Fei’s vision spun and spun and spun. She was trying to be everywhere, all at once, all the time, and it was even starting to hurt a little.

From a small mouse-like head she watched from under the bottom of a ruined carriage as a line of skeletal soldiers carried away boxes. She followed the tendril from her mouse body to one of those skeletons changing perspective once again.

Heavy armor now weighed down her shoulders as her customary purple flames filled the sockets of the warrior skeleton's skull. She froze mid step. It felt wrong. How long had it been since she had walked like this? It wasn't that she didn't know how to anymore, just that it felt oh so strange to be standing on two feet again. And she hated it.

She moved the skeletal body with only slightly awkward steps away from the rest of the skeletons conducting their assigned tasks. Flecks of green fire seemed to burn in their souls as she considered the bony warriors around her, obviously obeying the orders of Tai as they attacked the northern convoy. Fei was able to read the commands as though they were a book and she realized the skeletons were collecting all the materials from the convoy at a nearby storage location. As she watched, a particularly large group of skeletons even started to pull away one of the carts themselves from the road. More tools for the war she supposed.

Fei knelt down with the box in her hand, opening the crate to reveal its contents. A thick mat of fur lined the top of the crate, but as she started to rifle through the contents, it was quickly revealed to be an entire box of furs. She pulled out five different fur cloaks stuffed tightly into the box, and felt her disappointment grow with the lack of gold. Maybe that was why the garrison hadn't sent a force mage with this convoy, because it wasn't as valuable as the other two. Sure, the pelts could fetch a good price, and the coats would be useful to anyone in the winter, but it still wasn't quite as good as gold.

She left the skeleton with an order to continue following the others before flipping her consciousness away to a far distant field littered with the bodies of fallen skeletons. Her half battered body could hardly rise until she repaired a large part of its spinal column just to get the leverage she needed to sit up. When she did, she saw that only a single cart had been destroyed, the rest of them seemingly moving onward with only minimal losses.

A couple human bodies littered the ground near the skeletal wastefield so it hadn't been entirely one sided. All things considered, at least Charity had managed to get away from the force mage leading the eastern convoy without getting caught. From what Fei could tell as she watched the battle from the sidelines earlier that day, a red haired punk had been nearly single handedly responsible for the loss of this battle. The way her red hair streaked across the battlefield as she flipped back and forth through the skeletal ranks had been amazing. Though she had a feeling that Charity didn't have such a high regard for the girl considering the way the preacher had to hide under the leaves until they left.

Fei decided not to bother repairing the skeleton enough for it to walk, instead detaching the hand from the rest of the body to walk across the battlefield like the skeletal spiders that they had used once upon a time. As she picked her way up towards the forgotten cart, she realized that the skeletal hand felt far less heavy on her mind than she remembered it feeling shortly after they came into the world.

Despite having more than fifty small animals posted in key locations around the city, the addition of a single hand felt like little more than a drop in the bucket with the powers they now played with. At this point the embers had started to correlate their numbers of followers with ease of use, and considering the close to six-hundred motes of fire swimming about in the void right now. Well. What was a little monster in comparison?

She would have to thank Charity for her hard work the last couple weeks on that front, easily earning ten to twenty followers per night for the team. Not that Xei hadn't managed to bring in a couple from his raids as well. The skeletal spider finally crawled its way up the side of the cart to look inside, revealing the empty back of a cart. Fei supposed it made sense they would carry away the extra supplies, considering how handily they won the battle, and flipped away to another body.

A chandelier dangled down below as a small mouse clung to one of the wooden rafters at the top of the great hall. No one danced below as a group of servants picked through the empty room, changing out table cloths and sweeping the floors. Boring.

She flicked over to the garrison, finding herself in another small body looking down upon the Barracks Sergeant’s office. A tall lanky man with long black hair had Chris Harrant by the throat and pinned to the wall. Oh, this would be interesting.

“-disgraced the garrison.” The man spoke in a matter a fact voice, seemingly not upset in the slightest despite threatening a relatively high ranking NCO in the garrison as far as Fei understood it.

He threw Chris across the room into one of the nearby tables, spilling the contents of books and inkwells around him in a clatter.

“It wasn't me!” Chris tried to get his point across in between grunts of pain, but the tall man wasn't listening. His body was lifted bodily from the table and flung over into the next one, smashing into the wooden statues arrayed over a map of the city depicting troop locations. The tall man’s hair swung wildly in the opposite direction as Chris was flung across the room a couple more times, becoming more and more bloodied with each unstoppable attack from the man.

Chris's body finally lurched towards the tall man again as he somehow manipulated the pull to land a wide arcing punch straight into the Harrant brother's face. Teeth flew away from the two of them as Chris's body flopped to the ground after the blow, obviously unconscious, and the tall man clapped his hands twice in the empty room.

A trio of soldiers entered through the door, and Fei noticed a strange black symbol of an eye painted on their otherwise normal shoulder guards. The man walked through the open door, his guards following him with the fallen body in tow. Fei flipped through a handful of different perspectives she had hidden around the garrison building, tracking the group well enough until they left the building.

Tailing them through the city itself was a bit harder as she found her little legged vermin struggled to keep up with human walking speeds over long distances. She lost the group halfway to the nobles quarter and had to spend the next thirty minutes flipping between viewpoints hoping she could catch a glimpse of them again.

Thankfully, a small bird corpse hidden among the smokestacks at the top of a building across from the Whisper Keep finally caught them as they disappeared into the large keep entrance.

‘Now just what are you planning on doing with him, Lord Whisper?

—

Dei had lain low the last couple days following the caravan attack as Julius instructed her to bide time after everyone had gotten so on edge. Just enough time to let this attack have the effect they wanted it to have on the nobility. Fear.

She stood in an empty alleyway across from something that looked like a white marble temple lined with purple tapestries when she felt it happen. Her chest started humming to her, and red light stained the walls around her as the cuffs in her jacket sleeves and legs started to glow. She tried to back up further down the alleyway to get more privacy, but the shard's call was so demanding that she had to give up shortly after and dived into the void.

When she arrived there she realized she wasn't the only one this time. The three other embers were already waiting for her in the otherwise lightless place, looking up from the metaphorical floor at the lightshow going on above them.

Hundreds of red dots marked the sky like all the stars in the night, though the red made it look quite a bit more ominous. Instead of dancing or playing with one another, the stars seemed to vibrate in place, buzzing in tune with one another as their individual voices slowly rose in pitch.

‘My last count was six hundred twenty four based on the group charity pulled in tonight.’ Tai said.

‘I think my guys might have just broken one of the captives from the convoy attack.’ Xei responded.

Fei seemed to nod along with the explanation.

‘So. Six hundred twenty five huh?’ Dei said.

The very air seemed to reverberate at her words, like the weight of her voice affected the world itself. The chorus came next as it always did, the red stars winking out one by one as they merged into one another, growing in size.

“Ascension complete. Strength found lacking.”

The red glob of fire had grown to eclipse a small portion of the sky by that point, turning into a distant red sun over their heads.

“Solution, Creatures of Death.”

The chorus died down from its sorrowful ballad, and the great red ball ebbed in size until it joined the rest of them.

‘Bit dramatic aren’t you?’ Fei asked.

They waited as the ball of essence floated in front of them, twin snake eyes starting to appear amid the formless vapor.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

‘Oho! He's gonna be a fighter!’ Xei called out.

‘He?’ A rather soft feminine voice spoke out. It sounded like some of the noblewomen that Dei had heard speaking to Julius at the balls. Namely, the ones that hadn't had to do much speaking for themselves in between their tea parties and afternoon walks.

‘Hah!’ Fei laughed heartily at Xei as he cursed into the void.

Dei was about to introduce them to the newcomer when she felt something shift her body from the outer world. She returned to the stone alley way to find her body pushed to the ground by a pair of twin guards looking down at her.

“Get out of here crazy. Can't have random servants hanging out in the alleyways around the Geld manor now can we?” The guard growled at her, evidently upset that she hadn't been responding to him.

‘Well, I was planning on going in loud tonight anyways.’ Dei thought.

She slowly crawled to her feet, like a somewhat drunk girl in the night as she leaned heavily on the nearby alley wall. The two guards seemed to eye each other as she played into the role just enough to get their minds thinking. When the first man started leaning closer to her, one hand placed firmly on the wall behind her, she didn't even bother unsheathing a dagger first.

Her fist flashed blue, turning into a long spike that she punched upward through the man's head until blood tarted gushing from the other side. She pushed the body into the wall to get some more weight behind her as she kicked out with her leg into the other man's chest before he could yell out. The man gasped for breath as he fell back into the far wall while Dei pulled her makeshift arm sword out of the other man's head and dropped him to the ground.

The man tried his best, reaching for his sword scabbard as he dodged her first and second blows, all while still struggling to catch his breath. But as she withdrew one of her daggers in her free hand and managed to pin his sword arm to his chest with the weapon, well, the fight ended quickly. Two bodies slumped to the ground, spreading a pool of red liquid below her feet when she realized that there was a tinge of red color in her sword arm as she retracted it. Her glove hand was ruined, but she could always get another one later. More importantly someone else was sharing the body.

‘Hi.’ A new voice sounded in her head.

Dei looked down at the fallen bodies around her. The oddly soft voice felt out of place to her amid the death she had just sown.

‘Oh stop that, I'm not a kid!’ She said.

‘Sorry, it's just. Your voice.’ Dei started.

‘Mmhmmm.’ There was a hint of playfulness to the voice. ‘So is it my turn now?’

‘Your turn?’

‘Yeah! I wanna try!.’

‘Really?’

‘Ugghhhhh’ The voice moaned into Dei's mental ear, and started to move the body towards the manor. Dei almost took control away from her, but, well, this could be interesting.

‘You want to fight?’ Dei asked.

‘Duh? What else were you planning on doing tonight?’

Dei shrugged their conjoined bodies shoulders and allowed the girl to have complete control. She could always take over if things started going poorly.

Her first couple steps forward were awkward, as they usually were, but then the girl did something strange. Dei felt her corpse legs break inward with loud snaps that echoed down the alleyway as her shins snapped forward and her knees snapped backward before fusing back into place. Somehow, the body remained standing as the girl quickly rearranged the leg structure in a couple of other small ways, bouncing slightly up and down like she was on springs.

When she started walking forward once again, Dei finally understood what she was trying to do. Her legs were working somewhat backwards than usual, reversing the pulling motions that they usually used to walk into a more push focused motion. The extra join gave her more leverage which the new girl seemed to intuitively widen her gait as she gained speed. After the first couple steps the girl's feet were practically sliding out from under her, and the girl skidded to a stop before they exited the alleyway.

‘So, before I set you loose and stuff. What's your name?’ Dei asked.

‘Oh. I'm Rei!’

Dei chuckled to herself. Fei was gonna love that. Small talons sprouted from the ends of Rei's feet, piercing through the ends of her shoes to scrape into the stone ground beneath her.

A lone guard passed by the alleyway entrance, his torch held high as he passed through the night. The man wasn't looking for them, eyes fixed further down the road until he happened to look down the alleyway by pure chance. His feet stopped moving as the torch lit up a pair of dead bodies halfway down the alley along with a small girl that was sprinting directly at him. His mouth dropped open as he stared dumbfounded at the girl before a sharpened fist bone took him in the jaw, punching straight through his head and blasting the rest of his body up the polished white steps towards the Geld family manor.

Two men standing by the doorway looked stricken as they stared at the ragdoll-like body that had been a passing guard but a moment before. As Rei started running up the stairs following the body, the two guards started hollering for help as they swung down their spears into the ready position. Small bells jingled where they hung from the guard's spears, further adding to the noise coming from the front doorway.

‘Just remember to leave some of them alive.’ Dei said.

‘Do I have to?’

Rei's unnatural feet helped her dash up the stone steps faster than any human had a right to move, talon's gripping into the stone and leaving shallow grooves with every powerful step. As she approached the first spearhead she didn't even slow down, pawing away the spear in a swipe of her hand before she dove into the man, shoulder first. A new spiked protrusion in her shoulder bone that Dei hadn't noticed slammed through the man's armor as the two collided with the wall behind him. The other guard was trying to swipe at her from behind, but she rolled with the body over her until it blocked the other guard's spear, then pushed the two into each other.

Rei jumped after them a moment later, allowing her taloned feet to slam into the unfortunate guard on top as she punched around his head into the other guard's neck area. Dei was having trouble believing that either of the men would survive their wounds at this point, but Rei merely jumped away from the pair back towards the main door and shouldered her way through it. Another trio of guards were approaching down the wide hallway, lined on both sides by ornate white pillars that matched the look of the outside architecture.

“It's her!” One of the guards yelled.

“A Jurn servant?” Another asked.

‘Perfect.’ Dei thought aloud as the red ember dashed down the hallway at the men, feet biting through the lush purple carpet and dark wood flooring.

The men's eyes turned from confidence to confusion as the girl closed in on them. They raised their shields into a three man formation to try and deflect the oncoming body that was practically bounding across the room. She never even touched their shields as she punched both her feet into the ground before them, leaping into an overhead sumersault through the air. Her punch daggers formed into spindly clawed hands as she sunk both of them into the shoulder armor of the center man in the formation. As she finished flipping over, her claws sheared upward through his light armor, ripping away large chunks of the man's shoulders in a bloody fountain.

When she landed on the other side of the men she didn't stop running, bolting further down the hallway towards the cluster of doorways that marked the splitting point in the large manor.

‘Second door on the left.’ Dei told her.

The first door on the left opened as they approached, a single armored man running through it towards the commotion. Rei merely dropped to her knees as she passed under his raised sword arm, reaching out with one hand to grasp the man by the thigh. Her thin pant legs all but evaporated under the friction with the floor, but when she held on to the man's thigh, forcing him to spin around after her as they traded momentum. He crashed into the floor further down the hallway, blood gushing from a now open wound on his thigh. She started running again, slowing just enough to open the second door and sprinting through.

The space opened up into yet another hallway, though this one was far less ornate as the wooden floor boards zipped by under her feet. Doors passed, one after another as she made it to a T-intersection in the hallway opposite a stained glass window set into the wall. Her feet veered out from under her as a strange force pulled the girl's body to the side, into the offshooting hallway. The sudden wrenching motion didn't stop her momentum fully however, and she had to lower her shoulder as she collided with the corner of the intersection.

Rei’s shoulder flashed red with light as she rolled off the impact in the direction of the pulling motion, instead allowing herself to fall in the direction she was being manipulated into. Her eyes narrowed into slits as she found a tall woman with fair skin standing in the middle of the hallway. A nightgown hung loosely around the woman's body as she started to balk at the oncoming monstrosity dashing towards her. Dei felt the lady's power crash into their body as she suddenly push Rei's body away.

The floorboards rattled behind the woman as she desperately tried to stop Rei's charge in its tracks. The skeleton slowed on its approach, speed dragging out of it as she fought the outward push with powerful legs and clawed toes that ripped into the ground with every step. Three paces left. Two paces. One. Rei swiped out a claw at the woman just as her momentum died out on her, catching a glancing blow on the woman's arm before Rei's body was finally shot back.

Her lightweight body flipped through the air as she all but fell horizontally towards the end of the hall, feet braced below her as she approached a stained glass window set into the wall. The woman released her push just before Rei's body made contact, but the speed she picked up was still more than enough to crash through the thin metal strands holding the colorful glass together. She fell out and into a small interior garden, crashing through a stone birdbath standing in the enclosure before landing in a bush.

Birds tweeted around her, seemingly annoyed at her for her rude entrance as they flew up and away from their nightly perch.

‘Good. Now run.’ Dei told her.

‘Really? But-.’

‘Run!’

Rei obeyed. She used her abnormal legs to make the jump up to the rooftop look easy. Clawed toes sunk into the clay roof tiles as she ran across the palatial manor, then leapt off the side of the building with unnatural skill. They all but sailed across the open road way before landing on the roof of the next building over and continuing her journey across the city. Her lupine ankle bones pumped their way across the thin wooden rooftops, and her chest leaned down as she sprinted under the stars.

‘Fair job.’ Dei said. ‘But I'm never letting you use this body again.’