The Necromancer's Stone; In Honour Glen

Thalia tried to cast a spell to slow her fall, but her adversary managed to kick her in the side and break her focus.  She spun and hurled a dozen icy spikes at him, hoping that she could distract him long enough to cast it properly.  He flipped his cloak around and caught them all in its folds, then pulled it taut, launching them back towards her.  She waved her hand and melted them all, then chucked a fireball at him.  He parried it with his sword, but before he could slash at her he was stopped abruptly by a jutting rock on the side of the mountain.  She scarcely had a moment to laugh before she felt something solid and cold, then all was black.


"Get up.  I'm not done with you yet."
Thalia opened her eyes, blinking quickly as her vision cleared up and she found herself looking up at a young man with beautiful eyes, a nicely trimmed goatee, and an unfortunately directed sword.  He was bleeding rather heavily; multiple skull fractures, noticeable deep gouges, and his left arm was bent at an incredibly uncomfortable looking angle.  And none of that changed his apparent determination to end her life.  It was flattering, breathtakingly so, but she was still in a bit of a pickle.
"Can't we talk about this?"
"What's there to discuss?  It seems to me that this is pretty simple.  You did evil things, I'm here to provide just desserts."
"And you think the people I charmed were any better?  I picked the catering company because they were blackmailing their customers, sabotaging the competition, and covering up several potentially devastating harassment law suits.  They were at least as much of crooks as I am, and much less willing to discuss it."
"You threw my girlfriend to her death."
"And clearly, that was a serious misjudgment on my part.  Given the opportunity I'd like to think I would find an alternative target, or maybe a different location, one with water at the bottom of the cliff, or possibly a fluffy pillow factory.  But I would definitely not do this again given the choice."
"You weren't given the choice.  This is it."
He stood there, staring down his blade at her.  And then, rather than stab her, he simply continued to stare down the blade at her.  Then Thalia realized that the skull fractures had probably damaged his ability to focus, and judging by his entrancing eyes, his ability to see.  He couldn't actually tell where she was well enough to hit her with any sort of accuracy.  She was rather happy he wasn't the sort to just flail around wildly in the hopes of hitting her, because it would have been hard to miss at this distance.  She paused and looked around  for a moment, hoping to see something she could use to help her escape.  A simple portal spell would get her back to her room just fine, if she could distract him long enough to cast it.  She tried to look behind her and felt a tugging sensation in her stomach.  Hoping it was just something she ate, with all the trouble the caterers had already caused her she could use a good reason to sue, she glanced down.  It was only then that she realized just how dire her predicament really was; as made readily apparent by the crimson stalagmite sprouting from her stomach.  It wasn't particularly large, she could get off of it easily if she tried, but judging by the shade of red, she'd hit it quite some time ago, and was still bleeding.  Her study of medicine told her that she had probably lost a lot more blood than was good for her; common sense told her she ought to be dead, and a third, less common, sense told her that it hadn't killed her yet and probably wouldn't kill her at all.  
"You haven't mentioned your girlfriend's brother yet."
"He was a right piece of work.  I'd never have said it to her, but he really had it coming.  Maybe it was never anything quite illegal, at least not by local laws, but what he did was definitely wrong.  And I can even see what you meant about the caterers.  If they really did what you say they did, and all my knowledge says they did, then all you did was give them a taste of their own medicine.  Strictly speaking, they did consent to drink the punch.  Hap mentioned that you had them sign wavers before they started."  He shuffled a little, keeping his sword pointed at her as he did; impressive for a man as badly injured as him.  "The TacSim thing is still wrong though.  Not legally, but it violates the spirit of the game.  Sure you win, and you're very good at it.  I loved your maneuver against the Hammer Brothers for the mountain; really captured a holistic approach to warfare.  But you ignore the team building aspect, the social side of it all.  You're arrogant; maybe you have the skill to back it up but that doesn't give you an excuse for treating people the way you do."
"Arrogant!  You think I'm arrogant while you stand over me with a sword and tell me about what's wrong and right?"
"No, I thought you were evil.  You aren't.  You have reasons for why you do what you do, and they aren't personal gain.  You do things because you think you're better than they are and they need you to pass judgement on the people who really are evil, since no one else is smart enough to do so themselves.  That's what makes you arrogant."  He went to sheathe his sword and stopped, holding his left arm up when it didn't cooperate with him.  "What happened to my arm?"
"You hit a rock, I think you've done something to your elbow, some sort of misalignment.  Also you've suffered multiple skull fractures, lacerations to the throat, torso, and arms; probably legs too, and my guess is that you've got a concussion."
"How am I still alive?"
"I'm impaled on a stalactite, I'd say its been a few hours judging by the way the blood is clotting; between eight and nine probably.  Blood loss alone should have killed me hours ago; and that's not counting organ damage.  We both ought to be dead."
"Maybe the windows.."  Thalia cut him off there.
"No.  They're just a randomly shuffling portal, with a glass window in front of them.  I made them over the summer when I redecorated the ballroom.  If there was any sort of protective enchantment I would know."
"You did those?  That's pretty clever.  Most people just make permanent portals because they want an easy escape route, or a way of passing messages without detection; windows though, that's good."
Thalia blushed, apparently she still had enough blood left to handle flattery.  She flexed her arms, then her legs, to ensure that her body was all still working properly.  Everything still worked it seemed.  She tried to lift herself off of the stalagmite, but found she couldn't get herself quite high enough to make it.  She heard the sword clatter against the stones and saw him holding out his good hand.
"Here.  If you promise to put together a proper TacSim team, turn over your findings on the caterers to the authorities, and fix my other arm I promise not to kill you."
"What about your girlfriend?"
"It was mostly a status thing.  She wanted someone to show off at parties and I wanted people to stop thinking I was gay."  He paused.  "I'm not by the way."
"But I still killed her."
"And I've killed people too.  I'm not happy you killed her, but I trust you aren't in the habit of killing people."
"I avoid it when I can; being evil does have certain expectations though."  Thalia felt no pride in saying it.  She really did prefer not killing people, especially if she didn't know they deserved it.  It was the reason she did so much research; any mage could just randomly kill people, mages of her caliber could even get away with it, but she didn't see how the ability to kill with thought and hand waving made her any better than a mad man with a gun.  When it came down to it her real power was her mind, and failure to use it would be nearly as criminal as throwing someone out of a window.
"Besides,"  He reached down and took her by the hand.  He wasn't wearing gloves, and she could feel how rough his hand was.  Maybe it was from handling his sword, she had noticed that the grip was chipped and worn, or maybe it was just naturally rough.  "She was making an armed threat.  You certainly applied excessive force, but it was also self-defense.  I think you could get off fairly light; assuming you didn't just bribe the courts."
"I'd never.  Man like that I'd just blackmail with evidence of prior bribes.  Even if he didn't comply, no other judge would risk it, I've got dirt."
"Jars of dirt I imagine."  He pulled her up.  He didn't seem to be pulling very hard, but she still felt like she'd flown off the ground.  Thalia stumbled against him, a little stunned by her quick rise from the ground, and subsequent  blood loss, but more so by suddenly finding herself pressed up against him.  He steadied her as best he could with his one good hand, but hesitated before stepping back.  She felt a slight fluttering before he did, although she wasn't sure which of them it was.  It took them both a moment to regain their focus, whether because of his concussion or her light-headedness neither was sure, but once they had Thalia took hold of his bad arm and pulled lightly as she gently twisted it back into position.  She decided not to worry about patching wounds, but instead plied her spells towards numbing the pain.  Whether or not it had any effect on his perception of pain wasn't clear, but he didn't seem to be in any discomfort.  She let a few seconds pass before releasing the spell, then stepped back to check her handiwork.  His arm was set properly.  The bleeding had slacked off hours ago, which was good, but the concussion and skull fractures were going to remain a problem if they were going to try and get out of here.  She reached out and touched his head, trying not to dwell on her actions and focus on the task at hand.  He went to brush her away, but stopped short, his hand resting on hers.
"I'm going to try and seal the fractures.  I don't think it'll hurt, but it will almost certainly feel really, really weird."
He chuckled.  "I knew you'd try to mess with my head, I just didn't realize it would be this literal."
Thalia laughed.  Her hands falling from his head to his shoulders in order to keep her upright.  She still hadn't taken care of her own wound and didn't want to risk falling down onto anything dangerous.  When she stopped she realized where her hands were and returned them to his head, although not so fast as to fail to appreciate the finely tuned musculature.  She whispered a quiet spell and gently massaged the plates of his skull back into position, binding them magically as they reached the right place in the cranial puzzle.  And before she let go she inspected eyes, less to make sure his vision would return to normal as simply to appreciate their almost turquoise color.
"You good?  I don't think it takes that long to make sure I'm not crosseyed."
"Sorry.  You just have the most charming eyes I've ever seen."
"Did you know that you can tell what school of magic is a mage's strongest by looking at their Iris' close enough?"
"Really?"
He shrugged, lowering her hands from the sides of his head.  "You have a way of getting us out of here?"
She ignored the disappointing emptiness of her hands, and nodded, then drew a portal on the side of the mountain.  "Goes directly to an alley two streets over from my house.  Care to walk me home?"
"It would certainly be safer if I was with you."
"I feel better already."
"By it I meant 'everything else'."
Thalia snickered.  "And who might you be to stand between me and the world?"
"Hal, just Hal."
"Well then, Just Hal, lead on."