The mercenary’s armor was none existent. The crumbled pieces of iron shed to avoid them digging in. The mercenary's face was severe and rough. He was tall, limbs lanky, and body lithe and deadly.

The mercenary charged the giant, his feet pounding the scorched earth, throwing dust and ash into the air. His body was bathed in a mixture of black and white: ash and mist.

The giant lifted up its inhuman weapon, a massive two-handed sword that looked more like a slab of metal than anything resembling an actual weapon. The metallic slab with a sharp edge came alive in a burst of black fire that swallowed light that dared get close enough.

The warriors lunged at each other. Steel bathed in black flames, and claws swallowed by black ash.

The mercenary, in an overly telegraphed move, swung a black clawed fist at the giant.

The giant, in a feat of unexpected dexterity, pulled its blade up in a vertical manner to guard against the attack. It waited for the black-clawed mercenary to slice his fist in two.

The mercenary’s fist opened, claws catching the blade's edge before it could slice his hand in two.

Black ash swirled around his arm, and the blade cracked, sending out a shockwave of air. The spot where he caught the sword’s edge crumbled, layering the blade's core with spiderweb-like fractures.

The black flames that danced around the metal slab flared to life, doubling in size, and crawled up the mercenary’s arms.

The mercenary jumped back, momentarily retreating as the black flames that crawled around him disappeared into his arms. He looked at the slab of metal, and a grin made its way onto his face. It cracked! I cracked a two-finger thick slab of metal!

The awe was instantly replaced with pain.

“Shit!”

He looked up at his shoulders, red and sore. His own attacks seemed to be doing damage to him. His normal muscles couldn’t handle the strain.

The two warriors circled each other. Looking for weaknesses. The mercenary saw none. That thing isn’t even human. Its anatomy, or anatomies, is a mess. And that strange red velvet seems to be holding it together. Where do I attack?

The mercenary felt something inside him. It called out for him to evoke it. While still paying attention to the beast, he looked inside himself. He felt something caged, trapped. And he let it out, freeing it from its prison.

The mercenary’s claws darkened even more. The once dark appearance became impossible dark. His black talons erupted in flames made of shifting darkness. Oh shit. This was yours, wasn’t it?

A smile crept up to his face, and he clawed at the air. Ash and dark flames swirled in the shape of claw marks. The materialized rends shot towards the undead.

The giant stomped the ground. A shockwave erupted from its “feet,” dispelling the flames before they could reach it. Damn. Got to get closer.

The mercenary slowly approached the undead. When he got close enough to negate the giant’s reach, he started darting in and out of its guard. All the while, he sent in grazing attacks with his claws. The purpose wasn’t strength, but contact and time of contact. The giant’s flesh sizzled and burned dark with its own twisted fire.

When the mercenary was about to launch another quick attack, the giant countered. At that moment, the mercenary had built too much momentum. The undead swung its black-fire-bathed sword in a wide horizontal arc, ready to cut the mercenary in half.

Black ash swirled to life. Protecting where the giant's sword was about to strike. Instead of being cut in half, the black-clawed mercenary was pushed back, his feet gliding over the ground slick with ash and blood. The black ash protected him from the worst, but he still felt bruises forming under his skin, a few ruptured organs, and a rib stabbing him in the lungs. Gods, this is what? The fifth rib I've broken or cracked today?

The mercenary jumped back with the dwindling embers of his strength, hand to his side where he was struck. His breath came out ragged and uneven. Each shallow cloud of air felt like a dagger was being shoved in his lungs. Shit. It looks pretty burnt up, but I’ve taken enough damage as it is. I can't endure anything else if I can't fucking breathe.

The mercenary felt an icy grip on his insides. Even with magic, I’m not strong enough. Can I even defeat this thing? Can anyone? No. no, I have to run. But how? I’m in an open field…

The mercenary felt another tug on his awareness. A presence communed with him, but not with words. It was the stuff of thoughts, feelings, and primordial ideas. The mercenary breathed in until his lungs felt like they were going to burst. The ash around the battlefield was pulled to him like a leaf into a vortex, swirling around him.

The sellsword let out a slow breath, releasing a grey fog around himself that obscured him by sight and presence. Even the sound of his pounding footsteps was partially damped.

The mercenary bolted towards the unburnt forest, clutching his increasingly painful abdomen. Even with the adrenaline, it hurt. And the adrenaline was starting to wear-off. He was already in a long battle beforehand. Each step he took sent pain to his wounds and a dagger to his right lung. The regions where the black arms attached themselves started to smart, and his right shoulder was increasing in pain.

With each step, the mercenary’s black claws dissipated into ash. The black ash then receded into his stumps. The bleeding stopped, but the mercenary felt something inside him shift. It felt like the power he awakened had burrowed deep inside himself. It hid, waiting for him to evoke it.

The battle was near Berrowden. I’ll head there. They have to have a healer of some sort or if I’m lucky, a miracle-worker.

The mercenary looked up at the sun through the snow-covered trees. If it's the afternoon, then that should be east. Berowden’s to the east.

The mercenary vanished into the forest, to the direction where he thought Berowden lied.

The Man Clad in Black looked from above the ashes of the battlefield, standing on thin air. A pity. I thought he would’ve fought more. I would’ve never gambled on that bloodline’s powers surviving. And in a random sellsword at that.

The Man tugged at the connection he placed on the undead, sending a command. [Forget him. Eat the stragglers.]

I’ve already gotten what I needed.

“This.” Said the Man. “Will be interesting. I’ll let his powers mature and integrate with him more before collecting. Unripe fruit has its appeal, but it would be… Wasteful.”

Anticipation built inside the Man Clad in Black as he walked down the air on invisible steps.

The Exorcist had tracked down the leech all the way from three towns over, but he was too late.

This job… It always gets to you. You can’t always get there in time, and you can’t save everyone. Even just one soul is enough. If you can at least save one person, you’ve done it… But did I save this boy? Is he really going to better off alive after the slaughter of his friends? He doesn't seem to have any kin left living.

The Exorcist had relocated the boy from where he fainted into another one of the tunnels. He couldn’t let him wake up near the corpses of his friends and of the monster that murdered them.

The clean up after the job was always messy. Unpleasant really. The monstrosities an Exorcist dealt with were forever born from humanity or a distant cousin of it. The children that were slaughtered had to be cremated or else could rise again, twisted, and corrupted. Parts of the spirit could live on, and even base parts of the soul could continue to persist after death. But they were broken, shattered, and splintered in ways that only left the ugliest parts of the psyche intact. The aspects that were envious, angry, or resentful. The primal and dark sides that ushered in destruction.

Darkness was almost always at the core of it all. For everywhere that light had reached, it had gotten there late. The core of the soul was dark and alien.

The Exorcist put the two children’s bodies next to each other. One was mostly a pile of viscera and the other a dried husk. But this wasn’t the worst part of cleaning up. While the bodies could be burned with a flash of fire, the spirits had to be cleansed more gently. Their tether to the physical plane had to be cut off first, so they had to be burned. If even a single grain of dust from their bones was left behind, they would linger and suffer for longer than they deserved. Nine, bloody, Hells. No one deserves this.

"From one came the many.

"And the many shall return to the one.

"By the pull of the Pale. By the pull of the Maelstrom.

"Return to the turn of the Wheel.

"Fate bind thee."

The Exorcist chanted a prayer. It was not to the gods, not to Oriath or any other deity. It was to them: children barely adults whose lives were snuffed out prematurely. The prayer was a form of exorcism that left their spirits in peace instead of in anguish. It cleansed and cleared away their traumas. It established a connection, telling their spirit of the death of its murderer. The spirits would then have to be guided towards some sort of resolution.

It was hardly a true peace.

Traumatic deaths left the spirit in a state similar to biological fight or flight. Spirits were highly adaptable, but plasticity left them susceptible to their environment. They were left yearning for the power to fight what destroyed their host bodies. The closest thing to power they knew is what ended their corporeal forms, and as such, they mimicked it. Even though some strains of vampirism or undeath were not actually contagious in the formal sense, they still spread through a twisted resonance.

Innocents killed by a monster gazed into the abyss in search of power. It took notice and gave them what they wanted. They, in turn, became monsters, and the cycle started anew.

Exorcists worked to stop the vicious cycle that left innocents as semblances of their murderers, guiding them towards the light. But then again, that light was not true peace. It was instead a storm of daggers that waited to tear away the precious memories of a lost soul.

It was the Maelstrom.

It was waiting for their souls as the Exorcist prayed. And it was hungry.