"Petrid!" Melphie cried, sitting up fast. She was in her room back in Petrid's secret base, only now she was a skeleton. "What happened?" She looked around and then down at herself.

"Petrid." She gasped and rushed out of her room. "Petrid!" She called racing through corridors. "Petrid!? Are you here?"

But the house was empty without a soul left to respond to her.

After dozens of minutes of nervous waiting later, Melphie finally stopped and calmed down a little. She began examining herself with magic nervously, hoping that it was only a matter of time before Petrid or some of his other servants came back from the battle.

But she stopped quickly in horror as she found two shards of divinity, twined around her newly resurrected soul. "NO!!! PETRID!!!" She roared in horror. "What have you done! YOU IDIOT!" She yelled at the ceiling. "WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITHOUT YOU!?? YOU M*****F***ING BASTARD!"

She tried to tear the shards away from her soul, but they clung to her like newborn infants, and she didn't have the skill nor the strength to defy them. Unable to express her grief she tore at her bones instead, ripping them out of their sockets only to watch numbly as they stitched themselves back into place.

"What have you done?" She said numbly, collapsing on the floor as the vision shifted and began to change once more.

The scene morphed until I saw the lich Melphie topping a ridgeline wearing a battered travelers cloak, an ancient magic staff in her hand.

"I need to talk to Grimoir" She said to a crimson figure who seemed to be primarily composed of mist.

The figure gestured wordlessly and she followed him into a large cavern where an enormous Shadow Chimera, who looked like a massive version of Rufi, sat on a throne surrounded by other beasts.

"Melphinoe, so you've come at last." The Chimera spoke in a deep and thrumming voice.

"I'm here to offer you my aid, whatever it's worth."

"And tell me why I shouldn't just offer you up to the Vampire King and wash my hands of this mess? He's put quite the bounty on your head."

"The Vampire King has no use for allies, only slaves. If he triumphs in this war, I'm afraid you won't be left standing on this land for long."

"Traitor! You think that we are so weak in the face of the vampires? I'll bite your head off you skeleton!" A white spotted tiger-like creature growled at her, baring his fangs to strike.

"Silence Tyran." The chimera only glanced at the tiger and it reluctantly backed off.

"And why do you come to us? Why not to the other gods across the sea?"

"The gods, luckily enough, are busy with their own matters. Many thrones lie open, not just the seat of Death. It'll be many years before they regain the unity they once had, if they ever do. The gods have only ever done what is in their own interests, and I have no desire to be their puppet."

"And what of us? You speak of wishing to help, but it seems to me you gain far more out of this interaction, than we do. What do the beasts have to gain if we stand by your side?"

"With the Vampires and the Ice Queen to the west and the Demon tribes acting up in the east, surely you must realize the beasts are in a precarious position. Once the war between the Vampire King and the Ice Queen is over the winner will turn their sights towards you and the demons will sit back and laugh at your misfortune. The legends speak of a fragment of divinity hiding among the beast clans, yet you still have yet to uncover it. You need a candidate to the throne that's truly on your side."

"And what's to say we don't kill you, and steal your pieces of divinity?"

The flames in Melphie's eye sockets turned a mesmerizing purple and the air turned cold around them as she turned to the bird creature who had spoken. "You can try, but I wouldn't recommend it."

"Roc, it is not so simple to kill an undead, a lich especially. Her bones may be here, but her soul is elsewhere." The Chimera turned a cold gaze to the bird.

"But still! Why should we trust this bone witch? She was a human before, and she's an undead now, I say we kill her and have done with it." The tiger from before growled.

The chimera sighed. "Forgive me Melphinoe, it's in our nature to be aggressive, but Tyran does raise a good point. How can we know we can trust you?"

"You can't." Melphie said flatly. "But I believe actions speak louder than words, let me help you deal with your problem with the demons. It will give me a chance to raise more undead, and if you still don't trust me by the end of it, then so be it, we'll both have gained from the interaction and we can go our separate ways. But if things turn out how I expect, by then the Vampire King will have won his war, and you'll need all the help you can get. For all you know this may be your only chance."

The scene changed once more to an expansive battlefield.

One one side stood Melphie the Lich, alongside Grimoir, the Shadow Chimera and another bulky lich with a scythe that looked suspiciously familiar to me, though I couldn't place him. Behind them stood an army of beasts, skeletons, ghosts, and phantoms.

On a hill on the opposite side of the field, the Vampire King sat on a throne of skulls, a wine glass in his hand as he looked leisurely at the other side. Vampires, Wraiths, Ghouls of all shapes and sizes, and even some ghosts stood ready at his command.

"Vampire King!" Melphie's voice projected over the whole field of battle. "This war ends here! A throne is meaningless without subjects. A crown of cruelty wins no loyalty. I am a sword forged of your failure, and the sight of this sword cleaving your head from your body will be the last you'll ever see! Prepare to meet your end!"

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