The Champion's Guard

Whispers at the Ziggurat

"Then so be it" Vex said and she started moving, "Let's move" Without another word, Vex jogged over to the side of the Ziggurat stairway. She then signaled for the rest to move. Grog, Pike and Scanlan went up the stairs while Vex and Miel walked behind them. They all ran up while Keyleth, Percy and Ripely stayed at the bottom of the stairs.

They climbed the steps as slow as they could so that the Briarwoods don't see them. Stairs are not exactly great for hiding when you're heading straight for the enemy. As they walked, Miel's head was racing trying to think of all sorts of spells she could use to help Vax, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't think of anything. She's about to fight her boyfriend with his sister, a vampire and his dark mage wife, and she can't even think of a plan on how to do it.

"Sylas!!" Miel jumped when she heard Percy suddenly yell out as he stormed up the stairs. "We have debts to settle"

"I kind of assumed we were gonna sneak up on them, but okay" Scanlan said as they watched Percy reveal themselves. They ran out behind Percy, Vax ready to block them.

"Vax please" Miel said

"Come on, brother" Vex said

"All right, look" Scanlan called, "you might as well surrender. You're outnumbered, and there's nowhere to run"

Delilah shrieked as she showed off her power to them, not intimidated at all, "who's running?"

"You had to say something" Miel muttered, glaring at Scanlan

Delilah shot out a giant wave of black magic right down the middle of the stairs. Everyone jumped to the sides to avoid it, but Grog tried to block it with his axe. Only to be knocked back to the bottom of the stairs. Percy ran back up, avoiding Vax's blade and before the rogue could run after him a grey barrier appeared in front of him, blocking the way up.

"Go, Percy!" Miel yelled.

Vax turned to look at her. Miel's eyes widened when he ran at her but Vex lunged at him, sending both to the side of the stairs. Vax quickly pinned Vex down but she rolled over as she blocked his dagger.

"Vax, it's me" she called out, only to get scratched on her shoulder and avoiding another to the face. She jumped away before Vax could try again. "Not the welcome I hoped for" she said before avoiding Vax's daggers again. She moved away and tried to stay as far from him as possible. The thing about daggers, they're short distance when not thrown.

Vax pulled out two daggers and tribe to stab Vex, only for her to block his arms, "You sure you want to do this, brother?" Vex asked, "Cause we both know you used to lie about letting me win" she said as she pushed him back, only for him to turn and almost swipe at her.

Miel ran over to the edge as she watched the two siblings fight. "How to do this? How to do this?" she panicked a bit. "okay, okay, okay, Sylas is controlling Vax...maybe a counter controlling spell?" she wondered. Sure it wasn't the best idea, but she was worried that if she did manage to get Vax out of his mind control, he'll just be able to do it again. Miel groaned as she held out her hand, "this is the worst fucking plan" she said and concentrated her magic over to Vax.

As Vex kept her brother busy, she took a quick glance over to Miel and saw eyes glow grey as she held her hand out towards Vax. She then saw the gold light flicker bit between gold and silver. Vax groaned and held his head before turning to look for the other source of mind control. "uh-oh" Vex muttered when he looked straight at Miel.

As her glow faded, Miel flinched when Vax started running full speed at her. When he was in front of her, she managed to bring up a barrier in time as he tried to stab her. Vax growled and ran around to be behind her. He kicked her side, sending her flying to the side.