The Earth Elementals- if they could see, would see a tiny cave, with a badger in it. The badger is illusory. The cave is illusory. The Elementals can instead sense only a much larger cave. An [Alarm] goes off. A magic mouth on the Illusory Badger shouts "Secret Badger Alert White Stripe! And then, and as they cross the threshold into the main lair, a [Forbiddance] triggers.

The handful of earth elementals Joan-Pau had summoned were clustered around Alexaera to shelter in his sword's aura.

The aura shields some of them. It doesn't help the others. They melt, withering away, their stony flesh crumbling as they pass through the Forbiddance, until finally their construct-bodies have taken enough and the spell sustaining them gives up on it, and they disappear with an inrush of air.

To Joan-Pau - it hurts. But he's an adventurer and an officer, and he's been hurt worse before.

As someone who casts from wisdom, Voshrelka does not take up valuable space around the paladin's aura of spell resistance. So she gets to just eat this Forbiddance directly. It hurts like a bitch, but honestly? She was actually expecting worse. Possibly it's the many buffs the various nobility have dumped on her, she doesn't think she's ever been this well fortified in her life, but still. Kind of surprising. She was pretty sure she'd lost the Evil alignment by now, and it's not like anyone at the convention's mentioned it...

Lisandro also notices that the forbiddance doesn’t zap him as badly as expected. Even factoring in all the buff spells and being in the same general area as a paladin, this is getting hit on one alignment axis not two. He gets his alignment aura checked regularly, though, so he knows it isn’t evil. Does that mean the forbiddance is anarchic-evil.

Makes sense, actually, considering Infernal Cheliax. So he can be a bit proud about it. Here he is, benefiting from being slightly less shaped like an Asmodean hit-squad, compared to presumably most of the Iomedaean hit-squad.

Vidal passes through the iron floor into a tiny earth cave, with a badger in it. It is very dark, and the undead badger is standing perfectly still, eyes aglow.

Ow. Those are some very bright magical auras. Most of them illusion, which means nothing in the room is real. Lisandro just follows the paladin, who presumably will ignore the illusions and be drawn to the strongest evildoer in the same manner as iron and a magnet.

The badgers aren't real, ignore them. Same with the walls -

- Right. Vidal charges forward, resisting his instinct to close his eyes when he runs straight into the wall, which, thankfully is not a wall at all. There are badgers snarling and alarms sounding and the forbiddance burns against his skin and more walls cut his vision in every direction but he holds Eriape's position in tremorsense and he bulls through and it's all not enough to stop him from leaping onto her, trying his best to pin her down and lock her arms and headbutt her jaw and stop her from getting a spell off.

Follow the paladin and the dumbass, ignore everything that isn't seen through tremorsense. She can do that, even if everything is very confusing. She gets into range for: Dispel Magic. Aimed at any Contingencies on Eriape.

She was tempted to renege on the plan and save her spell, because now that she's closer, there's definitely something weird about her body, which means her Dispel might be being wasted, but, well. A plan is a plan, and she's not actually all that invested in the outcome of this confrontation. Reneging on a hunch is the sort of thing the nobles running this show would later take issue with, even though she's probably right and her instincts have kept her alive longer than all of them. The point of this is to gain experience, loot, and goodwill, so: she is a good pet druid who does what she is told, even if her gut says that this isn't going to work.

Dispel Magic, targeting the contingency -

And Red Team takes off, plunging straight into the badger tunnels with all the ability to tear through dirt and stone of an experienced, well-trained adventuring team, which is genuinely a tremendous amount.

The second-fastest blade in Lastwall more resembles some sort of advanced drill than a human being, when it comes to clearing dirt.

Alarms go off, louder than any noise than Eriape can muster.

Her eyes flare, brightly, as she judges her situation. Pesky Adventurers! 

Eriape is out of sixth circle spells. This is a bad idea to ever have happen. Eriape is also out of fifth circle spells. You should not run out of fifth circle spells when you're a lich. And she hasn't even commissioned a battle song!

She's not completely undefended. She's got a [Liberating Command] prepared. [A Gaseous Form]. Several other useful spells. Her phylactery's well protected. And even more fortuitously, she's not actually here.

When Lady Eriape became a lich, she paid special attention to preserving her skin- she had a skincare routine already, and as she she became wealthier and more powerful, the creams became more expensive and more magical. When she ascended into undeath, they became rare and exotic unguents, made from liquified vampire and other exotica. She preserved her skin into undeath, and she's not a skeleton. But it all was worth it. 

Because what they've attacked is just her skin. 

Eriape has developed a very interesting spell-[Skinsend], that allows her to take off her skin, and send it elsewhere in the lair. Cast spells with it.

She's done that now.

Her real body's in the fort. 

She casts [Liberating Command], a spell that hangs so precariously from one's scaffold, that it can be released with a mere thought. 

That is a fascinating spell she's casting, and not one Joan-Pau Ardiaca's ever seen before!

Also, he has the ability to, with the merest thought, press raw energy through his scaffold with no preparation into the precise anti-shape of any spell he wishes, such that in interferes with that spell and renders it useless.

Counterspell. Eriape's not the only one with a few tricks.

Counterspelling is, in any contest between wizards, a declaration of inferiority. It is the statement ‘your spell is so much better than my spell that I have more to gain from a chance of disrupting your spell than I would from casting my own’. Which is true, in this case. He has more to gain from preventing Eriape escape because the rest of the party can then apply various weapons. But, still, not a good look. 

Lisandro has a dispel magic ready, and can throw it directly at the attempted spellcasting. Halfheartedly. 

The sorcerer got to it faster with that sorcerer trick, without taking time to prepare either. But it’s still worth a try. 

It turns out if you teach someone with a sorcerer bloodline wizardry they end up significantly more powerful than a normal wizard. Funny, that.

He sees Puig make contact and - something about the way he makes contact - it's not an illusion, but - Voshrelka did say something was strange, that the lich was lighter than she should be - 

It's a decoy - Something like the dozens upon dozens of fake Razmirs, probably - To the iron keep - Puig, half a turn right, everyone else forward -

Vidal rolls free from the thing he tackled, scrambling away from the frantic mess of skin and flailing limbs, and comes up already charging for the keep, following the Lord Marshal's line.

Yep. Thought so. That's her only dispel, wasted. She's a bit irritated by it, but she's still being a good pet druid who does stupid tricks on command. Eugh.

It doesn't mean she needs to be stupid, though.

I can manage an Entangle here - everyone off the ground, I'll see about slowing down reinforcements. Red team doesn't all have flight capability, but red team is also mostly archers, so. Nobody being able to move is good for them, really. The few melee they have will need to sort themselves out, though. But that's for red team to worry about, this is tactically better for them and they should know it if they have any sense. She does wait for the red team leader to have time to take in this information, though. See, she's a team player, really.

Hello, little pocket of nature in this underground lair, come forth and be a gigantic pain in the ass for anyone trying to run on the ground. Entangle.

All Sapient and Nonsapient undead badgers go to a primary combat footing: 

Several ballistae, manned by specially trained fighter-badgers, fire down against the attackers.

Several rocks fall from the ceiling, hitting nothing.

A giant rolling boulder rolls straight across the room, hits nothing, and smashes into the opposite wall, shaking the entire room. 

Wizard badgers who have overlook cast [Obscuring Mist] and enhance the primary combat power of the zombie badgers with other spells.

Alchemist badgers release smoke bombs from tiny little mangonels

Most of the primary defence force - nonsapient zombie badgers - get trapped in the entangle, but some follow after the attackers, now attempting to batter down the door. 

Censers filled with poison flare up and begin exuding smoke. 

Eriape dismisses her [Skinsend].

Her old skin falls to the ground.

Clarabella pours a potion of [Inflict Critical Wounds] atop her real body.

A [Magic Mouth] shouts "Timeout!" (This is an Utopian word indicating a request for a brief truce in which both parties commit to not improving their positions or in any way prepare for future battle)'

A couple minutes of delay with no other actions being taken improves Eriape's relative position. He starts breaking down the door. Igonore that. Voshrelka, back underground, look for the real one -