The arachne had been ready for battle at any moment it would seem.

  As the group exited the building on the corner, an inn that had a rooms on a second floor whose stairway had fallen in, there were some wooden carved skeletons with muscles made of silk and shields in one of their hands. Four of them were striding up the road towards them with at least a dozen going into the buildings, though they quickly turned and followed the others towards them.

  Tarn drew a silver charm of a shield and gave a quick yell of "(shield us. Barrier!)" there was a honeycomb wall of wards against everything. One of the skeleton marionettes reached back and threw a net that glimmered with a ward. It hit the shield and flashed with light. The shield was much weaker after the net fell to the ground.

  It pulled mana from the shield, interesting. Taramo used the other fourteen remaining butterflies to see how many of these marionettes there were, he'd sent another to check on the arachne and it had also been destroyed despite a hasty ward against detection.

  "There's about thirty of these." Taramo told the others as the four marionettes stopped before the shield, apparently waiting for orders or knowing that the shield worked both ways.

  "She's a puppeteer or a necromancer, probably both" Tarn failed to set up a second shield. "We'll have to deal with those before we run. We can't bring that spider back home!"

  Gerolf had grabbed his machete and the guards held their hatchets and an unlit torch."

  "Light me" the guard asked Tarn.

  "I'm out. I'll need a bit for offense."

  Taramo lit the two torches and decided how he would act. He didn't want to kill the arachne yet, she hadn't acted badly enough for that. The marionettes were designed for battle so he'd deal with them.

  One of the marionettes reached it's hand to touch the shield ward, draining the rest of the mana. Then one of the butterflies flew into the middle of the four and immolated itself.

  The silk seemed highly resistant to fire, but the wood was less so and with an extreme temperature whatever varnish that was meant to strengthen it instead made it burn better. Without the wooden structure two of the three collapsed. One of the others was missing an arm they detached when it set alight and the last had forced itself through the shield while it was partially effective, protecting it from the explosion.

  "Give up the wraith!" the arachne screamed with a voice box in the skull of the marionette as the guards hacked at the shield and arm. The arm that was not embedded with axes threw a similar net to the last at Taramo. This was stopped by his warding and disintegrated but it drained a significant chunk of what was available. He'd be able to tank one other net before he had to refresh the ward.

  "War has changed." Taramo muttered to himself as he got Spot to split himself to get four smaller segments to keep watch up on the wall and the buildings. Gerolf was surprised by the change in Spot, had he explained things to them? And the guards were too bothered with the one marionette, though they had dispatched it by taking out the arms, they just needed to finish it off so the arachne would not get to run after them.

  The other butterflies were returning towards Taramo, eight of them. There had been some of the groups that had attacked them, they were noticeable, and the arachne was directly catching any that she noticed.

  He sent one on a suicide mission to destroy the five that were charging and slashed the one armed one down with a single wave of disrupting air. Gerolf had gotten his machete stuck in the shield so he would be in trouble if the marionette had not left the shield to charge Taramo.

  But was it charging him?

  "Spot, Attack." Taramo ordered and the half-sized wraith-dog leapt to attention and charged the group of five that were trying to put out the fires on their body. The parts that were watching had remained on watch, as ordered. Taramo felt a bit of pride at the ability of Spot to keep their parts at different tasks.

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  It was as he believed. The different marionettes were focused on catching Spot, who was able to evade the nets and break bones when they gave up on the nets. Then one of the watchers set off an alarm.

  The arachne had scuttled on the wall and webbed up the watcher there. She glared hatefully down at Taramo before retreating.

  "Gerolf. Take your men and retreat. Just take this with you," One of the butterflies landed on his shoulder "I will be able to talk to you through that when I am done."

  "But we can help-"

  "You could if I had learned to play well with others. You are a liability now." He sent a gout of Napalm from the tip of his wand to make a wall of fire the horde of marionettes were stuck behind. "And I think I'll need to take this one seriously."

  The three butterflies that were directly flying as quick as possible back to the compound should be able to fix the problem if he was correct in his assumption. He hoped he was right.

  The guards managed to get Gerolf to leave, though he insisted on taking the butterfly 'in case you need help'. He'd have to hold back for a few minutes so they wouldn't be in the spash zone.

  The marionettes had stopped behind the wall of fire and Spot was stalking on Taramo's side, waiting for the order to attack them. The three other watches, bait, were on the top of two of the buildings and down the alleyway. The latter had a butterfly resting in it, kept inside the wraith piece.

  "You Bastard!" The paralysis ward seemed to have done something, though it wasn't perfectly effective. It had destroyed the butterfly and damaged the piece of Spot but through Spot's main body he could feel that the pieces were webbed, but not harmed.

  The timer ward he'd set for three minutes had gone off, making a light dinging that was just irritating enough to get his attention immideately. He should have the space though he wouldn't want to go overboard.

  "(Vacuum)" Taramo ordered his wand. It executed the pre-programmed spell. Most regular mages would have to use a book to keep their spells but most of Taramo's combat spells were encased in his wands. His books had been lost to time but hopefully he'd be able to re-create his non-hostile spells effectively enough.

  A cavitation was formed in the mana. Extremely unstable and wobbling like a large soap bubble. It appeared on the other side of the fire wall and when it inevitably detonated the defensive ward centered on Taramo made sure that he was completely unaffected.

  There were dozens messages sent to the office of maintenance which was reasonable. The wall was only half-destroyed and the inn collapsed on itself. The horde of marionettes was entirely obliterated.

  The piece of spot on top of the inn had been poked to jump off before, reintegrating itself, and the other was placidly standing in front of the arachne who was surprised at the destruction, or she'd had hearing damage it was quite loud.

  She grabbed a vial of green liquid which Taramo thought was a healing draught since she swallowed the whole thing and felt better, by which time the piece of Spot had waddled to the edge of the building. The arachne looked at it giving a little wave before it jumped and expertly dodged the three silk traps that were thrown as it zipped to the ground level to reincorporate with the main body.

  The Arachne screamed out of frustration or the realization that she'd lost all the marionettes she'd sent out.

  "Are you ready to talk?" Taramo wasn't trying to taunt her, but he'd need a few minutes before his coup de grace would arrive. If she charged him he'd probably have to hurt her.

  "I have nothing to say to a thief." She ripped a piece of paper in half, activating the communication ward.

  The entryway to the tower exploded out as a much larger thing exited. It was made of a black metal and had the general shape of the arachne, if she had battleaxes and polearms for hands.

  "(Minefield)" Taramo set a field of explosive runes on the road between him and the mechanical beast which started to charge. He was running low on mana- the wand wasn't specialized for war so it drew more than he could hope for. The mines did not slow it and the three lines he'd connected to yank him to a rooftop abscent of the arachne were necessary since she'd cut two of them.

  Spot dodged and barely avoided the big mech's attacks, though most of it was probably an order from the arachne to not heavily damage the wisp. When the arachne had webbed up Spot he'd collapsed, the small part that was actually him flipping out of reach and flying up to rejoin with the majority up beside Taramo.

  The arachne's pale face turned the shade of a tomato and she was about to order her battle-mech to attack the building Taramo was on before both of them were halted immediately.

  "Nikalia, Taramo. What the hell are you doing!" A potted plant was careening up the road on a wagon pulled by three nearly dissipated wisp-butterflies who abandoned the wagon once it was close enough for Ariwyn to speak and slumped on Taramo's shoulder. They were true wisps now, not just creations of a spell. How had she-

  "I'm not hearing explanations. I would like to." Taramo sighed and tethered himself to the roof before letting himself down. Nikalia looked caught in between hearing a friend who she thought was dead was now alive and being caught having stolen most of the cookies in the jar and forgetting it open so rats got in it. She shouldn't try to kill him anytime soon.