Aiden's assault sets the red dragonborn on the back foot and its strikes grow clumsy and uncoordinated. However, its allies snarl desperately, swinging their maces with ever greater fervour. The first strike from the blue dragonborn clangs off of Aiden's armour, doing little more than set him off balance. However, with his shield occupied by the red dragonborn, the white's mace comes in from the other side, slamming into the side of the cleric's jaw with an unpleasant crunch.

Aiden's fury grows with the damage to his face. He can feel the mace's impact with his helmet bruising him down to the bone and feels a warm wetness run down his neck as his skin is opened by the blow. He spits blood and then lightning, as he throws almost all his reserves into the white dragonborn's face in retaliation.

Then, he turns his blade back to the red dragonborn. The cultist's shortsword flashes menacingly, but Aiden bashes it aside and finally scores a sword blow that cuts deep into the man's gut. But the dragonborn doesn't fall. So Aiden takes his spiritual hammer to the cultist's reptilian muzzle, flattening it. The red dragonborn falls to the stone floor, blood pouring from his mangled face.

He turns to the blue and the white dragonborn. "That's one," he snarls in Norscan.

The remaining pair of dragonborn roar in fury and try to grab Aiden and drag him to the ground, but they're no match for his magically enhanced strength and he throws them off with little effort.

Aiden swings his hammer at the white one's head. The dragonborn ducks, but his victory -- and life -- is short-lived as Aiden runs him through with his blade. Dark crimson sprays from the bloodwell as Aiden pulls the weapon free, and turns to face his final opponent, covered in dragonborn blood and leaking his own from his split jaw. "That's...two..." he says between heavy breaths.

The blue dragonborn bellows in Aiden's face in fury pounding at him with its mace, but the cleric's shield stands resolute and firm.

The cultist ducks another blow from the hammer and responds with a flurry of less-than-impactful mace blows. Aiden lands a straight kick into the cultist's gut and follows up with a final, decisive sword blow through the cultist's spine. 

The dragonborn drops to the floor amidst his dead friends. The smell of charred stone, ozone, and blood fills the air as Aiden leans against the wall, breathing hard. First the rug, then this lot. "Thunder shatter this castle into rubble so fine that nothing, not the magic of all the gods together, could piece it back together again. **** this place."

Aiden turns back the way he came to look for the gnome that had escorted him. Gone. Of course the little shit had scarpered. He looks into the dungeon to be sure that it will be a suitable place to imprison the remaining cultists, and then turns and heads back up to the chamber where Thurston and Valaith had been. He staggers into the room, feeling lightheaded from the blood loss -- though that had mostly stopped now. "I cannot seem to hold onto any gnomes today," Aiden says to the other two warriors, trying to sound casual.

"wait... what? What happened? where's that little shit? and why is your cape full of new holes and burns..." Thurston opens his eyes wide " No... don't you dare!! Did you had more fighting down there?? And you didn't share it?! Aiden Olrikson I am very disappointed! Not only you don't share the fun but you also deprive us of the sighting of a true Thor follower fighting!! Tell me how many of them were?" 

Aiden steps forward, laughing a bit and then wincing at the pain in his jaw. "There were four," he says. He steps forward and stumbles a bit, his ribs still smarting and his jaw aching. "They are dead now."

"Four!!" says Thurston lending a hand to Aiden to help him stand. "And you took them all by yourself! You old rascal! Did you find a place to lock this cattle down? Yes?!" says Thurston as Aiden nods "Let's move them down there. Here my friend " says the paladin lending a potion to Aiden "Drink my special mead. You've earn it!! but the least you can do now is share the tale of the battle, as long you haven't shared the battle itself." 

While Aiden drinks and recover a little bit Thurston turns towards the cultist.

"You rats!! On you feet!! Move now!! I swear to my ancestors if any of you tries something I will send you all to Hel with no bone intact in your weak bodies!! MOVE!!" 

Aiden drinks the "mead" greedily, downing most of the vial in a few seconds. He wipes his mouth clean with the back of a gauntleted hand and lets out a deep breath. "I promise, you'll have the story. When we're not busy." He gives a significant look to the prisoners.

Thurston nods to Aiden and focus on guiding the flock of prisoners to the dungeon following Aiden's directions from behind him. Turns out that most of them already knew the way to it so it was easier than the norscan thought it would be. And his words and threats seemed to had its desired effect for none of them tried nor to escape or to turn to them. The grim spectacle of the four dead dragonborn should had been the last piece of the dissuasive tactic to prevent more trouble. 

Under the inquisitive glance of Thurston, they followed his instructions and entered the dungeon.  The Norscan closed the door and he suddenly realized that they had no keys to the doors of the cells. 

Thurston tried to open the door and it moved freely. He looked inside to a group of confused prisoners. He growled a little bit and closed the door again. He then pretend to close it, even making some noises with his mouth and yelled.

"And don't you dare to try to open the door!! It's locked now!!" 

Still holding it in place he looked back to Val and Aiden and mouthed. 

"What do we do now? It's not locked at all" 

Aiden laughs, bending to retrieve a set of keys from the red dragonborn he had killed. "Try this," he says, and tosses the keys to the paladin. 

Thurston sighs and nods. 

"That make sense" he mutters while locking the door of the cell and proceeding with the rest. 

"So that does it for now. They would probably safer in there. Should we go and rejoin the others?" he asks to his friends.

"Let's go see how they've made out," Aiden says. "They cannot be doing worse than how I feel." He groans and rubs his jaw where the mace had hit.

Vark can’t help but smile as he takes each item and scans it beneath the light of the codex, using the runestone to reveal the unique arcane matrices around them. With each identification he completes he excitedly spouts the information at Bründir and Jex, taking particular interest in the Lodestone and the Scroll of Glyph of Warding. Once all of the items have been identified he grabs the Bag of Holding and moves to begin stuffing it with the spoils before stopping with an inquisitive “Hmm.” Was there anything to be found in this magical satchel? He reaches a hand inside and it sinks up to the shoulder finding nothing but empty void. “Right... maybe if I...” Now Vark removes his arm and takes the bag by its edges. He walks over to an open space in the room and with an unceremonious motion he attempts to shake out any contents that might be found within.

A thick pair of woollen socks tumbles out of the bag and onto the floor, right as Aiden, Thurston and Val return.

"Doing the sister's laundry, Vark?" Aiden asks with a smile. "What else have you found?"

"Oh, uhm, heheh, just... making some room." he says, hurrying to kick aside the pair of socks and beginning to load up the bag. As he goes he gives a quick rundown of all that he's found as well as a brief description of the scenes carved on each of their doors. "What's our plan now?"

"Make sure the fortress is secure and inform the elves that the sisters are no longer a thing to worry about I guess. I would go to that first bandit camp and to the basilisk farm to make sure the rest of the bandits has no ideas of their own. " says Thurston keeping an eye out of the rooms and into the halls and barely noticing the elaborate engraving of the doors of the rooms. "anything interesting?" he asks without really looking to the things the rest of the team had gathered.

Vark nods at Thurston's suggestion. "I can talk to the Marquise." he says, already pulling out the codex to begin casting the ritual spell. "There's some cool stuff, a bunch of potions and scrolls, oh and a helmet that lets you fly!" 

A few minutes later and the ruby crackles with magic, ready to transfer Vark's message. "Hello Marquise, this is Vark of the Acharnost! We've successfully taken down the Morrigan sisters and secured Morloth. Uhm..." he trails off awkwardly, unsure of what else to say. "Did you have plans for it?"