[GM Post]

Unfortunate that there's no one in the immediate area that could feasibly took advantage of Ragnar's mud-soaked opening, with the elf deciding to skip ahead and went up. Veronica did the sensible move of getting the heck out, Chounan's limp form dragged along like a sack of potatoes. Her magic allowed a glimpse ahead, muscles forced beyond its physical limitations as she shot out right before the overgrowth burst and covered the entrance.

It didn't hold the northlander back for long at all. Ragnar was a walking inferno at the moment, plant matter curling and bursting aflame at the mere contact with his aura as he shoved and forced his way through. His quarries were gone into hiding by the time he passed, but then he set his sight on a different prize.

The bear druid over there, maintaining the plant growth that overtook the whole fortress.

With a ragged warcry, he stomped forward as he burned his own life.

Above, the second floor was completely devoid of life. The rooms were empty, and save for a single guest room in the far end there's no sign of magic at work either. Then the structure shook as brambles and vines grew at a pace that would give nightmare to all gardeners, obcuring the windows and plunging the indoors into pitch darkness. The growth insulated sounds as their side effect, the entire world seemingly turning silent as the cacophony from the chaos outside was greatly dampened.

Further, quite a bit further above, Asevor impassively glared at the rapidly approaching vines toward his position. He simply floated higher, knowing that the growth still had to adhere to its own physical limitations and would need an increasingly thick base to sustain its own weight. He's incapable of moving too quickly or else he'd break focus, but it was sufficient to steer clear of the increasingly desperate vines.

Then, of course, the ambushers appeared.

Only a fool fell to the same trick twice, much less in such short period. The only cover to get to his level were the vines itself, thus Asevor wasn't flustered at all. He pointed his left hand at the banshee, three rings simultaneously lit up as flame, kinetic force, and mind-flay blasted her straight in the face. The first two likely did little, and the third wont affect the basic undead, yet he lucked out that the filthy creature turned out to retain enough of her mind to be temporarily knocked senseless. Small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

Asevor's right hand finished the last trace, the spell construct pulsing into an opaque monochrome mass. Now, time to see if Xelthos' claim was as accurate as his boast.

[b][color=#778da9]"Xelthos' Servant of Death."[/color][/b]

The spell construct pulsed again, splitting into three parts before each grew and grew. In its place was tall, lanky humanoid creatures with pallid grey skin where from shoulder up instead of arms it had scraggly wings with black feather and a raven's head. The body were mostly humanlike with a distinct lack of nipples, belly button, or genital, while the leg ended in massive talons more fitting for birds of prey instead of the supposed raven theme.

[b][color=#778da9]"Defensive formation."[/color][/b]

Pompous name aside, these were mere non-sentient semi-autonomous shadow elementals. Not quite the best at direct combat, but perfect for both committing and defending against guerilla tactics. And highly resistant to physical blows, something that he'll need if he were to proceed to the next step. Something that he could get into now that the three Servants circled attentively around him.

Everything below was a lost cause. So, he'll kill everything first and proceed from there. Asevor renewed his flight magic, ditching the invisibility part before starting to trace a different construct. If anyone paid attention earlier, it's building up to be the same one that summoned the caustic fog.

As Solomon observed the decommissioned ballistae, perhaps looking around for the projectiles and whatnot, he would notice that the garret was used as a storage of some sort. The inside, however, was cleared recently of whatever junk it previously held and in its place was a rather ominous cube of steel plates with sigils and runes carved on the surface, the edifice periodically pulsating with gentle blue light yet somehow emanated zero traces of magic as if it didn't exist at all. At one side was some sort of defunct arrangement of arcane construct, a detached link of wire suggested that it was until recently connected to the box itself. If Matilda was present, she would've recognize the box as something almost exactly the same dimension as the box containing explosives earlier, while the construct next to it had high degree of similarity with the one mixed among the explosives themselves.

There's a cut section that may had been a door except that it had no handle, with a slot - similarly without handle - possibly used to deliver food and whatnot into the thing. There did not seems to be any mechanism to operate the thing.