An ursidane roared threateningly at a deformed dirius. The wolf’s glassy eyes stared back at the reared up and bristling bear. Slowly, the canine moved, not on fours, but in a low hunch on its weirdly bloated hind legs, one front leg tearing at the skin and pointing forward and the other dragging below.

Its skin hanging almost loosely, the wolf accelerated and slammed into the wall of muscle and fur. The ursidane skidded back from its position and slammed its two paws harshly onto its attacker’s back with a muted thud. It dug its claws onto the pelt and pushed back, intent on removing the strangely heavy dog from its more vulnerable underbelly. It was partially successful. The pelt was pulled away, but not the thing wearing said pelt. The fur and head pulled off like a hood to reveal a blackened, warped and irrily humanoid skull.

His one hand still on the bear’s abdomen, Tim stabbed forward with the sword tucked tight to his side. Its flesh parted and blood spilled, the bear uttered a roar of defiance and its entire body lit up in an encompassing golden brown glow. The glow condensed on its arms and especially the bone plates on its forearms and shoulders. With much more power than before, the bear dropped its paws on top of the skull.

A resounding thump echoed out through the forest and cracks formed under the two. The earth shattering pounce did not even dent the monster and the skull just turned up to look at it in almost pity before it felt movement in its body. The embedded sword made an ascent through the bear’s ribs, throat and jaw to embed itself deep within the skull. Life left the creature and it slumped down over is killer. Tim eased himself away from the dead monster and let its body slowly fall to the ground.

Tim slowly pulled his hand free from the wolf ‘gloves’ of the set he fashioned for himself and took the entire thing off.

‘Well done, Tim, your idea of armor worked rather well.’

‘Sure did. Loose skin that skids off really helps. But that last one was still close. A hit like that would leave me in the fetal position for quite a while.’

Figurative sweat wiped from his brow, Tim flipped the bear over for harvesting.

He began with inserting his clawed fingers into the bear’s opened chest and dragging them down to fully open it up. The organs were removed from the opening and Tim was, like so many times before, grateful for the dulled sense of touch his existence as an Undead brought. From there, he removed as much of the meat and bone structure from within the bear as possible, paying careful attention to not break the skin.

Once the bulk of the insides were outside, Tim ran one of his claws over the interior again to remove any specs of remains that might prove to be a literal thorn inside. Assured that he would not be feeling any ingrown toenails on his back or arms, Tim slowly donned the newest set of armor he has managed to secure for himself. The skull was draped over his and the arms were slipped on, both done with the ease of putting on a hoodie.

‘That armor does fit well, though the back end does seem rather obstructing towards movement. No matter, here are the vines that you need to firmly fix it in place.’

A piece of thick vine was soon handed to Tim and he began to fasten the left shoulder plate into place. The easy bit done, Tim held tightly to another length of vine .

‘Now hold still. I’ll aid you with the remaining pieces.’

He held his out horizontally to the ground while Olivia flew closer. After a bit of fiddling and Olivia doing laps around his limb, Tim found his dominant hand secured with a piece of armor plating as well.

‘The arms are not fully utilized like this. The forearms are going to be problematic to attach with just vines.’

‘I can always do the same thing I did with the wolf on both arms.’

As he said, Tim broke through the problem with the simplistic approach of just piercing both of his arms through the bear’s paws and tying down the forearm plates with more vines. The cumbersome behind was tied to his waist with the back paws like he would with his jackets.

‘Ok. That’s done. I can actually go fight things that we run into without watching every hit for a possible crit on me.’

‘Our trek tomorrow would most definitely be swifter. Now let’s settle down in this clearing for your magic practice. We should go over control tonight, your overqualification in intensity has been proven yesterday.’

‘About that, I think we should stop the night magic practice. I was just a bit stressed yesterday. We can continue overnight this time. Though I would love to hear more of the symbols you have composed to help me use my negative mana for more normal casting.’

‘If that is what you wish for, then why not? Though I do enjoy actual experimentation. Observing your own spells spontaneously deteriorate in every attempt is fine too.’

‘Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I still don’t know why my spells just fizzled out like that. Spent the whole night practicing and I feel like my control just got worse. Mana just ups and disappears on me.’

‘Do not be disheartened. Magic is not something so easily learned. As I have mentioned prior, it is entertaining to watch you try and fail.’

‘Well, I guess I’m trying more magic after we find Brandon. You can laugh at me more when I fail then too. Or, I’ll laugh at you when I pull something off and you don’t.’

‘I will hold you to that. Now we best be going. Brandon and Layla are waiting for us.’

‘Yeah, wonder what the girl will feel once her moving theater is no more.’

‘Well, she will have a wild knight to fight if you are able to improve your swordplay.’

‘I will. Some day. Probably.’

‘Creator made me to last centuries to match her own confidence in her ability to live, so I should, in theory, live until that point.’

‘Well. That’s a definite thing then. Just hope she still wants to fight me then.’

It was with levity that they resumed their journey across the clearing bathed in the dying light of the sun.

*****

‘Hey, Oli. Are you seeing that smoke over there?’

Tim pointed towards his right. A column of black smoke was cutting through the orange haze.

‘Yes. I do believe that is smoke rising from the canopy.’

‘Great, actual people. We can go and ask where we are now.’

‘Tim. Might I remind you again what we are.’

‘What do you-. Ah, Right. That.’

‘We can still approach and listen in to deduce our position. You are much more streamlined and agile now.’

‘Hmm. That could work. And if they are bandits, we can just rob like the few times before.’

With that final bit of motivation, the two diverged eastward from their original course. Tim was extra careful to avoid noise makers, twigs, dried leaves and any animal that might get startled. Their efforts were in vain.

The camp could be described in one word. Trashed. The tents were blown to bits, the firepit haphazardly buried and personal belongings were strewn throughout the clearing.

‘Does it still count as robbing if we just pick the scraps from the original robbers?’

‘It does not. But this does not qualify as a robbing.’

‘Looks pretty robbed to me.’

‘For one, there is an arrangement of weapons in the camp’s center. No robbers would overlook weapons of any kind. ’

‘Yeah. Those always mean cash if sold, right?’

‘Yes, additionally, there still remain too many possessions. Bandits will extract all that they can from a quarry.’

‘Yup, forget my robbed comment. What did happen here, though?’

‘I am detecting residues of necromancy around this location. And there are no immediate signs of fatalities. So a possible hypothesis would be a kidnapping. Perhaps we should try to offer assistance.’

‘It’s great that you want us to help, but I don’t think we can. This probably happened yesterday from the still smoking firepit, but how long do you think a necromancer will keep them alive. They were caught to be sacrifices and are probably dead by now.’

‘But we should still make an attempt. Sacrifices can have specific timings from my own experience with Creator. Our opportunity for rescue is not completely nonexistent.’

Tim closed his one eye, his head lulling forth in the familiar motion of a sigh. The pause remained for a second before he gave her a reply.

‘Alright, we’ll just take a quick walk through camp and then you can try to sniff out where the necromancer left off to. And sorry for, brushing these people off. I was tunneling too much on us getting out of here and finding Brandon.’

‘I understand, but we must hurry.’

‘Will do.’

They advanced towards the camp.

*****

The first tent remains they neared held nothing of importance besides some male and female clothings. Those clued them in on the gender of two of the group. The next destroyed piece of cover held not much better with just more female clothes thrown around. The only point worth nothing was a set of robes that emitted a particular aura. Holy. Tim made sure not to touch that particular piece of clothing and moved on to the only intact tent.

There was a clear sense of division between the two sides of the tent. One was a clearing resting corner with two hastily thrown off sleeping bags and some clothes lying on top. The other side was a clean work station with one side stacked with books and the other filled with flasks and tubes of various substances. Off in one corner was a small opened chest with smaller boxes inside and even smaller vials of liquid inside of them. He lifted one of the boxes and found a note on it. Injury heal. Another was disease heal, followed by mana. The last had a more ominous ”boom” and was only missing one vial while the others looked to be missing several. He closed the chest, making sure to be extra careful with the “boom” box and exited the tent.

‘I found some potions if we’re really going through with whole rescue business.’

He stuff the chest on the dead bear’s rump hanging from his lower back.

‘Let’s just finish the search with the last tent and get going.’

‘That would be unnecessary. The last tent held nothing of value aside from the map that we are in need of.’

Tim tilted his head to look and there was indeed a scroll holder hanging from the last vertebrae on her shaft.

‘I was also able to locate the exit direction of our perpetrators.’

‘Alright, let’s go.’

The two departed, Olivia leading with her ability to sense. They left camp through an obscured trail to the right. Three sets of prints led down the trail. Three were very similar, being footprints without heels and fairly long toes. The unique set looked to be of a pair of dainty shoes walking in the center.

The sounds of TIm’s footsteps stopped. His gaze was held up once again after the observation and found Olivia to not be there anymore. A spike of panic ran through him as he spun around and disappeared upon the sight of her floating behind him.

‘Tim, I believe the time has come for us to prove our worth against Creator.’

His restarted steps were soon halted again..

‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’

‘Yes. I have walked behind her for a great deal, enough to recognize her footprints.’

The surety in her reply dropped a nice thick lump of lead into his proverbial stomach. It was only after a brief moment of centering that Tim managed a resigned reply.

‘Oh. This changes things.’

‘Indeed.’

Not at all ready for this, TIm made a venture for an alternative to a confrontation.

‘You’re sure about this right. Fighting Anne is a pretty big deal for you and we spent quite a bit before just preparing for it, but we can just always, you know, not.’

Olivia wasted not a second to reply.

‘No, Creator must be stopped. Now.’

‘Ok? Then please stay here, I don’t know what other kill switch she might have on you. I can go beat her up myself, like last time.’

‘No. It will take more than you to permanently end her.’

‘Um. Since when did things turn from trying to best her at her own game to prove how big of a mistake it is to leave you to actually planning to murder her?’

‘It was thanks to you that I have realised the naivety of my original goals, simply proving her wrong about our potential. You have taught me so much on morality and justice and I have come to realise how much more of a monster Creator is than the armor you are wearing.’

‘Ok, I get that she is a horrible person. But can’t we just capture her and hand her to any kind of authority to be judged and tried. We don’t have to bring justice into our own hands.’

Olivia remained silent and turned her skull upwards, avoiding Tim’s gaze. She held that position for a bit before, with a bit of resolve, replying.

‘My desire to end her does not stem purely from a selfless pursuit of justice.’.

‘Alright, would you mind telling me what they stem from then?’

Olivia turned her face down from the sky to the ground.

‘It stems from my personal desire to kill her.’

‘Ok? Why?’

Tim was more confused than worried about Olivia’s statement.

‘Revenge needs to be exact upon her for her actions against my previous self. You may despise me, but the soul that I now occupy will never be at peace without Anne’s demise.’

Confusion became even more dominant. Tim’s only good hand was ready to rise and scratch his head.

‘Wait, what’s this business about your old self and letting the soul be at peace?’

Hesitation could be seen in the almost emotionless looking staff. It was only natural that TIm felt far more fo it through their connection.

‘Creator did not create the soul that I now possess. she merely wrote my memory over an existing soul, one which has now been freed of her grasp and is emitting great anguish through me.’

A bit of resentment at the sudden reveal was squashed firmly when Tim saw Olivia float back just a half step. His shoulders sagged a little as he took a second to think and settle things down within his head.

‘It’s fine, I wished you would have told me about this sooner. And before you say anything, I do not despise you for wanting revenge. I would want revenge on someone if they murdered me too.’

‘Truly?’

‘Yes. Just. Just give me a moment to get my head around all of this. I am premeditating a murder after all. Urg. Thinking that is wrong even if my target is most likely a psychopathic serial killer.

‘I understand, I will wait. Convincing you to accept my proposition is already better than any of my projections of this.’

The announcement sounded too subdued in his head and, with the effects of the first bit of news still lingering, barely shook him. The tension on Olivia’s end was still felt and Tim decided to make his next message sound just a bit more light hearted.

‘Wow, so this bomb has been planned to be dropped huh?’

His jovial reception of her choices sparked Olivia to happily spew the rest in a rapid fire.

‘Yes, the soul has been growing restless and transmitting her memories of suffering into me intermittently throughout the years.’

Touches of light amusement still painted Tim’s end of the link.

‘Good to know. I guess. And I think I am ready now to save a soul and stop a serial killer. God, it still sounds off when I declare it like that. Just get in my cloak and let’s keep going.’

The previous nervous energy escaped Olivia completely on her next line.

‘So we are employing that tactic.’

‘Yes, we are. You planned quite a bit for that. Can’t really forget it now, can I.’

Tim spread out his arms, opening up the bear cloak for Olivia to float in.

‘Be careful in there. I don’t have the bulk to hold you in like before, so you can squeeze in right next to my head.’

Once he had gained an extra head, Tim resumed his trek down the trail, making adjustments to Olivia’s position for his own comfort.

The trail began to rise as the sky darkened around them, a large mountain visible through the canopy. The natural noises of nature were also slowly snuffed out as they traveled steadily up through the dense forest towards the looming peak. In the tense silence both outside and inside, the two was startled out of their state of alert by the sound of a broken twig.

Heads swivelling immediately to their right expecting an army of undead to swarm them, Tim and Olivia goggled at a non-threatening sight of a half naked guy giving a girl a piggyback ride. The pairs both stood and observed each other. The living had their eyes wide and face paling, looking all the world like they were staring down the barrel of a gun. The dead were simply staring at the strange appendages that they now saw on the living. The most obvious ones would be the four spindly spider legs stretching out from behind the girl. The boy looked to be almost normal, albeit a little haggard looking with scratches and leaves sticking out of his head of curly hair, if not for the four more proportioned three fingered limbs growing from his shoulder blades.

The staredown was broken first by the boy when he moved his eyes off the combined form of Olivia and Tim to look behind and to their sides while slowly back tracking. His heels were already turning for a run when more sounds came from the direction of the humans. These sounds were much more violent, trees falling, branches breaking off and mismatching footfalls.

The first of the walking corpses to come into view was ironically an ursidane. His eyes on the broken patches of rotting skin and dead eyes, Tim wondered idly if he looked more terrifying wearing a dead bear than the actual dead bear. His spontaneous thought lasted for no more than a second before, through simply taking into the account the numbers of the two forces stopping him, the teenage boy decided to sling the girl off of his back into his lap and rush back in Tim’s direction, determination gleaming in his eyes. He took one crouching step and lunged with surprising strength and dexterity over Tim’s head and into the trail behind, rolling down hill to bleed off momentum before righting himself and continuing his mad dash.

The undead duo looked on as he finally disappeared into the forest. A heavy impact on his back bone plate notified Tim that there was still company. The zombie ursidane was gnawing on Tim’s head to no effect. A heavy swing of his sword arm removed the offending monster’s torso and left its lower half falling backwards. The casual dispatch of their comrade dissuaded not the horde and more zombies soon funneled out from the forest. Tim, realising the situation that he could be in, tensed and raised the sword back up into the middle stance. His preparation was not only external and Tim was already building up a massive charge of mana to send Olivia’s way when she called out in his head.

‘Stop. Creator is not here, our trump card should not be used so soon.’

That did not take the tension out of him.

‘Are you sure? That’s too many undead to not have an active controller.’

‘Yes, they are simply moving forward to attack without any coordination.’

Tim was able to confirm this with the next undead, a clearly ranged orientated decomposing harpy with a bow and quiver was walking towards them holding the arrows like a human would a spear. Fully sure that he was not going against a sentient being and instead just a bunch of brainless corpses following a basic order of sort, Tim relaxed and let the sword arm drag behind him again as he moved forward.

The harpy was taken out with another swing, while two bolts of [ectoblast] flew from Olivia to disintegrate two dead diriuses. From that point on, the horde of undead were quickly taken care of, Tim and Olivia mowing them down with massive swings that took a few trees along with the undead and scorching blast that left nothing but smoking remains. They incurred almost no damage with Tim covering his exposed front easily with the sword and the thick bone plate of the ursidane blocking his back.

They were on their way to chopping down the last of the creatures when a new rumble shook the trees still standing around them. Tim tensed up and entered another middle stance, waiting for some sort of massive creature to step into sight from the forest and was knocked off balance when something erupted from the ground below him.

The land shark’s jaws grabbed hold of his sword arm and Tim and Olivia found themselves falling face first into a deep dark hole. Their trip through the ground was surprisingly not as painful as Tim anticipated with all of the loose rubble digging into the exposed cracks his armor could not cover on his legs and belly. It was more like digging through mud, the substance offering little resistance against their voyage.

Tim was still not going to be dragged around regardless of how painless this was all and stretched out his free limb into the viscous earth around them. His sharp claws parted easily through the initially soft layer and the tips of his fingers finally found purchase in a more solid part of the ground. The land shark could no longer swim through its self-generated watery ground and was slammed heavily into a hard wall of dirt on its right.

The solid substance soon converted into a soft flowing consistency via the brownish aura released by the resurrected beast. Tim clung on tight to the mound of earth his hand was deep in, aided a little by the once flowing mud that covered his arm now turning solid again with the shark no longer in the proximity. With an internal grunt of effort, Tim, now with all three of his unbitten limbs firmly rooted in the ground, hoisted the dead fish up above his head, breaking earth apart and shining light down on his situation again. The shark was flapping frenziedly in the air, flaking off chunks of dirt around its body. Olivia could now see again and immediately fired off an [ectoblast]. The blast burned off an entire section of the shark from between its head and pectoral fins. The limb body fell to the ground while the head still hung on viciously, shaking with all the muscles left to hopefully damage Tim. Another [ectoblast] finished the job.

Tim was now stuck with the task of freeing himself from his earthly confines. The undertaking was made easier with Olivia’s help and the fact that the sword was not in position to hinder her efforts. Tim was soon freed and felt a distant wet sensation on his back. The feel of broken wood and glass when he reached behind him telling Tim that his useful pick-up of potions was no longer useful or even usable. He shook his head and dug back up to ground level.

Once up, it was clear to Tim that, brief as his temporary confinement was, they were dragged quite a distance up the trail. Their current location was just right on the foot of the mountain, their scene of combat just barely visible from there as a patch of missing trees.

The free trip was no convenience. Tim had to return and absorb whatever he could of the undead he had slain, securing as many of the holes in his defenses as possible. The walk down was fairly quicker and Tim was already stripping off flesh from the re-killed corpses to put in his cracks.

His work was soon interrupted by a familiar fellow. The spider boy was back with a vengeance and a full set of leather armor and six daggers of varying quality. The boy pounced on Tim’s open back. The four daggers in his insect hand digging deep into the bear hide for purchase. The human ones tried to dig into Tim’s two eye sockets. They succeeded in pushing the snake off to the side and flicker Tim’s flame eye slightly.

The surprise attack had Tim jump in surprise, but the boy held on and switched tactics. The daggers were aimed lower, trying this time to remove the head from the body. The attack found much more success and dug deep into one of Tim’s cracks. The lance of hot fire across his throat elicited an immediate pass of his longer right arm. A crash sounded out from behind him and Tim turned to look at a tree broken in half. The realization that the object that broke the tree was not there came when said object impacted his back again. More ready and much less willing to be hurt, Tim swung his right arm again. He grabbed hold of the boy’s torso and slammed him forward into the ground.

The measured impact failed to incapacitate the teen and Tim earned a face-full of dirt courtesy of the still struggling male and his six arms. Not too fond of his vision fading out every time his eye flame flickered, Tim rose to his full height and removed the boy from the ground and his ammunition. With nothing to throw or use to leverage himself, he resorted to violently thrashing about and futilely hitting Tim. The struggle lasted for a while before the human realised the pointless nature of his struggles and ceased squirming to accept his defeat. Seeing the fight leave his captive, Tim lowered the stab-happy guy down slowly.

Surprise was evident in his brown bloodshot eyes as the undead refused to end him. Eyes still wide and jaw ready to drop, he slowly backed away. Only to bump into something from behind.

Olivia’s own bony visage stared down at him, her macabre features made worse with the final red rays of the sun.

“Hello. May we be of assistance?”

He immediately rolled to the side, only to be grabbed by Tim again.

Still no harm coming his way, the boy goggled on for a while, head switching between Tim and Olivia, confusion growing within his gaze. Tim was soon bored of just waiting for a reply and resumed with his flesh tripping. Olivia asked again.

“Perhaps you did not hear me the first time. Can we be of assistance to you?”

His eyes turned to Tim working and back to Olivia, the absurd notion of actual help coming from the monsters still not settling in for him. He held the stare only for a minute before he remembered the circumstances and the person waiting for him. Desperation usurped skepticism and he hurriedly asked.

“I...No. Rachel needs potions. Do you have potions?”

Off behind Olivia, Tim reached for that damp spot again.