Marianne felt a certain warmth flow through her as she channeled her mana to Ayse's spell. She closed her eyes after hearing her explanation, trying to imagine what she was saying. Imagination and concentration were the basics of the art of weaving spells. For experienced mages, they could do it instantaneously without even thinking about it, but for beginners they had to really think what kind of effect their spell wanted to achieve. Marianne herself had never managed to cast a single spell, even though she could channel her mana just fine. She was pretty sure she had concentrated and imagined properly, yet for some reason she was unable to do it in the end.

But now, she was merely lending her strength to Ayse, so she hoped the spell she cast would be successful.

And indeed it did, as a flame manifested in front of them, before firing off towards the shaman. It crashed against the shaman's sickly green fire, struggling to pass through to burn its desired target. Marianne could only watch as their flame slowly lost its strength, failing to pierce the green flame which was now enhanced by the shaman.

...Only for Fariha's arrow to distract the shaman, allowing their flame to burn through, hitting the shaman straight on. It burned its coat, causing it to panic and it trashed around on the ground, trying to put it out. Of course, a magical flame like it wouldn't so easily surrender to something like that. In the end, it discarded its coat, the flame now have reached its fur, as it ran away, leaving the battlefield without looking back a single time.

Marianne couldn't help to find the whole sight grimly hilarious, as she stifled a laugh.

"We did it, it seemed," Marianne said to Ayse, "Though we wouldn't have succeeded without Fariha's help. That shaman's magic was quite strong indeed."

Marianne's thoughts were soon returned to the rat ogre. It seemed while she was concentrating on the shaman, the beast had fallen as well. She welcomed back her bees into her dress, saying to them that they had done a great job. Of course, she tried to ignore the sticky sensation of some of them that had the unfortunate fate of receiving the beast's snot and saliva when they entered its nose and mouth.

She approached the corpse, finding a couple of objects scattered around its dead body. A dwarven handaxe, a magic ring, and some gold. [i]So this is the thing called "loot" Father was talking about,[/i] she remembered. First she looked at the ring, reading the inscription written on it. Lucky for her she had been taught to read magical runes. It seemed its effects would be to increase the efficiency of mana usage of its wearer. That would surely help if she decided to use her mantis, as it could stay longer in the battlefield. After wearing it, she looked at the axe. It was quite heavy for her, but she decided to take it anyways as she wasn't using her hand for anything else. It could help in a melee combat, though she really hoped it would never come to that. As for the gold, well, it went straight into the pocket of her dress.

She then noticed the dwarves standing there, grim and sombre etched on their faces. She looked at the body they were carrying and she immediately knew the reason. Their leader had fallen when he combated the ogre. Perhaps if she wasn't focusing on the shaman, she could help him with her insects somehow. But alas, it wasn't to be, it seemed. [i]There is no sense on dwelling what could've been[/i], she thought.

She then saw a dwarf talking to Siph. Since they were pretty close, she could hear that the dwarf asked them to enter the fortress as the skavens would surely return. She could agree to that, especially seeing how this rift wasn't over yet.