The force from Rissah’s spell threw me backward, but I rolled with the momentum springing back to my feet a few yards away. I’d expected her to resume her run for the crystal, which I now believed to be a mana stone, and I was wrong.

Rissah backed away from me slowly, glowing hands held at chest height. Her magical threat was apparent without speaking a word.

“So, what’s this then?” I asked, arms held wide.

“Don’t patronize me, Oran,” she said with a scowl.

That was when I noticed that her black eyes had changed to reddish pink.

“You know, I suspected this was going to happen,” I said with a wry smile.

“Then you are an idiot,” Rissah retorted, head held high. “I am only here because of you.”

“Maybe,” I conceded. “There were two clues that gave you away, though. The first was that I’d read the handbook of Thalzaxor, and he wasn’t such a bad guy. So, I figured if his priests locked you away, they had a good reason.”

“Ha!” Rissa scoffed. “Your cretin of a god exterminated an empire. He was nothing but evil!”

“Well, from the way I understand it, that was all you, Mizrah. You are Mizrah, right? My guess is Thalzaxor knew you didn’t taste right and figured you did something to poor Rissah.”

She stopped and cocked her head to the side and smiled. That was answer enough.

“Only a W.E.T. would get trapped in an evil lair deep in a well-protected underground complex. That’s just, like fantasy 101. Don’t look at me like that. Look, being stuck in bed for as long as I was, I listened to a lot of audiobooks. I was at least 60% sure you were a liar.”

“You predicted I performed my crowning achievement, a soul possession, because I look wet? You really are as unhinged as you act.”

“No, no! Not wet, W-E-T, as in ‘world ending threat’.”

“Then why did you release me? Fool for a pretty face?” she made an exaggerated pout.

“Well, we have a saying where I come from, by a great man named Benjamin Franklin, that goes, ‘it is better 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer’. You passed the little truth test, I guess, by letting your handmaiden answer for you? I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave you there to rot if you were really an innocent person.”

Mizrah laughed. “More jokes from a jester. That is pure stupidity. No kingdom would last under such delusion. Criminals would rule.”

“You only say that because you’ve never seen a mushroom cloud.” I countered. “My criminal ruled country would have spanked yours at your best.”

Why’d I even say that? I’m terrible at trash talking.

Mizrah started backing up again, done with the conversation, and I walked forward after her.

“Don’t make me end you zombie,” she threatened. “I have no quarrel with you, and I am not a threat to any world. I just want what they took from me—nothing more than what I’m owed.”

Pretending I hadn’t heard her, I continued my diatribe. I felt a little bad about it, because this was really her job as the big evil antagonist. “The second reason I suspected you was because of the look in your eyes. And I don’t mean the new creepy pink color. The original Rissah had a look in her eyes that I knew all too well. You have no idea what it’s like to be trapped. It’s not something just anyone could fake, and I’ve noticed its absence for some time. Were you hiding there in the background of her mind like a parasite?”

Mizrah snarled at the insult. “I’m warning you, freak! You don’t think I can see you for the aberration that you are? You are as good at lying as you are telling jokes! Deathmaster Assassin—hah! What are you, a child?”

“Okay, ouch,” I said, dramatically clutching a hand to my chest. With my other, I withdrew a dagger from my belt.

I didn’t care about her taking the stupid mana stone. The reason I had to stop her was because of what she’d done to poor Rissah. What kind of grandmother forces their granddaughter to become undead, then hijacks their soul? Apparently a smoking hot one, but that’s neither here nor there.

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My ghoul hand jumped off my shoulder and ran along the opposite side of the hallway. Mizrah pointed one hand at it, and the other at me.

“This is the last warning, Oran. You don’t want me for an enemy.” Mizrah said, eyes narrowed.

I feinted a leap forward, then rolled to the ground to my right. A second later, a blast smashed into the rug where I’d just been standing, sending dust and fabric shooting backwards. Leaping back to my feet, I threw the dagger I’d been holding at her.

My Enhanced Agility made the toss better than it might have been, but it still wasn’t good. I simply had no training with throwing knives. The blade sailed over her head and crashed into the purple crystal, sending several fragments into the abyss below.

“Worm! Wretch!” she screamed, sending blast after blast in a fury.

The first two missed, but the third caught me and slammed me into the wall. Between my natural zombie toughness and the leather armor protecting me, the attack didn’t feel super damaging.

Mizrah turned to run again, but Vlad, who hadn’t been lurking too far behind, took off after her.

Four legs good, two legs bad!

I thought my skeletal minion was about to stick its horn up her butt when she abruptly turned and sent it flying to the side. I tossed another dagger at her, but she easily ducked under the throw.

Handy Dick had been biding its time, moving around to flank her, and leapt in from behind, tearing into her ethereal calf muscle.

Mizrah screamed in pain and rage, then erupted into a shadow. Darting away from my two minions. I didn’t give her a single second to recuperate, and ran forward with my enchanted dagger in hand. Even being able to see in the dark like I could wasn’t enough to keep my eyes fixed on her wavering form. Fortunately, because of Sense Undead, I didn’t have to.

When Mizrah reappeared mere feet away from me, a spell swelled out of her and slammed me into the wall across from her. With unexpected alacrity, she spun into a crouch, then sent the next blast at my ghoul claw, sending it flying down the hallway the way we’d come.

I tried to toss my last mundane dagger at her, but realized too late that she’d used that barrier spell from before to keep me pressed against the wall. Apparently, her little shadow move gave her enough time to cast the spell.

Well played!

While we had her distracted, Vlad sprinted toward the crystal at a high rate of speed. However, Mizrah was relentless. Her next force spell hit my poor minion in the back leg sending the unicorn clattering to the ground.

With her back to us, she never even saw my last ditch attack coming. Caspian Stilhart, who, until this point, had only been trailing along behind the fight, leaped onto her back and bit down on her shoulder.

Mizrah shrieked like a banshee as the newest member of club bone brother wrapped his disgusting arms around her torso. The handyman joined right after, crawling up her body like a face-hugger and digging in its nails.

A powerful spell burst from around her, blowing poor Caspian into skeletal fragments and sending my assistant down the tunnel.

Still trapped behind the barrier, I almost laughed when Mizrah gave me a triumphant grin. Wounds covered her face and neck, as well as her torn up leg. Black smoke drifted out from the cuts instead of blood.

She really thought she won!

I pointed toward the mana stone.

Vlad the skeletal unicorn clopped almost as if in slow motion, the remaining few feet toward the pit. Then, my minion bounded into the air horn first, directly into the high grade mana stone.

Godspeed, my trusty steed.

“No!” Mizrah screamed, right as the skeleton and priceless stone connected, exploding into huge chunks of debris. The fragments of the two rained down the black pit that had held the crystal for so long.

Mizrah fell to her knees, and the barrier dropped.

“You’ve killed me,” she whispered. I only heard her words because of my enhanced hearing.

I had little sympathy.

“Is Rissah still there, or did you like, I don’t know, delete her or something?” I asked.

She answered my question, which, if I’m being honest, was a pleasant surprise. “Without the mana from that stone, my soul seed will perish. This will cause both of our deaths.”

That was a relief to hear. I didn’t want Rissah to die, but I already knew death wasn’t the worst thing out there. And, I’d rather she finally get to be free than continue on as a broken soul puppet.

Keeping an eye on Mizrah, I picked up my ghoul hand and wiped off dirt and dust, then placed it back on my shoulder. That done, I slowly made my way around toward the pit just to see where all that mana went.

Imagine my surprise when I spotted the massive pile of writhing dead bodies on top of the deathwell!

Huh, guess there are multiple entrances to the thing. We are much farther away than last time, at least. I don’t think the poison gas even reaches here.

Mizrah got up and walked to the other side of the cavity. Her eyes weren’t glowing nearly as bright as before. I assumed she’d spent a lot of mana in that fight. Still, she had a smile on her face that I didn’t like.

“So that’s why we all got so weak. At least I won’t be going to my true death alone,” she said, smiling with no humor.

“What do you mean?” I said, curious.

“The mana stone you destroyed is what kept the deathwell running. Those leeches have been sucking up the mana. Only a trickle made it through the vents. And now, without the deathwell to provide ambient death mana to all those corpses, they will have to go find an alternative source. Can you guess where that will be?”

“...the city?” I said, with dawning horror.

“Precisely. And though I don’t have the strength to take you down with me, I can at least do my best to ensure that you have little chance.” Mizrah reached behind her back and pulled out my skull mask. Then she jumped into the pit with it.