Glissandi sagged down through her knees, her strength utterly expelled. She had barely any energy left to be angry at herself. She had messed up, thoroughly. Sure, her teachers had haunted her for years that she needed to control her strength, needed to use less, not show off just how impossibly large her reserves were, but just because she had buried those final reserves and had nearly forgotten about them due to years of training, didn't mean it excused her for not using them when it actually mattered.

Worse than that was the simple fact that she had panicked. Retreated in fear. She was a servant of the Light and the Lord! Yet she had cowered in fear from the Dark as it encroached on her. Had wanted nothing more than to flee for her life, so she could live. If the witch had left her an opportunity, Glissandi feared that her frightened mind would have gladly taken it. In her blind desire to live she had abandoned her duty, her friends, her ideals, everything she stood for! She had been a selfish coward.

It wasn't until Trista had jumped in to save her, giving her an opportunity to strike back, that Glissandi had gathered her wits again. It had been too late for the Knight though. A powerful mage had no trouble dealing with a Knight, no matter how tough or resilient they may be.

"Oh Lord, Trista!" she shouted, thoughts of the Knight jumping back to the front of her mind. She turned her head, scanning the walls for where the brave woman had been blasted through and saw the two Squires running towards her. She tried to stand and found that her legs refused to work. Growling at herself with irritation, she attempted it again, but her body was devoid of energy after her last attack and her limbs went numb. She saw the cobblestones approaching her face quickly when the Squires caught her at the last moment.

"Priestess, are you alright?" one of the Squires asked, her face hidden in the shadows cast from her helmet.

"Mira?" Glissandi struggled to make out which one of the twins it was. To her they were still indistinguishable from one another.

"Mina, Priestess," the girl corrected, "but it is no matter. Are you alright?"

"Tired... I... Is Trista—"

"I don't know," came a soft response from the other side.

'That must be Mira then,' the Priestess thought.

"Paladin Lissa is going to check on her." It was obvious from the tone of the girl's voice that she was fraught with worry over the Knight's fate. "Her armour should have kept the magic from penetrating her, but the impact on itself..." Mira trailed off, leaving the verdict unspoken. Glissandi did not need to see the girl's aura to hear the tinge of hope being drowned out in a sea of desperation. The Priestess closed her eyes and was not ashamed when she felt hot tears trail down her face.

"Trista!" shouted Lissa. A large beam blocked her passage, jutting down from the ceiling. The angry Paladin did not waste time trying to squirm around it, instead using her sword to slice through it, causing the heavy wooden barricade to drop down as she cleared out the passage. She did not fight against her anger, choosing to let it flow through her instead. She drew on it as a source to let her move faster, act more efficiently. The thoughts that accompanied the anger she locked away. She let them fester on their own while the active part of her mind focused on the objective. She could still hear them, but they mattered little to her.

There were plenty of those dark thoughts fuelling her anger, however, and she knew she would need to face them sooner rather than later, lest they'd grow to influence her judgement. As her arms pulled more debris out of the way, her innate strength further boosted with her armour's abilities, she focused on them momentarily. Yes, the Priestess had panicked. There was a reason to be angry with her, but on the other hand the opponent had been the strongest witch the Paladin had ever seen. Skillful beyond compare, on top of the foul woman's considerable ability. In truth, she could not blame the Priestess. She had been untested in combat and had held her own. Any other Priestess she had travelled with in the past would have died in mere moments. Yet, redirecting your anger and hate at a dead bitch wasn't quite as cathartic as aiming it at the living.

The debris finally gave way and she dismissed those thoughts, storming through the opening into the next house.

"Damn woman! How many walls did you fly through?" It was a shout without anger. The Knight had performed admirably, displayed bravery without shying away from the risks. She had assaulted a mage, willingly walking to her death, and had given her all to delay that final moment as much as possible so that she may fulfil her duty just a bit longer. She had succeeded. The witch had been distracted, wounded, and given the penultimate scare of her life. She silently prayed to the Lord, hoping against all reasons that the Knight would still be alive. That she still could be saved.

Even if she knew better.

Her training kicked in just as she was about to storm through the next barrier of debris. She had heard something. She changed the angle of her sword and took off in a sprint, crashing through the handful of planks that blocked her way and rolling into the next room. In a blink she pulled her shield up to cover her, wary of an enemy attack. In the next she let her eyes flash over the scene, taking in information. Trista on the ground, half her armour gone, massive bruises all over her body. Looming over her, an incredibly tall man, hidden in a coat, pieces of her armour laying on a neat pile next to him.

Grave robber! her mind screamed at her. With a loud roar, she jumped back to her feet and launched herself forward, her shield to her side and her sword aimed at the man's centre mass in a powerful thrust. The man stood up, swifter than she had assumed, but she had fought Trolls before and her sword's tip followed the movement. The Paladin crossed the distance in an instant when the man moved once again. A large hand, covered in bark, jumped forth from his coat and grabbed the sword. Lissa's expectations were shattered when the man's hand remained intact, despite that her blade could cut through magic with ease, and he actually pushed her sword aside. Rather than try to free her blade, which would leave her open for a counterattack, she brought her shield up andslid her left foot forward, pulling on her blade to use it as a counterweight, before smashing the heavy shield into the man's side. She saw his other arm flash up in a desperate attempt to ward it off, and she grinned.

Then the tremendous impact forced the man to take several steps to the side and the gust of wind it created blew the man's hood off. Except it was not a man at all.

Glowing green eyes, embedded deeply in a skin of rough bark, stared at her. Her eyes flashed down, to the hand holding onto her blade. Green fluids slowly dripped from it, glowing slightly in the ill-lit interior of the house. She was not facing a man at al!. She didn't even know what manner of creature this was. It towered above her, its strength more than a match for hers, given that even the blow with the shield didn't seem to faze it. Then the smell hit her. The scent of herbs, of earth, of water, of nature. She hadn't noticed it before, but it was dense and powerful, this close to the being.

"Cease your violence, human," the being's voice rumbled in a deep bass. It was the sound of roots breaking stone. "Or your companion will not survive."

Lissa's determination, which had wavered momentarily, flared back up. She moved closer, intending on using her shield as leverage to pull her sword free, when she felt the being's arm push against her shield. It seemed a lazy, casual move, as if one would swat a fly, but it sent her tumbling backwards. She let go of her sword, knowing that if she held on she'd fall, leaving her at his mercy.

She got her bearing back in moments and pulled out a mace, knowing a sword would do little good against a being with bark this tough, and prepared to advance again when she realised the creature was ignoring her again. Instead, his thick fingers were delicately dismantling Trista's armour once again, revealing more of her torn gambeson and the bruises underneath. At the same time she noticed that the Knight's chest wasn't moving, and that her eyelids were wide open. The Knight was staring up into the void, her eyes broken, devoid of life.

"You—" she commenced, before the being interrupted her.

"Mostly trauma induced to the violent physical impact. Organs have taken severe damage, but not beyond repair. Armour obviously mitigated most of the damage, so nothing is pierced. Eyelids have shown little reaction when I first arrived, so a heavy concussion is likely. Given the damage from her armour, she took heavy blows all over. Honestly I am surprised she was not torn apart by that storm. Oh, she also is without a pulse."

Lissa paused. The being's voice and demeanor reminded her of the medics in the Order. It carried that sort of inherent, irrefutable authority.

The being kept dismantling the armour as he turned to her. "You humans would very likely describe her as clinically dead. Her mind has not yet given up the fight, however, even if only a flicker is remaining. You are quite fortunate I was keeping an eye out on Cassandra and saw what happened."

Lissa opened her mouth to speak when the final piece of armour was tossed aside. The being spread his large hand open, hooked his fingers at the base of Trista's gambeson and casually moved his hand from her legs towards her head, the bark slicing through it all as if it were a sharp knife, leaving the Knight bare.

Lissa put down her mace, deciding to trust her instincts. The being behaved exactly like the medics did. Factual, distant, barely aware of what happened around them when they focused on a patient. She did not know what manner of creature it was, hadn't even heard of something that looked similar to it, but she didn't care very much either. It mattered little, in the end. What mattered was that Trista was dead. Except that the being acted as if that was but a minor hindrance.

Having stripped the Knight of all her clothing, the full extent of the damage she had taken became visible. Ugly bruises, of all shapes and colours, dotted the Knight's body. There were plenty of scars on them as well, from previous engagements, especially around the face and neck, from where Lissa knew she had been hit by a Troll before, and they stood out all the more on the plethora of colours that covered nearly every inch of her skin. The being seemed unperturbed by the state of the Knight, however, and simply spread his fingers on her body, lightly pressing the tips down against her skin. Seeing just how massive his hands were compared to the Knight's body made her realise the actual size of the creature. The coat had hidden it well, but it was nearly twice as tall as she was. Observing it carefully, she discovered that it was bending over. If it fully stood up, it was likely to be taller than a Troll.

A gentle, green light flooded from his fingers and seeped into Trista, pulling Lissa's attention back. The light was almost liquid in nature. It pooled in a few places on her skin, before being sucked through the pores. It slipped into her veins, flowing through them. All of them lit up in that same calming, strangely peaceful green colour. The bruises diminished at an astonishing pace. The yellow, blue and purple colours rapidly fading back to the normal pink. Scars lit up as beacons in the night as the light engulfed them and seemed to struggle with them, before giving up and moving further along her body. The being moved his fingers, guiding the light through her body. As his one hand moved down, the other moved towards her head.

"Fluids pooling in her cranial cavity. The pressure would kill her. Few of you humans are capable of operating on this. Your magic can fix it, but most of you do not know how it works. It is a sad thing." The being's eyes turned towards Lissa for a moment, and genuine sadness seemed to pool there, immeasurably deep. Then he returned his focus towards Trista.

Lissa looked on curiously when he held the Knight's head in his massive palm, and spread two fingers wide, one against each of her ears. She shouted, jumping up, when small roots shot forth from his tips and disappeared into the Knight's head. She felt no urge to stop him, but that did not make looking at the process any less disturbing. She resisted the urge to clasp her hands over her own ears and felt a shiver run down her spine, an emotion she thought she had left behind decades ago.

The roots started to swells lightly as they turned red. The Paladin realised that these must be the fluids that the being mentioned before. After a brief moment the flow stopped, and the green light appeared in its place, flowing into the Knight's head this time. Lissa usually prided herself on being hard to perturb, but when the Knight's skull started glowing green, she could not help but describe the sight of it as beyond eerie, despite the light itself being soothing. There was just something about the sight of a human's head being lit up like a magic lamp that seemed incredibly off.

Then the roots pulled out of her head, disappearing back into the being's fingers. Lissa looked up and down at the Knight's body and realised that it had returned to normal. Gone were the bruises and damage. Yet the Knight's eyes were still broken, devoid of life. The being leaned over her, bringing his lips onto hers with a tender care. Seconds ticked by as Lissa could only stare on helplessly, when all of a sudden the being withdrew himself at the same instance that Trista jumped up, coughing loudly. The Paladin barely noticed the dark brown flecks of spit that came from the Knight's mouth, as she took the younger woman in a crushing hug, leaving the freshly revived Knight gasping for breath.

The being pulled the two apart instantly however. "Allow her to get her bearings!" he lectured the Paladin sternly. Lissa, instinctively submitting to the voice of medical authority, nodded politely and pulled back. She looked at the being instead, curiously. She had fought side by side with some non-humans before, who were allies of the Light. It seemed this being was one of them. That was not a matter for the Warriors of the Order to discern though. Perhaps the Priestess would know more. For now, she was more than content that Trista was still alive.

The being slowly leaned back from a still coughing Trista, who from the looks of things seemed utterly lost. The deep, green eyes focused on Lissa.

"Well then, I believe we should have a chat about some things. Namely Cassandra, the woman you just murdered on the square."