Toby looked around, horrified by the scene of carnage in front of him. In the center, Irwen was licking her lips, glowing with mysterious light. Around her were the guests, but they all looked like mummies that had been totally drained of all their life and souls probably as well.

"Irwen, you said it would be alright. Is this alright? Is it?!" Toby was truly angry. He needed a reliable companion, not a deranged child he would be taking care of at every turn.

She opened her mouth to say something, but reconsidered.

"Do I have to order you around like a robot, is that the way it is going to be?" Toby fumed, searching for some people that might be still alive, but there seemed to be none. The corpses turning into dust and falling apart upon the slightest touch.

"Irresponsible child!"

"Yeah, I will let mass murderer Toby be my moral beacon, tell me how it is done, protector of the innocents. Should I have used a sword? Is that the right way to do it?" She bite right into the sore part of his conscience.

"Shut up!" Toby roared at her. "Go back to the soulforge, you will not speak another word or take a step outside until I say so!"

"Now! It is an order, slave!" Toby failed to suppress his anger and Irwen immediately executed his will under the influence of his command.

She exited the room, leaving a mess of dried corpses behind.

Toby paced back and forth in the room, trying to calm down, but could not.

He knew perfectly well that what she had said was true, he was the last one to give lectures about morals, but could he let this slide? Should he just say "Ah, you killed them all, but that's fine! Don't let it bother you darling!"

Toby fully understood for the first time that they were really non-human existences. Sure, they looked different and at first he had considered it the main difference, yet now he saw that the main difference lay elsewhere.

The question was what to do next, should they try and suppress their urges or let it all out, becoming monstrous? Of course the choice was there only if they were even able to suppress their instincts.

Would they be able, or not? And should they even try?

Suddenly, there was a movement in a dark corner of the room far away and a person bolted outside of the room a second later.

* * * *

Tomas ran for his life, it was a mad dash through the insides of the haunted tower. He raced up the stairs, because he knew that the path out of the tower was blocked by a massive stone door. He would probably end up stuck at the top, but his brain was unable to think of anything better than to run.

They should have never come here, the place was cursed, full of horrors. He could still see all the people dying in front of his eyes, while he hid in a corner, afraid to even move a finger.

He continued through large halls and long stairs, stone everywhere he went. Only stone, as if the creator of this haunted place refused to use anything else. Many decorations, statues, murals and stone pillars were passing him as he ran. It was like running through a castle of a mad artist that lost his mind in his art.

Breathtaking and terrible at the same time and behind him a man in a black robe was chasing him.

His lungs burned like on fire, but he knew that he must not stop running. Going up uncountable floors, he had finally reached the tower's roof. The red sky welcomed him and he knew that he was stuck. Stepping closer to the edge of the tower, he looked down and saw the one chasing him had just traversed the last steps.

"Make another step and I will jump! I will rather die than end up as your food, monster!" Tomas shouted at the top of his voice, as if to encourage himself.

"Fine! I am not moving, just stay calm." The person said, but his lips had not moved an inch, as creepy as everything else in this place.

"Playing some kind of a game with me? I know what is your queen like, you won't fool me." Tomas sneered at the inhuman figure in front of him. He knew that believing in any illusions would bring him only more suffering. This place was a hell and the only way left to leave this nightmare was death!

Tomas turned around and jumped, feeling the pressure of the wind increasing against his face and body. He had an urge to laugh, but right when he thought that he was about to escape the nightmare world for good, a pair of snow-white hands caught him from behind and slowed his fall, gradually bringing him to a halt.

Trembling, he turned his head around only to see his nightmare, it was the Lich Queen!

Tomas screamed.

* * * *

"Irwen, go to the foot of the tower and stand by to save a person that will jump down." A voice of her master rang in her head. Her body started to move of its own, like she was a puppet. It was an indescribable feeling, numbing, dreadful.

She would never forgive him, he had no right to do this! How he was better than her? What gave him the right to lecture her? Fuck! He was the one who had killed her in the exact same way she had dealt with those people and he dared to lecture her?! Hypocrite.

A tear ran down her cheek, as she walked.

"Give me back control, I have to do it myself." She said using their master-servant connection, but there was no response.

"Give me back my body, or I will never forgive you Toby." She said and when she thought that she was being ignored again, her body gave way to her will and a smile returned to her face.

"Thank you, I will not disappoint you." She sent a thought resolutely through their link.

* * * *

Toby watched Irwen closely, he had decided to bet their future identity on her decision. It should be a good indicator, some may call it even fate, but he had never believed such nonsense. It was simply a crucial turning point of their lives' journey.

Will she do it, or not? Will they be humans, or monsters?

Toby watched Irwen closely, he could see every fiber of her being wanted to drain the boy of every bit of the life coarsing through his veins yet.. . . she endured!

Who would have thought! It seemed they still might manage to remain humans after all, well an elf in her case.

"Toby, we have another guests, a lot of them." Irwen shouted at him and he had to tear his eyes away from her. He looked around from his high position on the top of the tower, feeling dizzy for a second, but he could not miss a large mass of soldiers marching in the direction of the fortress.

They did not look like potential customers.

"I have a feeling we have not chosen the best approach." Toby winced when he tried to count the people and found out that there were thousands of them.

"They look like an army, we should probably make a tactical retreat." Irwen pointed out the obvious.

"Indeed, it is strange that they are humans." Toby said and in that moment, the boy used the army as a distraction to free himself from Irwen's grip, as if the fact that there are actual humans here gave him wings.

"Watch out Irwen." Toby reminded her calmly, as he knew she was able to catch the boy again with ease.

"No need, they know nothing. I have overheard what is useful while I have been .. . with them." Irwen said with difficulty.

"They were confused, talking about being transported here from something called a bus in a bright flash of light. They knew nothing more."

"Fine, then there is nothing that holds us here anymore. I will just undo some of my facilities under the ground and we can leave this place." Toby's acolyte turned and headed back underground. The whole idea with the fortress had failed, but Toby had not allowed to get it into his head, there would be more opportunities in the future as long as they saved their skins.

Unbeknownst to them, another more stealthy army of the dead was approaching the fortress from the other side.

* * * *

Randolf looked at a huge fortress in front of him, recognizing numerous undead manning its walls.

"It seems you were right Keeper." He looked at an old man with a long beard standing by his side.

"The threat has already arrived! There should not have been many undead in the demon world." The Keeper of History, who only rarely interfered in wordly affairs said heavily, his red robe fluttering in the hot wind of the plateau.

"Blood that is absent,

blood that is not,

blood that we protect,

not corrosion, nor rot." He continued in a theatrical way.

Randolf covered his eyes with the palm of his hand, trying to keep his serious composure. Yes, he had already made the point, but the Keeper of History was a little bit caught in the old books of his, nonetheless it did not diminish the urgency of the situation.

"Are you certain that undead are the true threat?" Randolf asked with a straight face.

"Of course, there are numerous mentions of those without life being the real enemy!" The keeper nodded vehemently.

Both of them focused their attention back at the fortress and Randolf lifted his right hand, to signal his men to begin their assault.

The moment his hand moved back down, the army launched forward like a steel fist, marching forward with unwavering conviction.

In the front were the squads of heavy infantry comprising of five hundred men each. Their job was to take the hits of the enemy and prevent melee fighters to get to the rear, where squads of mages were bombarding the enemy. The mages behind them were the main force, their squads had irregular sizes based on the spells they were specialized in.

The usual practice with battlefield magic was to have a whole squad to work on a single spell. Randolf focused on a squad that was creating a flame tornado. First, a few mages created a very weak tornado and then tens of others added their wind magic to it. Finally, the fire mages in the squad cast fireballs at the circumference of the tornado to turn the ordinary tornado into the one out of hell, a blazing fiery monstrosity of immense might.

Randolf nodded with satisfaction, the undead opposing them were clearly not prepared for a fight of this level and a part of them was already retreating. Not even speaking about the useless fortress that served only to block the enemy's escape routes, when the tornado bit into the structure, turning it steadily into molten rubble.

He himself played the role of intercepting high-mobility targets that could still threaten the mages, but it seemed the undead had no fighters on that level.

It was a boring victory, his favourite outcome.

* * * *

Irwen ran, a purple gem stuck between her breasts, the sounds of battle preventing her from slowing down. It seemed that it was high time to put some significant distance between themselves and the fortress. They were already quite far away, but the clash of the troops in the distance was too intense for her liking.

They ran and ran some more. She could levitate, but that would have made her a target for anyone with exeptional sight. A human would have long fallen to the ground exhausted, but Irwen was an undead with unlimited stamina.

Irwen ran through the night and the next morning, she could see grass and occasional trees around her, signs that the red hellish place was about to transform into a different biom.

It looked like a steppe, but as they went futher there were even a few small groups of trees, the rocky terrain giving up the fight against the resilient greenery.

"Look, there is a city!" Irwen pointed with her finger at the horizon and indeed, there were numerous buildings constructed out of clay and wood. There were many creatures moving in the streets, but they were to far away to see their features.

"Let"s go, they seem to be in need of an architect." Toby urged Irwen forward.

Their new ordinary city life was about to begin.

* * * *

A woman in black and white dress sat in a white room, her hair of the same color scheme was rather disheveled, due to an unexpected trio of visitors. However, there was a dazzling smile on her face, showing her black fang-like teeth, giving her appearance a unique terror-inducing quality.

She made a motion with her delicate, white hand and a swarm of floating numbers appeared in the air all around her. To all others, it would have represented only a mess of white symbols, but it evoked delight in this mysterious person.

The plan was ahead of schedule, the fact that the three were even able to get here meant that the ward was weakening due to her constant effort.

She made a series of another quick hand gestures and all the numbers around her vanished, replaced with a huge, tree-like structure. The whole structure was white, except for a small branch that was red.

That was going to change.

She zoomed in on another branch that was completely white and the holographic, three-dimensional structure began to shift. It looked like she was diving into it, with the level of detail increasing tremendously. One of the dots in front of her had a floating text above it.

Earth

Yes, one of the injections from this place had good results. She would choose this place agan. She had to pick many, as most of them would be lost in the space flux created by the ward.

Lucy

John

Dietrich

Tomas

Catherine

Zhang

Vladimir

Keiko

Erdogan

Amar

. ..

. .

.

She picked groups of targets to be send over. It was only a matter of time before the annoying ward of sector NWK-45F was down and the invasion would start anew. Bit by bit, she had managed to wedge in her code in the guise of "the system" through the ward and the moment its influence was enough, she would implode it and create an instability in the ward, allowing her to establish a stable portal to sector NWK-45F.

And this time there would be no annoying traitor to stand in her way.