She was right - no mere corpse sits here. It gives her very little time to consider that victory. It pieces itself back together just in time to crack the world in two.

In an instant, the shot makes sharp impact on her right leg. Ezmerelda is welcomed back to the visible world buckling on her metal knee with a sharp, hot ping singing across the planes of snow. She crunches the eye of her axe through the snow and pushes herself back to her feet.

A shooter - and no mere bowman. She'd had little personal exposure to her teacher's weapon, but she recognizes the force and sound well enough. Spells pass behind her eyes - Magic Circle; she could ward it, but such effort may be in vain. She could not yet be totally sure of what it was, and nor could she be sure that she could force it into close quarters with her. Shield would only guard her against physical harm, and she can't be sure of what this thing would inflict. Lightning Bolt may end things before she has an understanding of the creature she's met - and besides, those components are expensive to the average wanderer through the mist. Best to save the next crystalline rod for something that needs it.

Better, then, to confound its senses; or perhaps, to test if it had senses to confound. To make herself as difficult to hit as she could as she worked out the finer points of its nature.

She acts in the only fashion she's ever known to act; quickly. Wizardry singes through her as Ezmerelda arranges herself in the slivered seconds that follow, murmurs the words into the cold air. Constructs from them three copies of herself out of air to circle her, asserting themselves in mirror exactness to her own movements.

Three copies to eye him down like a hawk as they quickly close the distance through the snow.