On the Hills of Eden

Soleiman sat perched atop the red ropes, neck craned forward in search of the Protoataphoi. All around him were suspended blood-soaked lines tied from tree to tree in a dense web-like layer that hovered about five or so metres off the ground, stretching out for several metres in all directions around him.

The strange, shoddy abacus-like item on his hip swinging with him as he shifted about trying to catch a glimpse of the creature, he couldn’t help but feel a crushing feeling of doom ensnaring his heart, growing tighter by the second.

They had spent the past few days scraping together this arena, with Pallas working almost non-stop through her waking hours to accumulate enough blood-enforced rope to allow them to fully realise their plan. On top of that, Qingxi and some of their archers had been hard at work harassing the Protoataphoi through low intensity hit-and-run engagements, nudging it using its fear of fire further east skirmish by skirmish. All so that it would find itself pushed to this specific location, where they would hopefully have a shot at exterminating it once and for all.

He pulled his head back, cracking his neck as felt it stiffen up. He ran his left hand over the strange apparatus, feeling its vertical grills and the small beads affixed to each one. Ten in total, for the ten pairs of archers he had prepared for the battle, positioned in a crescent encircling the web-topped arena.

Having learnt from the initial failure that left Pallas with a hole in her heart, Soleiman knew that having frontline soldiers would prove to be ineffective against the Protoataphoi. Instead, he figured it would be far more prudent to arm their men entirely with bows and fire arrows, splitting them into pairs with each pair being given a horse to both carry their ammunition as well as offer a means of retreat and repositioning if the need ever arose. In this manner, he believed that there would be less risk of desertion given that every soldier would have the means of outrunning the beast if it came down to it and would not have to worry about fleeing in advance to try and put some distance between it and them.

He flicked the beads up one by one, looking down to observe as they very slowly slid back down each bar. Watching as each pair of archers knocked their next set of arrows after having fired a volley in the theatre of his mind.

He breathed in and breathed out.

He had no time to worry. He had no need to worry. They knew its weakness, and they knew how to exploit it.

And as he heard Qingxi proclaim the arrival of the Protoataphoi for the depths of the forest, he knew it was time for battle.

“It’s here!” she shouted, leaping from tree to tree using her winds to firmly plant herself against the pull of gravity. Mere moments behind her, the Protoataphoi lunged again and again, recklessly throwing itself against tree and clamping its maw down on nothing as she kept up the pace and slipped through each and every one of its attacks. Soon, she came into view of Soleiman and Pallas, and blasted herself forward with one last great gust of wind, sliding across the wet blades of the clearing’s grasses to turn and face the beast.

Briefly, she flashed a look up at the two of them before clutching her axe and squaring off against the rapidly approaching Protoataphoi.

The rope Soleiman sat atop of vibrated suddenly, and Pallas thundered down onto the battlefield aimed directly at the beast’s back, the several loops of blood-soaked ropes and bands clinging to her hips.

Her two boots slammed into the earth, the beast having thrown itself to the left and out of the way using an arm hidden beneath its detached furry hide.

“Ten, nine, eight!”

It’s back suddenly erupted in lilac flame, encasing half of its body with thick black smoke.

Qingxi sprinted forwards, booting it in its lower jaw and swirling around mid-air to strike at its skull again, throwing her axe towards the now exposed joint that held its jaw to its skull.

At the same time, Pallas surged forwards towards the smoke, throwing one end of a rope beneath its body and through its legs while she vaulted into the smokescreen. Parting the smoke as she landed again, she caught the other end of the rope, tying a knot to ensnare the Protoataphoi before leaping back up towards the webbing and tying it to the very fringes of the structure.

Watching as her axe found home within the withdrawn fleshy lump that allowed it control over its maw, Qingxi bolted forward the very moment she touched back down, grabbing it by its handle and throwing the momentum all throughout her body against it. Thereby tearing it from the beast’s jaw and cleaving its left temporomandibular joint wide open, leaving its mouth half-slackened.

It leapt forward, swinging a burly limb from beneath its cloak at Qingxi only for her to leap backwards as it found itself being held back by the rope now constricting about its midsection.

Several more limbs emerged from beneath the void that lay under its hide, their spindly, twig-like forms grasping and clawing and scratching at the rope and yanking it down as Pallas made her way across the webbing.

“Rumi!”

Then came a torrent of wind that roared out from the woods, smashing into its arms and shattering them on impact, its blunt form leaving the thin rope unaffected. The first of three.

Exploiting the sudden flurry of action near the posterior half of the beast’s body, Qingxi bolted forward again, swinging the blade-less end of the axe against its upper jaw with the aid of her wind arts. Splitting the thing’s mouth agape again, Qingxi stopped the wide arc her axe swung in, bracing the muscles all throughout her body as she aimed to cleave the beast’s jaw wide open once and for all.

And it made contact, bouncing off of hard, rock-like tar-covered skin as the inner entity emerged from within to parry the attack.

“Four, five, seven!”

The Protoataphoi’s skull erupted into flame, Qingxi jumping back and raising her arms to cover her eyes as the forest-searing lilac inferno scoured the beast’s skeletal face.

The underside of the web’s ropes illuminated briefly by the bombardment, Pallas arrived at the large iron pulley system that served as the centralpoint of the structure. It was tied to and held together almost every rope, allowing it the ability to call on the support of every branch of the web their anchoring trees.

Other pseudo-central points made entirely out of blood knots made of several ropes existed adjacent to and in parallel with it to prevent its potential failure from jeopardising the integrity of the entire web. Though they really hoped that would not happen, given that their plan hinged on it working and that it was the only mechanism of its kind they could salvage from the villagers.

She affixed the rope tied to the beast’s midsection to the larger of the pair of gears, securing it in place before dropping back down just as the smoke cleared. Leaving the smaller gear about one third the larger’s size joined to a dry, untouched pair of ropes alone as Soleiman had instructed them to- the lengths of those ropes bound up in large hoops to the system’s side.

Simultaneously, Qingxi made another attempt to capitalise on the shock of the bombardment, rushing forth to cleave the beast’s maw cleanly into two. But from the smoke emerged a blade of an arm, striking her axe just above where her hands were and splitting the weapon into two.

Bouncing forward, Pallas made a mad dash for its neck, sliding another rope’s end under it while she vaulted on over to the other side. Landing on her feet, she grabbed the rope’s end and tied it into place, preparing to leap back up to the webbing to try and fix it to a point opposing the other.

Just before the rope constricted about its body, however, an arm broke free of the hide and made an attempt to slash at her neck.

Blood surging to her arm on pure instinct, she pummelled it away with a backhand slap, clearing the area around her and letting her leap with impunity to where she needed to go.

As she soared through the air, though, a screaming pain ruptured through her left lung and struck deep within her abdomen, numbing her body with the sheer magnitude of the pain and leaving her clutching onto the rope she landed on to avoid falling off.

Qingxi’s halved axe had been thrown into her chest, the beast looking up at her with its eyeballs rolled back unnervingly through their sunken orbits.

“Pallas!” Soleiman yelled, left hand hovering over the counting apparatus.

“I’m fine!” she gasped back, breaking into a sprint again atop the rope and placing a hand on the axe’s splintered wooden handle. “It missed my heart!”

Looking back down, Soleiman saw as the second loop about the beast’s neck tightened in synchrony with Pallas affixing its rope in place.

In doing so, the two loops fastened its hide cloak down and in place, tying its myriad of mangled and malformed arms down- visible only through the violent writhing under its cloak.

With the first goal now achieved, Soleiman signalled to Qingxi, bringing her up to the webbing too and alleviating the Protoataphoi of the immediate pressure she exerted.

At once, it rose to its full height, preparing to force its body against the two ropes to try and fight its way free of the web and its restraints.

“Rumi!”

The air cracked once more, the windblade barreling forth having taken a sharper form that allowed it to cleave straight through the being’s two right legs, bringing it back down to the earth.

Having secured the second rope to the pulley system, Pallas now tied a third rope this time to the axe within her body, pulling it out and managing to halt the bleeding almost immediately. Frankly, she was stupidly lucky that it had so narrowly managed to miss her heart.

“One, two, three!”

The area beneath the web erupting into lilac flames, Pallas leapt off and slowly let loose the rope that she had bound to the axe, swinging it forth and bringing it down on the Protoataphoi, carving through a good portion of its flesh just as she landed on the ground.

The entirety of the left side of her body now encased in blood armour, she yanked the axe from the beast’s body, leaping up against a tree as it raced towards her and kicking off of it to bring the axe swinging all the way about her. Slamming its blade into the beast’s back, Pallas landed on it as she flew over to the other side, forcing it even deeper into its flesh.

Just as it opened its wicked maw to roar in unbridled fury, Qingxi thundered from the webbing and planted her boots into its skull, forcing it shut and slamming it into the earth, cutting off its rotten tongue in the process.

As it bounced off of the earth, Qingxi threw forth two lassos, affixing them about both its upper and lower jaws, using her wind arts to twirl the two ropes about its skull and each other. She yanked on the ropes, feeling as they tightened about the beast and locked themselves about its crooked teeth, leaping back up to the webbing the moment she felt they wouldn’t budge- throwing one of them to the side of the clearing opposite her and guiding it with her wind.

Meanwhile, Pallas had weaved her rope around the beast’s hind leg, looping it about its body and sprinting up its length. Weaving through wild attempts to grab her, she tied the rope about its front leg, finally leaping back up to the webbing to join Qingxi as she threw the rope around a tree in the distance.

As they rushed to affix the three ropes to the pulley system, Soleiman looked back down to see as the inner entity had emerged from its maw to try and break itself free of the two ropes Qingxi had just put in place. On top of that, limbs unbroken by Pallas’ cleaving had begun emerging from the gash through the hide she had created with the axe blade, clamouring to tear apart the ropes bound to its neck and midsection as it struggled to shuffle itself away from where Rumi stood.

He looked back up to see Qingxi and Pallas busying themselves with the pulley.

“Qingxi!”

She looked at him, seeing as he signalled to attack the arms emerging from the break in the beast’s hide and nodding in response. Her eyes on his left hand, he counted her down.

“Six! Rumi!”

The air below them erupted into a flurry of flame yet again, a fire arrow having found home directly on the inner entity, setting it ablaze and forcing it back within its maw. Simultaneously, Rumi had sent a blunt windblade to shatter the arms reaching for the ropes about its neck and midsection, leaving only the two burliest arms remaining- stunned and in shock. Leaving the Protoataphoi defeated and collapsed once again.

Seeing as Soleiman clenched his fist, Qingxi blasted herself from the webbing, rope in hand, ploughing into the two limbs and slamming them into the earth as she had done with its skull. Hopping off of them as they bounced back up, she threw her lasso about them, landing back on the earth before leaping back up to the webbing.

Tying it down to a nearby tree trunk, she rushed across the webbing, passing it on to Pallas as she fit it through the pulley.

Feeling as every bead resetted its position barring six, Soleiman counted the ropes.

Two on its skull, both having been affixed to anchors opposite one another and twisting about its skull.

One on its neck anchored to its right and another bound about the limbs protruding through the gash tied far off to a tree at a harsh angle.

One about its midsection anchored to its left and the final one wrapping about both of its left legs and the axe buried in its rear tied to a tree in the distance off to the beast’s left.

And they were tied evenly.

“We’re okay!” he called out, seeing as Pallas struggled to prepare the system for execution. “Get ready for the pulling!”

Fighting for dear life to get the rope through the already crammed mechanism, Pallas managed to eke a tiny bit of the rope’s edge through, using it to yank it all the way out.

“Ten!”

Pallas straightened the blood ropes fixed to the smaller gear out, the area below them erupting in lilac flame as she did so.

“Nine!”

She soaked them further with as much blood as she could, and again the beast was lit with flame, repeating for every pair Soleiman called out for.

“Eight!”

She split the ropes into two bundles.

“Seven!”

She handed the other half over to Qingxi, the two of them nodded to each other as she did so.

“Six!”

Both of them took off in opposite directions, scampering across the web as the several lengths of rope hooped about the pulley slowly disappeared.

“Five!”

The two of them leapt off of the webbing, the ropes still not yet taught as the hoops continued to shrink.

“Four!”

They landed on the earth, boots sliding slightly as they contacted the dew-covered grass.

“Three!”

They ran to their positions, both on opposite ends of the back-half of the Protoataphoi, so they wouldn’t get in the way of the fire arrows.

“Two!”

Pallas got behind a thick tree, planting a leg up against its trunk as blood armour flooded her entire body, seeping even into the rope.

“One!”

Qingxi did much the same, squaring herself and digging her heels into the earth as Rumi hurried forth to help her out.

“Tear it apart!”

At once, both ropes suddenly went taut as Pallas’ blood shrank their lengths, shocking the webbing and solidifying it instantly. They heaved against the resistance of the Protoataphoi, drawing the ropes further and further along as the gears of the pulley system grinded against each other and provided them a three-to-one mechanical advantage.

In the silence of the following moments broken only by the heinous roars of the beast, it was as if the whole world stood still. In the centre of the stage was the Protoataphoi, its mangled form emerging distended from the clearing smoke. Pulled apart by mere ropes, the beast mourned its suffering, lamenting to no avail as Pallas, Qingxi and Rumi continued to pull, working the pulley system and straining the web against every branch and trunk its individual ropes had been anchored to and tied around. Even further out in the distance stood the archers, steadying their skittish horses as they watched on in horrified amazement at the meticulous carnage before them.

For every metre of rope they fought for, the Protoataphoi was stretched by thirty or so centimetres, imposing upon it an incredible amount of force. And so slowly, step by step, the beast was torn. Its neck and skull twisted and split apart and its body folded and squeezed by the several bindings attached about it.

Bit by bit, they felt as tendon after tendon, muscle after muscle and bone after bone gave way, the beast growing ever closer to complete destruction.

Soleiman felt the beads on his abacus one last time.

“All Fire!”

The clearing was showered in a plume of brilliant purple fire, the blazing inferno crafted from the urine and faeces of men and beast engulfing the death-defying supernatural creature. And at last, as the teeth-grating sound of flesh and bone and sinew tearing ripped through the battlefield, it was over.

They let go of their ropes, letting the fragments of the beast fall limply to the black tar-soaked soil as the smoke cleared. Killing the Protoataphoi.

“We did it,” Rumi said, remarking the gruesome, perverse sight before her. A sickening reminder of the first masked ataphoi she and Soleiman had the misfortune of encountering. “We really did it!”

Pallas looked on over to the two of them, a smile spreading uncontrollably about her face.

“We did it-”

She fell to her knees, clutching at her heart.

Suddenly, she felt as her muscles seize up as an indescribable pain comparable only to being cast into a blast furnace roared into being all across her body.

“Pallas!”

It seared her heart, causing it to spew forth a sanguine fountain of gut-wrenching proportions, saturating the earth with her blood.

Qingxi and Rumi rushed to Pallas’ side, trying to no avail to try and stop the torrent of blood.

Behind them, the Protoataphoi’s corpse began to rot in full, its disjointed but still connected body slowly rising as a massive black spear rose from the rot-soaked dirt, piercing it and hoisting it up for all the forest to behold.

Soleiman slid his way to a nearby tree, clamouring down its trunk as he rushed to Pallas’ side.

“What? What happened to her?”

The world fell silent for Pallas, and everything outside of her direct view faded to an unfathomable darkness. She felt as her hands went numb and as the pain subsided.

“Pallas! Pallas!”

Slowly, the blood flowed to a stop, and she was left panting for air on all fours. Sweating.

“Pallas! Please!”

She felt her heart itch. And she looked up, bringing her eyes to watch the foetid corpse of the Protoataphoi.

Its body split, falling limply to the black mud around the spear.

And the world went quiet.

Slowly, surely, the beast began to shift. A singular arm, the last one remaining, twitched. Then it began to swing. Then it finally lifted itself from the ground, its tar-covered fingers wrapping about the spear’s knobbly and rock-like shaft.

Heaving itself against the spear, the surviving half of the Protoataphoi’s body hoisted itself back up. The two halves of its skull were now split apart, held together only by the inner entity physically grabbing onto them from the inside. Where its neck once had been was now a strikingly human form, though lacking in certain defining human features, like one of two lungs and a lower body.

In fact, all this new being had to show was half of a torso, its crooked spine relying on the spear for support and the crowning jewel of its previous form now having to be held together to not go slack and fall lazily to its sides.

Slowly, her vision and hearing returned to her. Just in time to hear Soleiman’s scream.

“Fire-”

The spear was at once torn from the black mud and launched at the four of them, Qingxi having to brutally blast them and herself to just narrowly avoid being impaled.

The four of them scattered across the earth, and Pallas felt as the sensation in her extremities returned in full, the blood beneath her skin surging back to life full of vigour.

“What the shit?” Qingxi said, rising to her feet as she helped Pallas up, her knees still weak.

The beast threw itself past them a blur of black, grabbing a hold of the tree trunk the spear had embedded itself into.

Before Soleiman and Rumi could even get up, it suddenly pushed itself off of the tree with its only arm, yanking the spear out as it flew forth, swinging it down with unprecedented speed at Qingxi.

It slammed into the soft earth, the Chitite having managed to throw herself, Soleiman and Rumi back with a frenzied use of her wind technique.

“Pallas!” she called out, just as the Protoataphoi swung its spear through the earth, sending Pallas hurtling through the trees and off into the distance.

She fell back down upon the earth, slipping and sliding across the grass as she forced herself back to her feet and to a stop, her fingers digging through the dirt for purchase

Looking up, the band that tied her hair together now broken and long lost, she saw as the Protoataphoi surged through the trees, straight towards her.

Throwing herself out of the way, she saw as the beast slammed its spear into the earth where she once stood, sending mud splattering in all directions.

The moment her feet made contact with the ground again, it contorted its body, swinging the spear wildly through the soft soil and slashing at her. Slipping backwards she evaded the blade itself, but the bits of earth and dirt spat up by the slash assaulted her eyes and muddied her vision.

Stepping backwards as she tried clearing her eyes, she dropped her left shoulder back just in time to slip past a thrust at her heart, repeating the move for her right shoulder as she finally threw the soil from her eyes.

Opening her eyes fully again, she caught the Protoataphoi as it made a mad swing for her feet, jumping backwards to put a good few metres in between her and it. But before she knew it, it had buried the spear’s tip into the soil and used it to push itself forward, the inner entity forcing open its sickly maw as it lunged towards her.

Feeling as her blood began to boil, building up a tremendous pressure within her, she reached out and caught the canines of the beast’s jaw, keeping it open as blood rushed to her skin to protect her fingers from getting cut off.

And within that dark, diseased maw that threatened to engulf her whole, she saw a single glimmer of light.

A wicked grin.

She lifted her legs up, planting them against the thing’s skull and kicking back, somersaulting away and breaking free of the attack.

As she landed back on the earth, she suddenly felt as an immense pain shot through her left shoulder. Stumbling backwards, she looked on as the thorny spear of death pierced her blood armour and buried itself deep into her flesh, the myriad of smaller spikes and spindles beset upon its gnarled form tearing away at her skin and muscles.

And it felt as though she was on the verge of exploding.

She was suddenly forced backwards, the spear piercing her entirely as the beast leapt forth and pinned her against the soil with it. And it opened its mouth, going for the killing blow.

Pallas felt as that pressure suddenly surged to her feet, and at once she lifted them upwards, positioning them below the beast’s belly. With all the might her lower body mustered in those fractions of a second, she slammed her boots against its form, the immense roiling under the skin building up to a fever pitch as it finally exploded from her feet and into the Protoataphoi.

The air around them was suddenly engulfed by a red mist of boiling blood, her boots having been eviscerated as she watched the Protoataphoi and its spear go soaring up into the air above her.

Rolling onto her unwounded side, she hastily got back up to her feet as she felt the pressure dissipate almost entirely from them.

She stared at the beast thrown above her as it regained its composure, digging its spear into a nearby tree to keep it from being thrown any further.

And she felt incredible.

Quick to surmise that this novel ability of hers likely adapted from the bone bursts she witnessed during her broken dreams and the ‘eruptions’ Rumi had told her she’d seen her do, she jumped back just as the Protoataphoi landed once again.

Feeling as her blood armour rolled over her skin to cover the hole in her shoulder again, she raised her arms in a fighting stance- challenging the Protoataphoi as it stood idly before her.

Just as it threw itself forward, she felt her fingers tingle with that same immense pressure.

It slashed once from her left to right, Pallas ducking and slipping under the attack to the left.

It slashed again the other way, Pallas this time vaulting over it back to the centre and pushing it down with her hand.

And then it went for a thrust straight through her heart.

Though she had no time to dodge, she reached for the spear’s blade with her left arm, parrying it just as a sheen of blood armour rolled into position to protect her fingers. Knocking the spear out of the way, she got herself into position, her right foot planted forward and bent at the knee and digging into the earth as she angled her body against the creature.

Then, feeling as the pressure soared to indescribable heights within the fingers of her left hand, she threw forward a jab with every last ounce of energy the fibres in her body could drum up. And as her fist approached the chest of the Protoataphoi, the blood armour about her fingers faded away.

And the air cracked with blood once more, sending her arm back as she hit a bloodburst fist.

The entire body of the Protoataphoi was sent barreling back at immense speeds, its spear knocked out of its hand by the force of the impact as trails of misty blood chased after it.

And once more, that feeling of elation surged through her.

Catching herself smiling, she bolted into action, sprinting in pursuit of the ragdolling body of the Protoataphoi, leaping up into the air just as it came to stop.

She brought her foot down upon it, slamming it down into dirt as it threw itself recklessly out of the way in pure desperation- colliding directly with a tree trunk as it did so.

Not willing to give it a moment of reprieve, Pallas kicked the spear up with her toes, grabbing it with her right arm as crimson flowers of blood bloomed forth and coated its entire form in armour.

Bursts of blood firing from its blunt end, Pallas charged forth and drove the blood spear deep into the chest of the Protoataphoi, pinning it back against the tree and trapping its arm between the tree and its body.

She looked up to face the closed skull that housed the entity within.

And slowly, it opened.

Revealing a grin.

The beast suddenly began moving along the spear, its arm pushing it off the tree as it slid across the length of the shaft.

Just barely able to raise her arms in time, she blocked a nasty blow aimed straight for her head, sending her tumbling backwards as the beast pulled itself off of the spear and plucked it from the tree.

Setting her bare feet against the grass as she slid, she bolted back up into position, hands raised in preparation to dodge another attack.

But that attack never came. And the Protoataphoi was no longer there.

Eyes widening in shock, she scanned the area ahead of her. Seeing as the beast, the one who had slaughtered the innocents of Mesimeos, who had sent her into a week-long slumber and led her and her party in a month’s long endeavour across the countryside, fled the scene. Using its spear to throw itself great distances at a time.

At once, she rocketed forwards, her feet struggling to find purchase against the wet grass. Instead, she leapt up against the tree trunks, jumping from tree to tree as she planted her soles against their rough barks and kicked off of them with tremendous speed. She soared, weaving from branch to branch, up, down and in all manner of directions as the beast disappeared and reappeared from her view, growing closer and closer by the moment.

And when she believed she was in range of finally pinning it down, the blood within her began to surge again.

Until she emerged from beyond a tree, only to be slammed into another’s trunk as the beast’s thorned spear impaled her straight through her abdomen.

Pinning her.

In that moment, Pallas saw as the days of effort they’d put into constructing the webbing and luring the beast slipped through her arms as her blood fell silent. Every last moment, wasted.

The beast turned itself back around, showing its back to her one last time.

And then its arm was cleaved cleanly off of its body.

Qingxi had emerged from the woods, her white hair and tail showing like a nimbus-like spectre as she dashed across the Protoataphoi, slicing its arm off using a hunting dagger and sliding across the earth as she watched it collapse onto the ground.

Pallas fought against the thorny spear, loosening it bit by bit from the tree as she felt its spires dig into her abdomen, watching as Qingxi leapt back up into the air, a strange sack in her other hand, as the Protoataphoi struggled to escape.

In that instant, as she freed herself from the tree, Qingxi threw herself at its back, accelerating her body into a break-neck roll with her winds. She then slashed at the beast, cleaving gashes straight through its flesh again and again so quickly that she managed to expose its innards in a singular second.

“Now, Rumi!” she yelled, throwing the sack into its now exposed back, blasting herself away with one final gust of wind.

And as Pallas pulled the spear from her belly, a singular flame-tipped dart came singing from out of the woods, landing firmly on the sack.

And for the final time, the forest was lit by purple fire.

Not quite done yet, Pallas quickly got to her feet, grabbing the spear with two of her hands and getting into position. The moment the smoke cleared, revealing the beast staggering about with its limbless smouldering body, she threw the spear forward, sending it straight and true through its stump of an arm and out the other side.

And as it went still, streams of black ooze dripping out onto the earth below, a second spear rose from the ground and impaled it from underneath. Intersecting the other spear, hoisting its corpse into the air and forming a gruesome cross built from the very essence of the plight upon life itself.

Finally, ending phase one of their plan and protecting the villagers from the ataphoi threat. At least for the meanwhile.