"Your ability to see and manipulate magic has astounding potential, Antoine, but you have neither the training nor the equipment for this battle." Hilde said to me while checking her armor and hammer before heading into the ruin. "Battle is chaotic and quick, and I cannot protect you from the Necromancer and his minions."

"I'm not staying out here alone, Hilde." I answered her, nervously clutching a makeshift quarterstaff I fashioned during the search. "But is it really safer for me to wait out here?"

"He's right, you know," interjected Melissa. "If the Necromancer has a vampire, it means he has shadows, which means that as soon as he knows we're here, he will be able to take Antoine out with ease. We may as well take him with us and hope he can use his abilities to aid us."

"Very well. But you will have to guard yourself, Antoine. This fight will be the hardest I've ever fought, and I will not be able to protect you."

"I understand."

We walked carefully towards the ruins, Hilde taking point, myself in the middle and Melissa taking up the rear guard position. As we got closer, we could see a pair of skeletons guarding what seemed to be the only entrance to the fort. We didn't even try for a stealthy approach, since Hilde was about as far from stealthy as a person can get and to be honest, I wasn't much better. And as Melissa explained to me on the way, while the Necromancer can't see what his skeletons were seeing, he will know as soon as one of them is destroyed. With that in mind, we approached the skeletons to a distance of about thirty meters before they noticed us, and as soon as they started moving, Hilde charged towards them, lifting her hammer over her right shoulder and smashing it down and to the left, crushing the ribs and spine of the first skeleton. At the same time, Melissa chanted a quick spell, and a ball of condensed air smashed the second skeleton's skull into splinters, and just like that the first battle was done.

With what little surprise we had gone, we quickly started moving into the fort, to give the Necromancer as little time to prepare as possible. I was once again running between Hilde and Melissa, and I shifted into my magic vision mode just in time to shout a warning to Hilde before she rushed into a net of sickly looking green magic lines. I had no idea what the thing was supposed to do, but it looked nasty, and I was willing to bet good money that it was some sort of trap. Unlike a spell being cast, there were no visible symbols to the net, so my only course of action was to short circuit it and try to ground its power. I quickly wove the line of ambient magic into a similar construction to the one I used on the skeleton, anchoring one side of it to the ground, which was visible between cracks in the fort's floor, and throwing the other side into the trap. There was a flash of light, visible even to normal vision, and a brief smell of ozone, and the trap vanished.

"Good work." Hilde complimented me before continuing her headlong rush into the fort. We ran undisturbed for about ten more meters before exiting the gate tunnel and stepping into the courtyard between the gate and the fort itself. There were five more skeletons waiting for us there, armed with short swords and wooden clubs, along with what looked like a classic fantasy elf: Tall, slim, and inhumanly pretty despite his pointed ears. He was unarmed, but as soon as we entered the courtyard, he turned to us and smiled, and I could see a pair of long, pointed teeth in his mouth.

"Vampire!" Hilde shouted and barreled her way through the skeletons on her way to engaging him. "If his blood enters your body, you're Cursed. Leave him to me and deal with the skeletons, Melissa!"

Melissa started to cast her spells, but with five skeletons closing in on her, I knew she wouldn't have enough time, and I raised my staff and moved to stand in between. The skeletons were mindless, and had very little skill with their weapons, but I wasn't much better. My main advantage was that without the vampire to command them, the five skeletons were constantly getting in each other's way. I was fighting completely defensively, trying to block the skeletons and give Melissa enough time to finish her spell, and was mostly successful in blocking the skeletons' clumsy attacks. The first two skeletons to reach me were a short, dwarf-sized skeleton with a heavy club and a taller skeleton that could have been a human or elf or something else entirely, and was wielding a short sword. I shoved my staff between the ribs of the sword wielder and managed to keep him out of sword range, and between me and the three other skeletons, but the dwarf skeleton took advantage of my stuck staff and smashed my ribs with his club.

My chest exploded with pain, and my breath was knocked out of me, but I somehow managed to reach out with my left hand and rip away at the magic holding the skeleton together, and it staggered back from me, the bones from its right hand cluttering as they fell to the ground, drained of magic.

At that moment, I heard Melissa's chant reach a crescendo, and a barrage of small stones flanked me and bombarded the skeletons, breaking their bones and leaving them useless.

With our part of the battle finished, we turned to Hilde in time to see her deliver an armored kick into the vampire's left knee, followed by a mighty hammer blow that pulverized its head.

"Everyone all right?" Asked Hilde, and I could see that she wasn't even breathing hard after running in full armor and fighting a vampire. I, on the other hand, could barely breathe with my bruised ribs.

"Antoine took a hit when buying time for me to finish the skeletons," Hilde answered her. "I don't think anything's broken, but you should probably check."

I lifted my shirt and let Hilde prod at my ribs and pronounce them bruised but not broken. She rubbed some foul smelling paste over them, and the pain started to dull immediately, and the three of us continued our way into the fort.

The fort's door lead directly to the great hall, and the Necromancer was waiting for us inside. She was human, and looked to be in her early twenties. She was dressed in elaborate black robes embroidered with screaming faces in red thread. I couldn't see much of her body under the robes but her face would have been beautiful if it wasn't twisted in rage. She had a dozen more skeletons with him, as well as another vampire, and was carrying a long black staff made of twisted wood and topped with a horned skull.

"You!" She screamed at us as we entered the hall. "Do you have any idea how hard I've worked to create my servants? How hard it is to find useable bodies without getting discovered? Seven skeletons and a vampire you've cost me!"

"Put down your staff and order your Forsaken to stand down, Necromancer!" Hilde exclaimed proudly, pointing her hammer towards the Necromancer. "I am Hilde Siggurdsdotter, Dwarven Valkyrie and Dragon of the First Circle, and I am here to put an end to your depravity!"

"The only end in sight is your own, dwarf! I will gladly take a Forsaken Drake as compensation for my lost minions!"

And with that, she gestured with her staff, and a ball of green fire launched from it towards us, with the skeletons and vampire following closely behind it