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[Medriev]

As the plant creature enveloped him, Erlmoor roared again, spraying acid onto the creature’s fronds. He lashed out with his blade as the creature recoiled and tried to free himself but still, several vines held him fast. Others snaked out to securely hold him and he felt thorns pierce his side painfully as he struggled. He felt the creature moved across the floor of the pit Tendrils lashed outward from close to where the dragonborn was held and he knew that the creature sought more of his companions to join him as its prey.

Litiraan watched as both of the remaining plant creatures slid across the pit floor toward the western edge. One lashed out two tendrils at Dulvarna but the warrior woman ducked under the thorn-covered appendages. The other creature lashed out fronds at Litiraan and while he ducked one, another struck the side of his leg and tore open the flesh there. He reeled away and looked down into the pit just as Erlmoor burst forth from the back of one of the creatures with a roar. A burst of golden, divine energy flashed out from the dragonborn as he freed himself and as Litiraan reached out for Dulvarna’s potion, he felt movement at his feet. Looking down, he saw poor bloodied and broken Telkya open her eyes and smile weakly.

Litiraan smiled back and found himself filled with a new determination that the companions would not be defeated here. He raised his wand and loosed an amber orb of flame into the pit that burst over the two remaining plant creatures. Further along the edge of the pit, Lavren saw Telkya’s eyes open and filled himself with a determination similar to Litiraan’s. He cursed the arborean as it came forward, attacking its mind but the plant creature ignored the assault and kept coming toward him.

Dulvarna rushed past Lavren and met the arborean blade to scythe as it rounded the corner of the pit. Her blade danced before her and then she struck out but the plant creature brought its scythe down and parried. Suddenly, Litiraan sensed movement to his right and turning, he raised his blade and parried the descending scythe of the other arborean as it tried to slash at him. The elf threw his blade to one side and pushed the arborean back a step but it came forward again quickly. Litiraan raised his blade but as he did, a tendril lashed out and seized him around the waist. Thorns drove into his body and blood flowed down to his waist but then another tendril lashed out and seized the elf around the neck. He gasped and then the tendrils jerked and he was dragged into the pit.

Dulvarna parried the scythe of the arborean as it swept high towards her throat but then the creature swept the blade around and down to drive the point into the warrior woman’s thigh. She cried out and staggered back before slashing her blade across to drive the scythe away. She looked back and felt her spirits rise as she saw Telkya rise to her feet at the pit edge. The elf maid closed her eyes and vanished in a shower of light motes, appearing a moment later on the southern edge of the pit. She rushed around to the eastern edge, hoping against hope that Enlishia yet lived. Dulvarna saw her run and admired her courage. They would not fall here, the warrior woman decided. They could not.

Erlmoor decided similarly in the pit and abandoned all efforts to strike at the plant creature. Instead, he turned and clambered up the sloping northern edge of the pit. A tendril lashed out at him but he threw himself low against the slope and the appendage swept over his head. He moved to the open northern doors and then turned back to the pit, uttering a prayer as he did. He held out his blade and a ribbon of divine fire burst forth, searing into the plant creature that had imprisoned him and burning away some of its fronds and vines. The dragonborn roared his defiance one more but then he realised that he could not see Litiraan. The elf had been taken by the plant creatures as his sister had been.

Lavren looked left and right and realised that he stood alone against the arborean that advanced along the western edge of the pit. Uttering a fey spell, he vanished and then reappeared against the northern wall beside the doors and not far from where Erlmoor now stood. He raised his wand and summoned fey wolves to arrack the closest of the plant creatures in the pit, the jaws of beasts tearing at the fronds and leaves of the creature. It shrank back toward the south and as it did, Lavren’s gaze followed it. It was then that he saw Litiraan, imprisoned within the other plant creature. The monsters in the pit had claimed another of the group’s number and the others had left Litiraan behind.