Twisted Fate Chapter 8: The Light

> "Yes," admitted Amy, before realising why he was asking. He was a healer, after all, and she'd been told earlier about healing magic harming the undead. > "Then may you be comforted and healed by the Mother's embrace," replied the priest, his magic washing over Amy before she had the chance to object. Uh oh. > It had no impact at all. Phew! > The fact that it had done nothing at all probably meant that the partial effect it usually had came from her magical girl powers, which was promising for using those powers to learn to interact with mana, but it meant that she had no information on whether the spell would have healed or harmed had she still had her powers. It also means she did in fact lose the part of the soul where she got her powers from, and didn't just have her powers revoked. > Amy was simultaneously relieved, alarmed and surprised. Relieved because they hadn't immediately struck her down, which was her worst fear, but alarmed because they hadn't immediately recognised her, which implied they didn't know what was going on, and surprised because they were surprised. Hmmm... > I assume my magical girl powers were the only part of my soul that responded to mana, so they got torn out. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than whatever I was thinking. > "Despite your resistance, the magic of the necromancer proved fatal," answered the Light. "The bindings that link soul to life have been broken, and they are beyond even our power to restore." Welp. Crap. > Divine as we may be, we cannot create true life. The creation of a soul and the binding of that soul to a body is a miracle of a higher order than our own Hmmm... > One better protected may weather for longer, but the degradation can never be prevented completely. Even a lich, the highest order of undead, is not immune; such creatures invariably grow increasingly obsessed as a singular purpose gradually consumes their existence. Oh my. > your soul is housed in a container explicitly designed to contain a soul and only lacks the proper links between soul and life I know you said not to put expect any continuity between stories, but I still feel that like I would be remiss not to mention that there *is* precedent in Unborn Hero for it being *possible*, though extremely, *extremely* difficult, to reforge the links between life and soul after they have once been broken. (Assuming that is indeed what happened in that part in Unborn Hero.) > The feeling of attention faded, but Amy's body remained frozen in place. The tiredness pushed down harder, too, like a comfortable blanket. A promise that all she needed to do was to sleep, and she would wake up at peace. > She fought it as hard as she could, knowing full well that should she fall asleep, she'd never wake up at all. Welp. > The paralysis of the Light shattered. Nice!

Tim Burget