{Third day of Hannah's escape, early evening, Ambush site.}

Hannah took forth the cursed tome, a dark urge welling within her as the skin bound book was opened.

Thoughts of slaughter and bloodshed already inside now crawling towards her soul as she looked at the first page, the writing reeking of blood as she read the first page, instinctively knowing that she could do better than the incantation provided for her.

She felt her own blood burn and quickly opened a gash in her hand for it to break free.

"By Infernal law I claim my heritage, this man has served me with his life, but his service is not over yet. I offer blood to pay for his life, so he may be born anew as the servant he has proven himself to be. Now, I demand he rise." Her words had shifted to an unknown language during the process, her knife etching the fell book's ritual into the corpse, while her own blood began filling the runes.

The familiar stench of sulfur rose from the corpse.

"I assume you are a virgin?" She asked the lady, the woman nodding in disbelief as the ceremonial dagger was plunged into her butler's armpit.

"His blood will do then, he's not nobility, but just as stuck up."

Hannah explained, pulling the dagger back out and slowly dragging the elderly man in a way that his blood flowed right into the fallen bandit's mouth.

"Now, if everything went right, we simply have to put him in a cocoon... what kind of god did he revere?"

She asked, once again startling the nearby people.

"Bandits worship Margon more often than not, god of earth and coin." The guard informed her, the elf nodding as he described the required burial rite, fishing out two coins for every corpse to close the eyes of the fallen with. Soon the other bandit led them to their camp, the abandoned tents barely large enough to be called that. Immediately, they began the burials, digging holes for every one of the fallen men.

They could see dusk approaching when the last of the corpses was buried, both of her remaining followers and the lady they had dragged along gaping at her decisive actions to honor the dead.

"Now my lady, please kneel and pray for salvation, your blood grants you the privilege to function as a priest in one's absence, if I am right about that..."

Thus, everyone except Mary went to sleep, and the world was changed for the worse once again.

"Damnable bandits, occupying me with a sacred task like this, while I should be on my way.  I curse them, and everyone that took part in that ambush. How dare they attack me? And how dare some of them defect and work for that devil?"

She cursed, her decidedly unladylike behavior furthering the ritual without her knowledge.

A small prayer to every fallen was her task, though she spends most of the night mourning her butler.

Soon, dusk fell. The impromptu graveyard became cold as she mourned, the fallen specters passing on to their afterlives as the worlds converged for a split second.

As the wisps of the fallen slithered between the plains, the Lady watched the spectacle in awe, only noticing a problem when a cold hand grabbed her leg, and the earth in the grave she cursed so much was pushed aside.

Out stepped a figure of pure white, the earth falling from his folded skin, and a pained screech escaping the monstrosities' throat.

A single prayer could be heard as the Vampire tore into her throat, his body returning to its previous youth as it stole her life essence.

In a dark clearing, a man that thought himself dead woke in a shower of blood, blinking as the corpse fell from his arms.

A single person left the nearby tent, a spread of her arms awakening his hunger.

He dashed for her and closed his arms around the persons back, ready to bite into her neck.

"Good morning, Asceron, and welcome back to the world of the living, you are a demon now, bound to me by blood. I am unsure on what kind it is, given that any attempt at magic by me until now had a slightly unintended effect."

She explained, channeling the thrum of power that coursed through her whenever she began an arcane song or invoked her oath.

She felt the vampire thrum with the same power, but without the smell of sulfur that clung to her.

A smile hushed over her lips as she released the undead from her grip.

"Now sleep, the next day will be hard, and you seem too dangerous to be left roaming today."

Thus, Hannah pushed the dead lady into the empty grave, grinning to herself as she closed it and copied various runes from the skin bound tome, knowing it would trap the noble's soul. If she was going to follow a dark path, she might as well prepare for the future.

~{Esotorikum}~

Among the many crystals that loosened every day, some were dragged down, while others began drifting upwards to ascend or be consumed by the jellyfish. A single shroom was grabbed by another, their mycel entwining as the second was bound to the ground even after death.

The power it drew upon to do so widened the rift between the steaming purple from below, the chaotic liquids tainting the growth drinking from them in a vortex of purple and red.

A vigilant observer might even notice the other shrooms distancing themselves, but nobody observes the ever same Esoterikum.