Ted panicked as Karen thrashed on the bed. 

"Zephyra!" He screamed. 

No one answered.

He lost himself in the hysteria of the moment. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to run and find Zephyra, but he couldn't just leave his friend.

"Zephyra!" He screamed again.

Once again, no one answered.

Karen bucked against the mattress. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. A thin line of blood dripped from her nose. Her mouth opened into a silent scream. 

The scattered dishes lifted and threw themselves at the wall. The bandages, medical supplies and every other loose item were hoisted from the ground. They circled around the bed. Ted's hair whipped back and forth, as if he was caught amidst a fearsome tempest.

A moment passed. Then, two. 

It only got worse. The movement became more aggressive. The bed shook and jerked against the floor. Ted floated off the floor. He had to cling to the bed to avoid being flung away.

He was terrified. It was pandemonium. He hadn't experienced anything like it. 

He couldn't think. He could barely move. He could only react. 

He slowly reached out. 

He slapped Karen across the cheek. 

The whirlwind halted for a second. All of the motion had suspended.

Then, it all came down with a loud-

CRASH!

Karen had stopped seizing. Her body laid unconscious on the bed.

"Oh gods, I killed her." Ted immediately thought. 

He quickly checked for her breath. He let out a sigh of relief, she was still breathing. 

"Well, this has been a helluva day hasn't it? The only thing that could make it worse is if Zephyra turned out to be a sapphic…", He joked to himself. He was more than a bit stressed and tried to take his mind off of everything. 

"Then, Phil could be gay. And, I could be the straight man of our group. They'd crack a joke and I'd come back with a completely straight-laced response. It would be pure comedy gold. We could even have little magic tricks that we could show to the crowds…"

He took a deep breath before his mind finally snapped back to reality. He buried his head in his hands.

"What in the hells was that! Creepy ass floating shit. Nope. Nope. Nope. I didn't see nothing. I didn't hear nothing."

He checked on Karen one last time. Then hightailed it out of the room. He collapsed against the other side of the door. For some reason, he couldn't help chuckling at the utterly bizarre situation . "Haha, oh gods, we're so fucked... I need to find Zephyra."

Zephyra had decided to leave the tavern. Her head was lost in an emotional whirlwind after the conversation with Ted. It wasn't possible for her to talk about the church without getting upset still. 

"It's alright... It's alright! I just have to follow the plan. I can figure it out. I can-I can do this! I'm not… not alone now." It was hard for her to not feel alone though. Her new friends had helped. Yet, they hardly knew each other. 

Even though she knew that she could trust them implicitly and completely. They would never betray her. Yet, it was difficult because they didn't feel at all close yet. 

"I hoped that fighting together would help us get closer to each other… but, they just seem more afraid of me now. I mean, it's only been a few days! It'll get better. It will! I just… I don't want to be alone again. I don't… want to lose anyone again. And… I don't want to completely control someone ever again."

Zephyra wandered aimlessly while she thought. Time lost all meaning to her. It seemed only a short moment before the sun had sunk behind the horizon and spilled brilliant hues across the sky.

Zephyra shook off the fugue state of her mind. It was late. 

"I need to head back", she whispered to herself. "I've been gone for too long."

Zephyra glanced around her surroundings. 

"I have no idea where I am now…" 

The street was empty. It was quiet. The surrounding buildings were decrepit and broken down. A few of the houses had a door, but most of them were shattered and torn from their hinges. 

Even the cobblestone underneath her feet was ill maintained, filled with holes, and horrendously uneven paving. The air had the scent of piss and the unwashed masses. 

The entire city had smelled that way to her. Yet, it was particularly pungent in this area.

"Huh, this must be a slum then. I wonder why humans let places like this exist." She shrugged her shoulders. It wasn't her problem. "I think the inn is back in this direction."

Zephyra turned on her heel and walked in a random direction. 

A moment later a pair of dark figures lurked in front of her. Zephyra dismissed them. 

"They probably only look super suspicious because of the dark. Right? I'll just ignore them."

The two men did not ignore her. And, she found it much more difficult to ignore them after they drew closer to her. They didn't exactly smell like a basket of roses. Nor were they exactly prince charming. 

They had crooked noses, crooked teeth, and a crooked smile. The man on her right pulled a knife on her. 

"Ah. So, they're crooks", Zephyra thought.

"Give us all your valuables and maybe no one will get hurt", The other man demanded.

"I say, we ought to just gut the bitch and take her stuff." The man with the knife said.

"We'll still do just that!" The other man said exasperated. He broke his stance and stood straight. "We talked about this after the last one. You know, the mopey one that kept crying?"

"Right, right. They were loud."

"Right. They were loud. So, we decided to tell them that maybe they'd live and they won't blubber quite so much."

"You're so smart, Gris." The man with the knife praised in admiration. 

"Thank you, Gros. So, let's start again."

"Right", Gros cleared his throat and held up his knife threateningly. "Give us all your hurt and maybe no one will get valuables."

…

Zephyra sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Um, are you sure you two are crooks?"

"A crook?!" Gris called out in outrage. "We're hardened criminals!"

"That's right!" Gros chimed in angrily. "We're rock hard!"

Gris gave Gros a blank look. "No, look you can't phrase it like that, Gros."

"Whut?" 

"You can't phrase it like that. It sounds like we're… well… it just doesn't sound quite proper."

"Oh right!" Gros laughed raucously. 

"Ugh, sorry about him, Miss. We're hardened criminals, not crooks, we won't do anything untoward. 'Cept maybe murder ya."

"Um, of course? I mean, professionals have standards." Zephyra nodded drolly. 

"Quite right!" Gris declared with a toothy grin. "Now, give us all your valuables and maybe no one will get hurt!"

"I don't want to give you anything. Even though my daddy taught me how to share." Zephyra scolded him with a slight smile.

"Alright. Someone will get hurt then!" Gris jabbed forward with a fist.

Zephyra took a step back, his fist flew past her. Gros stepped in with his knife. He stabbed at her side. Zephyra took a step forward and a step to the right.

She had stepped around his jab. She caught Gros's arm in her hand. Her eyes flashed green. Her necrotic mana seeped into his arm. The skin in contact with her hand turned black, dry and brittle. 

Gros began to scream. Gris stepped back in horror. His partner's arm was being consumed by the dark green energy.

The necrotic mana wormed it's way into Gros's muscled. It atrophied, shriveled and tore away from bone. The tendon in his arm withered and snapped. The shape of his arm deformed. 

Gros wailed and tried to shake her off of him. He pushed and pulled at her arm with his free hand. She didn't budge.

Zephyra took a step toward him. Her hand splayed across his chest. She shoved against the wall of the alley. The brick creaked under the stress of the impact. An audible snap could be heard as his ribs gave into the pressure.

"Get off of him!" Gris yelled having found his voice. He didn't dare approach her though. He just watched in horror. 

He decided to run. He turned heel and took off. Gros screamed after him. 

"Don-dont leave me!"

A grim assortment of flesh, bone and rot liquefied inside of his arm and sloughed off onto the ground.

Zephyra placed a hand over Gros's face and whispered. "He won't."

It only took a second for her mana to squirm inside of his skull. He slumped to the ground. He was dead. 

Even as Gris had turned to run, Zephyra had thrown several needles toward him. They pierced through his knees. And, they plowed into his hands.

Gris felt the decay seep through the needles into his body.

Zephyra directed the needles into the wall. The thread pulled through his body. Gris's limbs were torn taut. He couldn't move. 

"No, no. Please. Please. Let me go. We didn't do nothing."

"Um, sorry. I don't think I can do that. You'll definitely tell."

"No, no. I won't tell. Not a soul. Swear on me mum."

"No, sorry. You'll tell." Zephyra placed a hand to his throat and squeezed.

The alley fell silent. 

Zephyra placed her needles back into the satchel. 

"Ugh. It'll take forever to decompose their bodies…. But I guess it's better than someone stumbling across them." Zephyra sighed. "I really wish they hadn't attacked. Oh well. Let's just hope I have enough mana for this still. It still costs too much."

The moon had risen far into the night sky by the time she had made it back to the inn.