Since the fire's out it sounds like it's time to arm everybody inside the church and start barricading the doors.
For some reason the teachers had all the weapons. Most of the equipment inside the church is made of material that came from a higher fertility area and is thus a better makeshift weapon then the sticks I fought with earlier, but are still makeshift weapons wielded by small children. The stick squad and myself are the only ones to pick something up instead of cry, and suspect any advantage they'll provide is is going to be psychological in nature.
Speaking of the stick squad, they undo their unbarricading of the door. Cheater girl starts to cover the hole and the windows with a sheet of ice.
Yes, but never forget to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves: Watch as much of the carnage as you can while keeping yourself safe, and try to give your magic-sense an understanding of the processes that make things die.
Fortunately the ice is clear enough to see through. I do the polar opposite of earlier and peak out the corner of the opening at the battlefield.
Of the combatants I can see, three are teachers. One is a giant monster that looks something like a cross between a bearded dragon and an armadillo, but it is the size of a house. There are three dog-sized land-bound bats. Five are elves with a combination of spears and bows made of monster parts.
I guess now is a good time to note that I labeled them "Elves" because they have pointy ears and live in the woods. A translation of their actual name would be something like "Forest Folk". They're clearly humanoid and intelligent, but their biology(or whatever it is) is different than those who live in the Kingdoms and the Colonies. Instead of developing magic like most other intelligent races, their magic goes into their bodies like monsters. I'm told this gives them equivalent physical abilities to monsters, but it locks them out of the joys of magic. They...shouldn't be capable of manipulating monsters without magic.
I should probably also note that the teachers are using much more advanced magic than the stuff I learned based on pattern recognition. If they're teaching us addition they'd be doing calculus. They're form of understanding is much less limited.
One teacher is apparently turning themselves into a human tesla coil. He's shooting out bolts of electricity in the general direction of the enemy. It doesn't seem very accurate or powerful, it is covering most of the battlefield but not hitting anyone behind cover and just kinda arcing across the house-sized monster. I think it is some kind of suppressive fire. Another teacher peaks out from behind a tree and soon after one of the bat-things explodes. Another one explodes, too. It looks singed along with the surrounding area, some kind of heat-based attack maybe? Last one leaps forward and screeches but tumbles over with a bone-knife sticking out of it. My last teacher is the only one using weapons.
One of the Elves shouts something and they release a volley of arrows and spears in unison. Their attacks easily penetrate the low-fertility trees entirely. Knife and Tesla teacher are fine, but it looks like the explosion teacher was damaged by arrow shrapnel. At another command of the elf, the giant monster trudges forward toward tesla-teacher. It starts to eat up more and more of his attack with no obvious effect. He tries a more concentrated beam of electricity. Still nothing seems to stop the creature. I see several nearby branches explode around it, I think it is brushing off the explosion teacher's attacks too. The elves begin using it as mobile cover, moving closer to the teachers. A concentrated volley is fired and explosion-teacher falls to the ground. Messily. I don't think I like watching people die.
A cloud of smoke...or maybe just a cloud covers the monsters and the elves. I can't see anything and I suspect they can't either. Knife teacher jumps up from her hiding spot and rushes into the cloud. I hear screaming. First a monster, then form an elf, then from her. Tesla teacher repositions in the opening. He's really fast. When the cloud cloud clears the monster is dead. I don't see any marks. I think the knife might have had some kind of poison on it? My teacher is dead too. She has a lot of marks. A lot of marks. A lot of marks.
Tesla teacher now has an open line of fire and releases a continuous steam of lightning bolts. Several of the elves stop moving. Some of their cloths are scorched but their bodies look mostly intact compared to the explosions earlier. One elf jumped up on the monster's back and managed to avoid the attack. Another managed to dive behind the corpse of the beast. Monster-back elf throws a short spear and gets hit by a lightning bolt. He's knocked back off the creature and hits the ground hard, but gets back up with help from his companion. Tesla teacher doesn't get back up.
Monster-back elf is visibly limping. Diver-elf is wielding a bow and at full strength. After a short conversation involving pointing in our general direction
they start heading for the church I'm in.