I figuratively coughed up a lung while I waited for the cloud of dust left behind by Ner's minibar exploding to clear. I then briefly wondered if my healing factor would save me if I literally coughed up a lung. I'm not even sure if it was even physically possible to literally cough up a lung, but decided that since I could survive being impaled I could probably survive literally coughing up a lung.
"That wasn't my fault," the Courier claimed from somewhere on the opposite side of the room from where Ner's minibar had been. For some reason he seemed to be immune to the cloud of dust, as he was the only non-deity in the room who wasn't figuratively coughing up a lung. Maybe he was simply accustomed to inhaling particulates?
"Bull-," Fphant started to say, but was interrupted by a particularly violent bout of coughs, "-shit! You got blown up because you're clumsy and you know it!!"
"You dare impugn my honor?!" the Courier cried.
"What honor?" was the Sorceress's quick retort. "You steal everything that isn't nailed down wherever you go!"
Ner', I realized, wasn't actually coughing up a lung. Instead, he had been trying unsuccessfully to acquire our collective attention through the use of throat-clearing coughs. Since so many of us were already coughing, nobody else had noticed. When he saw that nobody was listening to him, -completely ignoring me, of course,- he rolled his eyes in irritation. He whipped out his magic crossbow, the Pawner. With practiced ease he pulled the string back and channeled a quick burst of magic into it. A silver quarrel coated in glowing green runes tessellated into existence loaded into the crossbow.
He fired the crossbow straight up at the ceiling.
There were four effects when that single bolt hit the roof. The first two effects were immediately apparent, a brilliant flash of light blinded anyone who looked at it, namely me, followed instantly by a deafening crack which set my ears to ringing. While disoriented by the flashbang, I felt the third effect. A brisk wind which presumably swept the dust from the air into the corners of the room.
I found that while my innate light magic didn't give me immunity to bright lights, I found that it did give me protection, because my vision cleared much faster than it should have, and when it did, I noticed the fourth effect the bolt had carried. A barrier made of luminous green magic with runes similar to the ones I'd seen coating the bolt which swirled into existence at random and slowly faded away scattered across its surface separated Ner' and I from all of my friends. I experimentally tapped a hoof against the barrier and found it both hard and inflexible. When the ringing finally faded from my ears, I realized that my friends' mouths were moving on the other side of the barrier, but I couldn't hear them.
I was alone with Ner'Ghalad.
My friends started to beat on the other side of the barrier. For most of them, especially the Sorceress, it proved an effort in futility, but the Courier's huge exploding bullets did manage to crack the barrier just a little bit. The cracks slowly healed, but not fast enough as the second bullet slammed home and widened the cracks considerably. Ner' raised an eyebrow at the damage. "Oh, at this rate they'll actually break through!" He frowned severely, but I noticed that his frown didn't quite reach his eyes. "That just won't do, we'll have to send something over there to occupy them, now won't we?"
Ner's horn glowed with unholy magic and a jagged hole into some strange arcane plane was torn in reality on the other side of the barrier. What looked like a pile of bones issued through the hole before it closed without a trace. The bones moved as though they were liquid, swiftly forming into a monstrous construct.
It stood on four stubby legs which connected to a complicated central hub from which a thick central stalk rose straight up about one and a half meters tall. Dozens of skeletal limbs sprouted from the central stalk. No two limbs were exactly alike and each one seemed deadlier than the last. I saw limbs which ended with three foot long, scythe-like blades. Limbs covered with wicked spiked formations full of barbs and points, limbs with hands which had far too many vicious claws capping their fingers, and even one or two limbs which turned into a snapping set of jaws full of serrated fangs.
To top it all off, the construct started to spin rapidly.
The complicated central hub was apparently a hinge of some sort which allowed the construct's leg's to stay fixed while the central stalk spun freely. It took a couple seconds to get up to speed, but when it did it spun so fast that I could no longer make out the individual arms, just a blurred whirlwind of sharp bone. It slowly walked forward on its four little legs, a spinning maelstrom of bony death.
"There, that beauty should keep them occupied," Ner' said conversationally to me. He was quiet for a moment and we watched the construct shred through several of Fphant's illusions. None of my friends could get close without getting eviscerated. The Courier fired his guns and the Sorceress fired spells from afar, but more often than not one of the spinning limbs would deflect the projectile. Whenever one of the Courier's bullets or the Sorceress's spells did manage to tear one of the spinning limbs off, an invisible force would grab the limb before it had even hit the ground and drag it back into its place on the spinning construct. Shattered bones reassembled and cracks in the bones mended in the blink of an eye.
The only reason my friends weren't obliterated immediately was the fact that the construct appeared unable of moving at any rate faster than a slow walk.
"It's one of my own designs," Ner' said proudly. "The optimal version has longer legs capable of running tirelessly at speeds of up to five meters per second with a top speed acceleration of just under a second, but I wanted to at the very least give your friends a small chance of actually winning. What do you think of it?"
I quirked an eyebrow. "You're actually asking for my opinion while your minion threatens the lives of my friends?"
Ner' gave me a 'you're a moron' look. For once I felt like I didn't actually deserve it. "Yes, yes I am."
"I think you're an ass."
"That's racist." Was Ner's immediate reply.
"Wait, what?" I asked, confused.
Ner' made an impatient gesture with his hoof. "You know, how an ass is another name for a donkey?"
I cocked my head to the side. "Is that a thing?" I asked, genuinely confused.
"Yes, that's totally a thing." He sounded mildly frustrated. "That's been a thing for ages."
"Really?" I asked. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure!" Ner' lowered his crossbow and stomped his hoof in agitation. "That was a thing even before I was ban-."
I cut him off with a sucker punch in the gut.
A sucker punch which was actually a laser.
A laser which was in the shape of a boxing glove.
Ner' was knocked onto his back from the force of the hit.
To my surprise, Ner' began to laugh. "Oh that was good!" he exclaimed after a hearty, manic laugh. "I haven't been duped that badly for centuries." He stood up and brushed himself off. "You've put me in such a good mood that I'm going to fight you all out! You should feel honored."
Ner' horn lit up with eldritch energy and started to suck all the surrounding light into itself. The air surrounding Ner' visibly darkened to black, forming a lightless miasma around him. Dark flames burst into life along his hide and burned in his eyes, they formed great wings made of dark flame. The dark burning of the flames only made his dark miasma grow more vast. Some of the shadowy miasma condensed onto the Pawner and formed a bolt. A tongue of flame from Ner's skin licked over the dark bolt, adding some unknown magical effect by burning runes onto it. "Why don't you surrender?" He asked jovially. "After all, there's no way you can win this fight."
"Oh yeah?" I asked. I rose into a faux kung-fu pose on my hind legs, small strands of light snaked their way down my legs and out a short way onto the floor, supporting my balance so I could keep up the bipedal stance. Claw-like fingers made of light shimmered into existence around my right hoof and a small orb of light ready to shape into any form imaginable hovered over my left hoof. I closed my eyes and focused on the most badass sword I could imagine. My magic tingled and I knew the sword appeared in the air in front of me. I reached forward and grasped my magic light sword in my magic light fingers. My eyes opened and my whole body glowed brilliantly, my metal bits glittered like molten gold. Radiant wings made of light opened from my shoulders to mirror Ner's. "Well you're," I said, making a show of pointing my sword at Ner' then pointing straight down to the ground, "going thataway!"