Live and Let Drood

He was caught, half in and half out of that terrible mouth, the heavy teeth grinding fiercely but uselessly against his armour. The jaws opened and closed, trying to saw through the Drood, but all that happened was that several teeth shattered and broke off. The Drood used the extra space to get his feet under him, and then he walked backwards into the jaw and severed the muscles with his golden blade. The creature howled like a fire siren as its lower jaw just dropped down. The armoured man jumped. It took him some time to reach the ground, and when he hit, the sheer impact blasted out a crater and a cloud of dust. When the dust settled he was climbing out of the crater, entirely unharmed. I felt like applauding.
    But the monsters were so big, so powerful, and there seemed no end to them. Armoured Droods cut at legs bigger than tree trunks and hardly made an impression.
    More golden figures defended the Hall from inside, firing all kinds of weapons from every door and window. Everything from automatic rifles to energy weapons to steam-powered bazookas. Plus a whole bunch of cobbled-together-looking things, probably come straight from the Armoury for testing. The sheer firepower blasting from all sides of theHall would have been enough to wipe out an army, but the colossal monsters of this world just soaked it up and kept pressing forward. They surrounded the Hall on all sides, looming over it, driven by sheer fury at this alien thing that had dared to enter their world. I wondered if they even knew it was the tiny golden figures that were their real enemy and not the Hall itself. Perhaps only the Hall was big enough to hold their attention.
    “Do you know what that shimmering screen is?” said Molly beside me.
    “No,” I said. “Never seen it before. It’s not part of the Hall’s defences. Maybe some kind of improvised force shield?”
    “I don’t think so,” said Molly. “Looks…wrong for that.”
    “We’ll find out when we get close enough,” said the Regent.
    Molly and I turned back to look at him. He seemed entirely serene.
    “You think we should just go running out there?” said Molly. “Into monster-snack territory?”
    “I think the family needs all the help it can get,” said the Regent. “Don’t you?”
    “You’re wearing Drood armour, Molly,” said Patrick. “You don’t have to worry about monsters anymore.”
    “We’re not doing any good just standing here,” I said quickly. “So I say…Go the reinforcements!”
    I took a deep breath, silently called myself all kinds of idiot and ran out into the clearing, heading straight for the shimmering barrier hanging in the air and the Hall beyond it. Molly was right there at my side in her rogue armour, and I just knew she was grinning broadly behind her featureless golden mask. She put on a sudden burst of speed, leaving the rest of us behind, striking out savagely at the monstrous creatures that blocked our way. Her golden fists gouged great chunks out of alien flesh, but the creatures didn’t even seem to notice one more stinging irritant at their feet. Molly’s actions worried me. They showed a viciousness I’d never seen in her before. And why wasn’t she using her magic instead of relying on the armour’s brute strength? Was the rogue armour getting to her already, the way it had got to me?I fought to keep up with her, striking out with Oath Breaker. Wherever the ironwood staff struck alien flesh, great slabs of muscle exploded and more than one monster lurched suddenly to one side as a limb buckled unexpectedly. Patrick and Diana stuck close behind, maintaining a devastating rate of fire and keeping anything from getting too close to us. And the Regent just trotted along behind us, puffing gently, still smiling that interminable smile.
    Molly laughed aloud, delighting in the strength and speed the rogue armour bestowed on her, smashing her way through everything that stood before her. I was disturbed at how quickly she’d taken to the armour after all the comments she’d made before about how she didn’t approve of unnatural sources of power. But it is an undeniable truth that power tends to seduce, and appalling amounts of power…Molly took the rogue armour away from me to save me from its influence. Was I going to have to take it back again for her sake?
    We were halfway across the clearing now, almost at the shimmering screen. I could see the Hall ahead of us. Huge creatures the size of airplanes cruised by