“Fryg!” Jorfr called out, himself having only just snapped out of the revelation. Even as he spoke his mind dwelt upon Hul, but he managed to focus on the task at hand: “There’s a chance, a hair-thin chance, that Eisengeist might be halted, but your aid is needed. Yours and Yvonne’s, both.”

“What do you mean to do?!”

“You have seen what Zefaris can do. Aid her and the Lady in Red in forming their Black Rod. It’s as good a chance as any other. What else do you suggest, that we stay here until the dragon drowns us in flaming sap?!”

“You cannot possibly seek to defend the longhouse on your own!” the Witch refused, and Yvonne didn’t seem particularly eager to leave her family behind either.

“Go! We’ll be fine!” Gunnar growled, dragging his axes across his chest. His blood flowed through his fur, which stood on-end as his life’s ichor alighted with a red haze. Gunnar’s aegishjalmr came alive, his aura erupting outward before it condensed to a great helm akin to Jorfr’s, though one possessing forward-curved horns. Instead of a cloak, his spiritual armor formed a heavy cuirass and leg-plates.

Visibly struggling against herself, Fryg acquiesced: “Very well. But I shan’t leave you on your own. Those mongrels out front have forfeited their lives and their honor, so I shall give them the dishonorable deaths they deserve. Their frozen corpses will serve as our fortifications.”

And so it was. The Ice and Snow Witch both made their way to the longhouse’s roof, Yvonne doing so the same way Zefaris had. Fryg, meanwhile,conjured a sword of solid glacierglass and flew upon it straight out the front door, spraying the walls in ice to suppress the flame and freezing the door shut as she exited. She sent herself careening skyward, flying upon geysers of frost. Many met their end at the wrathful hands of a draugr whose ice had man a time snuffed the Smoke Witch’s embers. A screaming crone embodying the wrath of Borea itself, bellowing across the burning city: “Receive this honor which you do not deserve, you feckless curs! THOUSANDFOLD GLACIER ENTOMBMENT!”

Even Fryg herself didn’t remember whether she had copied the Smoke Witch’s Pyre Burial, or vice versa. Both were brutish mass-killing techniques with no effect on those of substantial spiritual power, meant to dissuade mortals from interfering in their battles. Its effectiveness was greatest in circumstances just like these; with such a massed force, even those who survived were now trapped between the frozen corpses of their own comrades.

A three-layered palisade of frozen corpses now stood between the Hulson longhouse and those who would come after the vanguard. Seeing a group of familiar faces trying to battle their way to the longhouse she shifted the frozen corpses around somewhat, opening a passage for just long enough for them to pass. The man leading the group of allies wielded a great hunk of the self-same wood that Scorchlander beamwands were made from, its end blazing with a deathless ember-glow. Boreans with a natural affinity for Ignis were rare, but it always manifested with savage power when it did. Gjúki Heiason, elder and founder of the youngest clan in all Oasis City, a mere sixty-seven years of age yet bearing pyromancy worthy of a two-hundred year old. Those in his tow were both his own clan and members of several other non-ranking families.

Several minutes passed before Fryg’s corpsebound palisade was breached, and in this time, the Ice Witch had joined with Zefaris atop a nearby rooftop, finding a horrifyingly mutated Pateirian woman already assisting the blonde. The Ice Witch chose to not make an issue out of it, seeing that Zefaris clearly trusted the stranger. Yvonne reached them soon after. She lent her expertise firstly by helping the Red Lady carry their two non-flight-capable counterparts to the top of the nearest Steam Tower, the highest point and most resilient building in this district. It was inactive, of course.

There, the four of them joined in bringing Zefaris’ antediluvian knowledge to life as a great lance to skewer the dragon Eisengeist to the ground.

“I fear that even blackstone-glacierglass polymer shan’t suffice to pierce it in full…” the Ice Witch worried.

A manic spark flashed through the Red Lady’s eyes, and with a gesture, one of the iridescent spheres levitating ‘round her zipped off towards the approaching calamity that was Eisengeist’s and Teutobochus’ battle. They were visible even from near the Hulson longhouse by this point.

The orb returned with a great lance in tow, one wrought of eldritch-gleaming starmetal and which sung in an unmistakable way. Fryg knew what it was, despite never having seen it in its true form.

“...The Serpentkiller. But of course, how could I have not considered it?! How did you-”

“Our Titan friend had already ripped it out of the dragon’s chest. I asked for it nicely.”

She hadn’t asked nicely at all. They set the Serpentkiller into the Black Rod’s tip, and work on the massive thing continued. Its sheer size called into question just how it would be launched at a sufficient velocity, but Fryg and Red both seemed terribly confident that it would work, so Zefaris chose to trust them.

The Hulsons’ valiant battle for survival continued in the longhouse.

Jorfr and Gunnar were flanked on the sides by other Hulson warriors including Torhild, or rather, a vaguely humanoid armored lizard with sword-like claws that had once been Torhild. Her means of transformation were unlike those of spiritwalkers. She instead relied on volatile mutagenic serums, not unlike Ozmir or many druids.

Merete and Rikke had joined together to lead the second line, with Rikke being in no state to engage in direct combat and Merete specializing in a similar vein of supportive magic as Yvonne. The former Ramdall had transformed her arm into a white snake about as thick and twice as long as the normal limb, using it and her mouth to launch acid-filled quills. A silver lining to the brambleback’s increasing influence over her physical form - the ability to access a faint trace of its power mostly at-will.