Ursaren's cry boomed out across the chamber, Alice had just enough time to scramble into line of sight before seeing a fireball break itself upon the old mans shield. Damn! She never had any luck at fighting other magic users and she had already expended a great deal of her own reserves before this point. Despite this Alice knew duty called, and though she was no knight it wouldn't do to deny it.

Alice quickly cast a light and raised it high over the river, trying to illuminate and thus allow the party visibility of the riverbed as a stumble could prove fatal at this point. Especially if the legends of Dark Elf sorcery and speed were to be believed. After her instincts as a comrade had passed it was time to rely on her instincts as a student. A sage voice sounded in her head going over the procedure on how to combat other wizards, and reminding her that once again she was out of her depth. [i]Do not waste a single ounce of strength. First ascertain how defended they are, and get a good grasp on their strength.[/i] so Alice closed her eyes and cast detect magic once again, quicker this time than in the chamber. Interestingly the flora in this pseudo-valley radiated a small amount of magic, just enough so her vision was relatively unchanged and confusing her for a moment thinking she'd failed the spell. Soon enough though the bright patch in the shadows not only let her know she'd been successful but also where the sorceress hid herself, drawing her energies and focus for another attack.

The Dark Elf sorceress hadn't lowered her wards to hide, which was a mixed blessing. It kept her from being vulnerable to Alice's attacks, but it also revealed that the sorceress had taken to hiding as a reaction, not as a strategy which meant the party had surprised her. Unfortunately if the wards and the residue from the fireball were anything to go by the Dark Elf was far more powerful than Alice, and would be a challenge even for Geradin. The latter was certainly something Alice didn't see often. 

Alice couldn't beat her, but she quickly formulated a plan that it might be possible to scare the Dark Elf off. Dwarves often spoke of the 'Dorcha' being a cowardly race at heart, though when you drank as much as the Dwarves did you probably considered every other race to be cowardly. Never mind that now. The Vrettonnian dropped her wards to hide herself from the sorceress and to reserve that little bit more of her strength, she would need it. With more of her willpower freed up she began preparing herself to channel her power through someone who could afford to be distracted, but was well enough back they could be seen by but not easily targeted by the enemy sorceress. The first step of turning the enemy magic user's surprise into panic, no sane magic user would face unknown variables. 

She let her senses drift forward and eventually focus on... The priest. She wished she could have warned him of the tactic, and the side effects. If he was lucky his god would intervene and bless him to bypass most of the symptoms such as clashing emotions, disorientation and even hallucinations. But the effect on the enemy sorceress would be far more interesting, as it would appear like Settionne was a being of pure power, like a demon or even a god's incarnate. 

Alice began funnelling all of her power into one mighty spell that would hopefully do the trick to finally scare off the Dark Elf, she just hoped that Settionne's god was okay with this sort of trickery and that he wasn't blessed with any powerful magical items by his church that would attempt to break the link. Neither of those grim scenarios would end well for any involved

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