Suggested Listening

Huddled in the back of her tiny shelter, Elruin could think of no means to escape. If she left, the scary dog monsters would no doubt kill and eat her, and if she stayed they would still kill and eat her. Even if they were telling the truth about letting her go if she opened the farm to them, she had no way to open the farm; her family locked her out here with these creatures. It wouldn't take long before the monsters figured that out, and then she'd be killed and eaten.

Her special vision offered little insight; aside the one or two that would pass close to her cave entrance, wanting to be seen, they all hid in the greenery of the forest which blocked her sight. The forest teamed with life even, perhaps especially, at night, and there was nothing special about them other than that they were larger than most creatures in the woods.

Other ideas exhausted, she turned to her newly discovered ability, and began to sing anew. Her skeletal guardian received the bulk of the benefit, but Elruin gained some advantage as all life in the area besides them began to flee. Even the rabbits and mice, safe in their burrows, bolted from Requiem. Belatedly, Elruin realized that she could have used Requiem to flush the squirrels from their hiding places.

The monsters' yipping changed, gained an urgency it hadn't had before. They converged on her hiding place, intent on silencing the song. The first to arrive swept his claw through, taking her skeletal protector with him. Through her sight, Elruin saw the absolute darkness of undeath clash with the glowing orange of living, struggling muscle.

Unlike the battle between her guardian and Father, this beast was strong enough to overcome the necromantic empowerment of the skeleton. Elruin sang for it still, bolstered its power, and was rewarded by the sight of Black carving through Orange, releasing a torrent of spilled lifeforce that took not but seconds to go from orange to the dim blue of lifeless material on the ground.

The creature yelped, roared and growled, but it did not stop fighting. It slammed the skeleton into the ground in retaliation for its own injuries. Both of them were suffering damage, though with Elruin resupplying her ally, it would win the encounter. Unfortunately, they weren't alone. Two other monsters joined the assault on her ally, and between the three of them the skeleton was overwhelmed.

A fourth rushed into the shelter, it's massive jaws open wide with the intent of stopping the necromancer, and so ending both the song and the skeleton. Or so it believed; it couldn't know the skeleton would persist with or without Elruin's power.

Elruin acted on reflect, blasting the monster in the face with her bolt; for a moment it slowed in confusion as the necromantic energies struck its skull and dimmed the life energies coursing through its brain and all but shutting down higher reasoning for a moment. The second and third blasts sent forth by the panicked child did further damage, perhaps permanently damaging upper brain functions.

Unfortunately for Elruin, this form of magically-inflicted dementia accomplished little to against the instincts driving the monster forward on its attack; predator by nature, it didn't need to think in order to kill.

Pain shot through Elruin's leg, as the snapping jaw finally found flesh, and it clamped down hard enough to break bone in spite of the current of necromantic power draining the strength of its muscles. In this, the beast made a mistake; it should have let go, should have backed away and let the prey bleed out from a safe distance, but the tactical parts of its brain had been scoured of function by necromantic power.

Reacting on instinct of her own, the little necramancer jabbed her new dagger into the eye of the beast, which then created a torrent of death as the weapon drained its battery of magical energy into the eye socket of the monstrous wolf-creature. It collapsed into convulsions, struggled once more to raise up and bite, but then rested its head and accepted the inevitable.

Its eyes, wide and yellow, stared out at her from a skull of slackened muscle, saliva and blood dripping down its mottled gray muzzle, but it had stopped moving, and then the orange light began to cool like blood outside. It was now dead, an easily ignored blue blur in Elruin's unnatural vision.

Another dog-monster approached from behind the first to examine its now-deceased companion, not realizing that Elruin was long past the point of fear or reason. Reflex alone guided her as she dug deep into the well of power that had been depleted throughout the long, difficult day. The energy wave, too, was stronger than any she'd ever created before.

Her target stumbled back, almost fell on its side, and then retreated for the safety of the trees. The fact that she could hit them through their dead companion blocking the path was unexpected, and not something they could easily overcome.

"You have made enemies, little farm girl." "No wonder your family abandoned you." "You're a monster." "Nasty little freak." "Not wanted here." "Not wanted anywhere." "Better off dead." "One day we shall find you." "One day we shall kill you."

They taunted her as they retreated, two of their number limping away on half-dead limbs while a third stumbled and fell into objects as if it was drunk. A fourth lay dead before her, serving as a door to her shelter.

Wounded, exhausted, and growing more certain by the moment that her family intended her to die out here, Elruin fell into a heavy but fitful sleep.

When she awoke, it was morning. Her leg throbbed in pain, obviously broken, but she knew little about how to treat the injury. Whenever a farm animal was hurt, it was her mother or sisters who tended their wounds. They kept Elruin herself far from the animals.

The monster that had wounded her remained dead before her, its saliva and her blood had dried in the night, leaving only a stale odor of wet dog. Elruin knew from experience with the animals that it wouldn't be long before the body started to truly stink and draw in the scavengers. She didn't want to be here when that began.

She began to sing again, pushing the necromatic energies through the creature's body and forcing it back one exaggerated muscle-twitch at a time until the hole had opened enough for her to crawl out on her three good limbs.

Once outside, she got a look at the carnage her attackers left behind. Paw prints almost as big as her head had been dug into the mud, most of them slathered in blood. The remains of her skeleton lay scattered about; she guessed that bone embedded in one of the trees was the skull of her dolly. The animating necromantic energies were nowhere to be found, which meant she'd lost her dolly. The only thing intact was the chain armor that had stayed on the skeleton all this time.

She stood, leaning against the corpse of the first thing she killed larger than a rat and, for the first time since she was a baby, she cried. She cried for the relief that she survived, for the pain of her broken limb, her family abandoning her to the woods, and above all else for the lost of the only true friend she'd ever known in her life.

Suggested Listening

Elruin lost track of time when a voice shouted from behind her. "Setel!" Elruin turned to the voice; a girl whose face didn't look much older than herself, dressed in leather that was much more functional than showy. "Uh, I mean I'm here to help!"

A quick burst of magic through her legs allowed the girl to leap from her position, up into a limb several yard away, and then clear the rest of the distance to Elruin in a second jump. Three long, orange braids trailed behind her, too clean for someone who was jumping through foliage. The girl hit the ground on her feet, somehow managing to not sink up to her knees in the mud.

It was fascinating, and no doubt all sorts of magic in nature.

"Oh, jeez," the girl knelt down by Elruin's wounded leg. "That... is a mork bite, no doubt." She looked at the dead wolf-monster, a Mork, apparently, then back to Elruin. "How on Midara do you still have your leg attached? These things will chew their way through plate armor if you give 'em half a chance."

She stopped for a second, not to take a breath like most people would have needed to, but to look. Elruin saw the girl's eyes turn from a natural looking soft green, to a deep green that spread in from the outsides until it covered the entire eye, so that there was no white or pupil, just a beautiful solid color. "Oh. Necromancer."

She blinked, and the green covering vanished. "Uh, not that there's anything wrong with that!" She hurried to add. "I mean, Negation is still a natural part of the cycle, every bit as necessary as Creation. Could you imagine what a world where nothing could stop existing would look like? But, uh, most people don't feel comfortable around it. Y'know, because of the whole 'death' thing. How does a girl your age end up being a necromancer strong enough to fight off a Mork, anyway? I don't even know if I could do that, but I'm fast enough they'll never catch me. Is that why you're on the road? I'm running a scouting check on the nearby farms and settlements, that storm the other day did a lot of damage, and the outskirts don't have the support you get closer to the city."

It seems not much could keep this girl from rambling. "So, uh, yeah, my name's Calenda, but you can call me Cali for short. What's your name? And, uh, do you want me to heal your leg? I know necromancers aren't all that good at healing magic, being as they're basically the exact opposite affinity. Oh, and, why don't you have any Sarite? Did you burn it all to fix your injuries?"

If Elruin didn't say something, Calenda would probably spend the rest of the day holding a conversation for both of them.