Before any movement can be made toward the Muckmarsh's section of the island, and before the Rootwaters leader is able to respond to Auriel, the Muckmarsh lizardfolk charge. Under the new leadership of Bogclaw, it seems the Muckmarsh clan has decided upon war against the Dusk-Dusk clan on the western section of the island.

The Dusk-Dusk quickly rush to meet the Muckmarsh charge, placing themselves between the oncoming attackers and the captives in their own cages. Auriel's question is echoed among the Rootwater lizardfolk, and their leader quickly decides. Uragum has barely had a chance to react to Sylyra's nudging when the Rootwater leader shouts, "Jaka ui hesi krehl! Yth geou vihara Bogclaw, Muckmarsh, kagh Dusk-Dusk! Svadrav Throstulgrael rannoxic, mobi geou qe ehs jasevea ekess aclomik oli Rootwater!"

The prospect of war, bloodshed and victory seems to overtake the lizardfolk. As if the party were invisible, the Rootwater leader leads a charge of his own. Shrieking a war cry, the Rootwater clan draw their clubs and shields, rushing across the island to meet the other clans in combat.

For Carlthuzad, Hex and Uragum:

Auriel doesn't even have time to process Sylyra's glare as the three-front fight erupts. He just says:

- This is our chance! Let's free the Rootwater's prisoners and then we can do the same with the rest!

Sylyra is temporarily struck dumb as the chaos erupts. He tries to adjust his plan, but as Auriel shouts out, the druid gives the eladrin a quick glance before nodding to himself. Sylyra's form shimmers and shrinks. In his place is left a small, gray-furred monkey. If she were paying attention, Hex might recognize the creature from their last adventure. But immediately, the small simian is scrambling toward Muckmarsh territory, dodging lizardfolk, and climbing and swinging through trees where available to reach the captives. As soon as he reaches the first cage, his form reverts to its elven form.

@DM: As per usual, Sylyra will not prioritize humanoid creatures over livestock.

Auriel waits a few seconds to make sure that the lizarfolk go away and when they are at a safer distance he proceeds to pry the Rootwater cage open. As he does this he says to the prisoners:

- Take the rafts and go way! There may be some lizardfolk there, but you are quite a few. Work together and you'll manage to scape. May Tyr be with you.

He'll then proceed with the livestock cage. As he does this he asks the rest:

- Do we follow Sylyra? We could have some of us go to the Dusk-Dusk cage, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable splitting the party. What do you say?

As things suddenly escalate and chaos ensues, Hex is also stunned, looking back and forth between the lizardfolk clans, Auriel and Sylyra with confusion. She is only snapped back into reality as she watches Sylyra turn into a monkey and make his way towards the Muckmarsh side of the island. Hex instinctively goes to rush after him, calling his name. "Sylyra, are you insane!? You can't go alone!"

When Auriel asks what they should do, however, she stops momentarily, eyes flicking back and forth between the party and Sylyra. "I'm going to help Sylyra free the Muckmarsh prisoners. You three should go free the Dusk Dusk prisoners." She does not wait for a response and immediately dashes after Sylyra, bow at the ready with an arrow nocked. She takes a different path from the druid, sticking to the edge of the island, weaving between the foliage to try and avoid as much of the conflict as she can.

“Ahhhh, Hell’s Bells.”  Carl looks over and focuses on an empty spot of ground beside him, nodding.  He says “Let’ me handle this.  I’m going to go up to the pen and free them.  Auriel, Uragum, watch my back.  Going to go invisible for a moment here, should be able to get ‘em out pronto.”  Carl’s eyes flicker black for a moment, seem to twist and turn for a second, turning blue, then he disappears.  “C’mon, after me, hold your distance, avoid any conflict.  We’re setting’ ‘em free.”  

Carl casts invisibility on himself and heads toward the Dusk-Dusk cage, to free the captives being held there.  Anyone watching closely would see that there is a second set of footprints running beside him, toward the enclosure.

Auriel nods to both Hex and Carl and allows the invisible dwarf a few moments before following him by the edge of the island, and using the trees to hide. The paladin won't reach the Dusk-Dusk zone unless Carl really needs it, so as to not get too separated from the Muckmarsh area and be able to reach Sylyra and Hex as quickly as possible.

In mere moments the Island of the Lizard King has become chaos. Lizardfolk from all three clans meet near the center of the island where the large drums stand, fighting with javelins, clubs, spiked shields, and gnashing teeth. Bogclaw stands an imposing presence, skewering a Dusk-Dusk lizardfolk with his trident and roaring into the sky. The Muckmarsh are unable to make much use out of their charge with the arrival of the Rootwaters to the battle, and all three clans seem to be on even footing for the immediate moment.

The rudimentary lock on the cage holding Rootwater captives is simple enough for Auriel to break off, and the halflings and dwarves within it flood out, some shouting their thanks as they flee to the rafts. Four dwarves and a halfling, however, have other ideas.

"I'll kill every last one o' those bastards!"

"Time to make 'em pay!"

The five charge, weaponless, to meet a lizardfolk that has spotted Auriel's action and left the battle. The lizardfolk hisses its defiance and swings its club at a dwarf, who takes the hit on his side and grabs at the lizardfolk's arm, who quickly falls, dragged down and pummeled by the freed captives' fists.

Sylyra's path to the Muckmarsh cages is uninterrupted, and Hex arrives as the livestock are freed; a dozen of the livestock remain in the cage while the others flood out, running to various points of the island.

Nearing the Dusk-Dusk section of the island, Carlthuzad sees from behind a mask of invisibility that one of their cages holds a dozen humans and wood elves, while the other contains more than thirty large livestock.

As Hex sees the livestock run free, she makes her way to the prisoners and unlocks their cage, repeating what Auriel had said to the Rootwater prisoners. "Take the rafts and go! Don't look back, just get to safety!" As soon as the prisoners are freed, she rushes over to Sylyra and grabs him by the arm, trying to pull him back towards the rest of the party. "I can't believe you went by yourself! You're lucky none of the lizardfolk were paying attention to you. If you were attacked, we would've been too far to help you. You could've been killed!"

Carl glances around at the mayhem, looking for Sylyra and Hex, grumbling under his breath, “Humans and elves first!”  You see a dagger appear in mid air, walk on over to the pen, and cut any rope lashings, pry at the door, etc to open up the pen and free the prisoners.  A voice rings out as they run out, saying “Run for the rafts and flee, get outta here!”  Then he moves, getting out of the way, watching the mayhem.  Afterward, he sends the servant to release the animals from their pen.  The unseen servant then brings his dagger back to him.  

As chaos sweeps the island, Uragum watches as the other rush off to free the captives.  Per request, he tries to keep his eyes open and cover the others as they work on freeing the captives.  Hands up, he's ready to drop spells to slow down or even kill off the Lizardmen.  Once more captives were freed, Uragum's focus shifted on covering them  and their escape route.

At first Sylyra completely ignores Hex. He is clearly distressed, watching the livestock scatter across the island. Finally, he looks at the tiefling. "This isn't the time, Hex. They're going to get themselves killed. We have to save them." Looking away, he raises his voice and calls using his speech of the woods, "You need to swim! You need to swim away!" He waves his arms, trying to get their attention to encourage them into the swamp.

With all the livestock and prisoners cages open, and Sylyra and Hex together and out of immediate danger, Auriel will remain alert to what the lizardfolk are doing and help cover the prisoners' escape, same as Uragum. He won't engage the lizardfolk, which are now focused on fighting among them, unless they try to attack the prisoners or the party. 

Hex looks at Sylyra sympathetically and lets go of his arm. She watched as he frantically tries to lead the livestock to safety, a pang of guilt in her heart as she knows that, even if they managed to escaped from the lizardfolk, most of the livestock wouldn't be able to survive the marsh and its dangers. "We can't save them, Sylyra. You can tell them to swim but where would they go? The marsh will eat them alive before they could even reach safety."

The situation quickly spirals into more chaos as some prisoners dash to rafts on the edge of the island while more join with the freed Rootwater captives to take the fight to the lizardfolk, despite being outnumbered, weaponless (aside from a dwarf and halfling who now hold a club and shield from the fallen Rootwater lizardfolk), and almost certainly heading to their death. Some of the smaller livestock freed by Rogram take heed of his words more quickly, running away from the scenes to enter the thick of the marsh while most of the larger livestock seem content to move slowly or not at all.

The Dusk-Dusk clan seems to be holding their own against the Muckmarsh charge until a few of their clansmen decide to turn on them, joining Bogclaw's sudden coup to suddenly turn the odds in his favor.

The situation looks far from ideal - though there are enough rafts for all of the humanoid captives, there are far too many animals on the island to fit. Worse, Bogclaw seems to have identified those freeing the lizardfolk's prisoners, and has broken away from the main cluster of combat to lead a charge of three other lizardfolk toward the Muckmarsh cages.

Auriel watched wide-eyed as the scene developed into the worst possible case. Not only were some of the prisoners fighting - against what should have been the logical choice of running away - but also Hex and Sylyra were about to face Bogclaw himself. The paladin cursed loudly. As much as he wanted to help the freed captives, he wasn't about to let his companions face this danger alone. 

The eladrin shared a wordless glance with Carlthuzad and Uragum, then clutched his holy symbol for an instant, in search for inner strength, and began to move towards the Muckmarsh cages as fast as possible.

While he will try hard to avoid any lizardfolk in the middle, so as to reach his companions as fast as possible, he will also try to come near any of the fighting captives and offer them his four javelins and his shield. If they are willing to fight, then he may as well help some of them to do it in better terms.

Carl stays hidden and invisible, circling around the pen if need to follow loosely behind Auriel, avoiding lizardfolk as he goes, looking for opportunities for all to escape.  His invisible servant follows him and he swings by Uragum, a voice coming to him from nearby saying merely “Let’s follow Auriel.”

Sylyra's eyes turn on Hex, hard and angry. "Stop," he hisses. "I will not give up —" His retort dies in his throat as he realizes Hex is no longer looking at him, but past him. Worse, she appears to be readying for an attack. The druid turns to see Bogclaw and their three compatriots quickly approaching. Throwing out his staff, Sylyra quickly casts faerie fire on the four lizardfolk. A shower of light motes drip from the mistletoe tied to the end.

Hex moves closer to Sylyra, one arm already out to grab the druid again, desperate to get him to just listen to her so they can quickly rejoin the rest of the party. As she sees Bogclaw and the three lizardfolk making their way towards them, however, her hands are immediately back on her bow and she instinctively begins to move back and away. She only realises she is leaving Sylyra alone again when he throws out the faerie fire. Cursing, she lifts her bow and fires an arrow at one of the three lizardfolk following Bogclaw. "We need to get back to the others. Now, Sylyra!"

Uragum clenched his fist and followed but not before whipping his hand forward tossing an ice knife spell at the at Bogclaw.  With any luck, he'd bury the blade into him before it exploded and hit the others.

Attack: 14 Damage: 1, Reflex save 14 to take half of 2

Move: Move toward Bogclaw and the team.