Casimir Castle

Crest grips his throat to try and relieve the tension on his throat, of course in vain.

He squirmed on the ground, trying to reach for the wand that fell beside him. He army crawled toward it, his vision going blurry as he moved, struggling for even a small amount of oxygen before...

blackness.

Sam's soul is screaming inside the jar.  "CREST!!!"  

Sally, having heard all the noise, manages to find her way down here.  Her heart nearly stops when she sees the scene before her.

Casimir turns to her, "Sally..." His heart lurches into his throat, "Please, you shouldn't be down here..."Panic set in, his charade was due to go up in smoke imminently.

"What's going on...?"  Sally looks as if she has been staked in the heart.

"Oh.. you see...."

He racked the farest, darkest reaches of his mind to find a satisfactory deception to use to justify but nothing he could come up with would suit it.

"I just couldn't let him live in harmony after what he did!"

"You promised me that you wouldn't touch my family..."

"It was the only way you'd come with me..."

"You... Let them go!  Right now!!"

"To what end? Jack's soul is mine, the Strayers have no knowledge of what has happened here."

Sally throws some sort of hard object from the ground at Jack's body's head, distracting it from choking Crest to death.

Crest takes in as much air as possible as he stands up and grabs his wand aiming a slew of spells at the dark alchemist.

"Crest!  Run!  Get help!!"

"I can handle it!" However it was clear that everything Crest threw, Casimir both knew and countered with. He was no match for the dark wizard.

Sally sighs, then notices one of those Strayer pins.  They use those to communicate, don't they? She takes it and screams into it, "This is Sally Nuel!  We need help!  Casimir has stolen my families souls and is using their bodies as puppets!"

Within seconds, Artemis appeared at their location and quickly looked around at what was happening. 

Crest was in over his head, that much was clear, but Crest was too stubborn to yield. Artemis jumped into the fight, helping to alleviate Crest's burden.

"Stay back Sound..." Crest demanded, but his command went unheard.

Artemis countered, "Crest, you need me and you know it."

"But you're head strayer now. I'm supposed to..."

"Let's put protocol away for one day shall we?"

Sally sighs with relief, glad that help has come.  But she is still extremely worried about her family.

The brothers manage to reach a deadlock with the dark alchemist. They traded blows for many minutes, neither side gaining or losing an edge.

Sally, while Casimir is distracted by the two Strayers, gets to the jars, opening them.

Casimir turns to see Sally ruining his trophies, "NO SALLY DON'T!!"

Sally ignores Casimir completely, fighting to put her daughters' souls back into their bodies.

Casimir tried to stop her but Crest cut him off, as he and his brother directed him away from Sally.

Sally is chasing around the bodies of her daughters.  After what felt like hours, she manages to get Sarah back.  "Mom!"  Sarah shouts, and Sally squeezes her.

Their duel continued with the evil wizard and the strayers. Crest watches out of the corner of his eye, hoping to see his wife return to life.

Sam, however, is a little harder to get close to, with her telekinetic abilities.  Sarah distracts Sam as Sally gets close, reuniting Sam's soul with her body.

Crest sighed with relief as he was finally able to focus. 

But Casimir knew the odds were against him, he had one final card to play, one that would allow him to escape... "Jack, choke yourself to death!"