Maid with Necromancy

Fire cut off any escape routes around the rebuilt house. The building, one of many, was part of White Group's push to rehabilitate the slums into affordable housing. This one had everything Talus needed inside of it.

The Carpenter family lived here. Charity and Michael, who had four girls. This way, most of the lost Hands could be replaced. Rescue the girls. Allow Brighton Bostwick a hero's death. Hand out enough trauma, and the girls would have some of the preferred class choices for Hands once they were shuffled into the system for orphans.

Talus dashed in through the flames into the burning house. Cue the dramatic coughing, “I'm here to help!” He cried.

Where were the screams? Voices relieved at a rescue, full of new hope that would be crushed.  Reports showed the family was here when the fires started. If they were already unconscious, this would be less fun.

“Over here!”

Good. The central room, furthest away from the fire, so there would be plenty of time. One male voice with a calm, even tone, good discipline to keep a family from panicking. Take him out, and the sobbing would begin.

The room held one man, no girls beside him, as he stood, hand resting on a cane. Not a laborer, the uniform of a servant, but the cold confidence of a trained soldier. “They're not here.” He said with the dry tone a receptionist would use to tell a person to go away and find a grave to lie in.

“Bates,” Talus sneered. It didn't matter that he'd never met the man. The butler had to be involved in ruining his previous operations. Even if he only hired Manfred to counter the Hands trying to join Harmony’s group, and made full use of that unaffiliated spy provided by the Harvest of Talents. He was a menace in finding quality people.

“Sadly, I don't know who you are, only that you've pretended to be Bostwick for a few years.” House White’s butler chided.

The man couldn’t know. He had to be guessing. Bostwick was crafted out of the corpse of a nobody who had few friends, and the family he had was curse-addled. It had been a slow progression to the power he had now as an intermediary.  “You know nothing.”

“Four years, one hundred and twelve days ago, you became Bostwick. If that doesn’t jog your memory, it was raining.”

The Artist had been waiting as Talus dragged the man’s body through the mud, wind, and rain, to use in the replacement process. You didn’t forget that kind of thing, and nor would [Mental Note] free him of the date, matching all the years and days mentioned by this man exactly.

“Doesn’t matter. Removing you, along with the rest of the damage sown into the White organization, will be enough to make sure your lady rises no higher.” Talus broke the first layer of seals.  The tubby Bostwick facade twisted away as his strength countered the changes made in his body. The time for talking was over.

[Charge] combined with [Stomp Into the Ground], at this level of power,  it was designed to smash any defenses below second evolution.

Bates’s cane stopped the blow.

That was troubling. There had been no sign of anyone who had passed their second level of evolution working for Lady White.  Immigration restrictions were meant to hamper this kind of thing. The Coodly family will need to be investigated more thoroughly.

Talus discarded a few more seals as he continued probing the butler’s defense to guess the man’s levels. Sixty, sixty-five, seventy… this was hitting the threshold of a third evolution. The last blow sent the older man back a step. Not too strong.

This would need to be more than eliminating the threat. Capture, interrogation, and dissection would be required to find the source of this disturbance.

“Who are you?” Ripples of magic made the question a command.

Bates gritted his teeth at the [Severe Compulsion].

So maybe just past his third evolution? Talus broke the rest of his seals. power, finally free, ripped through his body, the contained strength refined by the years under lock awakened his advanced body. His skin glowed orange, and the air around him burst into flames, instantly turning his clothing to ash and slagging the steel that had been in his shoes.

“Words are not my strength. What I am is an expert in capture and retrieval.” [Shackles of the Binding Flame] roared awake once more as shot chains from his chest to clasp onto the man's wrists, searing into place deep in the body and soul. They merged with their target, making them impossible to break as long as Talus lived. “And you're unfortunate enough to face a centurion.”  Would this man even recognize the term for those who have passed a hundred levels?

“Midnight ended, and in my Royal White, I see a chance of midnight coming again. Where the stars shine brightest, and death is temporary. May the bones land where they fall.”

The butler's words locked every joint, tendon, breath, and beat in Talus’s being. The foot's mind screamed incoherently as darkness expanded, swallowing him. As it covered him, he wasn't killed or destroyed; he ceased to exist as his reality was unmade.

Standing in the flaming rubble. Bates let shame that it got to that point seep in. At least one of the hunters will have noticed such a disruption in this plane. The burns on his wrists would remain to remind him of that mistake and to be vigilant.

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