Biggleston Percival Worthmeyer the Third was struggling to not soil his robes. His companions were rightfully fearful of the dread apparitions surrounding them, and even more wary of their skeletal mounts. They lacked a Necromancer's attuned senses and innate ability to feel the energies of life and death, however, and thus failed to comprehend even a fraction of the true danger surrounding them. Obsidian bones heaved, triggering a cascade of mundane stone and ice as creatures constructed more of magic than of matter lifted themselves from the rubble.

Dana and Terisa stepped closer, bracketing Biggles on each side as Raminez took up the rear. The bone fetish circle held true, however, and the necromancer felt his heart rate slow to a pace only slightly slower than life-threatening. His mouth went dry, and he struggled to keep his knees from shaking as the oppressive aura of death burgeoned across the valley.

"Talk to me, Biggles," said the engineer, the energy-laden air rendering her voice unnaturally distant. She glanced from side to side, sections of her armor rotating and changing position almost too fast for his eyes to follow, as if the armor itself were wracked by indecision.

"We aren't—" His mouth almost refused to move, and his body trembled violently. Suddenly, he grew still as he overrode his body's impulses with a wave of necromantic energy, a candle flaring brightly in the face of a storm. "We're not dead yet, so they want something that's in our power to give."

"We seek the crown of our people," came the faint, disturbing voice, as dry as the rustle of the last leaves of autumn. "We seek to return it to our home."

"Oh, a fetch quest," muttered Dana. Raminez shot her a glare over his shoulder, and Terisa made a quieting motion with her hand. "Where is this crown, then?"

The dead remained silent, the creak of shifting bone the only sound. The chill of winter competed with the empty heatlessness of their dead gaze, and the silence lapsed ever longer until Terisa spoke.

"We don't know. The Crown of Drakenth was lost at the end of the Steel Crusade."

"It was lost within the city," answered the shade. "We would bargain for its retrieval."

"They are anchored to the battlefield," said Biggles in a moment of realization.

"The barrier hinders the passage of mana. To enter through the gate requires a living body. To breach the barrier over the walls would diminish us greatly."

"Sounds like we both have something the other wants," Terisa said. Biggles and Dana glanced over, and she met each of their eyes in turn. My [Hunter's Mark] says that chimaera is on the move. The death magic here will give it some pause, but after I killed its mate, it won't wait forever."

"You are pursued?"

"Yes," answered the necromancer. "So will you allow us to cross the valley and enter the city, in return for the crown?"

"No," the shade replied with a shake of its head. "Our bargain is with you, and you alone. Your companions lack the touch of the dead upon their souls. You will convey us through the gates."

His face paled even further as the words of the shade sank in. "You...want to bond...as my familiar?"

"No," the shade said again. "Familiars. All of us. We must return home with the crown."

Biggles shook his head, and took a half-step backward as if he were about to flee, and he grew so pale, his skin was almost translucent. "Even with a ritual formation to reduce the cost, I don't have the life energy capacity to sustain such a bond, and you would never accept diminishing yourselves to the point of equalization."

"The life force of your companions shall suffice to balance the scales and fuel the anchoring."

"Say what?!" Dana protested, stepping forward. One of the weapons mounted across her back rotated into position over her shoulder and began thrumming as the rapid mechanical clicking quieted. The circle of blue crystals embedded in her chest armor flicked to red and began pulsing menacingly. "Nobody's making anybody here into fuel."

=====================

Morgan Mackenzie furled her wings and plummeted through an opening in the tumultuous clouds as a joyous wurbling trilled out from the scrubby latched onto her shoulder. The sorceress could have simply flown through the clouds rather than find a gap, of course, but the numbing layers of frost that built up on her skin and wings when she did so were annoying to deal with. There was a more important reason, though: while her magically-enhanced senses, through the effect of [Spell Resonance], let her sense the wind almost as clearly as she could sense the flow of mana through her skin, the scattered cloud cover and leftover ionization from the previous night's blizzard dulled her senses, almost like a staticky buzz. She wasn't yet used to using the air as a medium, and so she needed to get below the storm to reorient herself.

She could still tell generally how far away the ground was, and large objects were easy enough to detect that she had little trouble avoiding mountain peaks or the mana signatures of large creatures. Some detours had been necessary, however, such as when a distant source of concentrated mana coalesced far above the storm itself. Her [Primal Instinct] flared so strongly she had actually lost control of [Soar] for a moment when it formed; thankfully, whatever creature or natural phenomenon caused the flaring was either incapable of or uninterested in pursuit.

She had descended and spent the night in a rather deep burrow she had excavated, having needed to dig over a hundred meters down in order to escape the sensory overload. The storm had agitated the mana for hundreds of miles, disrupting her senses until she had put enough earth over her head to quiet the droning background noise enough to let her sleep. The rampaging magical energies had dissipated by morning as the storm spent its fury, but the skies were by no means clear when she took to the air.

Her wings snapped back into existence as soon as she broke below the clouds, pulling her out of the dive as [Soar] helped her instinctively level out her trajectory. After leveling off, she decided to simply take in the view, trusting the skill to guide her flight for a time. Winter in the Wildlands was breathtaking enough from the ground; Morgan's ability to fly afforded her the chance to gain that much more appreciation for her new world. Pristine snow and ice, untouched by man or beast, coated a landscape carpeted in trees hundreds of feet tall; draped across it like arctic lace were frozen rivers, lakes, and even waterfalls, glinting in glacial hues of blue and white.

It took only a few moments to reorient herself as her target came into view. One tree towered above all others in the distance, even larger than the last time she had seen it. Now almost a kilometer high, no snow or ice clung to the [Guardian Tree]. There was so much mana saturating the leaves and branches, though, that [Mana Sight] immediately gained a level when she activated it, the intensity of the raw magic almost searing her retinas with its sudden brightness.

"I guess the tree's stronger than old man winter, Lulu," laughed the sorceress.

To the east of the clearing around the tree, she could see a broad lake stretching in a gentle curve around a shallow, sloping ridge of mountains. Only a few miles short of the shore, a swath of destruction cut across the landscape: evidence of her flight from the wolves and the path of the rampaging [Doomturtle] so long before, shortly after her arrival on Anfealt. Her original travels had brought her very close to the lake before she had fled north in her panic to escape the wolves.

Almost as if summoned by her thoughts, she glimpsed movement in the trees below. Something like an elk, unnaturally large and with a rack of antlers to match, charged through the forest, pursued by flickering grey and brown patches. An involuntary shudder wracked her as the beast broke into a clearing – a clearing where the rest of the pack waited, bringing the hunt to its inevitable conclusion. While she no longer feared the pack per se, she stayed clear, having no intention of testing either their patience or her reserves.

With a few powerful beats of her wings, the sorceress gained altitude and returned to the higher bands of drifting clouds. The lowered visibility wasn't as much of an issue now that her destination was in range of her magical senses, and she saw no reason to antagonize the Packmother. She needed the workout anyway: [Soar] let her maintain her flight with less expenditure of stamina, but active flight worked muscles she still wasn't used to having.

It's more of a full body thing than swimming! she marveled.

Flight was a balance, and every movement shifted that balance; even [Soar] only alleviated the strain. It did so by a huge margin, of course, but the first two days of her aerial travels were spent walking as much as flying. Her back, legs, arms, and abs simply weren't adapted to the constant tension, just like a person holding their arms out to the sides would eventually get tired even without adding any weight. Flying even made her feet sore the first day.

She had made gains in her stats merely from the act of flying, though. Agility had increased, which wasn't surprising, but the rolling increases to Strength had shocked her at first. Eight on the first day alone and five the second day, bringing it up to 53 in her status. As [Soar] continued to do most of the work keeping her in flight, Morgan brought up her status sheet.

Status Information for: Morgan Mackenzie

Level - 47

Primary Class: [Skyclad Sorceress]

Secondary Class: [Locked]

Health - 650/650

Stamina - 654/830

Mana - 2336/2703

STR - 53

AGI - 38

CON - 60

VIT - 83

INT - 265

Stat points available to distribute: 0

Current Skills:

Intermediate Skills now available for purchase!

Skill Points available: 105

Enhancement Points Available: 2

Titles: [Worldwalker], [Blessed of the Guardian Tree]

The fact that flight required more strength than agility seemed odd at first, but Morgan soon realized that she was using the muscles in her back to keep herself aloft, and muscles throughout her body to keep stable; outside of her status sheet, the results were visible in her improved muscle tone and definition, not that she minded having washboard abs and a sculpted physique. It did cost her, though, in terms of her appetite: after a full day in the sky, she found herself ravenous, eating nearly three times as much as she had before gaining her wings. Every day, she found herself thankful for her storage runes, which allowed her to carry hundreds of pounds of food.

Dismissing her status, Morgan banked to the west and slipped through the calm space between the crossing bands of wind. She tucked the outer edges of her wings inwards, picking up speed as she dropped at a shallow angle. With a whooping laugh, she caught an updraft, darting out of a wispy bank of clouds, turning to circle back towards the Tree. The Tree itself stood on a small hill at the center of a broad clearing, and as she came around the south of it, a massive berm of earth and rocks was revealed: the entrance to a wide tunnel, overgrown with twisting roots could be seen as she descended.

Looks like Pops made his own door when he woke up, she thought to herself.

She fluttered her wings as she drew close to the upper branches, activating [Furl] after a brief hover to drop through the frost-lined leaves. The tree limb shook as she landed, and she dropped into a crouch to catch her balance with her hands. She darted along the branches in the upper canopy of the tree, making her way to the larger and more open spaces closer to the main trunk. This close to the tree, [Mana Sight] was too intense for her to keep active, so she activated it in brief flashes as she scanned the leafy boughs.

I know there have to be some left...

Another flash of [Mana Sight], a glimpse of concentrated mana and crystalline sparkles of icy purple, and she homed in on her target. Further up in the canopy, a handful of churples the size of cantaloupes dangled like oversized cherries coated in ice.

"Gotcha!" A gentle surge of air brought one to her hands and Lulu lunged at it with an eager wurble.

"Nope nope nope!" she told the disappointed scrubby, slipping the fruit into one of the storage runes on her belt tattoo.

Or, at least, tried to. The storage rune flickered to life, and Morgan could do nothing but look in shock as the fruit turned a curious grey color, and her mana began to drain at a frightening rate. After the span of a heartbeat, and half her mana pool, the churple finally settled into her storage.

"Holy shit," she exclaimed. "Not even the big mana crystals give me trouble like that."

The sorceress waited for her mana to recover while she investigated her surroundings. A glint of metal below caught her eye, and she hopped from limb to limb as she dropped down carefully. Propped up at the base of the tree, protected from the worst of the snow, was her old clawfoot bathtub. A quick drop and a flutter of wings, and she settled to the ground.

"Well well well, Lulu, what do we have here?"

Her improved stats made it trivial to reorient the tub, using a push with magic to level out the ground. Drawing enough snow and ice to melt to fill the tub took longer, but in short order Morgan had a bathtub full of water heated to just below what her resistances would kick in for. It was too dark now to resume her flight, and she could sense old and powerful things beginning to move around the distant mountain peaks. As worried as she was for her friends, she knew she couldn't hope to compete with the ancient powers, so it was only with a slight twinge of guilt that she dipped one dainty toe in the water before sliding the rest of the way in with a luxurious sigh while Lulu burbled with glee in the steaming bath. The scrubby exuded fragrant lavender-scented suds, delighted with the situation.

The bath was just what she hadn't realized she needed, the aches and soreness leftover from an entire day of flying simply melting away. She dipped under the water, letting it soak her hair. It was a wild and tangled mess, but Lulu's magical bubble bath was better than any shampoo. The tangles seemed to vanish, and she submerged again, thoroughly enjoying the moment.

Her enjoyment came to an end, however, when the sky to the southeast lit up with a blinding surge of magic, startling her out of the bath as she lurched to her feet. Even simply reflected off the clouds and diffused by distance, she could feel the raw hunger of the mana. It wasn't the Fire or Ice she might have expected in the Wildlands; instead, it was Darkness and Death, hungry and cold. More importantly, it was coming from the same direction Dana's tablet had been pointing her in as she searched for her friends.

===========================

Terisa felt Althenea shift in her hand as the living weapon blurred back to her larger form. [Rapid Reload] let her quickly chamber one of her most explosive rounds, one made by Dana and not by the huntress herself. She heard Raminez cursing under his breath as he shifted behind her, staring out at the eerily still forms of the undead. Dana's armor hummed with power, and its red, pulsing glow still carried an air of malice.

"My friends are not part of the bargain at all," said the Necromancer, his voice trembling, yet defiant, shocking Terisa with his boldness. "If you take them, there is no point to these negotiations."

The hum from Dana's suit rose in pitch and intensity. "Why do you need fuel at all?" the engineer demanded angrily. "Aren't you some powerful ancient undead?"

"They need vitality to anchor themselves to my soul," answered Biggles as the shades simply stood and stared. "For minor shades or spirits, that vitality comes from the necromancer, but with spirits this strong...I don't have a fraction of what's needed. Attempting the bond would kill me, but living sacrifices can fill the gap."

"It's why Necromancy is feared almost everywhere," said Terisa. "The Magisterium won't even teach it, and Stormbreak kills practitioners of it on sight. The only reason it's not forbidden everywhere is because of the [Oracle], and she deals with ones who break the edicts against Soul Magic."

"Usually personally," added Biggles. "Forcing a soul bind is a quick way to find yourself slain by a farm boy with a magic sword he just happened to stumble across in some ruins that weren't in his forest the day before."

"We have no patience for this."

The leader of the shades simply stepped through the barrier generated by the circle of carved sticks they had placed, the energy crackling around his ghostly shadowed form.

"Ah ah ah!" chided Dana, taking a step forward, her armor's lights pulsing even more rapidly, its hum clearly audible. "Clearly, you can sense magic, so sense this: they tell me everybody knows what happens when you destroy a mana crystal by pulling the mana out too quickly, then compressing it."

The nonchalant way Dana spoke gave even the lead shade pause, its bones stilling. "You would court annihilation?"

"By the gods—" blurted Raminez.

"DANA!" shouted Terisa.

"Oh, not again..." the necromancer muttered.

"Don't be silly, guys; I can turn this one off," said the engineer. "But now that it's primed, it's on a dead man's switch, so if they try to take our life force…"

"A bargain must be struck," the shade insisted.

"Does the sacrifice have to be human?" asked Terisa, feeling her [Hunter's Mark] rapidly approaching.

"No," answered Biggles. "Just living, and with enough vitality and life essence to form the bond."

A deafening screech broke the unnatural quiet of the valley, a shockwave shaking the air and blowing snow and ice off trees and boulders. The huntress grinned.

"There's an [Elder Chimaera] headed right for me; I killed its mate. Would that be big enough?"

"Oh…" said Biggles.

"Your offering is…" The shade paused as obsidian bones shifted, dozens of massive reptilian skulls turning towards the massive source of power approaching them. The chimaera dove into the valley, screaming in fury as it dove straight towards Terisa, absent any hesitation or subtlety.

"...acceptable."

The dead rose to feast.