when preoccupied with heavy thoughts.