Not a second after their stealth wore off, an arrow whizzed by Aeldevan's airy form. Without hesitation, he led the others and gusted past the tower, down the road, and into the woods. He proceeded to curve back so that they were parallel to the mile gate, about four hundred feet away from the tower. When he finally stopped and touched the ground, he began his transformation back to his half-elf body so that they could share intel. His friends decided to do the same, and he watched them slowly rematerialize.

"That was crazy!" Skamos was clearly excited but spoke in a hushed tone just in case anyone was searching for them.

"And you've been holding out on us with that spell?", Magra laughed. 

Aeldevan smiled, not able to suppress how exhilarating it was to be one with the wind and fly just as fast. Once everyone settled down, they debriefed about what each of them had found. 

"So that's ten orcs and a slaad," Ru calculated. "Something tells me getting into those magic block cells isn't going to be easy."

Aeldevan nodded in agreement before replying, "They know something's up, but they don't know how many of us there are, so we still have the advantage of surprise. That is, if you all want to take them on in a fight."

"Hell yeah we do," Magra roared as she pumped her demon axe above her head. Skamos swiftly reached up to cover her mouth as he quickly shook his head up and down with a devilish smile.

Feyre twirled daggers in her hands while grinning mischievously. "I'm fully recovered from those hydras and ready to cut some bitches."

"Alright then," the druid confirmed. "We'll be ready to fight if it comes to that."

"When it comes to that," Magra corrected, holding a finger in the air.

Aeldevan chuckled. "Right, when it comes to that. So, the first phase of recon is complete. Second phase is causing more of a distraction while they're on guard."

"How do we do that?", Feyre questioned, knowing the druid always had a plan even though it rarely worked out the way he intended.

"I'll portal through the trees to the other side of the road and make a big-bada-boom. Hopefully, that will lure some of them away from the tower," he explained. "Then I'll hop on back over here."

Ru spoke next. "Okay, so what's the third phase then?"

"Getting back to the tower and to the cells without being noticed." The half-elf turned towards his partner next. "Skamos-"

"Yeah yeah, I'll make someone invisible," the bard finished, patting his magical lute. "One of the best ways to go unnoticed, right?"

"I volunteer!", both Ru and Feyre's voices exclaimed in unison.

"I can fly there faster than you, and Pip is my friend," Feyre argued.

"Well, I've been down there and know where everything is," retaliated Ru.

Aeldevan cleared his throat before any violence broke out. "You're both going," he declared. "You both make great points, which is why I figured you would be the perfect team for this anyway. Besides, you might need Ru's carpet to get Pip and Brin out of there if they're in bad shape."

The dwarf and gnome thought about it for a second before looking at each other and smiling. "Let's do this!" They gripped each other's right hand in a friendly display as if going to arm-wrestle. No one noticed Magra's eye twitch.

"Even though they'll be invisible, I can still use this to see and hear things around Feyre." Aeldevan gently took out his new crystal ball. "That way, I can update Skamos and Magra-"

"And we'll come charging in if we need to," Magra interrupted, a little too enthusiastically.

Once that was settled, Aeldevan told them to wait for him before there running into the nearest tree. He instantly vanished inside it, and the bark rippled momentarily like it was made of liquid. Seconds later, although they didn't hear a loud boom, the rest of the group saw flocks of birds from his direction erupt into the cloudy noon sky. Not long after, their druidic friend reappeared out from the same tree he had gone in.

"Well," Aeldevan started, catching his breath, "that didn't do as much as I had hoped, but there's at least one archer who went to investigate."

"Better than none," Feyre said supportively.

"Yeah, it was a good idea," Skamos agreed, "but now it's time to make some little ladies invisible." He whipped his lute to the front of his body and warmed up his fingers.

"Let me get out my carpet first so that's invisible too," Ru said as she shoved her whole arm into the bag of holding and started taking the rug out.

"It won't actually work on that," the Tiefling clarified, stopping her halfway. "Just you two and what your carrying, but not what you're riding." The dwarf looked at him incredulously. "I know, I know. Technicalities of the spell." He shrugged his shoulders, and Ru let the carpet fall back into the pouch.

"Well, I hope Pip and Brin won't need a ride then," the fighter said. "Otherwise they'll be easy targets for those archers." Her sentiments were met with agreement from her friends.

Feyre flew behind the dwarf and tried to lift her into the air but failed to hang on. "Alright, I know I lifted you before in that beholder's lair, but I don't think I'd be able to carry you the whole way," the rogue said with a huff. "What if you took my winged boots and carried me?", Feyre suggested to Ru.

"Unfortunately, we don't have time for the both of you to switch attunement," Aeldevan stated.

Feyre sighed defeatedly, but there was an unseen glimmer in Magra's eye. "Only I carry little buddy," she said to herself.

"So, what, then?," Ru asked, flustered. "We're just walking the whole way?"

"Of course not," Aeldevan assured them as he placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "You'll be running!" A quick pulse of magic went through their bodies and settled in their feet. "And now you can run faster," he said with a smile.

"Sorry, Ru," Feyre patted her friend's back gently. "You'll have to run through the weeds alone, 'cause I'll still be flying," she explained as she lifted into the air. Ru gave her an amused side-eye.

"Okay, now it's my turn," Skamos said impatiently. He began strumming his lute playfully and didn't stop until both Ru and Feyre were completely invisible to everyone but the three of them.

Aeldevan took his crystal ball back out and peered into it, confirming with the others that he had a lock on Feyre. "Good luck out there," he said.

"Thanks," they both replied. Just before they dashed away, Feyre added, "and watch out for any beartraps I might leave along the way!"

◊◊◊

While Ru ran through the brush, groaning through the prickers, Feyre flew over it with the only obstacle being the occasional low branches. Along the way, they threw out ideas on how they would get into the tower. "If there's a lock on that door being guarded, I could try to pick it since they can't see me," Feyre suggested.

"No good. That door can be barred from the inside, which that prison guard probably did after he sounded the alarm," Ru informed her. "Besides, even if they can't see you, the guards might still hear you fumbling with the lock."

"I suppose we'll have to go in from the top floor then," Feyre concluded. "I saw its windows were all open, probably to air out the nasty stench of orc sweat in their beds."

"Luckily I couldn't smell anything in cloud form," Ru joked.

Once they got closer to the edge of the woods behind the tower, Ru treaded more carefully while Feyre scoped out the bedroom. Seeing it was as it was before with unkempt bunkbeds, Feyre met Ru back on the ground behind the structure. "Coast is clear," she whispered to the dwarf. "Do you need any help?"

Ru shook her head. "I got this." She took a couple steps back while looking up at her destination to calculate. Pumping herself up and staying light on her feet, Ru sprinted at the wall. She jumped at the last moment and used her momentum to lift her up the stones, past the second-floor windowsills, and onto the top window's ledge. She posed in the window with her hands up in accomplishment, and Feyre mimed applause.

"You continue to impress me with your athletic prowess," the gnome whispered as the dwarf quietly stepped down onto the floorboards. 

Ru tiptoed across the bedroom to the locked door that Feyre had already floated to and was inspecting. The rogue silently unlatched the lock and carefully pulled it open enough for them to squeeze through. She decided to walk the rest of the way in case the boots' fluttering wings were too noisy. Holding each other's hand to help reduce their stress, the pair stepped down the staircase, pausing at the bottom corner to listen. Just as Ru had mentioned before, there was someone cooking, or at least trying to according to the burnt smells wafting throughout the room.

Ru took the lead since she had seen the room already, but that didn't stop her from stubbing her toe on a loose stone that her foggy form hadn't had to worry about. She exhaled just loud enough for the chef to look up in suspicion. They paused until he went back to rolling out dough covered in brown flour on the large wooden counter. Very slowly, they began to walk around him to get to the other set of stairs. The smoke was still heavy in the air, but now they could make out his features better. As opposed to the normal red or black hair of most orcs, this one had short blonde hair. He was also only wearing an apron that barely fit his muscular body.

Suddenly, he stopped rolling and just stood there. The two women stopped moving while they waited. Ru had one hand on the handle of her maul, and Feyre had her thumb in her mouth. The orc spun around and brandished his rolling pin in their direction while he glanced around the room to find his target, clearly agitated. He muttered something in orcish which they couldn't understand, but thanks to Aeldevan's crystal ball spell, he was able to find out from Magra that the cook said, "This is worse than burnt stew!"

Ru knew that this would be the defining moment of how the rest of their mission went. This orc had already seen her wispy form when she flew out of the tower and that he was probably already on edge from the first alarm. There was no way he was going to drop his current suspicions now. As the thought crossed her mind, she heard a sudden heavy rain - or hail - outside just before the chef's face grew red with anger and he let out an ungodly shout. No one needed a translation for that, though. He just resounded the alarm, and a second later, they heard the door at the bottom of the tower fly open.

◊◊◊

"No one else left their stations," Aeldevan relayed disappointedly to Skamos and Magra as he watched Feyre fly around to the back of the tower.

 Magra popped open a vial of dark green liquid that held the strength of a stone giant. "Looks like our turn is coming up early," she said as she tossed back the potion. She shook her body as the distasteful drink flooded her veins and used it to psych herself up. "That's what I'm talkin' about!" She punched her fists together and headed into the forest.

"I'll try to stay behind the trees so that I'm less likely to get hit and lose my concentration on their invisibility," Skamos said.

"Good idea," Aeldevan replied, thinking he should do the same. "Let's pick up the pace though," he rushed. "That chef is looking awfully suspicious."

Once they got about a hundred feet from the tower, Aeldevan tried mimicking what the cook said the second time in his guttural language so that Magra could translate. He was about to laugh about the soup when he saw through the crystal that the cook was about to shout another alarm. At that moment, he summoned an icy storm spanning the mile gate's length, pelting two of the archers with hail in addition to the two tower guards, the orc with the maul, and the slaad. Now they would have to tread over patches of ice if they wanted to go anywhere. Unfortunately, the archers didn't need to move to loose arrows at the druid. While the first arrow struck a nearby tree, the second hit Aeldevan near the shoulder, causing him to fumble his crystal ball. The image of Feyre's position flickered briefly, but he regained his focus just in time as he saw the chef shout, and even they could hear him from the trees. 

◊◊◊

Still invisible, Ru and Feyre rushed towards the stairs to head off whoever was coming for them. Surprisingly, the prison guard was nowhere to be seen, but the slaad had just entered the room, its pale body covered in ice. It sniffed around upon entry and then looked straight at Feyre as it pointed a sharp claw at her. It flicked open the rest of its webbed hand and released a fireball up the stairs at the invisible target.

Ru ducked around the corner, and Feyre dodged the inferno at the last second. However, the chef was not so lucky as he stood facing the stairway while cinders danced upon his apron and hair. Feyre saw the slaad turn around and move its head as if communicating despite no sound leaving its mouth, and it pointed back up the stairs in her direction. Then it ran outside just before one of the tower guards charged in with his long sword. The guard made long strides and closed the distance between them quickly. He swung wildly where the slaad indicated, but he failed to connect steel with flesh.

Preoccupied with the whirling sword, they didn't notice the cook had retrieved a pot of boiling soup from the stove. Shouting another line of orcish, which Magra translated to, "This spell is under seasoned and I hate it!", he hurled the hot liquid towards them. Ru took most of it in the back, blocking it from hitting the guard, and Feyre hopped out of its range. After critiquing the fight, the chef licked his fingers to regain some energy before grabbing his rolling pin. Tapping it in his other hand, he tried enunciating in common despite his thick orcish accent, "Time for the dough-minator."

Before the chef could take another step, Feyre lunged at him with her ring of ram but slipped on a puddle of soup and missed, becoming visible now that she attacked. Ru had her back, though, and whammed him twice with her maul. Staggering backwards and now seeing both the fighter and rogue, the chef choppily exclaimed, "From the grease of my frying pan, you can actually fight?"

◊◊◊

Seeing both Ru and Feyre turn visible, Aeldevan immediately alerted his nearby friends so that they could draw any more attention away from the other two. Even though Aeldevan could see from Feyre's perspective, they had been keeping an eye on the tower's exterior. Between the three of them, they saw the tower door open, but they didn't notice anyone come out. The slaad rushed in right after and shortly before they heard an explosion form inside. The monstrosity had then ran back out as one of the tower guards charged in.

Aeldevan cast another blast of sound but this time at an archer to knock him off the wall. The attack was successful, and the target fell and landed face down in the dirt.

"Watch out," shouted Skamos, as the once icy sky now turned into an inferno. The Tiefling spread his storm of fire across the wall, torching all the archers and burning the large orc and tower guard still outside. Unintentionally, the wooden gate also caught fire and the flames travelled upwards, igniting the One Eye banner and inspiring his allies.

"Yeah, Skamos!", Magra cheered. "Put them through hell!"

The shout was appreciated but distracted the bard just enough that his tail got nicked by an incoming arrow. Skamos locked eyes at the foolish archer, summoning his infernal ancestry, and the orc's arm suddenly combusted into even more flames. "Maybe you should take that as a lesson, bitch," he spat. "Don't fuck with me or my friends."

The fire-inflicted tower guard ran up the steps with axes in his hands and shouted in Aeldevan's face while slashing at him, spittle splattering the half-elf's skin.

"You need a mint," the druid remarked in disgust despite the assailment.

The burly orc shut Aeldevan down with his shining maul as he slammed it into his back with enough force to crumple him to the ground. The weapon's head glowed bright while it scattered celestial fragments, but none reached Skamos or Magra. The orc smiled in satisfaction and turned his head to look at Magra next, but the infuriated half-orc was on him in an instant. She gashed his abdomen with her demon axe and spat in his face while dodging incoming arrows.

"You must really suck at archery," she yelled to the long-ranged orc as she attacked the larger one, " 'cause I'm the biggest one here, mother fucker!"

Out of nowhere, the decaying slaad showed up and stopped Magra's assault by banishing her to a pocket dimension. Still on the ground and only feet from her, Aeldevan's body was also caught in the curse, sending them both to a murky void of crimson smoke similar to the one they and Feyre had experienced during their fight in the swamp. With both of them gone, Skamos was left alone, and his body became the victim of two more arrows.

◊◊◊

Feyre dodged two more swings of the guard's sword, but the chef hit her in the head with his rolling pin, snapping it in half. Rather than annoyed by it breaking, he only seemed more excited.

"Dance for me like noodles in boiling water," he roared gleefully just before Feyre snuck around and gutted him from behind. As he feel to his knees, he gargled his last words through blood, "I had such high hopes for this recipe..."

With her offhand, Feyre stabbed the guard in the side. As he looked as his wound, Ru slammed her maul into his chest, sending him into the wall. Her next swing bashed his head into the solid stone, rendering him a threat no more. Running past the body, she practically jumped down the steps and out the tower door, then loosed an arrow at the slaad. Her aim was true, and the creature lost its concentration on the curse it had cast, causing Magra and Aeldevan to reappear just as they were moments ago.

Feyre flew down behind the fighter and watched her leave now that there were no more orcs inside. The gnome grabbed the magical key off its hook on the wall and took a deep breath before placing it in the hole of the first door. Once she turned the key, the magical barrier on the door disappeared, and she tugged the heavy metal door open. As soon as she poked her head around, a bucket came straight towards her face but stopped just short.

"Feyre? Is that you?", a voice spoke from the dark cell.

"Pip!", Feyre replied excitedly, seeing her gnomish friend step closer into the light.

"Quick, give me a weapon so I can help out there," Pip urged, hearing the commotion outside. Feyre fished a rapier from her back and handed to him, and he rushed past her to join the fray without another word. Speechless but relieved, Feyre turned to face the second magic door. 

◊◊◊

Aeldevan splashed a healing potion in his mouth while he shakily stood up and cast a spell at the orc that had downed him, draining some of the enemy's life force. Skamos sang while he sent shards of magical blades into one of the archers who was restringing her bow, and her lifeless body fell over the wall's edge. Seeing more adventures than it would like to, the slaad released another ball of fire, but this time at Skamos, Magra, and Aeldevan, causing the half-elf to go down again and this time render him unconscious. 

Ru shouted from the tower's door as she charged up the wall's steps and gyrated her maul in a frenzy through the enemy forces. She took out the largest orc first with a flurry of hits to the groin, stomach, then face as he sailed over the wall, dropping his magic weapon. Keeping her momentum, she broke the legs of an archer and hit them in the head as they fell to the ground. Lastly, the remaining tower guard backed up to avoid the swinging weapon but fell down instead. His sitting position was perfect for Ru to land her devasting meteor blow, which compacted his head into his chest with a spine-crushing crunch. Covered in blood, she stared at the slaad and hocked a wad of spit into its black eyes. "Come for me, bitch."

Despite the tide of battle now flowing in their favor, Skamos still saw his friends injuries and his friend on the brink of death. He stepped back from the fight and focused on each of his allies, sending healing energies to them all. He was relieved when he saw Aeldevan's eyes open and mouthed a "thank you" to him.

It was evident the slaad had used up all its magic since it resorted to biting Magra's arm while it swung its great sword furiously. Ru stepped in to deflect its steel and get it off her friend, and Aeldevan hit it with a wave of necrotic energy. Skamos's deathly whispers sealed its fate, though, and it started down the steps in fear of the bard.

That's when, with a powerful roar, Magra swung her axe into its head, sticking it into the stones of the wall while the rest of its body tumbled the rest of the way, landing in a bloody and slimy heap. The barbarian's gaze slowly turned to the two remaining archers on the wall.

"Who's next?"