I sidestepped a ray of holy light, and slapped a firebolt out of the air with a tendril of shadow. This battle is frustrating, I know I could best either of my opponents one on one, but as a pair they cover for each other’s deficiencies, which is a good quality in an ally, but an annoying one in an enemy. Ducking behind the cover of a nearby boulder to avoid another ray of light tossed by that fanatic buffoon, I ready an experimental spell that I’ve been working on with Ulmen: shadow lightning. Mixed element spells are the hallmark of a competent magus, but some combinations are explored more than others. The spell doesn’t explode in my face, which is always nice, and I poke my upper body around the corner and unleash the spell.

Nothing happens, until suddenly a silent explosion catches that second-rate fire flinger and throws her convulsing back several meters. Stealth lightning, not something to use in a battle with allies, especially melee ones. Noted.

The lunatic calling himself a holy warrior is visibly distressed by the plight of his ally. But instead of checking on her, he just throws a healing spell her way, then charges my hiding spot. I remain nonplussed, right up until he starts glowing and yelling. That is when I decide to get going while the going’s good, and book it for another boulder. I just managed to make it to my new cover when a sound halfway between a building demolition and an elephant breaking wind shakes the ground, and the decidedly unhappy paladin somehow yells even louder.

“I know you’re there, you necromancer bastard! If you surrender now, I won’t kill you, and you’ll even get a chance to go home once Sarnakog is dead! The gods know you didn’t choose to come like we did, so they’re willing to forgive you, but only if you surrender and tell us all you know!” The paladin’s nasally voice is almost hilariously at odds with his broad build, but that only serves to make his offer even more aggravating than it already was.

“Where were your gods when I was, when the others were, ripped away from home and family? Where were they when Sarnakog threatened everything we know and love, and promised tortuous solitude for dissenters? Your gods have done jack shit for me, so you can take that faulty deal and shove it up your ass, if you can fit it past your head!” A polite rejection is absolutely critical when dealing with anyone who has a direct line to the guys in the sky. He does not appear to have handled the gentle refusal of his offer well, screaming incoherently about infidels, pastries, and divine wrath. The only wrath this idiot will see is mine kicking him clear to the next town.

I can hear him moving towards the boulder I’m hiding behind, probably his attempt at stealth. He is surprisingly good at it, but plate mail was never designed to be sneaky, so it still sounds like the church bells at noon moving towards me. This is the perfect chance to surprise that blindly religious buffoon, I just hope I can cast a short shadow travel spell quickly enough. I whisper the incantation, and shape the mana carefully, until a darker circle in my shadow appears. Slipping through it, I emerge behind the fire mage I stealth lightninged earlier. To my surprise she is already getting back up, and starting to move towards the fight.

I must have made a sound, or moved enough to get caught by her peripheral vision, because she whirls around and levels the glowing end of her staff directly at my chest, not even a meter away. Before I could so much as gesture or open my mouth, a fireblast was unleashed at point blank range into my chest. Which, obviously, hurt a bit, but not as much as being launched into a hillside so hard that you create a small crater. I wheeze a groan, and lay eagle spread in my hill angel. I can hear Dumb and Dumber making their way towards me, but I lack the will to do anything about it. Not to mention, my body is no longer in any condition for basic physical tasks, let alone dodging around and slinging spells against 2 summoned heroes.

So, I lay there, on a pile of rubble decorated with splotches of my blood, listening to my enemies approach. My body is battered, bruised, broken and bloodied, and I couldn’t stand to face them even if I had the desire to. Sitting there, watching the cloudless sky, awaiting my impending judgement, suddenly I can feel a tickle in my chest. The feeling was building, growing, and soon enough had worked its way up my throat. I released the feeling, and my laughter was its company, the mad, joyous laughter of someone who only sees the rules of the game when his time to play has passed. I hear the heroes pause at the sound of my laughter, then resume their march, but observably more cautious than before.

They loom over me, sword and staff pointing down at me, and I know that I am lost. I will either die in the hole in a hill, or I will be kept in a cage and made to spill the beans on everything I know. And I would spill the beans, I have no training or experience that could help me stand up to torture. But I also know that I am no longer a piece on the board, and so I cough out a laugh, and give a grimacing approximation of a grin, and stare up at the lucky fools who caught me by surprise.

The paladin looks smug, and I can practically hear his monologue about the grace of the gods, and meant to be, blah blah bladdy bladdy blah. The small fire mage looks…. Frightened? Did she scare herself when her spell tossed me like a ragdoll? She is shaking so much that only the wide area of effect that many of her spells have would allow them to actually hit me, despite our proximity.

“Foul necromancer, you shall stand trial to answer for your crimes! And when the time comes that we return home, you will come with us and complete your rehabilitation there. Now, I can’t allow you to heal yourself, so…” What an ominous way to end a sente- AH! Godsdamned lily-livered bastard kicked me! Hard enough to scoop me out of my hole like a pro golfer using the wedge. Aren’t I broken enough already? It’s straining my flesh, blood, and bone magicks just to keep myself alive, much less do any actual healing, which is very slow. It’s times like these that I really wish I had become a vampire like Mariana had. I would have been able to heal, pound them into meat paste, then squeeze the liquid out of them into a glass. But nooooooooooooo, I just had to be a wizard, I just had to decide I would become a lich.

The little fire mage is berating that brute of a holy man, but i can hear in his voice the insincerity. It makes sense, my existence as a necromancer is slightly blashphemous against his entire world view, so I should cut him some slack. Then again, he’s a dickhead who punts people with more broken bones than whole ones, so I’ll remember his face and track him down to break his knees later. Eventually, it seems the paladin grew tired of the mage, and just brushed passed her to once again stand over me and point sharp metal objects at my neck.

“You are helpless,all alone, and your fate is to be turned over to the Inquisitors, who will extract everything you know from you. Now, don’t move so she can tie you up.”

Don’t move? You absolute bastard, I can’t move anyway! And if I could, there’d be a shadow lightning spell halfway up your ass to blow out your walnut sized brains. And tie me up? That’s a joke, I can’t move, so what’s the point? Causing me more pain? You do just fine by existing pal. But wait, another person? I can hear them making their way towards our merry little band of sworn enemies. But be they friend and savior, or foe and condemner?

“He’s helpless? Who decided that? He’s all alone? And who decided that? I….. am the one who decides,” the familiar voice rolls in like a flash flood, and the sheer arrogance of the words and relief of having someone to rescue me almost causes me to burst out laughing, which would be painful on several accounts, so I choke it back.

Standing just on the edge of my vision is a short figure with mid length crimson hair billowing in the wind, as was her pitch black cloak the obscured almost everything else about her, were it not for her hands on her hips pulling the fabric back to reveal the loose dress underneath, also blood red, contrasting sharply with the black cloak and snow white skin.

My rival, closest friend, and a vicious flirt, Mariana. Moving faster than mortal eyes could follow, her palm slaps the paladin’s shield, sending him tumbling down the hillside. The fire mage had already started an escape spell, and was finishing it up as Mariana turned towards her. With wide eyes, the spell completed right before the vampire’s lunging grasp occupied the space the mage’s neck had a split second earlier. She walked back over, looked down at me, then strolled down the hill after the paladin. The screech of rent metal and the cries of a dying man briefly filled the air, before silence once again fell.

Mariana was hardly in a hurry, she could tell that I would live regardless at this point, now that hostels had been removed. She sinuously stalked back towards me, and leaned over with a smirk.

“Hello again, Emery. It seems you could use a hand?” Of course she has to offer help in the most suggestive way possible. This will be a long trip back to base.