The conversion between lightning magic and necromancy wasn’t as clear cut as they had hoped, and Anastacia had no talent for it. Despite hours of trying, all she could do was to arc some between her fingers, barely enough to harm mosquitos.

“You’re a terrible teacher. I should be frying cows by now.” Anastacia blamed Kabana. “It took me less than a day to master fire magic on my own, how is this so hard?”

“You’re a terrible student, that’s how.” The mage rebutted. “And you’re far from mastering anything.”

They had gotten very tired of each other during the training, mainly due to Anastacia’s attitude. While Kabana had tried her best to remain civil, the necromancer had no such intention and blamed everything on her teacher.

“If I’m not appreciated here, I might as well leave.” Kabana stated. “Find me again when you’ve burned your face off by accident.”

“Leave then! I don’t need you, I don’t need any of this!” Anastacia snarled.

Gilbert couldn’t blame Kabana for her decision to give up on Anastacia, and felt like he had to at least offer the mage a couple of drinks for the effort. He figured that the best thing to do was to let Anastacia be on her own for a while and followed Kabana to the city.

“That child is reckless and violent. I believe that there’s something good in every being but she’s really making me question that right now.” Kabana said when Gilbert caught up with her.

“She’s not being herself right now, you’d love the real Anastacia.” Gilbert explained. “I hope you’ll help us when she’s back to normal.”

“Gilbert, that girl will get herself killed soon enough. You need to fix whatever it is that’s making her be like this.” The mage stated curtly. “Whatever miracle you’re waiting for can’t happen soon enough.”

Anastacia tried casting lightning a few more times, but it clearly wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe she needed some real targets to push herself this time? She figured that there would be something in the nearby forest and started walking further away from the city. After only a few hundred meters, she could feel another necromancer behind her.

“You are to stay near the city.” A familiar voice told her.

“You are to mind your own business, Alice.” Anastacia responded and turned around. “I’m just taking a walk here, so fuck off and come back when you have Coquelicot’s answer.”

“I’m not letting you leave alone. There’s no telling what you’re going to do anymore.” Alice said. “I’ve seen what you have turned into.”

“Are you trying to give me an excuse to get rid of you? Because it really sounds like you are.” Anastacia asked and grinned.

The apprentice inquisitor took a deep breath and flung bone needles at Anastacia; she had collected them after the confrontation the night before from the field where they fought the inquisitors, hoping she could keep Anastacia drugged until her reinforcements arrived. The first volley of needles stopped in the air before they were even halfway to Anastacia and the second volley only a bit closer to her. but they gave Alice enough time to move right next to Anastacia and almost stab her with a needle. Alice’s luck ran out just before the tip of the needle touched Anastacia’s shoulder. Alice had been frozen in place again.

“I know what you’re thinking, ‘how could she do this so fast?’ or ‘she isn’t supposed to be this powerful yet.’ But you need to understand that the main reason I was such a weakling before, was my subconscious unwillingness to use my powers.” Anastacia explained and moved away from the needle. “Thanks to this little trinket, that’s not the case anymore. Though I still need to find ways to train further, right now my ways are too inefficient. You actually got really unlucky, because I was only barely able to pull that off. As a… consolation prize, you’ll get to be the first to witness something I’ve come up with.”

Anastacia moved her arm in an arc over her head with her palm open, but instead of lifting it up right away, she closed her fist. All of a sudden, multiple skeletal hands, feet, spines and the like sprang from the ground around Alice and pulled her down. The apprentice could feel and hear her bones snapping as the skeletons pulled harder and harder. When Anastacia finally lifted her arm up, a pillar of flame rose from the ground, but her aim was slightly off and only about half of Alice was caught in it. As the skeletons retracted back underground, the charred necromancer was still gasping for air. Anastacia walked over to her to finish the job.

“You’re insanely unlucky today, that must hurt pretty bad.” Anastacia noted and kneeled next to Alice.

Alice’s lower body and left arm had been completely burned and the remains of her blue robes were still smoldering. She could barely move, but still tried to use her right hand to stab a needle into Anastacia’s leg. Anastacia just grabbed the needle from Alice to make her stop moving. It was painful to look at, even for her.

“Trying to drug me again, huh? To slow me down…” Anastacia mumbled and stared at the needle. Suddenly the gem on her bracelet briefly flashed white again and Anastacia jabbed the needle into her own knee.

The new inquisition pushed their undead mounts to their limits as they raced towards Valor. Their scouts had already spotted a faint presence of a necromancer a couple of kilometers ago and they were heading for it. The fact that they couldn’t feel two meant that either one of them was dead or Anastacia had defeated Alice but didn’t kill her before leaving.

“If it’s Alice, Cyan and Cobalt, you need to find the priestess immediately!” Coquelicot commanded. “If it’s Anastacia and something has happened to Alice, we do not attack immediately! And even if we do have to fight, avoid killing her for as long as you can.”

“There!” Cyan yelled and pointed at a slumped figure in the distance. “It’s not Alice.”

As they got closer, they could see Anastacia and the blue robed corpse in front of her. Coquelicot sped up to be the first one there. She could feel that her apprentice was already gone and rushed to confront Anastacia.

“What the fuck did you do?!” The high inquisitor yelled.

“She tried to order me around.” Anastacia answered and tried her best to stand up, but her feet couldn’t do it quite yet. “Did you come to try your luck in doing the same?”

The rest of the new inquisition arrived and surrounded them.

“She... she’s dead.” Duke said and kneeled to look at his colleague. “Why is she burned? Is there a fire mage around?”

“We should just kill her now. It’d be easy.” A male inquisitor called Teal suggested.

Coquelicot grabbed Anastacia’s arm and lifted her up. Just as she was about to unlock the bracelet, the hands she was using suddenly shattered and Anastacia fell back down. Her feet didn’t carry and she fell on her side.

“You’re not going to kill me.” Anastacia laughed. “You still need me. I’m not going to let you remove the bracelet either.”

The drugged necromancer kept laughing as Coquelicot tried her best to come up with something. Even though Anastacia wasn’t able to walk yet, Coquelicot could feel her presence slowly become stronger and stronger. She ordered her apprentices to take Alice and go further away.

“Must be terrible to lose a tool like that one. She was devoted to a fault and pretty good too, almost got me even.” Anastacia mocked the high inquisitor, clearly trying to get under her skin.

It worked well enough for Anastacia to be able to take over Coquelicot’s remaining four hands and rip them off from the harness they were attached to. Before Coquelicot had the chance to back off, Anastacia used one of the hands to slap her in the face.

“I’ve wanted to do that for a while.” She laughed. “How does it feel to know that this all your fault? It was you who was so determined to get me to train. And to think that this whole bracelet thing was your husband’s idea only adds to the hilarity.”

“Silence.” The high inquisitor said and stomped on the ground.

Bones began to shoot up from underground and form a ball in the air behind Coquelicot. More and more of them gathered, at first just from the area immediately around them, but as the ball grew so did the affected area. Eventually even Coquelicot’s hands were ripped from Anastacia’s control. The ball only stopped growing after it was close to fifty meters in diameter. The necromancer stomped again, causing a massive bone tentacle to emerge from the sphere and reach towards Anastacia. As soon as it touched her, the bones on its surface began to shatter, but they were quickly replaced by more bones. The tentacle wrapped around Anastacia, squeezing her tightly. When she was finally released from its grasp, Anastacia realized she had been wrapped with the rusted weapons and armor that had been underground with the bones.

“I’ve gathered all material within five hundred meters, there’s nothing left for you to use.” Coquelicot stated. “Just wait there until we figure out what to do with you.”