The fortified camp was being torn down around me, soldiers bundling things into jeeps, Awakened teams flowing in and around the camp - it was like someone had kicked an anthill.

George was next to me one moment, then dragged away the next, moved towards the civilian section of the slowly forming convoy. Kendra popped up, along with another mountain of a man, a dodgy looking fellow with similar features to her, and another woman in camouflage that looked vaguely familiar.

“You’re with us newbie.” Kendra said shortly. “Try not to let the skills melt what’s left of your personality. Is your talisman done?” I nodded. “Yes.” I couldn’t quite keep the tinge of pride out of my voice, and Kendra grunted.

“Good. You and Cuan are going to be in charge of keeping me safe, keeping Laura safe” She indicated the other woman in camo. “Ken can take care of himself, but you will help if he needs it. Just… do whatever to disrupt the Confederate mages and- One sec.”

She pressed a finger over her headset, and then swore colourfully. “Change of plans. The convoy is going to be ready in half an hour, but the gate just spat out another zombie horde which is charging on over here. The Confederacy is sending their own hordes to bog us down as well, so the Awakened are being deployed now, so let’s move.”

We rushed back towards the town. In the distance, a great swarm of flying undead had begun to fill the sky, back-lit by the sun as it moved towards the horizon.

It looked… oddly inspiring, spinning formations of skulls unfolding like flowers across the sky.

I picked myself out of a crater, my ears ringing and once more exposed to the elements. My satchel had survived, thankfully. Around me, other people were picking themselves up off the ground, or rushing forward, or rushing away with wounded people.

I closed my hand around the rod I had brought out of the depths, and pulled out the black glass plate. A moment later, my body felt like it was on fire as I forced the power out of the rod and into the plate.

“Oh… Polyhymnia. Sing, thy chorus across the heavens, a bright song.” In the hands of a mage, whatever searing flame or brilliant lightning they called up would swallow the sky.

“Oh muse, our prayers bear to the final shore, where the sea is dark as wine, and pour out our pleas”

SYNTHESISE SPELL: DESTRUCTIVE CONJURATION, HELL-FLAME, INFERNAL REALM. OFFERING FOUND. BRIDGING LIFE REQUIREMENT. ADVANCING SPELL RANK BY TWO STEPS. CONJURATION ELEMENT CHANGED TO PLASMIC INFERNO.

“… in the halls of the ever-dying”

The System howled in my ears, or maybe it was me - The moment I had finished the short prayer, the rod had exploded, shrapnel punching into me and a searing beam of plasma had punched through the reforming formation of flying skulls.

My heart thundered in my chest as I dragged myself up, and the plate glowed cherry red with heat where it lay on the ground. I scrabbled for my satchel, and pulled out the newly formed paper talisman, even as other people started throwing up defensive skills around me, until I was enclosed by barriers on all sides. A few token barriers had popped up above me, but that didn’t matter right now.

I didn’t pray this time. The air was already becoming charged with a faint sulphurous taste, and I had at best twenty seconds before the backlash from Hell for stealing their power made me regret that decision. Or maybe they would charge my interest.

My blood spilled on the paper as I slashed open my palm with the scalpel.

SYNTHESISE SPELL: CONSTRUCTIVE BANISHMENT, BLOOD TO HELL VORTEX.

The stench in the air intensified massively for a moment, before a garish yellow portal appeared above the page and began sucking up my blood. Unfortunately, while the paper had to do with worship generally, it was a much worse fit than the glass plate.

I was still sitting there and bleeding myself ten minutes later as the battle for magical supremacy over the sky above the town finished up - in our favour, which had been the whole point. The Plasmic Inferno had disrupted the centre of the skull formation, and like all things born of hell, it lingered.

The rest of the fight, in fact, boiled down to much the same thing. Complete with comments from other backliners about ‘compensating’ and ‘lack of endurance’. Some of the quips were genuinely funny.

Other large scale magics crashed down on enemy positions as we slowly pulled back from the edge of the town. Kendra and her team occasionally dropped by to fend off a pack of ghouls or other fast undead that managed to slip by the other front liners, and to deliver updates.

Our flanks were steady, but the confederate numbers had almost doubled in the past hour, and were projected to double again - and that wasn’t counting the waves of undead they summoned, or the spirits, or the slowly rising number of undead pouring through the gate as it collapsed.

I felt bitter and disappointed as we passed down streets I had known since I was a child.

“Why…” I muttered, walking along. “I just want to go home and lie in my bed.” Between the adrenaline rush and the joy of having honest-to-god magic, the whole thing had seemed less like a nightmare and a lot more fun.

Cuan was walking next to me, carrying my other talismans as I bled into a garish rip in reality. He muttered “Well, if you want to, nobody can stop you… You would die, of course, when the Gate breaks and the town sinks.”

I glared at him, and kept walking along with the convoy.

We could see the gate break. The fighting and my payment had long since stopped. The sky became a thousand colours, not all of which there were names for. A mountain rose, strange liquids pouring down it sides, and unfolded like an evil flower.

The crashing sound of its thunderous union with our world was louder than any thunder, any bomb, as the town I was born and raised in sank away into the planar depths below, taking almost 15,000 Black Gate Confederates with it.

We kept marching until we reached the next town that hadn’t been torn apart by the flash war that had just taken place. There were trains to a nearby city, helicopters for the badly injured and buses for the locals.

I fell asleep next to Kendra’s party, empty inside.