Word Wrap will help you view this document more easily. so the page here http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spellcastingClassOptions/cleric.html is the cleric page for Pathfinder. The particular entry I think that would fit Mort is Undead Lord. I'll paste it here. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Undead Lord (Archetype) An undead lord is a cleric focused on using necromancy to control undead. Her flock is the walking dead and her choir the keening spirits of the damned. This unliving congregation is the manifestation of her unceasing love affair with death. A cleric cannot take the undead lord archetype unless her deity's portfolio includes the Death domain or a similar domain that promotes undeath. An undead lord has the following class features. Death Magic: An undead lord must select the Death domain (and the Undead subdomain, if available in the campaign). She does not gain a second domain. In all other respects, this works like and replaces the standard cleric's domain ability. Corpse Companion (Su): With a ritual requiring 8 hours, an undead lord can animate a single skeleton or zombie whose Hit Dice do not exceed her cleric level. This corpse companion automatically follows her commands and does not need to be controlled by her. She cannot have more than one corpse companion at a time. It does not count against the number of Hit Dice of undead controlled by other methods. She can use this ability to create a variant skeleton such as a bloody or burning skeleton, but its Hit Dice cannot exceed half her cleric level. She can dismiss her companion as a standard action, which destroys it. Bonus Feats: All undead lords gain Command Undead as a bonus feat. In addition, at 10th level, she may select one of the following as a bonus feat: Channel Smite, Extra Channel, Improved Channel, Quick Channel, Skeleton Summoner, Undead Master. Unlife Healer (Su): At 8th level, the undead lord's spells, spell-like abilities, and supernatural abilities used to heal undead heal an extra 50% damage. At 16th level, these effects automatically heal the maximum possible damage for the effect + the extra 50%. This does not stack with abilities or feats such as Empower Spell or Maximize Spell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now for the rest of the story for Mort. I'll post the original story that inspired me to commission the sequel, and then the sequel itself. The characters within are anthropomorphic animals, like Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny. The stories that follow are by MajorKey on Inkbunny and Furaffinity. So without further ado.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Way it Should Have Been “You'll do just fine,” Ester said to the little yellow flower as she gently took it between her cloven fingers, briefly admiring its beauty before plucking it. Her puffy tail twitched rapidly under her green dress as she contemplated adding it to the bouquet in her basket, but quickly reconsidered, placing it behind one of her large ears instead. The brilliant yellow complimented her golden-brown fur quite nicely, and if her mother were here, she'd say it brought out the brightness of her hazel eyes. Her father might not have approved so readily. After all, he would say, taking pride in one's appearance was a surefire was to invite the attention of frisky bucks, or worse. She always thought her father's strict influence turned her into a rather late bloomer. She only outgrew her spots just last year, and on that very night she dressed herself up all fancy, and found just the type of buck she thought her father would have told her to avoid. Irony of ironies, he turned out to be quite the sweetheart, and the two remained together, finally consummated their young love only a few nights ago. Her fondest memory of that night wasn't actually the act itself, but the soft pattering of the rain afterwards, echoing in the alleyway outside. He was the reason she was out in the forest alone – she told him she was going to market, but she really wanted to surprise him with the flowers she picked. She wanted to tell him she loved him, and she couldn't help but sigh dreamily as she imagined his response. He would beam, lift her off her dainty cloven hooves with his strong arms, swinging her around and around before drawing her close for an embrace. Her ears quickly swivelled backwards as a rustle in the grass behind her grabbed her attention, roughly tugging her away from her daydream. She stood bolt upright, her large eyes and ears scanning the area for motion. It was probably just a bird, she thought, but the rough click of a crossbow told her otherwise. She didn't even have time to flinch before the bolt landed in her chest with a dull thud. The doe let out a stifled gasp as she staggered backwards, dropping her basket and grunting as the impact pushed against the tree behind her. Her vision fluttered as she slid down the tree trunk – the metal shaft was embedded almost exactly between her small breasts. She took another fluttery breath, and died. For a few precious moments, the forest was still. Only when a gentle gust of wind disturbed the doe's short fur without so much as a twitch from her large ears did the culprit reveal himself by exhaling a long, slow breath. He placed his crossbow on the ground with an affectionate pat. “Good girl,” he told it, sneering through ragged buckteeth. With 'her' help, he had scored a perfect kill: There was no screaming, no bloody trail to follow, no awkward interactions, and most importantly, she was irresistibly cute. He was Joskuin, a rat-folk. If pressed, he would readily admit that he had been following his quarry for quite some time. He adored her - he followed her to market numerous times, he was well-acquainted with her young lover, and he was there in the alley on that fateful night. He shivered in the cold under a sopping cloak while the two of them were snuggled under warm blankets, tight in each others arms, as close to each other as a boy and a girl could ever be. It burned him, knowing that she gave her love to another like that. He contemplated striking then and there, putting a bolt through her heart from the open window – and her beau's as well, come to think of it - but that would have been messy. The watch would be called, there would be an investigation, and the guild might not be able to cover him. He was glad he reconsidered, because now he had all the time in the world. He left his crossbow in the thicket as he stood up, calmly walking over to the doe's corpse. He was a sorry sight – his cloak was tattered, his breeches were faded, and his hooded leather vest was old and ill-fitting. His angular ears were in equally poor shape, the home to numerous punctures and bite-marks. His long, naked tail swayed slowly behind him as his clawed feet rustled through the long grass. His was a species of pestilence. Many of the more 'civilized' races thought that his people were no better than their feral ilk, scurrying through alleyways, spreading filth, unable to earn a decent living. He enjoyed the stereotypes – no one paid much attention to where he was, or what he was doing, which made it much easier for him to disappear for a few hours. His hand caressed her large ear as he crouched down in front of her. She was a sorry sight – she was slumped against the tree, her legs splayed, her head flopped downwards onto her chest, as if staring at the bolt through her heart. “Chin up, sweetheart,” he whispered as he lifted her slender face to his, pressing their muzzles together before forcing his tongue inside her slack jaw. Ester didn't dare protest. Joskuin broke the lewd gesture of affection, still lifting her head up to stare into those beautiful eyes, still half-opened. The flower was still tucked neatly away behind her ear. It was a lovely accessory, natural and delicate, just like her. The rat pulled a small knife out from a pocket in his vest. It was a paltry thing, only an inch or two long, with both a flat side and a serrated side. He flipped it in his hands, pressed the serrated edge to her shoulder and cut through the straps of her long dress. "Hold still," he smiled as he cut through to the cold metal shaft embedded in her heart, "Wouldn't wanna cut you." He was loathe to ruin her lovely clothes, but her reclined position made her rather difficult to undress using conventional methods, not to mention the dark stain in the centre of the dress had rendered it completely unusable. He drew the dagger further down, stretching the garment to make it easier to cut. When fully extended, the dress reached down almost down to her slender calves, but the way it was hiked up, it barely reached down past her knees, giving the rat a delightful view of her undergarments. Such a tease, he thought. The dress was cut away and unfurled, now a blanket for the pair to rest on. Ester wore a loose blouse, brilliant white with ruffled sleeves and a row of black buttons down the front. The stain was darker, or perhaps that was the sharp contrast from the dark, sticky crimson. Joskuin placed the dagger aside and straddled the doe's bare legs. He leaned forward to give her a soft peck on the nose before reaching down to undo her blouse, one button at a time. The pretty white cloth stuck to her matted fur where the bolt had landed, and the rat lifted it slowly, as if not wanting to hurt her. He didn't want to accidentally nudge the bolt and spill more of her blood than was necessary. He might stain the ground, and that would be the beginning of a slippery slope that could end up leading back to him. The rat loosened his breeches as he opened the blouse, revealing a slender chest that was almost as white at the shirt that covered it moments before. Her breasts were slight, almost child-like, and her belly was trim and fit. The fur on her belly was short enough that he could see her bellybutton, and her pink nipples just barely peeked out from the short white underfur. He roughly took her left breast in a harsh grip, humming in pleasure before leaning down, wrapping his lips around her lukewarm nipple and gripping the supple flesh between his teeth. Just the thought of taking his sweet time to explore her body was making the rat throb with excitement. He ran the tip of his fingers deftly down her chest, careful not to nudge the bolt, barely parting the fur. Had she been alive, Joskuin imagined she would be protesting mightily, putting those sharp, cloven hooves to good use. But there was no struggling, no fighting, not even a word of resistance. Just like it should be. Ester's undergarments were pristine, and sky blue in colour. They hugged her gentle hips tightly, leaving little to the imagination. He could certainly appreciate them as they were, but he had no intention of saving them. Such . . .fetishes had no meaning to him. He pulled the elastic waist tight and snapped it neatly with his dagger, letting the pieces fall away. He licked his lips in anticipation, saying nothing. The doe's white underfur grew progressively shorter the lower his beady eyes wandered until it became nearly nonexistent between her legs, blending seamlessly with a delicate pink blossom. The rat pressed a finger to her lower lips, glancing to her face for some hint of a reaction. “I'm not going too fast, am I?” Ester was silent. The doe's petals were parted, and she politely declined to protest, instead staring blankly at the bolt between her ribs. Joskuin extended his tongue and gave her exposed nether regions a long, slow lick that one would give a lover. He found her warmer inside than outside, and she carried a strong taste that the rat quickly acquired. He tongued her slowly, pressing against her soft nethers, clearly in no hurry. Joskuin suddenly caught himself mid-slurp. He had gotten so caught up in his quarry's enticing form that he had almost forgotten the reason he killed her in the first place. The cabal wouldn't be very happy if their star pupil had returned empty-handed! The cabal's cohort of corpses was in dire need of a restocking, and the ambitious rat jumped at the opportunity to add the doe to his morbid harem. But there would be time for that later. Only when the dead doe was wet and ready did the rat withdraw, pausing to wipe the slobber off his matted chin. “About time,” he mumbles, dropping his breeches with a jingle. He took a hold of her fragile ankles and dragged them closer, wrapping her legs around his waist. Her head and arms slumped downwards, and her chest jiggled slightly, as if she was taking a final, shuddering breath. A moment later, she was still again. Joskuin took a soft thigh in the crook of each arm and leaned in close, making a soft grunt as his turgid shaft entered her most sacred place. “At last,” he whispered into her ear, savouring her cooling body, “If only I could have been your first . . .” The two made gentle, quiet, perfect love. Joskuin showered the doe's face and neck with gentle kisses as he made slow, purposeful thrusts, each heave of his hips making her body quiver slightly. He hissed as he came, the doe's eyes rolling back and her tongue lolling to the side as filthy rat-seed splashed against her lukewarm walls and crawled into her dead, useless womb. The rat pressed his lips to hers, holding her close in a lewd embrace before slowly lowering the both of them to the ground. There was no rise and fall of her breast, no beating of her bosom. She was perfectly still; serene and peaceful. Sweet nothings were whispered into her ear, and they earned nary a twitch in response. Without withdrawing, Joskuin fumbled in the pockets of his pants, pulling out a pair of black, lustreless stones, each roughly the size and shape of a coin. He held her eyelids open and place one on each big brown eye. He pulled out a scroll-case next, tossing the tube aside and unfurling an aged parchment. He began speaking in a low, gravelly tone, and the strange symbols on the scroll began to burn away with each unearthly syllable that left his lips. The black stones turned red, then white-hot, quickly crumbling to grey, lifeless ash as the last symbol on the scroll blew away on the wind. Only then did the rat pull out, leaving a sticky, matted mess between her thighs. “Rise,” he commanded. Ester's body responded by sitting up slowly, the dusty ash crumbling away revealing a pair of white, lifeless eyes. “Stand.” The doe rose to her feet, sliding her back along the trunk of the tree until her cloven feet supported her fully. A trail of cum began to dribble down her leg. “Heel,” Joskuin commanded, and began to walk north, towards a hidden sewer, his way back into the city. He never minded the filth, and now that he had swayed Ester to see his point of view, he was sure she would follow him anywhere. Indeed she did, like a lost puppy, keeping a steady pace roughly two feet behind. Unbeknownst to the apprentice necromancer, something else stirred in the living corpse. At the moment it was nothing more than a bundle of cells, evidence of the doe's tender moonlight romp a few weeks prior, but the rat's foul magic had a way of . . .influencing its development. What vile beast did the corpse's loins contain? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mort's Playmate It was several weeks before anyone at the Cabal, including Joskuin, noticed anything amiss about the reanimated visitor he brought back. Joskuin noticed first, of course, during a night of silent, intimate lovemaking: Something inside Ester was growing. At first it was nothing more than a lump in her belly, only noticeable when the rat pressed up against her slender bosom. He said nothing at first, thinking the inexplicable phenomenon would pass, but then other cabal members began to take note. At first they jested, claiming that Joskuin spoiled his new catch by feeding her too much. Joskuin laughed it off nervously and played along. Of course he spoiled her, he said, she was his lover. But behind nervous, chattering laughter lay an uncomfortable truth. Not only was the lump not going away, it was growing bigger by the week. By the time the seasons changed, Ester's slim, slender form was disturbed by the gentle curve of a swollen belly. The jokes stopped after that. Raised eyebrows and witty quips were replaced by evasive stares and harsh whispers. Something was growing inside Ester's corpse. Joskuin had a vague notion of what it might be, but the thought unnerved him. He finally worked up the courage to ask the Cabal Sovereign for advice. The Sovereign was a bloated, corpulent boar whom Joskuin always thought would look more at home in the fighter's pit with an axe and a full suit of plate mail rather than behind a desk full of scrolls and tomes with the staff of a master necromancer by his side. Still, none in the cabal doubted his skill with the dark arts. Those who did seemed to end up joining the ranks of the walking dead that continually patrolled the inner sanctum. Joskuin approached his desk meekly, bowing his head low as he entered. Ester followed, mimicking the rat's every action, her corpse still enthralled. The bolt had been removed from her chest several weeks prior, and the injury had been recently cleaned. The wound itself was covered by a burial shroud of brilliant white, draping around her shoulders and covering her body conservatively, much like the sun dress she wore during her second birth. The swell in her belly was plainly visible. Her keeper wore a rather nondescript grey cloak, the hood down, the shoulders and back inscribed with a symbol indicating a respectable rank. The sovereign waved a hand, inviting them in silently. “I was wondering when you would come see me, rat,” the boar said in a low, gravelly voice, “The other necromancers are talking about you and your hind.” He nodded to Ester. “Come.” “Yes, my lord,” Joskuin replied, trying hard to look everywhere but in his eyes. “I have come to request a casting on my behalf,” he continued, “to put unsavoury rumours to rest.” The sovereign smiled, his tusks parting slightly to each side. “Wise,” was his only reply before turning to a tome on the shelf behind him. He pulled out an indigo volume with brass-plated corners and dropped it casually on his desk with a dry thud. He then rose, leaning on his staff, and walked around the desk towards a shrouded, full-length mirror. He pulled the black silk cloth away, folded it neatly, and placed it on his desk beside the book. He turned to the pair standing at his door, and slammed his staff against the ground. “Come,” he commanded. This time it was Ester who obeyed, walking towards the mirror with typical nonchalance. Joskuin marvelled. Normally it took a ferocious battle of willpower before control of a corpse could be wrestled from its animator. The sovereign just took her from him as if he were grabbing another book from the shelf. Ester stood in front of the mirror, and the boar unclasped her shroud. The white robe fell to the floor, revealing the doe to be completely naked. The pinkness of her intimate regions had faded to the colour of eggshells, and the wound left by the bolt was nothing more than a dark, clotted hole in her chest. Aside from her apparent bloat, she was flawless. The sovereign began to read from the tome on his desk. The mirror clouded and swirled as if reflecting a storm from underwater, finally clearing as the boar put a hand on the doe's cold belly. Two sets of eyes widened. The mirror peered inside Ester's undead body, homing in on the source of the mysterious growth. It was a dark, cervine form, curled up in a little ball. It was only vaguely recognizable – it bore no hair, and its limbs were only partially developed. And then it moved. Joskuin had to hold on to the sovereign’s desk for support. The sovereign himself just stared, transfixed. Both parties were as speechless as Ester for several long moments as the fetus twitched again. “Care to explain?” the boar asked after an agonizing pause, his haggard eyes still fixed on the scrying glass, “I wish I could,” Joskuin answered meekly, “I knew she had sex a few weeks before I got to her, perhaps that had something to do with it?” The boar put a chubby hand to his chin and pondered. “It's possible that when you revived her, you revived her unborn child as well. But that does not explain why the fetus is still growing.” “To grow, it would need some sort of food, right?” Joskuin began to pace as he thought aloud, and his clawed feet clicked against the stone floor as he walked. “Ester obviously hasn't eaten anything, but her body is kept from decaying by the magic we ward her with. Perhaps it has an even greater effect on her child, allowing it to not only resist decay, but thrive off of it? The boar slammed the tome shut, and the mirror faded to a lustreless grey. “This is unprecedented,” he said finally, “whatever the cause, I want ester and her . . .'child' watched very, very closely. Take her measurements in a journal, record every detail. If she goes into labor, or something, I need to know.” Joskuin nodded, taking Ester by the hand and ordering her to heel. “My lord . . .what should I tell the others?” “The truth,” the boar snorted, returning to his desk, “Tell them she's pregnant.” The next few months were strangely pleasant, at least as far as Joskuin was concerned. He was tasked with keeping watch on Ester and her strange pregnancy, and the two spent nearly all hours together. The sovereign’s suspicion of Ester's child feeding on magic was confirmed a few weeks later, during a casual stroll in the halls. The wards around Ester's body suddenly faltered, and she slumped to the floor in a heap. She was reanimated immediately, but there was no telling what effect the sudden absence of necromancy had on her child. Joskuin pressed a hand to her belly on a whim, and felt a kick from within. At first he was reassured, but satisfaction turned to fear in short order. If the child was undead, as he suspected, it was somehow acting of its own accord, unrestrained by the simple commands that Ester was forced to obey. The other possibility was even more unsettling – what if Ester's child were somehow actually alive? The thought disturbed the rat, a feat in its own right, and he refused to touch her belly for weeks thereafter. Eight months after Ester's death, her belly continued to swell. She was put on a bedrest of sorts, and was left in the catacombs for her own protection. Joskuin visited her frequently, of course, wandering fearlessly down into the depths of the fortress without so much as a lantern for company. He often spent the night down there with her, like an initiate on a dare. He sought out her casket and curled up next to her, warmed her with his body and whispered his sweet nothings in her soft, velvet ears. During one such episode, he fell asleep next to her and dreamed of water. He heard the splash, and imagined a distant tidal wave crashing though the catacombs. He awoke with a start, and to his dismay found that he was actually wet. His legs were matted with . . .not water, but something slippery, greenish and foul-smelling. He followed the stain with his finger in the dim light. Whatever it was, it soaked Ester as well. His hand reached her belly, and he felt a barrage of kicks from within. The rat's heart stopped momentarily. Ester's water had broken some time during the night, and her unborn child was frantically struggling from inside, desperate to be born. “Stand,” Joskuin commanded, his voice groggy but focused. Ester tried to obey, but the weight in her stomach threw her off balance and she ended up falling over the edge of the casket, the impact forcing another gush of blood-tinted birth-water from between her legs. Joskuin swore under his breath. He pulled ester back into the casket, and set her up at one end, her legs spread. Her expression was rather peaceful, and Joskuin was rather thankful she was already dead. He couldn't imagine the pain her living body would be going through, and he would never wish that upon the love of his life. Ester's nethers bulged. The muscles inside her were contracting of their own accord, as if her undead body had finally rejected the life within her. Her blank eyes stared straight ahead at her strange midwife. Joskuin didn't know of a command that would allow her to assist her own body. “Push” might have her moving the casket instead of pushing out her own baby. So instead, he did what he could from his end, pushing down on her belly with his elbows, heaving and grunting as he tried to force the child out from the outside. The doe didn't mind. After several excruciating minutes, there was a wet pop from between Ester's legs. Joskuin stopped immediately, and peered below his lover's bulging belly. It was the blood-covered head of a little fawn, complete with large, floppy ears and a little black nose. Its eyes were tightly shut. The rat took the fawn around the neck and tugged, freeing the slippery body with little difficulty. There was a splash of blood announcing the fawn's birth, and then complete silence. Ester's body was ruined. Her slender figure was deflated and flabby, and her labia and birth canal had been torn and stretched to the point where she could take a stallion comfortably. The little fawn had landed between the two in an awkward jumble of limbs with the rat's hands still around its neck. Its body was stained a sickly green colour, and Joskuin couldn't feel a heartbeat with his hand on its throat. The fawn was male, clearly, his white-furred sheath and sac barely visible against his pale underbelly. His hooves were black and unusually sharp, almost pointed. His fingers looked the same, hoof-like claws that had an almost unnatural wickedness to them. His ears were also more pointed and slightly narrower. There was something else unusual as well about this fawn – it had teeth. Sharp, predatory teeth, already developed. Joskuin got down on all fours, pulling the body towards him. He held it upside-down for a few moments,wiping the bloody slime from his mouth before placing the baby face-up. His body was still warm and floppy. The umbilical cord was still attached, feeding the fawn whatever vile energies he craved, and he clearly hadn't been dead for long. Two rat-fingers pressed against the fawn's exposed chest repeatedly, and the necromancer temporarily turned into a healer, breathing life into the little fawn's corpse. The child awoke with a start only moments later, as if roused from some hideous dream. His eyes were much darker than his mothers, almost black in appearance. His cry was soft and subdued, rather distant than the urgent wailing of most infants the rat had encountered. “It's a boy,” Joskuin announced, passing the baby to his mother's cold breast. The little fawn latched on eagerly with his sharp teeth and clutched his mother's dead body, and to Joskuin's surprise, the corpse actually moved to cradle him. The rat wasn't sure whether what he witnessed was some sort of bond, or whether the little fawn could somehow subconsciously control the necromantic energy he had been steeped in since his conception. Only time would tell. The next several years were an eventful time for the cabal. It's newest member, affectionately named “Mort”, died again at the age of three months, inexplicably. He was simply found face-down in his cot without a heartbeat. Again, Joskuin managed to revive him, only for the event to repeat itself six months later. Each time it was almost easier for him to recover, the latest episode requiring only a few minutes of resuscitation, even though he had been apparently dead for quite some time. Ester's corpse was passed between the two like a hot potato. The little buck was apparently able to summon her with but a thought, and under his direction the doe executed complex, subtle commands that the rat's clumsy words could never convey. When Mort finally learned to walk, he 'dragged' his mother around like a blankie. He didn't seem to understand that she was dead, or if he did, it didn't seem to bother him very much. He treated her like a pet – he cuddled her and kept her close for comfort, knowing that she would lash out in retaliation if he felt threatened in any way. He latched on to Joskuin as a father of sorts, as Ester was obviously unable to fully take care of her son. He began asking questions almost as soon as he could talk, pestering the rat incessantly with whys, whats and hows. Joskuin had never seen someone so interested in his perverse activities, and he eagerly gave the fawn a very hands-on approach to the dark arts. To say Mort was a natural necromancer would be an understatement. He was a phenom. Not only was he able command the various undead on an almost instinctual level, to the point where they looked almost alive again, but he frequently wrestled the control of corpses from other practitioners with unsettling ease, and put up quite the struggle if the other necromancer fought back. By age six, Joskuin had won the right to initiate him fully into the cabal as an apprentice. This, of course, meant killing someone and raising their corpse in front of the Sovereign himself, as well as anyone else who cared to attend. There was a lively debate as to who the victim would be. An adult, armed or not, would clearly have an unfair advantage over a six-year-old. Thus, the cabal decided that the victim would be a child, like him. The stage was set. Mort, now six years of age, stood on one side of the dark ring, grimly determined and armed with an appropriately-sized dagger. His opponent was an orphaned fennec girl, barely out of diapers, with sand-coloured ears almost as large as her head. She was unarmed – a canned hunt. Both Mort and his quarry wore pristine, toga-like shrouds, not only to hide their bodies without armouring them, but also to exaggerate the appearance of any wounds sustained. The crowd was eager to see the capabilities of this 'cursed' fawn, born of necromancy and death itself. The fawn heard them, and wondered to himself what all the fuss was about. The gong was rung, and the circle closed. The fennec tried to run, but was blocked by a wall of eager bodies, and pushed forcefully back into the ring. She cried out, and her eyes began to glisten with tears. Mort was rather unsympathetic. His hooves clicked against the cold stone as he calmly walked up to her and raised the knife, expecting to just bring it down on top of her. She pushed his arm away and ran past him to the other side of the ring, where again she was pushed back into the fray, this time right into Mort. The fennec's cries were punctuated by a sharp painful gasp as the dagger connected with her ribcage. She staggered back, clutching the dagger's hilt before toppling over backwards, curling into the fetal position as she tried to protect herself. The fawn didn't miss a beat, quickly straddling her and forcing her on her back. He ripped the dagger out, allowing her hot blood to splash onto the cobbled floor and forcing another whimper of pain from his opponent. He then pressed her head to the ground and jabbed the knife into her throat with all his might, severing her windpipe and silencing her cries permanently. The crowd cheered as they watched the fennec's blood spill. She squirmed for a few seconds, gurgling and gasping for breath before finally falling limp, the fawn's hands still around her neck. Joskuin waited a few seconds to be sure, and then tossed his son a pair or onyx coins and a sheet of parchment. This was supposed to be the hardest part of the test, but the rat knew that his cervine son would have no trouble at all. And he was right. The arcane marks burned off the page, sizzling as they fell to the ground around the pair forming a small circle. The coins flashed into nonexistence, and as soon as the girl stirred to unlife, Mort dropped the scroll and hugged her, helping her get to her feet. Her eyes were grey, and her once-pink ears had become very, very pale. Mort seemed to almost brighten at the sight of her, and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Kyrst!” he exclaimed, mistaking the muttering of the crowd for a shortening of his playmate's name, “Come on, we're gonna be friends!” The fawn then happily dragged her out of the arena, her hand in his, her newly animated corpse following his every move. The crowd was puzzled at the cabal recruit's nonchalance. The Sovereign was impressed. Joskuin only smiled. “That's my boy,” he said quietly as he watched the pair descend into the catacombs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------