[h2]Saber[/h2]

The plan she laid out while they followed Fenrir's trail was not a particularly complex one. But that had been Saber's intent. A simple plan that was easily mutable on the fly. If something did go wrong, they could alter the plan quickly in order to compensate for whatever had changed. That was the value of simplicity, when it came to strategy. Sometimes, a complex plan simply wasn't the best option.

Unfortunately, the nature of the cavern Fenrir had chosen to hide itself in became more and more disturbing as the proceeded deeper. The red light, the strange thickness of the air... it simply wasn't natural. The feeling of the cave was the same as the feeling that Brynhildr had given off, a sort of sickness, a corruption that suffused the very essence of the cavern the deeper they went. And the feeling only became stronger the deeper they went.

"... I do not like the feeling of the air here, Master," Saber commented as they went deeper, "This place is an unnatural location. There is something terrible here."

And when they emerged into the larger cavern...

There.

Brynhildr was submerged in something dark, a horrible black mud that engulfed her utterly and filling the deepest deaths of the chasm. And there stood Fenrir, the great wolf, standing over it all... with a howl, he loosed a swarm of blackened abominations from the muck.

But the King of Knights had to wait, until the ranged and aerial assault took the massive wolf's attention completely.

And then...

"Charge!" cried Saber, darting forward. The air seemed to explode around her, as if she had been set off with a rocket! The instant she met the first of the black beasts, her invisible blade sliced through the air and cleaved it apart. Her goal was not to eliminate all of them, that was a task she left to the support of Archer and the Valkyries. Instead, she was aiming to cut a path straight through the shadowy monsters, to reach Fenrir himself! Sprinting through the cold cavern, feeling the corruption in the air whipping past her, Saber's blade met another one of the monsters, lodging into its upper body before being sliced downwards with a burst of magical energy, the brilliant light piercing another immediately behind the first!

But another of the beasts immediately swung a strange, tendril-like limb at her, forcing the small blonde knight to leap back to evade the crushing blow! However, before it could press its attack, she sliced through its torso and pushed her assault further! These creatures were more dangerous then the undead had been, but that didn't mean she would allow them to stop her!

[hr]

[h2]Caster[/h2]

That did not sound like genuine praise.

For much of the travel to the cavern, Caster had spent her time pouting at her Master. What kind of praise was that?! Certainly not anything worthy of the Elven Queen of the Undead, Skuld! Of course, when they arrived at the cave, she immediately picked up on the unpleasant feeling in the air. She was hardly about to stop anyone, given the gravity of the situation, but it was easy to detect that there was something pure evil located in the depths of the cave. The fact that the lighting suddenly became a dark, oppressive red was a rather strong indication of the fact that there was something terrible down there.

The fact that the valkyries were present meant that raising the dead probably wasn't the best idea. Caster wasn't in the mood to have them distracted from their duty by killing her toys.

She wasn't exactly prepared for the swarm of shadowy monsters pouring from the mud, either. But...

"Hmph, it will take far greater forces to impress the Elven Queen!" she declared, confidently. Indeed, it was not the creatures themselves that got her attention... no, it was the terrible blackened muck that Brynhildr was being submerged in. What [i]was[/i] that? It practically exuded corruption! No wonder the valkyrie had been blackened as she had...

"Let me demonstrate the power of the legendary necromancer!"

Dozens and dozens of magic circles opened in the sky above her, as she ascended to the air alongside the valkyries on wings of black mist. A sound like dozens of tanks being fired tore through the air as she unleashed her assault of the army of dark creatures.

But something went wrong.

Not with her attack, but the plan as a whole.

Fenrir had still erected a wall of ice?!

[@PKMNB0Y][@Raineh Daze][@KoL]