The football field is silent apart from the groaning sound of the half collapsed school behind it. Blood and monster ichor smear the grass field that should display children practicing and instead showed the signs of hard battle.
Melissa kneeling beside one of the talon beasts. Her eyes closed she quietly whispers “by blood remembered, by sorrow bound. Speak and be known”. A bell tolls, the monster twitches. A echo of instinct hums in the air. The scent of prey, the heat of the hunt, the terror of life. Melissa slowly takes her knife and cuts her hand. As her blood hits the dead beast it starts to dissolve, rainbow smoke coalescing, condensing to a new form. Spirit coins, a jar of healing ointment and a long sharp claw.
Ability: Bargaining With the Dead (death)
(death, memory, artefact manifestation)
Base cost: Low-to-moderate mana
Current rank: Category 1
Cooldown: None
cat 1, Grave Whisper: I can sense lingering memory in a corpse. A simple offering, a drop of blood, a mourning gesture, yields basic loot: coins, potions, trinkets and ingredients. The beast had no voice, but its bones remembered hunger.
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She puts the loot in her bag, gets up, walking over to the next beast and starts again. Methodically looting her kills and his.
“why did you keep fighting?” he asks from behind her, watching her. She doesn't look up at him but her eyes flicker to the school. Just for a moment before she looks back at the beast in silent contemplation “because I could... and they didn't”
They both hear the search and rescue team. Helping the two children. A boy and a girl, both trembling under the thermal blankets. “you saved them” he says “you'd think that'd feel better” she gets up as the next beast turns in to loot. “it never does, not when its as messy as this” then after a moment he adds “but it matters”. Her eyes meet his and for a moment a smile tugs on her lips before she cuts her hand again and the next monster dissolves.
He looks around at the ruined city, anger flaring, displacing his easy smile for a moment. “They should have been here, not at those transformation zones, hunting for cores.”
“That would mean they actually care about people... but they only care for power.” she answers and a heavy silence stretches. They hear one of the children cry and hear the rescue team murmur quiet reassurances that non of them truly feel.
Melissa gets up and wipes her hands on her ruined combat attire. “They are done here soon... we should get moving before the debriefing” “you always this warm and friendly after a massacre?” he asks “only if I like someone” he huffs out a laugh, quiet, genuine. At least as genuine as the circumstances allow.
