Mythica, book 1, Chapter 17+18.

I'm making good progress on the book, so I'll post double chapters for you when I can.

Chapter 17.

Sabine settled back into her body, but before she could even open her eyes a blast of energy hit her. It was uncomfortable, but not exactly painful. The energy contained some dark mana which she tried to gather in an effort to refill her depleted reserves.

Something was wrong, and the mana felt off. While she could absorb some of it, much of the dark mana felt like it was tainted, and made her feel nauseous. Looking at her mana, Sabine could see the dark threads and golden flecks as normal, but some of the dark mana had a sickly green tinge to it.

Sabine tried to grasp onto the oddly tainted mana, but the threads resisted her efforts. As she watched, the corrupted threats latched onto the regular dark mana and began to consume it. The corruption was spreading itself like an infection in a wound. Sabine redoubled her efforts to force the corruption out of her body, but her efforts did nothing. As the corruption spread, Sabine began to feel her focus drift away as the corruption claimed her mana pool and the body it inhabited.

It was like drifting off to sleep, her mind was shutting down slowly, but Sabine didn’t feel the comfort of sleep, she only felt panic. This corruption was consuming who she was, and Sabine had no way to fight back. She thought about the new ability she had just unlocked, Rage of the Revenant, but it would be a week before she could tap into it once more.

A new, sharper pain flared inside Sabine, one that helped to bring her focus back. Looking at her mana, the corruption continued to consume the dark mana inside her. Something had changed now, the corruption burning and withering whenever it touched the flecks of light mana inside her.

The power infused in her being by the goddess Ana-Sett burned away the corruption wherever it touched. Once burned away, the normal dark mana remained, but unfortunately, the newly cleansed mana was susceptible to corruption once more. A battle raged inside her, the light mana purifying and cleansing the dark, but only to have it infected once more. The two forces were at parity, neither gaining ground over the other.

Sabine regained her focus enough to try and influence the battle inside her. She didn’t quite know what to do, but she wanted to fight. Her skill Channel Mana had evolved into Manipulate Mana which indicated that Sabine should have more control over the mana inside her now.

She took a moment to consider the battle inside her. It was, in a way, just like a normal battlefield. The dark mana was an army overrun easily by the forces of the corrupted mana, even going so far as to covert those soldiers into forces loyal to the enemy. Light mana was an elite cavalry unit riding to crush the enemy and liberate the forces that it had converted.

The light won the fight every time it met the corruption, but it had to come in contact with the corruption to do so. Given that it was only a small fraction of her overall mana pool, the light mana flecks were mostly floating around doing nothing. Once the light mana came in contact with the corruption, it could fight back. Neither side could find an advantage, and a stalemate of sorts was happening inside Sabine.

Sabine was a warrior, and she wouldn’t accept a stalemate on the battlefield, and she surely wouldn’t accept a stalemate with an enemy inside her her body. Trying to aid the light mana inside her, Sabine at first tried to force it toward the enemy, but it resisted her efforts. Remembering what had evolved the skill in the first place, Sabine stopped trying to use brute force and instead began to nudge the light mana toward the enemy, attempting to aid it rather than dominate it.

It began to work, the process wasn’t a quick one, but she helped guide the light mana toward the corrupted bits inside her. Initially, the mana resisted as it always had, but this time, it was like the mana sensed she was helping and relented just enough to allow Sabine some control. One by one, she nudged the bits of light mana toward the foe, each contact with the enemy purified the dark mana inside her. It took time, but the tide had turned, and Sabine was slowly cleansing herself of the corruption.

As the last of the corruption was cleansed, Sabine heard voices right next to her. She kept perfectly still and didn’t open her physical eyes. Instead, she reached out with her Eyes of Undeath. Two living beings were nearby, and a half dozen undead. Not a good situation and Sabine didn’t think that she had a good chance of fighting that many enemies barehanded.

“This one must be too damaged to reanimate, I’ll attempt again later, but if that doesn’t work, you can drag it to the refuse pile, maybe she can be used for parts when I attempt a greater creation,” A man’s voice called out. She recognized it as the older man who had been shouting down from the tunnel mouth during the attack inside the goblin cavern.

“Right, boss, where do you want us to take these other new ones?” Another voice asked.

“Hitch them to the wagons, and we can use them to pull the last of the bodies from the goblin cave over to here. Maybe I can stitch together a few of the zombies we lost and reanimate them again. We’ve got a lot more work to do before we’re ready for the next stage, and this fool,” the first man said as he kicked Sabine in the side, “well, she caused us a lot of trouble and delay. Nine goblins and six human zombies were destroyed because of her. I’ll figure out what’s keeping her from reanimating eventually. Now, leave me, I have work to do here, then I’ll join you later to plan for our next strike,” the man said.

Sabine could hear shuffling around her, and one of the men led the undead out of the room she was in. The Eyes of Undeath allowed her to see living and undead beings nearby, but it didn’t give her any vision of her surroundings. The older man remained nearby and was sitting down. Sabine could hear a quill scratching on paper, as he wrote something.

Sabine considered rising to attack the man, but there were too many variables right now and for all she knew, there were more humans and undead just out of the short range of her Eyes of Undeath. It wouldn’t do to have another death so soon after the last. Another message appeared as she lay there on the ground, waiting for the man to leave so she could make her move. It appeared that Gnessos approved of her performance at the trial, and she had attained the next rank.

Sabine Giroux.

Revenant, Rank 2.

Gnessos’ Favor: 182/1000.

Mana: 36%.

Traits:

1. Call of the Grave. This ability has improved. You can now track nearby unmarked graves and use them to summon your advisor.

2. Eyes of Undeath. This ability has improved, and the range has increased.

3. Soulbound. A portion of your power has been siphoned off and given to your advisor Hamish. Speak with Hamish to discover if he has gained any new abilities or knowledge due to this infusion of power. Normally, you can only summon Hamish once every 24 hours. When you attain a new rank, this timer is reset.

4. Enhanced body. By attaining rank 2, your revenant body has begun to improve. These improvements are a percentage increase over what the body possessed when it was still alive.

Strength: +25%.

Durability: +15%

Abilities:

1. Manipulate Mana. Your mana capacity has increased and mana efficiency for all abilities is improved by 2%.

2. Rapid Healing. New synergy has been developed. Your Mask of False Life now affects the visual appearance of your healing ability. Others will no longer be able to see the physical manifestation of your mana as it works to heal you.

A new ability has been unlocked, Stagger. This ability allows you to occasionally funnel even greater amounts of mana into any bound weapon. Once charged, the weapon can be used to strike the ground in front of the wielder, causing a 15-foot, cone-shaped wave of force to slam into your enemies. The wave of force will stagger your foes and make them move slower for the next 3 seconds. This ability scales with your rank. Gain more of Gnessos’ favor to become even more powerful.

It was an all-around improvement for Sabine. Her other abilities had all improved and the new Stagger ability would be great when facing a large number of enemies. She could slow some and take control over the flow of the fight. From the way Stagger was worded, it appeared to only work with a bound weapon. The only bound weapon that she know of was the one that she was supposed to receive as a reward for her recent trial. There was still the question of how she was going to summon the weapon, but once the guy nearby left, she might find enough time to figure it out.

After reviewing her new rank, Sabine noticed a quirk. It wasn’t until she reviewed her new abilities that the new range for Eyes of Undeath went into effect. Before, Sabine could still only sense the man seated nearby. Now, she could sense a bit further and felt more confident that there wasn’t a horde of undead and living enemies standing nearby and ready to pounce on her. With nothing else she could do, Sabine waited.

While she waited, Sabine continued to work on her mana. After the battle against the corrupted mana, she found it was becoming easier to feel the connection with her mana, but it was still a bit of a struggle to manipulate it. She could latch onto one thread of mana at a time and coax it into the direction she wanted it. Chaos still reigned inside her as the mana roiled in a wild manner, but one by one, she was grasping the threads of mana and guiding them into a smoother flow. For now, the results were minuscule, but the more she practiced, the better she was getting at it.

Your Manipulate Mana ability has improved. Your mana efficiency for all abilities is improved by 3%.

Her actions had been rewarded once again, and improving the efficiency of everything by an additional 1% gave her a visible incentive to keep working. While it was only a single percentage point, Sabine knew she could continue to improve on the overall percentage, giving her a perfect activity for when she had downtime. Maybe now, when she was traveling with someone like Orren, she wouldn’t get quite as annoyed. While the living members of her party rested, she could work on improving her mana.

Sabine had lost herself to the effort, and it took her a few moments to realize that the man had finished writing and had left the room. A quick peek showed that she was in a large workspace. Several wooden pallets had been laid upon the rough stone floor and a laboratory of sorts was built into the room’s back wall. Beakers and vials of strange liquids were stored, as well as jars of odd powders. Sabine had no idea what any of the ingredients were and she wasn’t in a hurry to find out.

The area around the lab portion of the room was meticulously tidy and not a speck of dust was seen on any of the containers or the shelves and counters they were stored on. That same level of cleanliness didn’t apply to the rest of the room or the pallet that Sabine lay upon.

Several similar, but now empty pallets were placed around Sabine’s. Old, dried gore and bloodstains covered the pallets and the floor around them. Sabine stood, happy that her mask of false life kept her and her clothes clean. It would only take the mask a minute or two to deal with the filth she had been lying in.

Standing up, Sabine found her first steps were wobbly and she didn’t quite feel comfortable in her borrowed body. It was likely the aftereffects of the battle that she had just waged inside her, combined with being reunited with the body again after a second death. She tried a few exercises and moved through some unarmed combat techniques. It worked, and after a few minutes, she felt like herself again and her body responded better than her original one had.

Checking herself over, Sabine was still dressed in the clothing and battered armor she had worn. It was good to see that her coin pouch had reappeared on her belt. There was no doubt that someone had taken it from her, but the enchantments placed on the pouch made it return to its true owner after a short time. Her short sword and dagger were nowhere to be seen. Since she was unarmed, now seemed like a good time as any to try and summon her new weapon. Sabine wanted to be armed before anyone discovered her.

Her first thought was to try and use her coin pouch to summon the weapon. The description had said the weapon would be summoned from the realm of the dead, and the coin pouch linked directly to her storage in that realm. As Sabine reached inside the coin pouch, she focused her mind on what she wanted to retrieve. Normally that worked when she wanted to pull out a coin, but in this case, she had no idea what kind of weapon she was trying to find.

In her mind, Sabine pictured her favorite weapon, a flail. As soon as that thought appeared, her hand closed over the grip of a weapon and pulled in from the coin pouch. The pouch, normally far too small for a weapon to be pulled from it, expanded just enough to accommodate her wishes. What she pulled from the pouch was incredible, it was a flail, but it was unlike any other that she had seen.

The handle was a foot and a half of sold, dark material, wrapped in black leather. Strong as steel, the material felt more like bone to Sabine’s touch than any kind of metal. A two-foot-long chain attached the head of the flail to the handle, the links of the chain made from the same dark, bone-like material. It gave a disturbing rattle as the links shifted when she moved it. The head of the flail was shaped to resemble a skull with large spikes sticking out of it. A new prompt appeared as she held her new weapon.

Reckoning. Forged of an unknown material, Reckoning is the embodiment of a revenant’s quest for vengeance. Bound to the revenant that summons it, Reckoning cannot be used by any other. Should someone try to take the weapon from you, they will immediately be afflicted with a necrotic curse until they release the weapon. If lost or destroyed, Reckoning will slowly reform in the land of the dead until it is ready for you to summon it once more.

This weapon will amplify any mana infused into it, and channel it into the type of damage the wielder wishes. Currently, the weapon can amplify mana damage by 10%. Reckoning can create crushing and piercing damage, but more damage types may be unlocked as you gain Gnessos’ favor.

This weapon will grow in power as you do, but beware, such powerful devices often contain a will of their own.

It was perfect. The flail felt like no other weapon Sabine had ever wielded. It was balanced just right and despite its rather long reach, Sabine had no trouble controlling it. When she pushed mana into the weapon, it drank it up greedily. Even when it reached the maximum it could handle, the weapon still tried to pull power from Sabine. She tried to cut off the flow, but Reckoning fought her, challenging her for control.

Cursed with a will of its own, Reckoning may be powerful, but Sabine was determined to be the master of this weapon. No weapon, even one likely forged by a god of death, was going to control her. Anger built inside Sabine as she fought the influence of Reckoning, the weapon whispering promises of endless rage, carnage, and destruction if she would just relent, and allow it control.

The struggle continued for several long minutes, but Sabine had pushed back against the influence of Gnessos himself and kept her free will. Even the spirit of the body she now inhabited couldn’t force her to obey, and she had also fought off the corrupting mana inside her. Slowly, Sabine asserted dominance over Reckoning. She could feel the weapon relent, allowing her control, but this wasn’t a complete surrender. Reckoning would be waiting, ready to challenge her again in the future.

Tying the flail to her belt, Sabine stood for a moment to gather her wits. The weapon’s will had been powerful, and she had felt the allure of what it offered. Something in her makeup as a revenant wanted to lose itself into a state of rage and just destroy everything it found. The weapon had felt this suppressed desire and stoked its flames to use against Sabine. It was no simple flail, and there was cunning in the will of the weapon, a cunning she would have to be on guard against at all times.

Their struggle had been a mental one, and thankfully, short enough that nobody had blundered into the room while she was distracted. Sabine tried to plan her next moves. She was trapped here, and from the way the walls, floors, and ceiling were carved out of solid rock, it was likely that she was underground once more. Maybe this was an offshoot of the goblin caves or connected to it in some way.

She needed to get out and warn the village of the true nature of the threat it faced. Sabine wanted to do that, but she also wanted something else, she wanted to deal with the mage that had filled her with corruption. Not only did she want to deal with the mage, but she also wanted to end both his living and undead servants.

There would be no running to the village for help. The enemy had destroyed her body, but Sabine was stronger now, and aware of what she faced. This time, she had the enemy at a disadvantage. Her foes thought she was nothing more than a corpse, but Sabine was so much more, and it was time to show these fools what she was capable of.

Chapter 18.

A quick check of her Eyes of Undeath didn’t reveal any nearby threats, so Sabine took the time to explore the room she was in. She was no alchemist, so the potions, unguents, and powders held no appeal for Sabine. There was one thing that might be of some use, the book that the man had been writing in. It turned out to be a personal journal, and once she touched it, Sabine could feel mana release in an explosion of power. The corrupted mana blast blew off a finger and damaged the rest of her hand.

This time, the corrupted mana didn’t try to infect Sabine’s mana pool, instead, it had spent itself completely in the destructive blast. The pain wasn’t too bad, and mana was already working to rebuild her lost finger. Something more was included in the blast, a disease created by the corrupted mana. It found no living tissue to grasp onto with Sabine’s undead form. To a living victim, the trap would have been deadly enough, causing damage and leaving them to rot from the disease, but to Sabine, it was only a minor inconvenience.

Her mana pool had been ticking up a percentage point at a time. With plenty of ambient dark mana in the area, it was refilled quickly. Her light mana was depleting, and there was none of it nearby to replenish what she lost. The blast would take some of her reserves to repair the damage and Reckoning had drunk deeply of her mana pool during their struggle, leaving her with just over 20% to work with. It wasn’t enough to face the entire horde of undead and the mage that commanded them, so while her reserves replenished as much as they could, Sabine perused the journal, flipping to the beginning.

He thinks us all fools. The others may fall for his lies, but I am Giramore the Great, and I can see what Szorlok’s ultimate plans for us are. Our life force and our magic will be taken by our “master” when the time is right, leaving behind only an empty husk. The other fools think Szorlok will share his power, allowing them to assist in his rule over a land of the undead, but he is not one to share power.

Today I leave his service, and I can only hope that Szorlok’s distraction with his quest will turn his eyes elsewhere. I will grow my power in the dark corners of the world, and once I have amassed my army, there will be none who can stand against me. Szorlok will become my plaything, and his life and magic will fuel my plans. First, though, I need to escape, I need to flee this stronghold and seek a place for myself.

A few have pledged loyalty, and more can be swayed by the coin I shall steal as I flee, but I must not fall into the same trap my master has. The living will eventually turn on you, only the undead can be trusted. Only the undead can be controlled with certainty.

Sabine skipped past more pages of ramblings from this Giramore about his claims of greatness and of becoming the supreme necromancer. Other than the knowledge of how to fight them, Sabine knew little about mages. She knew little, but there was one thing everyone knew, and it was that necromancy was a forbidden form of magic.

Necromancy had been forbidden for good reason and was often as deadly to its wielder as it was to necromancer’s victims. No wonder Gnessos and the other gods of undeath were meddling in the world of the living. From what she read, the result of the necromancers’ plans was the death of all the gods, the theft of their power, and the creation of a land of the dead.

As Sabine skimmed through, she could see that Giramore had journeyed here with three acolytes that wished to learn necromancy from him, as well as a half dozen mercenaries that didn’t care who they served as long as the coins kept flowing. When he arrived at the village, he had posed as a simple man from the city, looking to retire in the country. Gilroy had mentioned the elderly newcomer and was afraid for his safety. Little did the village know, that simple old man was a necromancer who saw their village as a handy supply of raw materials.

Why Giramore chose to stop in this area to complete his heinous work, the journal gave no clue. It did describe his actions so far. Giramore used the first batch of undead creations to storm the goblin village, using it as a test for his future attacks. The battle hadn’t gone well, and from reading between the lines, Sabine figured this Giramore the Great, wasn’t all that great of a necromancer. His undead creations were beaten back, and Giramore had lost most of his living followers as well. Only the two mercenaries, the ones with the crossbows that Sabine had the displeasure of meeting, remained.

The village actually helped Giramore when they attacked the goblins. While the goblins had beaten off the first attack, the second attack by the town militia had done considerable damage to the goblin tribe. Enough damage had been done that Giramore was finally able to breach their defenses. His victory over the goblins had happened recently and Giramore was now working on tracking down the scattered survivors of the goblin tribe.

With the bodies of the goblins, the militia, the inhabitants of outlying farms he had raided, and his fallen followers, Giramore had more than enough raw materials to storm Golden Harvest Village. The only thing that had held him back from attacking so far was the time it took him to animate the dead. Giramore was a necromancer of middling power, and he was limited in the number of dead he could animate each day.

There wasn’t much else of interest in the journal. Sabine had no desire to learn necromancy, and the only interesting tidbit was the difficulty in raising the various types of undead. Apparently, only the recently deceased made good subjects for all but the most powerful of necromancers. Raiding the village graveyard to create an army of skeletons was thankfully not a possibility, at least not for a necromancer of Giramore’s skill. Goblins also were troublesome for Giramore to raise as undead. They took the same amount of power to animate as a human, but their small stature made them less than effective combatants.

With his limited power, it looked like Giramore, despite his claims of greatness, wasn’t able to do much more than raise the simplest forms of undead, zombies. Dangerous in large numbers, zombies didn’t seem all that powerful, at least the zombies created by Giramore didn’t. His journal did let slip one tidbit of information that Sabine could use.

If Giramore was killed, all his creations would be destroyed as well, something about necromantic energy needed to be tied to a controlling will. Sabine didn’t understand a lot of what she read, but she did at least know what she was dealing with now. She was up against two mercenaries, Giramore, and after the destruction that she had wrought in her previous battle, around twenty or so undead.

A final check of the room didn’t reveal any useful items, and her other weapons must have been stored somewhere else. The journal didn’t state that Giramore’s zombies were able to wield weapons, so she figured that her gear was likely stashed wherever the mercenaries called home. Giramore had set up shop in a cave complex near the goblin tribe, so Sabine had only been taken at least a short distance from where she had fallen.

Her mana continued to replenish slowly, and Sabine was beginning to worry that she would be found before she was ready. Concentrating, she focused on the ball of mana inside her, using her will to reach out and gather the threads of ambient mana more quickly. It was hard work, and more often than not, a thread of mana would slip past her before she could coax it to join the roiling ball of mana that represented her power and her life force. She still wanted to take her time and learn to refine her mana, but for now, she needed to gather it quickly.

Sabine stopped as she sensed a living being approaching the door. Her Eyes of Undeath couldn’t tell her who it was, but she had served a lifetime as a mercenary and could hear the unmistakable sounds of poorly secured gear and weapons rattling. It was one of the mercs approaching, and he was alone. A perfect chance to try out her new weapon.

Her target wasn’t expecting anyone to ambush him, so he opened the door and walked into the room as a normal person would. Sabine hid behind the opening door, infusing Reckoning with a bit of mana. The weapon greedily drank in the mana, giving off a dark glow as it was infused. Sabine was ready for another challenge from the weapon, but it seemed to be playing nicely for the time being.

The mercenary never saw her coming as he moved toward Giramore’s desk and started gathering things for his employer. As Sabine struck, the mercenary caught movement out of the corner of his eye and tried to leap away from the attack. He was too slow, and the spiked head of the flail slammed into the back of his neck. The blow would have likely been a deadly one on its own, but when the mana released and shattered his spine, there was no chance of survival.

With one down, it was time for Sabine to move. The man would be missed at some point, and she wanted to do as much damage as she could before the alarm was raised. Just outside the door to the room she was in, Sabine found another large cavern, similar to the one the goblins had occupied. She was at the far end of the cavern, and the room that she had just left was the only door in the place. On the cavern floor, several tents had been placed beside a pair of parked wagons.

There were a few torches mounted here and there on the walls, but the lack of light did nothing to hamper Sabine’s vision. At the opposite end of the cavern, Sabine could see a single passageway heading off into the distance. It was more than likely the entrance to this cavern, and other than that, there wasn’t much else of note in the area, save for the half dozen undead being hitched to one of the wagons like a team of mules. The other mercenary was working on tying them into the harness, while the necromancer dabbed something from a vial onto the newly created zombies.

It was the best chance Sabine was going to get, so she crept forward, trying to stay in the shadows as she closed in on her foes. Both the living opponents were too caught up in their work, not expecting any threat from nearby. Other than the six zombies being hitched to the wagon, Sabine only saw four more at the far end of the cavern, guarding what she presumed was the entrance.

Most of the surviving horde must have been stashed inside the goblin cave. From there, they could hold off any village militia that might stumble inside. Just like what happened with Sabine, if someone entered the gobline cave, Giramore and his reinforcements could cut off their escape.

“What’s taking Jarvin so long? I’m telling you, boss, he’s too dumb to figure out what potion you’re talking about,” the mercenary said.

“Nonsense, even that idiot can spot a rose-colored potion among all the others. He does need to hurry though; the zombies have to be properly sealed with that elixir when they’re as damaged as these are, otherwise, they’ll fall apart as soon as they start pulling. Wait, what is she doing out here! You idiot, the woman is alive, no wonder I couldn’t summon her as a zombie,” Giramore said, finally spotting Sabine when she was only twenty feet away.

The mercenary cursed and reached into the wagon for a weapon while Giramore pointed at Sabine and ordered the two zombies not yet hitched to the wagon to attack. He then pulled a dagger and frantically began cutting the other zombies from the harness while shouting for those near the entrance to help him. The quartet of zombies at the entrance to the cavern responded immediately, but the fight would be over one way or another before they arrived. Sabine concentrated on the nearest target, the pair of unharnessed zombies.

Sabine didn’t waste any mana on the two stumbling zombies, both had originally been goblins and the damage they had taken during their initial demise made them even less of a threat. The flail spun faster and faster as Sabine closed in. A lifetime of training had perfected her timing, and she lashed out at just the right moment. The head of the flail slammed into the first goblin, crushing his head and only slowing the flail a small bit before it hit the second goblin in the neck.

The first zombie goblin was down, but the blow to the second wasn’t fatal and required a second strike from Sabine to finish it off. Her slight delay allowed the mercenary to pull his crossbow from the back of the wagon, the man was frantically loading it while Sabine closed the distance. He managed to raise the weapon and fire just as Sabine arrived and introduced him to Reckoning. Trying to dodge the shot caused Sabine to aim her strike low. The flail hammered into the mercenary’s leg and the thin leather armor he was wearing did little to soften the force of the blow. Several of the spikes on the flail penetrated deeply into the bone.

Sabine could almost feel the flail’s glee as it hit. It might have been her imagination, but the weapon seemed to move a bit on its own, making small adjustments to hit her intended target and do the most damage it could. With a heave, Sabine pulled the head of the flail from the final mercenary’s leg and spun to face the necromancer.

The mercenary screamed and collapsed to the ground, blood pumping from the wound. He wasn’t going to last long and was in too much pain to be any further threat to Sabine. Giramore had ignored the fight and was frantically cutting at the thick leather harness, trying to free another zombie. Spotting Sabine approaching, Giramore gave up on his efforts to free his undead minions.

“How did you survive?” Giramore asked. She could feel power building in the man as he spoke.

“I didn’t” Sabine responded as she stalked toward the necromancer.

“You may have survived the attack, and the crossbow bolt sticking out of your chest, but I am a necromancer, and your life is but a plaything for me. What remains of your life is just a delicious morsel waiting to be ripped from your soul,” Giramore taunted said as he continued to work his magic. Darkness began to spread over his face and his eyes turned black as power surged from the man.

Waves of energy began to form, and the power latched onto the wounded mercenary. His screams of pain redoubled when the spell of the necromancer began to drain his life. Sabine could see the connection; the life force being pulled out to power the necromancer’s magic. It was different than Sabine’s magic, and it felt corrupt, a perversion of the dark mana she controlled.

As the magic hit Sabine, she felt the corruption try to latch onto her once more. This time, it didn’t try to infect and raise her as an undead minion, instead, it sought to pull the life from her body. Unfortunately for Giramore, there was no life force inside Sabine for it to harvest. The connection still burned as Sabine’s mana responded and fought back against the corruption of the necromancer. She could see the confusion in Giramore’s eyes as his magic failed to affect her, but then his eyes widened, and a cruel grin appeared on his face.

“Ah, that is your secret, you are undead. No worries, I am the master of undeath, and you will obey me,” Giramore said. The magic that the necromancer was ushing shifted form, and instead of trying to drain her lifeforce, or corrupt her mana, Giramore’s spell tried instead to replace Sabine’s will with his own.

“I am so much more than a simple undead, and my mind has been tested by beings much more powerful than you. Die Giramore, and trouble this world no longer,” Sabine said, infusing her flail with mana for the next swing.

With a sickening crunch, the flail crushed Giramore’s skull. The man slumped to the ground dead; the zombies in the cavern collapsing as the link to their master was severed. Sabine checked on the wounded mercenary, ready to finish him, but Giramore’s greedy magic had already drained the last of the man’s life.

With the rush of the battle over, Sabine started to feel pain in her chest. A crossbow bolt was lodged deep, but her mana was already forcing it out and repairing the damage it had done. Hurrying things along, Sabine ripped the bolt out, letting it clatter to the stone floor of the cavern. She had only infused one hit with her mana, and even with the ongoing healing to her damaged body, Sabine had 41% of her mana remaining.

She was done here, and the goblin corpses would provide more than enough left ears to satisfy Hammerhead’s bounty. Sabine also gathered up Giramore’s journal, it should at least shed some light on what had happened here and prove the threat she was sent to deal with had been ended for good. A check of the rest of the cavern turned up a sizeable stash of coins, though what had already been paid to the mercenaries was hidden too well for her to find.

Between what she had found and the bounty, she should have enough to get a decent set of armor and whatever other gear she might need for the next bounty. Sabine’s current gambeson was a wreck and wasn’t offering much protection at this point, so she dropped it among the militia armor. Leaving the cavern, Sabine found that she was only a short distance from the goblin cave.

Another quick inspection there confirmed that all the zombies had been dealt with when Giramore had died. Nothing in the way of loot was found, but more goblin left ears were waiting there for her to harvest. She didn’t know if Hammerhead gave a bonus for a job well done, but this should more than enough to qualify her for one.