As Anastacia awoke in the prison containing the soul of Fah-Raja, an ancient aureun warrior and the one giving King his stoic personality, said warrior interrupted his eternal training regime. With an eternity to spare and no hope of escaping, Fah-Raja had chosen to spend it honing his already complete mastery over most types of weapons. Each time Anastacia saw him, he had somehow gotten his hands on something new to swing around, the necromancer didn’t know how and didn’t bother to question it either. This time his weapon of choice was a long metallic staff, which he used to wallop and poke at the imaginary target before him. Immediately upon appearing in the empty realm, Anastacia was disappointed, she could definitely feel Fah-Raja’s fleshy body under the armor of stone, even in its current form. It didn’t feel quite normal, but more like a faint image of one, almost impossible to control but still definitely there. It wasn’t surprising that her powers wouldn’t work normally, but they still did work – which meant there was something unique about Val-Varjo’s prison, which entirely disabled them.
“I had a terrible dream.” The aureun said without a greeting and struck his staff into the invisible floor of the void. “Glad to see it false.”
“Was it about being eternally trapped alone in an empty void?” Anastacia asked jokingly, having previously found out that the warrior didn’t take his imprisonment all too seriously even after thousands of years. “I hate to tell you this, but that’s still what’s going on.”
“I’d argue against that. Do I not have frequent company in these days of delight?” Fah-Raja asked amusedly and threw the staff far into the darkness, where it never made an impact sound at all. “My dream was dark and terrible. A small hole appeared in my memory, and no matter what I tried, nothing would fit it. Until just now.”
The necromancer took her time answering and sat down by a small campfire forever burning by the area she always appeared in. “Yeah, I got written out of reality for a while, but it’s no biggie.”
The aureun sighed heavily and sat down beside the necromancer. “Forgive me, if I do not take you at your word. The brink of the abyss is not something one visits and comes back without a worry, be it by blade, sickness or some wizardly means by the sound of it. Even if your mind does not dwell in death, it does dwell in what could have been. Things you would have done differently, regrets over actions untaken. The brink shines light on even the darkest corners of your being, unraveling all you’ve shoved into the shade to deal with later.”
Anastacia stared at the faint flame for a while before turning to look at the stone mask on Fah-Raja’s face, the glowing eyes staring directly into her soul and the surprising amount of emotion she could read from the almost featureless surface. His stern look somehow pierced it and dug into her skin so much that she had to look back at the fire after only a few seconds.
“It’s not that, it’s really not. I have enough problems thrown at me at all times to not dwell on that. If anything, it’s a worry how little it bothers me.” She muttered and leaned her cheek against her knee. “What bothers me is that I became a white necromancer – which is the exact opposite of what I wanted. I don’t think I had any other options, but still…”
“I apologize, but I predate your kind more than slightly, and do not know the implications of that. Though with your disdain for all things of your kind, sounds likely not good.” The aureun admitted, as his days of living had been during the early days of even the aureun empire, which had reigned for ages before even the first necromancers crawled out of whatever dark nooks of the world they came from.
Doing so as briefly as she could, Anastacia explained what she knew of the white ones, their significance, Alabaster and Ivory, and some other related subjects before coming to the reason for her discomfort with the way things were. “So, now that I’ve worn the crown, every necromancer will feel it. They’ll know what I’m supposed to be… and I’m just not at all that. I’m not someone anyone should look to for leadership or answers, or much of anything, and I don’t want to be that either. I’ll rule the goblins just fine, since all they need is a single person with some common sense and they’ll do fine on their own, but this isn’t that at all. It’s a hard, unquestionable fact that it’s what I am supposed to be. I’m supposed to be the person who drags necromancers out from their seclusion and actually makes life better for them. Sure, I can just say that they’re free to lay in the bed they’ve made, but I’ve recently been informed about the possibility that not all of them might be the worst people alive, and that… bothers me.”
“A sense of duty already places you well above many who have donned a crown, but having to be something does mean you are prepared to be that. I never called myself a king, until now I suppose, but I was indeed a leader in my time. A position I earned by defeating the others in combat, not through any sensible means. It took me decades to become any good at it, and I think you could well do it in less time, should you want to do so.” The aureun tried to lessen her burden.
“I most definitely do not want to do that, I’m worried that I might have to, that it’s the right thing to do. Their current empress is… inexplicably absent and if it all collapses, necromancy will be a lot more of a problem across the world. If I can prevent that, shouldn’t I?” Anastacia continued to worry about the weight of her crown. While she might not exactly be popular in Mournvalley, with sheer power she could gain enough of a following there to become the de facto ruler. She doubted many would defy her for long if she showed up with the crown on her head. “I don’t even want to be a necromancer most of the time! Every moment of every day, I am a ball of fire surrounded by sheets of paper that I’m constantly and painfully aware of. Sometimes I worry that I might sneeze wrong and someone becomes a stain on a wall. On good days, I manage to distract myself and it isn’t a problem, but on bad ones every person is like an itch I absolutely must not scratch.”
Fah-Raja nodded understandingly, but said nothing.
“If you reach out in the dark and your hand touches a wall, you feel an urge to give it a little push, just to see if it’s solid. Necromancy is like that, but at all times with a million hands, and if I give something a push…” She kept airing out her frustration, which had turned into a frequent theme for their daily meetings as of late. “Can’t I just shove this mind into a simulacrum body or something to get rid of necromancy? I’m not that invested in this stumpy body. There’s probably plenty to choose fr-“
The glowing eyes on the Aureun’s mask flared bright all of a sudden and he reached over to firmly grab the necromancer by the cheeks, only needing one hand to hold on to her head. He did not pull, push or hurt her, but an unfamiliar fury emanated from the featureless mask. “Unsay those words, and never utter them again! Do not even think them!”
Startled and confused, Anastacia nodded and was freed.
“I apologize, but I have seen that treacherous path unfold.” Fah-Raja apologized, with some leftover cinders in his tone. “What you suggest is not impossible, far from it. Before the first artificial children were created, like many others, the empire had its aim on immortality. Simple mechanisms powered by mortal souls were a commonplace, but none had been crafted with a mind of its own – but then a thought of retaining more of the soul in the process occurred, and the obvious conclusion of replacing the body with metal and stone. An ageless form to allow for accomplished ones among us to continue their work for all of eternity, not that our lifespans were short to begin with. The barrier turned out to not be much of a hurdle in the end, and so the first enchanted mechanical forms were made, and a soul inserted into them. Soon enough it was understood that one soul had not the power to remain sentient and power the movement of the form, so the current system of two souls was created. An aureun for the mind and a supposedly lesser soul to fuel movement.
“But mere days into the experiment, its flaws became apparent. Forcing a soul so used to, or even reliant on senses, into a body that could not feel, smell, taste, hear or see, and replacing all of that with mechanical feedback and enchantments was proven unwise. The victims of the experiment were left into a void filled with nothing but an overflow of information they could not comprehend. Still in control of the form, every single victim was quick to turn to violence, either against anyone nearby or usually themselves. The screaming only ceased once the modules enabling it were destroyed. Much, much later, the curse of immortality was understood, as the mind withing the form wouldn’t know peace. No matter how badly broken, it persisted, slowly growing mad in the void. To this day, they are the prisoners of the last remaining chunks and splinters of their immortal form…
“Though my situation, stuck in this ‘prison’ as you call it, seems dire. I consider the separation from my immortal form the last and perhaps the only kindness ever afforded by the empire. I am still unquestionably myself, in control of the body I have always known. The separation was ultimately what led into the creation of the first artificial children. It still achieved the goal of immortality for aureun, but in the form of a fresh mind more suited to its predicament, influenced by the one deeper within. So I will not have you seek solutions in this nightmare, nor will my immortal self, not even jokingly.” He finished his long-winded explanation and gently placed his hand on the necromancer’s head. “Whatever other paths you may choose to take, be it among your kind or not, you can always rely on King and I.”
“O…okay…” Anastacia uttered and stared at the fire again. It was the first time she had seen the aureun so insistent on something. Usually Fah-Raja was cheerful, quiet and definitely more of a listener than a talker, but perhaps if this was enough to stir him so much, his words were to be listened – even if the initial suggestion wasn’t that serious to begin with. The idea of a mechanical body, free of necromancy in all its forms, was still an attractive one.
The topic of bodies free of necromancy brought forward the three other examples of it that she knew of. There was divine meddling, through which Emilia had gained her immunity. It was a slightly repulsive idea, especially considering the recent event with Sylvia, nor did it guarantee freedom from being a necromancer herself. Then there was Xamiliere, an infinitely more tempting prospect for several reasons – some good, others found from the gutter her mind quickly sank to. However, somehow becoming a spriggan seemed infinitely more complicated than even a simulacrum, if not downright impossible. The final example, a very recent one, was Val-Varjo. Made of flesh and blood, but still untouchable by necromancy. Soft, warm and alive, unlike the other examples. The thought alone was enough to allow her to feel the aureun’s hand against hers again, and how she had done that without even hint of fear or repulsion – perhaps for the first time ever.
“Do you happen to know an aureun by the name of Val-Varjo?” She inquired from the other aureun she knew.
Fah-Raja pondered for a while. “No, I do not, but the lineage of Varjo is an old one, one of its members even among my knights – Bast-Varjo. An exemplary warrior, even among us. What brought forth this question though?”
“We’ve spoken about Leggy, right?” Anastacia asked to be sure, having lost track of most of her ramblings by now.
“Ah, we have. What was it that you said… That ‘you would need to find a way to make them legs as smooth as glass or you’d end up grating your face away on them one day.’ Which is quite a sentiment.” The ancient knight chuckled, returning to his usual, cheery self.
“And I stand by it, but that’s not the point here!” The necromancer exclaimed somewhat proudly. “The aureun stuck within Leggy is called Val-Varjo. When I first found her, she was chained and nailed down to a stone pillar, unconscious and unable to move. I worked her loose and finally got to meet her today.”
Fah-Raja seemed a bit alarmed to hear that. “Perhaps you should exercise a modicum of caution when freeing one of our kind from anything… The fact that she was restrained even within means she was thought to be dangerous, extremely so.”
“That’s just because she rebelled against the empire, but that’s not the point either. What I want to know is why necromancy doesn’t work at all inside her prison? Like none, I can’t even feel myself with it.” Anastacia inquired. “But here I can.” She added.
“A rebel, huh…” Fah-Raja muttered and thought about the question for a while. “I suspect the reason may well be the same as the one for her restraints then. There is some amount of play in how much the soul within affects the mechanical form. Mine is of the more generous end, as it was beneficial for King to have my aptitude as a warrior, but it also no doubt made the decision to allow the empire to crumble an easy one for him. Your friend is no doubt in the other end of the scale, if she really was a rebel. Leggy would posses just enough of her traits to be sentient, equal her in wits but that’s about it. Her ‘prison’ built to keep as much inside as possible, and apparently outside as well, meaning your powers were left behind into your body when crossing the barrier. Did you perhaps feel disconnected from yourself when entering for the first time?”
Anastacia pointed at the aureun, amazed how spot on he was. “Exactly! It was like I was watching myself from outside in, but that changed over time when I worked her free from the pillar.”
Fah-Raja pondered for a while longer. “And since you’ve communicated, I assume she is now free? I would wager that means you’ve removed the barriers installed into her soul itself, and what remains are the ones belonging to the container. Apparently, those are still enough to keep things out, but I suspect more of her will be leaking out and you’ll be noticing a change in Leggy’s behavior as she assumes more of Val-Varjo’s traits.”
Suddenly Anastacia felt the gentle pull of the coming end to her visit and let go off her legs to fall onto her back.
“Is it time already?” The aureun asked, already familiar with the necromancer’s antics.
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She groaned in response and flailed her arms and legs in frustration.
“Tomorrow, then. I will be here, always. Do not disappear on me again.” Fah-Raja said as Anastacia faded away, clearly sounding disappointed as well.
Dark and empty, the halls of Castle Mournvalley echoed nothing but an occasional hum. For weeks now its staff had been away from their duties, leaving the place in complete disarray. The fallen snow had blocked the entrance, but no one was coming or going through the grand doors anymore. Wind blew through open windows on occasion, creating an uncomfortable draft that made and eerie howl in the twisted staircases and corridors. The overwhelming odor of rot and decay filled every space inside and even leaked out as a visible miasma that stained the nearby banks of snow a vile violet. Any necromancer making an attempt to approach would be met with an unbearable migraine before they could get anywhere close, and fall unconscious should they unwisely press on despite the pain and nausea. Any non-necromancer would risk a torturous death, as the inquisition had learned fairly quickly in their attempts to reach the castle.
In this state of stagnancy and death, only a single source of light could be occasionally seen moving across the windows and ramparts of the castle. A seemingly inexhaustible glow of a crystal lantern, stolen from the city of adventurers on a visit to ‘advice’ a certain necromancer there, now shone its pale and cold light across the throne room, occasionally creating the illusion of movement in the shadows as its bearer fidgeted. The scenery it illuminated was that of merciless carnage, dozens of bodies torn apart and mangled, all haphazardly piled against the walls. More crushed corpses hanging impaled from weapons embedded in the stone walls, occasionally falling off as they decayed. Splinters of quicksilvery armor that had proven itself extremely insufficient against the foe it had been made to face, torn banners of violet with the compass rose and skull emblem on them. The long tables once used to hold feasts to the useless nobles of the previous reign now held several severed heads, some crushed, others with parts of the spine attached, but all wearing a helmet made out of the quicksilver-like metal the sect seemed to like so much, signifying their position a step above the common rabble. The same number of medallions cast in the form of the sect’s emblem had been piled beside the throne, as a collection of trophies of sorts.
The master of this realm of death, Empress Coquelicot, rested on her throne with her feet raised atop a mound of broken weapons and shattered shields torn from her enemies. Four of her bloodstained hands dangled limply over the armrests and the remaining two sat folded on her lap. Her royal clothing stained beyond any hope of rescue, her usually neatly kept dark hair a mess and her dark scowl darker than ever. Her almost black eyes combined with the usual ghastly white appearance of most necromancers acted as a finishing touch to the nightmarish scene no one was there to witness. Having not slept more than a moment at a time for weeks now, she was in a dazed state between being awake and asleep, technically resting but certainly not feeling the benefits of it.
Beside the throne and the empress, on a chair dragged from behind one of the noble’s tables, sat a small figure. Entirely covered in linen straps inscribed with violet sigils and runes, only allowing a single violet crystal to poke out from the being’s head. The staff the crystal lantern was attached to swayed as they swung their feet, which didn’t quite reach the ground from their seat. The small being placed one of the medallions they had been playing with into the pile and turned their attention to the skeletal arm dangling closest to them over the throne’s armrest. Gently lifting it up by one of the fingers and letting it fall down limply.
“Do you need something, darling?” Coquelicot asked, sounding exhausted and annoyed but trying her best to bury it in a pleasant tone.
“I was merely wondering if you were hungry.” The small being asked and chuckled.
Coquelicot dragged herself up on the throne to fix her pose. “No… but it is time to eat, isn’t it?” She stood up and pulled a small table taken from another room before the two seats. She had to kick a couple of severed body parts out of the way and the permanently blood-soaked carpet squelched under her boots.
Looking away for a mere second as she sat down, she somehow missed the moment an entire cake, covered in freshly whipped cream and berries picked no doubt less than a day ago appeared on the table – along with a piping hot pot of already steeped tea. She had no idea how the being did this, but had decided to not inquire into it, as it preserved what rations the castle had left. The biggest problem was that it was always cake, three times a day, every day, cake. The drink rotated between tea, coffee, juice and water, but the cake merely changed shape from time to time. She occasionally had some of the dried meat and other dry goods from the castle’s storage to have some semblance of a balanced diet, but it was still mostly cake.
The bandaged being excitedly cut her a massive piece and planted it upside-down on a smaller plate. “Here you go!” They said proudly and handed a fork to the necromancer.
“Thank you…” Sighed Coquelicot, tiredly but sincere at the same time.
Just as she was about to take her first bite, a familiar voice spoke out from the darkness. “I expected more of you, Coquelicot. In many ways.” Alizarin’s voice mockingly echoed in the hall.
From the shadows, out stepped her late husband, missing a good portion of his arms as well a third of his head. He appeared to be in the rough shape he had been in when his corpse had been discovered months ago, after he had sacrificed himself to slow down two other members of the red inquisition and allowed Anastacia time to escape. Of course, his remains had been appropriately disposed of so that they couldn’t be used by other necromancers, but that didn’t seem to keep him quiet. Ever since Coquelicot had assumed her duties as empress, his visage, among a few others had begun to pester her in the quiet moments of the day. Initially she had blamed it on stress and lack of rest, but had since begun to accept that she might actually be losing it. She had hidden it from her inquisitors, of course, but that had started to be difficult before she had forced everyone to leave the castle. Though even now, she attempted to ignore it for the benefit of her companion.
“Mournvalley is in chaos, the sect is waiting! You should be leading your nation or bargaining for your rightful place in the sect, but here you are, wasting time by eating cake!” Alizarin’s voice mocked her. “The Coquelicot I married was unwavering in her duty, you’re not even a pale imitation of her.”
Alizarin had never flat out told her that he was in contact with the sect, but Coquelicot had suspected something for a while before his death. Since then, she had found several items of suspicious nature among his belongings, hidden from others – this included one of the medallions she had collected in the weeks past. Her suspicions had been confirmed as a messenger of the sect had approached her after she had taken the throne, asking her to take Alizarin’s place. She had listened to the messenger’s claims about a grand mission of the sect, but had sensed the half-truths and found it to be contradicting with her own mission of a functional nation – and so she had torn the messenger apart on the spot, once promises had turned into threats. It was those threats that caused her to inform her inquisition of the sect and send them to hunt down any mention of it, to use their spies to secretly spread the word of the sect’s plans among the leaders of nations and warn them of the possibility of sect members in their courts. Eventually, her fears caused her to drive away the servants and inquisitors from the castle, as she laid in wait for the sect to come and challenge one of the most serious threats there was for their plans.
It did not take long for the halls and corridors to be filled with remains of would-be assassins and groups of supposedly legendary warriors. Eventually, even one of the five descended down to face her, going by the name ‘Palatinate’. The meeting had not gone in the sect’s favor, not in the slightest, and Palatinate retreated but was denied of the small child-like being he had called his aide, whom Coquelicot confiscated simply because she could. It was only after the fact that she learned the child’s name to be Perfidy, and that they controlled the paths between the plane the sect operated from and the mortal world. Since then, she had asked Perfidy to keep the pathway over the castle permanently open and warn her of anyone that passed through, turning herself into a trap that the sect had to deal with while buying time for the inquisition to prepare for a conflict. She may have been slowly losing her marbles, but killing required very few of those – and she wouldn’t run the risk of sullying any political gains her emissaries and inquisitors achieved.
“Do you not like the cake?” Perfidy asked worriedly, interrupting the necromancer’s thoughts.
“No, dear, it’s quite nice. Fresh berries are a rarity in Mournvalley.” Coquelicot smiled and finally put the fork in her mouth.
“Yeah. Cake’s the best.” Perfidy declared but couldn’t eat any because the cloth covered their mouth as well, and apparently shouldn’t be undone.
Alizarin’s image laughed mockingly. “You know fully well that your little inquisitors will fail miserably without you, and this is what you’re doing with your time? Maybe Mournvalley deserves you as its leader after all…”
Coquelicot stabbed her fork into the wooden table. “They will succeed where we would have failed!” She yelled at the darkness.
“Is it happening again?!” Perfidy almost panicked over the outburst that seemed to come out of nowhere for them.
The cackle of an old crone joined in from the shadows, as Amaranth, the leader of the red inquisition Coquelicot had used Anastacia to dethrone, showed herself. “The whelps you’ve chosen are woefully unprepared for what’s coming, because you failed to prepare them for it. Sure, there are a couple of promising necromancers among them, but they’ll fall with the rest of their lame team. There is no place for anything but red in this country.” She mocked the empress as well.
Though she still held some strange affection to her late husband, no matter what he had turned out to be as there had been some good times in their lives together, and often chose to listen to him just a while longer than she should have, she held nothing but contempt for Amaranth.
“It is.” Coquelicot admitted to Perfidy, gritting her teeth and slightly bending the fork in her grasp.
“LEAVE HER ALONE, GHOSTS!” The small being screamed into the darkness, at figures they couldn’t see, but ones that somehow still obeyed the command and vanished on the spot. Huffing and puffing from anger, Perfidy cut a second piece of cake and placed it next to the first one that had barely been touched. “You need to tell me when it happens, otherwise I can’t protect you.”
“I apologize, I will do better in the future.” The necromancer sighed in relief and pulled the fork out of the table to begin eating properly.
“You better, or I’ll make you something bad next, like a carrot cake.” The small being grumbled.
Carrots being too delicate for the accursed soil of Mournvalley, Coquelicot had no idea what a carrot cake was, but could make a reasonably accurate guess based on the name – which sounded somewhat nice actually. “Oh no, that’d be awful.” She smirked.
Seeing the necromancer actually eat something seemed important to Perfidy, and they always kept careful watch on her, protesting if her meals appeared too light sometimes even going so far and trying to shove or punch her if Coquelicot even attempted to decline the minimum of three meals of the day. It was certainly a brave thing to do, as most things that had laid a hand on her, tended to lose said hand very quickly, but she understood the good intentions behind it.
“I’ve been wondering.” Perfidy suddenly spoke up as they were finishing up their meal. “Why are you here alone? I was told you were like a queen or something, and in books those always do stuff like order people around, hold big parties and… sometimes do some pretty nasty stuff. I haven’t seen a single maid or anything like that.”
Coquelicot emptied her cup of tea in a single gulp. “I am an empress, to be specific, more or less the same thing, but it means that this nation is an empire – even if it is quite small, and not a kingdom. Though it has been that as well. I have never been the type to socialize and nobles drive me positively insane. I’m not actually much of a leader to begin with, I can plot and scheme, but I am not someone who inspires anyone or makes great speeches.”
“Oh.” Perfidy frowned under the cloths. “You have to be good at something though. My books said that everyone is good at something and you’ll never know what that something might help with.”
Coquelicot smiled with a slightly terrifying grin. “Why of course! There is something I’m quite proficient at. You see, as some people amass power, they somehow get illusions of being untouchable, that their power can’t be rivaled. I am very good at reminding people like that about the fact that no one is beyond nightmares.”
“You’re good at… being a nightmare?” The tiny being puzzled. “That’s silly.”
“Isn’t it? But I think it’s the best I can do for my people right now. I can’t lead them; I can’t mingle with the high and mighty lords and ladies of this world… But I can be the nightmare to those who think themselves as nightmares. And since you’re by my side, I am not a threat they can simply ignore.” Coquelicot chortled and pressed Perfidy’s nose with her finger, causing them to laugh.
Suddenly Perfidy’s laugh died down as they gazed upwards, as if looking through the stone ceiling and the floors above it.
“Is someone at the door?” Coquelicot asked, pouring more tea for herself and drinking it all straight away.
Perfidy nodded.
The Empress of Mournvalley stood up from her throne and started walking down the blood-soaked carpet to the middle of the room. “Bring them here, as usual.” She sighed and did the bare minimum to fix her outfit so that it wouldn’t get in the way, tying the belt of her robes, that had once been white but now had a disgustingly violet spray pattern across nearly every bit of it.
Perfidy hid behind the throne but peeked out as much as they dared.
Suddenly, out of thin air appeared a man, a knight of some sort. He wore the fairly typical quicksilvery armor of the sect, complete with the medallion dangling from his neck and a cape donning the flag of some distant nation Coquelicot recognized but couldn’t be bothered to recall the name of. His features under the helmet matching his armor were rather ghoulish. Sunken eyes, pasty grey skin and curiously sharp teeth. In his left hand, he held a rather crude but menacing blade, and in his right, magical sparks jumped between his fingers.
“I, The Witch-Knight Caphion, Wielder of The First Blade, have come for you, Empress. The sect demands your cooperation… or your death – and personally, I’d much prefer the latt-“ He started off with a grand introduction that trailed off as he saw the mounds of corpses around him and the severed heads staring directly at him with their blank gazes. Though disturbed by the sight, he appeared to have some mettle to him at least, as he still pointed his weapon at the shadowy figure in front of him. At first, his hand remained firm, but the twisted grin below the joyless, dark eyes of his opponent caused the faintest shake in it.
Coquelicot took a step towards him.
“Stand down! We’ll talk!” The sect’s thrall yelped.
A second step, now within the sword’s striking distance. She let out an amused chuckle.
Understanding that there was going to be no talking, the witch-knight swung his mighty blade just as Coquelicot lunged at him. Before the sword even got into its full speed, its movement halted as it crashed into two of Coquelicot’s right hands, the third grasping it by the guard. In a fraction of a second, the supposed First Blade shattered in the necromancer’s grasp. Caphion, however, had no time to mourn it as he glanced down and saw the necromancer holding one of his lungs and some other shriveled piece of meat that Coquelicot had pulled through the armor the sect had hailed as unbreakable. Though what little life was left in him began to leave his eyes, the magical sparks in his right hand intensified, that is, until Coquelicot used her final free hand to tear the entire arm off of her opponent, halting the cast there. Collapsing onto his knees and falling back from there, the witch-knight was probably no more, but the necromancer saw it fitting to cave in his head with all too many bashes from the pommel of his apparently legendary sword – all the while laughing quietly.
Finally, having gotten her fill, The Empress of Mournvalley stood back up and shook the viscera off her arms. She took a deep breath of what must have been the vilest stench ever created, but one she had gotten used to, and turned back to the throne.
“Remember, dear Perfidy, appreciate the nightmares you see in your dreams. So you don’t one day think yourself above the real ones.” She said calmly, as if making an attempt at parental advice and failing miserably.
“I’ll try!” The small being promised and came out of their cover. “Do you need a napkin?”
Coquelicot looked down at the fresh coating of violet blood on her outfit and the liquefied flesh dripping off her arms. “A few, if you would.”