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The spell the lich had been casting was spoiled by the damage she'd received in the process, and the magic flickered and died; the party took heart. Eloy and Méabh both disengaged from the wights that were attacking them and stepped back into the dead trees. Further along, having killed her wight, Lynien did the same. The darkness created by Eralevia was a two-edged sword, and it was immediately apparent that her creatures couldn't see in it either. The sound of the slaughterwights stamping around searching for them was clearly audible.
Lynien and Méabh began groping through the undead forest in search of the pistol crossbow bolt with the spell on it. If they could find it, and cover it, the spell would be nullified. Eloy got into cover behind a tree and hunkered down. Things looked dicey. He spent a few moments appealing to Sabath for any help the Evil One might care to push his way.
Meanwhile, Gorfang was still fighting in the dark by luck and brute force. He could hear Eralevia beginning another spell, and was determined not to give her the chance to complete it. His blades thrashed, filling the area around him with a whirling web of black and bronze metal. Suddenly there was a terminal-feeling crunch, and his khopesh tore through the priestess's dead flesh. There was the sound of a body falling, and Gorfang called out, "She's down!" Oddly, his tone was just as stressed as if he'd said She's going to attack someone...
A moment later Méabh discovered why. Her physical body slain, the dark spirit that the once-mortal Eralevia had become had been drawn into the smoky red gemstone that was her phylactery. This was currently in a small iron box in Méabh's backpack, and so it was the aasimar sorceress that Eralevia attempted to displace from her body. Méabh's vision blurred into a shimmer of red and black and a terrible pain wrenched at her for a fraction of an instant - the rending of body and soul. The only thing she could see clearly was the bright silver shimmer of Rilliantorin in her hand. The clean gleam of the metal seemed to expand and spread between her and the red/black assault. Then it was gone, and she was free... and angry.
Gorfang had fumbled his way across the boulder to the corpse of the lich, and - not wanting to take the time to search it - pulled his tattered blanket out of his bedroll and flicked it over the crumpled form. His guessed aim was good; as the material fell, the unhealthy corpselight of the Garden of Delights returned. He could see the half-covered form of his foe, and some of the dead wights, and the great dome of the second darkness sphere. He could also see the cloud of vapour that had been the vampire bugbear beginning to solidify again into a material form - it must have spent the intervening time fast healing.
Then Méabh's hand brushed smooth wood. Frantically, she moved it back and found the object again... a small, slender missile embedded in a tree. Pulling it out, she stuffed it under her armpit, and vision rushed back as the darkness collapsed. As it did so, her Tenser's Transformation spell ended, leaving her able to cast magic again. Now that was timing!
In the centre of the room, the three remaining slaughterwights glanced around, seeking their erstwhile foes. In the meantime these had, of course, retreated into the trees, and the undead couldn't see them. Gorfang, though, they could see, and so they set off towards the orc. Lynien, justly confident that she could outrun anything, set off in pursuit. Two arrows from Eloy tore over her shoulder, smacking into the creature and making it stagger. Then Lynien caught up with it and hacked it down.
Gorfang watched as the vampire coalesced towards solidity. The light of day would stop that; fat chance down here. Wait a moment.... He grabbed the Rod of Daylight from his belt and pointed it at the stone floor where the vampire stood. Warm, wholesome sunshine bloomed into a sixty-foot sphere, and the vampire's regeneration stopped. Frantically the gaseous form began to drift across the room towards the shadows at the edges. Gorfang was already running towards it as two of Eloy's Ghost Touch arrows ripped through it, causing it to writhe in pain.
Eloy chose this moment to utilize his Nullity, and vanished from the universe. No-one was immediately aware of this as he began his run towards the body of Eralevia - except Eralevia herself, who chose that moment to try and Jar into his body as the next nearest target. The 'disappearance' of her target midway through sent her reeling back to the gem, confused and balked.
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Gorfang, Lynien, Méabh and the last wight met up as they reached the vampire, and a blur of combat saw the wight drop. Gorfang attacked the vampire, dealing enough damage to its' gaseous form to finally kill it. Méabh tore open the iron box and scattered the phylactery across the floor, then hammered at it with Rilliantorin. Holiness notwithstanding, the slender blade wasn't up to the task of breaking the gem, and Méabh saw Gorfang stagger as the undead spirit strove to steal his body. Picking it up, she ran across to the lich's body, with Gorfang and Lynien close behind - and Eloy, though of course they were unaware that he was there. Méabh was the first to reach it, and she bent down and fumbled under the blanket. The first thing she drew out was a potion; the next was a pistol crossbow bolt - and everything went black again. Quickly, she shoved the bolt under her arm with the other - and light returned.
At this moment, for reasons he himself wasn't totally clear about, Eloy cast a Darkness spell of his own targetted on the lich's body. Once more, everything went black - for everyone except Lynien, who found she could see through it, and Gorfang, who was still outside the area. He noticed that whereas the arc of the Deeper Darkness had cut the Daylight spell, this was reversed, and the Daylight cut through the hemisphere of the Darkness. As he began running, yelling "Fae Mhor Darkness!", Méabh, still kneeling, lashed out sideways. Rilliantorin ripped across Eloy's leg, and he stumbled away, pouring blood across the stone floor. A moment later Méabh Dispelled the asssassin's Darkness, and everyone could see the blood.
Now the hazards of Sabath's powerful gift were starkly apparent to Eloy. His friends and comrades, convinced and invisible Fae Mhor was attacking them, closed in around him with lethal intent. Wounded, he couldn't escape; and if he fought back and survived, there was a fairly good chance they'd kill him anyway for attacking them once the Nullity expired. He clawed his pot of magical ointment out of his pouch and smeared it desperately onto the wound, which closed; but while he did this, the others caught him up. Treytas earned its' name as Lynien's strike bit deep into the same leg, freeing another gout of blood to mark his course. Méabh struck out again, but her blade didn't bite. The real threat, however, was looming large, and Eloy braced himself for the worst as Gorfang, snarling and laughing, launched his assault. The human's defence was like a straw shield as the two blades hacked and clove, wounding him deeply, and then for a fraction of an instant he saw the terrible bronze khopesh flash towards his face. There was an instant of utter agony and a splash of blood and brain across his vision... and then everything changed.
The 
actors in the little scene of mistaken death all stood as if paralysed. The spray of vital fluids and bone fragments was frozen in an arc surrounding the gory bronze blade as it stood deep in Eloy's skull. His physical body remained still; but his soul blinked and looked around. For an instant he wondered if this was the afterlife, and then a familiar figure materialized slowly. The massive, muscular body; the jackal-head; the Khabran costume; the ink-black flesh and glowing red eyes. Eloy looked upon salvation and damnnation as one and the same.
The question came, as he knew it must. "Will you pay the price for my aid?" Eloy did not hesitate; the alternatives were right in front of him! "Yes," he replied. There was a soundless snap. With no sense of transition, Eloy found himself standing in front of Gorfang, Lynien and Eloy, sufficiently healed that he would live - and no more; no-one ever accused Sabath of being a kindly deity. The Nullity, immune to all forms of magical termination, had been ended by the power of the one entity capable of doing so. Gratefully he reached for his ointment to repair the damage.
"Check who he is!" called Méabh. In a stride Gorfang was next to Eloy. The fact that the human's hands were empty of weapons was enough that he didn't attack again, but he brutally ordered Eloy to stop what he was doing. "I'm only healing-" he began. "Stop now, please, or I kill you!" barked Gorfang. Eloy shrugged and let the pot drop back into his pouch. Nodding, Gorfang deftly plucked Bereloth and Eloy's shortsword from their scabbards and dropped them behind him. Not taking his eyes off Eloy, he called to Méabh: "Is she inside him or in the gem?" Then Eloy understood; they were checking he wasn't Eralevia.
Méabh 
checked the gem; the smoky twist of a soul writhed inside. "No, she's here," she said. Gorfang stepped back and gestured Eloy to take his weapons. "Sorry," he said, "had to be sure." At that moment, before Méabh's eyes, the gem cleared as Eralevia's soul abandoned it. Horrified she looked up, to see Eloy's face twist with pain for a moment and then clear as he threw off the attempt. "We need to get rid of this thing!" she yelled. "Gorfang, will you do the honours?"
The orc took the crystal and dropped it to the floor, raising his mighty khopesh in both hands, and struck. A shower of sparks scattered across the floor, and a large crack appeared in the phylactery. Gorfang struck again, and the gem shattered. Over it arose an evil-shaped twist of black vapour, writhing and questing; the dark soul of Eralevia the necromancer-priestess, forced to her last chance to take a body to avoid oblivon. All the other companions had resisted her attack; Lynien was the only remaining choice. With sudden snake-like speed, the soul spun and dived at her. She staggered back, her eyes widening, taken by surprise and her defences down. The black evil of the lich poured into her soul, tainting, polluting, replacing. The fragment of Lynien that remained, just before the end, looked into the infinity of causality that was her link to Nebekheshut. Within there, she saw written that this was not her fate; it was wrong. The power of the messenger of fate shifted the threads of reality back to their correct course - and suddenly she was whole again, gasping and shaking, as a dwindling psychic scream of terror and fury rang in all their heads. Eralevia was gone.
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