“Getting a scale for just how many races populate Alkerd is like looking for a grain of salt in the sea of sand. It's an exercise in futility. I’ll tell you, yes well, that analogy might not do it justice. Some bard I am― have you been beyond the Prime Divide? It is every explorer's dream but you don't even have to go that far to see some of the more exotic races. Down at the coast we have the hy’rogen, strange folk that lot; they were like sylvani that took to the seas. And the fastest people on two legs without spells of Haste? The Lagon; red eyes, puffy tail, long ears and equally longer strides ―here was this [Courier] one time. Never mind―”Excerpt from Saelethil Greatstrider’s Wanderlusts: Peoples and Places.

Fighting as a duo was like a dance, with the ring of weapons being the accompaniments and the throes of death as a refrain. There was no score and no pace to the whirling dervish of pirouettes, sauters and elancers, everything changed at the drop of a severed head or a hand. It was less about worrying you’ll step on your partner’s foot and more about meshing your rhythm of fighting to avoid friendly fire.

So chaotic and unchoreographed was the dance of death were Arthur not to have [Eye of the Storm]’s keen awareness he would’ve been one twisted ankle away from being dogpiled by a brood of the vespertine trying to get at them. They were besieged, with the cave wall behind them and to either side of them; the only way out was through the brood trying to corral them into a corner—they were fighting to get out.

[Shadow Port] had for worse, been put out of commission as Nora dredged on the bottom of her mana reserves. The potions she’d taken, two more before mana toxicity set in, had refilled her reserves but everytime she ported around in combat they seemed to anticipate her emergence. Trying to make a run for it would make escape moot if they kept following her movements.

The hulking vespertine’s parting gifts they realized had been some sort of telepsychic attack that marked Nora’s connection to the shadows , laying bare just how her form of teleportation worked—it had to be part psionic. Eryth’s magic was so layered in intricacies and foundations that Arthur could not fathom the breadth of it.

But then was not the time to delve into the minutia of the arcane—he had to keep his mind on his partner. With Arthur being, unfortunately inept as far as experience in combat went, Nora was calling the shots in a one versus many melee. It meant less wasted movements too. Turning a pirouette into a pin balling attack, a body swing into a battering ram and a feint they couldn’t see from the front as Arthur drove a dagger through the temples lessened the strain on them―it meant there was more they could spare for another enemy.

Up close and personal with killing, Arthur had to defer his moral quandaries for later. There was no hesitation when the last thing he saw in his foes before their light went out was a vindictive desire to claw out his eyes.

He paid no heed to the blood smudging against his goggles, not on the ground, his face nor their surroundings which were rapidly becoming slippery. The cloy of iron was thick even beneath his mask, his muscles burned with every small exertion as he kept moving and then there was the sweat—he'd rather not have thought about how ripe things got inside his clothes.

To say he was at his wits end was putting it mildly and that was not mentioning the fact that he'd accumulated bruises and scabs as though he was fighting a bunch of ferals. The injuries had over time stacked up, bringing the ache of overdrawing on his mana reserves as [Regeneration] worked to patch him up and clear away the paralytic that had gotten into his blood.

Nonetheless, he could still agree while things were rather gruesome, there was still a beauty to it. Not the killing, but the movement, the art of combat and Nora exemplified it in every single muscle of her being.

Impossibly flexile somersaults choked then snapped the spine of an unwitting opponent, and with the same motion bodily slamming the limp form into the path of another tripping them up holding them up in a chokepoint of bodies before she jumped back and Arthur let [Thunderbolt] rip.

He could only commit where it counted what with the space they’d been pushed against and only did it as crowd control—using spells like his could hurt their adversaries as much as they did them. Before she’d even hit the ground she'd already swept one off their feet and finished them off with a dagger to the chest.

Their hope for a lull was momentarily achieved as the vespertine pulled back to watch them warily. They stood, with their backs to one another while in a circle around the two, lay cold the corpses of a dozen of the vespertine with others still bleeding out from their wounds—a dozen more remained. If they were waiting for the paralysis poison on their clawed weapons to bring them low, then it wasn't happening fast enough. Added to that, the fight had moved out of the confined hollow.

“How good are you on that escape Nora?,” Arthur whispered, almost out of breath. He cast his eyes towards their foes to see if they'd noticed him talk. —Actually their masks obscured their lips, it was their [Farspeak] connection he was worried was being eavesdropped—so far, they didn't move as much as a twitch .

’The big one was a special case then,’ was Arthur's Observation. ‘I really need to see about getting [Analyze] before I run into another thing that'll hand my ass to me,’

Nora wiped off a smear of blood on her cheek; Arthur watched a cut heal in real time, the skin knitting itself to wholeness leaving a faint pink scar. “ A few pars give or take…it'll give us a head start to run I think,”

“Damn, I'm fast but not that fast,” he grinned deprecatingly.

“I could carry you,” Nora said, exhaling in a way that couldn't have been anything but exhausted laughter.

“Gods no…. that's embarrassing,” Arthur replied, not taking his eyes off their foes. He whirled the dagger to get a good grip unbothered by the slickness of blood on the handle.

“What about that lightning spell I recall you using on the sylvani?—think you can use a big one to distract them long enough?”

“Huh? Oh, yea,” Arthur said, feeling for the depth of his mana well. “I have two casts I think, never been one to use it thrice in a row though.”

“It'll have to do; we have an opening…I think they've been lulled into a pattern—your other spells will be something they'll not see coming,” Nora said, eyes momentarily flitting from the back to the vespertines. Some of them were twitching their claws, furling and unfurling their winged appendages as if they wanted to take flight.

“Gimme a moment to think, ” Arthur said as he prepared to cast the spell. Looking around, they were still surrounded and they had the lower ground—a disadvantage and now, they were wary of attacks coming from the air. In the same vein however, there was plenty of space for Arthur to go all out—and he wanted to get them all in one fell swoop.

“ How many ports did you say you have again?”

“Two…three and I'll need princess treatment,” Nora winced. “ No more Potions of Mana please,”

“Let's make them count then,” Arthur said, letting the spell matrices for [Wind Shield] and [Chain Lightning] form.

“What'd you have in mind?”

“Take us up in the air—” Arthur suggested.” that way even if they see us coming, we'll still have an advantage to bunch them up and let the lightning strike them—can't use [Chain Lightning] on the ground without risking that we'll miss some of them.”

Nora nodded. She chanced a look above them and saw that in the time they'd taken to formulate the plan, some of the batkin had ever so surreptitiously stalked closer—closing in the net.

”Stretch out your hand and grab my back right about…Now!,” Nora yelled. Arthur pushed his hand backwards, making contact with Nora—the brood moved again.

Nora and Arthur ported a distance above the horde; a few of them noticed this and darted up after them. Up in the air, Nora had turned around and held onto Arthur's neck as he released [Wind Shield] which ensphered them.

Then they were on them like shroom gnats to a stinky mushroom—the Wind Shield wouldn't have stopped them, not with their weaponized claws which could rend through shield spells like paper.

But it didn't need to, only slow them long enough for Arthur to release the other spell he'd been holding onto, almost feeling like his head was going to burst. Holding onto spells in whichever spell buffer held onto the matrices was not supposed to be done long unless someone had the mental fortitude. As soon as the dozen or so vespertine and their membranous wings had all but almost covered everywhere in their line of sight Arthur released the spell.

“[Chain Lightning]!” Arthur incanted. Lightning bloomed out, each bolt darting through the air in a dendritic pattern—they barely had anytime to react. Some tried to fly backwards, only to rear end their compatriots in a tangle of limbs. That was just about everything Arthur could've hoped for.

Pained shrieks encored the boom of thunder as the air split in heat and like their strings had been cut, the vespertine host spasmed, burned and fell. Before the smell of singed flesh pervaded the air, Nora and Arthur ported again—then again in quick succession. If any vespertine survived [Chain Lightning], which Arthur doubted they did, they would have to spend time searching―they had their headstart.

Meanwhile, Thaddeaus was definitely not having the best time of his life. He had been dragged through the bramble and the brushwood and grass by a feline who was none the more displeased that she’d been saddled with a useless fleshbag. Umbra did not like the necromancer one bit and she made it known with her limited telepathy.

“ Look here you overgrown shadowcat,” Thaddaeus groaned under his breath as he pointed a shaky finger at the feline. His calves were burning and he could have sworn he’d sprained an ankle. Keeping up with Umbra had tired him out and, being as he was, he wasn’t really built for running around in the hills. He almost wished he’d never left his little cottage in the Dorn Woods that night.

And that wasn’t the worst of it, he was breaking out in hives around his wrists and the bridge of his nose, which looked an angry red against his pale albino skin as if he’d gotten urticated by a crimsontail bee. He was doing all he could to stop himself from scratching at them and the subject cause of his predicament was just glowering at him to move faster. They would have shadow ported, but his being allergic to the damn beast would sooner kill him before the vespertine horde got to him, already his throat was getting a bit sore.

“Just… give me a few pars to rest my legs, okay?” Thaddaeus rasped as he let his legs go out under him. They’d covered a lot of distance and the rocks about their surroundings offered some sort of respite. They’d lost their tail, for some reason they did not get pursued. However, in its place, they had to find their way around bands of goblins who had seen the wing of vespertine take flight from whichever base camp they’d come from. It seemed that they’d decided they too wanted a piece of the fun. Unlike the verspertine, the goblins were disorganized and didn’t seem like they had the vaguest idea of what they were looking for.

While he was angry, and a bit sore on his pride for not even being considered worth attacking, the Necromancer could scant believe his only companion was a faerie beast. He’d read up on them, the monsters who got so in tune with the mana around them that they moved past their original form into an entirely new species. And one of them was right there with him―close to killing him in the most excruciatingly slow way possible―cat allergies.

’Just a little longer,’ he exhaled. Wind blew towards his direction and he stifled another sneeze. He got up on shaky legs, and promptly stumbled falling on his face―and gave up. His stomach growled. “ So hungry,” he moaned, clutching at his stomach.

Umbra whuffed in contempt; her feline face not that expressive seemed to say ‘Really? Hungry? Now?.She grudgingly plodded towards the necromancer who was murmuring unintelligible curses into the dirt. She would’ve dragged him by the cloak again if she had to― Her mistresses’ instructions was to rendezvous with them in the village.

“ Stay away, beast,” Thaddeus croaked, weakly raising his hand to shoo off the grimalkin who, seemingly fed up with the man, pawed dust and detritus into his face just to spite him.

Thaddeaus hacked a cough and glared balefully at the faerie-beast and cursed, “ Vesper take me!” he turned and lay supine on his back staring at the night sky between the gaps of his fingers. Thaddeaus could not remember a time when he’d had it rough; at least not since the day he’d been banished from his village for being what the villager’s called a vampire’s spawn. And that was all on account of his albinism and his awakening to Nox, and then Mors a few years later.

But he’d pulled himself by the breeches and, unorthodox as his profession as an pest exterminator was, it was uneventful. Until today―all those tales about going on adventures and slaying monsters and bandits, rescuing people in distress had been but a dream for him. By Vesper the real thing? That was the Pits themselves.

And no, he was not referring to the deaths he’d seen at village; those didn’t count. He viewed the deaths of some of the villagers with the same indifference as a mortician dissecting a corpse—just a fact of life. ’People die and the sun still shines…boo hoo.’ was always his answer when anyone questioned him about his class—which was a few people by the way. Many wouldn't even have gone near him; a few said necromancer's were touched in the head.

Nonetheless village farmers tolerated him because he killed pests and weeds too; a tricky thing but you could do it if you studied gardening on the side. He did, as a hobby—a necromancer who loved flowers. He almost giggled at the thought of his new acquaintances discovering that.

They didn't even look askance after knowing he was a necromancer, either they were too naive or—he suddenly shivered as he thought about the woman called Nora. He'd take the dragging of the grimalkin anyday. A cramping of his arm sent him shooting upright with a wince as he massaged the inside of his bicep.

It was then he realized—the grimalkin was missing. He started panicking, thinking he'd been left to fend for himself and that sooner or later the goblins' raiding party would find him stringing him up like an animal. The necromancer frantically cast about for any pile of bones he could reanimate to defend himself. Then he froze as the hair at the back of his neck stood on end—his hand twitched forming the matrix for one of his defensive spells—

“Move and I'll put a [Spark Bolt] through your skull necromancer,” a feminine voice warned with steel their tone. Thaddeaus froze, swearing under his breath as the spell matrix dissipated, his eyes roved over the nearby bushes hoping that wherever the faerie-beast was, she was just waiting for a moment to strike undetected.

He cursed his foolishness again and surreptitiously cast Life Sense, it did not require any movement nor could it be detected if he kept its range to a minimum. He released it sensing the woman behind him―and immediately regretted it.

Something hit his back before the spell matrix took and the necromancer felt his back arch involuntary as his nerves screamed as though they were being roasted over a fire; his muscles locked and veins bulged on his forehead and neck as he seized. His throat locked up while his heart skipped a beat as he tried all he could not to bite his tongue off, then he felt the smell of something singed and his vision tilted horizontally, slamming the side of his face against the dirt once again.

“ I warned you—” the woman said, coming from behind him. Fury threatened to crawl out of his throat—his very sore throat that was choking the air out of him as the muscles of his neck cramped painfully. The pain was making his vision a feverish haze, making his concentration lapse again and again each time he tried to rebuild his spell matrices. Then his body was roughly shoved by the heel of a boot, rolling prostrate with the ground and squishing his nose.

His arms were pulled, painfully behind his back almost to the point of popping from his shoulders. The pain made him tear up as he could barely afford to scream from the abuse his joints had been subjected to. When he thought things couldn't get any worse, he felt cold metal bite into his wrists and the mana started draining out of him.— anti-spell restraints had been clasped on him; there went his chances of escape.

Even more infuriating was his apparent betrayal by the grimalkin who, upto then had not appeared to while his captor was occupied. He let out a silent scream as a dark material was draped on his head—complete sensory deprivation. No sound and no sight got past it. It was a cloth enchanted with Silence runes, not like he could scream; he was still paralyzed.

He did feel his body become light from [Levitation] before he was limply pushed along like a cart. The upside down position made him want to hurl through his nose as bile roiled through his stomach. He thought should have eaten before he got out of the house—his stomach was practically gnawing on his insides by then. And that was saying nothing of the knot of fear that was so wound up making his prospects of burfing all the more likely.

Capturing the [Necromancer] had been baffling to say the least. Holly was prepared to bring out some artillery spells to put down one of those―for many Seekers’ everything that dealt with undead was always to shoot spells and ask questions later, when they were not trying to gouge your eyes out and eat your brain. Zombies did that, attracted to the telepshysic energy that living beings had to just prolong their animation. Yes, everyone had a bit of the psi affinity in them, just that it was not normally manifested explicitly. It was the vitality of the spirit or so some sages said.

Anyway, Holly was glad to not have been fighting zombies, skeletons or worse draugr and other types of higher undead. Incidents of undead and necromancers wreaking havoc were so few and far between that they were barely talked about. But when hordes were discovered though, just like Mimic black widows, they had to be eradicated to the last one lest they grew in number.

Nonetheless, Holly was careful to watch her back for any retaliatory attacks for capturing the necromancer. Finding him with his guard down actually raised more questions than answers and she had the feeling that he was not alone and that is why she’d retrieved him for questioning. She was hoping to rendezvous with the Sturmjager and interrogate him from the safety of wherever there was. Her levels of paranoia were at an all time high as she trudged through the deserted village, pushing a hapless necromancer levitating in the air―he was pathetic. She’d even thrown an [Analyze] him and the results she got had her think twice about labeling him as the perpetrator of the village incident.

As the dwarven Seeker halted at the outskirts of the village, the place she’d found the remains of a campsite she dispelled the [Levitation] spell, dumping the necromancer on the ground. She didn't hear the man grunt in pain. ‘This mission keeps on getting better and better,’ Holly groaned as she considered getting into the bottom of things there and then. She was doubling back on her decision as it would take forever to get to the Sturmjager.

Judging from her own vessel’s analyses, echoes had traveled a long while to get to the village and Holly had turned up a dead end. The necromancer couldn’t have been the one communicating ; that was foolhardy and would’ve outright given away his position. Her only speculation was that some way or other, he’d fought the people she was looking for.

Whether he’d come out victorious or whether the state of distress was attributed to them left her more befuddled than anything. As she armed her more lethal spell matrices, a [Stone Dart] if the necromancer moved funny she sent a [Message] requesting for an update from the Sturmjager. With their onboard communication relay, the aramcus type II, she could expect a response within a par.

Perhaps they’d had a better chance of tracing the [Message] echoes; She’d contracted them to help track down the Stormbreaker since they’d had a cursory encounter with it. For better, it had been such an auspicious coincidence that they had an aership ready to go. But first order of business as she waited for the response from the Sturmjager; she unfurled the dark cloth enchanted with Silence runes from the necromancer’s head. It was to no surprise of hers that the man was heaving in panic. Holly had never been one to take a prisoner but she could tell that they were reeling from claustrophobia,

“ Who are you?” the man croaked, moistening his parched lips as he stared at her, not in fear but in surprise. He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing up and down, as he tested his bindings “ What do you want from me?”

“ I ask the questions here, necromancer, “ Holly said, surreptitiously turning the truth crystal on the armacus. “ Where are the people you fought?”

He spat, “ Why should I tell you? What’s in it for me?”. Despite his shaky voice, Holly had to give it to him; the man had some spine.

“Mmh, well…how about not turning you over to the nearest authority on suspicion of massacring a whole village?”

The man’s eyes went wide, then he broke into a wheezing laughter that sounded eerily like a faulty kettle. “ Nice try,” he looked towards the village. “ I am well known around these parts, doubtless some farmers will miss their vermin exterminator if anything were to happen to me,” he sneered.

“Hoh? Is that right?” the truth crystal blinked blue. “ Fine by me,” she crouched down, such that she was level with him. The necromancer was assessing her, sizing her up as if he didn’t know what to make of her. “ How about, another [Spark Bolt]?” She wasn’t intending to use it of course; Seekers were not barbaric people thank you very much. Only the Blackguard could sink to such tactics, but they dealt with the truly dangerous and hardcore where torture wasn’t even on the table. Nevertheless, the necromancer folded and spilled everything, from his altercation with the two people who’d put him down and their beast to their encounter with the vespertine and goblins. The last part brought her short.

“ Wait, did you say vespertine?”

The necromancer rasped painfully, “ Did I stutter?”

Holly looked at him inanely. His voice had gone from bad to worse and only a [Cure Illness] spell could set him right. Maybe a Potion of Healing for the throat but she risked aggravating whatever it was he’d caught.

‘No Holly, focus,’ she shook her head berating herself. From the man’s words, she confirmed that she had the right people and she was even more relieved that they had nothing to do with the situation at Dorn, as she learnt the village’s name. However, Holly found herself coming to an impasse; the people she was looking for were fighting for their lives, allegedly having entered combat while their scouting was discovered.

Holly turned from the necromancer to gaze somewhere beyond the hills and clenched her hands, exhaling . Her mission still remained making contact with the subject but, the story with the vespertine took precedence―because that meant that a Void Syndicate cell was operating in the area. She could have the necromancer show her where they’d gone which meant that he’d get inside the drachenfliegr.

A non-issue for her, she’d wipe his memory with a small dose of the Draught of Mnemosyne. What was bothering her was how to tell them she’d need their assistance; she was about to send in another [Message] when frowned. The sturmjager had yet to respond. She raised [Message] again and sent another asking they change course―she was going to need the Sturmjager’s arsenal if she was going in against the Void Syndicate spell’s blazing. In the meanwhile, she’d sent [Urgent Message] to the nearest dwarven outpost which would then be relayed to the Citadel for reinforcements.

Holly had an Orb of Waymark she could trigger to bring in more people but it couldn’t work without the other side knowing where they were teleporting. And it was one that was attuned to another Orb of Teleport, short range, the department of magical affairs or whichever docket was working on transcribing spell scrolls into runes had yet to crack a scroll of Greater Teleport. Another kind of old magic which was rather expensive if they even lost one which meant they were going at a slime’s pace. However much she wanted to call in reinforcements, she could not do that without verifying the situation on the ground―herself.

“ Get up necromancer, you’re coming with me.” Holly said, advancing on the man. She never took her arm off the armacus, half ready to activate another matrix of [Spark Bolt] half sending a string of [Urgent Message] to the Sturmjager. ‘Something is definitely up,’ Holly thought. Of all the times to have a non-response from the other side, maybe the connection was sketchy; it would explain the decayed message echoes―she couldn't glean anything from them. At best they came out as garbled incomprehensible talk even though they were barely encrypted.

The necromancer stared at her obtusely and shook his head. “ No way in the Pits am I going back there,” he snorted. “ I’d rather you knock me out,” he sneered; his stomach growled embarrassingly. He winced before looking back at the Seeker, “ Care to trade for some food though? That information is worth something right?”

Holly worked her jaw― and retrieved her Draught of Mnemosyne.