Now let's play 'fair and square'. The last time she remembered hearing those words was from her own mouth, many years ago. The situation wasn't much different. Trapped in a game rigged for her to lose, with only one chance to win. What she didn't fully remember, was the outcome and how it ended–but she knew that somehow she'd won. So many similarities–a being with higher power looking down with a sneering smile and self-satisfaction, a game where the rules were bent to the maker. Now the only thing left to complete the comparison was a repeat of that outcome. 

She was supposed to have died ten times already. When she was sent to the gallows, the rope was weakened beforehand and it snapped when the weight of her body dangled from it. Merely passing out from having her windpipe constricted, her friends and family swiftly swept her away. When she was sent to rot in the bottom of a cell at the lowest level of the keep's dungeon, a brownie stole the guard's keys and slipped them to her through a hole in the wall. When millstones heavy enough to drag down a horse were tied to her ankles as she was sent adrift in a leaking rowboat, undines cut the ropes as they brought her ashore. When she was tied to the stake to be burned alive, a freak thunderstorm poured down rain heavier than had been seen in the past twenty years and caused severe flooding. The headsman's axehead came loose and fell before it could reach her neck, the guillotine jammed at the last second, and she pulled herself through the beatings and floggings. It was the last one where she wasn't able to run from, being buried alive with chains binding the coffin shut.

And yet she still lived. If some cosmic force wanted her to die, it would've done it already. The fact she was still alive and kicking meant she still had miles to go before the span of her thread was cut. Fueled by rage and adrenaline, Shiloh was hurtling forward to the top of the pyramid. Shadowy hands were tearing through the traps and waves of undead like those of the Hecatoncheires, throwing them aside or thrashing them like chaff in the wind. At one point a monstrous swarm of scarabs were sent her way, in an attempt to strip her down to the bones. Her amplified surge of negative emotions merged the shadow-hands into two large ones, which smashed the swarming cloud like a pesky fly. She then drained the vitality from the insects, causing them to clatter to the floor in a severely weakened state. 

Grief, anger, despair, fear, discontent, frustration–these swirled to create a volatile cocktail of a maelstrom that when lit by a single spark would send everything around her into pieces. Higher, just a little higher. Her eyes were wide beneath her cracked mask, staring as her senses were fully open to push her further. The pain was making her straddle the line between defiant determination and addled frenzy. Anything that got thrown in her way was run down, and soon she would be reaching the apex. And once she got there, she would crush that sorcerer under her heel and grind him into the dust of his precious crimson gem after she shattered it.

Her body lay there, blood seeping from the occasional wound here and there. It was unnoticed how her acquaintances seemed too preoccupied with their own internal emotions to pay her any heed. The fact that she is now crushed to save one of them and perished meant nothing at the moment. Mirannda floated deep into oblivion, no pain or emotion reached her. She wasn't even conscious enough to put any details to the experience of death.

As they went their separate ways, beetles screamed with excitement. A feast was laid bare before them, ready for the consumption. Yet they were sorely upset when one by one, then suddenly a whole gathering of little fire salamanders surrounded the deceased phoenix. Believing they had the advantage of numbers, the beetles still tried to acquire their meal. All they did was feed their natural enemies.

Flame erupted and plunged itself into her dark corner of nothingness. Its warmth embraced her, engulfed her and pulled on Mirannda. Slowly her consciousness returned to the cradle that was her mind. Every passing second, she was more and more aware of the things going on around her. First and foremost, nearly every nerve in her body was screaming. Secondly, she heard the strangest little battle cries all around. With the pain, she found it difficult to even listen to it.

"Our meal! Give us our meal!" "She'll make a tasty treat!" "Back off, you slimy lizard" "Yum! Scarab for dinner!" "All you can eat buffet, anyone?" "Come, try to get our flame, crunchy morsel." It was enough to annoy her as Mirannda forced her eyes open. She coughed, partially from her lungs crying out with the lack of oxygen, additionally from all the dust around her. Pain racked her body as she did, however, causing her to cry out, trying to double over herself. The movement did not do her any good, however, tears rushing to her eyes as she wanted to crawl into her body and hide away from everything.

Mirannda grabbed at a stone, attempting to drag herself out of the remaining rubble, only to collapse with another pained sound. All this pain would be worthless if Shiloh hadn't make it. Oh lords! Shiloh! "Shiloh?" she called, attempting to at least pull herself into a sitting position, grunting with the exertion. "Shiloh? Natsumi?" Silence filled her ears while the scarabs and lizards continued their little commotion around her, the beetles of course being upset she was no longer dead and can possibly defend herself. Broken ribs, possibly a broken leg or two, bruised all over. Her flame can reverse any damage that killed her, but apparently will not heal all of her injuries.

After my internal crisis abated, events in the city started to spiral violently out of control. Thus far, only Shiloh, Mirannda and I had made our way into the pyramid and survived long enough to become thorns in Rudjek's side. After Mirannda's resurrection, though, that changed. The living began their counter siege against the high priest's forces; and clashes shook the outskirts of his domain. Rudjek, it seemed, had been surrounded thanks to his single minded focus on sacrifices, and so now the noose was tightening around his neck.

That said, the lich was far from beaten just because of the efforts of some brave militiamen. Most of the servants he had sent thus far were lesser undead: the rank and file that would fall from a single, well-placed strike. They were numerous, true, but also mindless. To be more effective, they needed leaders, and so Rudjek turned to his clergy.

Hidden in sarcophagi close to his chambers, Sardon's high priest had been stockpiling souls from strong villains and adventurers that had died during his unholy crusade. He preferred those with bloodthirsty tendencies, anyone who was closer to chaos and destruction than order or creation. Since the onset of his return, he had collected 79 such souls. Now, with the living striking back, he decided to awaken them.

"Go," he commanded, causing the eyes of each soldier to glow with the same red sheen as the crystal overhead.

_______

Most of those unholy "priests" left the pyramid via secret passageways, going outside to face the troublesome newcomers. There were a few, however, that remained behind to confront my group. One of them, a tall armored fellow with dual khopeshs at his command, went after Shiloh. He barred her path before she could reach the throne room, all while seeming to feed on the shadow magic she was pushing out.

"That's close enough, little girl," he greeted her with an eerily calm tone. He pointed one blade at her following that remark, unhindered and unmoving, then pressed a button with his foot that caused a thick, warded, stone slab to slide down behind him. "I am number 48," he continued, "and I will be entertaining you for High Priest Rudjek today. Do me a favor and die quickly. I could use a new comrade that isn't stupid like 66."

48, as he called himself, had once been a serial killer, and an expert swordsman to boot. Even in death, he maintained his unnervingly steely composure, showing no love or passion for anything other than the act of killing. He had also gained new abilities in his current form: for, like Shiloh, he had become highly skilled in shadow magic. He even developed the ability to feed on spells from that school, to the point that his strength was directly proportional to the amount of darkness in the room.

Shiloh would have a difficult time getting past this formidable foe, especially since the slab behind him was immune to spells and he was guarding the only switch to deactivate it.

______

Beyond 48, another of the priests, 66, circumvented Shiloh completely and found his way to the wounded Mirannda. His arrival caused the scarabs to hush and retreat, though his obnoxious voice and obsessive axe grinding prevented any quiet from taking place. His armored and haunting visage came upon the wounded phoenix shortly after she had called out for Shiloh and I, and so he started off his initial greeting with an almost happy conclusion that we were subdued.
 
"If you're looking for your friends, they're gone or so will be," he said, adjusting his appropriately skull-like helmet before continuing with a bout of curiosity. "You know, in a lot of ways you're like us. You died, but you're not really dead, are you?" The question was rhetorical, for 66 did not even wait for an answer before lifting his weapon. Instead, he was soon bearing down on Mirannda with the giant axe in tow. "I guess we'll have to find out how many times that works!"

He was aiming for her head, planning to decapitate the phoenix with a single stroke; but, instead, he soon found two arrows pinning his hand to a nearby wall. The force of the impact was strong enough to prevent his attack and give Mirannda, along with her salamander friends, time to retreat."That's not fair," 66 cried upon realizing this rejection! "You ruined my kill!"

Further down the hallway, I had arrived just in a nick of time to loose those shots before my companion tasted death a second time. My eyes were still red from crying earlier, but that hadn't dulled my sharpshooter skills with an Endapano Bow in the slightest. Mirannda was spared because of my actions, but she was definitely not safe just yet. I called out to her, knowing she was still in danger, then cocked some holy arrows for my next attack.

"Crawl away if you have to, Mirannda! He's far more powerful than the other undead!" 66 took notice of that insider knowledge I unintentionally provided. After all, I had just arrived and yet I already knew about his kind. The distraction this provided was likely useful to the phoenix, especially since it got her attacker talking for a short amount of time.

"Too true. I'm surprised you know that even though this is the first time we've met!" He paused, gradually pulling the arrows out of his hand without paying attention to his former target anymore. "I am number 66! I used to have another name, but that's not important anymore. Rudjek calls me that number, and I honestly don't care why so long as he gives me more people to cut up! And you're next in that line, ladies!"

Like 48, 66 had also been a serial killer. Ironically, the two had killed each other out on the dunes, and that was why 48 had a special distaste for him. Neither of them would go down easy, and neither of them were the last of the priests by a long shot.

Finally she had run into something that she couldn't just smash through. Her senses could feel the intense concentration of magic within the undead fighter, and her bottled fury was beginning to wane. The effects of her amulet were wearing off, and so was the initial surge of adrenaline. Shiloh was feeling her well of shadows thin out and slip away as soon as he entered the scene, another reason for her to be on guard. An enemy who couldn't die and had sentience was more of a danger than a thousand scarabs or a legion of mummies. This wasn't good. Whatever he was, this 'Number 48' was sapping her shadows. She wouldn't be able to rely on them this time.

Dual-wielding curved blades, leeching off negative power; it was like she was fighting a mirrored version of herself. The main difference laid in their state of being. If she wanted to get through, she'd have to kill him. Unfortunately that would just temporarily throw him out of commission. That necromancer of a prick up top could just raise his corpse again. Mirannda was dead, and Natsumi had been seen leaving the pyramid. She was on her own now. It was an odd situation; for once it did matter whether she lived or died. Ever since she had turned her back on human society, she had never given much thought to herself or her existence. Even when she survived her final execution, she was essentially getting by from day to day. She had placed her goals based on whether or not they would realistically fulfill her basic needs. Happiness was fleeting, so was sadness, anger, and other pleasantries. Her goal was, put simply–to live. When Number 48 voiced a death threat, she didn't respond with a sarcastic remark like she would have.

Why do you fight so hard to survive every day? To live, isn't it obvious? Then what is the purpose of living? Natsumi's words before the landslide hit answered for her. 'That's pretty much the whole point of life, Shiloh: don't die. Astronomically few succeed in that goal, true, but we'll manage.'    

Yes, they'd manage somehow. Her head was starting to cool, and she stopped using her shadow weaving. She still had a few questions that she wanted to find the answers for, and until then she wasn't going to let herself die. Looking back at the armed undead, she shot back: "If you want a favor from me, you're going to have to earn it." Throwing her wyvern bone blade, she followed up with a flurry of spectral daggers. If dirty tactics wasn't going to work, then she'd make him fight on her terms. Summoning a sun glaive into her free hand, she aimed to slice off Number 48's arms and try to damage the core of his being. The sooner she got him off that switch, the faster she could move ahead.

"Noo!" "Where are you going?" "Fleeing so soon?" Mirannda glanced around with a sudden sense of dread descending upon her. The beetles were quieting, she couldn't hear their thoughts anymore, their scurrying became more faint by the second. They were retreating, and it made the phoenix quite nervous. However, their was a new sound to take their place, metal grinding on stone, the foreboding announcement of the approach of something worse than mere scarabs.

"Unlikely." She was able to get out before he asked his rhetorical question, sounding much more confident than she felt. Mirannda felt disgusted by the comparison, for she was not undead, no necromancer controlled her rebirth. It was her connection to the Mother Flame. She breathed and bled, falling very much in the definition of being alive, just a part of the legendary races that rebirth. For a terrifying moment, she didn't see a monstrosity before her, but Sin, a vampire swathed in shadows, a dark cloak which hid his face, and a menacing bladed staff. He held it up over his head, poised to strike, his cackling sent shivers down her spine.

Twin arrows impaled his hands, the hallucination fading. Natsumi's voice further broke into her frightened state. As she stayed there, staring up the new opponent, cursing her physically weak state of being, her hand slid under a rock, where the shadows were deepest. Shadows reached up, engulfed the phoenix, and slithered back to whence they came, Mirannda now gone. It was one of the few things that Sin had taught her. Following the shadows, Mirannda moved easier now than earlier, suppressing all thoughts of pain, until she was behind Natsumi.

Unfortunately, none of the salamanders were able to be taken with her, as she had yet to figure that portion of her spell in these lands. They gave her position away as they followed her. "Flame moves!" "Follow the flame!" Still they surrounded her, and Mirannda tried to hold her giggle in. These little critters were not going to be helpful in any kind of stealth situations. 'Want to help me, little ones? Form three groups, two groups pretend I'm elsewhere, one stay here.' Though reluctant, they did as she asked. Remaining in the shadows, Mirannda would randomly move between the three locations the amphibians have chosen, assisting Natsumi in her fight with well aimed fireballs.

Of course, while I originally thought 66 would be hard to defeat, he eventually proved himself to be a careless opponent. His physical prowess was no doubt terrifying, as Mirannda's use of shadows soon proved, but he talked and boasted like a child during the course of combat. That became even clearer once he started reacting to the scattered fireballs hitting his face.

"Hey, that's cheating," was what he began with; and it wasn't long after that that my holy arrow drove itself into his head, extracting another, "Stop!" Mirannda and I alternated our techniques to gradually force him back down the hallway, but that didn't last long before his temper flared. "THAT'S ENOUGH," he yelled in rage after the second arrow hit, and soon he raised his axe one more time. To the naked eye, he was too far away to attack in melee, but his next swing actually behaved like high-level wind magic. He struck horizontally, sending a bladed gust as sharp as steel straight for my head.

I ducked, of course, having seen the approaching slash marks on the walls of the corridor, but that first blade was hardly the last. More came after it, tearing the walls to shreds just after I erected another for protection. "You think you're the only ones with long-range attacks! I'll teach you, you pesky whores!" 66 ranted and raved beyond my new barrier, swinging madly all the while. He kept battering it down with every strike, hoping to berserk his way to victory.

That was his downfall. After his fifth swing, I saw an opening in his defense through a hole in the wall. He had brought the sharp end of his axe all the way back behind his body, thereby allowing me to teleport in front of him without risking an accidental axe to the face.

"What? What are you doing to me," he asked as soon as he realized what was happening in that instant. Before 66 could bring his arm back, my hand had lodged itself in the neck of his armor. He was completely paralyzed once I touched his soul, though not because of any spell from me. It was the empty anima ring I had on my offending hand, the same ring sucking the life force out of his twisted shell of a body.

"Same thing I did to 65 downstairs," I said once this siphon began. "You are destructive, just like he was, and you're practically immortal. But your biggest weaknesses are that you have neither a will nor a body of your own anymore. Your soul is just animating that armor at the behest of Rudjek, and the only things left of your former self are your personality and experience. Your freedom of will? That's an illusion. It makes your soul easy to pull out for someone with artifacts and expertise like me."

66 wasn't the first of these priests I had fought, just as my earlier speech had betrayed. Another one by the name of 65 had ambushed me just before I could reunite with Mirannda. His battle with me was short-lived, for 65 had actually been weaker than 66; but it was through him that I discovered the weak point of the priests as a whole. 66 realized this too late, even if he accepted defeat graciously.

"So I lost," he asked just before his soul was completely absorbed? "Well, that's disappointing. I was hoping for a longer fight." The armored ghost went limp just then, his energy completely gone. The armor itself crumbled to sand, no longer sustained by the chaos ruby's influence; and thus I was allowed to retrieve my hand so I could return to Mirannda.

Along the way back, I dispelled what little was left of my stone barrier, exposing the three patches of salamanders that had all miraculously survived. Mirannda was in one of those piles, but I couldn't tell which without using unnecessary mana. Rather than try, I asked her to come out of her own accord, though with no small amount of effort to try not sounding tired.

"You can come out now, Mirannda. You need healing, and I can provide it." Ironically, I probably looked like the one most in need of healing by that point. My stride had already grown sluggish once I absorbed 66 into one of the eight rings on my hands, and now I was starting to spit up blood whenever I talked. It wasn't much for now, but the small droplets that fell out of my mouth before I could wipe them off were a telltale sign of my waning health.

Number 48 deflected her thrown sword and daggers easily, but thankfully these were all according to plan. All she needed was time, and that's exactly what she got. In those precious seconds she was able to bring a weapon that would be more of a threat and possibly level the playing field. The undead priest let out a condescending laugh when the first attacks were intercepted, however he wasn't expecting to have an arm missing. She wasn't fortunate enough to get both off in one swing, but she couldn't celebrate yet. The severed arm was still moving on the floor, and if she didn't hurry it would just reattach.

He soon figured out what she was intending to do, and changed tactics. Instead of letting her come to him, he was doing the reverse. He made the move to come at her offensively, keeping her on her feet so she wouldn't get another chance to attack. Time was ticking. Being forced to block using her hand holding the glaive, she only had her phoenix blade in her other hand. The length of the glaive did help keep her out of arms' reach, but it was also limiting her attacks. Even when she tried to switch hands he would keep the pressure on her so she was locked into defending. She had to get closer, before he regained his other arm. Should she throw her weapon again? No, he had already seen her do that once and wouldn't be foolish enough to let her pull the same stunt twice. There was also the risk of him getting a hold of her own weapons and using them against her. She had to change them out. 

Swinging her arm with the flaming sword, Shiloh shoved back at Number 48 with all her strength to shift the weight off her hand wielding the polearm. The blade's flames barely reached him, but at the last moment she swapped out the blade for a shield and let her momentum carry her further towards him. His parry ended up hitting silver and black bands of tourmaline, her best bet against him aside from the glaive. She had to be careful with that weapon as well, as its power inside the pyramid was severely limited. The overcast skies reduced how much sunlight it could absorb in the desert, and with each use its consecutive attacks would weaken. 

"Are those all the tricks you've got up your sleeve, girl?" He asked, a hint of self-satisfaction mixed with sarcasm in his voice. Pushing off, Shiloh muttered. "…Yeah, maybe." Her focus was somewhere else now, namely the severed limb crawling back to its main body. Throwing her glaive, she pinned it to the ground so it couldn't move any further. Moving to block his hits again, she reached into her pocket and threw a handful of drops of shimmering light when he was backing her up against the wall. There was a grunt of annoyance as the sundrops got into his face and disrupted the shadow magic he was using. This time, she'd deal a better-aimed blow, summoning the dragon bone sword she had thrown earlier. With shield raised and blade in hand, she stabbed towards the center of his being. One strike to his core, the essence of his undead body–and she'd be able to disable the switch to pass through.

Mirannda watched the defeat of the mummy with wide eyes. Natsumi was taking the soul? There was a lot to learn about this land, its magic and the laws, and Natsumi was showing it with each passing moment. The armor crumbled to dust, her eyes still wide and unmoving as Natsumi approached her. Slowly, she began to shift her eyes to the woman approaching her with the tired voice. While Mirannda shed the shadows hiding her, Mirannda frowned at her, the fire salamanders abandoning the false circles and congregating around her once more.

As her somewhat flattened leg lay at an odd angle, her ribs aching, the phoenix involuntarily giggled. The salamanders decided to crawl upon her, singeing her armor but not her skin. "Ow, stop it, guy's that hurts." Not that her skin was affected by them, it was her broken ribs jostled by the laughter. Finally, when they stopped moving, Mirannda studied Natsumi. "No, I can survive. You don't look so great. Find me something to walk with, we need to find Shiloh, regroup. Are you okay?"

Each breath was punctuated with a grimace of pain. This was nothing compared to learning how to meld with the shadows, which felt like she was being torn apart. With great effort, Mirannda sat up, holding her ribs as if trying to hold herself together. Bracing herself on the nearby wall, she got her good leg underneath her and pushed herself up, grunting and pausing as each wave of pain threatened to consume her. Dragging her bum leg, Mirannda tried to hop a little ways forward, biting her tongue as the jolt to the broken bones shot mind numbing pain through her, gripping the wall trying hard not to let herself fall. If Natsumi attempted to do anything, Mirannda pushed her off, reiterating that Shiloh must be found.

This was the effect of the anima rings. Powerful artifacts in their own right, the accessories were originally made during the war between Angela and Dalanesca. Their intended purpose was to be used as a source of magical and physical empowerment drawn from souls, but, through tweaking with their base essence, I had managed to expand upon those available uses. When it came to the rings I was wearing inside Sardon's temple, I was utilizing them as massive pools of mana in addition to my own. This allowed me to use the souls contained within my rings for high-level spells without exhausting my own reserves, and therefore gave me a potentially unlimited source of mana in an area so infested with undead. But there was a catch; so long as I held more than a single soul in a single ring with that configuration, I would suffer feedback from the rings themselves. Mana pools can only grow so big before they became a detriment to the user, after all; and so I had inflicted self-harm upon myself by the time I reached Mirannda.

In fact, before I even saved the phoenix from her own murder, I had already begun snatching souls from the lieutenants that threatened us. Most of those I collected had been slain by hands outside the temple, and I had only encountered them by chance on their way back to be reborn. Their lack of a body during this transition made them especially easy to imprison, so I did; and, by using that exploit, I had already collected seven of their kind before taking 66's soul as well. Now, with his addition, I had eight, the absolute maximum number of souls I could contain without rendering myself catatonic. I needed to use a renaissance just to strengthen my will enough to endure the pain brought on by that threshold, but at least I had prepared myself to fight Rudjek even though I still couldn't hide my fatigue from an overly curious phoenix.

Mirannda asked if I was alright in that state, all while refusing my aid for her own injuries in a haughty display of bravado. I could tell without even trying that she wasn't going to let me anywhere near her to triage her wounds, so I just answered her question instead of trying to fight her stubbornness.

"No. I needed power, and all power comes with a price in this world. Certain limits exist for all bodies no matter if they are mortal or immortal, and right now I'm using a trick to break my own limits. Like you, I'll survive, but only so long as we find Rudjek and soon." I was already brimming with magic by that point, so I literally and subconsciously fashioned a cane directly from the sandstone wall next to Mirannda as we went. Beyond this gesture of good will, however, there was relative silence between us until we caught up to Shiloh: at least if you can call grunts of pain from a wounded phoenix silence.

Before we even reached the rogue, she was already at the climax of her battle with 48. Her final attack against him had driven a blade deep into priest's torso, narrowly missing his core but greatly compromising the integrity of his body. He could still have fought her in that condition, true, but he was no fool. Rather than attempt to prolong the inevitable, 48 "conceded."

"You fight well, girl," he said after the sword got stuck in the center of his chest. "But all good things must come to an end." There was a new form of eeriness to the ghostly warrior's voice as he talked for what seemed to be the final time: an almost joyous undertone. One would think he was graciously accepting defeat with that kind of attitude, but that was not the case this time. Instead, and before Shiloh had a chance to respond to him, 48 had his pinned arm throw its khopesh through his back and straight into his core."I'll ask you a question before I disappear," he explained without the slightest hint of pain or regret from his apparent suicide. "What do you think happens when someone who feeds on magic is killed before their swell is consumed?"

As if on cue, 48 began to disintegrate from this egregious self-attack, bringing forth a massive explosion of shadow magic. The spell Shiloh had been using to clear a path to the top of the pyramid before being stopped was now sent straight back at her, lunging without direction and tearing into the pyramid's foundations with great ferocity. This occurred just as Mirannda and I arrived within earshot, so we heard the spell go off at the same time that our footsteps finally reached our companion: provided, of course, that she was still alive to hear them.

It was a direct hit, but he wasn't 'dead'. Either she'd missed, or she just needed to hammer it in a little more. "You fight well, girl," The distorted voice said. "But all good things must come to an end." This wasn't good. She knew that type of word choice. A person with his type of psyche only would say such things under one condition–self-termination. She flinched instinctively when she heard another weapon fling itself into his body, seeing the arm pinned down now without its blade. He'd never do that unless there was a catch, or something else up his sleeve. "I'll ask you a question before I disappear, what do you think happens when someone who feeds on magic is killed before their swell is consumed?"

She responded by raising her shield and backing away quickly, his words confirming her suspicions just before the undead exploded–releasing a powerful mass of unbridled magic energy. Dropping low to the ground, she tried to hide behind the small barrier of silver and tourmaline as it lashed out, devastating the surrounding chamber. An incredible force was battering against it, but in doing so a bright flash of light burst into the room in response to the magical backlash. Gritting her teeth she pushed back as hard as she could, subconsciously activating a protection spell as she struggled to keep the shield upright. It was like a rushing wind and a thunderous roar, blasting everything around her. When the energy's force was spent, the dust settled to reveal a heavily damaged antechamber. The only spot relatively pristine was where Shiloh laid, slumped over with her shield propped by both arms. Part of that arcane outburst had been reabsorbed back into her Tenebris amulet, but was not quite full to the breaking point. It would take time before she could utilize its power again. 

Her strength spent but not exhausted, Shiloh coughed as the shield clattered onto the floor by her side. "Seriously, what do you take me for? You think I wouldn't expect you to try pulling a fast one like that on me?" Leaning against the unmarred patch of wall, she sighed. "This is why you can never be too prepared." The weight on the switch keeping the enchanted slab up was now removed, and the way ahead was reopening again. Her entire body was aching, but she still had one more thing left to do before leaving. She had to beat that necromancer up with his own bloody crystal before shattering it before his very eyes. Hearing footsteps, she groaned as she was expecting more of the unholy priest's reinforcements. "For the love of…not this again."