Tarkus was the first to his feet, grunting aggressively as he swung his battleaxe from off of his back, the muscles in his arm bunching tightly as he gripped the weapon’s hilt. Tell clambered up to her knees and let out a scream of her own, “Rhea, what are you doing?!”

An orb of bright light fired from Gregg’s staff as he too got to his feet with a roar. The orb seared across the small hut, the air crackling and sizzling in its wake, but the attack narrowly missed its mark, scorching a hole into the wood beside Rhea’s head. In response to this, the hag’s dragonborn companion took several lumbering steps towards the invoker, bringing his large sword down in a cleaving arc, but Gregg nimbly dodged back, the tip of the blade passing a mere inch in front of his eyes.

Greil flung his hands out and launched a gout of flame at the two foes, as he called out to them both, “It doesn’t have to end like this!” His aim was slightly off, as Rhea’s deafening scream still reverberated in his ears, and the assault managed only to singe both of them slightly. Grimlock fared no better as he lashed out at the dragonborn, only nicking him with the tip of his battleaxe.

A shrill cackle escaped Rhea’s throat as she returned Greil’s sentiment, “It doesn’t have to end like this!” she howled as a surge of electrical energy tore from her finger tips and struck each of the mercenaries.

Tarkus leaped towards the witch with his battleaxe raised, opting to ignore the dragonborn by his side; the hulking lizard lashed out quickly to his right, slashing his sword across Tarkus’ chest and managing to halt the attack on his master.

Without warning, Tell suddenly let out a scream of rage, its pitch changing from high to low as her very flesh withered, dried and became a dark brown hue. Long, gnarled fingers burst out of her half-elf digits as her height and width both doubled, the deep scream becoming a roar – her mouth elongating along with her entire head. Her scalp exploded violently, branches and foliage streaming from it and connecting with the huts wooden ceiling. Tell’s huge, tree-like form was now hunched in one corner of the room. The few seconds of stunned shock which had settled on the room was broken by the dragonborn as he swung his sword at Tell’s midriff. She swatted it away with ease and advanced on him.

Greil’s mind filled with images of Dryads, magical creatures who could assume human form, but most typically appeared as large trees. But there was no time to question this development. He marched towards Rhea with grim determination on his face and enveloped her with magic energy, containing her power totally to her great surprise. A look of unadulterated terror washed over her face as she struggled to fight back, and failed.

Seeing that both enemies were distracted, Tarkus continued on with his previous plan; in one easy bound he covered the distance between him and the hag and brought his axe down in an impressive overhead arc. The weapon connected hard with some sort of invisible barrier, but Tarkus grinned, though his weapon had been halted, he felt the barrier break under his attack. Joining the goliath, Gregg locked eyes with Rhea and whispered a prayer. She screamed in agony despite no visible physical damage being dealt – her three assailants witnessed her eyes roll back into her head as her wail reached a higher pitch. It was as if her very soul, if that was indeed what she possessed, had been assaulted.

Hearing this, her faithful dragonborn warrior suddenly broke off from his battle with Tell, ducking low to dodge one of her thick arms as it swung for his head, and leapt at Greil, bringing his whole weight into him and slamming the commander into the floor. Thinking with admirable speed considering the heavy lizard which now pinned him to the ground, Greil summoned up arcane energy around himself and visualised the other side of the room. With an audible pop, he disappeared, causing the dragonborn to slam face first into the floor, and rematerialised a mere second later on the opposite side of the hut. Without even a moments pause, he reinitiated his attempts to restrain Rhea, buffeting her frail form into the wall with tremendous force.

Grimlock, spotting an easy kill, took a gigantic step forward, using the momentum to swing his axe almost a full 270 degrees over his shoulder, and decapitated the fallen dragonborn.

Rhea screamed, her eyes burning with rage, and suddenly vanished.