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Ander Vale

Same door, same brass hands, same threshold. Ander does what he has done every time: steps onto the stone before anyone else has to, shield up high, body between the others and the nearest socket. "Right. Brea, Fenn — wait for them to reach. Thornwick, pick your wrist." He sets his feet and cuts at the nearer hand as it comes.

automaton hand 1 falls.

Ander Vale

The edge bites into the wrist collar and the hand goes slack, fingers splayed against the stone. Ander looks at his own sword a moment, like it might explain itself, then recovers. "One down. Second one's still live — nobody steps past me."

DM

Ander’s sword catches the nearer brass hand across its palm and shears it from the rubble. Its fingers twitch once, then lie still.

DM

The surviving hand darts beneath Ander’s guard, springs across the rubble, and clamps onto Oskar’s exposed wrist. Brass fingers crush hard for 4 damage; Oskar has 10/14 HP.

Brea Thornwick

Brea sights along the brass wrist locked around Oskar and looses. The arrow skips off the collar into the rubble. “Eight. Again.”

DM

Brea’s arrow snaps against the rubble beside the scuttling hand and skips into the collapsed hall.

Mira Ashdown

The wand is still in my hand this time, and I cast with something in my hand or not at all. From behind Ander's shield-line, nowhere near a hand's leap, I level the hazel at the brass clamped to Oskar's wrist and speak the whole of it — the short word, the held shape, the release. Magic Missile. A dart that cannot miss, into the hand that cannot be allowed to keep what it has grabbed. "Oskar, hold still — it is his, not yours."

something takes 4 from automaton hand 2.

automaton hand 2 falls.

DM

Mira’s missile strikes the brass wrist for 4 damage. The collar bursts apart; the fingers spring open and tumble from Oskar’s arm. Both hands are destroyed. Mira’s Magic Missile is spent.