Meanwhile, in the courtyard, the main group waited at the meeting place for a few minutes before the mercenaries finally showed themselves...and it was indeed only the mercenaries. They had over twice the number of the main group, but the noble was nowhere in sight. Instead, the one leading the force was a lieutenant in the mercenary organization. To Vinaremo, it was disappointing, but not unexpected. The lieutenant's men had a sort of uniformity about them in that they all had the same symbol on their armor, either painted on or sewn into the cloth, but it was obvious they all bought their own armor. Similarly, the mercs came in all different shapes and sizes, with some being heavy warriors, other archers or rouges, and one or two mages. More threateningly, however, were the weapons Meesei noticed them carrying. The metal some of them were forged from looked like silver, which was deadly to lycans and undead alike. They would need to be cautious.

"You said we would be meeting with your employer." Vinaremo remarked.

"And you said we would be meeting with your leaders, but it looks like we both lied, doesn't it? Now, can we just get down to business? You send over the prisoners, then I'll have my men bring out yours."

"Very well." Vinaremo answered, motioning for Meesei and the others to release the "prisoners." Meesei stepped forward first with her arms on the shoulder of the skeleton, with the others following close behind. To keep up appearances, she told the skeleton to walk straight forward while she and the others released them to join the mercenaries. They then stepped back to rejoin Vinaremo's group as quickly as possible, just to make sure they were not too close to the mercs when their deception was discovered. 

"Good, good...now I will give you one chance to surrender. We have you surrounded, we have silver arrows, and as soon as I give the order, you all will..." The lieutenant began before suddenly being interrupted by Vinaremo. 

"Yes, yes, you are very intimidating." He said sarcastically as he quickly reached for the scroll his masters had given him. At the same time, one of the mercenaries removed the execution hood on one of the skeletons, causing him to jump back in a sudden, frightened reaction. "Sir, these aren't-"

Before anyone could finish speaking, Vinaremo released the magic in the scroll. It disintegrated in his hands, sending outwards a veritable explosion of fog and wind, just the same as what surrounded the cult's xanmeer. The chaos that it caused sent the mercenaries into temporary disarray and allowed the skeletons to injure or kill a few of the hostiles around them before they started fighting back. Now, the main group had a solid front against the mercs while the skeletons fought from inside their ranks. The mercenaries still outnumbered them by a significant margin, but with the two groups in the vantage points on both sides, they would quickly find themselves surrounded. 

"I'll take that as the signal." Ahnasha remarked, summoning up her bow and moving over to the window. As fortune would have it, there seemed to be only two archers on the neighboring building. The fog did not reach all the way up to their roof, but they still had to take a few moments to find their targets through it, which allowed them the time they needed to finish them off. Ahnasha's first arrow was a complete surprise to the Bosmer archer. He was lucky enough to protect his head with an accidental movement of his arm, but when the glowing arrow pierced through his flesh, the shock still knocked him down regardless. Before he could regain his bearings, however, she was easily able to follow through with a second shot, this time straight through his chest.