Absolom rubbed his chin pensively, marking off another skirmish on the map set up before him. The lamplight cast a strange pall on his gaunt features, accentuating the skeletal gin that permanently stretched across his mottled, hairless face. The smile was not particularly by choice, and he certainly felt no mirth at what the battle markers painted. His eyes flicked over to his commander, a dry rasp creeping from his thin lips.

"Scripio, sir, these attacks are growing more frequent. Twelve in the last week alone. We may need to petition the Legate to allow us to... do some gardening in the deep caves. Pluck a few mushrooms as it were."
His hand fell to the notebook stowed in his hip satchel.
"I need some fresh test subjects anyway."

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YEEEEEEAH!

Titus Scipio, paladin of the XIV Legion, grunted in assent as he regarded the map before him. "Agreed, but we have our orders. We keep up patrols until the marching order is given."

Twelve. Twelve attacks, dozens of casualties as their frequency and ferocity increased. Scipio sighed wearily. Things had gotten worse. Two tent groups had gone missing since the Legion's arrival in Talarum, and many more had been incapacitated due to injury. But Legate Valerius' decision was understandable. Zero intelligence on the new tunnel with conflicting and poorly-drawn maps spelled suicide and a march into the depths would have left Talarum potentially vulnerable. So for now, they would wait. They would wait and patrol until such a time as the city was deemed safe or the threat was deemed sufficiently urgent.

Hefting his buckler and gladius, Scipio jerked his head in the direction of the city proper. "For now, we keep up the vigil. Now move. We're up next on the board for shanty duty." He turned to regard the two other Legionnaires standing at the map board. "Cassius, you're on point with me. Aulus, you stick with Absalom in the rear."

Scipio didn't wait for a reply, setting off for the depths of the undercity.

-ShantyTown, A Few Hours Later-

The march of a Legion -even a mere Century- is an impressive thing. Seemingly endless ranks of shiny, over-polished, faceless automatons grinding across the landscape in a rhythmic tide do much to bolster even the most despairing of countryfolk. The bright spears and mirror breastplates, the sigils and emblems enameled across everything wide enough to hold a crest, all speak to the power and discipline of an empire. They whisper of a shield that cannot be broken, of a sword that will never be shattered. The Legion invokes a call to glory, a rallying cry for all the brave and true.

XIV is a sad mockery of this ideal.

Outcasts of all stripes formed the 100 troops of Scripio's Century, a grim and shabby parody of boyhood dreams. Ill supplied and generally considered as cannon fodder, the standard of cleanliness and equipment maintenance was abysmally low in the Damned XIV with many legionaries sporting full-blown Methuselahian beards. Their superiors were generally the lazy or the incompetent, the Legion having devolved into the catchall of undesirables long ago. Where the 'true' Legions were paragons of virtue, the XIV was rife with vice. Where the Legions were ordered and disciplined, the XIV was lax and sloppy. Where the Legions where legends, the XIV was infamous.

Scripio's 100 men, at least, had shucked some of smaller details of fallen ideal; the righteous paladin had quickly established himself as a competent executive officer and a ridged disciplinarian. Under his command, the soldiers had quickly learned to shape up or ship out, although where those who shipped out went to was a matter of hot debate among the dissenters. Some theorized that they were sent to scout the deep tunnels, from which no one ever returned. Some postulated that those who couldn't make the cut were traded among the rest of XIV for more promising recruits. A few whispered that Absalom was given free reign over those found unworthy.

That rumor quickly set men on edge. Their quartermaster was an unnerving individual, and the men quickly learned to care well for their equipment rather than risk venturing into his lair for replacements. He had a feel of the grave about him, and rumors abounded as to the nature of magic he practiced. All legionaries swore an oath to serve even in death, and the skull mask Absalom oft times wore sent a nugget of fear spiraling down the spine of Scripio's troops.

That fear was one of the main reasons Absalom now marched at the rear of their ragged column; all knew his abyssal eyes danced across their backs, ever vigilant for mistakes, and no man had a way to know when the skeleton was watching him. They marched through the rough-shod streets of Shanty Town in the manner of those who were relearning old lessons; not quite in step or properly executed, but passable. Their gear did not gleam, but neither did it reek or sparkle with the sheen of rot that it had when he and Titus had first laid eyes upon their Century.

Absalom's permanent grin twitched with genuine pleasure at the thought of the progress his commander had wrought. Events at the academy had left Absalom bound by Imperial Geas to serve the XIV, but he had been saved by his final spark of luck in that he now served his only true friend in this world, and one of the only beings still living whom he respected. The paladin strode at the head of the column, his soul's light burning bright amidst the squalor of Talarum's outskirts. Absalom's Deathsight showed him much of the world's harsh truths, but the glow his friend cast eased some of the pressure he felt from the blights pressing in all around them. Too much death had been felt here, too many lives snuffed out. Too many unquiet souls lingered near the veil, pressing against the barrier of this world and the spirit world like a empyrean fist. Absalom felt a deep hunger to reach for those souls, to send them on or draw them back, but for now he resisted.
Until Titus gave orders otherwise, the skeleton's necromancy was kept on a short leash.

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Cassius was the first to die. Knocked to the ground, Cassius let out a strangled cry as the beast tore his throat out with its teeth. The legionnaire tried futilely to unsheathe his dagger as the creature crouched on his bloodied chest. It was a piscine thing, blind white eyes staring blankly as a slimy tongue picked bits of red meat from between its sharp teeth. The slumdogs of Talarum called this creature a Deep One, although none knew whether the moniker originated from its subterranean habitat or from its passing resemblance to the cave angler fish of the underworld's vast pools and aquifers. In the darkness, a dozen more Deep Ones hissed and gurgled as they scented the odor of fresh blood. Cassius' killer lunged forward.

Titus was already battle-ready. Blade in hand, he settled into the routine taught to him by the academy's martial arts instructors. Relaxed breaths, wide and low, shield to the fore, blade raised and ready, completely and utterly serene--Even Blade Form, the teachers called it. Even Blade Style was widely favored by the empire's bladesmen, promoting swift strikes and rapid maneuvering, which made it perfect for fighting out of formation.

The Deep One closed. Scipio struck. His shield arm lashed out, catching the monster's skull with a thunderous backhand. It rocked back, stunned, as Titus followed up with a gut slash and an uppercut with his gladius. Another Deep One to Titus' left died as he chopped down, hacking into its braincase before kicking the twitching corpse free. The Paladin fell back a half-step to tighten the gaps between him and the surviving legionnaires.

Titus barked a command word in the Legion's battle language, a harsh, monosyllabic term authorizing the use of all weapons and minor magic. He himself kept his powers held in check, unwilling to expend himself so quickly even in these straits. Instead, he focused on the martial aspect of the fight, hacking into the mob as more and more creatures closed in, attracted to the din of battle. Surrounded and outnumbered with suicidal odds. Just another day at the office for the XIV Legion.

Spirits tore free from flesh, one brighter humanoid soul followed by three pallid Deep One souls. Absalom felt their deaths and surged forward, barking commands to the troops around him. They moved to obey; the majority moving to reinforce the forward lines, while a handful shifted to guard the flank and rear.

Absalom drew out his mask from his pack as he dashed; a highly polished piece of steel molded into the grim motif of a skull. Smokey chips of glass filled the eyeholes, leaving blank pools where mad eyes usually gazed. They blinded him from normal sight, but enhanced his Deathsight to the point where it was true sight rather than an oppressive subliminal sense. Long ago he had borne witness to darkness, and been rewarded for the tribulation. The souls of the fallen were almost beyond Absalom's reach, but he strained to capture the fleeing sparks in his metaphysical net. They wriggled and weaved, instinctively fleeing his bleak presence and soul-steel net. The foci of his mask cast the net wider, snaring the four orbs just as they began to slip through the veil. The human soul resigned itself to its fate; the oaths of the Legionaries bound them to give their souls to the cause, even if most thought that clause to be ceremonial. The Deep One souls were mere beasts, and struggled futilely to resist. Absalom snuffed the resistance and began to cast his spells.

First, an veil of illusion settled over the men in the front lines. Drawing on the fallen legionnaires valor and fury, Abaslom imbued the swath with furious rage, snuffing out their fears and panic with an induced sense of vengeance. It's work done, the last remnants of the fallen legionnaire slipped into the void, it's obligation to the empire fulfilled.

Next, the Deep One souls were consumed in their entirety. The front lines were again bathed in magic, this time a concoction of necromantic nature. Each man felt his strength swell by a fraction; their aim growing more true, every swing more sure. Some would feel odd urges for the next few days, but nothing more than a passing hunger for the diet of the Deep Ones. Nothing that would get out of hand.

More of the piscine horrors were swarming from the deep holds, a few even intelligent enough to try to flank the Century. Webbed abominations with drooping angler lanterns, needle-filled maws gapping and slavering. Absalom finished shaping his spells and barked a command, the flank guards readying their weapons against the new incursion. Drawing a speck of personal power -cutting just a few moments from his allotted time on this earth- he sent a whisper to Titus.

"Commander. More Droolers on the left flank. Moving to engage." His grin tightened. "Let's hope my squishy nature doesn't get in the way."

Still behind the first line of troops, Absalom took a deep breath, calming his jittery nerves. He was a spellcaster, ill-suited to direct confrontation. That didn't make him defenseless, fortunately. Slowly he struck his own martial form, White Veil Form. Where Even Blade was a common staple of the kingdom's swordsmen, White Veil was the art of assassins and high society. It was meant to disarm opponents by cultivating an air of vulnerability, stiking when they were off balance and withdrawing without seeming to have struck in the first place. Appearing relaxed and comfortable, Absalom gave every indication that he wanted nothing more than to sit back with his companions and shoot the breeze. He leaned forward on his cane, fingers tracing the craved handle. Soon he would likely need to draw the blade concealed within.

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YEEEEEEAH!

Titus cursed under his breath. Just how many of these bastards were there? No time for reverie, he thought. Focus on the fight. Spine strike to the Deep One on Aulus' left flank. Uppercut target at 12 o'clock on rebound swing, follow up with downward strike. Decapitate. There were too many to take on at this rate. They would be overwhelmed within minutes. Titus muttered a single word: 'Celeritas.'

Many names existed for the power upon which the paladin now called. Celerity. Alacrity. The Quickening. Falcon's Grace. But whatever one called it, the effect was the same. For an infinitesimal sliver of one's personal reserves, the caster gained preternatural speed and reflexes for a brief moment. Ten seconds, perhaps, maybe twelve if one pushed his limits. Any longer would tear muscle fibers and crack bone due to the inhuman speed and forces involved.

Time seemed to stand still. The paladin grinned predatorily, adopting Even Blade's Many Raptors Stance. You are the leaf on the wind, his teacher once said. Soar. Dodge. Maneuver. Position your targets for the killing strike. He did. Ducking a clumsy right hook, Titus pivoted and hamstrung the offending Deep One, immobilizing it. Continuing his spin, he used his momentum to bash another with his shield, stumbling it back a half-step. A third Deep One. He clinched its arm, pulled it close, and hit it with a pommel strike and knee to the gut, followed by a stomp that broke its knee. He continued the routine on two more Deep Ones before he put an end to the Quickening. His muscles ached with the effort and his lungs were aflame, but the Many Raptors Stance had done its job. Five Deep Ones stood in perfect arrangement for him to administer a coup de grace to each. Five more strikes, five more kills. And suddenly, as Titus impaled the last one, the remaining Deep Ones on his flank went silent.

Titus raised an eyebrow. What could possibly--Oh. Oh. Lumbering into view, an impossibly large, heavyset Deep One gurgled and hissed. One blind eye was missing, replaced by a puckered mass of scar tissue. More scars ran down its body, likely inflicted by competitors and foolishly gung-ho fauna of the undercity. It seemed that the Deep One's alpha male had discovered the fight. And it pointed at Titus. The realization hit him. These things weren't mere animals after all. They could issue challenges. They could judge threats. They could think.

'Ah, crap.'

As the forward assault was swiftly repulsed, the few dozen Deep Ones attacking the flank were steadily cut down. The men of the flank held true, their shields locked in a wall that bristled with spear quills. Piscine horrors threw themselves futilely against the hide of the legion, some losing eyes or skewering their own throats with their reckless abandon. Every one that fell -be they to the spears of the flank or the blades of the vanguard- lost it's soul to Absalom's metaphysical net, more and more trapped until he was wreathed in a veil of gaseous, gossamer faces. Nearly three dozen primitive souls, all reforged into a cloak of mist for the still-unmoved spellcaster.

Of course, a mantle of mist is not impervious. The protection it offers is equal to that of a dream, in fact.

The fish-men had plotted their ambush with some level of cunning, or at least an unusual level of luck. The rough-shod buildings that surrounded the legion provided some cover for covert movements, and made it just a slightly more difficult for the Legion to anticipate their attacks.

Especially when the attacks were smart enough to utilize the roofs of the buildings.

Absalom cursed, realizing too late that he had set his perimeter too close to the surrounding structures. A handful of Deep Ones had held back, scaling the backsides of the buildings while their brethren -possibly unwittingly- provided them a distraction. Now, too late for the battle-mage to stop, the Deep Ones on the roof threw themselves into the air and over the line. Six of them, lanterns flapping wildly in the breeze and drool splattering everywhere. Their pale, bulbous, colorless eyes gapped as wide as their maws as they landed with preternatural grace a few feet before Absalom. A scream emptied itself from their collective throats as they barreled to scrimmage the lanky spellcaster about whom the souls of their brethren writhed. Absalom's men yelped in alarm, the few nearby who were not holding he line against the remaining assaulters hurriedly engaging in a futile attempt to intercept the attack on their officer. The Deep Ones were too close; claws reached forward, prepared to shred flesh...

But instead shred only dreams.

The Deep Ones stumbled into each other, hissing and gurgling at one another as they collided in a thick blanket of mist. The soldiers who had thought to assist quickly stepped back, recognizing the unnatural skein of magic now permitting the area where their officer had stood moments ago. They saw the faint outlines of the Deep Ones in the rapidly thickening mist, but no sign of the Skeleton.

Bad luck for the fish-men.

There was a faint whistle, a note of steel being drawn from it's sheath. A mad cackle penetrated the fog as a tall, gaunt shadow -a nightmarish skeleton forged of darkness and crafted in the image of the worst dreams dredged from the dread depths of Morpheus' realm- danced among the beasts, the swift decent and twirl of it's hands decapitating and impaling the intrepid piscine attackers. The fish wriggled in their mist-walled aquarium, preyed upon by a horror born from their own psyche and armed with cold steel.

"I AM ABSALOM, PRINCE OF THE MIST. STAND BEFORE ME AN WEEP, FOOLISH FISHIES! YOUR SOULS ARE MINE!" The shadow hissed in a wailing, whispering, dissonant paradox. It's 2-dimensional maw snapped down on the lantern-like souls that drifted up from the fallen foes, the mist somehow allowed the soldiers to witness the act, a fresh reminder of their officer's terrible potential. The cloak of mist began to retract, the shadow began to shrink, until Absalom once more stood amidst a well of -admittedly diminished by a soul or six- gossamer faces. He cast his gaze first towards his men still holding the flank, mopping up the last remnants of the Deep Ones. Then he noticed the silence that emanated from the front of the column.

To where the massive, humanoid anglerfish now stood in contest with his commander.

Absalom's jaw dropped.
"Never knew they grew them that big..."

He grimaced, calling the misty cloak about him into a coalesced ball in the palm of his hand. Beginning to mutter incantations of binding and empowering, the Skeleton wound up like a pitcher at the bottom of the ninth; two strikes, two outs, and bases loaded.

"Remember boss, you eat salmon. Salmon DOES NOT EAT YOU!"

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YEEEEEEAH!

Titus ducked a hammering strike, rolling under the Deep One alpha's arm and stabbing upwards, the gladius biting deep into an armpit. The monster hardly seemed to notice as Legion steel tore rubbery flesh and corded muscle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a colossal skeleton preparing to attack. Too obvious. Its strike was telegraphed. A distraction.

The Deep One averted its attention from the meek fleshbag nipping at its heels and turned on the bone golem. It roared a challenge and attempted to charge the more obvious threat. This was his chance. Titus hacked into the monster's vulnerable legs, hamstringing it. With a gurgling scream born more of anger than pain, the Deep One stumbled. They could think, but they obviously were not very intelligent. With another strike, Titus sliced open a femoral artery, the ensuing blood spray painting his mail and shield a deep red.

Of course, the Deep One alpha was huge. It had plenty of blood yet to lose before it gave in. Pivoting, the monster backhanded Titus, throwing him into a shanty. Flimsy walls and decayed wood gave in, collapsing inwards and trapping the Legionary's legs. Heavy footsteps shook the ground over the din of battle. This was it. He could hear the sounds of tearing flesh and the screams of men as the Deep Ones finished the others off. The monster moved in for the kill. Head ringing, heartbeat pounding, Titus fought to raise his shield and blade, or at least to free his legs from the rubble. It was then that he saw the true source of the footsteps. A Titan warsuit.

His hearing returned. Those were not screams. The fight was not lost. Those were the sounds of cheering Legionnaires, elated at the sight of their battle-brothers. The skeleton was gone, probably an illusion cooked up by Absalom on the fly. A second patrol, much larger than Titus', laid in with swords and spears, finishing off the remaining Deep Ones while medicae staff pulled wounded and dead out of the fray. The alpha faltered under the strikes of a colossus of steel and righteous fury. Another patrol stood with them. The Honored Dead stood with them.

Since the first days of the Legions, every soldier swore the Death Oath--to serve even in death by bequeathing body and soul to his brothers in arms. It was voluntary, but no Legionnaire would dare to shirk from giving his all for the empire, even in the XIV. Most of the time, a dead soldier would be handed to his home Legion's sorceror cabal. Flesh and organs were removed, burnt, and sent to next of kin in well-decorated urns, specially crafted using the Legion's funds and craftsmen to honor that Legionnaire's personal accomplishments. The soul was used as fuel to imbue life into the bones, granting the Legion a reliable, cheap supply of skeletal laborers and soldiers. And like all heroes, the Dead Legionnaires were treated with utmost reverence. They stood at the forefront of parades and ceremonial functions and held the line like their living comrades.

Sometimes, a hero in life would be granted special service. Brother-Ancient Octavius was one of them. Struck down long ago in a battle even he had half-forgotten, Octavius was interred, mind, body, and soul in one of the Legion's suits of powered armor, his soul providing the fuel in place of an engine. The Honored Dead were a class of their own.

Octavius, his armor resplendent and strung with oath papers, led the counter-charge. The Honored Dead landed a thunderous blow against the Deep One alpha, a vicious uppercut with his arm-mounted pneumatic siege hammer. He followed up with a headbutt, cracking the alpha's skull with a ring of hollow steel, before pulverizing its innards with a gut strike. The monster collapsed and, impossibly, continued to spasm and twitch, attempting to leave one last wound before it died. Octavius gave it no such chance. On his other arm was a heavy-duty flamethrower. With a hiss, the flame unit's jets fired out an arc of brilliant burning fluid. Titus was familiar with the fuel. It was an ever-burning mixture, nearly impossible to extinguish by conventional means. A nasty, painful way to go, and perfect for close combat and sieges. Piscine eyes melted, flesh peeled, and fat flash-burned as the monster thrashed in its last moments.

Titus felt the pressure on his legs ease. The rubble shifted. Sitting upright, he found himself face to face with Centurion Lucibius, his direct superior. Lucibius was Legion Champion by dint of his experience, charisma, and tactical brilliance. A master of Even Blade, the First Centurion was universally respected even in this Legion of thugs. The Champion wore his relics of office: the enchanted Lorica Fulminata, bedecked with the thunderbolt and skull symbols of the old XIV, and the Black Sword, sheathed at his side. Titus knew not what magics were worked into the steel, or what sort of tempering methods were used to achieve the latter's coloration, but he did know that wherever the Champion was, a trail of corpses followed.

'Get up, boy,' said the First Centurion. 'We need everyone back at camp. Now.'

'What's going o--'

'We're under attack. Haven't heard a thing from the Legate in the past half hour. Last message I got from his mage was a garbled mess of shouting and fighting.'

Titus didn't bother to inquire further. He hauled himself up on aching muscles and collected his gear. He signaled his patrol group to reform. 'We march on your word, sir.'

[Edited for grammar and diction]

The arrival of the Honored Dead halted Absolom's pitch in an instant. The hulking golem of steel and soul pulverized any foe it faced, be it man or monster. With it's retinue of proper Legionaires, the Deep Ones stood no chance. There was no need to waste the souls he held when the tide had been turned so thoroughly. Instead, the battlecaster snatched up whatever souls he could from the mop-up, storing his little collection within the phylactery that was his mask. The soulsteel misted over as it's reservoir was filled, a dozen jostling phantom faces thronging the surface. Empyreal fish in an abyssal cage.

Slipping off the mask, Absolom began barking orders, echoing his commander's signaled directives. The men formed up swiftly, doing their best to appear as professional and intimidating in the combined faces of a rival patrol and two highly revered champions of the Legion. Awed whispers flitted like snowflakes among the ranks as Absolom loped towards his commander, whispers that recounted each legionnaire's theories on each relic the First Centurion wielded and the manner in which Octavius had earned his place as a Brother-Ancient. Absolom had his own theories, but knew one thing for certain. The black blade the Centurion wielded was a relic from another age, when magecraft had been stronger and more primeval. Rather than fading with each strike, the eerie arsenal of the rough sword seemed to grow stronger and more hungry to bite flesh. The metal itself had been imbued as it was worked -actually cast into the metal as it was forged rather than simply onto the surface- and was sustained through processes the battlecaster couldn't begin to understand. Perhaps it drew the souls from those it slew...

Absolom broke his musings as he snapped to attention before the gaggle of men -and revenant- who significantly outranked him. Snapping a sharp salute, he gave a quick report.

"Three men dead sir, with... twelve, twenty-three... Twenty-seven Deep Ones sent to the abyss. No significant injuries to any of the men beyond the fallen, ammo is still good, water still in ready supply."

He bowed respectfully -although it bordered on mockingly, Absolom did not respond well to authority- to the First Centurion and the Brother-Ancient.

"While I would love to believe that the aid was altruistic, it seems unlikely that that would be the case. Where do we march gentlemen?"

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YEEEEEEAH!

The sorceror's question was answered when the combined patrol returned to a camp besieged. Legionnaires at the earthworks of the Castra Talara did battle with a veritable horde of Deep Ones. In the distance, Titus spotted both the midnight blue of XIV Legion shields and the purple common to every city militia in the empire, as well as the personal heraldry of the Legate and his honor guard.

'THIS. IS. UNUSUAL, FIRST. CENTURION,' boomed Octavius in his sepulchral basso tones. 'THE CREATURES. HAVE NOT BEEN. SEEN. IN. SUCH. NUMBERS. BEFORE.'

'Agreed, Honored Ancient,' Lucibius muttered. 'But we can think on it later.' He turned to the Legionnaires behind him. 'Legio Mortis,' he yelled, 'We march for Talarum!'

His rallying call was matched by the cries of hundreds of Legionnaires, the combined force of dozens of other patrols scattered throughout the slums. Titus was one of them, echoing the many yells of 'Talarum!' This city was the Legion's. The vast majority of its men were pulled from the thieves, thugs, and gangs of the undercity. The common soldiers of the Damned XIV were, for better or worse, the sons of Talarum, and they would die before they saw this city fall to the beasts of the underworld.

Lucibius unsheathed the Black Sword. 'Legio Mortis, wedge formation! Drive deep and tear out the heart!'

When the First Centurion spoke, the Legion obeyed, and obey it did. Blades and polearms drawn, Lucibius' warband charged with the Honored Dead, and the Legion Champion as the tip of the spear. With a crash of steel, wood, and flesh, the battle was joined and Titus was in the thick of it all, stabbing, punching, and hacking with the rest. Blood for the XIV. Blood for Talarum.

Absolom drew up sharply, the flood of Legionnaires parting and reforming around him. His mask billowed forth from where he had stashed it in his pack, the souls within giving access some of it's more utilitarian abilities. The diaphanous tendrils quickly resolved themselves into the metal of his half-mask, opaque shard of glass slotting into place over his eyes.

As the vanguard charged the spellweaver began to hum, his rough voice resonating through the very bones of the Legion. Mist poured forth from his mask, sheathing first his face, then his shoulders and arms. The billowing clouds curled and churned in his hands, twisting and intermingling like an agitated nest of serpents. As Absolom's voice rose in utterance of hymns to gods long dead the vanguard began to blur. The longer one gazed at them the harder it was to pin down where they strode. Their every step seemed to take them in utterly random directions; back three steps then forward six then diagonally twelve. A faint patina of misty distortion further spread along the front line, burying the charging men in a cloak of fog. The humans would be able to see through it as if looking through a tinted glass, but the Deep Ones would see naught but indistinct shadows. Further, every being within the veil would feel an insistent urge to strike any movement it did not recognize as a friend.

Absolom chuckled, executing a slight, shuffling jig with his cane.

"You remind me of a man~
What man?
The man with the power~
What power?
Oh, the power of Voodoo~~"

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YEEEEEEAH!

The one thing historians and poets always forget about combat is the filth. Legends and epics always talk of clear skies and resplendent warriors, of polished armor and clean blades. In truth, a Legion fight was one of grime and muck and dust and blood. Even without Absolom's spell, one would be hard-pressed to see through the chaos during the battle for the Castra Talara.

As a frontliner, Titus knew that feeling all to well. He nearly slipped on the mud of the undercity, which had been turned into a quagmire by the blood of the fallen. He slid backwards as the Deep Ones hurled themselves at the legionary shield wall and stumbled as he pushed them back. As one, the front rank of Lucibius' contingent laid in with their blades, emerging from the illusory fog like an army of spectres. Like an army of dead men walking. How fitting.

Stab. Cut. Thrust. Chop. The first rank cut a bloody swathe through the enemy, leaving a carpet of disemboweled and maimed corpses for the others to follow. Titus cracked a skull with his shield and finished his victim with a quick heart stab. The next, he knocked down with his shield's downswing and impaled with his gladius. He twisted the sword for good measure before wrenching it out and kicking the corpse free. And still, the enemy came at them.

Aulus fell, his gut split open. Titus almost recoiled at the unpleasant aroma of ruptured intestines. Pulling the man back to the rear ranks, Titus waved up the man behind him to fill the vacancy in the line.

'Son of a ****ing,' groaned the fallen legionnaire. 'Optio, am I going to die?'

Titus had unpacked the medical kit issued to him as part of his temporary status as a Primus Medicae. Thumbing through the kit's pockets, he picked out pouches of antiseptic and numbing powders. He tore off their seals and began to spread them liberally through the wound.

'Don't know, Aulus,' he said as he fought to stem the bleeding and seal the wound. Calling on his minor magical talents, the paladin channeled a trickle of healing energy into the injured soldier, sealing the intestines and repairing blood vessels. 'What does your gut tell you?'

He groaned, more in exasperation than pain. 'That you're a terrible comedian, sir.'

Finishing up his stitching, Titus called over a pair of orderlies, who lifted the man onto a stretcher and rushed him away from the fight. Wiping his blood-slick hands dry, Titus retrieved his gladius and shield and made his way back to the front. He chuckled darkly. With all the blood staining their Legion blue, he and the XIV almost looked like the crimson-clad elites of the First Legion. He'd done the doctor's work. Now it was time to resume the butcher's work.

Absolom surveyed the carnage with a satisfied nod, a pillar of calm amidst the tumult of battle. He was in his element, directing orderlies with minute gestures while netting fallen souls in his rapidly perspiring mask. The bodies of the wounded were lain out haphazardly wherever they could fit around the Skeleton, converged around the closest thing to a medic the Legion had, aside from Scripo. And Scripo's specialty was making sure that the soldier lived long enough to get treatment. Only Absolom, with his mastery of Necromancy, could get them fighting again in short order. His solutions were only temporary of course; he was only able to 'resurrect' the wounded flesh for a short period of time if he limited himself to fragments of each soul he used for power. And considering the levels of casualties they were sustaining, combined with the defensive spells he was having to spit out periodically, the battlecaster NEEDED to be conservative with his expenditures.

Though he stood still, magic coursed painfully through the Skeleton. He was fed by a surging river of a thousand streams from the battlefield, a fraction of which he cast back over his troops in a shimmering lattice of defensive wards and distorting illusions. The nature of the souls he consumed limited what he could provide in the way of support; the plaid souls of the Deep Ones were diluted enough that they served best as minor necromantic enhancements to strength and speed, while the disturbingly plentiful advanced souls of the Legionaries -made all the more pliable for his trade by their enlistment oaths- were enough for the more reality-bending illusions.

The rest of his power reached out like cephalopodic tendrils to the wounded around him. Some of the spells dulled pain, others 'resurrected' the failed flesh of his soldiers. Some, unfortunately, were spells of execution that snuffed out patients too far gone for his ministrations to provide for. He handled these the souls of these mercy-kills with an uncharacteristic modicum of respect, saving their power to imbue patients hanging on the brink with enough life to weather the battle or a soldier on the front line enough strength to punch through the scaled carapace assaulting him.

Big Problem with being a spellcaster. Nine times out of ten the individual is a scholar who didn't spend enough time maintaining the physical in addition to the mental. And probably expends more focus on his spells than the battlefield. Ordinarily, Absolom would have done a better job of the latter. He wouldn't have survived in the army otherwise, and the training for White Veil Style demanded it. But maintaining so many spells, enduring the wailing of so many deceased -both living and dead- was taxing him beyond belief. Not even the small cadre of support spellcasters the Legion had been outfitted with did much to alleviate the strain. Even mages have outcasts after all.
So it was almost understandable when something large, scaly, and reeking of fish bowled him over.

Almost.

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Titus had lost his sword somewhere in the press. Buried in the gut of a Deep One, the gladius had been buried under the corpses carpeting the killing ground. He had no time to draw his standard-issue dagger--another monster bore down upon him, needle-like teeth bared as it tried to bite into his heavy chainmail. His arm shot out, fingers closing around a scrawny throat. He chokeslammed the Deep One, stomping on its throat and crushing its windpipe. Pulling back to allow a fully-armed legionnaire to main the line, he made his way back to the rear to rearm.

'Ah, crap,' he muttered as he saw some new horror break the line on the right flank. He barked in the Legion battle cant. 'Shore up the right! Line broken! Line broken, dammit!'

The tripedal creature looked even more alien than the Deep Ones. A blind, tube-shaped head terminated in a puckered mouth ringed by bony barbs. Lithe, powerful muscles rippled beneath its layer of oily silver scales. The closest parallel his mind could bring up was to a lamprey, if that lamprey had been mutated almost beyond recognition by some drug-addled, magically-gifted art major. It bolted straight for the Legion's sorceror cabal.

Titus raced to the spell-slingers' aid, retrieving a gladius and pilum from a fallen Legionnaire's kit. Several of the fighting wounded turned to join him, brandishing gladii, daggers, spears, and improvised weapons taken from the ground. Yelling a command word, Titus and his ragtag group of first responders glowed with an ethereal gold warmth, blessed with enhanced strength and speed by the paladin's divine sponsors. Legionnaires hurled pila and plumbatae at the abomination and the various Deep Ones clustering at its heels, landing with meaty thumps and satisfying pained gurgles. They closed in and began to exact the butcher's toll, hacking apart the survivors. Titus batted the lamprey's claw aside as it reached for a prone wizard. He could not tell which one it was in the chaos of combat, but he had more important concerns. He drove the blade up into the lamprey's throat. Scales, flesh, and muscle parted as Titus carved deep into the abomination's throat, but still it came on, swatting his sword arm away contemptuously. Bone cracked. The gladius flew out of sight. Titus gritted his teeth and raised his shield as its barbed mouth descended.

Sharp, bony growths tore through the wood of his shield, tearing it from his arm as the monster shook it free and gouging chunks of flesh from his shield arm. Titus used his remaining good arm--a relative term, really--to fumble at the locks of his dagger sheath, for all the good that sliver of steel would do now.

It is not wise to interrupt a caster in the middle of a spell. The stories always make it seem as if that is the best solution for the hero to pursue when confronted with an eeeeevil magic-man. Run them through with your sword while they're distracted by their foolish little chanting! Those protective incantations TOTALLY aren't an indication of just how much power is being channeled here, or the consequences of a slip-up! So many aspiring mages lose their lives when their friends see fit to interrupt a carefully prepared ritual, misguided by their childhood fairy tales.

Apparently monsters listen to the same damn stories.

Absolom could hear the twisted seige-beast running rampant through his patients, and would have cursed the sky blue had he not been otherwise engaged. The Deep One that leaned over him -maw gapping, breath reeking- scrabbled madly at the stones as it attempted to claw his face off. The only thing that was preventing it from turning him into a fistful of beef jerky was his cane jammed firmly into it's chest. Absolom's arms were ridged and trembling, screaming at him to collapse as he struggled to keep the flow of magic he was a conduit for stable. The power arcing through him was rapidly becoming autonomous, snatching souls as they fell and forcing them along the paths he had already laid out. But without his will to regulate the flow, his reservoir had filled beyond capacity and was flooding those pre-determined paths. He was drowning in souls, drowning in power, arms weakening, aether destabilizing...

And the floodgates broke.



There was a blinding flash of grey, and for a moment the area was steeped in unbroken silence...
And then a psychic scream tore through the minds of everyone within a kilometer radius, bringing everything living to it's knees.

The wail emanated from the Skeleton, his figure writhing beneath the charred corpse of his assailant. His flesh was tarnished an abyssal ebony black, every vein standing out as a blinding bolt of electricity. A world-weathering incandescence emanated from those lines, flaying and fraying the veil of reality. His eyes were seared in the same flaying light, cold fires pouring forth through the opaque eye-slits of his mask. Reality was beginning to shudder about him, his agonized mantra sending fear arcing through everyone who had a basic understanding of magic and was still sane.

"THE WARP! THE WARP! THE WARP! THE DAEMOOOOONS!"

Among those who managed to shut out the screams, a few legionnaires not reengaging their fishy foes attempted to approach the thrashing conduit. Most stumbled as an unseen force shunted them back, but one figure struggled through. Taller and slighter than most of the XIV, the soldier pressed forward as if fighting n unseen wind. At a mere foot away it seemed that the storm was at it's pinnacle, forcing the soldier to fall to her knees. Still, she reached out, gauntlet forcing its way forward until it rested almost gently -soothingly- upon Absolom's void-painted brow.

And in that instant there was calm again.

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Darkness. Muffled voices. Pain. The stench of offal and rot. The voices seemed to be yelling. Strange, he thought. He couldn't hear the clash of steel. Tired eyes opened and gazed at the shrivelled corpse of a lamprey-like horror. He held his breath for a moment before realizing it had left the mortal coil. He'd lost his helmet.

Titus pushed the body off and channeled healing energies through his ruined arm. Unimaginable pain flared in the fractured limb as he forced bone back into place and repaired the damage. Uncomfortable warmth spread through his body as he flash-burned fat to aid his regeneration. Staggering up onto his knees, the paladin donned his helmet, which lay on the dirt in arm's reach. He took in his surroundings. The dust still hadn't settled fully, leaving the field in a hazy twilight illuminated by torches and mass pyres. Flakes of ash drifted lazily like some macabre parody of the desert lotus petals showered on legionary celebrations. In the distance, exhausted Legion soldiers walked the field, prodding at corpses, hauling away wounded, and executing the few monsters that still stubbornly clung to life. Valerius, the Legion Centurion cadre, and the Ancient convened over a hastily-constructed planning table. He ran the numbers quickly in his head. If his calculations were correct, the Legion had lost about 300. Losses remained within acceptable parameters, then.

Spitting a wad of bloody plegm, the Optio retrieved a fallen spatha and tower shield, making his way back to the sorceror cabal's designated battle location. What happened? Incantation gone wrong? Interference with a ritual?

Several of the Legion's civilian hangers-on approached him, hawking wares. The Imperial Legions tended to attract a train of non-combatant "support personnel" like these. It was a term he used lightly, for their "support" was often of questionable value. Small-time peddlers, food vendors, whores, and the like plied their trades in the shadows of Legion tent cities.

'A knife? A knife, soldier boy? Lost yours, you did,' crowed an old man, his left eye covered by a black patch and his coat open to show various poorly-crafted imitations of the XIV's trademark shiv of choice.

'Pass, I know a quartermaster,' he said.

One of the myriad painted girls approached him, cooing poorly-rehearsed soft nothings into his ear.

'Your business pitch needs work,' he grunted as he pushed her away, ignoring her as she called his masculinity into question.

Scavengers and parasites, the lot of them, but they were as much a part of a Legion as the actual soldiers. It would be easier to pull a desert hook-fly from one's skin than it would to shoo away the squatters. Even before the dead had cooled, this rabble picked at the battlefield, eager to steal away some shiny keepsake or two before the Legionnaires beat them for dishonoring the dead.

He could barely see through the dusty fog blanketing the ground. Strange voices scratched at the borders of his senses. The veil was thin here. Restless spirits chattered and whispered in the darkness, suspended in the limbo between corpse and conduit. Something big had been disrupted here. Titus brandished the silver, sword-crossed sundisk of his order, whispering a brief prayer to soothe their pain. It was a language he hadn't used in a long time, one practiced by a dead desert tribe and used in the many Solar Temples of the old faith.

'O Shora,' he began, beseeching She who once dispensed justice and passage for the dead, She who now sleeps in the folds of heaven. It was a complicated language, one of harsh, monosyllabic words and curt sentences. The sundisk was suffused with a warm glow, a tiny glimmer of light in the perpetual night of the undercity. The spirits fell back, quieted, if only briefly. He would have a necromancer see to proper rites later.

Titus caught himself as he slipped on the viscera of a dead Deep One. Where the hell was Abso--Movement!

Where? Where the hell was it? He'd seen something just a moment ago. He continued a few more paces before he spotted a silhouette. Two humans. One prone and clad in Legion leathers, another in armor which might have been Legion infantry kit. Something was wrong, he thought. Something was very, very wrong with the veil here. As he neared, he could make out his old friend's accoutrements. He looked like he was still breathing. Good. Who was the other? Why had nobody else come to the aid of an asset as precious as a Legion spellcaster? And why couldn't Titus make out any of the legionnaire's features?

Absolom rarely slept, at least in the proper sense. It was a side effect of the conditioning that accompanied the army life mixed with no small amount of bio-thaumaturgy. The result was an existence at the cusp between sleeping and waking, unable to shake the nagging suspicion that everything he experienced was merely a dream. He only truly slumbered to commune with his subconscious, and then only to refresh his psyche in contemplation of terrible things. And more often than not, he'd wake screaming at the disturbing content of his dreams.

But this time, he just... woke up. From a blank fog, he returned to consciousness. It was a strange sensation, disquieting after so many years. The Skeleton was almost relieved when he realized something was wrong with the world about him, it was so much more palatable than returning to the mor... well, it was just more palatable.

The first thing he noticed prickled at his perception before he even tried to open his eyes. All about the Skeleton, as oppressive as that acrid stench of the burnt flesh, was the sensation of a weakened veil. It flitted at the back of all of his senses; not quite a smell or a sound, yet still bitter, dissonant, and almost ticklish. Spirits pressed hard against the gossamer barrier, their melancholy whispers urgent as they fought against ethereal predators. The passing of such ghostly beasts send ripples through the veil, dangerous distortions that brought validity to the sorcerous analogies to the spirit world being the sea to the material world's shore. It was that sensation that reminded him of why he had been unconscious, and sent him jackknifing into a sitting position.

His eyes shot open -aided by the screaming pain that spread from every point of his flesh that moved- searching frantically for the fish that had struck him, or for evidence of the terrifying possibility of his having entered the immaterial coil. But he was met only by the opaque chips of his mask. It was a reassuring measure for the Skeleton, since his Grave Goods wouldn't likely have included such a rare and potent artifact. If it was here, then the Skeleton was probably still walking. Cool, reassuring steel.

It was reassuring until he tried to remove it, at any rate. The first fright was the sheer pain that the action resulted in. He had expected the pain from sitting up; being bull-rushed -salmon-rushed?- by an enemy in heavy armor plating was bound to bruise beyond belief. But this pain was pervasive and all-encompassing, as if his skin had been ritualistically flayed from his still-living flesh. A scream was bit back as the boney spellcaster's hand slapped onto the cold metal plate, fingers scrabbling for purchase as Absolom struggled to accomplish his task as soon as possible. The sooner he was done, the sooner the pain could recede. Yet the scrabbling was futile; his mask had meshed seamlessly with his flesh. Absolom's heart sunk like a bismuth nugget in a glass of vitriol, eaten away by some faint, disheartening whisper at the back of his mind.
You're blind, and mutilated. How does it feel necromancer? That mask you've clung to now clings to you, adorned with eyes that will never permit the redeeming light to cross their threshold.

Defiantly -although defiant against what Absolom wasn't sure- the Skeleton switched to his deathsight. It was much as he had expected; the battlefield was a mortician's utopia and the veil was frayed worse than a beggar's loincloth. He was going to have his work cut out for him restabilizing the area, indeed if it was repairable at all. There were no rifts yet, but several patches felt more fragile than soap bubbles. Slowly the Skeleton swept his gaze about, avoiding exacerbating his protesting muscles and rebelling skin.

Looking at the world in deathsight was much like looking into an abyss filled with light-forged inhabitants. Everyone had their reflection in deathsight, an indistinct construct that took on the most defining features of the individual. One could tell the power of a person based on how bright their construct shone, and their mood by the shades that skittered like rainbows across each construct's surface - colloquially called their Banner. Objects became gray shadows of themselves distinguished only by the most structurally-significant features, while the rest of the world was consigned to nonexistence. All in all, deathsight was better suited to supplement visual input, not become the sole means of seeing as Absolom was attempting.

Then again, it wouldn't have made the Legionnaire kneeling beside him any less disconcerting. From her muted soul-Banner he first thought she was one of the dead, albeit fallen in an awkward position. Corpses generally did not sit seiza unless arranged thus by some strange fancy of the living, but Absolom had seen stranger death-positions. No, what stood the Legionnaire apart from the cadavers was how her strangely cold and emotionless Banner still flickered with the small movements that not even the most powerful Risen Dead could mimic. Every living creature moved, whether within or without, and their Banner would reflect that. Her Banner was more akin to static, deathsight sliding off her as if searching for a purchase and finding only a void.

They stared at each other for a few moments. Details in deathsight were limited to only the features that most people noticed; the shape of the nose, the depth of eyes, the shapeliness of a figure. Clothes and armor clung to Banners more as a testament to modesty than anything else; they were gossamer enough to reveal the form of a Banner without being indecent, much to the despair of many a young spellcaster. The legionnaire was armored in a standard XIV kit, her weapons sitting atop her shield beside her. Her helm was still firmly strapped to her head, but through it's indistinct form Absolom could make out a nest of feathery short-cropped hair. Her actually expression was much harder to make out, but the Skeleton judged it to be somewhere between cold, indifferent, and emotionless. The Banner neither confirmed or denied this assessment, a rather frustrating nuisance. It seemed the most logical assumption however; while the legions took in everyone regardless of race or gender -indeed, some of the best legions were all-female- XIV was mainly composed of murderers and madmen, whose crimes were more often perpetrated by men. Or at least the ones caught were mostly men. A few women slipped into the XIV under thievery charges or similar accusations, but for the most part XIV was a sausage fest. The few women among them either cultivated an air of lethal untouchability or endeared themselves to tougher squad mates. This soldier seemed to be of the former group.

Absolom was drawn from his musings by the legionnaire shifting to a crouch, her hand coming to rest lightly on his shoulder. He winced as the cool metal of her gauntlet brushed his skin, making it apparent to his mutilated senses that he wasn't wearing a shirt.

I must have burned. the Skeleton realized with a shudder. It would explain why every inch of him felt raw, although how he could still feel anything or was going to stop a MASSIVE infection were worries that flitted through the rafters of his mind.

"Lie down Quartermaster. You were conduit to the Warp, lucky to still be alive. The commander and Honored Dead were convinced you were too far gone, but acquiesced that I keep a vigil over you until you passed." She paused, much to Absolom's displeasure. Her monotone voice oddly soothing, conveying no emotion yet subtly demanding attention. It was gentle and clear, an anchor in the Skeleton's crippled world. On the other hand, it had a curt, clipped feeling that implied that she did not deign to speak often.

"It seems I was right to insist. Your friend there, at least, will be pleased that you still live."

She went quiet again as the crunch of legion boots drew near. Absolom forced his taut maw to grin as a familiar Banner-light grew behind him.

"Heya Titus. Long day at the office, huh?"

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'Just another shift, Absolom. Hold still, I'll get you back to a medicae station later.' Grimacing at the pain in his arms, Titus kept a hand near his blade. He couldn't put his finger on it, but something was very, very wrong. The veil threatened to burst here. Already, the chittering and scratching of ethereal visitors nagged at his mental barriers, scrabbling for purchase in the materium. At the edges of his vision, phantoms faded in and out of vision, twisted into unrecognizable forms by the tides and winds of the aether. The paladin suppressed a shudder as he turned on the other legionnaire. Not an officer, judging by the kit. No crested helmet adorned her head and she wore the standard chain of the Legion rather than the banded lorica segmentata provided to centurions and above. He called for medicae staff.

'And you, soldier, why the hell haven't you called for a--' Titus' words died in his throat. The legionnaire turned to him, looking him dead in the eye. What he saw was, for a few hellish moments, not a legionnaire. What he saw was most definitely not human. Squamous, gibbering things wriggled towards him, tongues encrusted with eyes dangling from drooling, beaked maws. Screaming, malformed entities materialized, forced into the shape of a single massive, constantly shifting ethereal teratoma, a cancerous stillbirth of souls. Coiled, serpentine horrors trailing hooves and tentacles plied the aetheric tides as a collection of ever-turning golden wheels orbited by a flaming sword grew ever larger. He realized it was approaching him. Reddened eyes opened on the wheels as they neared, weeping blood and pus. As one, the eyes regarded him.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to claw at his eyes and drive his dagger into his throat. Anything to stop seeing what he was seeing right now. Things which were and yet were not. Things which should not be. Horrible, impossible visions. Alien geometries, paradoxes upon paradoxes, and with each passing second, a new abomination to behold.

Sa tash wej Haj, uttered a disembodied mass of voices, their sound like the grind of a glacier on rock. Do not be afraid, whispered a small voice in his head. It was the old tongue.

Just as madness threatened to overtake him, the vision halted, cutting him off from the sanity-shattering depths of that which lay beyond the veil. His eyes once again saw normalcy. The undercity. A burnt, injured comrade. A legionnaire. The comforting stink of rot, pyre smoke, and cookfires.

'Optio, are you alright?'

No. No, he was not. His head felt like it had been split open by an axe murderer. Blood began to leak from his nostrils, ears, and tear ducts. He grunted, half in pain and half in denial, as he channeled a trickle of healing energies to staunch his wounds further. Dabbing the blood from his eyes, he sheathed the sword. 'I'm fine,' he growled. 'Veil anomaly playing hell with my head is all--Medicae! Get over here, damn you! Bah.' He turned back to the unknown legionnaire. 'Why the hell haven't you called for medics yourself, trooper?'

'As I said, to the sorceror, Optio--' Titus noted that her voice was unnaturally monotone, somehow lacking even the cadences necessary to sound human. '--the First Centurion and the Ancient believed him too far gone. I elected to keep a vigil until he passed.'

'Likely story, but a load of crap. Any legionnaire worth their salt would have moved the body back to the medicae tent for last rites and disposal according to protocol, even in this outfit. If he was irredeemably injured, legion policy dictates mercy kill in the event of unconsciousness, a few brief words and then the mercy kill in the event of consciousness. '

To do any less would deprive the dead of their due and the living of a precious resource. The souls of the magically gifted were akin to intangible elemental reactors, providing a massive and incredibly versatile source of life energy that could be channeled into necromancy, triage, and enchanting, but they could only be captured and harnessed before or shortly after said souls left their host bodies. There was no way any sane commander would allow a spell-slinger's corpse to sit in the open away from a Legion's spellcaster cabal, even in the Damned XIV. 'You also failed to call medical staff to attend to the sorceror's needs immediately after discovering he was alive. Instead, you decided to sit here and offer talk instead of medicine. State your name and posting, legionnaire. Your centurion needs to hear of this.'

The veil continued to stir at his frayed senses. The aura of wrongness continued to pervade the very air around the three. Titus' fingers rested atop the grip of the spatha.

"Armsman Cain. Under normal circumstances, yes, the sorcerer should have been put out of his misery. But three things mitigate that norm." She held up three fingers, lowering each as she counted off her justifications.

"First, he was conduit to the Warp and yet still survived. It's likely he picked... something... up during the deluge, and killing him could release it. The Cadian Incident should be proof of that. Second, because he was the epicenter the sorcerer is acting as a stabilizing element for the veil. Moving him too far from this point will be akin to ripping a bead from an embroidery, at least until he can disentangle himself. Third, my master ordered me to hold the sorcerer here. You may have heard of Inquisitor Zaranchek Xanthus?" the legionnaire punctuating the Inquisitor's name with a clutched fist.

Absolom stiffened at the name. He didn't know if Titus recognized the it, but the Skeleton certainly did. The Inquisitors were best described as secret police, bearing the mark of the Emperor and answerable only to him. They were tasked with hunting down any and all of the myriad threats to the stability of the Emperor's realm, from rogue spellcaster to hostile humanoids to horrors from other planes. Several organizations such as the Mage's guild and the Ecclesiarchy maintained their independence and secrecy, but only because of the clout their respective organizations possessed. It was comforting that the Inquisition Orders were few in number - although some were reputed to loath spell casters as desecrators of the dead- but that made the attention of one all the more ominous. Xanthus was one of the more well-known Inquisitors, a demon-hunter rumored to have unhealthy interests involving the other side of the Veil. Even if Absolom didn't socialize with people, spell casters tended to share information. And word on the street was that casters approached by Zaranchek Xanthus' agents either disappeared or overloaded. Neither option seemed pleasant.

"Any reason the Inquisition wants to see me?" the Skeleton rasped, slowly lowering himself so that the pain of taut muscles receded. The throbbing was beginning to impede his cognitive abilities.

Cain reached out to tap his mask.

"Foci. Outside of the Mage's Guild they are in short supply, and my master has need of as many as he can acquire. Rumor has it that you aren't affiliated with the Guild, and are a skilled craftsman when you can be persuaded to actually focus on the job. He's willing to relocate your whole company for a special assignment--" Here she glanced over at Titus, indicating that the offer would take the Optio's opinion into account. "-- that, while serving his own purposes, should resonate quite well with your experiences. Xanthus wants to use regents that are supposed to have powerful properties, but are most abundant in Deep One-controlled tunnels. The foci must be able to amplify nearly twice as much as the standard construct, while being as durable as possible. The current regents we have access to are... insufficient for that task."

Absolom let his flensed head rest again the cool stone, staring up at the ceiling in wonder. He had never see fit to join the Mage's Guild -a mired bureaucracy that made it difficult for a spellcaster to make a living anywhere other than their employ or in the Legions- but he knew full well why they were cautious with the manufacture and distribution of foci. Such items, in the wrong hands, could result in destruction far worse than what he had accidentally wreaked across the battlefield here. Absolom was not a particularly powerful spellcaster, he simply had access to a steady supply of power thanks to his profession. Someone with a true bastion of personal power and nothing to lose could potentially level a whole city when equipped with a good foci. And now an Inquisitor was looking to make foci even more powerful than the standard pattern, and in large quantities.

On the one hand, the Skeleton felt oddly eager to experiment with magic, an interest he had had far less time to pursue in recent years. Pushing the borders of science and magic was a fascinating endeavor, albeit often fraught with maimings and early deaths. Or heresy charges. Plus, the only good Deep One was a salmon steak. On the other hand, who knew what kind of plans the Inquisitor had in store. It seemed unlikely, but a coup was always a possibility. Inquisitors were chosen for their loyalty, but no one was beyond corruption.

"I'm sure the Inquisition has far better troops than us, why not send them to get your supplies?"

Absolom wasn't quite sure, but he thought Cain's mouth had drawn up in a grin. Even in deathsight it seemed creepy; like a mannequin had imitated the muscle contractions that made up a human's expression.

"There are worse things in the deep than walking fillets. Things that would be attracted to large groups. Small teams would be able to get in and out without notice. We think."

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The noise of armored tread brought the Legate and his officers into the conversation. None of them looked pleased with the news.

'Or because the Empire deems us expendable,' said the first cohort's second centurion, Lucia Cornelia. She was a tough old matron, built like a brick house and mistress of the Legion's siege resources. 'Don't want to waste the glitter boys in the First or the preening, parade ground nancies in the Twelfth, do we?'

'Enough,' the Legate growled. 'We were planning to make a foray into the deeps anyway, so you can all cease your grumbling.' He rounded on the new girl, Cain. 'And you, on the other hand, can tell your Inquisitor that this is a Legion operation first and foremost. Primary objective is to find whatever is stirring these Deep Ones up and mount its head on a pike. Secondary is to put every last Deep One to the sword. Tertiary is to mark and open up routes for the inevitable influx of miners once we've made the cave systems safe.'

The Armsman gave him a look of incredulity. 'That still leaves my objective unaddressed. Surely it--'

'QUATERNARY,' rumbled Octavius. 'ONCE. THESE TUNNELS. ARE. SAFE. YOU MAY. SPELUNK. AT YOUR LEISURE.'

'Standard Legion operating procedure,' added the First Centurion. 'Primary objective is to ensure the area of operation is clear of any threats to Imperial or allied forces. Our AO is whatever forsaken grottoes we claim in the name of the Empire. Everything else comes after. If your boss had a gram of sense, he'd have sent you in after receiving the all-clear signal instead of during our little field trip.'

Cain set her jaw, clenching her fist. 'Very well. Where shall I bunk?'

Lucibius scratched his jaw. 'My optio's tent group is down a man. Make yourself useful and fill in that gap. Oh, and try not to **** anyone off. Our boys don't take too kindly to POGs.'

'"POGs", sir?'

'People other than grunts. Clerks, bookkeepers, glorified bureaucrats like you.'

'Noted.'

'And do remove yourself from the vicinity of my sorceror,' interjected a man in Legion leathers. He was a wizened fellow, with a neatly trimmed beard, the liver spots of old age, and the dark skin of a man who came from one of the surface-dwelling cities or tribes. To most, he appeared to be in his late fifties or early sixties. In truth, he was in his forties, prematurely aged by the rigors of spellcasting. Arch-mage Malik commanded the Legion's spellcasters like a fiercely protective and demanding father. 'The Legion takes care of its own. My clerics will see to him.'

Titus sighed in exasperation. The girl's gear was almost pristine--a bad sign, most likely. It showed that she'd hardly seen combat, or at least hardly participated in it since her assignment to this outfit. Either way, it made him uneasy. He'd simply have to hope her shield arm wouldn't be the weak link that killed them all. He'd also have to hope that she would be able to fit in without a hitch.

The Legion began its march into the newly-opened mine tunnel on the next morning. Like all Imperial military forces, the XIV marched hard and quickly, leaving little room in its itinerary for breaks to rest and refill waterskins. Not that anyone cared, anyway. Within hours, the XIV had cleared the man-made tunnels and entered the natural hollows of the Earth, accidentally opened by the mining crew that had unwittingly unleashed the Deep Ones. Many of the surfacers in the Legion marvelled and gawped at the titanic caves, bioluminescent flora, and massive crystal growths encountered along the way.

The Legion's last stop for the day put the men on a rocky shelf overlooking an underground lake filled with glowing multicolored microorganisms and plants. It almost resembled a clear night sky on the surface, in Titus' opinion. Opportunistic soldiers fished with spears or improvised lines. Most of the fish caught were blind and covered in tough, rock-hard scales. To the XIV's great pleasure, these were filled with succulent, perfectly edible meat (at least, according to those with fishing and medical experience) which went well with the standard-issue spices in every trooper's mess kit. Some roasted them on spits over open flames. Others used heads and tails in thick, flavorful stews. Preserved and salted, the rock fish supplemented the poorly-supplied army's rations. Much to the chagrin of the Legion's more adventurous gourmands, those fish that were translucent and bioluminescent were thrown back. Satisfied, the troops broke camp the following morning and continued onward.

'Optio, I didn't get to kill,' complained one of the men in Titus' tent group as the Legion marched.

'That freaking sucks, chummer,' replied Aulus, fresh from sickbay. 'Did your drill officer tell you you'd get to kill?'

'Hell yes, he did.'

Aulus turned to Cain, who had probably spent her time in abject horror at the Legion's mannerisms, culture, and sense of humor. 'See, Julius here asked if he could kill people without getting arrested. I asked for beak-wetting. Drill sarge told me I'd get to check out the Elven rainwoods, get all kinds of strange. What'd you ask for, Titus?'

Suppressing a smirk, the Optio kept on marching without a word.

'Titus here, upstanding member of the bourgeoisie that he is, probably saw that one recruitment poster, the one with the Legionnaire slaying the sand dragon in full dress kit.'

'Woo! Dress kit with a sword!' yelled another soldier in the back.

'And now look where we are,' Aulus exclaimed, gesturing at the immense tunnel and the rock formations surrounding the Legion. 'We're six months into our service, Julius hasn't killed anyone, I am half a world away from good knife-ear loving, and Titus is down here hunting for dragons in a worn-out set of armor that smells like four days of **** and ball sweat!'

Cain gave Titus a look.

He raised an eyebrow. 'It's like you weren't expecting us to be a band of murderers, thieves, and frat boys.'

She sighed and kept on with the march.