“You can let go now” Ilia lightly pats the aide’s side.

They let go and say, “Good, that was getting awkward”

Ilia smacks them on the shoulder and starts scooting back towards the edge “Let’s get down and check on that economy of yours”

“Cool, and don’t worry, we’re just checking if they’ve burned what we’ve got reserved for trade” The aide follows behind, climbing down their grapple and helping Ilia back down the handholds.

As the resume moving through the alleyways and roads, Ilia, not very quietly, asks, “I never got your name?”

The aide raises a finger and shushes her before responding in a whisper, “Call me Caleb”

She smacks their hand away before stating, “I thought you lot didn’t use your normal names”

“Well, Caleb is a local legend” They stop to peek around a corner where the sound of battle is coming from.

She waits for them to give the signal to dash past before asking, “Can you tell me it sometime?”

Caleb slowly stops and gives her a look “It's a bit gory”

“I do not mind—” She looks back the way they came “So long as it stays in a story”

The go to continue guiding her, but stop to say, “Sure, actually I’ll take you to see Vex and Co's street performance of it once everything is back in order”

Ilia smiles and nods as the resume their pace. Eventually, the scent of smoke, salt and spice slowly grows to become an oppressive constant. The houses turn to warehouses and eventually covered worksites with large grindstones and drying racks hanging various chunks of brightly coloured corral with sacks of spice littered around, organised by colour. The area looks to be relatively undisturbed, with the half-ground and randomly dropped coral and misplaced tools being the only sign of people not being just off work. Until Caleb investigates further towards the beach and gestures for Ilia to not join them. Moving back a bit, they start searching through the warehouses, giving each pallet of bags a quick check over for the start of a fire. As they finish the third batch Ilia stops and gazes towards a wall. She quickly approaches it and presses her ear to it, then empowers Cali and sends her to peek through. After a second she rushes towards Caleb to pull them down as an oversized cleaver crashes through the wall, throwing shards of wood towards them. An armoured angel then pushes through the remains of the wall to pursue, their brown tassels trailing behind them. Ilia stops Caleb from pulling them towards the doors out at Cari’s insistence and instead summons Johnson to bust through wall opposite the angel, the pair following shortly behind. She then has him make a way through the wall to their left where they then exit out the open doors, with the angel following behind directly, shouldering through the walls to make up the distance.

They rush through the door and up the street, not paying any attention to the angel watching them from the rooftop. They do pay attention to collapsing building behind them as something slams through the roof and onto the street. The something, is a blob of body parts that quickly shifts into a roughly Titanoid form, excreting fragments of clothes and metal limbs. It then picks itself up and out of its crater to charge towards Ilia and Caleb, straight into Johnsons fist which takes its bloated head off. As he draws more bricks in from the road, the angel emerges, now brandishing a pair of cleavers. They stop to anchor several spikes before jumping, floating far over Johnson’s head and towards Ilia and Caleb. In response, the tar familiars leap from their jars onto Johnson and seep between the bricks that forms one of his arms. With a nod towards them, he punches towards the angel, throwing out the arm with the tar connecting it to him, grabs them and pulls him down just short of Ilia and Caleb. Not letting go, he lifts them over his shoulder to slam him into the ground, putting himself between them and Ilia. Johnson then punches the bloated mass in the head again as it tries to charge past him, though this time its head stays attached though damaged, and the blow only sends it back. The angel makes a backwards swing, their arm bending unnaturally and breaking one of Johnsons legs which forces him to knee; Johnson in return then starts punching him into the pavement with his free arm. The bloated mass recovers and, after a wisp of black collides with its head, goes around the pair to again attempt to charge Ilia and Caleb.

Ilia freezes as she sees it charging towards her, moving faster than its body should as its flesh gradually smooths, becomes more muscled, the lines of where it was originally formed from other bodies moulding into scars in a moment; Caleb charges to move around it, then, when he is passing it, turns and dashes across behind it, wielding a jagged knife. The mass falls flat on its face into a tumble, its butchered calves spilling blood as it goes, bringing Ilia back to the moment enough to move out of its way. Meanwhile, Johnson and the angel continue to fight. The angel makes another unnatural swing which lodges their cleaver into Johnson’s chest; he then slams the angel into the ground before trying to wrench the other cleaver out of their hand. A pillar of stone goes to slam into Johnson from the side but freezes as it nears. Magni then emerges from his shoulder to jump off that and onto the roof where the armoured angel’s handler is, staring down at the scene with bared teeth. That expression is quickly changed to an open mouth as Magni hurtles towards her and latches onto her face; in response, she emits a visible amount of mana from her hands onto Magni, to which he droops slightly, then ignites, triggering the angel to begin screaming as her face and hands start burning. She panics which leads to her dropping off the roof and shattering her terrarium against the pavement, after which Magni detaches and extinguishes himself.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Quite enough” This announcement is the only warning Johnson gets as he is blasted by a wave of dark shadow that does no visible damage but causes him to fall apart as Kyle and Dorio lose their unnatural cohesion.

Ilia drops slightly as she rapidly pails, before resolving herself and glaring up at the figure that looms down at her and Caleb. What glares back is a skeleton leaning against a lantern bearing poll. Their skull is framed by a flowery veil that ends under their thin and floral dress, with a woollen poncho over their shoulders that goes down to their sandaled feet. Parts of their skull have shifted along imperceivable cuts to frown down at her, an expression that does not change as they walk along the roof to be directly over Ilia.

Caleb has not let their actions distract them from the mass, instead going in for the attack. They rush at the mass as it slowly picks itself up, ducking under its barehanded, pre-emptive swing whilst cutting their inner thigh to make a bloodless, torn open cut. It ignores the damage and rises to its full three-meter height, their sexless, pail body now fully bulked with muscle and fat, the outlines of the bodies whose skin was fused to make its still visible as it finishes rippling. It tilts forwards to wildly swing down at Caleb who skips backwards whilst throwing metal disks at its face. It does not respond to the attack, letting them make shallow cuts across its face as it continues pursuing them, never blinking as they go. Caleb dashes between its legs with a trail of spirit, making a bone deep gash in its thigh before stopping to then plunge the dagger into its other thigh before dashing back with a trail of spirit, tearing out a large chunk of its muscle as they go, neither of which bring it down to its knees. The wounds are slow to bleed after thee damage but heal unnaturally once they do which triggers Caleb to reach into their clothes and pull out a bottle oil. They pour the oil over their knife before taking a large mouthful as they skip backwards, leading the mass further away. They then scratch some flint against the rough flat of the blade which produces sparks, igniting the oil, which they use to ignite their spit, producing a fire breath that they blow straight into the mass’s face.

Its only reaction is to blink, even as the oil sticks to their skin and continues to burn.

Caleb quietly claims, “That’s a start”

Meanwhile….

Ilia backs off but keeps her eyes on the necromancer as Magni leaps to her shoulders, fumbling to wield her spear, flinching as it extends. The necromancer cocks a brow to Ilia pointing the spear up at her, holding it at the top with both hands close together.

She gently shakes her head, her expression shifting to become neutral “Now, now, just drop that and give me the soul of project Caribou” Their voice is hollow and is not actually spoken, instead resounding from within Ilia’s head.

“What?” Ilia asks this her hands tremble and she struggles to not step back.

“Don’t play dumb! —” The necromancer’s outburst makes Ilia flinch “You’re the only one of your little gang with any ability for it”

Ilia clenches the hand she’s wearing Cari on before shouting back, “Why should I!”

Instead of responding with words, they tip the lantern towards her and open it, spraying a cloud of screaming black towards her; Ilia stumbles back as it envelops her, then flies towards her pouch of salt and silver. She steadies herself quickly enough to notice the second wave, this time responding by raising a hand which guides a wall of her shadow to rise between them. The black wears a little at the wall but ultimately breaks against it. Ilia jerks her hand forwards, the shadow responding by filling out.

Ilia sounds a triumphant laugh to herself as she shouts back, “You’re gonna run out of energy before me!”

“I know” The necromancer then bursts through the shadow, brandishing a knife.

Ilia flails the spear, missing the necromancer widely and giving her an opportunity to thrust it at her; Magni drops from Ilia’s shoulder and catches the knife. The necromancer then tilts the lantern at Ilia, sending another blast of necrotic energy which she barely ducks under. She then grabs Ilia’s spear and wrenches it out of her hand, throwing it away before kicking her onto her back and grabbing her staff before it falls over. She points the lantern at Magni which he jumps away to avoid, returning to Ilia’s shoulder. She stalks forwards and stops Ilia from crawling back by pinning her dress to the ground with her staff. Then, for a split second, a small wrapped egg collides with her skull, trailing spirit back to Caleb. It then explodes as it cracks. Exploding in a small concussive boom. Staggering the necromancer and triggering a scream from Ilia scrambles away.

The area is bathed in a violet glow as a ball of purple fire rises into the sky, Caleb pointing a tube to the sky the only sign of what caused it.

Caleb then covers the significant distance between them in moments, the front and back of their clothes smouldering as they dash towards Ilia, picking her up and running, leaping over the armoured angel that’s crawled to their handler, just past the remains of Johnson, Kyle and Dorio which she reaches for as they pass.

Magni wraps around to get her attention, which is then stolen by the mass sprinting after them, kicking up shattering bricks as the necromancer rides on their shoulders.