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Getting past the guards prove to be a challenge for the group. Realizing that the two creating the barriers are the only things keeping the rest of their group alive a lot of the incoming arrows are aimed at just those two. Kree explains that the barriers aren't strong enough to handle both the demon pulse and keep objects out since they're working solely to neutralize the effects of the pulse. Thus whenever an arrow enters one of the two barriers it starts flying normally again, making them focus on stopping the arrows before they get inside the barrier.

Knowing arrows aren't going to help much in this particular situation, the guards start making their way towards the barriers. The group fights valiantly but some more of them fall in the skirmish. After they manage to kill all the guards only Nathanriel, Angylia, Bob, Kree and Juul remain of their original dozen. Thankfully Angylia has been able to treat any of their minor injuries they have had to deal with but she's starting to look rather worn out. A light up ahead puts them on guard, though more because the force of air is getting stronger, almost to the point of making ripples and cracks within the barrier walls, Whatever's creating the pulse is near.

They come into a sort of large lobby-like area, except that it looks completely empty of just about everything. It is effectively just one big empty room with a few piles of something or other smoking on the ground. The cracks are starting to grow bigger on the two barriers, letting them know that they're getting close to being broken. All that is in this room are four individuals. One is a rather fat looking human with a little girl being held in front of him at knife point, both currently being protected by a solid gold colored barrier of some sort. On the other side of the girl are two figures, one the group all recognize as the Kinal from the armory and another Kinal that is similarly black furred and female though without any of the white markings. The one from the armory is sitting in the ground holding a pose while the other one is making sport of the fat man's barrier.

The sitting Kinal looks over in their direction and then stands up, the demon pulse suddenly stops, the sudden change causing both barriers to break. With the thick air gone the fat man pushes a button hidden on the floor and a large blast of magic shoots out at the two in incredible speeds, the blast large enough that it is large enough to hit both even before exploding but the all black Kinal just raises a hand and catches it before it dissolves back into nothingness. She then smirks and creates a small cone of something completely black and then shoots it at the barrier.

The attack stops at the barrier but then it doubles in size and shatters the barrier. The man holds the girl closer to himself, the dagger poised to cut her throat but the all black one just grins and flicks a finger and a large hole explodes out from the girl's chest, killing her instantly. The man staggers back a few minutes, dropping the dagger in an act of surrender.

"I'll give you anything you want, so long as you let me go."

"Silly human, you think we'd be so easily swayed?" the all black one laughs.

The one from the armory is suddenly behind the man, none of the group noticing she even really moved at all. She raises an arm at him and before he even notices she's the air around him begins to warp at his feet. From the looks of things it almost seems like somehow this other Kinal has managed to make a snake out of the very air itself, but as it coils it cuts as well, creating a slow spiral of blood up his entire body. Nathanriel notices that it seems to emit the same sound as a simple wind spell someone from his hometown used to know. The man begins blubbering and pleading all the higher when it gets to his chest but neither of the two seem to really care and the snake made out of wind magic keeps rising and when it gets to his throat it seems to cut all the deeper, deep enough that his life blood seems to start to flow very freely onto the ground. The snake stops cutting but prevents any motion of his body until he collapses from blood loss and then lets him go completely.

The one from the armory begins moving to the nearest wall before seeming to walk right through it and disappearing through one of the shadows of that wall. The other one looks over at them with an amused look and after a split second Angylia cries out and crumbles to the ground, clutching at her stomach as the all black Kinal laughs and heads to the same point the other one had disappeared from. The rest of them quickly turn and try to make sure Angylia's okay, terrified that maybe the other one had put a bomb into her like what happened at the armory. But she seems completely fine and after a moment or two manages to finally recover.

"What happened, boss? Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Angylia stammers, clearly still shaken up. "It must have been an illusion or something. I could have sworn that that second one had move in close to us at a speed I couldn't even follow and had reached a hand into me and pulled out my intestines. But as far as I can tell I'm still okay. Where did they go?"

"I don't know and frankly don't really care," Kree responds. "Those two are obviously very dangerous and the less we have to do with them the better."

"Can we go already? I'd really like to let Gin run around a bit in the free air before un-summoning her," Bob complains.

"Uh, yeah. Sure. If this is the lobby it should be easy enough to exit from here," Nathanriel states, trusting that if he was about to go the wrong way that the Voice would correct him.

The exit is very easy for them to find. Not only because there aren't many doors to pick from in this room to begin with but contrasting to the scent of blood and rust and old, dry dirt the aroma of fresh air and wet grass coming from behind one of the doors makes it very clear that that is going to be their way out of this place once and for all. After Bob has made sure that the door isn't warded or otherwise trapped they step through and enter the hallway beyond, a light growing at the end with the promise of their freedom This entryway has paintings all along the two walls showing various fighters with writing below each one. But Nathanriel doesn't care. Even though they never got around to throwing him in the fighting arena like they had done with Kree and Juul, he's still glad to have this chapter of his life, however short it is, to be over with.

Of course, he rationalizes, the first two things he'll need to do once getting free is to find some sort of civilization and then find the means to acquire some more Anrisil. The dose he had taken earlier should hold him for a day, maybe two at most before he'd start going through withdrawl. As they reach the outside Nathanriel has to shield his eyes from the light.

Once he's gotten used to how much brighter it is out here he quickly looks to see if their vampire is able to get out as well or if they'll need to come up with some sort of way to smuggle her away until nighttime but when he looks over to her she seems perfectly fine. Nathanriel shrugs and joins in the rather relieved laughter at the prospect of finally being free and out of that death hole. It is while celebrating that Juul seems to sprout an arrow out of his chest. At the sight Nathanriel and Kree take a defensive stance in front of the group while Bob and Angylia try to do what they can with the badly injured demon.

Yet even with all of their attention forwards watching for any sign of motion they could not detect any sign of what fired that arrow or even that any more arrows are coming. Making the call not to take his attention away from trying to find any sign of anyone but the five of them in this forest, Nathanriel can still hear Angylia and Bob fighting to keep Juul alive though it's clearly a losing battle. Not only is Angylia almost completely drained of all of her magic but when they remove the arrow so that she could treat the wound they can smell a very strong poison coming from it, one that Nathanriel guesses could only be treated by either a master healer far beyond Angylia's abilities or to have that exact antidote handy. So instead Angylia's using her ability to numb the pain as best she can.

"I'm sorry, Boss," Juul sputters between a few coughs, a gurgling sound accompanying his voice as he's apparently trying to speak through blood building up in his lungs. "I was unable to keep my promise to you after all."

Juul starts convulsing after a few more seconds and a moment after that there is nothing but silence. Only the sound of the wind blowing through the trees and Angylia's quiet sobs.

"Do either of you see anything?" Bob asks a moment later.

"I can't see anything. Either it's long gone or is so far away that even my eyes cannot pick it up."

"Could it have been a trap?" Nathanriel asks, remembering the wards in the pit.

"No," Angylia replies, standing up and brushing herself off, "If it were a trap either it would have hit all of us by now or at the very least missed a few times, or it would have aimed at where it would have expected to hit someone at which case it would have aimed too high to hit Juul where it did."

"Meaning someone out there is a very good shot and the only reason that we're still alive is that either they only wanted Juul dead or they need a long time to get us into their sights again."

"Either way," Angylia states, "our best bet is to keep moving and get as far away as possible."

"Well in that case I'm going to take my leave here," Kree comments as she rocks her shoulders back a bit, eliciting a few cracks from her joints.

"Will we ever see each other again?" Nathanriel asks while offering a hand to Kree, his head still faced towards the rest of the forest in case another attack comes.

"Who knows, maybe," she shrugs, a motion made all the more strange by the fact that she seems to be growing larger by the second. She lets out a loud squawk and heaves forward onto all fours. "I have to return to my people first and let them know that I'm alive and safe. But after that, who knows. It would be a possibility that I would be honored to happen," she raises a talon and grabs Nathanriel's extended hand gingerly and shakes it, making sure that her grip isn't anywhere close to piercing his skin.

By the time that she's grown to almost three times her original size a pair of feathery wings unfolds from her back and a moment later she stretches as if was confined in a tight place for a while before launching herself a split second later into the air and flies off to the south west. Nathanriel watches her fly, noting how no arrows come after her and noticing how with each flap of her wings there is a faint but noticeable tone in the air, one that is actually very similar to the tone generated by that snake thing the other Kinal created.

Though he would have preferred to have been able to give Juul a proper burial, with potentially a marksman just waiting to kill another of them they decide they don't have the luxury of such a thing. And they can't exactly afford to have one person drag him with them until they can find a safe place to do it later on for much the same reason.

"So what do you think he meant by not keeping his promise?" Bob asks a few moments later, once they were pretty sure that by this point they're not likely being followed.

"Don't know, though if I had to guess he was probably talking about a promise to reunite with a lover or a family member," Angylia sighs. "Either way I'm sure he'll be missed by someone out there. It's a shame we didn't know more about him or we would have been able to tell them personally how he died instead of having to spend the rest of their lives wondering."