Suggested Listening

Ketak stood at the shore of the temple, considering the sky while giving occasional check on the glowing red eyes which watched her. The joke was on the death-eating rodent, for her eyes were more than capable of seeing its sleek fur in the darkness. Dwarven vision may have been inferior to humans in the daylight, but come darkness and they lost none of their acuity while humans were all but blind.

By the time Xyka came out, the moon had risen then vanished behind the clouds that promised rain on the morrow. Her eyes glowed white with electrical energy as she recited all the profanities of the four languages she knew under her breath as a private litany.

Ketak knew the answer, but needed confirmation. "The cowards refuse to act, right?"

"Like root worms!" Xyka shouted, confident nobody else would understand silmid or the significance of the insult. Root worms were both a preferred snack to silmid and nasty parasites which would often kill the trees by boring into the roots and bark. Their claim to fame compared to most grubs was an unparalleled ability to hide and flee from predators. To be compared to one was a high insult.

Ketak growled and considered going up to the temple doors and carving through them. The temple was defended, true, but she could do a great deal of damage, perhaps enough to convince them that there was no safety in hiding.

She chose not to, for she had better sabotage in mind. "Nona! Come!" She extracted the small bead containing infused necromantic power from her pocket. It was too weak to be useful in and of itself, but these squirrel-things favored them as treats.

Nona's tail twitched, then she bounded out into the open in spite of the unpleasant smell of the temples.

Xyka took a step back and looked at both the squirrel and the concentrated necromantic fragment. "What are you planning to do?"

"Don't worry, it won't hurt anyone." Ketak left out 'this time' from the statement. "Nona, glow!"

The fuzzy ball of insanity took a moment to consider her situation. On one hand, this strange person was giving her orders rather than the pack-leader. On the other, there was a treat waiting, and she liked treats. As with most things in a squirrel's life, her stomach made the decision for her. Her red eyes turned black as she generated a pulse of necromantic power. A beacon of fear and death energy that would be felt by any nearby mages, and disrupt other magic.

"Good girl." Ketak held out the treat while doing her best to ignore the cloying power of death radiating from the animal.

Nona stopped her performance, because while she'd obey for treats, it would be for no longer than she had to.

"There, they'll notice that in the morning, then maybe they'll reconsider." Her mission a failure before it began, Ketak began to walk away from the temple.

Xyka looked back at the residue left behind by the freakish rodent. It wasn't like abomination magic, but it was a thing of palpable harm that would require a great deal of work to cleanse from the temple. It could be days before it was safe to reopen the temples to prayer. "I should be arresting you right now."

"On behalf of those cowards? Hmph. We both know our loyalties are to our people and what is best for them. Perhaps a few days without the distraction of collecting donations will remind the human religious leaders of their own oaths."

Invoking the silmid contempt for human greed was a cheap ploy, but an effective one. "Let us hope so, stone-sister."

"My companions won't be done for a while." Now that they were further from the temples, Ketak deigned to stop and consider her next move. "I don't suppose there are any good places for drinks around here?"

"Good for proper alcohol, or good for information and networking with other mercenaries looking to kill a necromancer for profit? We have both, but they're not the same place."

"Of course not," Ketak muttered. "Why would anything be that convenient?"

Suggested Listening

Calenda observed the zombies for a moment. Fueled by the ambient necromantic energies, they could survive any physical attack Calenda could dish out, and there wasn't many options which a botanical mage could use against the undead. She went for the one she had, tracking the ground for a suitable chunk of stone, and forcing it to rise from the ground.

Then the fresh zombies began to act, guided by a series of thoughts and emotions not their own. The nearest necromancer screamed for a total of half a second before his larynx was crushed by a zombie, followed not long after by the other three beginning to cast a series of spells meant to paralyze and cleanse the undead.

Cali ripped the stone up from the ground, putting all her strength into lifting the rock that was twice as heavy as she was. Holding it not unlike one might cradle a baby, she picked up a running start while using her magic to reinforce and strengthen the ground so that she didn't sink down to her knees in the soil.

At the last moment, she brought the stone up and then slammed it right down on the back of her target's head. A crack resounded as both stone and skull were tested against one another. A conflict that neither could win. The stone cracked through, leaving two large chunks on the ground next to the zombie and a spattering of small stones and brain matter.

"They can be overwhelmed!" Her shout of encouragement was more meant for herself than her temporary allies, for even as she said it she came to realize it was wrong.

It spite of its head being burst open like a rotting cantaloupe, it showed no sign of being slowed. Meanwhile, the mages redoubled their efforts to slow the monsters by any means necessary.

It was only thanks to Mort that Cali remained standing in spite of the exorcism, but the zombies had power to spare. It seemed to her that they were benefiting from something not unlike Elruin's ability to strengthen and shield her undead against other magic. Calenda took a step back, away from the certain failure that was about to occur.

She closed her eyes and issued a prayer to Ecros. "It is the warrior's burden than some must die in the name of victory. They are the mothers and fathers, who throw themselves into the predator's jaws so that their children live on. In those children, they will be remembered forever." She then opened her eyes to watch these poor brave men die at the hands of the dead. She would see to it their last moments meant something.

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One, less brave than the others, broke ranks and retreated for the gate. An act which earned him special attention from the still whole zombie, which chased him down far faster than a middle-aged scholarly mage could hope to outrun.

Cali noted that the zombies acted in concert; its cohort didn't so much as glance at the fleeing exorcist. Instead, it waited for the others to turn their attention away for a moment before it struck from behind and ripped the throat out of the stronger of the remaining mage. Cali added to her mental library that they used advanced tactics as well. Stronger threats were targeted before they went for the weak. Then the undamaged zombie caught the final victim and crushed his skull in an imitation of what Cali had done.

Now that their only company was the dead dead, the pair still seemed disinterested in Calenda. Mort, on the other hand, was still alive, and the zombies began to chase after the squirrel which, being a squirrel, ran straight up a nearby building to the safety of the roof. The zombies pursued, then split up to try to deny their prey an escape route.

All of this was important tactical knowledge that could be used in future battles, paid for in blood and screams.

Now, as the undamaged zombie began to use its fingers to claw its way up the wall, it was time for Calenda to act. She gripped the climber's shoulders and dipped into her vampiric sarite shard. Black lines began to creep across her hands and arms as what remained of her blood converted to an inky ichor made of raw necromantic energies.

Used against people, it was a means to sap magic to replace her own dwindling supply. Used by people against the undead, it was a particularly horrific suicide. Used in this situation, it provided Cali with an almost ceaseless pool of power to draw upon.

Using the zombie's power against itself, Calenda twisted and squeezed its neck, breaking the spine as she slammed the thing into the ground like a rag doll. It grabbed at her, but it had half the power it did moments ago, while she had the other half and her own magic on top of it. She slammed it into the ground again and was rewarded with the sickening crunch of a jawbone collapsing inward. The next shattered the skull.

Then she gripped its arm and ripped it from the socket, slammed her knee into the spine to break that as well, then kicked backward into the chest of the oncoming zombie behind her. Despite using far less force than she had expended against the first, the second was propelled back with its chest caved inward. Not enough to destroy it, but the half-dismembered zombie still moved as well.

There was a solution to this problem, though not one she was eager to enact. She grabbed the zombie's leg, shoved her foot into its spine hard enough to snap its bones like dried twigs, and separated another limb.

The next few minutes were disgusting work at best, but it was easier with her newfound strength than it ever could have been before.

She looked at her hand, at the black veins and arteries that now traced themselves across her body. She had no doubt in her mind that her face was as covered as the rest of her. Once again, part of her humanity died, and she became stronger for it.

She took a running start and jumped over the wall of the crematorium, an act which was easier now by far than it had been but a few minutes ago. She pulled up her hood and hoped that and the darkness would hide her features enough.

No longer could she afford to be seen by normal people unless there was something Elruin could do to return her to normal.

Suggested Listening

The composite horror fed its illusions to the pair, and experienced what might have been shock when Elruin began to sing. Whether the credit belonged to their protective sarite, their natural strength, or the ad-hoc abattoir disrupting the effect, was a question for later. What mattered now was the illusion had little more impact than a pleasant daydream.

It meant nothing. To Elruin, at any rate. She lifted her violin, gave herself to the power of requiem, and swam in the complex magical tapestry that was this, the most advanced necromantic construct she had ever witnessed. It was a complete being, a true soul, built from the ground up. It was not a native undead like Scratch, nor an insulated soul in an undead body like Calenda, but something which shared properties of both and a great deal more. As if it was a soul born undead.

Lemia's reaction was more appropriate for the manipulation and violation of memories, fantasies, and emotions on a fundamental level. She fumbled for her ammunition through tear-blinded eyes, all other emotions abandoned in favor of rage and disgust. Aim enhancing magic coupled with the size of the monster deserved more credit than Lemia's aim, but the thing blossomed into alchemical flame.

It stood watching its own flesh burn away as Elruin pinned its necromantic muscles with her own superior control of the element.

They could not, however, control its psychic death-cries. Unable to speak words, it pleaded with them using idea in pure form. Flashes of a thousand possible lives rang out across the area, granting pasts that never were and promising futures which could never be.

It offered a world of unparalleled, impossible happiness. The happiness it yearned for but could never have, the happiness it brought to others. The only thing it wanted was to bring joy into this bleak, merciless world. It pleaded for the life it did not possess. It did not, could not, understand why they sought its death. It felt, it thought, and that made it all the more dangerous.

The inhabitants of this slum came rushing in, unaware of why or what they fought for, but they would fight nonetheless. Rocks began to bounce off of Elruin, thrown by the very people they were here to save. She ignored them, she had to, for if she stopped playing, then their target would escape.

"Elruin!" Lemia was stopped from helping when three people grabbed onto her, pinning her arms. One of them was the blood-covered man who had not long ago stitched himself back together.

Elruin returned to her music, this time to cover the area in darkness to hide her from the swarm. An act which was proved futile, for these people were not seeing her with their eyes, they were not seeing her at all. They were seeing the illusion fed into their minds by the undead creature. She looked at the faces of people a few feet from her, smiling at her as if she was their long lost daughter.

Nobody had ever smiled at her in such a way before in her life.

If she lost control of the monster, it would kill them all, so she grew more desperate for a means to fight back. Its mind alteration magic was stronger than her own, and to use raw negation risked granting the monster more strength, so she blended her ice magic into the song. People fell as they neared her, their bodies robbed of strength and warmth.

A flash of black lightning erupted from Lemia's own armor. Elruin's armor wasn't the only tool she'd built, and her own armor came with a cheap imitation of Elruin's defensive power of choice. People screamed in agony, but the smiles never left their faces as they continued to cling to the very thing which was stripping their life away.

It stared at them from sockets of eyes melted by heat, uncomprehending of why they tried to hurt it. It wanted them to feel joy, but they wanted it to suffer. So it pushed harder, pressed their minds and lifted the concept of sarite from their minds. Evil, hateful stones which stole happiness from those which carried them. The solution, then, was to take the stones from these poor people so they could be happy.

So it showed its beloved family the secret of the evil sarite, so that they could save these unfortunates, and its family moved as an army to protect their one true source of happiness.

Elruin changed her song again, attacking the illusions the creature had created. Every stroke of her violin was a blade slicing the strings which bound their minds. It was a terrible strategy, one which required breaking them free one at a time while they swarmed in by the dozens. They would run out of space to move long before the slums ran out of people the monster could throw at them.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" Lemia continued to struggle to free herself from the wounded and dead. She launched one more projectile toward the monster, this one infused with pure creation energy.

The bomb burst into a storm of energy that dimmed all the remaining necromancy in the area. An angry squirrel screeched and retreated for cover in a pile of garbage, while people gasped and screamed when their bodies were wracked with energy every bit as destructive as negation, but one which stripped them of the happy lie they had been given.

Insulated as she was by her armor, Elruin didn't feel the pain of the bomb, but it did cost her the use of requiem long enough that the monster could retreat into the darkened alleyway, leaving misery and death behind as was the whole purpose behind its creation.

It was now on them to deal with the aftermath.