Yulia looks down at the shaman before her and hisses, an utterly inhuman sound. While her form is largely transparent, the two members of the Association inspection team peeping in on the event can't help but wince at her visage. "Pulg!? Still bumbling around with your powders, I see. I take it you were expecting a different result, no?"

Pulg looks up at the new arrival, a requirement given that the woman is a good ten feet tall atop her eight spider-like legs. "Yulia, how!? The purpose of the ritual was to call upon Sevastion's spirit, so I could find out what foolishness he got himself into this time!" The man realizes something and his eyes widen, what little more they can, at least. "Wait - you've been around this whole time, haven't you? Was Sevastion actually speaking to you all along? Maybe he was only somewhat as crazy as we thought..."

Yulia grins, displaying sharp teeth as she does so - on both of her mouths. "I have sworn to protect my brother with my very soul. If you're attempting to bind him to you, you'll have to deal with me instead!" The larger mouth at the front of her spider half chomps twice, and Pulg quickly raises his hands.

"I wasn't aiming to bind him, just to question the fool! But unholy hells, Yulia, what did he do to you? This is nothing like the form you wore in life!"

Yulia smiles again, as she looks down over her torso. Her spider half is bare, and her human - or human-ish, at least - half is hardly covered, with a simple breast wrap and a pair of bracers on her wrists. Taking hold of her chest, she jiggles it once or twice in Pulg's direction. "Do you like? I asked for a few...improvements on my old body."

"...That was not even remotely what I meant. But tell me, what happened to Sevastion? Is he actually dead, as we assumed?"

The arachne taps her lips, as if considering the matter deeply. "Hrmmm...dead, alive, the difference seems so hard to tell these days. I've almost felt alive again this week, for the first time in months." She considers her right hand, and its transparent nature. "Yet now you take my flesh from me again? Or, no...I can sense my body still. Am I now a soul in two places, perhaps?"

"Flesh?" The shaman begins to pale at the implications. "Yulia...have you and your brother somehow joined the dungeon? Tell me you haven't told her anything!"

"Why would we lie to dear grandmother? And she is not, not, not happy, oh...she will put you and the others to quite the test. I wonder if you'll survive..."

Pulg shakes his head. "You two always were crazy, both of you. I suppose I'll just have to do what I can to salvage this situation, then." The man dabs his fingers in the wet chicken blood still soaking his chest, and flicks some in Yulia's direction as he utters an odd phrase. "Ulg'ack chu'lak! I release you from the mortal realm, spirit! Go, and find your peace in the afterlife!"

Yulia glances down at the blood that sails through her body, before looking back up at Pulg with a rather unimpressed look on her face. The two stand there, silent, until a good twenty seconds have passed by without anything happening.

"Absolutely amateur work, shaman. Amateur work. My afterlife is right there!" She reaches back with one arm, gesturing at the mountain behind her, not even needing to turn around to look for it. "You cannot 'release' me - the bonds holding me here are far stronger than anything you could ever attempt to cut."

The half-orc growls. "Fine. Then...can I at least persuade you and your brother to not make things more difficult for us? If we must prove ourselves, then we shall - but why not help us along the way? We all joined in this mission together, did we not?"

Yulia shrugs. "I think perhaps I like where I am now, more than being some minor lady of a realm I've never seen - if they even accept the dead for such positions. Hrmm, no. I think I shall help you to fail."

"...I suppose that brings me to Plan C, then." Pulg's eyes remain locked on Yulia's, but one of his hands reaches into a pouch at his side. Yulia tilts her head at the move, but doesn't react in time to avoid the spray of powder the man tosses at her - but she certainly reacts with pain when it actually impacts her body, acting as if it's burning her non-existent skin at the touch. With a howl, she throws herself at the smaller man who's already rolling to one side to avoid her.

A hundred feet away, Renter and Kelsey share something of a concerned look. The Tracker grips his light crossbow tightly, but doesn't seem too inclined to use it just yet. "Alright, boss - now what the fuck do we do? If that lady is working for the dungeon, should we like...help her, or fuckin' what?"

Kelsey glances towards the battle, which is surprisingly not one-sided despite the size difference of the two foes. The shaman is rather nimble for a caster, and manages to recover his staff before Yulia can pin him with one of her razor-sharp legs. With that in his hands and magically charged, he's actually able to bat away her limbs despite their ghostly nature. "...You really want to get into the middle of that, Tracker? Hells, for all I know, that guy there can't even actually hurt her!"

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His statement is punctuated by a scream, as a blast of arcane energy from the staff punctures a hole in Yulia's left shoulder. It's a rather impressive one, too - it should have completely severed the woman's arm, and yet it remains in place, floating along as if it weren't suddenly disconnected from the rest of her body. Kelsey sighs. "...Alright, maybe he can hurt her. But still!"

"...Yeah, I ain't gettin' paid enough to jump in there, now that I think about it." The man watches as the two trade a few more blows, the arachne dodging a pair of magical blasts before giving the shaman a deep cut on one thigh with her foreleg. "...So which one you wanna put money on?"

Kelsey gives his partner a bit of side-eye. "Really?"

Renter just trades the man back his own expression.

"...The orc, I guess. He brought her here, I'm surprised he ain't just sent her back yet somehow. Ten silver says he zaps her somehow."

"Yer on."

The two get back to the serious matter of watching the impromptu forest brawl, but unfortunately for both Pulg and Kelsey, the shaman forgot one key factor about Yulia - the reincarnated guardians of Worthy Dungeon aren't limited to the abilities of their physical monster forms. Stepping back for a moment, Yulia crosses her arms and mutters an incantation of her own. "Ten' nochi, ukroy menya!" As she says it, the woman disappears into a shadow - yet it's quite unlike the shadow magic used by Challengers like Taly. Rather than forming an almost physical cloud around herself, she simply seems to fade from view as if she were standing in a dark room and then the light illuminating her had gone out. This is despite the lack of any notable shadows in the forest clearing, yet somehow Renter and Kelsey can't escape the feeling that their vision just grew darker, somehow.

Pulg doesn't sit idle and wait for her to strike, however. Once again he reaches for one of his bags of powder and scatters some around himself in a wide circle, not to cast a spell, but simply to give away the presence of anyone invisible closing in on him. He did forget one other small issue, however - while the magically-charged powder of his previous attack had managed to harm Yulia, the more mundane material now has little impact on her ghostly body. So it is that his first hint as to her location is when one of her sharp forelegs stabs its way into his own left shoulder.

There's no blood, somewhat to the surprise of the audience, but the half-orc certainly howls as if he'd been cut through to the bone. Realizing his mistake, he switches instead to swinging his staff around, its magical charge being more likely to have an actual impact on the dead woman, but his injury is already hindering his movements. Again he's struck from behind, this time a disabling wound to his right arm, and the man's staff drops to the ground. Another slash hits the man at the back of his knees, and he screams out loud as he collapses to them.

Secure in her victory, Yulia allows her spell to fade as she steps in front of Pulg once again. "They said you were calling yourself a Master. And here you are, defeated by a spirit you yourself summoned! I am doing grandmother a favor by sparing her from wasting her time on you."

Pulg looks up at her, some defiance left in his voice despite the fact that he's plainly been beaten. "So this is it, then? You'll slay me, despite the months we spent working together?"

"Months together, after years as rivals, no? But I won't...quite kill you. Perhaps you can serve grandmother in another way..." Pulg eyes her with a confused expression, but he doesn't have time to ask another question before one of Yulia's spider legs jams itself into the center of his forehead. Like with his other injuries, there's no actual physical indication of a wound, yet the man certainly goes as rigid as if the limb were real. The moment lasts for a few seconds, perhaps, before Yulia is suddenly gone. Or not quite so suddenly...as Renter considers what he just saw, he realizes that her form faded away as if she were begin sucked through her leg and into Pulg's skull.

That doesn't make Renter any less surprised however when Pulg suddenly stands up, dusts himself off, and collects his items...before turning to walk directly towards where Renter and Kelsey are hiding. There's certainly something off about his movements, though - they had just followed the man through the town, after all, and something about how the shaman is walking now just doesn't seem quite right. Before he can bring it up, Pulg shouts out to the two. "Enjoyed the show, yes? I do not often work in front of an audience, but I daresay I put on a good performance, no?"

Seeing no further point in hiding, Kelsey stands up before brushing himself off and responding. "...Is that really all this fuckin' was, then? A performance?"

Pulg grins, showing his teeth. "The true performance has yet to even begin. Normally I would not let you stay around to watch the next act...but you are allies of grandmother, hrmm? I suppose you may consider this particular show over, if you do not spoil the surprise for the prince and his friends."

Renter feels himself obligated to state the obvious. "You're...Yulia? Yulia...Burg...Burger, or somethin' like that, right?"

Pulg's eyes narrow. "Bogdanov, thank you very much. But do not wear it out - I am Pulg, Terrible Shaman now, you agree?"

The pair look at each other and shrug before Kelsey responds. "We're just paid to watch, like Renter said. I ain't jumping in the middle of your crazy shit."

"Good enough. Then I'll see you around, boys." The orc gives the two a rather disturbing wink before marching on past them, but the Tracker notices that they don't get more than ten feet before something changes. Already the man's gait has shifted to once again match his previous movements, and when he starts singing something in a strange tongue moments later, his diction is again what it once was. Turning back towards Kelsey, he sighs.

"This dungeon is fucking insane to deal with, you know that?"

"Trust me, I know."

----------------------------------------

Somewhat further away and more deeply hidden in the woods, two other sets of eyes turn to look at each other. "What in the holiest hells was all of that!? That was something to do with the dungeon?"

The other figure shrugs. "No idea! Lots of stuff is above my paygrade, after all. Do you think it's important?"

"...Yeah, I probably ought to report this, or...something."

"Ah, okay. Should I go ahead and pull my fingers out so - "

"Nah, nah. Show's over, so we can...we can finish one more round, Zaps. It's our afternoon off, after all..."