Erahja moved at the signal and approached a bandit who looked more surprised and confused than frightened by illusionary monster, as though he hadn’t yet evaluated the situation to come to the conclusion he should be afraid. While she made sure she was not seen and that her target and the other bandits were sufficiently distracted when she made her strike, she made no attempt to keep the attack itself unnoticed. The first strike was supposed to be a killing one, after all, and stealth would soon be useless. Rhaedin and Sevine had already taken out one pair when, from her crouching position, Erahja rammed her spear up under the ribs of the bandit she had picked out. His scream was partly drowned out by the door smashing down.

Erahja’s first instinct was that the bandits were being reinforced, and she nearly turned to attack the newcomers. She did not have time to take this action however, or realize that the strangers were not dressed as the bandits, before another actual enemy thrust a shortsword at her and took her attention. It also seemed like Zal and Tathein had joined the combat and things quickly went from a calculated attack to uncontrollable battle as usually was the case with these things. Her attacker drove her back, she noticed, closer to where the hostages were bound, she noticed. She kept him at a distance and waited for an opening. The one she got did not allow her to instantly kill the bandit, but he was forced to make a bad jump to the side, and he lost his balance and fell. Instead of moving to finish him off, Erahja took this time to draw her dagger in one hand and started cutting at the ropes around the hostages. They were thick but not that strong and the threads parted easily from the blade. When the bandit got back on his feet and attacked again she returned both hands to her spear, dropping the dagger on the floor. 

Elrithian held the illusion for longer than he would have wanted, wishing that the fighting would have started sooner. The un-existing monster was not solid and he could not make it move far or attack so it seemed to him that someone would soon see straight through it. However, in his concentration time seemed slower and in chock people unused to magic don’t always consider to doubt their senses immediately, and it was not so many seconds until chaos broke out. Once the women in the front had made their attack and the door been broken down, most of the bandits seemed to turn their attention to the attackers that actually harmed them, and Elrithian let go of the spell. The red, scaly beast made one last shriek and leapt on someone as to attack, only to disappear into nothingness. 

Despite his still somewhat recent poisoning, Elrithian still had some strength in him with the help of Zalrinus’ amulet. Once he no longer had to concentrate on the complex illusion, the mage instead used the rest of his strength to try to protect his allies from blows. From the relative safety of the doorway beside the S’ithra’s noisy dog he tried to cast weaved protections on those who stood still enough and was ready with a momentary force-shield if anyone looked like they might miss a block or were attacked from a direction they were not expecting. It was challenging to cast even a bad weaved armor on someone who moved around, and the momentary protection would only last an instant and had to be as well timed as a blocking sword to be useful, but he hoped he could make sure serious injuries were avoided despite this. It also seemed like they were being aided. Two strangers had appeared through the broken door, and they appear to be facing the bandits as well.