Erin tried not to fidget as he watched Tsia destroy the ritual circle they'd covered, but he was too nervous to really stand still. It had only been a few days since they'd narrowly escaped the ruined city - a place that had haunted his dreams every night since - and, already, he found himself in another tenuous situation.

As a general rule of thumb, Erin had nothing against graveyards, but the last place he wanted to hang out in a village where the dead had a little problem with staying dead was deep underground in a catacombs, with only the light of a flickering torch to drive away the shadows. What happened to my life?

Gloom returned to the chamber as Tsia's lightning dissipated, and he blinked rapidly as his eyes struggled to readjust to the dark. "Did it work?" He questioned, not able to tell if the ritual circle had been destroyed.

Somehow, even her frown looked cute as she shook her head. "I'm not sure. We'll have to go outside to check," she replied, bumping into him as she backed away from the ruined coffin. His heart skipped a beat at the unexpected contact, and then it skipped a second beat as a loud crack resounded behind him.

Aww, crap. The mass of liquefied wood he'd brought into the chamber was already flowing in front of Tsia as he spun around to face the new threat, and his shoulders tensed as he saw that the stone slab covering one of the coffins in the back of the room had slid to the ground and cracked in two. His eyes having not fully adjusted back to the dark, he struggled to see anything within the dark confines of the old coffin, until a pale hand grabbed hold of the side.

"Time to go." He nearly tripped as Ihra grabbed his hand, yanking him toward the narrow passage that led to the first chamber, but shaking her hand off, he pushed Tsia in before him.

"What are you doing?" She yelled, grabbing at his arm and making him drop his torch.

"Going to close it off!" he shrugged her hand off as he focused on willing the floating orb of wood into place and began spreading it across the narrow aperture, but Tsia grabbed his arm again.

"They can crush stone - what do you think a little wood is going to do?"

This time, he let himself be pulled into the passage, doing his best to manipulate the wood into place as he wriggled through the narrow gap into the outer chamber - maybe the wood couldn't stop them, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

The sound of splintering wood mocked him as he burst out of the narrow passage, and he tripped as a burst of lightning blinded him. "Damn it," he cursed, as something sharp sliced his forearm, and his curse turned into a scream of pain as a second blow caught him directly between the shoulder blades. Bony hands latched onto him as he tried to roll to the side, holding him in place with astonishing strength as he clawed and kicked against an enemy he could barely see in the darkness.

There were skeletons all around him, so many that he couldn't begin to count them, while more continued to swarm out of the narrow depositories in the wall like a plague of locusts. With a strength fueled by sheer panic, he jammed his knee straight into the chest of the skeleton that was pinning him to the ground, but unlike what video games had led him to believe, the magic binding the bones together needed more than a solid thwack to crush them.

He grunted as the skeleton returned the blow with interest, catching him right in the gut and forcing the air from his legs, and before he could try again to wiggle free, more joined the pile on.

"Zāqiqu." The skeletons staggered as Tsia exploded in a concentric blast of wind, tossing them against the walls, and a fleshy hand yanked him to his feet. "Come on."

Still blinded from the lightning blast, Erin could barely see two feet ahead of him, but he followed Ihra's lead through the minefield of broken coffins and shattered lids as the skeletons struggled to rise. A second blast of wind exploded from Tsia, knocking them back down - and nearly taking him with it, and then the base of the stairs loomed ahead. They were almost there, so close he could see a narrow shaft of light peaking down the world above - and in that light, he noticed a rapidly expanding crack on the ceiling.

Shoving Ihra to the side, he tackled Tsia to the ground as an enormous stone coffin ripped free from the ceiling and landed directly in front of the exit. Shards of stone pelted him as he rolled out of its way, carrying the two of them to safety - or what would have been safety, if a mob of skeletons had not immediately jumped them.

Tsia struck first, her windblade tossing the skeletons closest to her back against the wall while Erin valiantly struggled to kick himself free, but she had forgotten those behind her. She landed on her hands and knees as two piled on her from behind, and before she could roll out of the way, they had pinned her hands to the ground.

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"Tsia!" His mind strained for wood, any wood, even the slightest splinter, but it seemed the villagers hadn't believed in shoddy pine coffins. There was nothing for him to grab hold of, nothing he could do but watch helplessly as the chattering skeletons snapped her fingers as she tried to cast. Ihra was in no better condition, pinned beneath a half-dozen of the creatures as the lid of the massive coffin slowly slid open.

He closed his eyes again, desperately reaching out to the vague pinpricks of wood he sensed in the buildings far above them, struggling to rip them free from their bounds, but it was no use; it was simply too far for him to command it. And then, just as he abandoned all hope, the world turned to flame.

"Ihra?" Wreathed in the flames of Child of Fury, Jasper didn't see the massive skeleton standing at the bottom of the stairs until he collided with it. The two went down in a tangle of limbs, and a brief struggle ensued that Jasper promptly lost as the skeleton overpowered him. Really? I can't even beat a dusty bag of bones?

Landing on top of the pile, the undead hulk pinned Jasper's hands to the ground as easily as one would subdue a toddler, but the creature's strategies had failed to account for Jasper's special flames. Its grip slackened and then released altogether as the white flames rapidly spread up its forearms. Jasper had to give it credit - for a creature lacking a brain altogether, it reacted surprisingly swiftly to the threat that was rapidly engulfing it, but it was already too late. As it tried to stand up, its shins cracked, then shattered, and the flaming skeleton landed on top of him, face to face.

"Damn it." Rapidly rolling away from the worst kiss he'd ever had, Jasper was immediately driven to his knees as more skeletons piled onto him, having learned nothing from the fate of their comrade. Yet, the flames spread through them even more rapidly through these lesser skeletons than they had for the original giant, and their chattering cries quickly reached a crescendo as they tried to flee, their forms falling apart as the fire ate away at them.

Unfortunately, while the fire quickly destroyed whatever magic held their form together, it didn't seem to destroy them permanently. As Jasper rolled to his feet, he cursed as he saw the giant skeleton begin to knit itself back together, the cracks and charring on its bones fading back into weathered ivory. Seriously?

Staggering to his feet, he glanced around wildly, calling out for Ihra, and sighed in relief as he spotted her, pinned beneath a mass of gibbering skeletons. These ones seemed to have learned their lesson, the group scattering in all directions as he charged toward them and yanked her off the ground. "Come on, come on." It took only a few seconds longer to retrieve the others, and the four beat a hasty retreat up the stairs as the skeletons circled them warily, too afraid of the flames to attack again.

They paused at the top of the stairs, waiting to see if they'd be pursued, but after several minutes with none braving the light of day, Jasper heaved a sigh of relief. "Ya'll okay?" he asked, reflexively casting Circle of Forgiveness, as he searched them for any sign of serious woundings, and seeing none, allowed himself to vent. "What on earth possessed you to go into the catacombs? Was the whole haunted village thing not creepy enough for you?"

"Taking care of the Bloodspiller's ritual, and you're welcome," Tsia replied snippily.

He blinked, glancing around at the now relatively fog-free village, and cocked his head. "That was you? I thought we took care of it when we killed the mages."

"What mages?" Tsia asked, at the same time as S̆ams̆ādur cut in, "They did say they weren't responsible for the undead."

"Well, yeah," Jasper replied to the durgu first, "but I'm not in the habit of taking villains at their word."

"They're not villains, exactly," Naklāti protested, as Tsia once again asked. "What mages?"

"Uh," Jasper looked between the two of them and shrugged his shoulders. "They didn't strike me as the good guys, but I guess you know them better than me. They were some sort of House Nūrilī zealots," he added, finally answering the princess's questions.

"Loyalists?" Tsia's brows stretched to the sky. "And you say they weren't villains?" she asked Naklāti skeptically. "Aren't you engaged to Lord Eligon?"

The Celestian looked uncomfortable, but stuck to her guns. "They're just good people, I know they are. They're just confused, upset at what they see as a betrayal," she defended them. "But I'm sure they'll see the reason once they've had time to digest the news. Truly, the deal is everything they could have hoped for; House Nūrilī will regain the throne without the need for bloodshed once the crisis is passed."

Talk about divided loyalties. While he had some sympathy for the woman, who was no doubt torn between her family and heritage on the one side, and her husband and future children on the other, he was considerably more skeptical that things would actually play out so peacefully. I suppose I can't blame her for hoping, though.

But he kept his doubts to himself and hastened to play the peacemaker as he saw Tsia open her mouth, prepared to argue back. "I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to assess their motives once we get back to camp," he cut in. "Lord Eligon will no doubt want to know what happened, and I hope," he caught Naklāti's gaze, "that you can now reassure him we're not a threat. If there's anyone in his camp he should be worried about, it certainly isn't us."

Her lips thinned at the implicit accusation against the northern soldiers in the camp, but she acknowledged his question with a bob of her head. "Aye, I doubt my lord will have any doubts about you now. If saving my life twice doesn't still his doubts, then he's hopelessly paranoid. In fact," she cracked a small smile. "You may come to regret saving me. I suspect both Eligon and my father will wish to meet with my savior."Oh, great, just great, he thought glumly, but plastered on a polite smile. "Whatever his lordship wishes."

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