No one was expecting the skull shards to start shaking.

No one was expecting the floor to split open and flood the area with crimson.

And no one was expecting a skull rivaling the size of the skull they had found a while back to fly up at them, teeth gnashing, eyes ablaze.

In an instant, there was a blaze of movement as the travelers rushed to react. Euele jerked to reach for her staff, Leiken grabbed a wand from his packs, Hawkes readied their cleaver and Solace was pulling xir poleaxe free from the binds keeping it at xir side. It was only a second, but it felt like too short a time as the skull descended upon them. Time passed like agony in the mad dash to get out into a more open space, every single one of them strangely aware that this wasn't simply going to end if they ran away.  An unearthly shriek pierced the air, shaking the ground and almost stunning Euele and the others as the skull came flying after them, its jaws crushing against each other as though thirsting for the flesh of those it chased. 

"EUELE!" Leiken's voice barely made it through the air, the sound almost shot down by the mere presence of the skull as it chased them. 

The starry blue puck nearly didn't hear him, her ears pinned tight to her skull as she tried to drown the horrifying shrieks that filled her head. "W-what!" She swerved, veering to run closer besides him, her stride closing as she very nearly outpaced him. 

Gripping his wand tighter in his teeth, Leiken could almost hear the wood fibers start to crack. "Do you have any seeds on you!? I mi-" His voice cut out as he leapt over a bit of fallen rock. "I might be able to slow it down some!" His mind was racing, all the information he knew so close and far outside his head, almost like it was just out of reach. This idea was just one of the ones he'd managed to greedily grab at as he desperately tried to cling to his sanity in the face of the fear that was threatening to shatter him.

In a less stressful situation, Euele might've laughed, as it was, she was struggling just to breathe, let alone communicate. "Always do!" She didn't stop running as she lowered her head to grab at a small leather pouch that Acherna had immediately offered. "What do you need them for?"

"THROW THEM!" Leiken didn't have time to explain, let alone the brain capacity to form the words required to piece together what exactly this idea was. As it was, he was doing all he could to cling to the spark of information that had been the seed of this plan. As Euele flung the seeds into the air, Leiken managed to half scream, half howl a warning to Solace and Hawkes as he tumbled to a halt in an effort to turn. His hide burned with agony, something deep within telling him that he was injured as his legs scrambled to pull him upright.

Euele screamed, and he heard Solace and Hawkes distantly echo her fearful call, but he could hardly focus the sounds into words. He ignored them, instead focusing all of what he could scrap together of his focus into the tip of the wand, a surge of magic powering through his body with an electrical charge that caused his coat to stand on end. His vision blurred, eyes jerking to try and find where the seeds had landed. Horror wove its way into his soul as he realized he didn't know what they looked like. 

He was going to die.

He jerked from the stupor, Que's whimpers filling his conscious. He couldn't die. For Que, for Euele and Hawkes and Solace. For his family, for Laurel. He hadn't even properly expressed how he felt about Laurel yet. 

With his eyes screwed shut, Leiken focused the pinpoint of energy into his wand once more, jerking to aim somewhere at the ground as he sent out the widespread blast of magic. There was a blast of greenish blue light and a veritable explosion of greenery as he poured every ounce of magical energy that he could into the wand and, in turn, into the earth. The earth rumbled, the remnants of his wand and dirt flying up into his face, pelting his delicate skin with massive splinters and sharp stones. He let out a shout of fear and pain as he spat out what was left of the wand.

"Leiken GET UP!" Hawkes strained voice roused him as he swung between conciousness and an accepted darkness. "It's trapped, but we don't have much time! You have to get up!" Something was shaking his shoulder.

Leiken opened one eye, blurredly gathering that Solace was running the wrong way. A strangled cry leapt from his throat as he forced himself to try and get up, lurching forwards, he found with some surprise, that Solace wasn't the only one facing the wrong way.

Hawkes was standing next to him, using the bulk of their shoulder to help him get upright, while the others had turned to face the Skull. His vision was still blurred but he didn't need the clearest sight to see that his magic had worked. The seeds Euele had thrown had grown, and grown, and grown, reaching desperately upwards to tangle themselves around the skull, pulling it down, and trapping it so it was only a few feet off the ground. It wasn't really struggling, only really heaving forwards as it snapped and gnashed at Solace and Euele, who were desperately trying to fight it. Solace had Hawkes' cleaver and was hacking at the left mandible while Euele blasted it with her icy magic, a huge ice spear already sticking out of a fracture on its brow. Hawkey and Acherna were swooping about, attacking the Skull with their talons, while Dusty tried to distract it.

Only Que and Hawkes were beside him, and it seemed they were trying to get him to move further from harm. Or something? He couldn't piece it together but he knew one thing. He could fight still. "I-I can fight too." 

Hawkes scowled, the expression blindly obvious even through the pain and blurred vision. "I won't say no, but only because if I did, I don't think it'd help anyone. Get out another wand." 

Leiken stood on his own four feet, wobbling a little as he grabbed another wand from his bags.

Hawkes was already leaving by the time he had managed to focus any type of magic into the wand, brandishing Solace's poleaxe to hack and stab at the Skull. Leiken took a breath, and let it out, a blast of light beaming from the wand with a sound so loud and blaring it took everything Leiken had to keep the wand pointed at the Skull as the light blasted into it, melting into teeth and bone as it scoured the enemy that had somehow gotten Solace into its teeth. 

Maybe they wouldn't get out of this unharmed, but Leiken wondered that they might actually make it at all.