On dark wings the rot angel flew, swooping down to crash amongst the adventurers who’d scattered away from the projectile necromancer. The long desiccated bones turned to dust as the body smashed unceremoniously onto the floor it’d once lorded over.

Ithuriel the Rotten swung their great halberd, sharper than sunlight, towards those too slow to evade their rapid approach, sucking a whistling wind behind it as it cleaved the air in twain.

The mighty, unadorned blade collided with a thunderous strength against Nelva’s shield, sending the stalwart defender sliding back across the floor with a grunt. Nelva caught herself against the scattered debris of dismembered undead, the evidence of the Angelus’ martial prowess and victory over that which had brought them back unwillingly to a dreaded unlife.

Ithuriel the Rotten rose from a crouch and took in the surrounding adventurers; it did not look impressed. 

A single heartbeat of time sang before well-traveled blades sought to swiftly bring the abomination low. Yet, they could not score a single wound as the angel deflected each with a resounding clang of metal upon metal. The halberd flowed with a grace none of them could match. 

Autumn swallowed heavily as her eyes darted about, her hand white around her wand as she searched for an opening that never appeared. 

Not content to simply defend, Ithuriel the Rotten chased after the scrambling adventurers with swift strikes that left behind long scores in the bones they passed above. Liddie desperately fell back under the relentless assault, nursing a deep cut upon her cheek. Bright blood flowing copiously down her cherry-red cheek.

Suddenly, the angel of rot snapped their head to the side and spun, intercepting twin strikes from twin assassins. Both Nizana and Illiamtree had materialized silently and unseen behind the undead abomination, however that wasn’t enough to surprise it. Their blades ineffectually skittered off the spun halberd, and they hurriedly backed off lest they lose their limbs in the arcing swipe.

Ithuriel the Rotten came to a halt with their blade stretched out behind them, waiting.

Through the air ripped an arc of purple; Autumn’s wand arm stretched out.

The angel lazily lent to the side, dodging the jinx before sweeping their halberd around in a low arc to catch the thrown rune hidden behind, throwing it back at Autumn. The witch squealed in surprise as the rune detonated against her instinctually raised shield, sending a wave of fire rippling across it. Behind her, Edwyn grunted in frustration.

Ithuriel the Rotten smirked, looking at them as if to say: Is that all? Is this all you have?

The adventurers responded with fury. 

Eme huddled behind Autumn, humming a shaky tune to herself as she tapped out a rhythm with her dragon bone fingers. She focused deeply and desperately on the sound rather than the clash of conflict resonating beyond the witch’s erected defenses. The inexperienced bard drew deep from her learned magic and cast forth a rippling wave out towards the others. Those touched moved just a tad faster as they struck, a tad smoother as they barely dodged the scything blade.

With renewed vigor and haste in his limbs, Evrard stepped up behind Nelva’s shield and threatened the undead angel with jabbing spear thrusts. 

But, even with a bardic quickness bolstering him, his speed was no match for the warrior angel of old and they easily deflected his viper strikes. And only Nelva’s shield prevented the spearman from losing his life as the defender intercepted the retaliatory blows that sent her skidding back once more.

Yet, it wasn’t for naught.

Ithuriel the Rotten had no time to react as Liddie and Nizana appeared to either side of it, blades already in motion. The rot angel twisted hurriedly to avoid the blows, but the slashes still scored deep wounds in its side that oozed a blackened blood. A pair of dark wings flared in response behind the foul angel, knocking Nizana back with a yelp while the heavy tread of a decayed boot acquainted itself with Liddie’s nose. With an awful, resounding crunch, the pirate was sent flying away a fair distance to crash against one of the few standing pillars, causing it to collapse in a cloud of bone dust.

Dodging around a few hastily cast purple spells as they flew back into the air, the angel hovered up high before the group of adventurers and prepared to dive again, their weapon gleaming viciously like a grim portent in the pale lighting.

Autumn yelped, staggering as the floor buckled under the force of the angel’s ground slam. Her eyes widened in fright as the angel suddenly appeared before her, halberd already sweeping to take her legs off.

The impossibly sharp blade cut halfway through Autumn’s shield before it stopped. 

Ithuriel the Rotten looked down at the witch cowering before them, mildly impressed. It didn’t stop them, however, from ripping the blade free and pressing her with further sundering strikes. 

Autumn scrambled back as the powerful blows thundered into her shield, almost knocking her off her feet as some of the force transmitted through. She tried to retaliate by hurling shards of unstable magic out at the angel, but it shrugged off the minor damage in favor of continuing its targeted assault upon her magical barrier. Cracks formed upon it faster than the witch would’ve liked.

Luckily for her, she wasn’t alone.

Nelva and Roland crashed into the angel’s sides, forcing it to quickly back away from Autumn’s faltering shield as they bashed the angel with their own.

Now on the back foot, Ithuriel the Rotten kept their weapon in constant motion to deflect the plentiful blades that sought to cut them down. Each of their steps fell upon the scattered remains of the undead with pounding force, turning them to aught but dust that stifled the air. A white-gold blade snaked beside their face, cutting away at the deep hood they still wore. The angel turned to take in Liddie who grinned at them around a broken nose, blood streaming down the pirate’s face.

Feeling out of place in the current fight, Autumn took to scrambling around in the discarded arms and armor at her feet for anything she could use as disposable blades. 

Gods, how she hated undead. 

A lucky shield bash from Nelva rocked the angel’s head back, stunning it long enough for Nizana and Illiamtree to appear behind it once more and slash at its ankles, driving the undead to its knees.

“Now!” Liddie screamed. “Hit it with all you got!”

As sharp blades bit deep into the undead’s hide and acid conjured by a breaking rune ate away at its waxy skin and rotten cloth, Autumn flung a warbling knife into the center of the angel’s chest. The magic bound into the ancient, cracked blade she’d picked up from the floor couldn’t last much longer out of her hand and it soon detonated inside the undead’s chest, shredding it with shards of metal and a pulse of fear. 

To Autumn’s surprise, the angel flinched.

A death-scared eye rose to meet Autumn’s and within it she saw fury. 

It was done playing around. 

Ithuriel the Rotten roared silently and a tidal wave of magical dread washed over them all with a physical force, casting them back like ships in a maelstrom. Fear coiled in Autumn’s veins like eddies in a river as she stared at the angel rising back up, looking unharmed by their blows.

Nelva struggled to rise, a mountain pressing down upon her. Her eyes flickered up to the angel standing unexpectedly before her and quickly raised her shield up high above her head to block the descending strike. The halberd tore into the bone and wood shield, carving it in two. Nelva lashed out with an iron blade, seeking to take the undead in the gut, but let out a scream instead when a steel grip broke her hand and wrenched her blade from her.

Autumn watched on in horror as the foul angel drove the blade through Nelva’s gut, pinning her to the floor below like a moth on a corkboard.

“NOOO!!!” Autumn screamed and unleashed her own tidal wave of dread upon the dark angel standing over her fallen friend and teammate. Rather than a spell, what issued forth from her shaking wand was a pure stream of magic; a cavalcade of raw emotion fused into a pulsing purple lightning bolt that crashed into a hastily raised halberd.

Unwilling to relent even as her wand broke apart and her magical channels burned, Autumn instead poured more magic into her attack, forcing the angel to take a step back. 

And then the Kraken’s Bane cutlass took off a wing. 

Ithuriel the Rotten stumbled forward before twisting around to both cut Liddie in half and redirect Autumn’s magical lightning away. However, the pirate could easily dance out of range of such a wild strike and Autumn’s wand simply exploded in her hand, cutting off the stream of magic before it could do any other harm.

Autumn panted as she clutched at her aching arm.

For a tense moment, the undead stood stock still, a cold fury palpable in its skeletal form. Slowly, it reached up to the shredded hood obscuring its face and grasped it with a long, cracked-nail hand before tearing the cloth free. Nailed into the angel’s bleeding skull amongst thin wispy hair and rotten skin was a wicked crown of black-iron that blazed with unholy devilish runes. Caged within that gruesome crown was a corrupted halo that now burned with a black flame.

A pair of glassy eyes bore into Autumn, one of which glowed with haunting undeath.

And as Ithuriel the Rotten strode forth towards them, an aura of dread rolled off of them like waves. 

Roland turned to flee. 

Before he’d even taken more than a single step, the rot angel appeared behind him and its grim halberd flashed by. The Lepus defender tried to take a few more unsteady steps away before he even realized he was dead and, like a puppet with its strings cut, he crumpled, cut in twain. Guts steamed as they spilled onto the dusty floor.

“Fuck! Keep in formation!” Liddie called out as she rushed to engage the angel. “Don’t turn your back on it!” 

Autumn turned to those huddling behind her. “Eme, Edwyn. Follow me! We need to get to Nelva!” 

Dodging around the ongoing fight, the trio rushed over to where Nelva had fallen. Upon arriving, Autumn fell to her knees to assess the damage. The rabbit-woman was barely clinging to awareness, coughing up blood as she futilely tried to free herself from the blade pinning her.

“De-Delay Death!” Autumn cried out as she lay her hands on Nelva, desperately trying to quell her bloodloss. 

Thankfully, the magic took. 

Autumn turned to Eme and Edwyn as the sounds of combat roared behind them. “Do either of you have any healing?! W-we need to get that blade out of her, but she’ll bleed out once the spell wears off if we do.”

“Nay.” Edwyn spoke as they fumbled with their beard, pulling free hairs alongside the runes they were preparing. “I ain’t got nothing like that. I’ve one fire rune left, if’n yer desperate.”

Eme too shook her head. “I-I can only do a-a small haste one on my own, like before. M-most of my st-stuff is for group work. Sorry.”

Autumn despaired as she chewed her lip, before a thought flashed through her mind. Quickly, she hauled her pack off and pawed through it to find the crimson potion they’d found. Holding it carefully in the light, it looked like either salvation or a curse to her. 

“What are you doing, lassie?” Edwyn grasped her arm. “We’ve no idea what that’ll do to someone.”

“She’ll die if we don’t do something,” Autumn’s lip quivered, “and it looks like a healing potion, doesn’t it?”

Eme couldn’t meet her eyes as Autumn looked at them both pleadingly.

However, before either of them could say more, frantic yelling drew their attention back to the combat. Autumn’s breath stalled in her throat as she looked over. Ithuriel the Rotten held Illiamtree up by the neck, squeezing the life from him as he desperately stabbed at its arm with his curved daggers. The others were too far away to free him, having been driven back by a feint. The Umbra Elf sundered the angel’s arm again and again, but with a horrific crack, he went limp as the angel broke his neck.

The adventurers cried out, but could not mourn for long as the angel of rot flung their dead compatriot at them, forcing them to dodge or be cut down as they caught him.

Illiamtree rolled across the ground until he lay staring blankly, his neck at an odd angle.

Autumn shuddered and turned back to Nelva. However, before she could uncork the vial, a trembling hand stopped her. Nelva glanced up at her, speaking through bloody lips between coughs.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. Go help the others or it won’t matter.”

Although she hesitated, Autumn relented in the end. She turned to Eme. “Can you cast that haste spell again?”

“Well, i-it’s not really haste—I mean yes I can!” Eme said nervously. 

“Good. Edwyn, what do you have that’s useful?”

“Useful? I've got a fire blast, a couple of air bursts, one plant growth, and a single explosive rune.” Edwyn rattled off, touching the runes they said. 

“Alright, here's the plan. I’ll serve as a defender seeing as it can’t get all the way through my shield. Eme you cast that quickness song, but otherwise watch over Nelva. Edwyn, you use that explosive when there’s an opening. Do try not to miss…or blow us all up.” Autumn smiled weakly. 

After tapping Nelva with another casting of Delay Death, Autumn bolted from cover and rushed back into the fray, Eme’s song hot on her heels. It swiftly washed over the group and they moved just a little faster.

Still, it wasn’t enough. 

Being pressured from all sides, Ithuriel the Rotten flashed their halberd around themselves in a blindingly fast sweep along the ground. And as the adventurers either scrambled back or jumped to avoid it, Evrard stumbled, their wounds acting up at an inopportune time. Lying on the ground, he stared confused down along his body to his legs, which were no longer attached. An undead boot cut his contemplations short as it splattered his brains all across the floor.

Autumn drew all her fear inward, refusing to bow to it. 

Although she did flinch as her shield screamed when she parried away the halberd strike aiming for her head. The undead narrowed its eyes at her. She grinned back, her Dread Blade shining darkly in her hand.

Autumn lunged towards the undead, aiming to take its glowing eye out, but had to swiftly pull back with a hiss as a blur of metal tried to take her hand off. Serving as the rather unconventional role of a mage shielder, Autumn kept the angel’s aggression on her as the others nipped at its heels. 

An exceptionally forceful blow cracked down upon Autumn’s shield and sent her to her knees with a grunt, giving the undead angel just enough time to lash out at Liddie and Nizana simultaneously. Liddie ducked below a jabbing strike that cut off the tip of a horn while Nizana got the pleasure of a boot to her chest that sent her now flying into a pillar. 

The angel turned back to Autumn and rained blow after blow rained down upon her shield in an instant until its halberd broke through and pierced into her shoulder, forcing a pained scream to rip free from the witch’s throat.

The undead seemed to take a vindictive pleasure in twisting the blade.

“Get the fuck off her!!!”

A flying catgirl screamed through the air to slam down upon the angel's back and with a furious snarl, she reached around with her dragon bone arm and tore its throat out. 

Ithuriel the Rotten only blinked once in confusion before they ripped Eme from their back to hold her aloft by the throat as it had Illiamtree. Autumn’s own throat seized up at the sight. She could see nothing else as the edge of her vision grew dark. Eme struggled and kicked even as she snarled in the angel’s face, her own turning purple and the blood vessels in her eyes bursting.

Autumn struggled to her knees, ripping free of the halberd’s blade. She poured her everything into the Dread Knife and jumped. 

Eme tumbled down to the ground, desperately coughing.

Once more, Ithuriel the Rotten just blinked in confusion as it stared at the stump where its hand should be. 

“Edwyn, Now!!” Autumn screamed as she dived atop Eme. 

A booming explosion rocked the chamber, sending the nearest sections of necromantic masonry crumbling down. Intense heat bloomed across Autumn’s back and she grit her teeth in pain even as her fracturing shield held firm. Her magical channels pulsed with a familiar pain. A warning. Even so she forced her body to move and dragged a coughing Eme away to safety. 

Silence lingered after the explosion as everybody held their breath, waiting for the smoke and dust to clear. 

Only Liddie, Nizana, and Edwyn were left standing. 

Slowly, the dust settled back down to reveal that Ithuriel the Rotten still stood, only now clad in ruined robes and ruined flesh. Devil runes shone bright red, carved into the very bones of the angel before them, casting an unwanted, sickening light over the hall.

Autumn gulped. 

Liddie and Nizana moved. 

Looking over her shoulder, Liddie yelled towards Edwyn. “Get us another explosion or something! We’ll buy you some time!”

Edwyn swore as they hurriedly started altering and combining their runes. 

“Eme? Are you ok?” Autumn whispered as she huddled behind a fallen pillar with the catgirl. 

Eme coughed, slightly smiling. “Yeah. I’m peachy.” 

“What were you thinking?!” Autumn hissed. “Didn’t I say to stay with Nelva?”

Eme stared at her defiantly. “You needed help, so I helped. I won’t run anymore.” 

Autumn huffed, wincing as she put pressure on her wounded shoulder. Placing her forehead to Eme she whispered. “Thank you, but I need you to go back to Nelva and make sure she doesn’t die, yeah?”

Eme closed her eyes, breathing in the witch’s scent. “Yeah. Ok, I’ll do that. Don’t die or I’ll find a way to bring you back and kill you myself!” 

Autumn chuckled.

The pair split up with Eme sneaking over to where she’d left Nelva while Autumn took in the situation. 

Even one armed and blown to hell and back, the undead angel was still dominating the fight, forcing Liddie and Nizana to keep on their toes lest they lose them. In the short time they’d danced the dance with death, fresh wounds appeared across their bodies, soaking their garments in blood and threatening to slow them. Only Eme’s soft music lingering upon them kept them moving quickly.

Seeing their continued defiance and Autumn’s rapid approach, the undead angel flared its aura of dread, halting the pair momentarily.

Wary of the mithril blade, the angel struck Liddie first. 

The halberd shrieked as the white-gold blade deflected off of it, forcing the pirate’s guard wide open. In a sweeping flourish, Ithuriel the Rotten brought the haft of the halberd around and broke Liddie’s wrist. She gasped in pain as her blade clattered to the floor. But that was all she could do as a back kick suddenly thundered into her chest, sending her flying once more to crash into a pillar of bone. 

Liddie slumped unconscious to the floor.

Barely a second had passed in the exchange before the angel was back before Nizana. She tried to move, to dodge, but she was too slow. 

The halberd blade drove right into her heart. 

Excruciatingly slowly, Ithuriel the Rotten brought the Umbra Elven assassin up to revel in her death. Blood dripped down Nizana’s mouth as she smiled and stabbed the angel in the eye.

The first sound Autumn heard the angel make was a roar. 

Gone was the flickering blue in its eye, replaced by a wicked knife. Blinded, it flung Nizana’s corpse out wide and swung the halberd relentlessly trying to cut the approaching witch down. But Autumn moved quietly, stalking the undead as her hand wrapped around the hilt of a white-gold blade. 

Calming itself, the angel waited like a statue, listening for the sound of footsteps. Yet what it caught was the sound of something whistling through the air towards it. Spinning towards the sound, it cut with expert precision. 

And the split rune detonated in a blast of wind that knocked the halberd aside. 

Roaring, Autumn rushed the angel of rot. She slipped easily into its guard and readied her swing just as a thick wave of dread radiated out as Ithuriel the Rotten sought to halt the witch in place.

Autumn swung anyway.

The halberd clattered to the ground, still clutched by a severed arm, the angel having been literally disarmed.

Autumn swung again. 

Panting, Autumn stared at the angel frozen in place. Its pale lips parted and a breathless whisper coiled around Autumn.

“Thank you.”

Ithuriel the Rotten’s head rolled off onto the floor and its body soon followed. Autumn stared down silently at the dead undead angel and her own pale lips parted.

“Go fuck yourself.”