Vigor Mortis

Another screech shakes the forest as I watch a torn-off chunk of Mateo's soul disappear down the vrothizo's gullet. With him and Netta dead, our ability to strike back at the flying monster is next to nil. Orville is still unconscious, and from my brief glimpse at the monster's absurdly tough hide, I don't know if he would be able to hurt it with one of his arrows anyway.

Mateo's soul is pretty fucked up; Netta was killed by one of the wings, dead because she was a little too slow to duck and had a third of her skull carved off. Mateo, however, was bitten in half. His corpse is missing an arm and most of his torso, head and legs both still technically attached to the same body but without a spine between them. A solid third of his soul is outright missing in a single bite. It might be enough to function, but who knows exactly what parts of himself the guy is going to be missing.

Sword cake guy... er, Alan, is handling the deaths of his teammates fairly professionally, at least, but with his sword destroyed I'm not sure how much good he'll be in a fight. If that thing divebombs us again, we'll need him to be ready.

"Norah," I order. "Sword. Now."

"W-what?" Norah stammers, glancing my way.

I grab Penelope and Orville, yanking them away from the newly-created clearing of felled trees and tossing them behind cover right before another spray of black bone shards crashes down around us. It tears right through my armor as I try to leap out of the way, and I get a few nasty gashes in my legs.

"Throw me your sword!" I snap.

She recovers from the shock of the attack, thank fuck, and does as I say without further questioning. I shove one of my hungering shards into the blade and then throw it back at Alan.

"Alan! Catch!"

He does so without even looking my way, nodding in acknowledgment as his eyes stay peeled on the canopy, face hard. His team and his friends are dead, and he's out for revenge. Good. He's pretty much the only one of us that stands a chance at killing that thing. Another spray of shards explodes around us, but I keep myself and my team in cover.

"Penelope, ETA to Orville?" I snap.

"Two minutes, as a conservative estimate. I assume that means the others are dead?"

"Very dead, yes."

"Two minutes and ten seconds, then," Penelope says. "You're going to be a lot more important. Hold still."

I scowl, but do as she says. Is there something I can do? I rack my brain for strategies. The vrothizo is up in the air again, pestering us with more ranged attacks, but no doubt it's going to divebomb us again soon. So if it's going to charge right at us...

"Whatever buff you're casting, give it to Norah," I tell her, shoving my speartip with an entire cluster of hungering shards. "Norah, when that thing comes down on us again, plant and reinforce my spear. Let the motherfucker impale itself."

Norah nods in assent, finally having met back up with our cluster after getting knocked over a couple times by the incoming scattershot. Penelope hits Norah with a spell and she takes my spear, moving in towards the monster's likely next target: Alan. The vrothizo like to go after the bigger-souled targets first, and Alan is definitely the strongest one here... other than the vrothizo itself.

I fucking warned everyone this thing is high threat level. That means stronger than us!

A lot stronger, really. I am definitely looking forward to this meal. There's no chance I'm letting this fucking thing get away, or get the better of me.

"It's diving again!" I announce. "Coming from aft-port!"

I point, everyone but Norah and Alan getting themselves flat to the ground. I am well aware that there is a solid chance this thing has more than two strategies and we are all about to get completely fucked, but we're just going to have to prepare as best we can and hope we're fast enough when that inevitably happens.

The dive comes. With so many collapsed trees all around us, I can see its approach this time and really get a good look at this monster. Pitch black, like every other vrothizo has been, it descends as a crescent shadow against the trees. Wide and flat, its wings are splayed outward like a giant bat. The front side of the bones giving them shape juts out through the skin, creating an obsidian-bladed edge with magical energy flowing through it like water. The creature barely seems to have limbs, so I don't know how it would land from the air. Claretta reported that vrothizo never seem to sleep, so perhaps it never does. The monster opens its jagged-toothed mouth as the dive levels off, and in an instant all that speed it had been gathering is turned directly towards us.

Or more accurately, towards Alan. Norah is ready, however, bracing the spear against the ground just in time to have it tear into the monster's wing. Its own speed and weight used against it, Norah's talent prevents the spear from snapping as it gouges through the beast. I may have miscalculated how truly massive the vrothizo is, however. Even with my many shards tearing the life from it, my tendrils find no purchase on the soul as I lie on my back, the wing passing barely a couple feet above me.

Worse, my spear gets stuck inside the wing, the tip pushed through the membrane and clear out the other side. As the vrothizo passes us, it takes my weapon with it... and therefore my last idea on how to kill the damn thing.

Along with Alan's life.

Perhaps he was blinded by rage and grief, perhaps he made a miscalculation, or perhaps the vrothizo was simply too fast for him. I wasn't watching and didn't see, but he's dead now, one arm and his entire head disappearing down the vrothizo's throat. I do note, at least, that he managed to give the bastard one last thing to regret. I feel the shard in Norah's sword wedged inside the creature's mouth, dangerously close to passing through the monster's head entirely.

Just not close enough.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. From here on out I have nothing but batshit crazy ideas. As we cower from another scattershot, I look up and note with fury that now all the damn trees are out of the way, Netta would have had a clear shot to murder this thing if she had only fucking survived. But no, our goddamn senior hunters had to die in the first two passes! What kind of bullshit is this? I guess credit where credit is due, literally all of us other than Alan would have died if not for Norah's talent. But it was just delaying the inevitable. We're out of options, out of weapons since they're all either broken or lodged inside the vrothizo. All we have left is Bently's axe, which I doubt will be of any use in cutting the vrothizo unless it's being held by Alan, and Orville's bow and arrows, which the rest of us aren't trained in using. And the only person that could damage the thing with them anyway is fucking dead!

I scowl, taking only a moment to grind my teeth in frustration before I make the inevitable decision. I refuse to die here. If this gets me killed later, well, I'll figure that out then.

"Norah!" I bark. "Cover me! We're going to the senior hunters!"

A thunderous crash deafens us for a moment as Norah blocks a blast from above, staggering as she approaches me.

"They're dead!" she shrieks.

"I know!" I yell back, ears still ringing as I sprint underneath the safety of her upraised shield. "Trust me?"

She swallows, nodding immediately. We start to run, Orville's bow and arrows in my hands, just in case Netta's broke when she had part of her head carved off.

"You got a plan, V?" Norah asks, barely managing to avoid falling on me as another spray from above almost knocks her over.

"Yes, but you are going to hate it," I mumble. "In terms of your talent, do corpses count as objects?"

"Probably? I've never tried!"

I gather three soul shards, each in their own tentacle.

"Well try, and also try not to freak out."

"What does that mean!? Vita!"

Another spray of bone crashes around us, and immediately afterwards I burst forward, tentacle-enhanced limbs drastically stronger and faster than Norah's best pace. Scooping up the souls of the senior hunters, I smash them together with a shard, shove all three back into their mangled bodies, and turn to point right up at our ravenous assailant.

"Shoot to kill," I order, just in case my three new Revenants need a little push.

Netta only has one eye now, a diagonal chunk of her skull from scalp to cheekbone having been sheared clean off over the nose. Even without depth perception and with a brain exposed to the open air, however, her movements lack the slightest touch of hesitation as she retrieves her bow, draws mana, and fires a thunderous shot up at the visible vrothizo. Her arrow punches a hole right through its left wing, causing the monster to shriek in fury and retaliate with another cone of deadly shards, blasting out from its mouth. Norah having not quite reached us, Alan jumps to my defense, the shards crashing into him with the same clang caused when they hit Norah's shield. I shoot a grin her way, thankful for the timely ranged reinforce that I know is so difficult for her to pull off. It probably saved my life, since the shards had a good chance of punching right through Alan's body and subsequently my own without her intervention.

I don't think she's smiling back, though. Her eyes are locked on mine, and though I cannot see her face through her helmet, the terror, revulsion, and betrayal I feel in her soul paint a clear picture.

My smile drops. That's a problem I'll have to handle later. She's on my side for now, which means I and the rest of us all get to live. Netta wastes no time firing another shot, then another, which is followed up by a massive gout of fire from Mateo, having finally used his one arm to flip the top half of his body face-up. The vrothizo's flight finally fails, an impotent scream erupting from the monster's throat as it falls into a tailspin and finally dies as it crashes headfirst into the ground. Gleefully, I run over to pick up its soul as well as the pieces of it my hungering shards have collected. It's genuinely incredible how massive and how powerful this monster has gotten in the short time it’s been alive. And now that power is all mine! I start breaking apart the massive, void-like soul into more easily digestible chunks, knowing I don't have a chance of being able to store something this large for later. Not that I want to! Ooh, this is gonna be—

"Vita!"

"What!?" I snap, glaring backwards. I'm eating here!

Norah glances back and forth between me and my Revenants, each of whom seem to be examining themselves with a mix of confusion and dread. Mateo can't stand, his legs somewhat useless as only a smattering of abdominal oblique muscle connects his chest to his hips. Without the threat of danger or the demand of one of my orders on his consciousness, he has defaulted to staring in vacant horror at his own intestines, which dribble out from the wide nothingness where his stomach and ribs once were. Netta flexes one hand, her other feeling at the new cavity in her skull and the useless lump of matter that was once her brain which rests inside. Alan, meanwhile, is completely headless. He seems to be trying to look around, as if he is somehow aware of his surroundings. I suppose, now that I think about it, my Revenants are unlikely to have ever been using their eyes to see. It is not as though the eyes still work, even if they happen to remain inside the body.

"Tell me this isn't what it looks like," Norah pleads.

"And what does it look like?" I ask, sighing. "Because it looks to me like I just saved your and everyone else's life. You're welcome!"

"You're a necromancer," she accuses, spitting the word.

I know I expected it, but it still hurts a lot more than I thought it would.

"It's my talent," I growl. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't seek it out or learn any of it on purpose. Don't look at me like that!"

I point an accusatory finger at her, causing her to take a step back. Again, I can't actually see her expression, but I can tell. She's judging me, coming up with all sorts of crazy nonsense in her head. After everything we've been through, is it really all wiped away because of this?

"There's no such thing as an animancy talent," Norah counters, parroting bullshit as if I'm not walking proof of its falsehood.

"Well I have one anyway," I snap. "I'm obviously not casting! What do you want me to say?"

My tendrils finish peeling off an edible chunk of the vrothizo soul and I slurp it down, shuddering a little as the power flows into me. Netta's head snaps my way, her eyes wide. Heh, I must register on her danger sense. I shoot her a grin. Only a bit hesitantly, she smiles back. Wow! It feels so nice to have people that are supportive!

"U-um, I believe her," Bently stammers.

Glancing back over where Bently, Orville, and Penelope are, I see that Orville is healed but not conscious, his head resting on Bently's lap. Penelope's attention is now on Bently's wounds, which she is quickly repairing.

"It's Vita," he says. "She's our friend."

"She just made a bunch of zombies!" Norah blurts, her voice shrill.

"Revenants," I correct.

“They have to go back to the Watcher! This is wrong. She's trapping people's souls in agony!"

"Agony?" I scoff. "Hey Netta, are you in agony?"

"Surprisingly, no," Netta answers. "Not even the hole in my head hurts. This is a bit surreal, but overall I feel fine."

Bently and Norah both gape at the talking Revenant. Mateo doesn't have lungs and Alan doesn't have a fucking head, so they can't talk, but I can ask them later. Not that I don't already know their answer.

"Look, Norah,” I start, “I get that this is heresy or whatever, but without Netta, Mateo, and sword-cake, we will fucking die out here. Right? This is an emergency. We need this, not just for ourselves but to kill the monster currently terrorizing a town!"

"Sword cake…?" Penelope asks, raising an eyebrow.

"I mean Alan."

"I just can't believe you hid this from us," Norah breathes.

"You can't believe I hid this from you!?" I ask incredulously. "I just saved your life and you're treating me like I ate your fucking firstborn! Why the fuck do you think I didn’t want to tell you? This is exactly what I was afraid of! We've fought together for months now! Can't you give me the benefit of the doubt here?"

"She's right," Bently agrees. "Please, Norah? I'm freaked out too, but... it's Vita. It'll be okay."

I inhale another chunk of vrothizo soul, having more than said my piece. I'm a little miffed that Penelope isn't rushing to my defense, though knowing her propensity for scheming she's probably just trying to set up a better situation. ...Or keeping plausible deniability. Coming from Bently, the words probably hold more weight anyway. Besides, I don't want to be fucking defending my right to be myself. I just want to finish eating this soul. Is it really too much to ask?

"Okay. Fine," Norah relents. "We'll use them to help save the people of New Talsi. Someone has to, and... Bently's right. You're still you, V. Yeah?"

"Of course," I confirm, swallowing more soul. I smile a little, feeling out Penelope and finally getting the impression that she's weaker than I am. About time.

"And you're not gonna just... wipe our memory or something?" Norah asks.

"I can't even do that," I say. "That's cognimancy. My talent only covers necromancy. I bring the dead back to life, sure, but all the really spooky stuff is out of my wheelhouse."

Not strictly true, but true enough. Norah nods slowly.

"Okay," she says. "I guess… I guess we'll do this. For now. Until we don't have to anymore. But then we need to release these people to the Mistwatcher, okay?"

I shrug, crawling over the body of the vrothizo as I physically retrieve the weapons stuck inside it. Miraculously, my spear didn't get smashed to smithereens during the crash, which is quite a relief. I reabsorb the hungering shards in it and the sword, saving the last bit of vrothizo for dessert.

"We can worry about that if we survive," I grumble noncommittally. "I doubt this is going to be the last monster between here and New Talsi, not to mention having to deal with that creepy talking one."

"Fine," Norah relents. "I'm sorry I freaked out, it's just… it's a lot, okay? I know you're trying to do the right thing, and I'm sorry. We'll… we'll talk, okay?"

Oh, good. I can feel she's gone from 'purge the heretic' to ‘teach the sinner, for she knows not what she does.' I suppose that's an improvement. I'll take it. Maybe I can teach her a thing or two instead.

"Just don't let anyone else die," I tell her. "Or re-die, for that matter. Can you keep the Revenants protected if they get attacked again? We absolutely need their firepower."

"I can try, I suppose," Norah hedges, casting another nervous glance in the direction of the undead. "I definitely can't protect all three at once, though."

"That's fine," I shrug. "You probably won't have to. Vrothizo seem to target the strongest person first."

I finish off the last of the soul, feeling the absurd amount of power swell within me. Holy shit, I feel invincible. Stretching them out, I can see my tentacles reaching up to six feet away! My sensory distance is so much farther now as well, though I won't be able to figure out how far until we get home and measure it. I take a deep breath and make an experimental jab with my spear, the might of my soul moving my body so effortlessly that my muscles barely contribute. I’m faster, stronger. Drastically so. Just a few months ago, my eyes wouldn't have even been able to follow the blow.

My soul stirs, a threshold of power reached. Something new starts to grow inside me.

"If they attack the strongest person first, would that not be the undead?" Penelope asks.

"Not anymore," I answer, unable to suppress a grin.

Three people died in this fight, my secrets got revealed to the whole team and there’s no way this isn’t going to bite me hard in the ass. Yet despite all of that, even though I know I shouldn’t…

It’s hard not to feel it was worth it.