"So, even if I follow your orders, I still won't make it out of this alive?", the frustrated man asked the voice.

  "Unfortunately, as you are too weak to withstand the removal of the Mark. However, be not afraid, as even if your mortal body will be destroyed, your soul shall return to the cycle of life and death cleansed of all blemishes.", the voice answered reassuringly.

  "...A weak consolation price, though it still beats endless torment at the hands of the devil, I guess. Very well. This humble servant will accept the task given to him by the Titan of Magic herself.", the man replied, kneeling before the voice of Gemini, the last of the Titans.

  "So, there are still those among you who remember us, despite putting our children in higher regard? Flattering, though it matters not. Unlike your creators, we do not care for idle worship from mortals, so cease your theatrics.", Gemini answered slightly irritated at what she perceived to be a hint of mockery behind the man's actions.

  "As you wish. However, what do you want me to do once I return?", the man asked as he awkwardly stood back up.

  "There exists a certain being among the vile atrocities of the Void, which has interfered in the works of our children for far too long. All calamities that befell you can be traced back to him somehow, as had lived for far longer than any living being should. The Yellow-Clad Seer, as he became known as throughout history, a monster in the guise of a human. Despite leaving nary a clue whenever he manipulated others to make them go against creation itself, he grew arrogant and left a way to summon him behind with the Liberator of Mankind. You are to retrieve the scroll from the fallen hero's grave and summon the Seer, only to aid in his destruction soon after with the help of our gift."

  "Wait a minute... where is that fallen hero's tomb? Is the Seer some kind of immortal? Another Unborn Lord, maybe? And how am I supposed to get out of here? Did you not mention some kind of curse that's messing with my mental state?", the man inquired, confused about the information he was just given.

  "You seem to underestimate just how much distance lies between the abilities of one of the chosen children you worship as gods, and us, their progenitors. The relics of a Titan are imbued with the authority from which they were born, power far beyond the comprehension of a mere mortal such as yourself. Be without worry, as all shall become clear once you receive our blessing, both your mind and your soul.", the deity answered, and a humanoid figure clad in a cloak made of the very space around her emerged from the darkness behind him.

  He wanted to ask the voice how he would be given said boon, but before he could even utter a word, the Titan reached out to him, laying her bluish-grey skinned hand on the back of his head like a mother would on her child.

  The feeling of being touched by this greatest of all beings exerted a pressure on his very existence that he could not even begin to describe, as it deprived him of any thought, making him incapable of moving a single muscle, let alone make a noise.

  "Now go forth, servant, and bring us the head of an immortal!", Gemini commanded with a haunting grin, before gripping his head and slamming it into the ground.

  "Oi, ya still there? Old man!", Ophelia shouted, while shaking the wizard awake.

  He opened his eyes and gasped for air, as if he had just been pulled out of the ocean mere seconds before drowning. As he realised where he was, he started to calm himself with deep breaths.

  "By the gods, I thought you were a goner...not that I care, but...yeah, whatever.", she continued, getting more and more flustered as she realised that she was actually concerned for his well-being.

  The old man shakily rose to his feet with the help of his staff which still found itself in his right hand, while the left one was still closed around the ring he had picked up. Back on his feet, he started to stare at the ring before he slid it onto his left ring finger. It was a ring made out of a, to the man, unknown black material, into which a single white gemstone had been placed. The stone itself had the form of what he recognised as the Star of Mana, the divine symbol of the Titan Gemini, and thus of magic itself.

  As soon as he put the ring on his finger, his mind started to clear instantaneously, followed by instructions entering his memories of how to make use of Gemini's relic. The entire process caused him the worst migraine he had ever felt, which made him flinch and rub the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

  "You sure that's a good idea? That thing knocked ya out pretty well, took me forever to get ya back up.", Ophelia warned, watching the wizard's actions warily. She could not tell what it was, but something had changed about the man before her. This was not the same crazy old wizard from before, and it put her on edge.

  "It is quite alright, Mrs. Sklíros.", he answered with a friendly smile to reassure her, though the way he addressed her seemed to do the opposite.

  "What the hell, ya just called me by name? Did ya bonk ya head too hard on the floor when ya passed out?"

  "It would take a while to explain, so let us call it a change of heart, or rather, a change of mind, I suppose. No worries, I am still me, though I would not mind a simple demonstration...", the wizard replied, a mischievous grin forming on his face as he readied his staff.

  "...Never mind that. As long as you ain't trying any funny business, I couldn't care less how ya act, but stop it with the Missus crap, just call me Ophelia. People calling me by my last name make me feel old.", the lykan grumbled.

  "As you wish, Ophelia. Now then, our two friends over there-." he said, pointing at the gory mess which used to be lykans, on the floor, "-spoke of splitting up with their partners in crime. That means, that the rest of our companions are in grave danger. I suggest you go back to check if they are alright, while I look for the one Maya referred to as 'the undead bitch of the broken tower'.", the old man continued.

  "And who made you boss so suddenly, eh? Why'd you think you can just take their leader on like nothing right after almost dropping dead after fighting her minions?", Ophelia barked at him.

  "Well, as you saw before, I'm not planning to play fair.", the wizard grinned, as he procured another vial of the same liquid he had downed during the fight.

  "More drugs, eh? Whatever, it's your funeral. Anyway, I'll be on my way now...Ignis, was it?", she asked, unsure if that was how he had introduced himself to her.

  "That was indeed the name I was going by, was it not? However, I would much prefer the name Corvo, as thinking about the name Ignis makes me feel old.", the wizard chuckled, causing a look of confusion on Ophelia's face.

  "Eh? Whatever...Don't get yourself killed.", she said as she turned around, waving her hand one last time before tracing back the path towards the crossroads.

  "Let's hope for the best...", Corvo mumbled in a grim tone, before looking down at the corpse of his pet rat.

  'You deserved better than this, my dear friend. I'm sorry... I even gave you her name, didn't I? What a cruel prank played by fate...', he thought, tears starting to form in the corners of his eyes as he took of his hat to say his final goodbyes, before hastily making his way towards the destroyed watchtower.

  Emily Glorieux Guerrier had sunken into deep meditation, to prepare herself mentally for what was to come. She had felt the bond between herself, and her minions severed, which reinforced the words of warning her master had given her. The man approaching her lair was strong. Unbelievably so. In fact, there were only two other beings in the world who ever gave her the impression as he did, that they could take her life if she was not careful.

  One of them was the undead hero Rainier, who had forced her to retreat even though she had played her trump-card against him, as she had not gotten used to her powers yet, and almost shattered her phylactery because of it. The other one was her former teacher in necromancy, Alistair Misericordia.

  It was during the attempted coup d'état in Machina, which happened centuries before the Edenian War, as the nobles who opposed Domitor's rule over them tried to rid themselves of the nobles which obeyed their every beck and call, when she met him. The Guerrier family, though not directly involved with the revolt, were found out to provide the revolutionaries with weapons and information. Thus, as the coup failed and all nobles involved were rounded up to be publicly executed, her father, whose name she had long since forgotten, called in a favour from the mercenary known as Alistair Misericordia, who took her in and fled the region together with her.

  As she was now living with him, it did not take long for her to find out about Alistair's studies, which revolved around the forbidden arts of necromancy, even though he did his best to keep her from finding out about them. However, instead of despising the man for committing what many believe to be an affront to the gods, Emily grew curious about this field of magic, even if only because she imagined it to be a way for her to return her lost family among the living. Alistair did not bring it over himself to tell her that this had become next to impossible, as too much time had already passed since their execution, but he decided to teach her, nonetheless.

  He taught her of the close relation the element of darkness had to necromancy, and how this meant that this was in fact not a sacrilegious form of magic only useable for nefarious purposes, but something which, together with restorative magic, only described the other side of the same coin that was known as the art of Transfiguration, a fact demons had already figured out ages ago.

  Necromancy was a path which demanded sacrifices, but not without rewards befitting such offerings. Some among those benefits even exceeded the detriments of the spells that caused them manifold, such as giving up some of one's vitality to return from the brink of death, no matter how much damage one received, or inflicting a curse, which, despite its negative effects, would grant one more power than any other kind of similar support-magic ever could. It was his sole purpose in life to clear up this misunderstanding and to spread knowledge of this kind of magic all across the world, and he was all too happy to make her take part in this endeavour.

  Nevertheless, as the years passed, and Emily grew more and more familiar with necromancy, she was met with the futility of trying to reach her greatest desire, to be able to return her family among the living. She confronted her teacher with her findings, as she was sure that Alistair had known this all along, and indeed, he confirmed her assumptions. He said he never meant to deceive her, but instead wanted her to find a new purpose in life, but she had none of it, believing that it was all to further his own goals. Hence Emily stormed off in anger, intent on never talking to her former teacher and substitute parental figure ever again.

  It was then, when she met with a stranger in yellow robes, who introduced himself to her as a wandering Seer, and offered to read her future for free to cheer her up. Emily's instincts told her to keep away from this stranger, but she decided to dismiss the feeling and accepted the Seer's offer. To her surprise, the fortune-teller began with talking about her past, and accurately recounted all that happened to her until now. This made what he told her next all the more important, as he spoke of how Alistair was going to use her as a sacrifice for a ritual that would make him immortal, so that he may continue his research throughout eternity.

  Thus, the Seer proposed her making the first move and instead use his soul for the rite, as it would give her enough time to figure out a way to return her parents. After he had finished his divination, he gifted her an amulet into which a symbol had been carved, which looked to her like tentacle-like vines growing out of a flower. Upon looking at the symbol, her surroundings started to shatter, revealing vast emptiness as the yellow flower began to spring to life, its vines ensnaring her and drawing her closer to its pistil, which started to move like a blazing flame.

  A pounding sensation started to make itself known in her head which slowly evolved into a headache, and the closer this fire became, the stronger the headache would become.

  Despite this, however, she saw herself incapable of looking away from the flame, and after much struggle, decided to give in and be embraced by it, a decision which made her lose consciousness. She awoke at sundown right then and there, with the yellow seer nowhere to be found.

  And so, Emily heeded the words of the Seer, and attacked her former teacher, who had approached her to apologize for deceiving her. Despite him not being prepared for her assault, he still managed to subdue his rampaging student, though he refrained of ending her life despite her having held no mercy in her own attacks. Instead, he simply extended his hand in apology once more, as he had never wished any harm on her.

  Hearing the sincerity in his voice, Emily started to doubt the words of the yellow clad Seer, and contemplated if she should accept her teacher's apology. However, it was in this moment, that Emily's amulet started to glow in a strong yellow light, and as it burst, Alistair fell to the ground, covered in murky-yellow flames. Emily watched on in morbid curiosity as her teacher tried feverishly to put out the flames while asking her to help him, but even trying to cut away the parts they feasted on did nothing, as the flames immediately started reigniting themselves underneath.

  And so, Alistair Misericordia burned to ash, with only his skull remaining atop his remains. What happened next felt to her like a blur, as the voice of the yellow clad seer started to soothingly call out to her, guiding her on her way to lichdom and beyond, as he had claimed for himself another puppet to do his bidding.

  "......... ......", Corvo mumbled while walking towards the ruin of an old watchtower, as he kept piling on support-magic in anticipation of the fight ahead.

  Since this was going to be a fight between a mage and an ankou, he had to make sure that this fight would not drag on, as undead necromancers were known for their tendency to slowly chip away their opponents stamina before breaking them, and considering how long she had been active, she likely had grown to a point where running out of arcanum was no longer a problem to her.

  All in all, the majority of his spells would last for around 5 minutes. Nothing but a moment for most people, an eternity, however, for any decent spellcaster. This, coupled with the fact that he would down another one of the sky-blue potions in his pockets, his equipment, the robe of an archmage, which he had reverted to show its white fabric on the outside, and his staff, made from the wood of the cursed Yggdrasil-tree of Arbrevie, which absorbed the stray arcanum of spell-circles, and therefore hid the light of low-tier spells from the eyes of others, would make him near invincible for this short period of time, though only if everything went as planned.

  It was by pure chance that he had chosen to wear his archmage-robe inside-out during his time as a wizard, as the grey in-lining of the robe was crafted in a way to not only obscure the aura of its wearer and thus making them seem much weaker than they are, but also shield them from physical harm to a certain extent. However, he knew that the necromancer would not resort to using her minions while facing him by herself, and was likely going to try and overpower him with her most powerful spells, so he decided to wear it as it was supposed to be worn, showing off the pristinely white cloth which was infused with minor magical protection charms and embroidered with the Fountain of Wisdom, the symbol of the Magician's Guild.

  Just as he finished his preparations, and threw away the empty vial, he stopped, as his adversary had appeared before him. The ankou had the appearance of a sickly pale woman with porcelain-like skin and long, black hair, who was dressed in a black dress more fitting for warmer climates than the harsh cold of the mountains. Her face was hidden by a veil affixed to a silver diadem, and she held a wooden staff ending in a human skull on its top in her right hand. Corvo remembered her, not only from his encounter with her in the vision the tomb of Rainier had bestowed him with, but even from before he had gone mad.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Everything started to click together and the archmage could not help but grimly chuckle as he noticed that it was her which had caused him and countless others so much grief, as she was the very same spellcaster which had tried to sacrifice the luminary all these 40-something years ago, the one who he had driven to desperation, causing her to turn every living being in a 2 mile radius around the field of their battle to stone.

  The ankou, who disregarded the chuckle as the antics of an insane old man, decided to greet the man before her with a curtsy and introduced herself, as if to imply that she did not regard him as much of a threat.

  "So we meet again! I'm afraid I was not able to properly introduce myself to you the other times we met, so let me correct my mistake. I am Emily Glorieux Guerrier, the Queen of Undeath, and your soon to be mistress, as I intend to add your corpse to my collection."

  "Well met, Miss Guerrier, though I neither intend to give you my name, nor join your collection. By the way... how is the face holding up? If I remember correctly, I left quite the first impression if I do say so myself.", Corvo taunted her while stroking his beard, causing her to freeze up.

  "...So, my master spoke the truth. The one who had slain both my Elder-Chioni and the former Liberator of Mankind... the one who destroyed the remnants of the épée de Vérité...THE VERY SAME WHO BROUGHT ME TO THE BRINK OF TRUE DEATH BY LIGHTING ME ASUNDER WITH THE WRETCHED FLAMES OF ORDER!!!", her rant ended in a scream, as she ripped of the veil and exposed her face, or rather, what remained of it.

  Her face was disfigured by third degree burns and scars, and both her eyes had turned a milky white, though one was still able to notice the tell-tale purple glow all undead creatures possessed.

  Her beautiful, long and ebony dark hair turned out to be nothing but a hairpiece, as the force of her ripping away the veil caused it to glide to the floor, and its absence exposed the same burns and scars on the rest of her hairless scalp.

  "What's the problem? The look fits the whole undead aesthetic, doesn't it? BWAHAHAHAHA!", the archmage kept up his taunts.

  "YOU INSOLENT WORM! OH, HOW I HAVE DREAMT OF THIS DAY! THE DAY WERE I FINALLY GET TO TAKE MY REVENGE ON THE ONE WHO-", she started to monologue, but was cut off by four balls of golden fire, which had appeared seemingly out of thin air around Corvo, and now started to hurtle towards her.

  "Time's up. Sometimes you guys just make it too easy.", Corvo stated nonchalantly, as the self-proclaimed Queen of Undeath tried to evade the incoming spells in a panic.

  She managed to stop two of the radiant fireballs of fire in mid-air by casting a spell of her own, a magic which caused dark spears to rise from the ground and pierce the fireballs, causing them to explode. The other two however, she missed, as their trajectory appeared to be curved, causing her to try and sidestep them.

  " as well, eh? Figured as much...", the old man mumbled, as he looked away from the ankou and started to scan the ruin of the tower.

  Among the support spells he had used beforehand was a spell which allowed him to see traces of arcanum, . He had two reasons for using this spell:

  The first being that it would make it possible for him to find any sort of magical traps placed before his arrival, and the second one being that it would allow him to find the whereabouts of the ankou's phylactery, as it needed to be nearby.

  He knew about liches all too well, as he had fought on the frontlines during the Edenian War, where he earned himself the nickname "Golden Phoenix" due to the radiant flames he used to turn them to ash, and therefore knew that fighting the main body of a lich without allies was a lost cause. However, the faint aura connecting the lich to her phylactery was barely noticeable, likely due to her being quite some distance away from it.

  Meanwhile, the ankou evaded the third fireball's explosion, and already saw herself in the clear. Before she could start her counter-offensive, however, she noticed that the 4th fireball stopped right before it hit the floor, changed its trajectory, and went after her. She continued to jump backwards in a zigzag, but the fireball kept following her.

  'Casting four spells simultaneously and changing the properties of two of those spells at the same time? Did my master not say that his skill was below average? Hm... it could be a side-effect of having received the guidance of an Archon. Impressive, if only by mortal standards.', she wondered, before slamming her staff into the ground, causing a spell circle to appear beneath her.

  "Darkness, protect!", she yelled, and her shadow started to lift from the ground and form a wall between her and the fireball, which smashed into the wall and exploded.

  As the shadow reverted back to its original form beneath its caster's feet, revealing her to be completely unharmed, Corvo clicked his tongue in annoyance.

  "Tch, high-tier dark magic? Not enough...", he uttered, as he conjured another radiant fireball, but now it was the lich's turn to interrupt him. With terrifying quickness, the lich closed the distance between the two, and reached out to him with her right hand, onto which another spell circle had formed.

  "How about you share some of that life-force with me, and I may absolve you from your crimes, hm? Old man?", she asked, as her hand gripped that of Corvo.

  For a second, the wizard could feel a strange feeling, as if his blood was drained from his fingertips and sucked into the hand of the undead spellcaster, but the next, the trap he had prepared beforehand activated itself.

  The spell caused his aura to briefly turn into the radiance hybrid-element, which causes undead creatures to burn to ash if they come into contact with it. This very same energy was now absorbed by Emily, turning her hand to ash and slowly making its way up her arm. In an instant, she jumped away from the wizard, and, upon realising what was happening, ripped off her damaged arm with the other. As it hit the floor, it completely broke down to ash, and was swept away by the wind. The lich looked at her disappearing arm for a moment, before her face contorted by a maniacal grin, as she looked back at the man before her, who stifled a yawn with his hand.

  "You think you got me there, huh? How foolish! Watch this!", she gloated, and, with a snap of her fingers, a new arm sprouted out of her wound, as if it had never been gone in the first place.

  This caused Corvo to narrow his eyes briefly, before quickly growing wider in surprise.

  "My turn!", Emily announced as she held up her staff, and 4 massive spell-circles appeared behind her in the air.

  In front of the circles, a comically small sphere (in comparison to the amount and size of its massive spell circles) made of what appeared to be pure darkness started to form, the mere presence of which seemed to bend the lines of the spell circles behind it out of shape.

  "BEHOLD! THE POWER BEFITTING OF A QUEEN!", she yelled out, before slamming the ground before her with her staff, causing the sphere to shoot towards Corvo.

  "Looks like this is the end. 1 more minute and most of the support spells would have run out, not bad for a hunch, I'd say.", the wizard sighed, and moments later, the sphere made its way towards him.

  The snow, the ground, even the air itself and all light in the vicinity, nothing escaped the gravitational pull of the highest tier of gravity-magic known only as .

  The effect, and therefore the black hole itself, vanished mere moments later, and an enormous crater the size of an entire village was all that remained were once there was an old wizard. Even the clouds above the impact had vanished, as they as well were sucked in by the gravitational pull. Loud and sharp winds could be heard, as the vacuum the spheres had caused was hastily replaced by the surrounding air, but other than that, there was nothing.

  "In the end, he barely amounted to anything, huh?", Emily exclaimed triumphantly, as she inspected the crater.

  "By the gods, the gravitational pull even shifted my teleportation path!", a curse from a familiar voice came from above, causing Emily to look upwards. Floating in mid-air was the very much alive wizard that was supposed to be crushed by her spell and was now looking down at her.

  "Whoops... pretend that you didn't notice me, will you?", he asked of her jokingly, before quickly making his way towards the ruin of the watchtower.

  His mannerisms, together with the fact that he had somehow survived her spell, caused the self-proclaimed Queen of Undeath to stand there dumbfounded for a moment, as her mind tried to process what had just happened. However, her already pale skin seemed to lose even the last remnants of colour in shock as she realised just what happened, causing her to quickly open a gate connecting to the innermost sanctum of her hideout and immediately stepping through it.

  Indeed, Corvo had found out the whereabouts of the ankou's phylactery, as casting the spell to regrow her arm had drawn enough energy from it to make the path between the two easier to follow with his eyes. He had intended to use the spell to teleport close to the tower while the ankou would have thought him to be killed by her spell, and then get rid of the gem before she noticed that he was still among the living, but he did not realise that the spell was capable of warping the space around it to this degree, thus changing his target location beyond his calculations, up to a point it had almost killed him.

  After reaching the tower, he looked back from behind its weathered walls to look for the undead necromancer, though he could no longer find her.

  'I don't like where this is going.', he thought, but entered the ruin anyway.

  On a closer look, the watchtower looked entirely different from what one would expect from a long abandoned military outpost. A long, red carpet connected the entrance, consisting of a broken cullis-gate, and a spiral staircase, with the carpet splitting at the end of the small hall and continuing both up and down the staircase. The walls looked pristine and were lit by enchanted gemstones. The stone they were made from was as if placed there mere weeks ago, with the exception of its broken parts. There was neither snow or ice nor rubble, and the damage done seems to have occurred recently and through unnatural means.

  'The stream was flowing through the ground, about 3 floors below? ', the wizard thought, as he made his way towards the staircase.

  The spell which made it possible for him to detect arcanum was still active, and made it an easy task for him to notice the traps that had been placed.

  'Just a few spell-circles hidden beneath the carpet and on some of the steps, just got to avoid stepping on them...hmm, some of the bricks are rigged too...annoying, but nothing too difficult to overcome.'

  The first floor below ground turned out to be a long corridor, with rooms on either side of the walls.

  'Hm. Must be the former living quarters of the guards.'

  Next was a massive chamber, filled with shelves loaded with all kinds of items and weapons mounted on walls, most of which gave of the familiar glow of arcanum.

  'An armoury? Oh, how I would love to go through it, but I'm running low on time as it is. Better move on.'

  The lowest floor, however, consisted of a completely empty room. There was no light, no decoration, nothing. Normally, one would think of this as a storage room of sorts that was currently not utilized, but Corvo could see the faint glow of arcanum through the wall to his right.

  "Hm... considering how powerful this lich is, it looks like the phylactery is quite far away from this room? I guess I can't just destroy it by collapsing it, eh? Let's see...", he mumbled to himself, as he carefully knocked on the wall with his staff, then on the one next to it.

  The two noises were barely different, but knowing what he did, it sounded like there was indeed some kind of room behind the rather thick wall.

  "Guess I'll have to force my way in then. What was the spell again? ...ERADO!", he recalled the spell the whispers of the Void had taught him all these years ago, and a sphere of pure arcanum started to form in front of his staff.

  "Holy crap, this spell drains more energy than I thought, I'd better hurry!", he yelped in surprise, before extending his staff forward, causing the sphere to eat through the wall and form a make-shift corridor.

  On the other side of the corridor, there was a massive chamber, held up by 4 pillars which were placed on the smallest of three circular platforms, which had been placed atop one another to further elevate the object in the middle of the circle. A pitch-black crystal sphere atop a red velvet pillow sat on a stand of pure marble, surrounded by the four pillars around it.

  'An onyx? And a large one at that. Just how old is this hag, for her to have amassed enough energy to need a stone this large?', Corvo contemplated in shock at what he saw, as he approached the stone.

  He remembered his youth at the academy, where he was taught the magical properties of various gemstones, and how onyx was most suited for necrotic energy, and therefore the perfect stone to bind one's soul to.

  As he looked at the gem, he noticed that something seemed to be inside of it. He could not help but look at this flicker of light, like a moth drawn towards the light. The longer he gazed into it, the larger the light seemed to get. As it grew, he noticed that it was in the shape of a yellow sun, the rays of which started to slowly extend towards him as the sun grew ever larger. He remembered the symbol from somewhere, but as he kept looking at it, the memory started to slip his mind.

  However, just as Corvo realised that he had foolishly stumbled into a trap and was now no longer able to move his gaze away from the yellow sign, the ring on his left hand started to glow briefly, and the sign vanished. Just as he wanted to avert his eyes from the crystal, he could hear the clacking sound of hard soles on the floor behind him and decided against it.

  The lich probably thought him under the control of her trap, and thus would try to exploit the situation, which would in turn give the wizard time to think of a way out of this situation. He had thought about simply smashing the phylactery, but he feared that this was impossible without considerable effort.

  "Well, well, well! To think you would get ensnared by his magic so easily after being smart enough to trick me, you senile cretin! I should feel disappointment at not being able to get rid of you without his help, but the mere thought of ending your life by my own hands makes up for that. I will apologize to him for not trusting him right away with this, but placing such powerful magic on someone's phylactery is not to be done lightly.", Emily gloated as she closed in on Corvo, who was still looking at the black, featureless sphere in front of him.

  "Oh, I forgot that you can't hear me. He did say that the sign would knock you out after a while, just like it did to me. Well, I better act quickly then, no? I might even be able to put your corpse to some good use, after all." she rambled on, as a spell circle formed on her left hand. This caused the hand to become coated in pure darkness, with her fingers turning into long claws.

  "Farewell!", she exclaimed, as she aimed at his heart with her claw.

  "SIKE!", the old man yelled, as he quickly side-stepped the attack and tripped her with his staff.

  Emily Guerrier watched on in shock as her claw approached the crystal ball which contained her soul. She had put more force into the attack, as she intended to pierce both the spine and some of the rips of the wizard before skewering his heart and ripping it out in one swift motion, and seeing as she now lost her balance, there was no way for her to stop her forward-momentum. Even as the effects of mind-acceleration had set in, there was nothing she could do, except counting the seconds she had left to live. Moments later, her claws pierced her phylactery.

  Emily observed in horror as her soul exploded out of the onyx into violent, black and white flames, and her mind started to race. She was angry at herself for falling for such a foolish trick, she was seething because the wizard had once again foiled her plans, she was scared at what was to come, as only true death awaited a lich who had their phylactery shattered.

  This was not supposed to happen! She had yet to reach her ultimate goal! The Seer told her that she was on the brink of achieving it, if only she could help him free the Archon trapped within the green moon...though what was her goal again? Revenge for her damaged body? If that was the case, why did she become undead in the first place? Was it to become the most powerful being in the world? No, she felt that it was closer to her goal, but not quite. Did she want to become invincible, and thus truly immortal? She seemed to have steered further away from what she was looking for in her memories with that one.

  'Oh yeah... I remember...my family. I knew my past had faded long ago from my mind, but how could I forget even them, the entire reason for going this far? All I did, I did to bring them back, to share the rest of my existence with them...or did I? When was the last time I thought about them? Has it been decades? No... centuries? What happened to me? ', she thought, and suddenly, a certain yellow sign came to mind.

  'I remember now. It was when my teacher confessed that he had lied to me about being able to resurrect them. It was shortly before the Seer approached me and told me that I was to become a sacrifice to Alistair...did he really want to use my soul to prolong his life, after treating me like his own child for years? I know that I wanted to confront him about it, but as soon as I wore the charm of the Seer...'

  The sudden realization caused her eyes to widen, as her face began to crack due to black and white flames erupting from within.

  "...how foolish of me...", were the last words that left her lips, before her body too burst asunder and slowly crumbled to dust.

  "...Hm? Did she say something?", Corvo asked no one in particular, as he now found himself alone in the chamber.

  The floor was littered in gem-shards, some of which seemed to be filled with a glimmer, as if still containing remnants of its former contents. Out of morbid curiosity, and against what one would consider common sense, the wizard decided to pocket a few of the fragments.

  'Well, that takes care of that. I feel one hell of a migraine pushing through...taking two of those wicked potions in short succession was probably not the best idea, but what's done is done. I should probably get out of here before I pass out. If anyone triggers the traps upstairs with me still down here, I'm done for.'

  "...By the gods, I need to lie down somewhere...", he slurred his words as he made his way up, as his head started to feel like he had smashed it repeatedly into a wall. His vision became blurry as he reached the entrance to the tower, and he clung to the wall next to the gate as he slowly lowered himself to the ground.

  'Just resting my eyes a bit...', he thought before his headache turned his vision white and he drifted off into unconsciousness.