Apart from Janius occasionally throwing spells at the witches, most of which either missed or were blocked by wards, the pack stayed pinned once they were in cover. With Meesei attracting attention though, they were able to weave their way closer to the walls by running between cover. So far, Sabine still seemed collected enough despite the light and noise causing everyone's adrenaline to pump.

The skeletons weren't causing too many problems for the pack, but at one point Fendros was confronted by a couple of them while he was trying to run for the next tree. He made quick work of them with two well aimed swings of his mace, but it was a distraction for just long enough for an ice spell to pass over his side. He yelped with the stinging pain of the cold and stumbled. Seeing him struggle, Janius ran out of his cover and caught Fendros, helping him to get behind something before more witches could take advantage. Once they were behind cover, Janius inspected Fendros for injury. everything from the top of his left shoulder to the end of his arm, down to his left hip was covered in a steaming frost. Fendros' left arm felt completely numb. Janius set Fendros to lean against the tree trunk they were behind and tapped him on the side of the face, "Come on Fendros, you still up?"

Fendros was breathing quickly and gritting his teeth with his eyes scrunched closed. "It hurts!" he shouted through his teeth.

Janius grinned, "Good, a little frostbite never killed anyone!"

"What!?" Fendros opened his eyes and looked at Janius disbelievingly at his flawed logic.

"Shut up and take a potion, your regeneration will do the rest." Janius reassured him, before peeking around the cover, "I think we'll be climbing the walls soon."

Not wanting to debate about the fatality rate of cold weather, Fendros took a vial of healing potion with his good arm and downed it, waiting for his sense of feeling to come back to his left side.

---

"Ready?" Ariel asked Ahnasha after setting the fire salt flasks in place. "We'll have about thirty to forty seconds before they explode once we light them, we'll head out the way we came in with invisibility and head to the next tower on the right, past the door and into cover. On three..." Ariel charged a tiny fire spell between her thumb and her forefinger and held it ready to place on the tip of the first fuse. Before she was ready Ariel had found a torch to light should Ahnasha not be able to use the correct magic. "One... two... three!" Ariel held the spell forward until the fuse began to slowly burn, the flame creeping up the cord. Without wasting a moment, she rushed over to the other fuse and did the same, before charging an invisibility spell and running for the door.

She opened the door and kept it open for Ahnasha, hoping that the light emanating from it would not attract the attention of the witches on one of the far walls. Their next objective was the production laboratory, but right now they just needed to cover distance. Without any more encounters, Ariel ran past the door that lead into the laboratory tower and slid to a halt against the tower wall where the tower was between her and the storeroom. She covered her ears and waited.

Tense moments passed, Ariel glanced in the direction of the storeroom tower, hoping that the fuses had not gone out. In the middle of her worry, she was interrupted and jumped almost out of her skin. The first explosion carried a concussive sound that was accompanied by the breaking of glass and masonry. It was followed by another, then two more. The explosions lit up the entire fortress and the rumble of falling rocks followed it away. When Ariel peeked around to see the tower properly, it was a dusty cloud that settled into a wreck of rolling rocks, wood and glass.

Anything within several kilometres would have heard the explosion, the witches were no exception. Ariel could see their horror from this distance. The witch that appeared to be leading the defense shouted some orders and pointed to the now ruined storeroom tower. Four other witches ran to the nearest tower to climb down and investigate that direction. Ariel and Ahnasha had to deal with the other tower and find Lilia before they were found.

Dismissing her invisibility and scanning to detect any life in the laboratory tower found that there was a solitary figure scrambling around for something. That had to be Lilia. First, though, Ariel had to find Ahnasha. She scanned around for her with a detect life spell, hopefully she had followed her instructions.