For all the abuse his body endured over the last forty-eight hours, Caleb never lost his natural agility. Acting more on instinct than coherent thought the boy set the dagger blade between his teeth kicking off the ground at the very last second, launching himself into a forward roll. Darame’s veritable barrage of magical attacks exploded across the floor behind him, sending splinters of blackened wood scattering everywhere. In the foreground John weathered the worst of her attentions, crouching behind his shield. Every blast drove him a little further back, but he held firm. His defense’s integrity holding steady for the time being. The women paused to catch her breath, run ragged by the incantations she spouted. John took the opportunity to rush forward, only to be stopped in his tracks by a fresh wave from Darmae.

	Grateful for the lull John’s charge granted, Caleb crouched on all fours, chest heaving from his exertions. Breathing irregularly around the dagger clenched in his jaw he stood and darted across the open space, sliding behind an overturned table as a hastily cast fireball seared overhead, singing his scalp, and exploding off the opposite wall.

	Small green hands dragged him further under cover, patting down his smoldering garments. “You okay?” Rainbow asked, once he assured himself the boy was not on fire.

	“Fine, were you able to cast the counter?” Caleb peeked over the table edge.

	Rainbow shook his head. He tried several times while the other two distracted Darmae. Every attempt of the long incantation resulted in a surge of power, as if a massive electrical charge would tear forth and destroy the gnome’s infection, but it would fade and die before freeing the Great Oak from Scer’s hold. “I don’t think I’m near enough to the heart, I think I have to stand directly atop where Scer made his entry. Plus the spell needs a living conduit, something for the magic to channel through in order to enter the tree other than the caster.”

	“Like what?” Caleb asked distractedly, ducking down. A mammoth thorn pierced the table, sinking halfway through the hardwood and fortunately missing them both. 

	Scanning the ancient text Rainbow grimaced at the gravity of what the ancient mages inscribed there. The toll would be too high. “Someone… It needs someone to channel through.”

	“Use me, I’ll get close to wherever it is, and you cast the spell on me.” Caleb volunteered at once.

	“NO!” Rainbow raged, a bit to quickly than he should have. He calmed himself, his mind racing. “No, that wouldn’t work, because Darmae is standing directly over the sport where I need to cast it.” They both peered over the table edge. Sure, enough Darmae made her stand at the very heart of the council chambers, where the rot was deepest set. Thin tendrils of black smoke wafted from the scared surface, giving an almost hazy appearance to the witch. The wood, caked in foul magic pulsated against the disease, as if the tree itself fought back in vain.

	The two conspirators mulled over their limited options. Caleb eagerly proposing wildly less viable plans, and Rainbow shooting each one down. Every rebuffed plan left the boy a little surlier, and at last he threw his hands up at a loss for what to do. “How about,” he snarked irritably. “You just cast the spell on Darmae since she’s standing in the way anyhow.”

	Rainbow’s eyebrows shot up at this, admittedly unorthodox suggestion. “Actually…” The spell’s rebound could be near lethal for the conduit, he garnered that much at least from the written text. He would not risk such exposure on Caleb, but perhaps on a less willing host. One conveniently standing directly atop the target zone, blasting deadly magic at them from her hands. “That might work, which leaves only one problem. Getting close enough for me to touch her. We’d need a distraction of some kind, a big one that’ll really take her attention.”

	“Like John’s flashbangs!” Caleb suggested at once. “They’d make a rather good diversion, and we could charge forward, and you could cast the spell, and I would use the poison dagger. In tandem, we’d save the tree and finish her off.”

	“Err, yeah.” Rainbow agreed, realizing he had not shared the fatal aspects of the incantation yet. “How do we relay the plan to John?”

	“Just yell for him to throw a few explosives?”

	“Wouldn’t that negate the point of a diversion though?”

	Caleb shrugged, his battered face twisting up in annoyance. Rainbow seemed so quick to critique his plans, but not provide a suggestion of his own. “I guess, but they’re pretty concussive. Even if she knew they were coming, it would not really change anything. She still doesn’t know of our part.” A scream in the background cut their deliberations short. John’s shield finally gave way to the torrent of punishment it received crumbling into dust beneath the force of an energy blast. John flew off his feet clattering down several meters away. Cackling Darmae advanced on the fallen man, raising her hands, a spell on the tip of her tongue.

	“She’s moving.” Rainbow whispered, quite unnecessarily.

	“No time to waste, go!”

	Rainbow tried to pull the boy back to little avail. “Caleb wait we still need a distraction!”

	Boy and rablin leapt from their hiding spot, one looking quite a bit more hesitant than the other even as the chamber doors exploded off their hinges, the titanic Byures and Roger surging inside. Darmae hesitated, eyes flashing between the growing number of hostiles advancing from every angle…