Hidden beneath an illusion that resembled the surface of the cave, Ideal watched silently as Jevalet showed up close the white-orc leader and pushed her from her high ground with a roaring spell. He saw Raibeart moving, then, sniping through the hordes and coming closer to the duelling orchenkind.
"Gnome! Where are you heading?"
Halting by the sound of his contractor's voice, Boris looked back at where Ideal was supposed to be.
"W-well... Closer, I guess!", as usual the Underground specialist seemed uncertain.
"We should stay here, it's too dangerous. And it's not our fight", said the tiefling. He wanted to see the battle de-escalate so as to get closer to the tall orc. There was something about her that made him uneasy, as he could almost see glimpses of smoke traversing her figure as she moved. In the back of his head, he had the sense his patron was watching, eager to understand what it all meant.
"Look, sir! They're clashing!", pointed an excited Boris.
Jevalet had reached for the orcish leader and plunged into a heated combat. They both wielded magic as deadly weapons, producing thunderous noises and eye-hurting lights out of thin air. The blast peaked from their fingers as stings from a killer wasp, which they bore and faced in the manner of all orcs, no matter their clan or their color. The scars that followed were but a memory of surviving.
Ideal was too caught up in the spectacle to notice that Boris had been hit by a stranded javelin and now sank heavily to the ground.
As the battle around them grew stale, the duel intensified. It came to a point where they clawed and grappled, devolving the fight to a baser sort of violence. Eventually they fell on the hole, and then only the casual lightning bolt could be seen from the outside.
Raibeart had already reached the edges of the pit, hesitant to shoot. The combatants moved too fast, fought too close. He then shot one, two arrows, both which missed the target: Jevalet roared in confusion, but the dwarf seemed cold and distant. Ideal realized that he might not have missed at all.
It was when the tiefling finally noticed Boris laying on a pool of blood that he decided to move away from his neutral standpoint. Dismissing the illusion, he dodged a blow from a nearby orc and run for his guide. But then he felt a vibration that heralded the impact, and he braced for it.
From the giant hole, Jevalet rose, bloodied and marred, holding high in her right red hand a black figure that swarmed with vapid shadows and seemed to move through time: an ebony dancer enchanted and enchanting, a statue of solid subtleness and deceit that echoed the silent choreography of the unforgivable side of darkness.
Once in the air, a wave of shadows imploded from the statue and spread to the far ends of the cave. All those who were hit, orcs and little peoples alike, fell to the ground from the shock. The red orc stood here, as if time had stopped for the briefest moment. And then she collapsed, rolling down to the feet of the ruins' entrance.
Ideal lifted his head and saw that the remaining orcs were starting to flee. Close to him, he heard Boris gasp and breath with the faintest sign of life. Relieved, the tiefling realized he had lost all contact with the patron.
"That's good", he thought. He could delay the hellion that much longer.
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