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- Chapter Ten -

- The Twice Dead vs The Solar Avatar -

- The Dark -

Mnemosia stood still, letting her eyes adjust to the darkness around her. She got the feeling that if she had not been present, it would have been darker than night and impossible to see. Luckily for her, her very nature meant she had a couple sources of light. One of them was the longsword she held loosely in her right hand; the hilt, handle, and guard were made of a hard, gold coloured metal, with leather bands wrapped around the handle to provide a solid grip. Two short prongs rose from the top of the guard and held the silver blade that shone with a faint blue light. The second light source was that of a flat disc that hovered above her head, about a foot in diameter. The halo shone with the same blue light as her sword, but brighter as it seemed to be made of the light completely. Mnemosia also had a third source of light ready to use if necessary, but for now kept it off.

As an added bonus, her attire reflected the light she held in various directions and gave Mnemosia an aura of blue-white light. She was clad in armour from toe-to-shoulder; all of it rimmed with gold with either a silver or turquoise centre. The plated armour covered her boots and thighs, leaving gaps at the joints to allow movement. It covered her belly and chest, although it left an ample view of her full breasts and slender neck. It covered her upper arms and shoulders, although her left pauldron forgo its golden edge and was simply a dark grey metal with four spikes rising from it. The armour covered her forearm and hand on her right hand, the one grasping her sword, while only a leather glove covered her left hand, allowing her to slip it through the fastenings of the golden shield she held. Around her waist was a belt of feathers fastened with a gold disc etched with a heron, while it also secured a rich red loincloth to hang to her knees.

Her long, near-blue hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and she wore a half-helmet that covered her upper face and cheeks while stopping at where she had tied her hair up. Mnemosia's whole attire was magnificent, but perhaps the most magnificent of all was the pair of large wings that sprouted from her shoulder blades. They were currently folded in tight, for easy movement on the ground, but had soft silver feathers that barely glittered in her light.

Mnemosia walked forward slowly, taking in the large stone bricks that created the floor beneath her as well as the slight echoing that told her whatever room she was in, it was pretty large. A skeletal arm came into view on the floor and Mnemosia stopped to look down as she stepped forward to reveal the full skeleton of what appeared to be an ex-human. She crouched down and used her sword as a makeshift torch to see that whoever it had been, their death had most likely been caused by the large iron spike that was driven through its skull. The light of her sword touched another body and Mnemosia continued forward to discover more bodies.

It didn't take her long to realise that the room she was in was filled with bodies, and not just of humans. As Mnemosia slowly walked around the room, she counted nearly 50 different species, including that of what had clearly been a giant, going by the size of its foot; which was the only part Mnemosia could reach. They sported different armour and weapons, different broken bones, but all had clearly been dead for a number of years; perhaps hundreds. One particular skeleton caught her attention more than the others as it seemed to be the freshest one around.

In fact, it was so fresh, Mnemosia decided she couldn't really classify it as a skeleton. It had motley grey skin, falling off the bone like ripe-cooked meat, with strange brown pustules that leaked a near-luminescent green ooze. It sported armour constructed of dull grey bones, skulls forming a kilt-like garment with another at its chest, and had shoulder length brown hair, patchy in places, hanging from its head. A large bearded axe lay on the floor near it, the haft forming a small man tied at the arms and legs. Dark brown patches stained the metal and Mnemosia didn't have to guess what it was.

What fascinated Mnemosia the most were its wounds. It had numerous arrows piercing its legs and left shoulder, a thin black blade through its heart, and a large iron rod through its left eye, with a second rod through its forehead. It was leant on its side as if it had stopped and fallen, finally giving in to the numerous wounds it had received.

Mnemosia wondered whether it was a previous participant in the games, or perhaps it was merely a decoration for this particular arena. Was it an example of what her opponent could do? In fact… She stood up slowly, and turned on her heel, hoping to catch sight of the person she was due to face in combat. As she did, something snagged her trailing foot and without thinking, she swiped her blade down and severed whatever had grabbed her.

When she looked to see what it was, she found she had caught the freshest corpse as she had turned, and nearly laughed at her nerves; was the dark getting to her? However, as she watched, the grey flesh she thought dead started to wiggle and move before it joined the severed arm back on as if she had done nothing at all. She stepped back a few strides and watched in the dim light she emitted as the corpse got to its knees. It reached across to grasp its axe and then stood up to its feet, the axe blade dragging along the floor.

It opened its one good eye, to reveal it was as green as its blood, and it unhinged its jaw to scream. It was unlike anything Mnemosia had heard before, worse than nails on a chalkboard, but she gritted her teeth to bear it as the sound shut off as suddenly as it had begun.

"Ochar…" the creature groaned, in a good imitation to what Mnemosia imagined a zombie to sound like. "Ochar kill."

Then it hit her, this creature, Ochar, was an undead. Which means it was her opponent, which made her scowl; the undead were notoriously hard to kill. As she pondered, Ochar shuffled forward and with surprising speed, swung its axe at her. However, she was a trained warrior and simply batted the blow away with her shield. Ochar immediately followed up with another swing, but Mnemosia batted it away a second time.

"You'll have to do better than that, undead monster." Mnemosia said. "I've fought much scarier things than you."

It was at this point that Ochar decided to forgo attacking and stepped back into the darkness. Immediately, Mnemosia was on high alert. She was still the only source of light in the area, and Ochar had left her sphere of influence. She knew what its plan was, even if she didn't think an undead was clever enough for plans. Her left arm rose slightly, readying her shield to defend, while she lowered her sword arm and prepared to counter attack.

Ochar appeared out of the darkness to her right and aimed a quick overhead strike at her. Mnemosia spun quickly to deflect the blow with her shield, knocking the creature off balance, and stepped in to sever its left arm. The blow hit successfully and Mnemosia heard its arm hit the floor with a wet slap as she stepped past it, turned on her heel, and raised her shield ready to go.

Ochar looked at her and then at its arm and as Mnemosia had seen before, the grey flesh moved in a strange pattern before it picked its arm up and reattached it. She scowled and stepped forward to attack again. However, Ochar was clearly waking up as it stopped her attack with its axe. Mnemosia didn't hesitate as she stepped in with her shield and punched it in the middle of its face with its edge. Ochar stumbled backwards with Mnemosia stepping in after it.

"Let's see how you do with no limbs!" She muttered as she disarmed Ochar by slicing through its weapon-wielding wrist. Then, in quick succession, she used her sword to slice through both its arms at the shoulder, then both its legs at the hip, and finally she severed its head and let it fall on the pile of body parts she had created.

Ochar's eyes swivelled in its head, as if it were trying to see what had happened to its body, before they locked onto Mnemosia. Then the grey flesh started shaking and, quicker than before, it knitted together until Ochar was stood in front of Mnemosia again, its axe held loosely in its hand.

"I hate the undead." Mnemosia said as she raised her shield and sword.

"Ochar not undead; Ochar twice-dead!" Ochar stepped forward quickly and let loose a surprisingly quick flurry of heavy axe blows.

Using both shield and sword, Mnemosia deflected both blows but did not respond with an attack of her own. Instead, she let it finish and then quickly stepped back and unfurled her wings. They had looked magnificent tucked in tightly against her back, but when they extended, they were a thing of pure beauty. With one beat of her wings, Mnemosia took to the air and immediately regretted it when her head crashed into something solid above her.

She dropped back to the floor, a couple of feet below her, and dropped to a knee. Mnemosia placed her sword on the ground and rubbed the back of her head. Confusion clouded her brain, and not just from the impact, as she was sure that the room was much larger than a couple of feet taller than her. Ochar started trudging forward again but Mnemosia knocked it sprawling with a well-timed shield strike to its chest. While it was getting up, as slowly as an old man with arthritis, Mnemosia raised her sword to see what she had hit.

With a click of her tongue she realised what she had done and chided herself silently. While she had been defending against Ochar, she had managed to position herself under some kind of archway, which is why she had hit her head when trying to take flight. She stepped to the side, using her sword to make sure she was clear of any more arches and spread her wings for a second time.

The thump of air rattled the bones on the floor but it successfully carried Mnemosia into the air above her opponent, who disappeared into the darkness below. Two more strong beats took her higher and Mnemosia started to wonder how big the area actually was. A whistling sound in the air caught her attention and she swept to the side quickly, just in time to dodge an arrow. For a second she was confused, Ochar definitely did not have a bow on it, before realising what it was doing. She swept to the side again to dodge another arrow that Ochar was clearly pulling from its body, either its legs or its left shoulder.

"I've had enough of the dark." Mnemosia said and spread her wings wide. Their magic kept her aloft without the need to beat her wings as each individual feather started to glow like miniature suns. The light spread quickly across the wings' surface until Mnemosia was the centre of a blazing torch that revealed the darkened room and Ochar's position below her.

Now she could see, Mnemosia realised that she and Ochar had been fighting in some sort of throne room built for something as big as a giant. The bones she had come across before scattered the floor in troves, all leading to a giant stone throne that had been built into the far wall; no-one was sitting in it. Her light also revealed the arches she had hit as decorations carved at intervals along the length of each wall. Gargoyles sat above her flight perch while the gilded roof sat even higher. Mnemosia gazed up, noting that the design of the ceiling matched the Shrine of Eaecat back in Ycaria.

A disturbance in the air brought her back to the fight and she dodged sideways to avoid another arrow.

"You are starting to annoy me." She said loudly, her voice echoing around the room. Mnemosia used her wings skilfully and dive bombed Ochar as it pulled another arrow from itself.

It didn't have time to react as she swept past it, severing its axe arm for a second time. However, this time she took the limb with her and threw it into the distance, where it landed with a thud. Ochar started after it but Mnemosia swung in for a second attack and took its other arm, this time throwing it in the opposite direction. Ochar looked towards both arms, clearly confused as to which limb to fetch first. Mnemosia swooped in for a third attack but Ochar decided to focus on her suddenly and she didn't manage to avoid the kick as it caught her in the forehead.

Ochar hit with strength its rotting body hid and Mnemosia crashed into the floor and rolled a few times before coming to a stop. Her wings quickly pulled themselves free and Mnemosia got to her feet to see Ochar running surprisingly quickly to retrieve its right arm. It did so, reattaching it and picking up its axe which had been thrown away with it, and turned back to Mnemosia, looking past her to its other arm.

Mnemosia growled and spun her sword around before piercing it into the ground before her. "I've had it with you, Twice Dead Ochar; I'll not be embarrassed by an undead monster from Spectre!" She spread her wings wide and small tendrils of light erupted from the feathers before starting to form a sphere around her. "I am the Ardea Avatar, the Third Holy Honoured, life force and protector of the Solar Heron. I will not be shamed by the likes of you!"

She shouted the last word, and as she did, the sphere of light that had surrounded her expanded out at an explosive rate. As the wave passed over Ochar, the bone of its axe handle disintegrated and the metal axe blade fell to the floor. Ochar's mottled skin began to smoke. Mnemosia took a step forward, having pulled her sword from the ground, and another wave erupted from her. It passed over Ochar and its armour shattered and fell to the ground around it, leaving its yellow spotted skin open to the air. Another step, another wave and this time all the pustules covering Ochar's body exploded, spraying green liquid around it in a star shape.

"Be gone, false immortal; and never rise again." This time Mnemosia raised her wings above her and the light swirled behind her to form into a heron, its own wings spread for flight. "Your kind lives no more!" the heron shot forward like an arrow and as its light passed over Ochar, the undead creature turned to ash and then the ash itself was reduced to nothing.

As the light died away, leaving Mnemosia stood in the dark with her sword and halo bathing her in their light, she slammed her sword against her shield three times and thrust her sword into the air. "For your glory, Solar Heron." The white light of victory descended from above her and in a flash, Mnemosia was taken.