It was an inevitable matter of time until the battle broke out. The underlings, with all their armour and barbed tails and pointy teeth and razored blades and prickly attitude, had a degree of fear or at least weariness in relation to the Sealers: they'd seen previous incursions or battles before, and they knew that one should always be nervous around a wizard in purple. And so it was that the first, probably inexperienced, rat threw his knife, a dwarven Sealer intercepted it with a blast of wind, and the battle began.<br/><br/>Silas retreated a few steps, keeping out of Stompy's way, who was busy smashing a kobold to the ground with one stone shoulder and throwing one of the ratfolk at a goblin with the other. Around the wizard, firebolts erupted from gloved fingertips, rocks found a sudden interest in having a chat with goblins' heads and arches of eletricity eletrocuted gnolls.<br/><br/>The underlings were numerous, however, and this was, after all, their territory. From the shadows and the corners of the outskirts of the undercity came goblins and orcs, lizardfolk and ratkin, kobolds and gnolls. The dreaded citizens of the underground, threatened by the appearance of authoritarian forces from the surface.<br/><br/>Silas grimaced as he pinned two orcs to a wall, before (quite accidentally, but it was nice) making it collapse on them. He glanced at the building. It was an old underground outpost, in ruins, with stone walls and stone ledges for windows, with a crumbling stone staircase leading to the main entrance. Maybe some of his colleagues could create a temporary vantage point there.<br/><br/>The wizard yelped as a gnoll, taking advantage of Silas' momentary distraction, nearly beheaded him with a double handed axe. Silas jumped backwards, tripping on a body too burnt to be recognizeable. The Sealer fell to the ground, the gnoll raising his axe for the kill.<br/>Silas raised his hand, shouting an emergency spell, with dark sparks flying from his burnt fingertips.<br/>Apparently alteration spells weren't just able to turning swords into lettuce.<br/><br/>They could also turn gnolls into flayed gnolls, or, more exactly, gnolls with their skin, inner muscles and bones switched, twitched, and turned inside out. This particular spell, however, did certainly not kill them.<br/><br/>Silas shivered as he got to his feet, wiping dark blood from his face, his eyes fixed on the gnoll. The wizard's gaze slowly hardened as he heard the screams of another Sealer, Mathilda, a dagger plunged into her neck as she fell, surrounded by kobolds.<span style="font-style: italic">He was trying to kill me.</span>The mage excused himself, but doubt slowly picked at his mind.<br/><br/>However, the battle was still raging, and there was no time to doubt. The slightly dazed Sealer concentrated on levitating the battle axe, slicing through the flayed gnoll before unleashing it on the undercity hordes.