With a sickening pop, Thantos' torso disconnected from his legs, the skeletal form of the lich's upper body hovered in the air before the trio as he grew further in size with the more life energy he absorbed from the captive prisoners. Soon enough the boney torso an leering skull face dominated much of the crypt chamber.

"This crypt will be your tomb." Thanatos hissed through his teeth as he pointed a boney finger at the trio.

"Go forth my undead legion, add these three to your number and then devour this city!"

The creak of cages opening caught Mau's attention, and soon enough the shambling shuffle of slow feet on the crypt's floor stones told her that, soon enough, they weren't going to be alone with the lich in the mausoleum.

"... so Andy how many times can you do that thing?" Mau asked. The acolyte frowned.

"I barely knew I could do it once." He admitted sheepishly.

"Okay." Mau said understandingly as the first shadows of the approaching zombie horde appeared in the multiple doorways into the chamber. "You should stay behind Suvdaa."

"Shouldn't we... Run?" Andy suggested hopefully as the legion of the undead started filtering into the chamber.

"Nah. I got this." Mau said, fairly confident in herself. "As long as they're not any cheating fast zombies in the horde they should be easy to mow down."

The chamber was large, but not large enough for the gigantic lich floating in the center of the room and the sudden glut of zombies that shambled into the chamber. Thankfully there were no cheating fast zombies for Mau to deal with, and when the undead had sufficiently clustered up, Mau pointed her blade at the zombie in the lead of the pack.

"Hey guess what?" Mau said a little way too brightly... "Chain Lightning!"

In an instant a storm of electricity lanced from her hand, arcing visibly along the length of her long sword before the tip erupted into a massive lightning bolt, a single thunderous peal of explosive noise filling the chamber like a gunshot as the bolt streaked for the zombie.

As soon as it made contact the scent of searing flesh filled the chamber; the lightning bolt spreading from the first zombie to the squad of zombies surrounding it. The electric storm jumped from body to body to body until every walking corpse in the room was jerking and tensing from the immense flow of electrical mana surging through stiffened rigor mortis muscles.

The undead horde toppled in unison and a smug little look crossed the catgirl's face as she lowered her sword, surveying her handiwork. The corpses twitched and jerked as they smoked gently, seared through and too damaged to continue their unlife, Thanatos' magic left their bodies and silence filled the chamber.

"... That's cheating." The lich said, completely put off. "That's absolutely unfair!" He bellowed, clenching his skeletal hands so tightly that they trembled and creaked with barely contained fury.

"Do you know how long it took to gather that many victims? Do you now how many nights we had to work under cover of darkness to go unnoticed?" He snarled.

"Are... Are you being petulant about this?" Mau asked while Suvdaa and Andy stared in abject silence.

Suvdaa had seen Mau use magic before, of course, but never a spell on that level. She knew that the dumb cat had a few tricks up her sleeve at any given moment, but this was pushing the borders of just how much she knew about her travel companion.

The simple truth of the matter was that as a kitten, Mau didn't have the magical capacity to unleash a stunt like that. But as her body grew, her power and skills from prior lives slowly returned to her, to the point that she could pull that off without flinching now.

"I am not being petulant!" Thanatos snapped, irate.

"Holy shit." Mau said. "It's like you've never had a grand evil master plan fail before. I feel kind of sorry for you."

"Feel sorry for this!" The lich snarled, snapping a skeletal hand forward, orbs of dark energy forming in his palm before they flooded the chamber in Mau's direction like a stream of machine gun bullets, rattling the ground and walls as they streaked for the catgirl in a flood of deadly necrotic energy.

"Suvdaa, Andy, dodge. Don't get hit by that because it's not going to be pleasant." Mau warned as she darted and grazed through the onslaught. Andy had another plan entirely as he raised his staff.

"H-hold on!" He said, beginning a hasty and imploring prayer to Galatea... Before a bright white light erupted from the tip of his scepter, forming into a half-dome that enshrouded himself and Suvdaa.

"Holy Shield!" He exclaimed, and the pair hunkered behind the sudden bulwark of light that protected them, while Mau twisted out of the way of another barrage, tail flicking behind her.

The chamber became a storm once again as Thanatos unleashed spell after spell, dark rays of black energy, purple lightning streaked through the room as the temperature plummeted from the sheer amount of deadly necrotic energies flooded the crypt, all while Mau tumbled and scampered on all fours, sword clenched in her teeth to avoid having the very life sucked from her body.

"Could use a distraction, guys!" She called to her companions. And while Andy did everything he could to maintain the shield of light that protected him and Suvdaa, sweat beading on his brow, Suvdaa took to a knee.

"... Dumb cat." She muttered irritably as she rummaged hastily through her pack and strapped something to the tip of an arrow. Lighting the pouch ablaze, she nocked the arrow to her bow and fired through Andy's shield spell. Her shot was as true as ever, embedding in between the lich's exposed ribs.

"Fools!" Thanatos bellowed, ignoring the fact that his tattered robes were catching fire. "I will not be stopped so easily!"

Or so he thought, before he went up in flames.

Now, Mau knew that the fire would not be enough to end Thanatos, but it did give her the opening she needed to finish the fight, as he flailed and tried to put himself out. He had stopped casting spells.

And that presented her with ample opportunity to charge in, plucking her blade from her teeth and back into her hand as she took a vaulting leap...

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"Chill Strike!" She snapped as she raised her blade high, magical energy funnelling from her fingers and palms into the sword as it rapidly coated over with hoary frost, quickly blossoming into deadly jagged ice.

Steam hissed as the magical ice connected with the flaming lich's skull, and Thanatos simply laughed as Mau cleaved him in half from the top of his head to what was left of his pelvis.

"Don't think you have heard the last of me!" Thanatos said, voice barely a whisper as his body was destroyed in that instant, dark wisps of spiritual energy floating free from his shattered bones as the chamber went silent.

Andy heaved a sigh of relief, releasing the breath he had been holding for almost that entire time as his shield spell came undone. He immediately planted his hands on his knees and panted heatedly to catch his breath.

"What. The hell. Was that." Suvdaa demanded, but Mau seemed to pay her no mind.

The catgirl's ears swiveled as she glanced left and right frantically and then... Darted down a corridor without so much as a word to her companions.

"... Should we follow her?" Andy asked unsure.

"Like hell I'm not going to." Suvdaa replied as the pair briskly followed down the same hall Mau just ducked into as Andy cast a quick spell to light up his staff like a torch.

Even in their haste to follow after her, Mau was already way ahead of them, little more than a silhouette at the edge of Andy's light spell.

"Dumb cat where are you going!" Suvdaa snapped, voice echoing in the halls of the tomb. Eventually though, Mau came to a halt and the two slowed as they followed her into a smaller side-chamber.

Set upon a pedestal in the room was an ornate piece of jewelry; a jade hourglass that glowed with a faint but sickly green light where it was embedded in a skull-shaped container.

"Found you." Mau hissed, fire in her eyes.

"Okay what is that?" Andy asked as Mau raised her sword high.

"-Wait! Don't you dare!" Thanatos' voice could suddenly be heard in the chamber. "We can discuss this; it doesn't have to end in more violence. Wait! Wait wait wait wa-"

Mau didn't wait.

"Flamestrike!" She snarled, sword flaring to life engulfed in a blazing fire as she brought it down hard enough upon the trinket to smash it to pieces.

Jade and melted gold flew everywhere as Mau's sword shattered on the impact, too taxed by the amount of magic she had poured into it to continue functioning properly. But it had done its job.

"... Phylactery." Mau explained. "If we didn't break it he just would have come back in a year and a day."

Andy balked. "How did you even know that?"

"Yes, I too am curious." Suvdaa said, sounding quite irked.

Mau remained silent for a beat, staring at the jagged and twisted blade of the snapped sword in her hand.

"Long story." She said after a moment of silence.

There was a quiet clatter of steel on stone as Mau cast aside her shattered blade. With the lich dead the crypts should, in theory, have been rendered safe anyway as she heaved a quiet and tired sigh.

The silence was awkward and strained as Mau, Suvdaa and Andy left the phylactery chamber and stepped into the next room. It went from awkward to horrified very fast.

They found where Thanatos had moved the cages, and almost all of them were empty save for a few corpses drained and devoid of life. There, they saw, in the smallest cage in the corner of the room, a small figure bundled and huddled in ragged blankets.

"... No." Mau whispered, heart stopping in her breast.

Suvdaa and Andy rushed for the cage. It was unlocked when they got there- likely unlocked by a guard that had long fled, to let out the undead when they woke. But this little body hadn't joined the horde.

"... Is that..." Andy said, voice cracking as Suvdaa lifted the tiny body from the blankets. "Is that the missing girl?"

"--Give her to me." Mau said, strained and hoarse.

"Mau..." Suvdaa said with a voice so gentle, it was as though she hadn't been fuming mere moments before, as she approached the catgirl with the limp kitten in her arms. "Her heart isn't beating. She is gone."

"I said give her to me!" Mau snapped, snatching the body from Suvdaa's grasp and dropping to her knees. The kitten-girl lay there, unmoving and unresponsive in Mau's arms, but she was still just a little warm.

"No no no no no..." Mau whispered in a mantra of despair as that warmth ebbed and multiple lives worth of memories slammed Mau like the truck that had summoned her.

It hadn't been the first time someone innocent died in the Hero's arms. Lovers, parents, friends, even enemies, the Hero knew death intimately well... And now, like an old friend returning from a trip abroad and making a sudden call, death had paid another unwanted visit.

With the kitten-girl resting limp on her knees, Mau's hands trembled as Suvdaa and Andy stared silently in the dark of the crypt. This had happened too many times, and the Hero couldn't stop it in the past. Mau's fingers clenched into white knuckled fists as she bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. For all her strength, for all her skill, in the cold murk of the crypts below Dorn, she felt nothing but utterly powerless... Until another memory came back to her.

❧

The Hero was kind of bored. But there was no helping it. If they wanted to keep their nice and sweet cushy office job, they had to take this course. It was apparently a requirement.

Alongside the standard Human Resources harassment and discrimination training, apparently included in the job's mandatory lessons was a course in cardio pulmonary resuscitation. Sure, learning CPR could save a person's life, but the Hero was fairly sure they would never see a situation in which they would have to be the person to administer it.

Still, they watched, marginally paying attention as the instructor detailed exactly how to perform chest compressions to the beat of Staying Alive by The Beegees, and how to perform mouth to mouth, but everything was still a boring blur.

"Hey XXXXXXX... Why don't you try hands on?" The instructor asked, motioning for the Hero to draw nearer to the crash test dummy they had been using as a 'volunteer'.

"... I'm not sure that's a good idea." The Hero mumbled.

"It's fine!" The instructor said brightly. "I'm right here in case you make any mistakes."

"Okay..." The Hero muttered, scooting over to the dummy on the floor, and planted their hands on its chest...

❧

"Oh..." Mau whispered as the memory fled her as quickly as it had returned. "Oh..." She breathed out, as she looked down on the kitten in her lap and gently rested her on the cold crypt floor.

That's when she remembered.

She carried all the skills of her prior lives in her memory. Galatea had never once said that the skills from her mundane life didn't come with them, as she interlaced her fingers, one hand atop the other and set them on the kitten's chest.

"Fuck fuck fuck..." Mau whispered as she began chest compressions. "-Andy... Galatea's portfolio is Life, right?" She suddenly said, loud enough to make the acolyte jolt.

"Y-yes, but- what are you doing?" He asked.

"It doesn't matter what I'm doing, just start praying!" Mau snapped at him, despair turning into burning anger and determination.

Not this time, Mau vowed. Not this time, the Hero growled under her breath.

"I said start praying like your life depends on it!" Mau hissed. "And give me some fucking room!"

Suvdaa and Andy immediately backed up as Mau continued chest compressions for a few more beats, muttering the tune of some song she barely remembered to keep the time, before she stopped just long enough to pinch the smaller catgirl's nose and breathe into her mouth.

Andy and Suvdaa stared, bewildered, but a quick glower from Mau set the acolyte on his course.

He began to pray.

Praying to Galatea for aid and succor for the young soul that Mau was so desperately trying to save from the cold and jagged claws of death, while Mau resumed chest compressions.

"Come on, come on..." Mau whispered, anxious and desperate, trying to get the kitten's heart to start beating on its own.

"Back up!" She said suddenly, prompting the raider and acolyte to take another step back as Mau channeled her magic.

"Lightning Jolt!" Mau hissed, electric energy arcing along her forearm before she funneled it through her body and hand into the smaller girl's, directly shocking the child's heart with a controlled burst of lightning.

The girl's body jerked as Mau shocked her, and for a moment the tomb was silent as Mau stopped to press an ear to the girl's chest.

The soft sound of a single heartbeat was her reward; followed quickly by a second fluttering heartbeat as the kitten suddenly lurched and gasped for breath. Mau held the girl down gently, rather than let her sit up, as lashes fluttered and bleary green eyes flickered open slowly and came into focus.

"... Big sis?" The girl mewled, confused, groggy, and dazed.

In an instant Mau heaved a sigh of relief, Suvdaa exhaled the breath she had been holding, and Andy's prayer's trailed right off.

Slowly, Mau helped the girl to sit up and wrapped her arms around the smaller girl.

"Yeah." She replied. "It's me. Let's get you home now."