"Alright," he replied, giving his former leader one last look, before joining the remainder of the nagas.
"What if we gradually moved off in the direction of the exit, while still maintaining the shields? The beasts seem to be content fighting each other. Plus they might consider our former comrade's body as food, creating a distraction, and buying us some valuable time to form an orderly retreat."
As a group they considered this, despite all thinking it was deeply disrespectful to the naga that had led them for a few weeks now. But nobody could come up with anything better, so they decided to go with that. A few inches at a time the group, with their shields still up, steadily retreated back in the direction from which they'd arrived.
A scaled ape ran at full pelt towards his friend, well, brother actually, who held his hands out low in front of him, ready to use every ounce of strength he had to toss his sibling high in the air, ready to bring down another pixiu. So far the apes had managed to topple three of the nightmarish beasts, but at some cost. All but these two were missing arms, with one lying prone on the ground from a nasty head wound. The fast moving ape, getting his timing just right as one of the flying lions circled above, came sprinting up to his sibling, lifting his right leg up, straight into his brother's hands. With all the might he had, his brother lobbed him high up over his head, speeding towards his target.
BOOOOMMMMM!!!
A rocky fist the size of small car swung out of nowhere, punching the ape even further up into the air, accompanied by the sound of bones shattering. The ape died on impact. Its brothers and the flying pixiu scattered for all they were worth as the fist's body appeared from out of the darkness, revealing a giant, hideous rock demon. Walking like a constipated robot, each tiny step shook the walls and the floor of the basement, creatures of every kind scattering before it. Moss and lichen draped from its armpits and the top of its legs made it look like a swimmer having just exited an ocean full of seaweed. Mostly different shades of grey, occasional worn away rock revealed a subtle white undertone. Beneath its eye sockets, malevolent purple light shone out. From somewhere deep within, it roared.
Intrigued as to why the creatures were all scattering in different directions, the nagas watched in horror as the rock demon stomped ferociously out of the black, heading towards them. Panic and a sense of self preservation took over. Each naga made the same decision at almost the exact same instant. That decision went something like this: "Sod this! I'm off!" Each retracted their shields around just themselves and slithered off on any course other than the one from which the rock demon was coming, completely ignoring however many other enemies were in their way.
Amongst those still remaining where the nagas had made their stand, a strange sense of unity had arisen. Waves of creatures banded together and were hurling themselves at the rock demon, who in turn tried desperately to either stamp on them, or crush them with his mighty fists. For the most part he was too slow, but one or two of the wolves had caught glancing blows, sending them skittering back into the dark. The nifoloa had fared better, but hadn't so much as dented his thick, rock skin with their deadly teeth.
Of the nagas who had fled, only one was managing to stay ahead of the game. Two had been taken down by the group of four armed scaled apes, although not many of their complement still had the correct number of limbs. Using all of their magic and knowhow, the nagas gave everything in the struggle against the apes. The turning point in the whole encounter was the fact that the apes' scales, much to the nagas' surprise, offered an amazing amount of resistance to their magic. Brilliant green lightning bolts fizzled and sizzled, scorched, singed and burnt, but did little other than that. With little in the way of offence, the only real option for the two was to turn tail and flee, which they did, only to be tripped up in the darkness by the remainder of the apes' party. After that, it was all over, as the frenzied creatures pummelled and mashed their bodies into a disgusting slush, from which they could be seen slurping many hours later.
Another had slithered for all he was worth, but had become momentarily confused on leaving the running battle with the rock demon, and instead of heading towards the exit, had in fact travelled deeper into the basement. By the time he realised his mistake, for him, unfortunately, it was way too late. Being constantly harangued by two pairs of double headed eagles, his concentration was elsewhere when it should have been on his immediate environment. He never saw the punch that pierced his protective shield, catching him side on in the middle of his head, forcing him to roll off into the shadows and come up fighting. Conjuring up a raging ball of fire that illuminated his ambusher, a battered and bruised scorpion man, missing one of his pincers, he tossed the deadly magic towards its target, trying hard to ignore the ringing in his ears. Within feet of the scorpion man, the fireball exploded, causing him to rear up in surprise, all the time crying out in agony. With his target damaged and on fire, the naga assumed he'd done enough to earn a brief respite. Not so. Flames pouring from every part of him, the scorpion man gave one defiant charge just as one of the two headed eagles swooped out of the shadows and took an almighty chunk out the naga's tail. It was the tiniest of distractions, but it was enough. In what turned out to be the throes of death, the scorpion man, with one last Herculean effort, sidled around and brought down the huge stinger on the end of his tail, burying it straight into the bemused naga's chest. Both creatures collapsed where they were, both roaring with pain, both unable to move, the poison working in mere moments on the naga, while the scorpion man took much longer to die, in more pain than any being had a right to suffer.
That just left one. And he was snaking towards the exit at quite a rate, determined to raise the alarm. That is until a gentle hissing up ahead caught his attention. Wary beyond belief, he put as much of his magic into the shield around him as he could, and slowed to a halt. Peeking out from behind one of the gloomy corners, he could just make out a tangle of snakes slithering around in the middle of the path to the exit. Panting rapidly from having pushed himself so hard, for fear of death, from behind him the sound of many creatures racing to keep up sent a wave of fear rushing through him, as he considered all the options available. He had to get past, he just had to. But what to do? A flying leap was all that came to mind. It wasn't impossible, but it would need to be in excess of four metres from the look of things. That was pushing it he knew, however, he was out of options. So without any fuss or last thoughts, he shot off round the corner, knowing that speed was the key. Slithering from side to side on the cold stone floor, the reassuring heat he could feel from the friction gave him hope. He approached as close as he dared, the snakes seemingly oblivious to his presence, and then using the muscles in his tail, he kicked off, judging it to perfection, but for one thing. These weren't just any snakes. These were shape shifting snakes, and the moment he left the ground, two of their number dissolved completely, appearing a fraction of a second later as two hulking great snow beasts, eight feet tall, covered in thick, white matted fur all over and a set of teeth that would have put a great white shark to shame. Abruptly, the naga slammed into the first one's chest, bouncing off and landing smack bang in the middle of the band of snakes. Immediately he was peppered with bites, the serpents slithering over him, fighting for position. The poison here wasn't as quick to take his life, it just paralysed him. So there he lay for over an hour as not only the snakes tore tiny fragments off him, but the other creatures he'd been battling against earlier joined the feast, while at the same time fighting off the snakes. Through a gap in the wriggling and sliding serpents that covered his head, he could just make out the exit, the one they'd spent so much time trying to break into. If only he could go back, go back and change things. As his life force ebbed away, he watched all the different creatures, tentatively at first, make their way through the door and out into the council building proper. By the time he died, it was a positive free for all stampede of exotic and magical creatures.