“If you don't sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice”

― Anonymous

Vanessa grimaced at the pain from the burns on her arms and face, but the enchanted cloak had kept the damage to a minimum, for now. Even her singed hair would regrow faster than her noticing the loss, undeath was convenient that way. She gritted her teeth and sprang forward.

From above, the sound of several pairs of boots came from the battlements heralding the Nordmark reinforcements. Scrabbling from the gate meant that the undead had been advancing too.

Gesturing, she flung a glyph at her adversary, and with a shrill sound, pellets of ice peppered his visor, jolting his head and spraying frozen water across his vision. The sword he had tried to block with too slow for the fast-moving projectiles. There was no damage done, but that was never the point.

Sliding along the snowy ground, she gritted her teeth and hacked at the left thigh splitting the chain mail on the back of the leg while cutting deep into the tissue beneath.

Roaring with pain, Cereus stabbed downward just missing her body shattering the stones beneath. With a small whimper, Vanessa broke off her claw, leaving it stabbed into the leg where it was interfering with his natural regeneration.

Jumping desperately forward, she escaped- just- two heavy swings of his two-handed sword buffeting her with the wind of its passage. Rolling to shed some momentum, she came back to her feet before focusing on reforming her claw.

Alyssa grabbed the wand she had stashed in her belt, gained all those months ago from the traitor mercenary, and injected her mana shooting forth several bolts of force.

The missiles dented the plate mail with sparks flying from overloading runes that were nevertheless still holding for the moment. The vampire spread his arms and bellowed a word of power. Flames even more fierce than the blasts before rushed from his form shrouding him before rushing forth in a circle of destruction. Alea’s eyes widened before Alyssa jumped on top of her crushing her to the ground but shielding her from the worst of the fire.

Mireille fired another lightning bolt, and with the weakened runes, some of it branched into the armor playing across the pale skin beneath, blackening and contorting muscles and flesh.

Red eyes gleaming with fiery anger, the vampire warlord took a few steps to build momentum before charging at Vanessa.

The fire popped, and sparks whirled into the darkness. From afar, the sounds of battle echoed over the snowy fields before the town. The edge of the forest rustled as two figures emerged and walked up to the fire. Zygmund von Nordmark raised his hand and then let it fall down again as the undead sentries did not react.

One of the two was of average height attired in a torn and ripped dress, the other was much smaller and wore a frilled dress much better preserved than her companion’s. The woman's eyes flickered with eldritch light for a moment as a tide of void energies brushed across the land, and he recognized Amber. The undead woman stood before him with an unreadable expression lit by the firelight. The small girl in a frilled pink dress wore a vacant expression, only when she looked at her ‘mother’ was there some emotion flickering in the dark icy depths of her gaze.

Zygmund snorted disdainfully, “So nice of you to finally join us. It seems the time has come for you to avenge yourself and be useful for a change. I want you to focus your energies on Volstedt. Drown them in void.”

“How will that help me? How will that help any with my revenge against a being of the void...?”

“You want to simply kill her?” He looked at her with derision.

“Yes!” Amber’s mouth was a thin slit like a wound in a face too pale for the living.

“But then it would simply be over.” He laughed, ending in a nasty little chuckle, “...and she would be at peace without a worry in the world. Do you truly want that?” Amber hesitated looking down at Lily. Zygmund continued, “Or will you give her to our queen? You know she will do much worse than you ever could.”

A fireball exploded against the wards of the city. The undead did what they did best, unable to scale the wall, and they died, again.

But there were many, and for those with keen eyes, the recently dead-again were already twitching and slowly getting back up. Only here and there but in steadily gaining numbers as the corpses piled against the stone barrier.

“Haaa, haa.” Alea coughed and scrabbled back to her feet, pushed behind her friend as Alyssa stood protectively before her. She winced at the sight of the burns snaking across her friend's back, the cloak in tatters and the hair still smoking, partly gone.

She only wanted away from here. The killing, the dirt, the cold, the undead. But then she gritted her teeth and focused on the slow tick of the mechanism in her breast and focused on her gate, throwing it wide open.

Alyssa jumped as the radiance behind her burned her in a different way than the mostly superficial burns from the fire. Summoning dark mists, she took a few steps away. Vanessa meanwhile gestured and concentrated as missiles of black ice formed around her like a thorny halo before shooting forward, trying to impale the lumbering mass of metal that was Cereus.

As per her expectations, that did nothing more than buy her some few seconds as the ice shattered against a raised forearm or the platemail covering his body, but this was enough for her to gather the abundant void energies to heal herself.

“Nirileth damned piece of pond scum. Son of an ass and a mole.” Mireille cursed and held her broken leg, tears of pain carving their way through the dirt on her face.

Bolts from a few crossbows shot from above, and one of them struck sparks from the street a few centimeters from her head. Her curses growing more colorful, she dragged herself behind a corner into an open doorway.

From inside the gatehouse, clangs and screaming metal strained to a breaking point grated on the ears.

A ray of sunlight, gentle and bright, shone on the scene, and with a scream, the large warrior undead shielded his face with his right forearm stumbling as steam billowed from every crack and opening in his armor as the light burned the void that was sustaining him.

Still clutching his two-handed sword with his right hand, he began to incant, gesturing with his left. A sphere of roiling dark flames burst into being before him, glyphs circling the flaring mass of fire.

Vanessa took a step forward, hissing as she brushed against the light; she stumbled back, the skin of her hands bubbling and steaming.

Alyssa blinked rapidly to regain her vision, spots floating before her eyes, and let loose another force bolt impacting the house behind her target, splintering bricks and showering the scene with fragments of stone. With a gesture and a mental order, Cyrus distanced himself from the fight on the ground and took to the air to harass the soldiers on the wall.

Vanessa incanted a spell. Glyphs rapidly sprang into being, glowing with a pale blue.

The large warrior finished his spell, and the sphere of fire shot toward Alea.

With a singing sound like a string breaking, the spell flared and vanished as the small vampire finished her counterspell. Winded and hurt, she staggered against the nearby wall of a warehouse.

Three of the crossbow-wielding soldiers on the wall suddenly sprouted dark knives from their faces and necks as Iseret jumped down from the gatehouse platform to disrupt the fire from above. But more soldiers climbed the walls as she fought.

The large vampire stumbled back as the light intensified, and the glare became nearly too bright for normal eyes.

“Jaros, warden at the threshold…” A murmured prayer came from Alea’s direction. Even if her faith had not been firm as she was blessed, it had grown with each time she had felt the caress of light.

With a crash, the ancient warlord went down on one knee. His attempt to cast a new spell was disrupted by another pulse from Vanessa’s arcane magic.

Suddenly the light flickered and waned. The sensation of unearthly cold brushed across and somehow underneath the skin. The shadows darkened, and all contrast seemed to vanish into an abyss of night.

Vanessa felt an invigorating rush of power, but the relief she felt quickly turned to dread as she saw the warlord rise once again, the darkness rushing into his giant form.

Inside the city and underneath the snow, long dead bodies, be it a starved hound or the forgotten body of a beggar, everything began to shiver with the influx of void.

Alea gritted her teeth and fought against the sensation of frost invading her body, keeping herself free, but her spell faltered under the onslaught.

“You will suffer for this. I will ask for your corpse and soul as a plaything!” Cereus bellowed, seething with rage, his wounds still smoking from the hateful light.

With quick steps belying his size while still limping a bit, he accelerated toward Vanessa, who jumped up to a low-hanging balcony swinging up to the edge of the roof. With a quick turn, he targeted Alea, and as the girl stumbled back, Alyssa fired another blast of force from her wand. With a whine and shimmer, the bolt harmlessly splashed against the armor before the wand cracked, the forward third hanging by a few strands of broken wood.

She angrily threw the useless implement aside, dodging the first hacking slash- only just- as Vanessa sprang from above, her claws blinking in the scarce light.

Time seemed to slow as Alyssa saw the cruel smirk on the badly burned features beneath the full-helmet as the warlord turned quick as a striking snake, the damaged armor groaning as rivets popped and recently overheated metal ripped. The two-handed sword rose in a fluid motion and impaled Vanessa through the stomach, her quick use of wind magic thwarting his aim for her chest. A pained scream accompanied by an unhealthy whistling sound was cut off as he slammed her to the ground pinning her like a butterfly to the cobblestones.

Another crossbow bolt from above cut a burning line across Alyssa’s right arm.

Cyrus stabbed into the shooter's neck, eliciting a gargling scream. The crossbow tumbled end over end to the ground below.

Mireille discharged a small bolt of lightning at another soldier, singing the crossbow and hopefully rendering it unusable. Another bolt hit Alea cutting into her leg. Iseret fought against several soldiers, at the moment, with good success, but more were on the way.

Blood.

Dark against the white of the snow.

Flames infused with void.

The pain in Vanessa’s eyes as the large undead warrior twisted his blade with a hateful grin.

The gasp as Alea fell to the side, clutching her leg.

The pale face of Mireille as her arms shook from pain.

The endless void in the air around her, calling to her.

Power just beyond her fingertips.

The solution to all her problems.

It had always been that way.

It had been her solace and salvation and the only way she had ever been strong enough.

She focused on the jewel in her wrist activating the dormant spell-constructs and fed it all she could, more than she could actually. But that was fine, for she would need it all.

Glyphs aligned, most of which she did not even know the name of. A mind brushed against her own from deep inside the jewel, organizing, helping, but once activated, it did truly have...a mind of its own. And she could only accept the gift of power flooding through her veins, her heart.

The air stilled, and with a strange whispering, sucking sound, the air pulled in toward her as if a gigantic beast had taken a deep breath. Snow whipped along with it, and with a cackle, the old wizard Margramus threw bloodred dust into the wind, his magic infusing the crystal that was technically of the element of earth and streams of it wound from his tower toward the distant altercation. His hands bled where they had come into contact with the volatile substance.

More and more power rushed into her as her own gate supplemented the flow.

While the void still gushed forth, her spell took hold with a silent explosion. Darkness blew from her in a great explosion carrying with it images of endless night. The final maelstrom carrying souls into the endless dark.

Her mind detached from her body, and she felt the spark of unlife burning bright all around her with but a thought she took command and the hordes of undead outside the gates stilled, turned, and began to attack the startled Nordmark soldiers, not all of them were surprised as they had an inkling of what was to come but many.

The large vampire before her fought back against her mind, so she simply poured in more and more energy.

That which does not bend...will break.

With a flash of darkness from eyes and mouth and ears, the giant slowly toppled back, falling to the ground. To her enhanced senses, it seemed like everything happened as if in dream, and it took a long, long time until his eyes lost the red spark enlivening him.

More power burned along her veins, and she shuddered, twitching with every wave of energy hitting her. Dustlike particles shrouded her form, drifting on the wind like blood-red snow.

Pain flared from her skin, her mouth, her lungs, and warm blood dripped from her eyes and mouth.

Her mind cracked down on any and all that stood against her. The dead of the town, the animals, the humanoids, the fresh and the long dead, everything heard her call.

With a cracking, splitting sound, the cobbles rose, and hands clawed at the air, broken fingers mending in the influx of necrotic energies. Long dead corpses of rodents scrabbled against doors and windows, and screams reverberated throughout the town.

Freshly slain soldiers and guardsmen opened their eyes to unlife.

The circle of undeath spread like a ripple in a pond several miles into the countryside.

Her will imprinted her instructions.

And then the spell was finished.

With a thud, she fell back into the snow. Her eyes were wide open, and the pain was dulling fast. Relief followed, but then that too, grew muted.

A long slow beat.

A small chamber in a small house, a girls hand reaching for a piece of bread. A brilliant smile on a half-remembered face. Jovial laughter from a big male presence. The smell of candles and fire and herbs.

Thud.

The face of a grinning noble leaning over her. The face of a matron with greed in her eyes. The same noble face a pale ruin.

Thud.

A temple at night, a large statue of a beautiful woman dancing. A spectral elf, a woman too. “I will accompany you if you allow it. I will lead you and assist you if you promise to undertake this task.“

“I accept.”

A small, winged reptile having grand dreams.

Thud.

A red-headed girl playing with a winged cat, another dark-haired girl sitting behind her on a chair, reading. The cat jumps on the book, and it falls to the floor. Golden laughter, golden sunlight.

Half-elven twins. The girl's face in shadow, teeth gleaming in a too-white grin, the boy hiding shyly behind her.

A stuttering beat.

A school, acceptance, and derision. Friends and enemies. “You don’t belong here!”

“You are my friend.”

An old wizard blowing a ring of smoke while throwing her a mischievous wink.

Silence. Another beat, weaker still.

A princess making a speech, a burning air-ship in the background. A vampire bursts into flames inside a ray of light.

A snowball fight on a quiet day.

The purr of a dead cat.

Silence.

The cold freezes her, and then it too, is gone. The stars dim before her eyes.

And then there is only the void.