The confrontation at the Undermire Dwarf-Door erupted disastrously as Vex struck the tiny Don with a vibrating blade. A psychic aura whispered from him, damaging the front four as he slipped back into the magical darkness. The Fold's ambush became immediately apparent, as scouts opened fire from beyond the blackness, and a rain of arrows pierced the heroes and their invisible fairy vanguard. While Mercy and Elle fell back, Snapdragon surged ahead to support Coriander, enlarging himself and conjuring magical daylight that burned through the darkness around the doorway.
The illumination revealed the true scale of what lay hidden beyond: an enormous treasure vault littered with mountains of gold and gems, much of it already being hauled away by hired lizardfolk porters. At the center of the chamber, worked directly into both floor and ceiling, rested a massive symbol of Virathul. Another Fold V, Volition, hurled destructive magic at the intruders. Merben and Nessa dove beneath the treasure piles for cover, trading shots with Fold scouts while opportunistically stuffing gold into their pockets. Punmiri noticed that a portion of the symbol beneath her was incomplete, though she abandoned her investigation to heal toward Ellenor and Mercy as they joined the forward push.
Mercy answered the assault with overwhelming magical force. Drawing on his innate sorcery, he chained electrically charged chromatic orbs through the chamber, tearing apart his enemies. Coriander transformed himself into a gigantic serpent in an effort to overwhelm Vex directly, only for the half-elf to casually dispel the form mid-battle and leave the Don exposed to concentrated enemy fire. Ellenor, donning her fox mask, managed to slip Coriander a healing potion before he fell, earning fierce gratitude from Snapdragon, but Volition soon answered with devastating fireballs that ripped through the clustered fairies and badly wounded the Crew gathered near the doorway.
The invisible Glitterati attempted to turn the tide through sheer numbers, swarming into the chamber around Vex and Volition. Yet their invisibility became a liability as much as an advantage. Many hesitated to attack immediately for fear of revealing themselves, giving the Fold scouts too much time to fill the air with arrows. Punmiri fought desperately to keep everyone alive while healing potions disappeared one after another, but the attrition became impossible to sustain. Ellenor eventually broke from the group and confronted Vex directly alongside a squad of invisible fairies. Pressured by the swarm surrounding him, the half-elf was forced to retreat temporarily, carving a bloody path through the fairyfolk as Volition established herself atop a mountain of treasure, bombarding the Glitterati with fireballs.
Realizing the battle was lost, Coriander finally ordered a retreat. Before fleeing, he repaid Ellenor for saving his life by turning her invisible, allowing her a slim chance at escape. But Vex refused to let witnesses survive. As the surviving fairies withdrew, he ordered Volition to activate the enormous wild magic symbol at the center of the vault. The Mage did so and fled deeper into the complex as wild magic surged through the fault; clouds of honeyed bubbles rendered everyone inside, save Ellenor, unconscious. Vex had already stepped through an Arcane Gate and completed the outer portion of the Virathul symbol himself. Wild earth magic caused a violent cave-in that took in the fleeing Merben and Coriander, and as he began to slide down into the Deepways, Nessa dove after her grandson.
Faced with total collapse, Ellenor made impossible choices. She dragged Mercy’s unconscious body back toward the Dwarf-Door, grabbed Snapdragon, and fled down the same corridor the surviving scout had taken. On the other side, Coriander was pulled up by ten flying fairies, abandoning Nessa as the very laws of reality continued to unravel. As wild magic altered gravity itself, Punmiri was forced to ignore Mercy and threw a rope toward Merben, but was pulled in after him into the collapsing landslide. Vex calmly misty stepped through the devastation and approached Mercy’s helpless body while seventeen Giant Vampire Bats materialized from the wild magic between him and Ellenor. Though still invisible, she realized the creatures could still find her through echolocation. As Vex stalked past Mercy, he called into the darkness: “I know you’re here somewhere, little fox.”
The turf war ended as a massacre. Ninety members of the Glitterati were killed, alongside six Fold scouts, and the Whistledrop Crew was shattered and scattered. Buried beneath the rubble, something inside Nessa awakened long enough for her to claw free, revive Merben with a healing potion, and pull Punmiri back from death. Trapped underground, the three discovered they had survived beside a natural Magic Pool. Nessa recognized the tunnels around them: they miraculously had fallen near the Lockford Lightspring, only hours away from her hometown of Little Lockford. Elsewhere, Ellenor escaped Vex by following Volition's portal. She emerged inside a strange swampy storage chamber, and managed to barricade herself until Snapdragon regained consciousness a minute later. Though separated, most of the former Whistledrop Crew were safe.
Mercy, however, would awake in chains. In fevered dreams, he saw his sister Camas accusing him of causing her death before shattering apart beneath the touch of his cursed hand, revealing the black-bearded face of “V”. When consciousness finally returned, the wild magic sorcerer found himself restrained to prevent spellcasting, his fingers clamped down while electricity coursed painfully through his body. Standing over him, the masked cult leader promised they were going to have “fun together"; for all his Mercy, the devil received none.