“That TRAITOR! Darmae, help Jaron kill John and his friends,” Scer’Pi’Kenes rumbled with disdain from within the tree as he continued his work. Darmae sighed, saying “yeah, okay” before getting off her throne of corpses to walk to the hallway where the conflict was taking place. As she walked, she thought she heard something, then suddenly something wrapped itself around her ankle and tripped her onto the ground. Just as she looked behind her to see the vine that tripped her, Darmae heard Mason’s distinct voice say a single word: “regrowth.” Suddenly, the mushroom men that had been killed were rising from the dead! Darmae scowled as she yanked the vine from her ankle and watched the red-haired man roll down from the pile of corpses. Mason grabbed a sword from one of the bodies, taking a defensive kneeling position behind the bodies. “I’ll finish you for good,” the elderly woman said with contempt, “these mindless golems won’t stop me.” Seemingly in response, Mason coughed up blood; the man knew he wasn’t in the best of shape, but he hoped his mushroom men could hold off Darmae until he could finish his next spell. As they began surrounding her, Mason began chanting in a hushed tone of voice, putting all of his energy into the effort. --- Outside the Great Oak, Jake and Edward were vigilantly on guard against potential threats. Not only were they protecting Caleb, Rainbow and Flower, now they were protecting Byures as well. Even though John Jr was with them, they wouldn’t let down their guard. Suddenly, they heard a voice - probably the gnome the younger John was with - yell. “Ah hell, BOLTS LOOSE!” This startled the pair, who were wondering what exactly was going on. “Should we help them?” Edward asked. Jake responded in the affirmative: “yeah! Let’s go!” Just as they were about to ride in though, they were seemingly suddenly surrounded by a dozen armed gnome warriors. Apparently the pair weren’t as observant as they thought. One of them spoke up. “You aren’t going anywhere, kid.” --- Meanwhile, at Darmae’s original destination, there was chaos and Jaron was absolutely livid. How dare that upstart Nieve boy betray them like this? Scer had done so much for him too. This would not stand. If nothing else, Jaron vowed to himself that John Nieve Jr. would die today. He pressed a button hidden under his chest plate, causing his armor and sword to glow a deadly shade of gray, then advanced on the traitor to slash him with his sword. At the same time, Byures was angry as well, although for different reasons. One of the poisonous arrows had actually [i]hit[/i] him and he was not interested in being poisoned to death today. Even so, he took a moment to analyze the situation. No use in charging in foolishly to die, after all. Caleb was trying to help the city from whatever these gnomes were doing, so they could work together to stop the gnomes. The potioned man apparently knew Caleb and had saved him, so he was an ally as well, at least for now. And the little green man had come in with Caleb, so he was a friend, plus he had a way to stop whatever was happening to the Great Oak. Therefore, protecting Rainbow and Caleb was the first priority, and that meant stopping those aerial gnomes from taking more pot shots at them. The witch and the poison could be burned later, in that order. Based on the directions the arrows came from and the sounds emitted from the ceiling, the Hunter knew where his prey lied. He didn’t have any projectile weapons, but anything thrown hard enough would be projectile enough for his purposes. So with as much might as he could, Byures threw his poleaxe in the direction of the formerly hidden gnome assassins. This was clearly not something the gnomes had expected, based on their panicky reaction. “What the-” one started to say before he was literally cut off by the sharp part of the poleaxe. And while they were preoccupied with his weapon, the alligatorman was climbing up the tree to the rafters where the remaining five gnomes and the poleaxe were. So much for having “spilt enough blood.” --- Caleb was just shocked at what was unfolding; John was his enemy, then he wasn’t and he saved his life. The boy couldn’t figure out what to do right now as the chaotic situation unfolded. Rainbow, on the other hand, did not have that problem. He saw the gnome Byures kill drop a knife; he ran to pick it up, and then ran back to Caleb to snap him out of his daze. “Caleb, come on” Rainbow told him in a hushed tone of voice as he gave him the knife, “while everyone’s distracted, we can go to the Chambers and get this spell cast.”