Upon Autumn’s shield of glowing might, a spiked whip cracked. Like a coiled viper, it snapped out at her, carving glowing lines in her protective magic. Yet Autumn was no meek mouse — her force field held against the lash of the whip.

Again, the whip cracked. Again, her magic held.

Like a living thing, the whip spun through the air, coiling and swirling in a hypnotic pattern — a dance of promised death.

Autumn was not one to just meekly defend. Not anymore, at least. With a flourish, she sent a rain of violence sleeting across the empty space towards the beautifully deadly drow. The howling tempest roared around the drow as she danced languidly through its storm. Upon the stones, it crashed and splashed, breaking harmlessly.

A cruel smile lazily crested the drow’s features just as a scowl slipped onto Autumn’s own.

“Is that it?” Iymidril the drow mocked. “Where is that fire, that force you visited upon the others?”

“What would you know of me?” Autumn snarled back. “You know nothing about me!”

“Oh, I know so much about you! Oh. So. Much. You think that the city, my city, wasn’t watching as you slaughtered your way around? It’s always watching little killer.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“What? You don’t like it, little killer? I wonder which part offends you so?”

Autumn snarled as she sent another wave of magic screaming towards the drow captain. With the captain distracted, Autumn rushed to put the rows of empty iron cages between them. As she did, the razor-sharp tip of the whip cracked against a cage inches from Autumn’s face.

“Running now, are we? Good. I always loved the chase.”

In a borderline sexual tone, the drow spoke as she paced alongside Autumn, only separated by a wall of iron, sending a shiver of disgust creeping along the witch’s spine.

By now, the rebellion of the slaves had reached a crescendo. Fury unabated stained the air, wetting the stones with the blood of slavers alongside their own. Autumn pushed her way through the fighting as she tried to put distance between herself and the drow, hoping the violence would slow the drow chasing her.

Yet it was not to be.

Where brutality unavoidable sought to slow the pursuant drow, she met it with a savagery of her own. Blood and terror flowed freely from her whip, hounding Autumn with anguished cries. The barbarous sounds melding into the sonorous sounds of the sadistic city.

“Where do you run to, little killer?” Iymidril purred as she stalked after Autumn. “There’s nowhere in my city you can run to or hide in that I can’t find. Just make it easier on yourself and give up. I promise not to punish you too much.” She smirked, “too much. Pets need their discipline after all. Be too light with the whip and they have thoughts of their own. You understand, right?”

“Stay away from me, you psychopath!”

“Now, now. There’s no need for name-calling. You might hurt my feelings,” Iymidril pouted as she fingered the coils of her whip, not once taking her eyes away from Autumn’s own. They burned dangerously. “I’ll have to beat that out of you — can’t have you disrespecting your mistress that way. Imagine the talk! I’d be practically mortified.”

Autumn glared back at her. “You’re insane —”

The crack of the whip spilt the air, cutting Autumn off.

“Didn’t I just say you shouldn’t disrespect your mistress,” Iymidril barked, no longer smiling so pleasantly. “Seems I’ll have to start your lessons on manners early.”

“Teach this!” Autumn snarled as she sent a series of bright bolts the drow’s way.

Iymidril the drow cocked her head in amusement as she danced unconcerned around the magic that sought to scour her flesh. “That makes no sense.”

“S-shut up!”

Sweat lanced down Autumn’s back like a line of fire as she danced the dance of death with the razor-whipped dancer all across the plaza. Each breath she took in their melee was shorter, rougher than the last.

Think! She thought to herself. I can’t win this by force alone — she’s too skilled, too dangerous with that whip of hers. Autumn observed the deadly flower across from her. How would I defeat the others? Nethlia or Liddie? Not with pure force. Use your head Autumn!

Autumn looked about the plaza, eyes searching for an advantage.

It’d only been a few minutes, but by now, the slave revolt was well underway. Upon the masters, the freed folk had fallen, cutting them down with liberated blades. Merchants who’d once peddled their blood trade now lay dead on the very stones they’d bloodied for the glint of coin. Monsters and beasts sought and chained for war now ramaged freely in the broken square, crushing and carving slaves and slavers alike in their fury.

Newfound hope, homicidal rage, and the city’s ever-present saturation of despair swept through the air, enveloping the sky in a swirling storm of fear. It looked thunderous to Autumn, and she smelt lightning in the air.

That’s it! She cried to herself.

Racking her brain for all her highschool science education was worth, Autumn thought furiously as she continued to avoid the drow’s whip and taunts. Positive and negative charges, right? She thought to herself, unsure. Would magic work like that? Surely, right? I mean, it smells like it to me? Maybe that means something? Either way, it’s worth a shot!

With her bone-white wand gripped tightly in her hand, Autumn slowly prowled around the broken marketplace, trying to draw the drow whip-wielder into position beneath the greatest ‘charge’ of fear in the air.

Iymidirl followed Autumn’s footsteps like a panther playing with its prey or like that of a spider waiting for her to tire herself in its web.

The wand in Autumn’s hand tingled with anticipation.

“What’s the matter, little killer? Grown tired of the chase?” Iymidril mocked as she stalked closer, unaware of the trap Autumn was lulling her into. “Where are your fangs, I wonder? Was it all a lie? A facade of deadliness and deathliness? Did you not enjoy the doom you visited on the drones?”

“Drones? What drones?” Autumn swallowed nervously as she backed away, practically inviting the drow to follow. It took all her willpower not to look up at the lingering storm only she could see, lest the captain see something in her gaze.

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Thankfully, the drow was far too enraptured in her own voice for the moment and noticed naught as she strode beneath the gathering storm.

“Come now, there’s no need to play coy — it’s just us girls here, after all.”

“Honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Iymidril rolled her eyes. “The menfolk? The ones you murdered, rather creatively I might add, in that back-alley? Don’t tell me you forgot? That’s rather callous of you, even for this city. Maybe you’ll fit in more than I thought!”

Autumn stared at the drow captain aghast. “I didn’t murder anyone! They attacked me! I was just defending myself!”

“Dead is dead, girl. Call it what you want, but you rotted a man’s face off. It was…impressive.” The drow licked her lips as she shuddered. “It made me want you all the more. Almost made me feel bad about sending them to their deaths. Almost.”

Autumn’s mind stalled. “Wait, what?” She asked as her mind restarted.

“Hmm? Which part of that confused your poor human brain?”

“You sent those goons after us?” Autumn growled. “Why?”

“Why not? I saw something I wanted, so I sought to take it. Hardly anything strange in a city such as this. Your…nativity gives you away. Surely, such an action would be second nature to a necro-witch such as yourself?” Iymidril smirked. “But, then again, you aren’t a necromancer at all, are you?”

“What makes you say that?” Autumn asked nervously as she took two more steps back, her eyes flickering in her skull. “Did you not see my raised horses and carriage made of bones?”

Iymidril followed like a hound after a bloody steak, matching Autumn step for confident step.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe it was the fact you left half-a-dozen fresh corpses just laying about in some back-alley?” Iymidril mocked. “Hardly necromantic behavior that. That, and I’ve met necromancers before. The magic they wield has a tendency to…change their features and not for the better. There’s a reason that most high-level practitioners of that particular art tend towards lichdom and you are far too pretty to have been a part of that life for long.”

Autumn tightened her grip on her wand as Iymidril took the final step forwards, placing her just where the dark-haired witch wanted her.

“You know, I am surprised you left your pet devil behind, if that’s what she really is. I’d have thought a mage such as yourself would’ve known she’s no match for a trained fighter. One such as myself, for instance.”

Defiance blossomed in Autumn’s eyes. She stared at the beautiful, sensuous drow across from her with fire in her eyes.

“I don’t need her for the likes of you.”

Screaming magic tore through the air like a flash, cascading all around the dancing drow, barely missing her to sunder the stones at her feet. Each spell Autumn unleashed as the darting whip struck her shield wreathed the ground in a pulse of energy — negative to match the positive high above.

Iymidril stared at Autumn in disappointment.

“Is that all?” She drawled.

Autumn answered her with another bolt of magic that pitted the ground at her feet. Blood pounded in the witch’s ears as the whip-fighter gave her a look of dissatisfaction, malice gleaming in her eyes.

“Come now. You needn’t scuff my boots. Give me a proper fight before I break you. You were doing so well!”

Through the pain in her skull, birthed by words of power spoken unbound by vellum nor with a mind trained in its use, Autumn cast her magic, saturating the ground with greater charge.

Bored by the lackluster game Autumn offered her, Iymidril moved to step closer to the casting witch to cut and hurt. Not wanting to give the drow a chance to dodge the lightning she was trying to bring down, Autumn sent a bolt of magic careening towards her leading foot, forcing her to stop in place lest she lose it.

Iymidril’s face screwed up in confusion at aggressive action, recognizing it for the corralling intent she too favored. Her face swiftly morphed into suspicion and she risked a glance downward where she saw the ground sparking with a violet energy. As it began reaching heavenward to the dark thunder-clouds gathering above — unusual, seeing as they were in a cavern — Iymidril’s face froze in shock as she snapped her gaze up.

Then, with a deafening boom, the lightning struck.

Autumn blinked the spots from her eyes, ears ringing as she found herself sprawled on the ground, not quite recalling how she got there. Her mouth tasted like ash as she tried to corral her thoughts into a semblance of order. Gingerly, she picked herself up and cast her gaze across to where her opponent once stood.

The veritable force of nature she’d called down had sundered the pavement with its thunderous discharge, sending blackened cobblestones flying outwards at terrifying speeds. Piteous moaning resounded from the clearing’s edge where slavers and slaves alike lay, cut down equally by the stony shrapnel. And in the center of this blasted clearing sat a small crater, in which lay a charred, broken corpse.

A weak wheeze emanated from the fallen drow.

Not a corpse then, Autumn amended herself. For now, at least.

On aching feet, Autumn dragged herself closer to the crater.

The drow captain that lay before the victorious witch’s feet was no longer as aggressively beautiful as she once was. Gone was her long, luxurious white hair. Gone were her beauteous purple skin, her sculpted armor, and piercing eyes. In their place was now melted armor fused to blackened, cracked skin, and milky eyes leaking and oozing fluid.

A smell not unlike that of cooked meat rose from the charred corpse, reminding Autumn unpleasantly of the dragon steaks she’d once had. Of course, that memory also brought up just where she’d had them and what’d lain outside said tower.

It took all her willpower not to throw up.

Sightless eyes stared up at Autumn as she loomed over the broken drow. A pair of cracked lips parted to wheeze out a fumbling attempt at words far too low to hear over the buzzing whine in Autumn’s ears. She lent in closer, crouching down to hear what might be the drow’s last words.

“...please…spare…me,” the drow croaked out.

Autumn heard nothing more as she rocked back in contemplation.

She felt a responsibility for the fate of her foe. If the drow had’ve died fighting, struck dead by the lightning blast, Autumn doubted she’d have thought twice about it. Just walked over her body on her way to the next fight. But with her laying here, vulnerable, begging for a mercy Autumn didn’t know if she had, she fell into her thoughts.

Was she a murderer, as Iymidril had implied?

She hadn’t hesitated when confronted with the drow that’d been at her mercy before, and despite Nelva’s reassurances that she’d feel otherwise, Autumn didn’t know if she cared.

Was this what her mother had warned her about?

That if you fell into the wrong crowd, your thoughts and actions might twist beyond your very nature?

To be guided down a path you’d not normally take?

Or was she a killer at heart?

Autumn’s grip tightened around her wand, feeling at the dragon’s arrogance inside it as the cold weight of her amulet pressed against the valley of her breast.

No. She could not hesitate. Not if she wanted to kill a hag.

Standing up from her crouch with only a token groan as her knees protested, Autumn stood over the battered form of Iymidril the drow like the gathered storm she’d conjured. Letting out a steadying breath, the dark-eyed witch let a lazy smile that didn’t feel crest across her face. Leveling her wand down towards the form muttering near inaudible pleas, she whispered more to herself than her foe.

“Well. This has been a blast, a shocking encounter really, but I must be off. Watt can I say, I’m a busy witch. Auf Wiedersehen.”

A blast of violet light lit up the street and, when it cleared, only the witch remained amongst the living. Slowly, ponderously, she wandered off, moving towards the great bastion to the north that housed one end of the massive river-chain blocking her party’s escape route.

As she walked into the darkness of the alleyways, she wondered to herself, was this how my soul dies? A hundred, a thousand little actions to justify getting home?

Autumn paused.

Do I actually have a home to go back to? Would they recognize me if I returned? Do I care if they don’t?

The dark-haired witch disguised as a dark-haired necromancer shook her head, dispelling her melancholic thoughts.

Through the dark alleys her soft yet smokey voice lingered.

“I’m shocked to meet you? No. What about — Time to bolt? Strike three, you’re out? Resistance is futile? Hey, that’s a good one! An en-lightning experience? You’re guilty as charged? Now you’re just being silly, Autumn.”