It'd been one year, five months, and eleven days since another soul set foot in this grimy abyss of the forgotten. The Witch of Weeping Skulls was the kind of vengeful person to keep count - it's probably why she wound up in this place.

Torchlight danced along the hallways leading into this humid oubliette, followed by the bustle of alarmed shouting and the clattering of armored boots.

"Heh...so they're sick of me holding out here, huh? It's finally the end of it, eh..." The weakened witch, locked away, craned her neck to the ceiling - to the one tiny pinprick of distant light that made this prison hazily able to see in.

"...we don't have time to dig up records of which cell it is. Just check every one, damn it!" a gruff, commanding voice barked out, footfalls dispersing across the dungeon and clattering keys against the doors. "Zafet's cannons don't hesitate to fire! Find that blasted necromancer!"

The witch's lips curled up at one corner at the thought - as much as she held onto her grudge, the crowns of these lands held onto them much longer, and were so much more willing to take drastic action to settle the score.

"So it ain't an execution...it's a hostage exchange. Hahah..." Her hoarse voice was scarce more than a whisper, so long it'd been since she last spoke. They'd find her, eventually. She'd waited here for this long, what's five more minutes of them scurrying around here like rats?

...five minutes too long, she decided.

"...hooooy. Hoooooy, you bastards, I'm out this way..." The witch's voice gathered all the strength in her weary, diminished body, pushing her reserves of stamina further and further. "Wanted to forget me so bad that you didn't even keep track?! Too afraid to just kill me already so you're just gonna sell me out, huh?!"

It was too much of a push - she was huffing and puffing even from that ragged, half-screaming call. She hadn't even pushed herself up from the stony ledge she'd made her bed from. The inner fire was so quick to burn through all her kindling.

That was enough to bring the clattering of armored boots swarming to her location like a hive of angry bees. The torchlight converged, the most illumination the witch had seen in so long. The fuzziness of human shapes was blinding at first, reflecting off of meticulously polished armor - the witch's sore body struggled to twist her head towards her captors.

"Necromancer, you're in there, huh? Wake the hell up right now, it's an emergency!" The boisterous, rugged voice from before stood right before the gate - just a handful of iron bars protecting him from a woman who killed with a touch. The torches fell on the guard captain - a broad-shouldered, bushy-bearded man with a ruddy complexion, shining aquamarine eyes, and a tumble of curly, red-hued hair spilling down the sides of his round, gleaming helmet. "Don't you dare put on a show of being too withered to get up - I know your kind. We could leave you in here for thirty more years and you'd still have the mana to leap up and kill us all. We're prepared for that, just so you know."

A throaty chuckle spilled from the witch's lips. "You reeeeeally overestimated me. If I were that careful I wouldn't be in this mess, now would I?" Wrapped up in a bundle of ratty dark robes, the witch tumbled from her perch like a heap of garbage, barely able to prop herself up on her hands and knees. "Ugh...go ahead, though, treat me like I can fight back. You've caught me on a day I really couldn't give a damn if I live or die."

"Like I haven't heard that a thousand times. Where's that air-headed apprentice?! Get her ready-"

"Captain Ollimus!! Which way did you all gooooooo-!" A breathless, sunny voice panted, carried by hasty, energetic footfalls - the sound of a lost girl scrambling to find her chaperones. "I wanna see her! I wanna see the Witch of Weedy Skulls before she diiiiieees! Oh there you are. Hah-"

Barrelling through the guards at enough of a pace to knock some of them over, the youthful apprentice bent forward, hands planted on her knees, catching her breath to the point of hyperventilating. Fluffy hair of a seafoam green topped a flushed, but eager face - she definitely didn't belong in grim dungeons like this, wearing blindingly bright robes of white and emerald, wrapped revealingly and festively around her soft figure, practically flaunting a somewhat flabby midsection. It was hard to tell if this was the attire of a student mage, or a festival dancer.

Everyone else involved had such a dramatic idea of how this encounter was going to shake out that it practically spoiled their moods. The witch was prepared to bitterly spew out months of acrid thoughts at these soldiers who dared to call on her - the side of her that hadn't given up on life was banking on the sweet feeling of venting out her anger. It almost made her genuinely vengeful at this silly, vivid new girl, and she coughed out, "Witch of Weeping Skulls, thank you...gh, what's the idea here, oh Captain? Bringing along a flower-brained student here?"

Captain Ollimus clicked his tongue and shook his head as expected. "The Convent didn't want to send one of their own for this. This here's more of an exchange student...she knows enough to keep us alive, and she jumped at the chance for whatever reason. That's not the point - your old friend, the King of Zafet, has a dreadnought sailing straight towards our harbor, so-"

"So please save us!!!" the apprentice chimed in, pushing herself against the oubliette's bars and staring with a gleaming smile at the huddled witch within. "I know you can do it! Just like that day in Grand Vastille! I never forgot you!!" The energetic student clung tightly to the iron grates no matter how many frustrated guards tried to yank her away from them.

It was a fierce, positive determination that threw the witch off completely. When was the last time she'd seen anything like this? And...Grand Vastille...the capital of the farmlands in Vale Aulant...what'd she do there to be remembered in such sunny tones? 

"...You're mistaking me for someone else, I bet," the witch sighed out, slowly rising to stand upright at last - her wiry body stretching upwards to tower over all the soldiers glowering at her, enough for her head to brush against the cell's ceiling. A few of them backed off in fear, her reputation preceding her. Ollimus stood firm and resolute, and the apprentice, of course, was all smiles and awe.

"Nope! No way would I forget you! You're super duper tall and scary, just like I remembered! It's really you, the amazing sorceress I've been wanting to meet for years!"

"Alright, enough! We're not here to get her damned autograph! We're at war, you know, and lives are on the line, not like a necromancer cares about a thing like that!" Ollimus barked, holding a key up between thumb and forefinger. A prize gleaming in the firelight. "Now listen! Your bounty in Zafet's an awful lot higher than here in Rakofil, so all we're here to do is send an envoy and hopefully make you their problem in exchange for getting them off our ass for now. Let's get a move on!"

The lock was turned. The witch's heart beat a little harder. Those old instincts hadn't given up yet, and already her thoughts were racing with how she'd bust out of this situation. Did she remember the path to get in and out of here? Hardly - she'd have to wait for them to escort her out before making a move, but to where? Did she have the strength to even try? No, but she could take it from those present. That girl in particular seemed like an easy mark - brimming with vitality and probably a non-combatant in way over her head.

Then she asked herself...how willing was she to kill these people today? Has all this imprisonment numbed her heart? No...the idea of it hurt. She'd prepared to throw herself away, after all.

Her feet didn't move an inch when the cell was finally unlocked, and her hands were swiftly clasped in manacles, dragged along by the guards through the maze of the dungeon. If their pace was any indication, this wasn't some kind of bluff - the witch could barely keep up, stumbling and nearly tripping over the unkempt tiles catching at her bare feet, especially with all the twists and turns she was dragged through.

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It didn't help that a little bee was swirling around her tight enough to knock her over.

"Woooooow...you've been in here for so long, but I can still tell you're strong...!" The apprentice was just about racing in circles around the witch, holding her torch close enough to singe her robes, leaning in to get a better look - something the necromancer tried to push away, preferring to keep herself a dark-clad mystery for now.

"You don't know what you're talking about. Few months longer and I'd be dead, and any good necromancer would have the stockpile to deal with decades of a much worse prison than this."

"That's not what I'm talking about! I mean...your heart! Your soul! It's all towering and inspiring and all that! The kind of thing where I can definitely tell you're the legendary Witch of Whipping Spoils!"

"Weeping Skulls. And again you have no idea what you're saying. Flower-brains rarely do. Look, if you can't even get my title right...gh. ...my name’s Saosh," the witch murmured, half under her breath, barely audible above the clanking of chains and armor.

"Saosh!" the apprentice cheerily babbled. "That's a strong name too! Hehehe. I'm Adeila, a student at the Joint Boundary Academy. Don't call me a flower-brain!! I'm just as much a healer as a gardener, that's the whole point!" With a confident smile, Adeila planted her hands on her hips, before just about tripping over a flagstone. "Wagh! I'm here...in case you try anything crazy, and I've done plenty like that before! But more importantly I'm here for you. I've been looking for so long."

"You two!" Ollimus shouted. "Especially you, apprentice! You are -not- here for the necromancer. You'll be all over wanted posters the second you help a prisoner over the Rakofil Guard, you are aware of this, are you?"

Adeila backed off a little bit, and sulked slightly. "You all are so wrong about her...it's gonna be real obvious one day..."

For Saosh's part, it was a relief to get some space - she bundled her rags tighter around her shoulders, keeping the still uncomfortable light away from her face. A poor strategy, when the main doors into the dungeon finally flung open, and the setting sun outside beamed right into her unready face, forcing her hand over her eyes.

The scale of what had Rakofil's soldiers in such alarm was right in her line of sight.

The dungeon's gates stood perched on a cliffside, part of a guard's outpost at this strategic position - but one that was unlikely to be an enemy's primary target. It was the first watch of the city-state of Rakofil, but one far enough away, and small enough, that all it could really do was observe and send messengers.

In the harbor beyond, an unthinkably colossal warship drifted like a rising whale towards the holed up city - its forecastles almost towering over the genuine buildings, bristling with cannons and embankments for war-mages. It was lavishly decorated and gilded, a prized ship of the line whose sheer scale almost rivaled the settlement it was poised to conquer.

"Hah...hahahah, you're exceptionally desperate, aren't you lot?" Saosh chuckled, the wind of the clifftops and the beaming sun finally making her visage clearer. Her tangled hair had gone dark, a grim sign for a mage, and it was clear her confinement left her rather emasciated, her cheeks hollow enough to turn her ashen skin tone dark in places. It only emphasized the hawkish look of her nose and lips, but there were circles under her eyes and an extremely tired look in eyelids that barely were able to stay open.

"What's your plan here, Captain? Genuinely figuring I'm worth -that- much to these people that they'd accept your offer and sod right off? What, exactly, is stopping them from taking me and then going right ahead to conquer this pretty little town?"

"Do you think I don't know that?!" Ollimus shouted, gloves gripping tight, glaring at the warship's steady advance. "You're all we've got to bargain with. Our allies were blindsided and worth not a lick of help. We're digging through the garbage for a bone with any meat on it here."

Saosh's toes curled in the grass, the sunlight revitalizing her just a touch, even as it slowly began to sink just below the horizon, leaving the sky in vivid, colorful hues of purple and orange. She helped herself to a deep breath of fresh, open air, and held it.

"It's really funny you went with that turn of phrase."

Suddenly, the Witch of Weeping Skulls toppled over, with a tear ripping somewhere in those ragged robes...and from it, dozens of human bones spilled out. A spark of cyan-hued light flickered from her toes towards these remains - and with alarming speed, they assembled themselves into serpentine servants, a dozen skeletal snakes coiling around the guards' legs and sending them tripping into the earth. These bones were old, rotted - relics from those who hadn't made it in the oubliette, whose remains were carelessly left behind. They wouldn't last long, but it only needed to be a moment's distraction.

The two that held her manacles stood their ground and held their chains taut...only to suddenly be relieved of any resistance, pulling still enchained forearms...

Ones that the Witch had seamlessly severed from her own elbows.

"Damn these necromancers, why didn't you chain her by the neck?!" Ollimus screamed, his boots erupting with fire and stomping the sneaky, but ultimately fragile bone snake into a pile of burned dust...before turning away from Saosh to assist his men, flaring up the incinerating heat of any competent war-mage in these lands.

Saosh's eyes flickered through her surroundings amidst the sudden din of guards who were only truly held up for a split second by her stunt - and towards the surprised Adeila, whose momentary hesitation and awe was replaced by a decisive sprint towards the Rakofil guardsmen - but her somewhat heavier frame and clear martial innocence made it a sluggish, awkward gait.

The Witch hunkered down, only to be wracked by a sudden cough of weakness - adding to her sense of emergency. Magically cutting one's arms off wasn't doing her condition any good, with how weak she was left. She only left herself one choice.

The last of her mana was routed to her legs, launching her like a cannonball straight towards Adeila.

Her lips landed square on the apprentice's with no hesitation.

Just as she thought. This girl wasn't warded or defended at all. A dreamy kind of student who wanted to learn more about what her magic could -change-, without a care for something as boring as personal countermeasures for a conflict.

A fruit ripe for a starving fugitive to take a bite from.

All Saosh had was a few moments with this shocked student, and so she took a generous draining of Adeila's ample vitality and mana, sucking it from wherever it happened to be, as long as it could be claimed. A reckless maneuver that would leave unprepared, unpracticed people bedridden. Right now, she didn't really care one way or the other what happened to this girl, but she wasn't in the mood to outright kill her. 

The forceful kiss lasted but two thoughtless seconds to Saosh, and a stunned, sweepingly romantic kind of eternity to Adeila. It was sour, it was exhausting, it left her a sputtering, staggered kind of mess - and it was the kind of sordid action she'd heard so much in rumored tales of the Witch of Weeping Skulls.

A necromancer who only left bitter enemies and shocking encounters. To some who told her stories, the Witch was a ruthless rogue who tossed people aside as soon as she was done with the barest utility she could get out of them, without a care in the world to how they felt.

That much was clearly true.

To others who recounted her tales, the Witch was cast like a brilliant outlaw, a thief who took when needed only to give back at any cost to herself in a community's most dire hour, an avenger of poetic justice.

Those were the stories Adeila liked most, because it's the one she remembered with her own two eyes.

Before her dreamy, hot and cold fantasizing was through, before she'd recovered from conflicting thoughts of song-like valor and astonished disgust at the breach of her boundaries...

The Witch of Weeping Skulls was sprinting out into the evening, her darkened hair slowly illuminating into a low, deep teal hue. Just like in half the stories Adeila heard in taverns across the land, or in overblown rumorings at the Academy. It's what she'd wanted to see for herself.

...and now the Witch was rapidly fleeing into the night.

"...wait! Waaaaait Saaaaaaaoooooosh! You're a prisoneeeeeer, come baaaaaaaack here, we need yooooouuuu!!!" Adeila huffed and gasped as she fruitlessly sprinted in the direction that the Witch darted off to. Following her, and quickly catching up, was Captain Ollimus and his troop, sputtering obscenities mixed with orders to his men.

"Twelve of us should be enough to catch her if we don't make a rookie mistake again. The rest of you! Get down to the dock and make it clear you're envoys. Tell those Zafet bastards we have the Witch, and get them to meet at this outpost, I don't care how you do it or what you have to offer them! Anything to buy us more time, got it?"

Ollimus quickly caught Adeila's shoulder, quelling the anger in his eyes to deal with the spacier apprentice. "You, you're the one chattering about being such a huge fan. You get one chance to prove you're not a collaborator. Where the hell do you think she's going?"

Breathless, Adeila held onto the captain's arm for support, catching her breath dizzily, and sputtering out, "Well! I mean...she's...the kind who probably...thinks on her feet? She might just wanna...be free...but...you said she has...a bounty with Zafet, right? She's also...suuuuuper big on revenge, probably! She might have a score to settle on...her own terms. Hahahah...she might be banking on you all being the type to think she's just gonna flee the realm and lay low, but...I'm gonna say...she's gonna...sneak into town, somehow! Gather supplies! Maybe come up with a crazy scheme to punish that warship! Thoooough, probably when it's already starting to board, so don't count on her preventing it!"

"I'm not counting on a damn prisoner to try and save our hides, you know! Tch, you're way too starry eyed about this...but you think she's liable to regroup in town, then? I don't doubt she could make her way in, seeing how fast she is, so the walls won't get in her way..." Ollimus scanned the nearby hills for any sign of where Saosh might have fled, then called out, "Make your way to the west gate! We'll surround the Arbor Ward at each intersection. Two of you will search the streets for any sign of her, and I'll gather more guards to help the search. Someone has to have seen her if she's in town, you can't miss a tall, withered mage who cut off her arms! And you, Apprentice, you just make your way to the barracks! If things go south we're counting on you to heal up our injured men, got it?!"

The still panting Adeila let go of Ollimus's arm with a huff and a pout, pursing her lips defiantly...before giving him a begrudging, over-acted kind of salute. "Alright, alright, I get it! You're really dragging me all over the place, hmph hmph..." She took a moment to fall to her knees, hands on the swaying grass catching the last glitters of sunlight - a brief rest for someone pushed way more to athletic pursuits than she's used to, despite all her energy and excitement.

The Rakofil guard didn't wait for her at all, of course - they all scurried in formation back to the city, its walls alighting with torches, everyone on high alert as the critical hour approached.

For her part, Adeila quickly recovered to be all smiles, head filled right back up with dreamy prose and song. "Like I'm gonna miss my chance to be part of this. I'm gonna make sure everyone knows what you can do, Saosh...and this time I'll be right there with you...! ...So they figure you'd go to the Arbor Ward, huh...? Perfect~"