Out in the clearing, Robor moved up to Beats and tried again, to wrangle control of the rebellious Sklorch. After another short match of egos, Robor finally put the feisty critter in it place - asserting his will over the ephemeral plant spirit.
It had taken all Robor had, to establish dominance over what basically amounted to a common houseplant, but it was still a win - and Robor was not going to diminish that, by over-analyzing how the mindless thing had been able to put up such a fight against him in the first place.
With the threat averted, Beats attempted to cast Follow Through, on the closed portal space left by the witch's vortex. Uttering words of power, he felt the magics come together as expected, but then a strange ripple of feedback abruptly cascaded through the spell - threatening to collapse it!
With no small amount of effort however, Beats was able to push the unusual influence out of the spell and stabilize it again - opening a correspondence to wherever it was that Mama Kark (and the others) had gone.
It then occurred to Beats that the Follow Through only applied to him. If he was to bring Robor through it with him, he would need to wrap him in the spells resonance (Mana) and then physically pull him through as he went.
Back in the vault meanwhile, Emend disrupts Maka Kark with his counterspell, as she attempts to flee. As her spell fails to materialize, the witch spits on the floor in disgust and spins to face Emend.
"OOOH! You wicked little thing you!" she growls; "I'll teach you to interfere with a lady's spellcasting!"
Activating a prepared spell of some kind, she moves to a nearby table and picks a large meat cleaver up from a chopping block, to check its sharpness with the edge of her finger.
Of course Emend sees none of this, but does get some very threatening feels from Mama Kark's thought-aura and senses her imminent approach.
As this goes on, Hans lumbers at the Saint with surprising speed and grabs him around the neck with both hands. Even with his own enhanced strength, the Saint is shocked at the creature's tremendous brawn. Unable to bat away its strange waxy arms, or break the grip, the Saint activates Emotional Urging to calm the monster, before it can crush his windpipe.
Confused, Hans lets go a moment and explains, "I sorry bad man, but Mama say I gota crush you." He then raises his hands once again and calmly reaches towards the Saint's neck like a boy trying to pet a puppy.
Taking advantage of the momentary pause in the assault, the Saint casts Transfer Base Features on the hornet swarm, granting a quarter of them bioluminescence. It's enough to dimly light the room - at least to the point where everyone can now see with their own eyes. Speaking of which, it appears that Hans has none - his eyelids having been sewn shut with thick black threads.
Something was also wrong with his skin. He wasn't really a mannequin - he just moved like one - but his skin had the appearance of smooth pale-white wax-soaked leather. From his up close and personal proximity to the thing, the Saint could also see the skin sewn together in fine seems, like one would find on a fabric doll or something.
Taking the room itself in, Saint and Emend can see no obvious way out of the stone treasure chamber.
The killer hornets meanwhile, swoop down and begin stinging the many large rats that slink in the shadows along the outer reaches of the area. The rats shriek in agony as the poison takes effect and try to flee the attack, but the swarm is too many and able to go wherever the rats try to escape through. After a rather terrifying display of insect on vermin brutality, half of the rats appear to be in death spasms, while the rest have disappeared into cracks and holes in the stone - their shrieking still audible, as they continue to suffer and die, due to the bullet ant venom.
"NOOOOOOO!!!! YOU KILL MY FREINDS!!!" Hans cries aghast at the death of his rats - rage once again burning in his face - "I KILL YOU DEAD!!!"
"Oh, you done did it now, mister..." Mama Kark says to the Saint at Hans' outburst. "May your god have mercy on your soul."
Then turning to Emend she smiles, revealing black stubs of poorly looked-after teeth - "Shall we begin?"
Raising the huge cleaver, she moves forward...
