Seventh woke up in a small, cramped space made of yellow stone and white bone. He had raised bone walls in a corner of the corridor wall for protection against umbrefel.

  The feline creature was huge. A six-legged, purplish-black monstrosity of living shadow and claws. And it could move between shadows.

  He had tried to track it for days now and had a decent grasp of its abilities. The Shadow Jump wasn't instantaneous. There was a slight delay between it disappearing and reappearing, and it needed a line of sight for the jump to work.

  There also had to be enough room for its body to appear so Seventh could make safe spots to sleep in. Staying close kept the walls from disappearing, and if they were hit, he would wake up when feeling the magic waver in the walls.

  He had been woken twice already by sudden attacks, thankfully not today, so he'd gotten a full night's rest. Or something equivalent— a very long midday nap, maybe?

  Groggily, Seventh started his morning routine by making a tiny shard of essence and Meditating to fill his mana back up.

  There were five grains now. Five days, two left before his quest failed.

  Hunting hadn't said anything what would happen if Seventh failed, but he didn't believe it would be anything nice.

  Groaning, he dispelled the walls and looked around in the corridor. Eight minions and Fang-Knife, his right hand man— or his right hand ratkin.

  "Mornin', anything happen while I was out?" Seventh asked.

  His reply came in the form of negative grunt and shake of a head. Fang had answered since most of the others didn't communicate well.

  "Excellent. Anything for breakfast?"

  Fang's shoulders slumped a little, and he refused to answer the question.

  Seventh had asked the same thing every time he woke up. The joke wasn't any good in the first place, let alone days on end.

  The other ratkin were close by, standing in pairs. Umbrefel favored fast ambush hit-and-run tactics— like everything else in here— and attacked everything living that walked alone.

  Pairing up didn't protect them completely, but at least they could get a stab or stray Shadowbolt in before the monster disappeared into the shadows.

  Shadowbolt's new additional effect had a side effect Seventh didn't even consider when getting it. The small amount of Death Mana dealing damage was visible in his Death Sense. Every hit highlighted the area for a couple of minutes making it possible to track.

  Occasionally, umbrefel stayed close by after attacking, but Seventh could see where it was hiding either with Wandering Eye or with his normal eyes. Sadly it was learning, and after being hit and found out, umbrefel had started to run further and further away after attacking.

  Seventh could appreciate that kind of behavior. Analyzing situations and coming up with new plans. There were even a couple of times when ratkin were lured to him and in the midst of battle a body or two was dragged away.

  The living ratkin continued to be a problem. More and more of them were either heard or seen. They had also changed in the past couple of days.

  They had metal armor. Crude pieces of equipment, forged roughly from long strips of iron, but rugged enough to stop an arrow or Shadowbolt.

  There was no armor for legs or arms, keeping them light and making fast attacks possible.

  Armored ones were slower and ratkin didn't yet know how to manage the new troops efficiently. But they were slowly getting there. Mostly by surviving Seventh and his tactics.

  Seventh frowned in displeasure, and focused on his Wandering Eye in the neighboring hall.

  It was silent. Empty. Shadows were still, and no sneaking ratkin.

  This three-way war couldn't continue. Trying to wander around, hoping to find the correct target was idiotic.

  Seventh stroked his chin in thought.

  If he could somehow trap and bait umbrefel, they wouldn't need to walk and pray to just meet it by sheer accident.

  Seventh thought.

  They needed a bait. A living one.

  That was easy to acquire. Just walk to the nearest ratkin patrol, kill everybody else but one, and carry it to the needed position.

  Seventh couldn't wait to find out what would go wrong with that.

  Second part of the plan, the trap, was a tricky one. Teleporting enemies were hard to catch, especially ones with easy gimmick like Shadow Jump without major disadvantages.

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  In their first fight Seventh had seen something though. When Fang was holding— or more like hanging for his dear undead life— on the massive cat, it didn't jump. It also always seemed to jump in its own shadow.

  "Hang on tight on it, remove shadows, huh? Easy as it goes," Seventh murmured.

  Sharp ratkin ears picked up the low voice and Fang scampered next to Seventh. His morning routine had already gone too long, and the ratkin was clearly antsy to move.

  "Hold on, I'm onto something here," Seventh said. "Removing shadows and wrestling big cats. Wanna do one of them?" he added, jokingly.

  To his utter astonishment, Fang made one sharp nod.

  "You... wanna wrestle half a ton housecat with six legs?" Seventh asked dubiously.

  Shaking head.

  Seventh felt single eyebrow rising. "You want to remove shadows? How?"

  There was a long stare and silence between the necromancer and his minion. Seventh again had a feeling that Fang considered him as an idiot. It had been happening a lot recently.

  Slowly, making his movement painfully clear, Fang pointed at an empty sconce.

  It had always been there, but after seeing them for weeks Seventh just filtered them out from his mind. Now they were painfully obvious.

  "Oooooh, right. Torches. I knew that. Just, um... checking if you knew that," he tried weakly to preserve his dignity.

  Fang didn't buy it. One of his eyebrows was raised, and ear drooped low. Stressing out his look of skepticism, Fang crossed his arms.

  "It has been dark, okay? I forgot light was a thing," Seventh defended himself.

  He wasn't lying. To his best knowledge, he had never seen the sun. Or the real sky.

  "So, you seen any torches lately?" Seventh asked.

  The answer was a predictable head shake.

  Seventh nodded and stared at the sconce. "No matter. We can get wood and cloth from the inn. All we need is tar, oil or... something else... that burns."

  His words slowly faded when he remembered something. A loot-happy axeman and two boxes of loot.

  Seventh's ferocious smile made Fang take a step back. The ratkin didn't even know he could get goosebumps. It was very uncomfortable with full fur.

  "We have something better than torches," Seventh said.

  He explained the plan while they took the long route back to the inn. They only stopped for a small skirmish and acquisition of an important part for the plan.

  ───??───

  

  

  The dead-walkers were hunting her. She was sure of it.

  Everywhere she went, they followed. Every meal was interrupted by them.

  The leader covered in a bone box when sleeping. Too small. Had to break by force, but not enough time. He was always protected.

  Her insides gnawed. Muscles were being consumed for energy. She was slowly being eaten by the will of the dungeon.

  Being hungry, her reactions were slower, her senses were duller. Like a grey sheet had been pulled in front of her eyes, and nose plugged.

  She was still better predator than anything in the yellow-caves.

  She could smell blood through stone. Taste the battle on her tongue, and see the footprints of shuffling feet in the unmarred stone.

  Blood.

  Going away from the battlefield she was checking. A survivor? Being followed by the dead. She had to check this one out.

  The coppery twang led her deeper in the dungeon. She felt the air thickening, the stone gaining more weight beyond the tunnels.

  She hadn't been this deep before. No rats to hunt.

  She saw the sky. Or something like it. Blue and white. Far above in a echoing cave. A pale imitation.

  Jumping down behind a small pillar surrounding the yard she looked closer around.

  Piled stones in the middle. Smelling of moss and water. Rope going down. Old wooden buckets.

  Wooden slab on a cracked wall. Across gravely ground, a wooden structure she had never seen before. How many trees had been killed for this?

  Half a forest? Whole forest?

  Blood was inside.

  Looking through a hole in the wall, she slipped through the shadows to inside. There was fear and pain thick in the air, delicious soup.

  A rat was whimpering below.

  Silently, slowly she moved down. The floor was made of loose wood. Blood was everywhere. Splattered on the walls, floor was swimming in the crimson liquid. It reeked of death.

  The rat saw her moving down. Its eyes grew wide. Gagged and tied up, the rat's resistance was futile. All it could do was to struggle.

  Drool dripped from her mouth. She was ravenous.

  A floorboard creaked. It was all what was needed.

  The floor exploded with undead ratkin rushing upwards from their hiding, knives and hands ready to stab and grab.

  A dozen hands ripped her fur, knives sank deep in her sides.

  Roaring in fury, she swatted three undead flat right under her right paws. Bones cracked and wood splintered.

  Tied up ratkin tried to squirm away to safety. None of the combatants cared about it.

  Spinning around the small room, umbrefel made a wide slice with her left paws, cutting undead to pieces. The ratkin under her right paws were still attacking, scratching her legs with their short claws.

  Lifting her right side up and slamming down— hard— she crushed everything below her.

  There was still rats on her. Knives moved fast in and out of her.

  Twisting, she leaned her head far back and seized a ratkin head between her powerful jaws before chomping down. She threw the foul tasting corpse away.

  Her heavy body caused more damage while moving than her claws. The room was small, cramped, and the undead were getting crushed. They were wearing minerals. They survived being crushed and continued their assault.

  One of the undead was clinging to her tailbone. Far from her jaws and hard to slice down. While making a tentative snap backwards, she saw the light.

  A spinning green bottle tied with a burning rag. She could clearly see the liquid sloshing inside, making the spinning motion wildly unpredictable.

  It was still going to hit her.

  She tried to hide in her shadow. Run away. But the light and iron knives on her sides disrupted her connection to Grey-Scape. Her shadow was too weak to open. Her form just shuttered between the two realms.

  She followed the bottle's trajectory till the end. The glass shattered, engulfing the room with a smell of strong wine before fire and light.

  ───?───

  Fang threw the second bottle while Seventh focused on his mana. When it cracked inside, the open doorway and both ground floor windows were covered with a single Bone Wall.

  Both of them were dripping wet from their hiding in the well.

  Fang had climbed the fastest up and lit the rags on the bottles while Seventh struggled to get up despite using the rope.

  Now, they watched the Pilgrim's Rest, engulfed in flames. Fat, black smoke rose from the upper windows and they could hear the umbrefel roaring, thrashing around.

  Seventh couldn't believe their plan had worked. There were so many weak points.

  Umbrefel could've smelled them in the well, it might have decided to run away, the ratkin might've loosened its ties and run away, Fang could have failed to light the firebombs or Seventh could have slipped and fallen back at the well.

  Gods were really watching over Seventh's shoulder. Or at least one very weird one.

  All in all, the plan had worked flawlessly. Fang even had two more firebombs. There had been six bottles, but they hid half-filled bottles inside. Fuel to the fire.

  They could still hear the roaring. It had a haunted, pained tone. A wounded beast dying.

  Flames started to peek out from the roof. Wooden shingles and tar taking up the flames and sparking up. The roof sagged as the roof beams came barreling down, making the dungeon thunder in a cacophony of destruction.

  The cavernous courtyard was filled with the dancing light of the blazing inferno. White and blue tiles, awash with a light never seen in this part of the dungeon.

  Fang snarled and drew his knives.

  Seventh realized what he had noticed. There was still roaring. And the roof finally collapsed with the beams gone.

  A large shape climbed up from the fiery inn, clawing its way to the top of the still-standing front wall. Fur ablaze, the umbrefel turned to stare at the two undead down below.

  With a pained roar, it leapt down. Six legs struck gravel— half of them wounded, buckling under the massive weight. The

  iron knives still embedded in her sides gleamed in the firelight.

  Seventh could feel deep growling reverberate through his bones.

  Their eyes met.

  Mirrors of each other.