Ting looks around warily when she appears in the courtyard, and then jogs quietly into the tower.

The planet stands mostly bare, of course. Only the original structures and Dewei's fountain monument remain.

Makyon appears a minute later, struggling to stand, but intent on getting to Ting. Where did she go...?

She's skipping quickly up the stairs towards Moorn's study and casting rooms. She needs a place to perform a summoning. Peeks into one. Blank. Doesn't sense any magic that doesn't blanket the compound. This might work. Steps in, wary of traps of any kind.

Moorn's studies aren't trapped if they can be entered without shifting and dimension-skipping. Not that the books aren't valuable. He's just memorized them all.

Makyon enters the tower. Ting. He can smell just a trace of Ting's every scent - heaven knows he'd gotten enough Serinian smell at Deru - and starts to pull himself up the stairs, cringing every other step.

The half-dumen glances back at the stairs. Ears are back...there's not much way to stop Makyon that wouldn't also get Xen'tal's attention. Of course, she hadn't been able to fully heal him, adn even though he's stronger, she could probably subdue him if she had to. Idly touches the spell in her pocket. Not yet. Looks back to the stairs, still shaken and superficially cut up, herself, and just waits, expression bland-forlorn.

When he finally makes it to the top, Makyon's completely out of breath. Can barely see straight, and there are three Tings when he finally sees her. He can't form the words at first. Tries again, a hand bracing himself against the the wall.

"... came to warn you," he breathes out. Staring forward. Wondering where he is.

Ting tilts her head. Finally sighs. She can't stand seeing him like this, she can't, even if he'd turned on them. "You should have let me finish healing you," she chides softly. Steps across the room and moves to set her hands on his shoulder with just that spell, unsmiling. Not righteously angry like her mother would have been, just...sad.

"I was afraid," he manages after a moment. "You don't understand, Ting. I was waiting. I had to do everything they wanted to make them believe in me."

She blinks slowly. "Waiting for what?" The healing magic glows faintly lavender.

"Waiting for this. The sealing. And Haelitree." He's growing more lucid, but damned if he isn't worn down by all this. "I know which of Xental's Marei orbs to remove to reopen the maze and leave Il'sha sealed up. But I can't go near it because I'm only held together by sorcery and the Marei orbs cancel sorcery. Hael could, though."

Ting tilts her head. "But didn't you recruit her to be on Lilith's side?"

"Yes. To get close enough to her to lead her where I needed her to go. You don't have to believe me. You just have to stay alive. Xen'tal won't stop hunting you if he knows you're still alive." Makyon's eyes are brimming now, sparkling with the worry, fear, hidden affection, and frustration he's had to hold all this time.

Ting ingests this quietly. Steps back, looks him over. Her voice is quiet. "You're still a little messed up so you don't look too healed. But you should be better walking and stuff." Looks down, ears still down. "I won't tell you what I'm doing right now. Because I really really want to believe you and I know that makes me easy to fool. So I won't tell you yet. Xen'tal probably thinks he killed me for the second. I think I faked it pretty well."

She finally looks up, her own eyes glittering. "I hope you're telling the truth, I do. If you are...let me know when I need to do something, right?" Pauses. Without asking permission, she steps forward, and hugs him tightly, like she used to, head turned down against front of his shoulder. Sniffles. "Take care, Creepy. Be careful. Don't let them hurt you."

"You'll hear from me soon, then," he whispers, hand just stroking the back of her hair before he shifts away, back to Mars to recover. Hael probably hasn't even finished bathing yet.

Ting breathes out. Slow and steady..trying to get ahold of herself. She can't be Emotive Ting right now. She knows it. Sniffles, though...sniffles, and wipes her nose and eyes on a sleeve.

Finally, though, she unfolds the spell in her pocket and begins scripting the summoning circle onto the floor with a manifested piece of chalk. She lacks her brother's finesse, and this will take a little while. About forty minutes, actually. Then she manifests a heavy cloak around the whole room, hoping to keep it as quiet as possible...which isn't completely. Breathes out, and closes her eyes, fingertips pressing to one another before her face. Concentrating...just concentrating as best as Ting can.

The lines of the rune-circle glow to life one by one in varying shades of purple. The caster finally breathes a slow, shaking breath, stepping carefully out of the center...very suddenly pours most of her power into the circle. This is all or nothing, dark eyes gleaming with pained exertion as the central glow of the circle shoots upward, straight through the ceiling of the place as the summon tries to connnect to its target.

She blacks in and out.

To Cocytus. To Moorn.

This almost seems to be working. Until suddenly the prison dimension's walls finally react to someone attempting to breach them. The lavender light of the summon suddenly transitions into something pitch black. Ting's dark eyes snap open, but it's all she can do to squeak when dark tendrils snap around her wrists and wind upward, dragging her straight into the circle's center, where the darkness envelops her wholly.

Cocytus would much rather she comes to it.

---

Ash scatters when Radivishe Moorn's ghostly flower pod blooms open, depositing him and Ting just outside the tower.

"Ooo, I am so glad you knew how to fix that." Ting nods, sitting backwards onto the ground with a sound flop. "And. I so wanna sleep now."

"You should," Moorn says to her. "Where is Mara-kuru?"

Ears sag a bit. "She's sealed in the maze with my mom. Everyone is. And..." eyes snap open. "Shits and crackers! We really need to vacate. 'Cause there's this really scary sorceror guy running around and he's like stronger than my mom and he tore Yoru's arms off and blew a hole through Aunt and there's okay but he had to have sensed us get here just now and he's kind of into the idea of killing me about now and, crap!" Tries to jump up. "Ooo..." falls back to lean against the fountain-sculpture.

"Relax," Moorn all but spews. "You're safe. Brute strength means very little. I care deeply for Mara, but she is not the most cunning adversary in the cosmos."

"He's really strong, though," Ting repeats. Hey, he had almost killed her earlier, after all. "He broke through my house's shields in like, a minute and a half after the dust cleared! And he totally levelled that really strong underground part of our house, it's squished good."

"Glorious," Moorn almost beams. He's about to ask her to elaborate, but a growing puff of black smoke gets his attention. Xen'tal's energy signature appears just before the drow divinity, bold and bright.

He doesn't waste time speaking. Just lifts his hand, prism-colored symbols flaring to life at his fingertips.

Ting squeaks but reacts fast, and tries to poof to high up and back in the air, get out of the way...though there's no telling whether this will work, since the drowish had somehow managed to block Mara's teleportation earlier. Moorn, no doubt, can handle himself...though that doesn't mean she's not worried about him. That's the thingie that he keeps using like every time to squish at us careful!

The sorceror watches. Waits, but he's listening to Ting.

The symbols erupt in their thin, spiraling beam. Moorn's hands flash to the sides, and the attack vanishes.

It reappears behind Xen'tal, continuing forward. The drow mutt-god turns to one side, his other hand burning with whirling symbols that block the blast.

"Ting. Go to Niven Ai. In my daughter's study there is a red velvet book titled Palisade Aeterna," Moorn shouts over the blast, fingers flying to produce enough runes to reroute Xen'tal's beam. "Find it and open the lock with the key in your pocket!"

She blinks. "What key in my...nevermind. 'Kay!" And, though afraid for the sorceror--the poor guy's had enough hell lately, after all--she vanishes to do as bidden.

When she goes, Moorn's fingertips change directions. He vanishes. Reappears right on top of Xen'tal.

"Mara's pain will be yours, forever," he snarls, just as the portal to Cocytus jerks back open, pulling a raging Xen'tal and a just as furious Radivishe Moorn inside.