Autumn 4997, 6 Midomoth 

The team went to work.

After ordering Ryuuko to the safety of the tree, Shon allowed himself to trail behind the cudgel-wielding Paladin as planned. Due to the Master Warlocks' stone skin, they'd decided to use a tactic that had proved most efficient against the rock golems protecting some of the previous Warlock towers. 

Calling to his god, Tristen took the blunt weapon in both hands, slamming it into In'nin's chest. They could hear the crack of stone below the blow and Tristen pivoted out of the way as Shon lunged, lodging his sword into the cracks, slicing the robes open, and splashing the grass with gray blood. 

The Warlock hadn't even attempted to doge, and just laughed. He grabbed hold of Shon's sword and yanked it out of his chest to show the wound already beginning to close. They'd been correct, they weren't far enough apart to stop the healing... 

But the wound closed slowly and Tristen and Shon switched places once more, Shon barely dodging a bolt of lightning while the Paladin came in behind to strike at the Warlock again.

This time the Warlock dodged, disappearing before the cudgel could land and reappearing ten feet behind them, closer to the center. The healing sped up a fraction. 

"Keep them apart!" Tristen shouted, then growled so only Shon could hear, "we can still wear them down-" 

The two men were both forced to doge away as the branches of the great oak tree reached down, grabbing the Warlock and flinging him back towards the wall. The branches tried to hold on but were consumed in black flame as the Warlock spat a spell. At the base of the tree, her hands glowing green and resting on the trunk, Ebonwing flinched. Beside her Ranito mumbled his counterspell, extinguishing the fire before it could trail up the limb to the trunk.

***

"Lily! Wait!" Alena cried. 

Lily only partly listened, she knew the plan, and why, but came right up to Yonin anyway. The Warlock swiped as if to backhand her, but that was Lily's intent, she rolled backward, creating an opening for Alena to knock the arm aside with her shield and slam her mace down on the Warlock's shoulder.

Stone cracked, and Oswall passed the Warlock only to leap onto the wall, spinning back to her and lodging his daggers into the wound, soaking the black robe with gray blood. 

Lily rolled forward again, swinging her staff up with enough speed and force that if the weapon hadn't been magical it would have broken. The Warlock's head snapped back, spiderweb cracks spreading across her chin and jaw. 

Yonin grunted, twisting to toss Oswall off her shoulder then taking a step back, closer to the blocked door. Lowering her face she smiled, then began to grow... 

The Warlock expanded, growing ten feet tall, the cracks in her skin closing as the fighters watched in awed horror. They weren't far enough away... but how could they separate them further...

Lily tried to think fast, but Yonin broke her concentration as she spoke, "You, we still need..." She said, reaching a huge hand towards Lily. 

The nimble woman dodged easily, and Alena slammed her mace down on the extended arm. But Lily misjudged the enlarged Warlock's reach and was caught from behind by the other hand grabbing her by the hair. 

Yonin spoke a spell as she flung Lily behind her. Lily braced herself for the crash a but then gasped, as her skin tingled and she passed through the stone to sprawl on the floor of the hall beyond. Alone.

***

"Fuck!" Oswall cursed as he saw Lily disappear into the stone doorway, then was forced to roll back as the Warlock turned on them once more. 

She smiled, the eery look not reaching her dead black eyes, "No need to hold back now my brother..." she whispered. 

All the way across the garden the male Warlock laughed, making Oswall's skin crawl and Alena's shield shake in her hand. Together the Warlocks rose their arms into the air, and out of the ground sprouted hundreds of writhing black tentacles, withering the grass where they touched. 

It was all the companions could do to dodge and fight off the grabbing tentacles, striking at the new threats as they were pummeled and grasped from all sides. Only Tristen and Alena, their blunt weapons blessed by their gods, could harm the alien whips, smashing but not cutting them. 

"Shon! Oswall! To me!" Ranito called.

The Rogue attempted to disengage from his useless fight, his weapons passing through the tentacles like smoke. Alena crushed the tentacle holding to his leg, and with a grunt of thanks, Oswall sprinted with all his agility towards the Mage. 

Ebonwing struggled to keep the tentacles away from Ranito. The magically controlled tree was able to block the attacks but its branches were entangled in the process as the tentacles tried to wrench them apart. Ryuuko alternated between hissing at the attackers and whistling encouragement down at Ebonwing's efforts.

Knowing Ranito's intent, Oswall presented his daggers to the Mage, who started a chant to enchant the weapons so they too could cut through the magical whips. As he waited, Oswall looked for Shon, who hadn't come as called. 

The unarmored man dodged with a fluidity his size should have disallowed, his sword cutting effectively through the tentacles as he rolled by. 

As Ranito finished his spell, Oswall's blades began to glow and the Mage spared a glance towards Shon, grumbling, "Damn Monks..." then he shouted, "Go! You have ten minutes." to Oswall, who wrenched his eyes away from Shon to dash back and help Alena.

The Cleric was on the defensive and had already been forced back ten paces towards the center. Distracted by her defense of Ranito and herself, Ebonwing was unable to toss the enlarged Warlock back toward the wall. "not that it would help..." Oswall muttered as he slid on his knees between two tentacles, slicing them at the base before being forced to roll away as a bolt of lightning struck where he'd stopped. 

Wearing them down was looking to be more and more of an impossibility...

***

With a hiss, Lily lunged for the wall daring to block her way. She clawed at the rocks, flinging molten stone aside in her rage and effort to reach the fighting once more. Behind her, armor clanked as kingdom soldiers and Paladins continued to flow through the halls, securing the rooms surrounding the garden.

One of them noticed her, shouting, "Firewyrm! What are you-?" but he cut off as Lily turned with a snarl. He fell back, speaking a prayer to his god, Horsa -based on the black armor and flail. 

Lily's vision was awash in red, her golden hair billowing around in the heat of her rage. The torches lighting the hall flared high, blackening the stone ceiling with soot, and her shout came out as a roar, "Break this wall!" she ordered, pointing to the quickly cooling stone. 

If she wasn't so angry, and honestly afraid, she might have been surprised that the Paladin complied with her command, drawing his flail and running at the wall to swing it with both hands into the rock she'd already started to melt. As he reached back for a second swing Lily ran in again to pull off the cracked stone, then leapt back as he swung again. 

"Sir Malkar, what are you doing?!" another voice called, and again Lily spun with a hiss. 

The Horsa Paladin, Sir Malkar, spoke above her, "We need to get through this wall, Sir!"

Lily didn't wait for an answer from the Saint Giorgos commander, turning again to claw at the stone. Shon was in there. Shon and his friends, his treasures. She needed to help them, needed to fight those monsters that would dare to take what was hers. 

Behind her, Sir Malkar was continuing to explain to the hesitant Giorgos Paladin, "The Firewyrm was with Sir Tristen, if she's here then they must be in there." 

"And how do we know the Firewyrm didn't abandon them elsewhere?" The Giorgos man said blandly. 

Lily very nearly roasted him on the spot, but managed to restrain herself enough to snarl at Sir Malkar, "Help me!" then she growled, "If anything happens to them I'll take care of him afterward." and if she couldn't remember exactly which Giorgos Paladin had delayed her? She would take care of them all... 

An armored hand touched her shoulder, then pulled quickly away from the heat. Lily spun, ready claw that grim look off the Giorgos man's face, but the Paladin lifted his cudgel and slammed it down on the stone. She blinked, and the Horsa Paladin followed the strike up with one of his own. 

Lily dove for the cracks to pull more rocks free, deepening the hole. She didn't know how long it took, far too long, before she saw magical sunlight through the cracks.

With a desperate cry, she dug her fingers into the cracks, ripping the stones free until she'd made a hole just large enough for her to wiggle through. Grabbing up her fallen staff she threw it in then started to writhe and push her way through herself.

Lily could see the fighting now, Alena and Oswall closest, the Cleric acting as shield maiden for the Rogue, who attacked with blinding, if ineffectual, speed, alternating between the writhing tentacles and the enlarged Yonin. The Warlock's skin continued to heal, fully closing by the time the Rogue was able to turn his attention to her again. 

Maybe with Lily fighting as well... but no, they had to separate the Warlocks, get them far enough apart not to be able to communicate and aid each other. But how far was far enough?

Her hips got stuck and Lily growled, bracing her hands on the wall and wrenching herself through. Something ripped, and Lily somehow remained cognizant enough to turn as she rolled out of the hole. One of her bags fell to the floor after being torn from her belt. One of her bags of holding... 

***

Oswall was bleeding, but those wounds were pleasant beside the blistering burns some of the tentacles caused, and those were a tickle compared to the jerking of his leg as he missed a lightning doge and took the purple bolt in his thigh. 

He rolled backward, braced on his good leg, as Alena blocked an attack from the Warlock's huge fist with her shield. Oswall gritted his teeth. They couldn't take much more of this, and he doubted the others were faring much better.

Alena's eyes went wide as she gasped a name, "Lily..." and Oswall craned his neck to see the woman in question, a melted hole in the stone wall behind her. She threw herself at the Warlock with empty hands. 

No... not empty. She held two bags, one in each hand. Lily wrapped her arms around the waist of the Warlock, who arched her neck to look down in shock at the Firewyrm. 

"Hi." Lily said, pleasantly, then she met Oswall's eyes, and said, "Bye." 

Before either he or Alena could call out for her to stop, Lily placed one small bag into the other. 

***

It took nearly all of Shon's concentration to fill his sword with ki as Master Veon-Zih had taught him. It was already more difficult than it should've been considering all his training, as he had to break down the walls he'd built around his emotions for the life energy to flow easily. His sword pommel was clear as glass, the blade dripping with frost, and he could feel his energy draining with his magic as the sealing stone attempted to negate it.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew he should just toss the sword away. And yet he didn't. It was the holy symbol of Hengist, and besides, he needed something to cut the tentacles that threatened to grab hold and tear him apart. 

He worked on clearing the area of those writhing masses as Tristen focused on the Warlock In'nin, his god-blessed cudgel doing more damage than even Shon's infused sword could have.

Shon didn't see the black stone Warlock's skin turn reflective, but he did hear the hissing voice, "What pains have you suffered over the years, Paladin of a usurper god?" 

Acting more on instinct than reason, Shon spun, dashing for his commander, his friend. He sliced up, the sword tip barely clipping the Warlock's reaching arm, deflecting it before he could touch Tristen as he had Alena. 

The sword exploded as the thousands of strikes it had endured over all of Shon's years of training and fighting crashed into it at once, leaving only eight inches of blade and the handle in Shon's grip. At the same time, the Warlock's arm, up to the elbow, shattered, the stone skin completely flayed from gray muscle, revealing chipped white marble bones beneath. 

For the first time in either fight, In'nin called out in pain, stepping back and folding over his ruined arm. Then he looked up, his skin going reflective once more.

Holding his broken sword in both hands, Shon smiled.

***

Half of the tentacles disappeared. But Alena was still forced to fall back, shielding herself and Oswall from the explosion of belongings that flew out from the bags of holding. Clothes and bedrolls, a tent and an assortment of boxes, pummeled her shield and rained down on the grass around them. 

Unable to see, Alena was dragged a step forward as the air pulled her in with a loud pop. By the time she lowered her shield, it was to look slack-jawed at the place where Lily and the Warlock had been. An orb of grass and soil, ten feet in diameter, was gone. And with it, the dragon woman and Warlock. Sucked into the outer plains by the bags of holding...

***

Sir Tristen reached for Shon's shoulder, intending to pull the man away from the Warlock as In'nin lunged. But not fast enough. The Grandmaster's protege slipped from beneath Tristen's fingers, letting go of his sword with one hand to reach out and grab the Warlock's reflective face. 

Blood blinded Tristen as every wound Shon had ever received, intentional or otherwise, every one of the hundreds of scars that crisscrossed his muscled body, ripped open at once.

The air was filled with a red haze so thick Tristen could barely make out the big man's stumble as his left leg shattered with his right arm, which fell limply to his side, both broken in half a dozen places. 

With an anguished scream that could curdle blood, Ryuuko fell from the oak tree. But the only human scream was the Warlock's as In'nin choked on gray blood bubbling from between stone lips from a punctured lung. He tried to turn, to blink back to his companion to speed his healing, but only managed a small jump five feet away. He stumbled on his own broken leg, then blinked again, ten feet. But if his wounds were healing, they weren't doing so fast enough, not with such extensive damage.

Shon staggered forward, and Tristen reached for him again, expecting him to fall. But the soldier of Hengist lifted his left arm and threw. His broken sword lodged into the back of the Warlock, all the way to the hilt, right in a wide crack between his shoulder blades. 

As one, In'nin and Shon fell onto the grass, the ground beneath turned to soppy mud with spilled blood. Shon managed to turn as he fell, landing on his side and rolling onto his back, the Warlock landed with his face flat in the earth.

Neither moved. But as Tristen rushed to Shon's side, already praying for healing with all his might, he thought he heard Shon's deep voice breathe a final exhale, "Finally..."