The second that Squeakers let out the loud, and frankly damned shrill, screech of fear, Zacharias had immediately dropped to the ruined Arena floor and sunk into his shadow with well-practiced ease even as his body cried out in pain.

Gods Below, but he was banged up. The Ghast had really done a number on him. His muscles were aching in places he didn’t even know he had. Not to mention the gnarly wound on his shoulder blade which was still bleeding intermittently. Every time he seemed to move the damn thing, it tore at the dried bloodied scabs and re-opened.

Luckily, although he was running seriously low on Mana, it wasn’t too hard for him to manage the short trip below his shadow's surface. The black emptiness of his shadow momentarily swallowed him, stealing his breath away.

Counting to five, Zach re-emerged without a wisp of sound and idly noted that nothing about his current situation seemed to have changed. While he hardly considered himself an accomplished Mage, the Halfling had been around long enough to recognize the tinge of Mana bubbling in the air around him… which was strange because it seemed to be having no effect on him whatsoever.

Of course, caution was often a Thief’s best mate, so Zach waited in a crouch for another ten seconds as he listened intently to the sounds around him. The only noise of any note was an odd scraping that distinctly reminded him of flesh being dragged across the stone.

What can I say, that’s a noise I could place anytime. Zacharias grinned without mirth, his scars pulling tight across his face.

If he were the type of Halfling to be concerned about other people, which he certainly wasn’t, he probably would’ve been freaked out by the distinct lack of angry grunts that usually came along with Winifred when she was locked in a brawl.

Getting himself back on his feet, Zach slowly raised his head high enough to do a quick visual check on his surroundings, looking out for anything that might explain the oddly deafening quiet that suddenly filled the arena.

Beyond the absence of the Ghast or Winifred’s blurring forms, there was one major difference to the Arena that Zach couldn’t miss. Still sitting amongst the pile of rotting corpses laid the Chosen Shade’s monstrous form, though the flames from the Placating Brew that had been eating away at the Chosen Shade seemed to have completely petered out.

The lump of burned flesh clearly hadn’t been idle, however, as the much smaller core of undulating tendrils appeared to be reaching outward as four spears of blackened flesh stretched out and upward beyond the sand pit’s confines.

Each one reached toward where Zach had last seen his companions so it didn’t exactly take a genius to work out what the Shade was up to now.

Zach grinned to himself as he confidently stretched to his full height, working out the kinks in his neck and shoulders. His shoulder injury complained at him, and no doubt started to bleed again but whatever. He had a job to do.

Moving toward the closest spear of flesh, he idly noted that the spear was slowly retracting itself, no doubt reeling in its prize back to the misshapen source.

Flicking a dagger down into his waiting palm, Zach stepped to the end of the grasping Shade’s tendril and as expected, there was one of his companions. He looked down at the prone body of… whatever the piss-tinged so-called ‘Cleric’ was called.

Gods be damned, Goblins are fucking ugly when they aren’t moving about. Actually, it’s not like they look any better when they’re awake, vermin that they are.

“You’re really fucking out of it, eh… Feek? That’s not right, maybe… Bleak?” Zach let out a huff of a laugh.

He squatted down beside the comatose Goblin, leaning in as close as he dared to the tendril of flesh that was wrapped around it’s prey like a winding snake.

The Halfling carefully inspected the tendril and noticed smaller offshoots that seemed to be growing out of it at various points, and these were slowly acting to pull the Goblin’s form closer to the Shade’s main body.

Most of the Goblin’s itself was completely covered by the shifting flesh, though it had left Deek’s mouth uncovered.

Huh. Interesting. Guess it likes to play with its prey for a bit…

“Maybe it thinks you’ll taste better alive or summat,” Zach said aloud as he kicked the nearby flesh with his boot. He’d expected the thing to attack him, maybe try and twist him up in its tendrils like it had the Goblin, but no. The thing didn’t react to his kick at all, seemingly devoted to its current fleshy task.

Well, it doesn’t seem interested in me at all. Fucking odd… but I’ll take it. Better than the alternative anyways.

“Stay where you are Gobbo, I’ll come back for ya… maybe.” The Halfling said with a mocking smile, boldly walking toward the next extended ‘spear’.

“Ah now, that’s just sad,” He said aloud with mock sympathy as he neared the next victim. He stared down at Skrakch who was tangled up in the tendrils, his face dragging against the stone floor.

Again, Skrakch’s face was the only boy not currently wrapped up in Shade’s twisted body but the fact it didn’t seem to care about how the Ratling’s face was being cut up from the bits of sharpened stone was interesting indeed.

Welp. If ol’Squeakers isn’t waking up from his face being turned into pie meat, pricking him with a dagger ain’t gonna do anything.

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“And here you whinge about how I never do anything for you,” Zach muttered. He stepped in closer to the tendrils and held his breath as he reached within a palm’s reach of the Shade and waited.

And waited.

Just like before, the tendrils didn’t seem to give a shit about him. So, confident that he wasn’t about to be smashed into little bits, Zach began trying to wedge his dagger into the flesh nearest to the comatose Ratling’s body, trying to pry him loose.

The only place that the Thief could reach was just below Skrakch’s neck, but Zach didn’t take much care to avoid the Iskrin’s body.

Little bits of blood and fur began to fall down to the stone floor as he continued his efforts to wedge his knife between the comatose body of his companion and his grappler.

Unfortunately, however, any small amount of progress that he was able to make was quickly erased by the tendril’s rapid regeneration as it and Skrakch continued to be slowly retracted towards the center of the sand-pit.

“Gave it a shot, didn’t I Squeaks? Can’t fault me now, can you?” The Halfling shrugged, before realizing something, turning an appraising eye to Skrakch’s prone form. “Doesn’t hurt to test this out, well, on anyone other than Winnie anyways.”

Flipping his knife with a flourish as he brought it down, Zach’s blade bit deep into Skrakch’s shoulder and yet the brown Iskrin barely budged, even as blood began matting down his fur.

“Yup, you lot are fucked.” Pulling his dagger loose, Zach wiped off the Ratling’s blood against the tendril, dispassionately pondering his next action.

Interesting that this thing managed to take down Winnie though. You’d think another Chosen would be able to fight it off. I wonder if it covered her artifacts…

There was a stillness to the air that suited Zach just fine as he made his way over to Winifred, noting that the Shade had dedicated even more of its writhing flesh to keep her contained. Which, frankly, wasn’t at all surprising.

Winifred was so neatly wrapped by the Shade’s skin that the Thief would have more luck prying the knuckle dusters off her if she was up and moving.

Interestingly, however, Zach did note that there was a small patch on the Brawler’s hip that the Shade seemed to be actively avoiding.

Bending down for a closer look, he quickly fished out a small elixir with a crack on it, green liquid staining Winifred’s leather pants. Even as Zacharias pulled it loose, the flesh began to eagerly cover up Winifred’s leg.

“Still not a fan of the-“ His words cut off as the Halfling heard sudden burst of yelling coming from behind him. Whipping his head around, he could tell the sounds were coming from the Ratling’s direction, the half-strangled noises breaking apart the quiet.

Well, well. Looks like Squeakers woke up, after all. Good thing I didn’t bail too early. That fucking Ratling can hold a bloody grudge…

Leaving Winifred be for now, Zach hopped and dodged his way past the tendrils back to Skrakch who was currently twisting around and cursing wildly in an attempt to free himself from the swarming flesh’s grip.

“Well now Squeaks, you’ve got yourself in a bit of a situation innit?”

Watching the Ratling’s face as it contorted in irritation and annoyance was always a treat. The Iskrin had a way of looking like he’d just been force-fed a tankard of pickled ale any time something didn’t go in his favour, and wasn’t it just delicious that things so rarely did.

Zach couldn’t resist winding him up further by giving his nose a little tweak, leaning down into the Iskrin’s eye line and sporting a wide smile.

“Don’t you worry though! Your best mate has your back. We just need to decide what it’s gonna cost you.”

“Gods Below curse you, Zacharias! Help me get out of here!” Skrakch yelled back, as he continued to struggle in a futile effort to free himself from the Shade’s grasp. “What the Hells is going on?”

“Well, if I had to guess…” Zach replied as he started to idly stroll beside the slowly retracting tendrils. “I guess the thing’s got sick of you guys using it for target practice and now it’s proper pissed off…” He shook his head with mock seriousness, ignoring the fact he’d been the one toss most of the vials.

“C’mon Squeakers, it’s a pretty poor show that you got yourself into this situation innit? I mean, you’re always banging on about how great you are and here you are being dragged face-first into your doom.”

“How about you shut up and help get me free?” Skrakch replied acidly as he continued to twist and writhe around ineffectively in the Shade’s grip.

“I mean, I guess I could,” Zach replied with a heavy sigh. “We can always talk payment after the fact I suppose…”

Truthfully, Zach just wanted the Ratling to owe him one. It never hurts to have a favour banked away after all.

“Wait… how are you even awake?” Skrakch called out, eyeing Zacharias suspiciously with one eye, even as half his face was dragged across a bit of rubble. “There’s no way you managed to escape the Shade’s grasp easily, much less the bloody vision.”

Moving a safe distance away from Skrakch, Zach tossed his retort over his shoulder. “Please, a thief of my caliber? It didn’t even affect me.”

“-But it affected an Undead? The Ghast is down as well, isn’t it? Is this another dream?” Skrakch muttered to himself, still struggling to break free.

That… was a good point. If it affected the Undead Ghast, there wasn’t much chance my little trip below ground would have stopped it. Why -am- I still awake when even a Chosen went down…

Zach paused as he considered it, but ultimately shrugged to himself. “Eh, fuck it Squeaks, you’ve got bigger things to worry about. No idea why you’re so arsed about what the Shade did or didn’t do to me while you’re still stuck in its grasp… speaking of which, best brace yourself.”

“For what?” Skrakch asked warily. He was beginning to wonder if he was caught between a Devil and the deep blue sea. Would Zacharias’ idea of saving him really be much better than being eaten alive by the Shade? Somehow he truly doubted it.

Ignoring the panicked-sounding Iskrin, Zacharias pulled the cork loose from the vial of Placating Brew he’d pulled loose from Winifred’s pants and took a few measures steps backwards as he hefted the elixir.

“Zacharias! What in the Hells? No! Don’t you dare, you fucking simpleton!” Skrakch yelled out, futilely struggling with all his strength.

Wincing as the motion pulled on his wounded shoulder and, ignoring his Iskrin companion completely, the Halfling tossed the bottle towards his prone companion and watched as it broke apart in a twinkling crash of glass and green slime.

As the alchemical liquids splashed over Skrakch and the tendrils, a massive burst of black flames swiftly blocked Zacharias’ vision of the screaming Ratling, and Zach coldly watched as the Shade began screaming once more in earnest.

“The lot of you are lucky to have me around,” the Thief mocked, waiting for the fires to die down. Either Skrakch would get free, or…

Well, Squeakers can't exactly get revenge on me if he’s burnt to a crisp, now, could he?