[ IP ] Un Immortalis

The long winter night had been my cover for reaching the guild by morning. I had intended to pass through the little village, it's homes quiet and dark, but warm light still spilled out of the pub, framing drunk farmers as they stumbled towards their homes. As I approached, I felt a power, an energy an energy in my bones, tingling up the back of my spine and flowing down to my fingertips. The quiet of the village gave way to cries, pleas, desperate voices calling out for help. How could I refuse? The guild was n't going anywhere. 
 
 The ruins were n't difficult to find, just downstream of the village itself, the tumbled stones and fallen pillars overgrowing with grass and bushes marked out a much more ancient settlement. The square foundations of houses surrounded a larger building, a temple, in the centre of which still stood an alter, now under the branches of a willow rather than the high beams of a vaulted ceiling. The alter concealed a mechanism, but it's rusted gears had seized long ago, so I removed the stone slabs, already displaced by the willow's roots, to reveal the narrow stairs down to the ancient catacombs. 
 
 The deep dark of the underground room hid them - the bones of the ancients - carefully stacked and preserved in the style of the First Empire. Their cries called out to me, they felt my presence, yearned to live again, jealous of the drunken farmers squandering their short lives, desperate to see once more the light of the sun. I drew up the power within, and it crashed like a tidal wave into the cold, tingling energy of death which hung around my physical form, bursting forth into streaks of blue lightning which illuminated the pillars and alcoves, the chambers, coffins and dried bones. Yes, I would help them to live again. 
 
 No commands, or controls were necessary, their souls only needed the point of entry, the breach, from which they could spill from the afterlife. My very presence here, in this secluded domain of the long dead, weakened the veil, and it was child's play to direct and flow the currents of magic to a pinprick point, a breach, a hole into the beyond. My power rushed in and pushed out, widening the gap, and acting as a beacon for those desperate, pleading voices. A wave, a torrent of souls flooded the room, crashing against the pillars, seeking and swirling, finding their graves and bodies. I bathed in their pasts, the memories and feelings, their voices and emotions washing over me. 
 
 A living soul caught my attention, shining bright amongst the flowing energy, I turned back to the entrance, expecting one of the farmers, out for a late night stroll. Instead stood a Witchunter from the guild, crossbows ready, blessed silver bolts loaded, blocking the exit. Had they known I was coming for them? How long had he been shadowing me? Or had he been in the village, sensing my presence as I drifted past, entranced by the call of the dead? I doubted he would give me the opportunity to ask, and was proven correct as he raised his bows. 
 
 `` Abomination!'' He cried, `` Necromancer! Lich! The God of life abhors you!'' 
 
 I knew the words, the curse they were bound by their order to utter, to lend blessing to the kill. Before he could utter the next sentence, I drew the power into my fists, manifesting as gleaming blue electricity, I flung it towards him as thundering, flashing bolts of energy. The crackling energy burst against him and his spasming muscles let fly the silver crossbow bolts which flew wide, impacting in the wall behind me. He recovered, dropping the bows and I knew he was no novice; too many had fallen before me while struggling in vain to reload their precious blessed bolts. 
 
 He drew his blade, engraved with the symbols of the seven Gods it could banish the undead. If they were sufficiently weakened. He moved faster than I expected, and the shining blade burned as it scraped against my old bones. Switching footing he pressed the advantage, connecting again. Stunned, I projected magic outwards as a wall of force and noise, shaking the stones, toppling ancient pillars and sending showers of dust all around as the room reverberated with the booming roar of power. He stumbled backwards in shock and nearly fell, I readied another bolt of lightning but he dived aside before I cast it, so I slipped back into the darkness, reigning in the cracking magic, bending space and afterlife, concealing it in a shroud of death itself. Darkness consumed the room again, but I could see the glowing, living soul. Now we would fight on my terms. 
 
 I saw him fumble in his clothing, finding an enchanted torch. He spoke a word and it burst to life, but it's orange glow did n't reach my position. I toyed and plucked and folded at the space, turning the light back round, concentrating it in a smaller circle, deepening the shadows of the catacombs. He was scared now, I could sense it. I considered hiding for a few minutes, perhaps racing past him, unnerving him into making mistakes. Fear would be my ally. But I remembered the souls, freshly plucked, seeping back into their old bodies, glowing a dim blue in my vision, almost hidden by the bright glow of the living hunter. I reached my power back out to them - now they were here, they only needed a little more, just a little magic to bind their bones together and contain their souls once more. 
 
 Soon their scraping, rattling, chattering bones caused a dusty cacophony to echo in the room, and I saw the hunter, turning this way and that, trying to find the source of the noise all around him. Soon the first skeletons took shape, rising up, standing to attention, their souls calling out to me: *Thank you master! What is your will? * 
 
 And I replied: *Kill this mortal. * 
 
 I retreated to an alcove and watched with amusement as the skeletons raised towards him from all sides, more and more of them raising up from the bone hoard. The hunter cut down the first one, then the first dozen, but they were overwhelming him now; rushing in from all sides, cackling, chattering, clawing at him with skeletal fingers, gouging his eyes, tearing at his flesh, soon he fell, surrounded on all sides by my legion. And soon he stood again, sword in hand, ready now to serve, not to hunt.
