As experienced as Yerig was, his aging body was not perfectly capable. By turning his attention away from Janius for a moment, he gave him an opportunity to strike that Yerig was simply not quick enough to respond to effectively. Finally, Janius was able to land a solid blow that nearly knocked the old Nord off of his feet. Were Janius not focused on saving Kaleeth, it might have been an opportunity to finish him. 

Though alive, Kaleeth had still been dazed by the blow, and was not seemingly making an effort to stand even after the ice dissipated. She was quite vulnerable, though Janius soon forced the two Orcs’ attention onto himself. Like with Kaleeth, one of them approached Janius from the front, while the one with the hammer moved to flank. However, this time, they were weakened from their fight with Kaleeth. Namely, one of the Orcs could not even raise his broken shield arm.

By the time the Breton mage reached Arinette, he was drained of magicka, but even if he had not been, Arinette was certainly a more major threat. The fireballs she slammed into Sabine’s ward were intensely hot and carried with them a great deal of explosive force. The first would stress the ward, and the second brought it within a hair’s breadth of shattering. The only reason she did not fire a third was because Fendros’ arrows forced her to put up a defense. Using power from the staff, she put up a barrier that seemed similar to a ward, but was definitely visually distinct. Unlike a normal ward, which would provide some resistance to physical damage as well as magical, this barrier blocked all of his arrows entirely. However, Sabine’s defense and Fendros’ attack together had given Meesei enough time to complete her transformation. 

Meesei stepped forward in front of Sabine in her large, imposing werewolf form, though it only produced a somewhat surprised chuckle from Arinette. “Is this your solution to your impending death, Champion? Do you think I cannot handle a beast? I would think you would know you are even weaker to me in that form.”

Meesei spoke with another, low growl. “Is that so?” She said as her claws erupted in a storm of lightning.

For a brief moment, Arinette’s eyes widened. “What in Oblivion-“

Without delay, Meesei made use of another of the esoteric schools of magic she had studied in Apocrypha: shadow magic. Disappearing into a black cloud, she teleported and reappeared behind Arinette, already mid-swing. She successfully raked her long, sharp claws all the way across the Breton’s back, sending a spray of blood onto a nearby tree and leaving behind four deep gashes under her shredded clothes. At the same time, the lightning she charged through Arinette caused her body to convulse and drop down to her knees. On reaction, Arinette attempted another powerful telekinetic blast to force her attacker away as she turned to face her. However, Meesei had been learning through their fight, and was ready to adapt quickly. As Arinette was making the motion, Meesei teleported again, this time just a foot or two in front of her to place herself directly in front of the Breton. In doing so, she timed her spell perfectly so that she would teleport across the telekinetic wave, and therefore be unaffected by it. 

An instant after she reappeared, Meesei essentially impaled Arinette through the stomach with her claws, lifting her fully off of the ground with one hand. While blood was pouring from the wounds, she again sent a sustained charge of lightning through her. Although, it lasted only a second before Arinette was able to manage releasing the magicka that the staff was absorbing into a lightning-infused wave of force that finally pushed Meesei back away from her, and causing a few more lightning burns in the process. 

Unfortunately for Arinette, the act of blasting Meesei away from her caused Meesei’s claws to essentially rip open her abdomen. She fell to the ground in a rather gruesome puddle of blood, with her organs visibly spilling out of her. It was the kind of injury that would leave one with only a few moments of life before finally bleeding to death. However, in those few, long seconds, 
Arinette was able to weakly grip the staff and use it for one last, desperate spell. As opposed to the offensive magic she had been using, she soon demonstrated that the power contained in the staff could be used for seemingly any form of magic. In this case, her body started to glow like the sun as she was enveloped in the single most powerful healing spell that Meesei had ever witnessed. It was hard to see through the intensity of the light, but her body started to quickly put itself back together before their very eyes. There was no technique to the healing, just the raw, overwhelming power of enough restoration energy to heal a battalion of soldiers. It was perhaps even more energy than would be necessary to keep her alive. Regardless, even with completely limitless magicka, there were inherent limitations to healing spells overall, so even she could not force her body to recover completely. Weakly, and using the staff for support, she struggled to stand herself back to her feet. 

“No…not…will not fail.” Arinette stammered. The orb on her staff glowed more brightly, and a full, circular barrier similar to the one she had used to block Fedndros’ arrows surrounded her. The inside of the barrier was filled with a strange, blue glow, which made Meesei hesitant to teleport inside. Anyone that was at all attuned to magicka would be able to feel an immense magical charge in the air shortly before strange portals started to open all around them, from which odd, glowing, wisp-like magical anomalies started to emerge. The creatures, if they could be called such, immediately showed themselves dangerous as they began to attack anyone and everyone, Arinette’s allies included, with frost-based magical attacks merely by touching them. 

Do’rhajul, after being left by Sabine, was struggling just to remain standing. His legs, particularly his joints, were in immense pain from the ice shards. He had tried to chase after Sabine, but only ended up falling down twice in the pursuit. But, at this point, he was back on his feet and stumbling in Arinette’s direction. “What are you…what are you doing Arinette? You can’t use the staff like that, we agreed! Using that much power…we don’t know what it will do!”

“It will kill her!” The Breton woman shouted, glaring at Meesei.

“And us along with her!” Do’rhajul growled back.