Grey refused to leave Max`s side. She and Willow set him up nicely in their room covered and comforted to the best of their abilities. She sat silently holding his hand, gently feeding him her energy to help him recover. She would close her eyes and focus on his vitals, looking or the worst parts to feed. It wasn`t much, but it was something.

  He was a mess. The amputation might have been quick and precise but that didn`t change the fact that it was done in one of the dirtiest parts of the Undercity. Medicine was scarce in the lower ring, all they had to rely on was a nutrient rich diet and overpriced medicinal mold that four out of five times would kill you rather than cure you. Of course if you went to the middle ring you could find more qualified doctors and higher quality medicine. No one could deny the wonders of the middle and upper rings medicine. They just couldn’t afford them.

  Max`s body burned hot fighting with all its might against infection and blood loss. Grey`s constant flowing of essence was helping but it wasn`t nearly enough for someone as big as Max.

  Willow and Mika had been hard at work in the field and the Undercity. As much as they wanted to be there for Grey and Max they could not rest when there was work to be done. Mika had stepped up to the pte, with some help from the Goblins, and despite her youth she proved quite sufficient in organising the other kids and helping to co-ordinate the construction of the rat farms. Fortunately Grey still had Whiskers who she had sent off to catch and bring back live rats that she could use as fuel to heal Max with.

  The process helped but the damage done was so severe. From time to time Max would regain consciousness, delirious he would mumble nonsense before falling back into unconsciousness. The only time Grey would leave his side was when she needed to get him water or some clean bandages to keep his wound from getting worse.

  Amputations were not uncommon in the Undercity, most people however had the benefit of doing it in a controlled environment. From the look of things it had happened, fast, messily and in the mines, the st pce you would want it to happen. Despite all the odds stacked against him Grey didn`t give up. She stayed by his side and fed what parts of herself she could to him. Even after she noticed she had lost her sense of taste she still continued to give of herself to him.

  A few days passed and thanks to her best efforts Max broke through the fever and awoke. At first he was confused his memory fractured by the trauma, little by little it would come back to him. His body had recovered although painstakingly and now it was his mind that needed time to heal. In this, Grey was nothing but useless.

  It wasn`t difficult to realise that Max`s days of working the mines were behind him. He could never perform meaningfully with only one arm, try as he might. It took a while for reality to catch up to him and when it did, it did so with a vice grip.

  Max was about to experience the five stages of grief whether he liked it or not.

  First he denied the reality of his situation. He insisted that even with only one arm he could still work in the mines. Sure his productivity would drop but he was confident he could still out perform anyone.

  Then came anger, he cursed and swore at the world. Why did it have to be him? Why was he the one who lost his arm? Why couldn’t it have been someone else?

  Next came the bargaining, this was Grey`s least favourite. For hours Max begged her to fix him with her Necromancy. He offered her anything and everything he had. He begged and pleaded but Grey could not give him what he wanted. She didn`t know if it was possible and if it was she didn`t know how. To Re-animate a whole body was one thing but to re-animate something disconnected from a living person. As much as it pained her to do so she decided no-hope was better than false hope.

  Then came the depression. Max would refuse to eat or drink. Life seemed meaningless now. Without a way to contribute to the world, without a way to earn an honest living he felt it best to give up and die. Grey argued against this and tried with all her strength to assure him things would be okay. He was deaf to all of it, only time and his own desire to live would get him through this. Let it never be said that Grey`s comfort didn`t help a little.

  Lastly, acceptance. Max woke up one day and things didn`t seem all too bleak. Sure he only had one arm but he still had both his legs, a working brain and a right arm that would never quit. He might never work in the mines again but so what. The mines were a dangerous hopeless pce that took the best of the people that worked it and produced nothing but exhausted husks.

  Finally, after weeks of being bed bound and cared for Max found himself taking his first steps outside of the house. He stretched out with his remaining arm and although the loss of his left was still strongly felt he refused to let it get the better of him.

  Max might have made it through his ordeal but Grey was beginning one of her own. For days she had considered the mechanics behind using necromancy as a tool for healing. For weeks she had fed Max her life force and in that time she had become well acquainted with the workings of the body. Every session of feeding gave her new insight as she poked around with her mind feeding the parts of his body that grew weak.

  All of that time and exposure had got her theorising that something could be done for him. She kept it a secret however, nothing would be more damaging for Max`s recovery than a fools chance at normalcy.

  It was with this decision that under the guise of going to visit her father, Grey went off in search of a way to give Max back what had been taken from him.

  [---]

  With a pn and a purpose Grey saddled up onto Whiskers and made her way into the city. Her pn at its core was simple enough; construct Max a prosthesis to repce the arm he lost. Where it got difficult was when you added that it needed to be constructed from human bone and there was only one pce in the Undercity Grey was going to get that.

  The Dark.

  She had heard many stories about the Dark growing up and even more rumours. One day her father had told her the truth.

  It was a section of the outer ring where a pgue broke out. Unable to truly deal with such an epidemic the section of the ring was closed off and quarantined. Its inhabitants left to perish for the sake of the rest of the Undercity. There had been no protest to the idea. Nobody wanted to risk getting the pgue and those that had it were already considered dead.

  So it was that the Undercity as a whole turned a blind eye to the suffering of those that would find the Dark their grave. After the lights had burned out and the cries for help had gone silent the quarantine was lifted.

  The Cartel tried to relight the mps but something would extinguish them if left unchecked. Citizens tried to move back in to the vacant houses but were scared off or went missing. It didn`t take long for rumours of the darkness coming to life and feasting on unfortunate souls who tried to recim it. The pce was cursed now, unfit for the living. So it was that it became a pce for the dead. The Undercities graveyard; where corpses would be dumped for the Dark to consume.

  It was the only pce Grey could go to find what she needed.

  She used what money she had to buy a mp and cloak to illuminate her way and stave off the cold. Her demeanour hardened and Whiskers grew concerned as they wondered closer and closer to the Dark.

  Whiskers could sense something wrong about the pce, but he pushed on none the less. He was there to support Grey, a good and loyal friend.

  They reached the outskirts of the Dark and stared forward into the abyss. Grey could feel it staring back.

  She looked back over her shoulder towards the light, towards Max and took a deep breath.

  She prompted Whiskers to proceed and he did so steadily as the world around them grew dark and cold.

  After a few minutes of wondering around blindly, Grey with not a single corpse in sight decided to make use of Whiskers nose.

  “I need you to find me some bodies boy. Dead bodies. The faster we find them the faster we can leave this pce.” , she whispered to him, fearful of the shadows that danced around her.

  Whiskers lifted his head and took a few hard sniffs before changing their direction. Grey sat back and let him lead the way, looking around at whatever she could see.

  The architecture here was the same as anywhere else in the outer ring, just slightly more worn. Grey eyed every home and wondered about the people that used to live here. All lost to time and memory.

  Every now and then she could have sworn she heard the sounds of life. Of people ughing and children pying in the streets. Wives and husbands greeting each other at home readying themselves for dinner.

  Grey wondered if her mind was pying tricks on her, the Dark making her hear things that weren’t there. She wondered if it was some kind of tent Necromantic ability, to hear the voices of the dead. She shook her head and decided the reason didn`t matter.

  Whisker turned a corner and stopped, his muscles tensed and he stared off into the darkness, baring his fangs with an unsteady growl. Grey tried to see what he saw but cked his keen vision. But there was no mistake, something was definitly there.

  Grey leaned lower towards Whiskers and stroked his head gently. “Easy boy, it`s just the Dark”, she hoped. “It can`t hurt us.”

  She willed him to move on and he did so begrudgingly aware of something she couldn’t see.

  An outside observer might think her brave or stupid, but the truth was she felt nothing but fear. It gripped her tightly and restricted her movement. It wormed its way into her mind and forced her to think things she would rather not. It made her see movements in the Dark where there was none, or was there?

  Despite its best efforts she would not let the fear control her. She would overcome it, for Max.

  Whiskers turned another corner and Grey could smell something now in the air. It was feint at first but the further Whiskers wondered the stronger it grew. It was nothing like Grey had ever smelt before but for some reason it was familiar to her. A sick, rancid, rotting stench that slowly and insidiously attempted to choke her.

  She lifted her scarf from around her neck to cover her nose and mouth, it helped slightly. The good news; they were getting close, If the smell was any indicator.

  Grey checked the oil mp and noted it was about half way empty, it was now or never. If they didn`t find something soon then they would have to turn back empty handed.

  Whiskers stopped suddenly. He looked up into nothingness. Grey lowered the ntern and let her eyes adjust to the Dark in hope of seeing whatever it was that he saw. Unfortunately for her, it worked.

  A great hill climbed before them all the way into the heights of the Dark. A hill made of corpses.

  Grey attempted to swallow her fear and climbed off of Whiskers, her goal in sight.

  Whiskers circled her defensively growling at the hill urging her to turn back. She was so close.

  She pushed Whiskers aside and examined the corpses at the base of the hill, they were too fresh.

  Every fibre of her being told her to leave, told her to turn and run. To return to the light and be grateful that Max still lived, that that was enough. But she couldn`t. She needed to do this.

  With an uneasy step she began to climb the hill, ntern in hand. Whiskers moved up alongside her to act as support. They climbed to the top where she hoped to find more decomposed corpses. No luck.

  From the top however she was able to get a better look at her surroundings and was appalled to discover that this was but one of many hills that went on as far as she could see. How she wished she had the strength to make them part for her.

  “Almost there.”, she told herself.

  She started wondering the grotesque hills kicking over the odd body hoping to find some at the adequate level of decay. Every step of the way Whiskers stood with her, his eyes darting around the darkness perceptively.

  The oil in the mp had just reached below half. Once again time was of the essence. It became clear that the freshest corpses y on the top. If she wanted to find bone she was going to have to dig.

  With Whiskers help she began to overturn bodies, one by one until she could confirm signs of advanced decay. Bone, partially exposed, it wasn`t enough but it was progress. After what felt like an hour of digging she stumbled across the perfect body. Almost entirely skeletonised, only a little flesh and muscle remained. It was the best she could hope for.

  She unearthed it entirely and wrenched the arm from its socket, it popped out easy enough. With a deep breath and a rush of relief Grey turned to Whiskers, happy they could finally leave.

  They began the slow slog back the way they came to where the hills ended. They crested the top of one of the hills and Grey felt something trip her. Something deliberate.

  Whiskers caught her as she fell but she lost grip of the mp. It tumbled down the hill and shattered, the oil inside igniting in a fsh of light. A fsh that illuminated the creatures watching them.

  Grey froze. Whiskers grew tense. She locked eyes with one of the creatures and as soon as she blinked it was gone.

  Panic gripped her, they needed to leave. Grey hopped onto Whiskers, confident he would do a better job at getting them both off of these damn hills.

  He charged through the corpses towards their exit, the Dark quickly closing upon them without their mp.

  “Wait!”, Grey shouted. “We need light to find our way out”.

  She tried to get Whiskers to turn back to where the oil burned in hopes of salvaging a torch of some kind. Whiskers resisted her, so she jumped off.

  She would be quick. Just grab a burning limb and hightail it out of there.

  She reached the fmes and found an arm on fire at the shoulder. She tugged at it and it broke away, becoming a grotesque torch in her hand.

  She turned to move back to Whiskers when something came bounding out of the Dark and knocked her to the ground. She held onto the torch but as she made to rise she found herself face to face with the creature.

  Cloudy, blood red eyes stared back at her, sharp needle pointed teeth smiled at her throat.

  Before she could respond Whiskers dived upon the creature and torn its head off with his powerful jaw.

  A cry came from the darkness. More of the creatures appeared. Their skin, a sickly green, their figures emaciated, there was only one way to describe them. Ghoulish.

  Grey couldn`t help it. She screamed and scrambled back onto Whiskers.

  He turned and began running, the light of the torch illuminating the way. Grey could hear the Ghouls charging towards them letting out guttural cries in their pursuit. Grey swung the torch around her trying to scare them off, to no success.

  The fire no longer scared them, not after Whiskers had killed one of their own.

  They closed the distance and began grabbing at Whiskers to pull him down into the corpses that surrounded them. Grey attempted to fight them off but could do little more than annoy them.

  Whiskers sank into the mire of flesh and Grey felt herself being pulled off of him. She turned in a panic and reached out grabbing one of the Ghouls. She closed her eyes and tried to channel.

  There was nothing. Just an endless void that hungered for flesh. Her flesh.

  She recoiled in horror and tried to kick the creature away. It was stronger than her. It overpowered her, trying to sink its teeth into her neck. With all her might she held its head back looking to Whiskers for help. He was pinned.

  She looked back to the Ghoul upon her and then towards the light, it was fading.

  The Dark had her now, and it wasn`t going to let her go.

  She cried out as it closed its jaws on her.

  [---]

  A fsh. A blinding blue fsh. Blinding and beautiful like a cobalt sun.

  It illuminated the sky and stunned the Ghouls with its divinity.

  Then it exploded and fire rained down upon them with vengeful fury.

  The Ghouls cried out and scattered. Some burst into fmes quickly becoming ash. Others dove into the hills of corpses hoping to tunnel their way to safety.

  Grey took the chance to link back up with Whiskers and held onto him for dear life.

  The corpses began to move around them. They jolted back to life, their eyes burning the same cobalt blue as the sun. They reached out and lifted Whiskers and Grey carrying them to safety, a great ocean of flesh.

  Grey looked around her, nothing making sense. Then she saw them, at the edge of the hills where the earth began and the corpses ended. Her Father, burning with splendour. A great crown of blue fire adorned upon their head, necromantic energy crackling from their eyes and hands as they forced every corpse for miles to do their bidding. To bring their daughter to safety.

  The ocean threw her into the arms of her Father, she buried her face into their cloak and begged for forgiveness.

  They dropped to their knees with her in their hands and held her close.

  “Hush my sweetheart. Daddy is here, you`re safe now. Everything is going to be okay, I promise”.