As Xina and Amethyst stepped out into the cooridor facing the skeletal horde they heard a low chuckling from somewhere among the expressionless corpses. A black cloud wafted outward from somewhere among the skeletons and drifted towards the gathering slayers. Lichen and fungus withered and died at its passage.
"Diem Wind!" the black wind was torn to pieces by the strong winds.
"You cannot defeat me, mortals," the voice seemed to emanate from all the skeletons at once in a grisly chorus. "I have moved beyond death and life."
A skeleton brought an ancient axe the bare against Amethyst and shattered the weapon on her skin for the trouble. Yet where the ancient and rusted axe head had shattered, her skin felt like it had been steeped in cold deeper than the worst winter she could remember.
She winced backwards as the creature tried to lunge for her again. Three blades of light neatly bisected it before it could make another attack. Val stepped forward, reared back and released a searing breath of flame out at the undead foes, completely incinirating the first three ranks. Then Amethyst and Xina followed up with attacks of their own. Five skeletons survived, and four of them shambled forward to be destroyed by Jol and Xalan's attacks.
"I can create new minions," the last skeleton laughed, surrounded by menacing and only half visible nimbus of an evil and deadly aura.
"Enslave further souls you mean!" Amethyst accused angrily rubbing the still cool skin of her arm.
"Enjoyed your family reunion?"
Xalan rushed in at the creature slashing out with the claws of light. The skeleton actually caught hold of the blades and tossed the kage-kitsune further down the cooridor. Xalan kicked out as he was thrown past and caved in the lich's stolen rib cage.
"Diem Wind." the spell issued forth from the lich's lips and repelled the barrage of light spears that Xina had sent after him. An identical spell from Amethyst crushed the spears between two great winds and scattered the light into tiny motes without force.
As the wind wall dropped, Jolrael leaped through, slashing the skeleton's arm off. The severed appendage snatched out at the swordsman as it fell and gripped his knee with a freezing hand. As Jolrael grimaced and mentally pried the dead fingers from around his leg, Val stepped in and simply punched out, shattering the skeleton's skull.
"Destroy this vessel all you wish," Roquen laughed, his voice now seemingly disembodied. A blue-white blast of deathly cold enveloped the dragon, sending Val screaming to his knees and glaring upwards in anger.
There was barely the sound of a passing breeze to warn the lich of Xalan's rush from behind, but he could feel the rush of life. The remains of the skeletal body turned as a megido flare rose up around it. It barely noticed the white magic spell, and instead reared back to release another cloud of death at the kage-kitsune warrior.
"NO!" the lich would have frowned if it had a lips, or even a head for that matter. Somebody just appeared ahead of his target and drew in all the death cloud. As the decaying gas was dissipated the body of a fifteen year old girl appeared. The lich released a stream of the deadly cloud out at the girl.
They remained like that, Sherra taking the essence of death into her and the lich trying to channel enough of it through to kill her without destroying itself. Then the slayers descended on his body and destroyed the skeleton through which he channeled his power into the physical world.
"Her again!" Xina shouted irritably as Sherra stared wearily out at where the skeleton had stood. Sherra was sweating, she was actually sweating, and what seemed to be a fever was sweeping over her body. She blinked in confusion at the sensations rippling over her from accepting the stuff of death into her immortal form. She shook her head clear and rose up her sword into a ready position.
You're leaving now. Sherra's fevered mind tried to protest but the ruins began to disappear around her.
"Is that it?" Xina asked. Then Tinuviel cried out behind them.
"Tinu!" Jol shouted and rushed forward as a black nimbus seemed to cling about the elf girl. Jol caught her body and reached out with his mind into hers.
"Oh, I get it now," Xina said and rushed around to support Tinuviel from the otherside. Remembering how the moon magic had slowly eaten through Luna's paralysis she reached out through the staff with a silvery radiance. The staff, Jol's telepathic prodding's and Roquen's possession attempt all interacted in the most bizarre manner possible.
Suddenly Xina, Xalan and Tinuviel stood in a great cluttered hall full of books stacked in seemingly no order whatsoever. Most of them were filled with bookmarks, opened to random pages, or thoroughly dog-eared. It was a mass of scholarly disorder. In the back of the hall the walls seemed to be decaying as a dark shape walked through a hole eaten through the wall. The black shape hesistated as it approached them.
Tinuviel retreated a step backwards from the thing, somehow aware that it was here for her.
"A girl who channels the moon, and an elf-blood," a voice sneered. "I targetted the wrong pair."