The small force that came almost out of nowhere kicked out everyone's preconceptions that this mission would continue being made up of one or two opponents at a time. Janius immediately called out from the shield wall. "Incoming!"

Janius ducked his head behind his shield as one of the solid metal crossbow bolts punched into his shield. It had more force than he could have expected; the head of the bold had barely poked through the other side of his shield. These bolts could go through his steel if they were at the right angle. The duck for cover gave the other enemies enough time to start closing their distance. Janius was winding up to step forward and get one of the spiders when Sabine screamed out.

"Stay back!" Sabine's first fire bolt did not head for one of the spheres, but instead for the iridescent slick of oil across the ground. Sabine had been taught since her very first lesson with fire magic that she must always keep a look out for things that might catch fire accidentally. She was unsure if everyone had spotted the oil, but she wanted to make sure that no one was caught in it before it went up in flames. The spells of those around her could have done so before she did. As well, the automatons would be caught in the fire instead of her allies. They would be disabled outright if they were lucky.

Fendros had fired an arrow back at one of the shooting spheres. Though, by the time it impacted, he couldn't tell if it had done damaged. The wall of fire blocked his vision of it.

[hr]
Back with the Riften clan, fighting wasn't on the forefront of quite so many people's minds. Uthri was getting the children to eat their lunch rather than flick it at one another, Tzirret was practising magic, and Gallus had just got back from the smith's grindstone with a number of his sheathed daggers tinkling together in a small bag.

Gallus gave waves to his packmates, but did not even hint at not heading for Peiter. He stopped his brisk walk up near where Peiter was. "Hey Peit, let's go toss knives," Gallus said. He had a smile on his face that told Peiter that there would be no success in trying to negotiate out of this.