Elevated, the Xangu mystic felt his advantage as keenly as he felt the temperature drop, chilled by the onward roll of heady rain clouds. "Try to be quiet," he begged of the sky's grumbling spirit.

From his lofty perspective, the transformed shaman observed that famous faun, armoured and accompanied by her swell familiar—they were making for the cathedral's entrance. With scant time to meditate before battle, Gum do Mugu's focus cracked (just a little) under the weight of her very first choice. He had expected his counterpart to display reluctance, to avoid separating her solid hooves from the ground's power and security. He had expected to manipulate from a distance.

And so, his little body slipped, wind-whipped, against the sloping tiles. The trickster form was a draining state to maintain, and he was beginning to waver. His inability to predict his opponent's choices compounded the duress. A gust clanged the tower's iron bell, and his grip faltered from the shock. Gum was going to have to revert to human form. He had to focus and regenerate his mana.

Before the metamorphosis, he would have to strike at Van der Aart's psyche. He would have to slow her, buying time. The Xangu shaman needed to shift and recover before he could risk mortal combat.

The swirling crows spiraled the steeple, wrapping its conical edge with their ominous presence. Do Mugu felt his bones begin to ache while he clung to the rain-dappled spire. "Relent, dear spirits," he commanded, but the rain only worsened. Then, the bell clanged again, shoved by a second violent blast. He was hardly hanging on. As Do Mugu clambered back onto the rooftop, a single crow emerged from the murder. Relieved from the gaggle, its distinction became apparent: the knowing bird was Gum's three-legged crow. Born from the Underworld, the lucid bird squawked sombre secrets at the ailing shaman.

Gum's giant trickster eyes shrank to a human squint while his body grew rapidly, the transformation was gaining momentum.

With a desperate gasp, Do Mugu summoned something horrible to keep his foe at bay. His magic had come moments before the exhausting return to human form took hold.

Informed by the three-legged crow, he summoned a rapist. He conjured a foul man from Philomel's distant past; vermin she had long since discarded as food for the crows and nightingales. The undead spectre of her swordplay trainer lurked in the dank stairwell, waiting in the dark while she climbed.

The gruesome projection lurched at her from the shadows. The ghost's eyeballs were pecked and deflated, but still, he stared at her accusingly. The soft flesh from his body had been stripped and digested by the past's hungry flock, leaving just sinews to loosely bind the bones together. As grim as the dead man's appearance was, it paled in comparison to the rotten stench: rancid shit spilled from his torn intestine while bile dripped from his dangling spleen.

Its projection gave the look of flesh and blood, but it remained just a whisper from her past. The ghost could only frighten her, it had no real power in the Overworld. Nevertheless, the shaman's survival depended on the ghost delaying Philomel long enough for him to revert to his original state.