Once the skeleton disappeared from the corridor in front of Melphie the sounds of distant screeches and explosions began to echo through the dungeon. Melphie's eyes widened and she curled up on her stone bench, staring out into the corridor as the sounds continued echoing through the halls.

At last, after a long while silence came, and the silence was almost worse, because it was impossible to know what it meant. After a few moments quieter clangs and rustles began indicating that whoever had won the fight wasn't dead yet. After a while, when Melphie almost couldn't take the suspense any longer, footsteps began to ring out clear and cold against the stone floors, drawing closer with every measured step.

Melphie rushed to the edge of her cell in dread, staring out at the stairs at the end of the corridor to see who or what had emerged victorious. Her anticipation was flaunted though, because the footsteps seemed to pause halfway down the stairs. Another terrible moment of silence passed only for a figure to materialize right in front of Melphie's cell, causing her to nearly jump out of her skin in fright.

"Ahh!" She tried to scream, but her voice was hoarse and it only came out as a whisper.

"Oh? What do we have here?" The figure was a tall bronze-skinned man. Most of his chest was exposed under loose-fitting robes that tucked into a billowing pair of shorts.

"You seem to be the only thing left alive in this poor excuse for a lab, are you a test subject or a pet, hmm?"

The figure looked at her with amusement in his warm brown eyes.

"I—" She tried to croak, but he stopped her.

"Oh hush, child, don't mind me it was only rhetorical. Come" He opened the cell door with a wave of his hand. Let me free you from this dump." He extended a hand to the girl. Melphie trembled, still looking at him with hesitancy and uncertainty, but took his hand nonetheless only to vanish from the cell and rematerialize in the forested landscape above.

Melphie squinted under the sudden daylight, slowly falling to the ground as her weak legs were unable to fully support her.

"Now," the man patted her hand kindly. "I still have some matters to attend to cleaning up that lab, but I'll be right back, and Melissa here," He seemed to pull a ghost from nowhere, who suddenly materialized next to Melphie. "Will stand watch over you. I know she's a ghost, but don't worry she's quite friendly." He winked then vanished once more.

The scene changed again and this time Melphie was sitting with the man who had rescued her in a warm study. Some of the vacant look was gone from her eyes and she wore robes similar to the man's though they showed far less skin.

"Are you sure you want to go through with this? Once you undergo the rite of the Lich you won't be able to go back to being just human again."

"I want to be useful to you Petrid, I don't want to just stay at home like a house cat, while you're out there fighting. You saved my life, let me give something back for once."

The man sighed. "Alright, Melphie, I won't hold you back." He tussled her hair affectionately. "Just promise me you won't do anything reckless just because you can resurrect. Coming back to life changes people, it can affect your mind and your soul. I'd rather you didn't have to go through that."

"Of course!" Melphie smiled brilliantly, hugging the man.

The scene changed once more. A vampire sitting on a throne of skulls in a dark towering throne room. Melphie and Petrid stood before him, their gazes hardened. Clashes of battle and flashes of magic went on behind them as an army of ghosts clashed against an army of vampires.

"So you've come at last, Phantom." The vampire smiled savagely. "I've been expecting you."

With a wave of his hand the lights in the castle turned red, and Petrid's form turned more and more insubstantial. Petrid and Melphie ignored the changes charging towards the vampire.

Petrid blinked in and out of existence around the vampire striking each time from a new position, while Melphie kept her distance, sending spell after spell at the porcelain-faced man.

The vampire moved with inhuman speeds, his form a blur every time he moved to intercept one of Petrid's hits or twisted to avoid the effects of Melphie's spells.

Sometimes he took their hits, his flesh burning only to instantly revitalize itself as he laughed. "More! More!" He yelled. "Show me what the demigod of the North is capable of! This isn't nearly enough to entertain me!"

At last after a few minutes of clashes, though, the vampire suddenly reached out into empty space and grabbed Petrid by the throat as he materialized. "This is how you killed that pathetic Lich child?" The vampire sneered.

Melphie, with her heart in her throat, desperately sent spell after spell, but her magic was too weak to do anything against the vampire's insane regeneration skills, and he just ignored her, letting his healing work its magic. "You think you're so special with two divinity shards? You think you're invincible, because you're undead?" The vampire sneered and brought Petrid in close as the Phantom struggled in vain against the vampire's iron-clad grip. "You're no more than a child playing at divinity." White, translucent blood dripped from the sides of Petrid's neck as he looked down at the vampire in terror.

"You have no idea what fear means, what pain means." The vampire's sneer curled into a cruel smile. "You should have given up when you had the chance." The vampire suddenly turned to Melphie and pulled her towards him with an invisible force.

Unable to resist she found herself kneeling before the vampire, who still held Petrid by the neck. He looked at her with desperate, horrified eyes as the vampire sent tendrils of lightning through her, lighting her up like a torch as she screamed in agony.

But the lightning did not kill her. Over and over, the vampire shocked her with lightning, giving her just enough time to remember that she was still alive before he shocked her once more, as Petrid could do nothing but watch, tears streaming down his face.

"Oops!" The vampire laughed after several minutes had elapsed. "Seems I killed her. I didn't know you raised your apprentices to be so weak, Phantom!" But instead of looking at her with fear or desperation, in the last moments of consciousness as the scene began fading, Petrid weakly smiled at her.

"Sorry." He mouthed.

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