The sudden silence inside Rodyr’s estate was almost overwhelming to Skrakch’s ears. It was disturbed only by the sounds of combat coming from the corpse pile in the center of the room where the two Chosen were still locked in mortal combat.

Shakily lifting a paw, Skrakch pulled a healing potion from his bandolier, popped the cork top, and then drained it in one big gulp. The thick, bitter liquid burned his throat on the way down but, thankfully, the damnable potion was effective. There was a limit to self-healing properties, but it's effects on his body mostly took care of the smaller, minor wounds as they knitted themselves together without him even noticing. The potion was quick to do its job and the Ratling could feel the strength returning to his limbs.

Crawling toward Meekknuckle, Skrakch grabbed another potion from his stock and forced it down the diminutive Goblin’s throat. He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself at Meek’s rather flustered reaction to the taste.

Skrakch looked up to see that Ornn was lumbering his way toward them. It seemed like things were finally looking up. Sure, Skrakch had practically zero Mana left and Meekknuckle looked like he’d drained any semblance of power, but at least they still had the Golem. Even if the said silent guardian appeared to be missing an arm. Still, even a one-armed Golem was better than nothing.

Although Ornn did look very worse for wear. As the Golem moved closer, Skrakch could see that not only had he lost an arm, but large chunks of his body were also missing, huge chunks ripped out of his torso.

It seemed that the battle between the Construct and Rodyr had reduced much of Ornn’s body into ruined rubble. Deep gouges crisscrossed the Golem’s chest, some of them seemed scarily deep. In fact, Skrakch could see a bright purple light emanating from some of the worst wounds. Golemancy wasn’t exactly the Ratling’s area of expertise but it didn’t take a genius to realize the shining light was coming from the innermost part of Ornn’s body.

Just like he had after Winifred had crushed his arms, Ornn would no doubt be able to recover from his wounds in time. The rubble that made up most of the Construct’s mass was actually pretty irrelevant. What really mattered was the heart. Skrakch just had to hope it was still completely intact. Although a one-armed Golem was still better than nothing at all, it wasn’t the most promising of situations for the coming confrontation with Survix’s possessed form.

Thankfully, the Golem didn’t seem in any way hindered or perturbed by the loss. It seemed more concerned with Meek, who was currently struggling to his feet, leaning heavily against Ornn’s thick stone leg.

Skrakch took stock of the situation, eyes flickering around him, he had to admit he may have been a little too optimistic thinking that things were looking up. Sure, he wasn’t trapped in some weird magical void anymore but the trio of Rogues weren’t exactly at their best.

Winifred appeared to be holding her own with the Chosen Shade though Skrakch was beginning to have his doubts that, even with her Pact, her blows were doing much harm to the Demoness.

Each of Winifred's blows were thrown with enough force to crush stone or warp metal, and yet Survix was recovering from the attacks at an increasingly quicker speed. There was little left of her Demoness body, her body twisted beyond mortal standards. At this point she was mostly tentacles, each with twirling blade-like appendages ending in sharpened edges that looked dangerous enough to eviscerate someone with a simple, accidental cut…

That being said, Winifred seemed to be able to dodge the blows with relative ease. Hells, even the ones that landed on her form seemed to barely scratch her. The former Pit Fighter was a blur of motion that Skrakch was struggling to follow with his bleary eyes. Her every movement seemed to lead to an explosion of the Shade’s flesh as tendrils practically popped under her fists.

And yet, none of this seemed to be slowing down or deterring the Shade’s onslaught of attacks. Skrakch had never seen such a thing before. It barely twitched from the powerful blows and each exploded tendril was replaced in seconds by a new one popping from its stump, its blade-like attachments shining.

Even more concerning was the fact that the Shade had yet to invoke its Pact. They needed to back Winifred up, the sooner the better. Skrakch had no idea how long Chosen could rely on their Crux, but the way that Winifred was expending her energy… it likely wasn’t going to be too long before she ran that well dry.

Staggering woozily to his feet, Skrakch pulled loose a vial of Wujeeta’s Pacifying Brew from his trusty bandolier.

“I’ll just lob a few of these in,” He muttered to himself. “Gods Above know I can’t miss”

Before he could start to edge his way closer to the fight, he felt stubby fingers close around his wrist. Skrakch looked down to see Meek, the cowardly Goblin's eyes saucer-like with fear.

“Wait! You no hear that?” The Goblin whispered, his eyes moving toward the entrance to the Arena, his expression wary. “Listen!”

Taking a second to strain his ears, Skrakch shook off the Goblin’s grip. He had enough trouble hearing anything other than the thudding of his heart. But… yes… Meek was right. There was something, ringing out in the distance. The sound was subtle enough but it was starting to get louder by the second.

It sounded like… pure destruction. Skrakch could hear wood splintering and metal being torn apart. The sounds were echoing down the Fighter’s entrance, getting closer and closer to the Arena. Carpets were being ripped up…furniture was being smashed to pieces… vases shattering as they hit the ground… Whatever was causing them was big and, worryingly, picking up speed as they closed in.

Skrakch took a wary step behind Ornn. If it was another Ghoul hoarder… the Trio were well and truly fucked. The Ratling wasn’t even sure they’d be able to make a run for it, not as tired and depleted as they were. He glared at the scepter of Fireballs that was lying by his feet. A quick thread of Mana channeled toward the magical artifact told him that the damn thing was still out of juice, not that Skrakch truly expected anything else.

Life was rarely that simple, groused the Ratling as he stared towards the direction of the incoming noise was coming from.

Nodding towards Meek, Skrakch raised his claws and took cover behind a particularly large piece of debris, carefully tucking himself out of sight. If they were going to have to fight, he wasn’t going to make it easy!

Meek motioned wordlessly to Ornn and the damaged Construct planted himself in front of his Goblin friend. Skrakch braced himself to deal with another onslaught of rabid Ghouls. He wasn’t exactly sure how they were going to handle it, but hiding would give them a chance, albeit a slight one, at escaping without being spotted.

From his new vantage point, Skrakch saw the doorway to the Arena crash open in an impressive spray of timber and splinters.

The Ratling could only make out a bloody smear as the object… creature?… whatever it was barrelled toward him with such speed that it seemed to bounce erratically before coming to a rest. At first, Skrakch couldn’t place the damned thing, until he realized that he wasn’t looking at a mundane item, but rather the crumpled heap of a Halfling-sized body, one arm twisted behind its back.

“What in the Hells?” Skrakch muttered to himself as he carefully poked his head out from behind his cover. He gingerly crept forward, keeping one eye on the body but making sure to check the now burst-open doorway.

He reached out a paw and prodded the only part of the flesh that he could see, a tear in the shoulder of the leather coat the body was wearing.

“Zacharias?”

Rather impressively, it appeared that the Halfling was still conscious. The Thief shakily opened his good eye as he struggled to move his battered limbs. Zacharias’ mouth worked silently as he struggled to speak, his one working arm grabbing hold of Skrakch’s wrist as the Ratling hurried to pull another healing potion from his bandolier.

Even as he lay on the stone floor, blood slowly streaming from the open wounds scattered across his body, Zacharias’ scarred face formed a mocking grin as his eyes locked with Skrakch’s.

“Bought ya some time…. didn’t I Squeakers?... I reckon… we need to get out of here…”

Tilting the potion to Zacharias’ lips, Skrakch awkwardly shuffled to the side as Meekknuckle made his way over to the duo with Ornn close on his heels. The Goblin’s right hand was glowing white as he struggled to channel his Divine healing into the prone thief’s body.

“Meek not think stupid Half-Man in danger,” He spoke up after a moment, focusing intently as he directed his healing magic toward the more threatening of the Halfling’s wounds. “But… Meek not sure-"

Practically tackling the diminutive Goblin to the ground, Skrakch clamped a paw down on Meek’s mouth in a sudden burst of movement. The startled Goblin struggled to free himself, Ornn stepping towards them threateningly, that was until he realized why he’d been shut up so quickly.

Skrakch’s focus was back on the doorway that Zacharias’ had broken through merely seconds ago. Originally, the fear had been another pack of Ghouls but this… this stunned the Ratling.

The doorway that had comfortably allowed passage to the nearly ten-foot-tall Ornn, was currently completely blocked off by what appeared to be two massive clawed hands. They scrabbled as they reached through the hole, blindly grasping at the open area near the entrance.

The colossal hands were covered in innumerable scars and stitches, topped off with long, pale fingers that were the length of a large sailing vessel. The fingers ended with thick curved claws that were as long and deadly looking as the scimitars the Arid Gangs were known to carry. More concernedly, the flesh seemed to be writhing unnaturally as the hands jerked to and fro.

With a sick feeling in his stomach, Skrakch noted the odd bit of flesh that stuck out from the palms and backs of the monstrous hands. These grasping bits of flesh were smaller, more naturally sized pairs of hands that were blindly groping just like the oversized ones they were connected to.

Breath caught in his throat, Skrakch jerked into motion, grabbing Meek by the shoulder and shoving him backward toward the ruined Arena floor. Grabbing Zacharias’ body next by the back of the Halfling's jacket, the Iskrin began tugging his prone companion further from the door, ignoring his occasional groans of pain as he was dragged across the uneven and debris-littered stone. Even as panicked as he was, Skrakch refused to break eye line toward this new threat, stumbling backward with hurried steps.

The two gargantuan hands appeared to finish their fruitless search and still momentarily. For a beat, Skrakch hoped that whatever was on the other side of the door would simply move on, satisfied there was nothing of interest for it in the ruined Arena.

Instead, the hands grabbed onto the stone doorway and began to heave, the walls crumpling as though they were made of paper beneath its powerful grip.

“Watch... the damned thing's... tongue...” Zacharias’ heaved out in a raspy voice, trying to shift himself into a more comfortable position. He was blinking rapidly, obviously trying to force himself to stay conscious.

Turning back to the door, Skrakch watched in growing horror as the entrance fully broke away, revealing a huge, hulking form that hauled itself through the enlarged opening in the wall. It had torn a hole almost fourteen feet high and wide and yet, the creature still seemed to be struggling as though it was a tight fit.

The first proper look at the monstrosity making its way into the Arena made every single drop of blood in Skrakch’s body run cold. One of the hands disappeared from sight but, in turn, the creature’s other arm reached fully into the room. Grisly scars ran wild across this meaty, snakeline arm which was dotted between open festering wounds. The arm itself was as long as the tallest building in Dray’Mel and an equally huge shoulder followed it through the entrance as the creature continued to wrestle with the opening it had created.

The neck followed the shoulder as the creature stuffed itself through the entrance, contorted itself just to fit. The head followed the neck and, if Skrakch wasn’t so frozen with utter terror, he would’ve vomited on the spot. The colossal moon-like face had malformed human features. Where its nose should be, there were two bloody holes, maggots and bits of necrotic flesh leaked from the two open wounds, filling the entire Arena with the unmistakable stench of rot. Pale grey, lipless skin was stretched across an open mouth that would’ve had no trouble swallowing Ornn whole. Its jagged, rotten teeth were sharp and broken, each one as large as a regular human male.

Worse than that, however, were the huge empty eye sockets. The black voids stripped the creature of any kind of emotion and as the head came into full view, Skrakch could see that they weren’t empty sockets at all but rather filled with pulsing veins and dark, almost black, blood that dripped down the creature’s face. Each droplet seemed to be viciously acidic, causing an audible sizzle as they fell to the floor.

Once the new arrival finished pulling itself through the hole in the wall, it staggered onto its misshaped feet and let out an otherworldly wail, the sheer volume of the noise hitting Skrakch like a physical blow, rocking him back on his feet.

Just looking at the humongous, vile creature was enough to make Skrakch lose his nerve and the sight of Meekknuckle’s cowering form to his right was completely understandable. He’d thought that he’d planned for every eventuality… some Ghouls? Sure. The Chosen Shade being the toughest character they’d come across? Expected. But to see a creature Skrakch had only ever read of in history books, mentioned in passing as more of a myth then an actual beast.

Unless the Iskrin was completely incorrect, the only thing the Abomination that was staggering to it's feet could be was a Ghast. One of the legends of the Undead District, Skrakch could barely remember the bits of lore he'd read about Ghasts, but he knew he wanted nothing to do with the truly massive Undead.

Still. There was hope. Skrakch watched as the Abomination began sniffing the air around it, its attentions suddenly focusing on the dueling Chosen.

Winifred’s battle with Survix was blessedly loud, each of the Chosen’s attacks destroying huge chunks the Arena around their battleground, and Winifred grunting loudly with effort as she continued to rain blow after blow on her opponent. With any luck, the mammoth-sized Ghast would ignore him, Meek, and Zacharias completely.

The other ace they had in their hand was that Ghasts were completely blind. The hollow eye sockets might as well not be there for all the good they were doing. The creature was tilting its head this way and that, zeroing in on the source of the sound. And if there was one thing that Skrakch was confident he and his companions could do, it was remaining undetected.

Though… As talented as Skrakch thought of himself as, the Ratling was aware Zacharias was more capable in that respect. Which begged the question, how did this freak of nature manage to track the now comatose Thief?

Unfortunately, he quickly learned the answer to that question as the creature opened its gaping maw and revealed its “tongue.”

Skrakch felt another wave of revulsion pass over him as he watched as a thick, blood-red tendril burst forth from the Ghast's mouth, the "tongues" leathery skin stretched over a worm-like form. Worse yet, the tip of the tongue split open like a grub, four hardened spikes flickering back and forth.

Suddenly the tongue snapped back into the Undead’s mouth as it turned to face Skrakch and his companions. Letting out another shrill wail that curdled the Ratling's blood, the Abomination began to rush towards them in an inhumane gait, nearly tripping over itself in its rush to attack them.

For a few precious seconds, Skrakch was simply too dumbfounded to react, but as the adrenaline started coursing through his veins, he did the only thing that made any goddamn sense to him.

“Scatter!” The Ratling yelled as he made a break for it, not even sparing a glance at his companions.

Hadn’t he just been thinking about how he was starting to actually care for his fellow Rogues? Indeed, Skrakch was willing to risk death to save his companions, but there wasn't any way in Hells he was risking being eaten by -that- freakish foe.

Now it was every Iskrin for themselves, as far as he was concerned.