Miko successfully tripped the first suit of armor on the left as it approached, causing it to clatter and scatter into pieces as it hit the floor, revealing nothing underneath. This was followed by Ronin throwing magical discs that bounced on the right suit of armor coming in second, hitting it right in the chestplate, and the third one on the helmet, causing it to fall off. However, disturbingly, the suit only slowed down a bit by the loss of its head piece. The fourth armor deflected the discs with a swing of its halberd, but by then it was too late: the discs now bounced between it and the second one, causing one to hit the greaves and separate it, causing it to fall, while the helmetless armor lost a gauntlet.

As Alex’ clones intercepted the suits of armor before they could hit the twins with their far-reaching weapons, the twins prepared one last maneuver: with a finishing blow of the twins twirling around like in a dance, the last armors were knocked down.
While the battle was happening, Alex got to work with his newly acquired Artifact, and struck the wall of the corridor. As he did, pieces of the wall shrunk into cube-shaped objects and assimilated into the hammer by some magical osmosis. After a couple more strikes, a hole had been opened up into the wine cellar, to the surprise of the group inside.

[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/72bEcUi.png[/img][/center]

Lily screamed in surprise as the wall was brought down.

[color=fff200]”Whoah! Not what I expected.”[/color] However, her surprise faded quickly as she heard loud clanging and the twins attack, realizing a battle was unfolding. 
[color=fff200]”But I’ll take it! Let’s go, Gaia and Connie! Oh, and Branch Nose too!”[/color]
When she got out and witnessed the twins two-handedly defeat the enemy sentries, she blinked in surprise.
[color=fff200]”Oh, nice work!”[/color]

However, by the time the group had reconvened, the twins noticed the pieces of armor shaking on the floor, and realized they weren’t done yet: the pieces rolled and hopped around, and began slowly rebuilding themselves. Lily took aim with her bow, drawing on the crackling bowstring and launching a shot at a chest piece, but it did not hamper the animated piece at all. She puffed up her cheeks in frustration.

[color=fff200]”They keep respawning!”[/color] Lily cried. She nodded to Alicia’s suggestion, and kicked a piece of leg armor off of a boot it hopped on.

[color=fff200]”Okay, let’s do that!”[/color]

“These other doors,” Branch Nose chimed in. “I suspect they only lead to the dining hall and kitchen, if this truly is a castle. The path I recommend is-”

[color=fff200]”We’re going up, I got it!”[/color] Lily answered, and ran past the slowly regenerating armors to reach the stairs, having seemingly forgotten to stay and fight in her impulsiveness.

[hr]
The Gryphon saw at the last second as Rachel came in with a downward-aimed blow with her mighty hammer, and attempted grabbing it with a beastly foreclaw, reinforcing herself with Beast magic to the point her muscles visibly bulged and trembled. The resulting impact, though lessened, still caused the bones in the forearm to crack and bend the limb. At the same time, Mayra took her chance, and charged in with a dropkick akin to a falling meteor, wreathed in dark flame. The Gryphon responded by folding a wing and similarly reinforcing it with beast magic, turning it spiny with sharp bones and vicious feathers. However, it proved futile before the strongest of Mariette’s posse, and the dropkick pierced through the wing, incurring only minor lacerations as the limb was punctured, the feathers set aflame.

The Gryphon screamed as it started falling in a wild spin, trying to correct herself with a combination of her remaining wing and Air magic. Rachel stood on a platform holding the bloodied hammer, and for the first time smiled at Mayra.
“You performed adequately…For the servant of a Horror,” she added with an adjustment of her glasses. 

Down below, the additional reinforcements from Mac and MDP quickly turned the tide against the royalist defenders. MDP protected her marine allies with transforming spells, the enemy projectiles poofing into party paraphernalia and knocking out any soldiers in range with her staff, thus rendering them harmless. Others were petrified by Mac’s steed or trampled underfoot, occasionally swinging around one with a beak before throwing them into the masses. 

Soon the spike-ridden, mauled, and pathetically hopping soldiers began to rout and flee from the castle battlements.
“Huzzah! We are victorious-” Mermaid Princess began to cheer, when a resounding sonic boom suddenly shot out: it was Gryphon, who now launched herself upwards like a fighter jet, glowing with green and yellow in a swirling vortex. 

“IT’S NOT OVER YET, FOOLS! YOU ARE TO FACE THE WRATH…OF THE JABBERWOCK!”

When the wounded commander reached the top of the tallest tower, it latched on with its remaining claws…And with a caw, began to grow, and grow…And grow, until its wings blackened the skies themselves, casting the world below into shade. She had transformed so huge that the castle itself seemed but a toy in comparison, and the Mahou mere grains of sand. Its two eyes, like twin suns of fire, glowed from above. Storm winds began picking up, and as they did, a haunting song carried across them:

“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
      Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
      And the mome raths outgrabe.”

Then, one of the merman soldiers noticed that something had dropped from the sky as it was stared at by the Jabberwock, slicing it in the arm: it was a sword-shaped bone, with a sharp edge that dug itself deep into the earth, only stopped by the cross-shaped hilt, like an ominous monument.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
      The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
      The frumious Bandersnatch!"

Then, a couple more bones dropped, and one of them hit a shark that had the burning gaze cast upon it, slicing its side as easily as a hot butter cut through sashimi.

“He took his vorpal sword in hand;
      Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
      And stood awhile in thought.”

And then, more bones began dropping, and more, each barrage foreshadowed by the orange light of the Jabberwock’s gaze.

“And, as in uffish thought he stood,
      The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
      And burbled as it came!”

As more vorpal sword bones fell, both the merman forces and the newly made allies were soon dependent on MDP’s protective magic, especially as soon they dropped faster and faster, until a rain of vorpal death ensued. Rachel was aghast as it created a barrier around herself and Mayra, a grimace on her lips.
“The fiend is unleashing its ultimate attack!”

[hr]
The queen smiled in a sinister fashion as her request was followed up on by the majority of the formerly blind servants, and even gave a fleeting glance at Mika as she asked about unbirthdays. “Unbirthdays are wonderful, festive days. There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents, and only one for birthday presents. They are days to be celebrated. In fact, it is my unbirthday too, as it is yours.”
The queen had waited for the group to travel, and gently nudged Mariette through the portal when she stopped to glance back at Freya. She then saw the horrific guardian the ice Mahou had prepared to guard the next mirror…And a grin that would put the Cheshire Cat to shame appeared on her rose-colored lips.

“Yes…What a marvellous split.” She opened a second portal underneath Freya, dropping her to the middle of the icy chamber. “Freya, the Union Beast…Once one with Shelyn…Beast within…” 

She raised her Storyslayer.

“...Beast without.”

Then, she swung downward, vertically bisecting Freya in two symmetrical halves. Like with her decapitations, there was no blood, but a black, inky surface where the cut was formed. But unlike then, now the black ink bubbled, and soon overtook the forms of Freya’s halves. Then, beams of black light shot out from the black masses one by one, until they exploded in twin blasts of darkness, revealing a new Freya, free from Shelyn, who now had her own form.

“Now then, to show me gratitude, you shall deal with this brutish oaf,” she commanded the two, pointing at the icy monster that gradually started to stir from hibernation with low growls. As she was doing this, visibly distracted, Mariette was left with a quick moment to talk privately with Mika and Su.

[hr]
Chloe learned that the flower people seemed to have been born from the magical curses embedded into the Grief Seeds, now activated as mana began to be drained from Penrose. To make matters worse, the spores seemed to sprout even more of these flowers, taking root in impossible places like on top of roofs or even on telephone lines, not to mention what awful effects must happen to those who breathe the magically contaminated air. Fortunately, it was not all bad news, as Chloe was then contacted by Viper:
“Bad news, I was found out: there were more Hearts with Third Eye than expected. Good news, they lost the trail. What’s the next order, boss?”