The world outside the shadow pocket dimension was a blur of motion, a rush of trees and dirt that gave no hint of the chaos that lay ahead. But as Sheut, Adah, and Big John approached their destination, the blurry scenery began to resolve itself into a scene of utter carnage.
The shadows dispersed from around his legs, his feet touching down on the dirt road with a silent thud. Before him, a caravan lay in ruin. Five medium wagons were surprisingly left mostly intact. The focus of the attack seemed to be on two large, ornate merchant wagons. One was overturned, its content spread around it. Crates of what looked like exotic spices and fine silks were strewn across the road. The air was thick with the scent of spilled goods and the metallic tang of blood.
The attackers were not the standard bandits one would expect. They were twisted, misshapen creatures, their bodies a grotesque parody of the human form, their skin a sickly gray, and their eyes glowing with a malevolent, chaotic energy. Among them were even skeleton knights and a bizarre combination of conjoined skeletons, a clear indication that this was the work of a necromantic aspect or a creature with the power to command the dead.
The caravan guards, a force of twenty battle-hardened warriors, were fighting desperately. They were mowing down the skeletons and misshapen creatures, but they were being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of their opponents. These types of minions acted as a living, or rather, unliving, buffer, either smothering the guards with their mass or making it difficult to reach the necromancer directly. The undead moved with a brutal, unpredictable speed, their claws and weapons dripping with a dark ichor that seemed to corrode everything it touched.
Sheut's gaze swept over the scene, his mind instantly assessing the tactical situation. He saw two main groups of undead, one attacking the guards and the other trying to break into a heavily armored third wagon that was still upright. A woman, a merchant by her fine clothes, was desperately fighting off the undead that managed to get around the guards with a small dagger. Despite the mask of terror riddled upon her face, she was handling herself quite well. The undead she dispatched didn't appear to reanimate like the rest.
Just then, Adah and Big John emerged from the shadow attached to Sheut's breastplate, their forms coalescing into reality. Adah's eyes widened at the sight of the carnage, a gasp escaping her lips. Big John, however, was all business. His hand went to the massive war hammer strapped to his back, his eyes narrowing as he took in the scene.
"Necromancy," Big John grumbled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. " Of all the things, it had to be a necromantic dungeon. And they're after something specific." He nodded towards one of the large merchant wagons, encircled defensively by the medium wagons.
"I'll help the guards," Sheut said, his voice a calm counterpoint to the chaos. "You two, on the other hand, have a more important matter to attend to. On the way here, the shadows informed me of a much more powerful undead army hiding a ways away to the west of here. A mid-B class Dread Lord seems to be commanding the undead. There appear to be quite a few death knights and draugers amongst the undead thralls."
As he spoke, dense shadow coalesced in his right hand, shaping into a double-bladed scimitar. The backs of both blades danced with a cool, ethereal blue flame. Not waiting for a response, his body dissolved into a streak of shadow, reappearing instantly in the midst of the closest group of undead. His gauntlet flared with crimson light, and he sent out a wave of pure shadow energy. The undead, caught completely by surprise, staggered back, the eerie glow in their eyes flickering before they began breaking down into dust and motes of dark energy as the wave hit them.
Locking onto the second approaching undead army's coordinates, Big John, a roar of fury on his lips, charged forward through a spatial gate. Upon exiting, he swung his war hammer with a speed that belied its size, a whirlwind of steel and muscle. The first dread knight he hit was sent flying, its body crumpling like a discarded doll.
Adah, however, did something completely unexpected. Instead of fighting, she sent out a wave of mana, her own unique energy signature pulsing out into the air. The mana washed over the caravan guards, instantly mending their wounds and revitalizing their tired bodies. A moment later, she conjured a white, form-fitting armor with runic wings, making her look like a majestic battle angel.
Flying towards the sky to better locate the enemies, something strange happened. Her shadow, which had always been a simple part of her, seemed to wrap around her body, and she could immediately feel all of the shadows around her. A profound new sense of awareness settled over her as she regained her focus. Adah could now feel the shadows of the enemies, each one a faint, sickly smear of corruption. Summoning an intricate saber whose blade was made out of concentrated plasma, she flew towards the undead thralls.
Falling from the sky, Adah looked like a mini star descending, a brilliant streak of white and fiery light against the grim landscape. Crashing down in the middle of the undead army, she caused a massive spew of plasma to erupt from the impact, obliterating everything in its path. The area of effect was so large that it wiped out a quarter of the undead thralls in a single, devastating blow. Even those not directly in the impact were affected by the splash of plasma, which sank into their bodies and caused them to shriek in agony as their corrupted forms burned from the inside out. Adah didn't have cleansing flames because she wasn't a cleric, but seeing that her attack caused the dead so much pain, she knew it had to be her shadow that was amplifying her power. She wasn't just a pure light-user anymore. She was a wielder of both plasma and shadow, and she was every bit as terrifying as she was beautiful.
Adah danced through the battlefield like a ballerina, a whirlwind of incandescent light and lethal grace. Her plasma saber, a shimmering blade of concentrated energy, hummed with a fierce, controlled power. Each movement was fluid and precise, a beautiful, deadly ballet choreographed against a backdrop of chaos and decay. She didn't simply attack; she weaved. She spun through the undead thralls, a white-armored comet streaking across the battlefield. With every graceful twirl, she left behind a trail of plasma that would sizzle and pop, causing the skeletons and misshapen creatures to dissolve into dust.
Her light-based attacks were stunningly beautiful, a blinding flash of divine retribution. But it was her shadow-based attacks that were truly terrifying, though limited. She would flick her wrist, and a precise, razor-sharp shadow would detach from her form, slicing through a skeleton knight's breastplate and severing its connection to the necromantic energy that animated it. The knight would fall to pieces, its bones clattering to the ground in a useless heap. She was a master of both forces, a perfect synthesis of light and darkness, and the undead army, for all their numbers, had no defense against her.