Loren approached like a thundercloud. It was a testament to how self absorbed the male students were that they didn’t notice as she came upon them. Each step her plan changed, ranging from yelling at them to blasting them with a bolt of lightning.She could see the small person they had surrounded. The little girl was dressed like most zombie villagers in a sturdy homespun cloth dress that reached her ankles, an unbleached cream shirt and a dark woollen vest. On her head, she wore a simple linen kerchief that kept her long hair from blowing into her face. ‘Oh, she is so beautiful!’ Loren thought. ‘How could these mages see this perfect angel and not feel protective of her?’ This only made her angrier.She could hear the girl now.“I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I thought Zombies had access to all public spaces?” Strangely, the girl didn’t sound afraid, just curious.Loren wondered how a Zombie, with all the prejudice they normally faced, could be so calm?You see, I was led to be

Shinra waited a full minute after the leaders of the guild left before emerging from the shadow. He was surprised he came out dry, because it felt so much like he had been submerged. Though he was bleeding from several wounds on his back, he didn’t have time to check them. It hurt to make big movements, but the pain was manageable.He crept through the open door, past the first 3 bodies, and looked for the last 3 assassins’ trail. He could do this. They were strong, but now he’d have the element of surprise.It wasn’t hard to find the men, they travelled slowly through the Manor, looking for survivors. They didn’t find any, and Shinra was wary of getting too close. He couldn’t see the attack weaves they’d spun, but the air around each man crackled with energy. Shinra was starting to regret not pressing the attack earlier, while they were surprised and disoriented. Maybe that state would only have lasted a few seconds more, because the men in front of him now were all business.

“What do you mean I can’t see him?” Loren was not the kind of woman who let anything, or anyone stop her.“Ma’am, you can’t just walk into the palace complex and go where you want.” The speaker was a nervous looking young mage, wearing the green robes of an imperial administrator. Administrators were the grease that kept the machinery of the empire moving, an army of them worked with each minister and department, and they did everything from schedule meetings to collecting taxes.In Loren’s experience though, they were bureaucratic piss ants that pretended to help people, but really just wanted to exercise their authority whenever they could. They hid behind rules and process, rather than actually getting things done. If Loren had tried to innovate farming closer to the capital, where these administrators held sway, she would still be filling out applications for the right to change the spacing between her grape vines. The Administrator smiled, and the little glint there told

“Hahahahah!” Iga laughed. Long and hard. “Well, you are interesting at least.” He looked at his two Colonel’s, and then at the rest of their compound. The spell was visible now, a tight, blinking ring of green that should have compelled anyone living over to the courtyard they were in. Iga’s face darkened. “You’re dead, your family is dead, any friends you ever had are all dead. They just don’t know it yet.” The menace in his voice was palpable, Shinra could feel it as clearly as the spell that had moved him to the courtyard. “You see, the Akasooki is my family, and if you hurt my family, I hurt yours. You don’t have too long to regret it, but I hope you can see what we are going to do to your loved ones from hell,” Iga barked out. Scanril and Elihar looked more calm, but the calm of professional killers. They were just ready to do their job.Shinra had a job to do too. He didn’t have many friends or family left, but he wasn’t going to let his actions hurt them either. If h

Naori's life had turned upside down in the space of a day.Not only was her brother alive, which she has suspected, but he was a deputy not a convict. He was friends with a rich country witch, and the man who had arrested him had become his mentor somehow. 'I knew Shinra was an amazing brother, but no one else had seen how great he was before. 'The realisation had brought tears to her eyes in Wintersbane's office, and it had flustered the older man. All of these revelations had caused a problem for her though, she had expected to come and visit her brother in jail and make sure he was okay. Then she would have to go back to the village. Now though, her brother was off having fun somewhere on his day off from work and she didn't know when he would be back."I might be speaking out of turn here, but why would you even go back to the village?" Loren asked.Loren had become Naori's unofficial guide. Not only through the city, but through Shinra's life. The University student was fierce