"Sir, those monsters are pushing further and further into the city, it won't take them long to get here."

"It will still take them time, use it to gather my things, make sure to-" An elderly dwarf's sentence was cut off by a scream, which was followed by a dwarf being help down a stairway, a crossbow where his collarbone was, "He was hit by a stray bolt, he'll live, but-" He was interrupted the the elderly one, "If they're firing into the city, then there are monsters that have slipped past the barricades," he muttered a short string of curses, "Secure my alchemy notes, every one of them, then destroy and burn everything else.. We're heading to one of the escape tunnels with the others."

"Even the... experiments?" The alchemist looked at him, and gave a short, curt nod. The dwarf guard gathered a couple others and set about killing what was in the cages in the next room.

An elven woman, with the appearance of having once been a proud warrior, was huddled in the corner of one cage wearing nothing but loose, tattered, and torn rags, a unfocused and blank look in her eyes. She didn't even look when some dwarves entered the room and started systematically killing the other cages animals and sentient beings. The leader of the group made his way to her cage, looked at her for but a moment, then opened the cage to more easily drive his blade into her. As soon as it broke into her skin and went about an inch in, the pain and her short scream woke him up, the blade stuck and black fluid sprouted from around the blade and before the dwarf could register what happened a black tendril shot through his throat and stuck out of the base of his skull, he was dead before he hit the ground.

Black, monster-like hands and claws formed around her hands, the feet following suit as her face was covered by a solid mask. The blade was pulled out and tossed aside, the noise drawing the attention of the other two dwarves, who immediately noticed the dead body and decided to rush what had killed him. One got there first, tripped over a limb in his rush, and had his throat ripped out as he fell, left to die slowly. The other was smarter, and had just reached the doorway and started to yell something when Mar came upon him. The life was ended quickly with a claw to the base of the skull. All that was left was two more guards, who appeared to be mercenary brigands hired for this shady work, one of which was injured from a bolt, and an old alchemist. "G-get it, kill it!" The healthy dwarf charged, and once he was nearly upon Mar just stopped, his arms falling limp to his sides before his body fell. A tendril slowly receding back into the elf's body.

Needless to say, the wounded dwarf didn't take much and the alchemist was half-dead in Mar's hand when the doors could be heard opening. Whoever was coming in would hear the old dwarven alchemist begging for his life and trying to make deals, making repeating mentions of his research and the secured escape tunnels out of the city. The only reason he was still alive was because Mar was debating whether to take him as a temporary host while his current one recovered. No, it was too late for that, and he raised a hand to end the man's life.