Suggested Listening

Two more hand-monsters crawled up the tunnel while Elruin guarded, but both retreated the moment they realized Elruin could zap them. She was a little annoyed that she couldn't destroy them as well, knowing that soon she would be traveling these tunnels seeking a passage to the outside. Besides, this was the first earth sarite she'd ever discovered, and she wanted more in case the others were better.

Meanwhile, she worked on storing as much necromantic energy from the plug as she could within the water she was given. It wouldn't last long, perhaps three days, before the energies broke down and collapsed. Until then, it was a strong source of spare energy to convert into magic.

Scratch returned, not long after the second construct had been driven off. "Turns out, Lemia's been busy." He emerged from the ground, not far from the dead monster. It twitched, reacting to his animating taint. "Oh, hey, you've been busy, too."

"We need all the help we can get." Elruin sang her message, in order to keep the undeath creeping through their bones suppressed as it was in Scratch. She lacked the ghost's skill with the process, but so long as an exorcist didn't come near the bodies, she could hide their taint. It required a great deal of concentration, however, and would be useless once they were on the move.

"I suppose I should be offended that you're using pieces of me to build your own private army," Scratch said. "You seem to have it under control for now, but don't get too ambitious, or you'll lose your grip on them. It's an embarrassing way to lose a partner."

It was true, the biggest danger of controlling the undead that Elruin could see was if she tried to control too many and lost her grip upon them. Scratch was loyal for his own reasons, but his nonsapient 'children' were nothing more than killing machines held on a tight leash. All on the same leash, at that. She was nearing her limits, and one slip meant they would all run wild. "I promise I'll be careful. You can control of the hand dolly when we're in the tunnels, so I don't have to."

"Heh, I remember being told I was all hand back when I had a pulse. She wasn't being this literal." Scratch sank into the comfortable new corpse, getting a feel for its no longer living form. He'd be here for a few minutes. "Now that that's covered, I'm gonna need you to sing. To be specific, your college girlfriend needs you to sing, to establish resonance. She'll handle the teleportation half."

"I understand." Elruin began to sing, bracing herself for the power drain that would be caused by Lemia tapping into her power for this spell that she expected to be expensive. All scholars agreed that teleportation spells were rare, expensive, and difficult. Near the barricade, half a mile away,

Moments later a swell of magical song began near Elruin, an echo of her own as well as Lemia's motion-driven Revelation. Elruin sang to it, seeking to amplify the magic until the pattern completed itself.

Unlike with the hand-monster's magical cry, her own song had a limited range that would not reach the end of edge of the barricade. Perhaps some of them had magically enhanced senses which could extend their view to the center of the safety area, but identifying a complex, delicate, and specific spell from this distance was the sort of power attributed to gods, not mortals.

Suggested Listening

Black energy danced across the ground, then dissipated, leaving behind a wooden crate with a woman sitting on it. "Lemia?"

Lemia coughed, curled up, and fell off the box. "I think I'm gonna be sick." She gagged, but held back the worst of it. "No wonder nobody uses that thing."

"What are you doing here?" Elruin knelt down next to Lemia, examining her with her lifesight. The damage was minor, but also universal, extending to every part of her body. Painful, but nothing a few minutes around Lyra wouldn't fix.

"Getting out of this place before it burns to the ground." Lemia gave up and remained sitting.

"Is it that bad?" Elruin looked at Scratch, wondering if he'd left an important detail out of his reports.

"What she means is before they burn her to the ground." Scratch remained seated inside the monster, in case Elruin lost control.

"Not yet," Lemia admitted. "But I can see the writing on the walls. A couple old friends have vanished, along with a dozen more acquaintances. All the first ones to jump into Claron's loving embrace, move into the mansions, or otherwise take advantage of this new situation."

"In short, you're afraid of your classmates going after you."

"I'm not popular, never was," Lemia said. "Poor girl with a reputation. How long it'll be before someone decides I'm the next who needs to vanish? A month, two if I'm lucky?"

"Or you're a spy, and we're all dead the moment we step out of the protection field," Scratch muttered. "You lied to me, said you'd teleport equipment.

"If I was helping Claron, I'd have just told him something like you is out there." Lemia had given herself enough time to recover, so she stood while holding Elruin's shoulders. "Ell, do you have any idea how dangerous working with the undead is?"

"But-" Elruin's eyes widened. "How did you know?"

"She didn't, until this moment," Scratch said. "I'm gonna guess you sampled my magic, found the Negation magic, then dug deeper to discover there's nothing else. Thought I was a necromantic construct, maybe, then realized that is exactly what I am, in the most literal sense. Women like you are far too clever for their own good."

Lemia took the backhanded compliment for what it was worth. "There were a few other hints, like how careful you were to scrub your tracks. No construct could do that. What I want to know is how you knew I was sampling you. I'm the only person to have a technique like that."

"You're not as unique as you imagine, Infiltrator," Scratch answered. "Once upon a time entire schools were dedicated to training people like you. Some of them reshaped the world, for better and worse. But those are longer stories than I have time to tell today. Make you a deal, come with us and I'll tell you all I know about the lost techniques of your predecessors."

"Over a long period of time while calling me a spy?"

"That's the offer," Scratch said. "A slow trickle of secret knowledge that will prove more valuable than anything Claron could bribe you with."

"You're bribing me to not do something I was not planning to do in the first place? I'm going to hold you to that deal, Sucker."

Scratch laughed. "Oh, you are going to be the most precious little morsel I've had in generations. I'll never trust you, but nobody sane would trust those who'd make deals with the undead."

"And I say the same of those who'd make deals with the living," Lemia shot back. "Adorable necromancer children notwithstanding, of course. Speaking of, I brought this with." She reached into the crate.

"Mister Squishybones!" Elruin grabbed the stuffed toy the moment it was removed from the collection of supplies. She'd missed the horse doll during her her imprisonment here. "Thank you so much!"

"I've got your violin, too," she said. "And dried food, backpacks, waterskins, some dyes that we can use to change our hair and skin colors, some changes of clothing, a tent, some blankets, and even a sarite that's made for purifying water. I rescued it from the potion bin a few months back."

"By 'rescued' she means 'stole'," Scratch said. "That's a compliment, in case you were wondering."

Lemia put a hand over her chest. "How dare you besmirch my honor, you toad! I would never steal this cheap junk." Then she pulled a well made arming sword from the bottom of the crate. Its magesteel blade and gold trim spoke of opulence over function. "This, I stole. Had my eye on it from the first day I met the Dean of Admissions. Suffice it to say I consider this fair compensation on a debt he owes me, a sentiment he'll disagree with after he wakes up. I know a little about how to wield a sword, and this is the best I've ever got my hands on."

"Color me impressed." Scratch opted to skip all the obvious comments, on the basis that they were too easy. "What's it do?"

"Stabs people." Lemia smirked at the ghost. "It's got minor illusions designed to make the user look better, but truth is it's just an expensive decoration made to sit on a wall. And did I mention it's expensive? Even if the fence cheats me, I'll be able to buy a utilitarian sword that's way better with cash to spare for some decent armor."

Elruin was happy to watch her friends get along so well. "Please, get everything ready, I need to talk to Cali before we go."

"I guess trying to carry this crate around would be a pain," Lemia admitted. "I'll make sure the backpacks are ready when you get back, but we'll have to work together to carry the tent."

Scratch bid the freakish limbs of the corpse he hid in to move. "I got that covered."

Lemia opted to skip all the obvious comments, on the basis that they were too easy.

Some half an hour later, Lemia and Scratch were packed up, when she noticed something at the other side of the pillar. "That's when Kite realized it was a dog the whole- hey, is that Elruin? Who's she with, and what's she doing with a bucket of whatever that stuff is?"

"Eh?" Scratch looked the direction Lemia pointed out. "Oh! Merat na! Stop them!"

"What?"

"No time! Run! Explain later!"

Suggested Listening

Elruin, along with Cali and Lyra, were almost at the barricade on the other side of the camp, far beyond the distance Lemia could cross in time to make a difference. Erra stood further back, watching with concern as the trio carried out their plan.

Elruin began to sing as her group approached the wall, darkness roiling from her magic to blanket the area. Lyra sniffed at the inky magic, swatted it away from her, but didn't retaliate beyond that. The swelling necromantic magics were cast outward, meant for distraction and confusion instead of causing harm. Harm Elruin could not attempt within the field.

They reached the very edge, with Lyra taking position in front of them, as if daring the guards to attack. They did not, for they were given specific instructions not to antagonize the dryad.

On the edge of the field, Elruin set her bucket of magically charged water on the ground, then cupped Cali's trembling hands in her own. "You can change your mind, if you want."

"I know." Calenda smiled to hide her fear. "You said it won't hurt?"

"Neither of us will feel a thing," Elruin said.

"Then I can't ask for anything better." Cali leaned over, picked the bucket up and lifted it over her head, then took the final step outside the magical defense against violence.

"I choose death on my feet!" She screamed at the crowd as she slammed the full bucket into the crowd. A black storm of raw, unfocused, death magic ballooned from their position, then was guided outward like a wave by Elruin's magic. A song interrupted for a moment when Elruin caught her collapsing body.

The full passage was 'To die on your feet is better than to live on your knees.', and it was perhaps Calenda's favorite line of any holy text. The reason she emphasized her devotion of Ecross above all other gods. As last words went, they were good ones. At least they were better than the cries of confusion and terror of the twelve she took with her.