Arriving at the inner walls of the castle town, between the town proper and the final line of defense, the castle keep, the party were surprised to find that all was quiet and still. The gate was closed with seemingly no way in. Through the bars of the gate a lever could be seen on the other side with a chain leading up into the gate house.

“Apisis, can you fly over and pull that lever?” Jason asked.

Without a second thought she flew up and over the wall. For some reason, when this castle dungeon was placed it seemed to have not considered that there were creatures that could simply fly over its defenses. Just as she had gotten herself out of site, the satyr creatures turned a corner in the distance and spotted the party. A yell went out signalling for other patrols that the invaders were at the gates and all should bare down on them.

Duk turned and stepped out, preparing to take on the patrols. The party had seen earlier that the satyr like creatures were of little threat to them in small numbers, but in mass they would be hard to impossible to deal with. Jason joined Duk while Rina and Xev moved back to the gate and kept an eye in side the gate. They were unsure of what lay beyond the gates. For all they knew all the inhabitants of the town had taken refuge in or around the keep and were just waiting for the party to let down their guard when they thought that they had made it to the finish line.

The humanoid bee woman the party knew as Apisis landed next to the lever safely. Nothing seemed to have gone wrong yet. No half crazed civilian satyrs came out wielding halberds or chucking stones. She went right to work on trying to open the gate. Changing the position of the lever made her struggle and when she finally got it there was a clang that came from within the wall, but nothing else happened. She was confused and didn’t know what else to do. Rina and Xev watched helplessly as the satyr creatures were moving at a pace towards the party. Luckily, it was quite some distance to cover, even at a straight shot from one end of town to its heart.

“Lady Api, hurry!” Rina shouted.

Apisis had her attention drawn by Rina and then by Duk and Jason taking him ready positions to fight off the incoming attackers. She had tried the lever, but it didn’t work. She didn’t know what to do now so she looked around frantically for another option. There had to be one. How else would the town operate. Before long she found a wheel crank inside a small room built into the wall. She turned it. The gate lifted ever so slightly and another clank could be heard.

By the time that Apisis had gotten anywhere with that the first of the satyrs had reached Duk and Jason. Fortunately, while they were searching for the party the creatures had separated into smaller groups which resulted in them reaching the party at different times making them hardly a challenge for the duo of Jason and Duk to deal with, at least at first. It was the case that the first groups were staggered, but many of the smalling patrol groups were meeting up either by briefly speeding up or slowing themselves down so that they would reach the party at the same time in one large group of a few dozen attackers. The effects of this caused the party to be in a constant fight, wearing them, down, but it also gave them more time to get the gate open.

The satyrs dropped one by one in rapid succession as Apisis pushed herself to turn the crank over and over again. The process was slow. The gate was heavy and resistant to being opened even using all of her might. Of course, she didn’t have much muscle to begin with relative to humans. Insectoid biology was highly limited in the amount of power she could output that was much lower than the normal mammal’s and much of the strength that they had was used to lift and move their exoskeletons. When one really thought about it, having an exoskeleton was simply bad design in the long run. You could have higher durability in theory from putting the support frame on the outside of the structure, but you lose any benefits from the facts that you then have to use muscle to hold it together and up rather than letting it support itself. This was just one of many issues with insectoid biology, but it was the most pertinent one at the moment as Lady Apisis used all of her weight and strength to turn the crank very slowly. It was getting to a point that she could no longer make any progress and the gate had barely risen off the ground.

Rina saw that the gate was just high enough that if she was careful she could slip underneath and through to the other side. She ran to the side of Apisis and grabbed hold of the crank, helping her turn it. The progress was just as slow. As the crank winched up the gate it became increasingly heavy and while Rina’s help made things easier, it was only a brief respite of exhausting effort of raising the gate.

The situation in front of the gate was becoming desperate. Duk’s armor was weighing down on him causing him to tire quicker than what you’d expect from the physique that he carried. Tok`phane physiology was similar to Human physiology enough that Jason could estimate this, but he had his own problems. He was reaching the end of his stamina. He had been living a particularly more brutal lifestyle than Humans had lived in for many a century, but there was only so much a body could adapt to and develop in the few months that he had now been living it. If something didn’t change soon two warriors would collapse, not from some amazing strength of their enemy, but because of their very own weaknesses.

“Get that gate open!” Jason shouted.

“Stand your ground. We will defeat them all if we must,” Duk tried to convince himself as much as Jason.

“I thought you could go all night long,” Xev chimed in, “I think we’re going to have to increase your training regime.”

“I look forward to it,” Duk smiled at Xev through his exhaustion.

“She doesn’t mean it in that way.” Jason retorted.

“I’ll take on all comers,” Xev grinned.

“Then maybe you could help,” Jason said.

“As much as I would love to be the center of attention of so many males, we’re here to train you,” Xev stuck out her tongue at him looked to the other duo working the crank, “You’ll not satisfy anyone going that slow.”

The chain sounded once more. Jason glanced back at the gate to see how far they had gotten in opening it. After a quick mental calculation he decided that it was high enough for him that he should take the chance to try to under it. “Hold the line,” Jason told Duk before he dashed to the gate and squeezed his body under the gate, holding his breath attempting to become as small as he could possibly get to fit through the smallest opening that he had ever tried to pass through.

Meanwhile, Duk summon the shield barrier that had thus far proven to be extremely useful to the party. He placed it to one side of himself where Jason had been fighting moments before to prevent the satyrs from attacking him from behind. However, Jason leaving his side meant twice as many enemies that he had to handle. Duk had only his shield and fists to deal with the enemies that appeared in front of him. Up until now it hadn’t been noticeable, but now that he was fighting alone and slowing down even more, it became quickly apparent that his ability to eliminate the creatures was slower than Jason’s and Apisis’. They could afterall simply slice through some vital point and drop an enemy or several to the ground in one fell swoop. He on the other hand could target only one and any attack he performed almost certainly rebounded onto him as physics would tell you. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In this case every blow to severely injure a satyr would also inflict damage to his fists. The more he attacked, the less effective each future attack would be. He must have been suffering in great pain after dispensing with well over 40 creatures in the last hour, but not a single person would ever realize this from just looking at him. He simply had the same dopey smile and look of glee from fighting that he had when the party had originally encountered him back at the entrance to the dungeon.

Jason made it to the other side of the gate and ran to jump in to help raise it. The exhaustion laden teenager added his muscle to that of the bee and the little girl. Once more the results were temporarily better. The gate rose almost twice as fast as it had any time in the past, but this gate was clearly designed to be difficult to raise once lowered. Finally it reached the point that it was high enough that Duk with all of his armor on could make it under if he tried. However, there was no way that Xev could squeeze through. Her voluptuous breasts on her giant sized humanoid frame simply could not be made to squeeze through even though some of her past outfits she had shown off in the last month to Jason had squeezed her in some most perplexing ways.

“Duk, get over here!” Jason shouted.

“Not until the lady is safe!” Duk shouted back.

“Oh my, what a gentleman. I must say though, I do need a few more inches for satisfactory penetration,” Xev informed those on the crank.

The satyrs continued to engage with Duk one after another. Soon he couldn’t put one down before the next one got to him and he had to fight 2 on 1. Duk did all he could to keep the fighting to 1 on 1, but with each passing second his body failed him ever so slightly more. He was soon fighting 3 on 1, then 4 on 1, then 5 until it no longer mattered that the largest group hadn’t reached them any more. He was being overwhelmed and there was nothing that could be done to save him, save of intervention from Xev, but she didn’t seem like she was about to interfere. Duk could escape. It was his choice to sacrifice his life in some pursuit based on the assumption that she needed his help, so he let him act like a hero if that is what he wanted to believe himself to be.

When the gate reached a point high enough for her to get through Xev shimmied under it to the other side, leaving Duk to continue his fighting. He could follow at any point that he decided to. She stood and walked towards the lever that Apisis had earlier attempted to use to lift the gate to no avail. She set her hand on it and turned back towards the gate. “Duk, love, you might want to get over here or you’ll find yourself left out,” she said firmly and loud enough for him to hear.

He turned his head to see her from the corner of his eye. Seeing that she had made it safely to the other side he turned and made for the gate. The barrier that had summoned suddenly shifting its position and sweeping away the satyrs so that they wouldn’t keep him. He rolled under the gate, making to the other side just as it came crashing down a hair’s breadth away from coming down on top of him. Xev had pushed the lever into its former position.