Kaleeth and Janius were working together well, but outnumbered was outnumbered. Janius fell into a defensive stance and prepared to repel the three attackers with Kaleeth's help. He did not strike out rashly here. "Get around them!" he shouted over his shoulder, "We need help on this end!"

Janius didn't single anyone out to help, though he knew that anything would be delayed if Sabine was still having trouble.

Of course, 'trouble' was too weak of a description in Sabine's current view. There was little she could do but cover her head and neck with her arms against the savage attacks of the enemy mage. She had the wind knocked out of her from the blows to her middle, but she was beginning to regain focus after the strikes to her head. However, she didn't quite focus enough to stop herself being thrown to the ground. She shrieked once again and tried to push him away to keep herself from being pinned.

Sabine felt her dagger being stolen right before she was able to grip it properly. In a last-ditch resistance, she grabbed at the mage's wrist and pushed back against his efforts to stab her. It was here that she remembered her strength. The mage had a hint of Sabine's lycan strength when he was struck on the side, but the small young woman he had tried to grapple with was not to be underestimated. Baring her teeth despite the fear in her eyes, she grabbed his other arm and pushed the mage back. The push was joined with a cold sensation from Sabine's hands as they began to charge with a chilling magic. The frost spread over her fingers, but bit and spread over the Khajiit mage's flesh in a slow and painful manner. It was not much magicka moving, but she didn't need so much for close contact like this.

"Get off her, swine!" Fendros shouted angrily to the mage as he advanced. The mage would only have a moment before Fendros was upon him.

The silver longsword was easy to see, arcing towards Gallus' feet as it was. With his hammer still hooked around his enemy's knee and the pressure he needed to apply to push him over, Gallus did not have the best balance required to evade. The best he could do was to lift his foot and try to catch the flat of the blade with the sole of his boot. Though the edge was not as aligned as before, the sword still bit into the leather and sent a sudden, burning pain into his foot. It wasn't a dire wound, but it would be enough to give Gallus a limp. Gallus shouted in surprised pain as he stomped down such that the sword was flat against the floor. There was no more defence for the officer; he saw Gallus' hammer swinging down on his head in the next moment.

Kaleeth stayed close to Janius to fight them off by his side. With how often they trained together, she knew quite well the majority of his fighting style, as he did for her. She could guess how he would respond when the enemy approached, so she tried to do what she could to support him. Given that he had more experience, she felt it would be best for him to take the lead in the fight.

Both Janius and Kaleeth had one of their opponents attempt to hold their attention from the front, while another moved around to flank Janius. But, before they could do any damage, Janius’ call for help was answered in the form of Ra’kalesh moving up to Janius’ left flank. He deftly parried the Bosmer woman’s silver sword with one of his vambraces, then grabbed a hold of her wrist and started to twist it back. Janius could use the opening to land a killing blow, but with Ra’kalesh’s martial arts experience, it would not likely be necessary in a grapple.

For the mage, there was little else he could do in time to save himself from Fendros. He could not resist Sabine’s strength, and with her hands grasping his arms, he could not even run. The cold from her spell merely added to his pain and sense of desperation. He managed to angle down the dagger to cut Sabine’s arm slightly, and he was able to use his knee to strike at her stomach and groin, but in the seconds he had to react, he did little of consequence to stop Fendros.

As Gallus expected, the officer could not react in time to save his own life. Unfortunately, his death did not cause near as much disarray in the ranks as he might have hoped. Another of the enemy was already giving orders, and they were overall not backing down. The enemy had already lost a little less than half of their soldiers holding the room, but so too had some of Gallus’ warriors fallen. Apart from the ambush from the elite soldiers in the courtyard, this was the most intense fighting they had encountered yet. The enemy wanted to hold this room, and it would be a fight to clear them from it.

Janius opted not to risk overextending and killing Ra'kalesh's victim. Between the terror that his burnt appearance instilled and his general fighting skill, the Bosmer was in little position to fight back. Instead, Janius focussed on the next opponent in front of him. This next swordsman was a Redguard that took the initiative. Janius' opportunities to attack were diminished by distracting blows from various angles that he managed with his shield. Like before, Janius went for the Redguard swordsman's hand, but then followed through with a wide swing to the side of the Redguard's head. The strike would either be blocked or ducked, but either way, the Redguard's focus and guard would be away from Kaleeth's mace.

Under the assault of the Khajiit mage, Sabine turned her head to stay away from his teeth and kept channelling cold magic. She was terrified that her efforts would not be enough to hold the mage. She nearly cried out, but the pressure resisting her hands suddenly slumped with a dull thud of metal breaking through cloth. Sabine refocussed and saw Fendros standing over the pair with his sword embedded in the mage's back. The mage was transfixed, unable to breathe with his lungs punctured. His entire body weighed down on Sabine as blood dripped onto her neck from his mouth. Sabine quickly pushed the dying mage to one side and sat up with a rushing head.

"Get up! Come now!" Fendros extended a hand and lifted Sabine up to a standing point. He took her upper arm and looked at her face with some worry. "Are you alright?"

Sabine's swelling bruises made it hard for her to realise how much she was shaking. She was feeling incredibly dizzy, but she nodded quickly to Fendros all the same.

Fendros did not break eye contact. "Get a potion in you, heal up, okay!?"

Again, Sabine nodded, her hands fishing for the pouch on her side containing her second magicka potion. She removed the cork with a bloodied hand, only then registering the warm moisture of the blood seeping from her cut wrist. She would need to pick up her dagger as well. She swallowed down the blue potion with the blood in her mouth as quickly as she could and felt the familiar safety of her magicka reserves refilling. She didn't wait before charging it over her entire body in a yellow light that healed her wounds. She felt more focussed now. She was still terrified, but her wounds weren't bothering her and she had regained her balance. After a moment to retrieve her dagger from the still bleeding mage's hand, she turned her attention back to the chaos around her. Fendros had already moved back to assist Gallus.

Gallus continued cutting his way through the lines of soldiers holding the confined laboratory. All the blood filling the air and emotion trying to get into his mind made him momentarily consider how easy it would be to simply transform and rend all of his opponents apart in a feast of primal carnage. Though he remembered the gas and how it send Ahnasha's beast spirit back to its confines. He didn't fall for that trap here.

Once Fendros rejoined Gallus, he had a moment to look back. Ahnasha had been shooting down many of the enemies before them, but with how strongly they were holding this room, he wondered what the situation was on the stairs. He had no one in his pack by his side, so she was the most viable option right now. He shouted back to the archers and mages behind. "Ahnasha! What's going on in the hallway!? How is Lorag faring!?"

Fendros received an answer quickly to his question, though it was not from Ahnasha. "Just fine." A voice sounded out from the doorway behind them. For anyone looking back, they could easily see Lorag standing at the door, his armor covered in blood. Though, from the way he was standing, very little of it appeared to be his own. He marched into the room, bringing in his reinforcements behind him.

Lorag was, of course, heading straight up the center of the room into the thickest of the fighting. The disorganized skirmishing that the fighting had broken into across the room made it even easier for him to be effective, though it also made it more difficult to prevent allied losses. The enemy were surprisingly fierce, and while they were hopelessly outnumbered, they were still focused on defending the room. It was possible that they were delaying, or that there was something in the room worth dying for.

Peiter was among the reinforcements moving in behind Lorag, and was far less bloody overall. It looked like he had received a hit to the head from the bruising on his face, but he was obviously still in good enough condition to fight. There was no organized formation he could fall into, so he looked around for Sabine as he advanced forward, wanting to know if she was still safe.

For Ra'kalesh, the outcome of his fight was decided as soon as he got his hands on the Bosmer. He knew exactly how to twist her arm, and where to strike in order to break the arm beyond use. From there, he kicked her down to her knees and got his hands around her head to snap her neck. Kaleeth, meanwhile, found the opportunity to quickly slice her blade across the thigh of Janius' Redguard opponent after he narrowly evaded one of Janius' attacks. Unfortunately, Kaleeth underestimated how quickly her own opponent would be able to take advantage of the opportunity. The Suthay-raht had been watching Kaleeth fight, so he had started to pick up on her form. She had slightly overcommitted to her swing on the Redguard, so she was not able to parry the Khajiit's blade in time. His blade came straight for her head, and while she did save herself by ducking, his sword came far closer to killing her than she ever would have been comfortable with. It sliced straight through the membrane of the fin on the right side of her head, and cut a thin gash across the top of her head.

Lorag's arrival was nothing if not a welcome relief. Gallus finished mortally wounding one more of the enemy's front line before stepping back to shout a report back. "They're holding fast here! We have to break through!"

Even if the words were directed at Lorag and his reinforcements, Fendros ducked into the fight once more in response to keep the pressure up.

Sabine's head was turned to the reinforcements as well. She did not pause long after she spotted Peiter. She didn't even call out to him. She couldn't stop now. In an effort to be more conservative with her magicka, she shot out carefully aimed ice spikes between the lines to weaken the enemy. Allies were getting struck left and right, but she knew she had to keep her reserves high in case one of Gallus' or her own packmates were injured. It was getting hard enough to aim her spells with how close she came to death just seconds before.

While Janius' ploy to injure the redguard succeeded, the retribution against Kaleeth forced him to leave the opportunity unexploited. He rushed the Redguard shield first and pushed him away to get around to the Suthay-raht, before swinging for his sword arm to get it away from Kaleeth at the very least.

Janius' blade cut deep into the Khajiit's arm, and despite her own pain, Kaleeth was still easily capable of fighting back. While he was occupied by Janius, she gave a thrust from her blade that cleanly cut through all of the layers of cloth protecting his chest, the flesh underneath, and his spine. If he was not immediately dead, he was entirely paralyzed. Meanwhile, Ra'kalesh had taken over with the Redguard and was parrying his strikes with apparent ease.

Despite the overall disorganization of the fighting, Lorag's reinforcements started pushing the fight strongly in their favor. There were a few individuals among the enemy that attempted to make a break for the exit behind them, but the majority of the enemy simply tried to group together for their last stand. Casualties were mounting on both sides, but the enemy was down to only ten healthy combatants, three of which were archers wielding their sidearms.

As Lorag was running to the center of the room, he intended to carry his momentum into the rest of his allies. As hard as the enemy was fighting, Lorag reasoned they could be overwhelmed with an aggressive, coordinated attack to end it quickly. "Come on, with me! One last push to clear these vermin out of this room!" He shouted as he barreled straight into the largest group of the remaining enemy. Lorag actually did take a solid hit to his side from an enemy Imperial's mace that he wasn't able to fully parry, but it did not diminish the energy from his rallying cry. Nor did it temper the raging ferocity with which he fought. Without help, he could be overwhelmed, but he knew his allies would be right behind him.

With the power of Lorag's words and actions, it was a wonder that the enemy didn't break on the spot. No one was unsure about his orders. Janius and Fendros carried on behind him with a war cry that spread to the soldiers behind them. The last formation, disrupted by Lorag's brute force, was swarmed upon.

Gallus did not join the charge, content to pause a moment to catch his breath. He opted to move to the far end of the formation to try and push in to surround them.

Sabine spotted no further mages in the vicinity, so she fell in with Ahnasha and the other archers. She wanted to avoid the melee from now on. Without a clear shot at the enemy, she decided to try and stabilise some of the injured friendly soldiers. Lycans were tenacious, but even they could bleed to death without help.

The lines met in the push led by Lorag and the fighting resumed, escalating to a point of failure on one side or the other. Fendros took on the Imperial that struck Lorag on the way in while Janius opened with a fire bolt to stagger another enemy, following through with his axe to the soldier's shoulder.

Though they had managed to group together, the fact that the enemy had refused to retreat meant that they were now surrounded. Following Lorag's orders, groups of lycans moved around behind the enemy, while others followed behind Lorag to push them from the front. Ahnasha followed behind Fendros and stopped for only a moment to resurrect the Cathay officer that Gallus had slain, both for the power of the corpse, and the psychological impact on the enemy. Kaleeth, Janius, and Ra'kalesh were close enough that they could follow behind Lorag pretty much immediately.

Peiter would have joined the fight quickly, but he spotted Sabine as he made his way across the room. Though she had been healed, her wounds were still obvious, and it was enough to break him away from the focus he had on his orders. "Are you alright? What happened, are you hurt?" Peiter asked, stopping in front of Sabine.

Regardless of Peiter's participation, the fight for this room was quickly reaching its end. Despite their perseverance, the enemy was too outnumbered, and in too bad of a position to mount an effective defense. They were fighting desperately, but lacked too many of the advantages lycan hunters usually required to kill their prey. Most of them may have had at least one silver weapon, but without numbers, superior positioning, or a cunning strategy, they had no real way to turn the fight to their favor. Lycans, by nature, were physically superior in melee combat, and had just as much training as their enemy. It was an advantage that had shown itself prevalent throughout the attack. Whatever strategies the enemy had prepared to defend their fortress had been bypassed with the infiltration and concealing mist, so the dominating factor in the battle had been simple combat ability. For this particular fight, it meant the room would be clear within minutes.

The fight concentrated until all of the enemy soldiers in the room were either killed or pushed out of the egress they were defending. Blood flew from stained weapons and shouts of anger and pain mixed together with the steel and terror. Whatever the defenders held so dearly would soon be revealed.

Sabine nearly jumped when Peiter interrupted her healing of one of the soldiers. She glanced up to look at him with a fear in her eyes before looking straight back at the wound of their ally. It was a nasty gash of a silver sword that can cut through the thigh of his gambeson. He was writhing from the pain, even under Sabine's treatment. A few moments later of avoiding Peiter's question, Sabine was satisfied that she had done all she could and that the soldier would live. She let his comrades carry him back to other healers.

It was only then that Sabine stood up and caught Peiter's eye again. She had just about forgotten his words, evident by her flustered response. "I am...I am okay. I just drew too close," she quickly mumbled. She raised her right hand up to take Peiter's upper arm, but stopped and looked at the blood still weeping all over it. She awkwardly raised her other hand to his arm instead. Peiter didn't seem wounded at all, much to her relief. "We cannot stop, do not-"

"Peiter!" Gallus voice barked out in a crack of impatience. he was just behind the melee. "Here! Now! The fight's not over!"

Gallus' shouting brought Peiter back into the moment, though there was not much he was able to do before the fight was over. The sudden, coordinated push which Lorag initiated accelerated the fight to its end. It came at the cost of four more lycan lives, but all ten of the enemy were killed in the center of the room. There were still a few of Vile's soldiers still scattered around on the floor wounded, but all of them were essentially incapacitated. The entire keep was still filled with soldiers, but they now had the time to search the room and figure out what was actually important about it.

One of the most obvious features in the room were the four cages to the far left, each containing one unconscious Khajiit. For anyone who stepped close, their scent would reveal them as lycans, and while they were all alive and in apparently good health, they showed no signs of waking any time soon. They were all stripped bare like prisoners, and yet showed no visible signs of having been restrained, or physically abused in any way. Across most of the rest of the tables in the room were piles of notes, maps, and other documents. A map on the table near the cages had quite a few markings, while on the other side of the room, there was an alchemy table beside a mountain of notes. There were full crates of ingredients around the room, and three bottles about a fifth of the way filled with a strange violet liquid.

Lorag had not taken much of a chance to look around the room, but even a brief glance showed that there would be quite a lot to sift through. "Alright, everyone pick a table and look over it. Figure out what was so important 'bout this room."

Gallus considered speaking up to question why they were stopping, but if he were honest, he needed a quick break from the fighting. Some soldiers kept the door beyond under guard while the rest of them placed their weapons to one side and began rifling through the laboratory.

Janius looked over the unconscious lycans in the cages. He verified that they were alive first, wondering what manner of treatment they had been receiving. "Test subjects..." Janius murmured in a guess. He raised his voice to the others, "These fellows are breathing. If you spot a key or something to open these cages, speak up."

The moment of calm allowed Sabine to ground herself, but taking in the details of the laboratory was not particularly helpful. The smell of blood at least overwhelmed her nose, but the sights were too familiar. She stood staring at the cages for a while, slowly moving to the alchemy table nearby. Apart from wide eyes, her face was blank and she was taking short, shivering breaths.

The notes by the alchemical equipment were obviously a focal point. Fendros was the first to reach them, holding his sword under his arm as he tried deciphering them. He quickly turned a few pages before looking to Sabine. "I can't make sense of this. Sabine?"

Sabine lifted her eyes to Fendros and regained enough focus to step forward and look over the notes. Her eyes were also drawn to the bottles. Apprehensively, she leaned in to waft some of its scent.

Fendros moved on to the other documents and Gallus soon joined him. "If they have a plan," Gallus mentioned, "They'd have to have some part of it here. There's no other reason."

With the number of people in the room, scouring it for what the enemy had been defending did not take nearly as long as it could have. For those examining the notes around the potion bottles, they were not as comprehensive as would have been preferred. The most recent notes made no mention of the purpose of the concoction. Instead, it seemed as if the their formula was already working as intended. The alchemists in this lab had merely been working on reducing the "effective dosage" of the concoction. What Sabine would be able to determine was that whatever was in the bottles was not the suppression gas.

Over near the cages, Lorag was looking over the prisoners curiously. "Hmm, this is new. Captives? I thought Vile's people always just soul trapped the lycans they captured."

Kaleeth walked up to the door of one of the cages and looked over the Khajiit woman laying on the floor inside. "Well...Janius could be right. This looks like a place where they could test things on them, but...they do all look fine. I don't see any blood or anything like that on them. It's just, none of them are waking up, even with all this noise." She observed. Focusing on the door of the cage itself, she noticed that the cage was not nearly as reinforced as she would expect from a lycan's cage. Cautiously, she grabbed the door and started to pull with as much strength as she could muster until she actually broke the lock. "These cages aren't too tough, actually. We can get them open."

At one of the nearby tables, Ahnasha had been looking through some of the documents relating to the prisoners, and it did not take long for her to show her surprise at what she was reading. "This says that these captives were allotted to the alchemists for 'research purposes,' so Janius is definitely right. But...it looks like there are dozens more of them in the dungeon below the keep. They...hold on." Ahnasha began, pausing as she read through part of the notes again to make sure she was understanding them correctly. "This is...I don't understand. It says that: 'if the subjects survive, they are to be transferred to Captain S'hadra for transportation and release'. It warns the alchemists to keep track of their paperwork so that they can be released in the vicinity of where they were found."

Ahnasha searched around the table until she found the papers of one of the prisoners. As she suspected, it listed from where the prisoner had been found, which corresponded with a marking on a nearby map. Finding more of the papers yielded the same results for the other prisoners. "This doesn't make any sense. The places these prisoners were taken from: roads, caravans, farms, villages; they aren't prisoners from our war. It...it says here that the enemy took them and turned them into lycans. But they're just going to release them? Why would Vile's followers be taking people, turning them into lycans, and just releasing them?"

---

Without hesitation, Do’rhajul grabbed a potion from his belt and quickly downed it, then took the barrel, set it onto its side, and stabbed his sword into it. As he pulled the blade out, he kicked it away, straight towards Meesei. The moment he kicked it, the barrel started to spray out a dark violet gas from the hole, as well as other cracks in the wood, and spread quickly in all directions. Ra’jorr’s men had already cut down three of the four remaining defenders, but the moment the gas reached them, it stopped them in their tracks. This was not the suppression gas.

Meesei collapsed to her knees as soon as she took in a breath of the gas, along with every lycan around her apart from Do’rhajul. The effects of the gas were immediate, and unquestionably deadly. Across the room, lycans screamed out in agony as their skin started to take on a violet glow. Then, after a few seconds, their souls and their beast spirits were ripped apart from one another, then torn from their bodies, leaving behind but lifeless husks. All, except for Meesei. She inhaled the gas just as they did, and while her lungs felt like they were burning, her soul, and that of her beast spirit, were still perfectly contained within her body. Her hand felt like it was on fire, and when she looked upon it, she saw the Ring of Hircine on her finger, glowing white as if it had been thrown into a forge. The poison, whatever it was, had torn the other lycans’ souls from their bodies, but the power that the Ring of Hircine gave her was complete control over her beast spirit, with which her soul was bound. Since the Ring gave her command of her soul, it must have protected her from the poison’s effects.

Despite the pain in her chest, Meesei stood to her feet. Do’rhajul’s expression had previously been relieved and triumphant, but upon witnessing her survival, it once again became stiff. “Of course, it would not be so easy.” He stated. “My alchemists and mages would want to study how you have survived, but I am not so foolish as to allow one as dangerous as yourself to live. You have shown yourself to be dangerous, unpredictable. I underestimated you; made mistakes in my defense. Had our plans not reached their final phase, you may have killed me here. In many ways, I respect you, and for that reason, this fight will be to the death.”

Meesei clenched her fists and barred her teeth in a rare visible show of anger. “You have done unspeakable things to my people, Do’rhajul.” She said, her body erupting with a spell of lightning form, making herself appear as a being of raw magical energy. “I would have this end no other way.”

Do’rhajul raised his shield, and brought his sword to the ready as he gave a glace to his men. “I will not force you to fight her. She can and will outmatch you all. You may join the defense.”

Though they hesitated at first, all three of Do’rhajul’s remaining soldiers followed his suggestion and left through the door behind them. Meesei waited until they were gone, so as not to temp them to come back and help, then conjured a bound axe in her hand, since he was armored. As well, she was sure to cast a shield spell on herself before he could attack.

Gallus pushed off the table and looked at the ceiling for a moment. He quickly started to conjecture, "Well, the obvious answer would be to put feral lycans close to populated areas. If there's an upsurge in werewolf attacks with lots of dead evidence, then the local authorities might start hunting for us. I'm willing to bet that Vile has men on the inside of those authorities to push all the right decisions." Gallus turned to one side and started to pace around while looking at the floor. "If they have suppression gas in this room, it would be easy to subdue them until release."

"It is not that," Sabine spoke up without turning around. Everyone looked to her as she pointed to the bottles. "That is not the suppression formula."

"It isn't? Then what is it?" Fendros asked.

Sabine hesitated to answer, "...It does something else. Something similar, but..."

Fendros walked up to the notes. They made about as much sense as before. "What does it do, Sabine?"

"I do not know," she mumbled nervously. "It affects a beast spirit. That is all I know. There are ingredients here that I do not recognise."

Meanwhile, Janius gave a thankful smile to Kaleeth and stepped into the cage. He squat down beside the unconscious Khajiit woman and shook her shoulder. "Hello? Anyone in there? We're here to get you out of here. Come, wake up."

Lorag nodded to Gallus. "Yeah, makes sense. Vile's crafty. Probably wants to pit as many people against us as possible. Not really that hard, seeing as how most of Tamriel already sees us as monsters. I guess it's just a matter of motivatin' them to get off their lazy backsides and start actually doin' something about us."

Ahnasha had at first been inclined to agree with Gallus, but as she turned the pages to see more and more records, she was becoming both increasingly skeptical, and concerned. "No, no you don't understand. This isn't...this isn't just a few ferals. This is...there are records here going back months. And it looks like it goes back a lot further still. Over the last few months, they have turned and released hundreds of lycans out into the wild. A few would make sense to sow some discord, but hundreds, maybe thousands depending on how long it's been happening? We would be picking up a good portion of these lycans; they would just be feeding the size of our army. It...it doesn't make any sense.

Kaleeth stepped into the cage on the other side of the Khajiit, then carefully rolled her over onto her back after she gave no response to janius. The other soldiers started breaking into the other cages as well, but in all cases, the prisoners were just as unresponsive. There was absolutely no sign of injury on any of them; no bruises, lacerations, or recent scars. They were all breathing normally, and other than being unconscious, were in perfect health. However, no amount of shaking or shouting was going to wake them. It was possible that they were being kept unconscious through magical or alchemical means.

---

With Spellbreaker protecting him, Do’rhajul started with a shield charge to close the distance between them, to which Meesei reacted in her usual manner. With a quick bolt escape, she teleported herself off to his side. Having never seen the technique before, even the General was momentarily confused, giving Meesei the time to hit him in the side with quite a potent lightning bolt. The involuntary spasms of his muscles caused Do’rhajul to collapse to the ground immediately and cringe with pain. However, even through it all, he was fast enough to bring the nigh unbreakable ward of Spellbreaker around to protect himself from Meesei’s following stream of lightning.

Seeing as her magic was not making any progress, Meesei rushed forward with her axe, turning it around to make use of the spike on the back of the head. He was attempting to recover and had made it back up to his knees, though even then, he still matched Meesei’s height. She tried to bring the axe down onto his head before he was ready, but even being off-balance was not enough to prevent himself from bringing up his shield to guard himself. His counterattack was rapid, as he slashed his blade straight towards her neck. Fortunately, Meesei was able to jump back and angle herself enough that his blade deflected off of the shield spell that encased her body.

Meesei backed far enough away to get out of his range, while the General made his way back to his feet. She hoped to catch him off guard by bolting straight through him, but to her surprise, Spellbreaker’s ward stopped her entirely. Normally, a ward would absorb the electrical energy, but she would still pass through. In this case, however, she was stopped and knocked straight onto her back in front of him. It was, perhaps, surprising to him, but not in the way she hoped. Do’rhajul attempted capitalize on the situation with a thrust straight through her heart, but Meesei managed to save herself by bolting once more. This time, she went through his feet, which his ward was not protecting. He was actually stunned this time, so she scrambled to her feet and made another swing for his head. Unfortunately, he was quick enough to bring up his arm to protect it. The spike on her axe hit his forearm directly, and sounded like it may have done some damage through his armor, but it was certainly no lethal blow.

Meesei was knocked back quite forcefully by a bash from the General’s shield. Luckily, it took him too long to get to his feet for him to be able to follow through in time. Seeing as the more direct attacks were not working, she adopted a strategy much like the one she had taken to fight Harriet years prior. She bolted around, keeping her distance and attempting to get spells around his ward. No matter how quickly he could react, he could not move faster than her. Unfortunately, even if he could not attack her, his defense was nigh unbreakable. No matter where she moved, he could always bring up his ward to defend. Every lightning bolt she fired drained some of her magicka, while doing nothing at all to him. Unlike Harriet’s ring, Spellbreaker showed no signs at all of weakening, so she could not simply outlast him. She had to find some way to give herself the advantage.

Breaking from her pattern, Meesei suddenly turned and let loose two streams of ice on the ground behind her, then quickly bolted to the other side of it. Particularly in armor, even the most experienced of warriors could not simply rush straight across a sheet of ice. Do’rhajul would have to either slow down, or go around the ice. In either case, it would give Meesei enough time to complete her transformation.

Do’rhajul opted to run around the path of ice, and Meesei finished her transformation just as he was starting his swing. She jumped back to evade, then immediately rushed forward to try her hand at overpowering him. In her werewolf form, she was indeed stronger than he, but the difference was not as severe as she would have liked. He was a Cathay-raht werewolf, so while he could not match an alpha werewolf like her without transforming, his strength could still challenge hers enough that he could stand his ground.

Meesei first attempted to rip the shield out of his hand to rid him of his greatest asset. She pulled him straight towards her, and nearly brought him off of his feet, but his grip held, and she had given him ample opportunity to retaliate. She was not able to move quickly enough to evade entirely, so he slashed her across the right side of her chest. It was too shallow to be lethal, but deep enough that the gash would cause enough bleeding to worry about it. But, in the short term, she just had to focus on ignoring the pain and continuing the fight. Even if she could not absolutely overpower him, he no longer had any physical advantage over her.

Meesei gave a feint, then dashed to the right and feinted once more. She needed to get him to swing so that she could get a chance to attack. Immediately after the second feint failed, she swiped at his legs, which finally prompted a reaction from him. He swung towards her arm, which she was actually able to evade, then rush straight at him. Instead of pulling on his shield, she swiped it to the side, then tried to bite down on his neck. She managed to latch down on his shoulder, and attempted to reposition to get at his throat, but the delay was enough that she felt another sharp pain of his blade sliding down her back. He bashed the side of her head with his shield, then managed to pull himself away from her.

Again, Meesei had another injury, and was bleeding more heavily, but she had to keep up the pressure on him. She tried targeting his sword arm on the recovery from one of his swings, but ended up with another gash across her thigh. She tried disarming him of his blade, but ended up with her palm slashed open. She tried injuring his leg to get him to the ground and give herself the advantage, but narrowly escaped death with a thin slash directly across her throat from the very tip of his blade. She did wound him with a few cuts where her claws managed to find their mark, likely gave him a lot of bruising, and perhaps even fractured a bone or two with the sheer force of her strikes. Unfortunately, all of her attacks were met with an even greater injury on herself. She simply could not stop his blade, and her wounds were causing her to lose blood. Her attempts at fighting him with magic before had not worked, but what she was doing now was slowly killing her.

Once she had the opportunity, Meesei simply shoved Do’rhajul’s shield to stagger him back, then sprinted across the chamber much faster than he could possibly move. It gave her the time she needed to transform back into her Argonian form, but only just. He was upon her as soon as she had regained control of her body, and she only barely managed to bolt away. Her body was covered in her own blood from the wounds that were steadily weakening her. She was in a worse position to fight him than she had been when she started, and he was now going on the offensive against her. She could bolt outside of his range, but no destruction spell she could cast was working against his ward.

Meesei bolted around Do’rhajul, trying everything she could think of. She tried casting at his feet, but he was quick with his shield. She froze parts of the floor in an attempt to throw him off balance, but he was good at avoiding the ice, and she could not freeze the entire chamber. Even when he was forced onto the ice, he simply moved slowly and kept his shield up to defend until he could move once more. Meesei simply did not know how to fight against an unbreakable ward.

Charging a lightning spell in one hand, Meesei tried to bolt behind Do’rhajul, then cast her spell behind her in the hopes of hitting him before he could react. She would not have time to aim as she had been, so she had to bolt closer to give her spell a better chance of hitting. While the spell did indeed hit him, it came at a heavy price. Even as the lightning was jolting through his body, he spun around and smashed Meesei directly with his shield. It threw her back onto a table pushed up against a wall behind her, and his blade was not far behind. Her lightning bolt had disrupted him enough that his aim was not perfect, but he still managed to thrust his sword straight through her left forearm. It cut through her muscles, shattered the bone, and left her arm pinned to the table underneath. She could not stop herself from letting out a scream of pain, though it was interrupted when he smashed his shield into her body hard enough to break the table in half underneath her, as well as cracking several of her ribs.

Do’rhajul had lost his grip on his sword when he forced Meesei through the table, so she tried to reach over to pull the silver blade out of her arm. However, she was stopped by another surge of pain when the General stomped with all of his might onto her right leg, snapping her femur in two. He grabbed his sword and pulled it slowly out of her arm, exacerbating all of the pain she was already feeling. Her body was broken beyond any reasonable hope of physical resistance, and Do’rhajul was poised to execute her right there, but Meesei was not yet dead, so she was not going to stop fighting to survive.

Letting loose a sudden burst of energy, Meesei telekinetically grabbed one of the halves of the table beside her and sent it flying with impressive force straight at the General’s head. Even he was not prepared for Meesei’s continued resistance, and this time, he was hit straight off of his feet. If she were in any condition whatsoever to continue the fight, she might have been able to take advantage of it, but her only option now was to escape. Taking the precious few seconds she had, Meesei scanned around the room until she spotted the door from which she had entered. Gritting her teeth in pain, she bolted halfway across the chamber, and ended up rolling upon landing to further stress her already-broken bones. She cried out again, her body feeling like it was burning from head to toe. Most of her wounds were silver, and even those that were not involved shattered bones stabbing into her flesh. Nevertheless, she lifted up her eyes to the door and bolted again, this time ending up in the hallway beyond.

Meesei had made it out of the chamber, but that would not stop Do’rhajul from simply following her as soon as she could stand. She had to block the way behind her. Rolling onto her back, she used her uninjured hand to charge a frost storm spell, which she cast upon the ceiling just above the door. It coated the ceiling in ice as the cold seeped into the stone. It caused the stone to become more brittle, so when she followed through with a quite forceful explosive fireball, it rapidly heated and weakened the stones enough that they came crashing down below and sealed off the doorway. Do’rhajul still might have been able to follow, but it would give her time. Though, Meesei was not certain of how much time she even had left. She basked her body in a wave of her own healing magic, but even she could not repair her crippled body. So many of her wounds were silver, and she had already lost so much blood already. The best she could do was to halfway numb her excruciating pain, and to slow her continuing rate of blood loss. With her uninjured arm, she managed to bring herself up to a sitting position, then conjured a bound spear that she used for support to help her drag herself slowly up to her feet. As long as she remained conscious, she could use it as a staff to help her trudge on forward in the hopes of somehow escaping, or at least finding one of her allies. Even with the attention of healers, however, she knew there was a possibility she would not survive this.

Gallus stopped pacing and furrowed his brow. He turned his head to the notes as he silently pondered for a few seconds. Ahnasha was right. "If there were that many," Gallus began, "they would have been noticed by now. By one of the clans in Elsweyr, at least." Gallus' eyes turned to one side and his brow relaxed slightly. "Back at the Orcrest clanhome. The man I interrogated, he said he had seen people cured of lycanthropy." He stepped to turn around to Sabine, "Could this be a cure?"

"No," Sabine responded confidently. "It wouldn't...well, it could, but not..." Sabine's eyes widened and she looked over the notes again. "It is not a cure. It...I do not know, but it could do something to lycans. Something bad."

"If the lycans were cured and released, we would probably never see hide nor hair of them," Gallus deduced. He looked at Ahnasha again, "Does it say how many survived, Ahnasha?"

Janius, now certain that the prisoners were not getting up, stood and called out to the others. "These ones aren't waking up. We'll have to carry them out."

Fendros' head darted between the cages and the bottles. "Wait, they were hauling a whole barrel out to where Meesei and the others were upstairs!" He picked up his weapon. "If whatever is in there is a bad cure for lycans, we need to go and help her!"

Step after step was like torture for Meesei. Even though she was using her spear to keep the weight off of her leg, the small jolts from each step sent sharp pains through her entire body. As strong as she was, she could not hold together her composure. Her whole body was shaking, which only made her steps more unsteady, and more painful. Tears mixed with blood as they streamed down her face, and she had to fight her own mind to maintain the will to keep moving. An increasingly strong part of her mind was telling her that the pain was not worth it; that she would be better off allowing herself to die before her pack, or any other lycans, could see her in such a state.

As Meesei neared the bottom of the spiral staircase, her spear slid off of the edge of a step, causing her to fall and roll the rest of the way to the bottom. She screamed out in agony, without a hint of the usual stoic strength that defined her. Her ribs felt like they were stabbing her in the heart, and she was surprised she had not pushed the bones in her arms and legs through her scales with how she had just twisted them. Laying on the floor, she could hardly even think about trying to bring herself back to her feet.

Meesei was uncertain of how long she had laid on the floor before she heard an exceptionally loud noise through one of the walls, followed by the entire keep shaking. It sounded like a massive, fire salt fueled explosion within the keep, and it did not take much thought for her to imagine its cause. Her own forces had not brought such weapons, so it seemed like the General, having been pushed back with his remaining men heavily outnumbered, was going to destroy his entire fortress just to make sure Meesei was killed inside. The staircase had only brought her down one floor, and there were still two more beneath her, so she did not see how she was going to be able to escape in time.

---

There of course was not evidence enough for Ahnasha to be certain of anything, but looking through the records at the sheer number of lycans that had been released by Vile's forces, another possibility crept into her mind. She had no idea of its implications, and honestly, she hoped it was not true. "What if...we have been noticing them? The number of lycans in Tamriel has been growing tremendously over the past few years. You're seen how much our clans have grown. But that would mean that Vile's forces have been giving us the means to better fight them. It's just...none of this makes sense."

Shortly afterwards, an exceptionally loud explosion shook the entire keep, effectively ending any current conversation. They could not know what caused it, but Lorag knew that he was not going to sit idle for long. "I don't know what that was, but we've got to get out of this keep. Everyone! Grab anything that looks important and form up in the hallway!" He began, turning his attention to one of his officers. "Take the soldiers out into the courtyard and form up with clan leader Ri'vashi. If the enemy's still outside, do whatever she tells you to help hold 'em off."

"Gallus." Lorag continued as he looked to the Imperial. "Get your pack and form up with mine. Fendros is right, we've got to find my Alpha."

"We might be able to figure something out once we-" Gallus was interrupted by the explosion. Most people, himself included, could not fathom what caused it short of some kind of powerful magic. He snatched up his hammer and nodded to Lorag's orders, "Right. Peiter, Uthri!" Both of Gallus' present packmates took implicit orders to move.

Janius stopped a couple of the soldiers. "Lever open these cages and grab the prisoners. Move! Move!" It was all he could do before falling in behind the rest of his pack.

"The last time something like this happened it was in the witches coven!" Fendros shouted while they ran out through the back door of the laboratory. "Is this place going collapse?"

"We can't leave without Meesei!" Janius shot back.

Having had time to restore her magicka, Sabine cast a shield spell over her body, more for some kind of comfort than anything else. She could hardly think in her panicked state, but she didn't really want to given the worst case scenario right now.

Once they had grabbed everything they could which was nearby in the laboratory, Meesei and Gallus' packs, along with Ra'kalesh, headed out of the back exit of the room, while the rest of the soldiers left from the front to return to the courtyard with Ri'vashi. They did not know in which direction the two soldiers carrying the barrel had gone, but Lorag could guess that they would have been heading up to bring it to the General. That would mean they would need to keep heading upwards in the keep, staying towards its center.

Before they had even reached the first staircase, they encountered the enemy. It was a force smaller in numbers than Lorag's, but even if it had not been, they seemed more occupied with escaping than fighting. Another explosion rang out from the floor beneath them, during which the hostiles ran into a side passage. Lorag was not usually one to allow his enemy to escape, but they had more pressing concerns at the moment, and could not afford to waste any time. Instead, they moved up the same staircase they had saw the enemy walking down.

Moving up to the third floor, they were closing in on Meesei. The enemy was clearing out of the keep quickly, so they would encounter no more resistance within. Ahead of them was a corner in the hallway, and as soon as they rounded it, they would be able to see Meesei at the hallway's far end, covered in blood and trying desperately to get to her feet.

Lorag's guesses at where to go were as good as any of the rest of the packs, so he was not questioned as they navigated their way through. In the chaos, the enemy didn't give them anything more than glances, if that.

Grateful for the lack of resistance presented, Gallus made sure to note in his mind the routes that the enemies were taking to escape. The packs and himself might just need to make use of them as well.

Meanwhile, Fendros was more concerned with glimpsing in the rooms they passed in case there were any traps or ambushes. They were moving too fast to avoid anything of that nature, though thankfully the enemy appeared to be too busy to set up something like that at the same time.

The first few moments after rounding the corner and seeing the bloodied and beaten Argonian at the end of it, both packs did not say a word. It was hard to make out the features of the individual ahead. It was harder, still, to accept that it was who they thought it was.

Sabine sent out a shrill shout first, so upset and loud that it raked at the limits of her normally quiet vocal chords. "Meesei!"

Everyone's pace doubled to reach the champion. Sabine already had tears running down her distraught face and yellow healing lights in both hands before she was even halfway towards Meesei. The rest, Gallus, Janius, and Fendros included, had an expression of wide-eyed terror at seeing Meesei so beaten. They didn't have the state of mind to thank fate that she wasn't a corpse. At least not now.

"Azura's light, no," Fendros murmured upon looking over the extent of the damage.

Sabine slowed to a stop and did not ask for any prompt before attempting to heal Meesei with magic. Fendros and Janius each took one of her arms over their shoulders. "We have to leave! Come on!" Janius punctuated, as if it wasn't clear already.

"What happened?!" Gallus asked in a firm bark, roughened by previous shouting, "Where's Do'rhajul?! Where're Ra'jorr and the others?" He didn't wait for an answer before beginning to retrace their steps to the quickest exit.

There were none among the group who could react well to seeing Meesei in such a state. With her power, it was hard to even imagine what could do such a thing to her. Tears came to Kaleeth's eyes upon seeing the wounds, while Ahnasha was afraid of whatever had caused them. Lorag just seemed to grow more angry, but internally, his fear was just as pronounced as the others'.

For Meesei herself, she felt unbelievable relief upon seeing the faces of her pack, but was in far too much pain to express it. She had just managed to make it to her feet when Fendros and Janius ran up to support her. "The General...escaped. I could not defeat him. Everyone else is dead. Our enemy...they have a new weapon. A gas. It kills immediately, rips our souls from our bodies."

Just then, there was another explosion beneath them, followed by even more intense shaking and crashing sounds from below. A wall had just collapsed, and the keep was becoming even more unstable. As much as everyone likely wanted to heal Meesei and keep her comfortable, there was no time for any delays. Lorag rushed up to Meesei and snatched her up in his arms, lifting up her weight effortlessly. "We need to be out of this keep five minutes ago. Come on! We're gettin' to the courtyard, then gettin' out of this place." He shouted, and Meesei certainly did not protest. While Sabine would likely want to try and healer, she could still turn her own healing magic onto herself for now.