Lenna stood like a bulwark between Isaac and anything that would make it over or under the walls to reach him. As she stood there she watched as a dozen arrows were fired every second, more landing true than not, as tens of beasts were shot to ribbons or out of the sky with lethal efficiency. An eagle the size of a horse blasted over the top of the wall and immediately oriented on Isaac. It barely had a chance to focus on him before a streak of brown and green impacted it with a crunch of shattering avian bones and a poof of feathers.

Lenna blinked in surprise as she realized that it had been Philia who moved at a speed that was simply impossible. Following the rules of physics and mana, Philia shouldn't have had that much momentum if she had teleported but also couldn't have accelerated so much in a quarter of a blink's worth of time. Lenna looked and saw a patch of dead grass where Philia had previously been standing. A hypothesis formed in Lenna's mind. She was anything but well versed in druids and their natural life force shenanigans, but seeing the dead grass hinted at what had happened. Philia had somehow ripped the life from a plant in her 'Garden' and used it to both protect her from the forces that she had hit her body with, as well as propelled herself forwards at nearly the speed of sound.

A Silent Stalker leapt the entire distance to the top of the wall and then launched itself directly towards Isaac. It made it half of the way before it hit the ground in a bounding charge. It had barely left the ground before a sword swing came straight down on it with the force of a falling stone tower. Lenna had brought her adamantine sword down in vertical chop with absolute intent to obliterate the giant cat. She had hit it in the head and the tip of her sword had only reached its first vertebrae yet it was split in two half way down its back. Both halves of everywhere that Lenna's sword had passed through were launched apart with such unrelenting power and force that they tried to tear the rest of the cat in half as well.

A corpse of another giant eagle tumbled into the courtyard with three arrows sticking out of its skull from different angles. Lenna felt mana stir beneath her feet and glanced around for Philia only to find her standing in front of Isaac staring directly into the ground below him. Philia stabbed her fingers into the dirt and ripped them back out while throwing a handful of dirt over her shoulder. What Lenna had not expected was the snake made of soil, that was sent flying out of the ground towards the walls by a hand of solid stone that formed and mirrored the druid's movements. Philia turned around and spoke an enchantment as the creature impacted the enchanted stone wall: "Stone is dirt, dirt is mud, so let mud become stone."

Lenna watched as the snake was turned into solid stone before it had even hit the ground where it then shattered into dozens of pieces. Philia turned around and brought her foot down in a stomp towards the space directly under Isaac. The packed dirt that had become soft from days of rainfall was instantly packed so hard into the ground that the surface under Isaac dropped a full foot and turned into something indistinguishable from natural mudstone.

"There are more." Philia informed Lenna but the paladin could already feel the six foot long snakes slithering through the ground under her.

Lenna nodded and each of them took a side. The first snake that broke the surface, ten feet away from Isaac do to the untraversable section of ground that Philia had created, was obliterated by Lenna's flaming sword swing that impacted nearly a third of its length at the same time. The snake was turned into nothing more than airborne dry dirt clumps from the imparted heat alone and was blasted outwards from the impact itself.

Lenna and Philia continued killing snakes until another eagle crested the walls with single minded determination for a meal. It was not Philia that impacted it out of nowhere this time, no, it was a far redder fox. Gypsy seemed to almost materialize out of nowhere as she clenched her teeth around the eagle's neck while it was still a dozen feet in the air. Lenna thought that she had seen a blur of motion and shifting shades come from the section of wall that the eagle had crested but she couldn't be certain. What she was absolutely certain of was that she did not want to ever get bitten by the furry and fleshy looking, but apparently made of mythril, steel, and adamantine giant fox. Gypsy's jaws slammed entirely closed as more than half of the eagle's neck, that had been hidden under all of its feathers, was simply removed before it even realized what hit it.

"Finally get impatient?" Philia asked Gypsy as the fox landed without a sound and turned to regard her, with flesh and feathers sticking out of her mouth and blood dripping onto the ground. Gypsy just stared at philia for a few seconds before she spit out the meat and stamped her foot next to it. "Fine, I'll make sure no one touches your dinner." Philia assured the fox who had just laid claim to her kill.

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Gypsy nodded once and then turned around to face the wall. She took a bound towards the wall as her coat turned into the same tannish brown as the wooden coverings of the battlements. Power built in her legs and then ground under her shook slightly as she launched herself the entire way up onto the wall. Her colors shifted and matched the wall closest to her with such instantaneous precision that Lenna lost sight of her until she had crested above the wall to land atop it.

"How long will this keep up?" Lenna asked Philia.

"Getting tired already?" Philia questioned with a toothy grin. Her teeth had turned to match those of a cat entirely.

Lenna shook her head. "Definitely not. Just wondering how much I should pace myself." She told the older elf.

Philia nodded. "An hour, maybe two, but it will change over time." The druid explained and grabbed a snake with her bare hand and ripped it out of the dirt. She made a downward slamming motion and the entire snake went rigid before it impacted the stone-like dirt beneath them and crumbled. Lenna nodded and resolved herself to only use mana when necessary, like to make sure the snakes died in one hit.

Philia hadn't explained how the battle would change but it certainly did. The fast beasts and monsters like giant eagles and storm corvids had hit almost like a first wave. The archers had focused on the more magically inclined storm corvids because those could cause the most collateral damage. Average paced animals like the wood wolves, silent stalkers, and dirt drifter snakes reached the walls at a steadier rate from all around. As the avians died off, more ground bound creatures came to take their place until eventually a few trees were seen shifting towards the walls at the equivalent speed of a slow walk.

The Druid Commander of the Seventeenth Great Forest Fortress waited to enact her will on the local flora until the fauna were entirely dealt with. Once they had been, Philia walked into the middle of the courtyard and closed her eyes. "Is it finally over?" Lenna asked as it had only been fifty minutes or so but somewhere around two hundred and fifty creatures had been slain.

Philia shook her head. "Not yet." She stated simply and then started turning her feet back and forth, pointing her toes inwards and then outwards over and over again. After the fifth time, she started to sink into the ground. She continued for half of a minute which was about how long it took for her feet to sink into the dirt up to her ankles. She took a deep breath and wiggled her fingers at her sides. "Grow, age, crack, rot, fall, and die. Do not wait, but feed us now. Lend aid back to Gia and this forest in the form of your decomposed corpse. Become fertilizer for the next generation. Just as so many have before you." Philia's words were not a chant for a magical spell but a directive to the 'garden' from its caretaker. There were weeds that would better serve the garden as compost and fertilizer. So it was said, and so it was done.

Lenna couldn't see the trees but she could hear them. It sounded as if a dozen trees were boiling from the inside. Their water turned to steam that whistled out as it broke apart the wood around it. There were cracks and crashes as the designated trees were forced through the cycle of their ends at a breakneck pace. Philia stood there, with her feet ankle deep in the dirt, for a few minutes as the trees finished crumbling to dust.

Lenna was hesitant to leave Isaac alone to go and witness the spectacle, so she could do nothing but listen to the demise of the final wave of creatures looking to turn her husband into lunch. Speaking of lunch, Lenna was getting hungry. With all of the excitement, everyone had just forgotten about the midday meal.

Philia shook herself and then picked her feet up out of the ground. The dirt around her feet flowed back into place as if she hadn't ever disturbed it. She turned around to face Lenna and gave the younger elf a content sigh as all of her fur shrunk back into her body. "All done. There is nothing within a full mile of us that is looking for trouble." She explained. Apparently her 'garden' was entirely cleansed of unwanted predators and visitors.

Lenna relaxed a bit and let the tip of her sword touch the ground. "What are you going to do with all of the corpses?" Lenna wondered.

"Meat and clothes, pillows and mattresses, molding clay, training armor and weapons, magic tower." Philia explained as she gestured towards a silent stalker, giant eagle, dirt drifter snake, and wood wolf in that order. "The birds are generally good eating too."

"Speaking of food," Lenna began. "we missed lun-" Her voice was cut off by Walter's voice originating directly between the two women, even though he was still on the rooftop.

"I see it." Walter stated with enough gravity that both women know which 'it' he was referring to. "He's watching us." Walter's voice practically whispered. "I think he was watching most of what just happened."

"How far is it?" Philia instantly questioned, absolutely positive that Walter would be able to hear her.

"Seven thousand, two hundred, eighty one feet." Walter told her as if he had expected her to ask.

"Can you get it?" Philia questioned.

"Normal or Doppler?" Walter asked back.

"Hit it." Philia ordered him. If he was asking then that meant that there was a chance he could hit it with at least one of them. Philia didn't care which bullet he hit the draconic snake with, as long as it bled all over the ground. The wound would make it much easier to track later.

"It's lookin' straight at me." Walter explained. "Doppler wouldn't be a direct hit, normal'll have to do." He spoke aloud so Philia would be apprised of the situation. Both women watched as Walter removed the bullet that he had loaded into his rifle and pocketed it. He withdrew what looked like a solid steel bullet that was three quarters of an inch wide and three inches long. He slipped it into the part of the gun that they couldn't see and then pushed it closed and locked it again. They watched as his thumb flipped a switch just above the trigger and he let out a slow breath. Half way through letting out the breath, both women heard one word whispered just loud enough to hear clearly: "Boom."

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