Netherkin

Chapter Four

 Stella knows it's all up to her now. She needs to be quick! She rushes over to the Coven and her spirit feels like it's going to break apart. It is a horrible sight to behold, the Coven has been utterly decimated. The buildings are collapsing and on fire, there are potholes lining the ground and bloody corpses lying among the rubble. How had she not noticed this beforehand?

" No, no, no!" Stella sounds like she wants to cry.

"Victor? Leif? Anyone?" She calls out hoping someone will respond as she walks through the wreckage. " Everyone in my past family is dead..."

Then she hears a rough, angry voice coming from her side. She looks over and sees a tall skeleton sitting on top of a burning building.

"Ah, the last witch. I knew I hadn't gotten them all. Come here and meet your fate, little girl. I might even make it quick." It taunts.

" You...You killed them! Why?! What reason would there be?!"

"Yes I did. It was just a group of stupid witches, and you're about to join them!" The skeleton quickly hops off the burning structure and shoots several superheated fireballs at Stella from out of his bony fingertips.

She creates a magical shield just in time which manages to block the brunt of the fireballs but can't block it all, the force of the attack still sending her flying backwards.

SMASH!!!

she crashes into a wooden beam and gets the wind knocked out of her.

The vicious skeleton takes the opportunity to start closing the distance between her and it, readying another attack. She summons and throws a pair of arcane blades at her foe to try and temporarily distract it.

While the skeleton dodges the magical swords easily enough, it still keeps it occupied for just long enough for her to prepare another spell. She spawns a Nether Portal behind the menace and then blasts the skeleton with lightning, knocking it backwards through the portal. She aims a few lightning blasts at said portal until some of the obsidian frame partially crumbles causing it to become unstable and closes. She doesn't want that thing to come back through.

"That was a tough fight, but this witch still stands. Most likely the last witch of the Coven." She solemnly states.

She desperately tries to find survivors, but sadly everyone who had lived here is now deceased. Remembering a certain powerful magic tome called the 'Wither book' she had seen here at some point, she starts searching for it, hoping it could help. She eventually finds it laying near some shattered glass and runs back out into the clearing to where her friend had fallen.

She kneels next to Rain's downed body and checks his pulse. It is slow and irregular.

" Stay with me, I'm right here." She soothes trying to comfort him, as well as herself.

She starts frantically flipping through the Wither book, hoping there's something to help.

"Dispel magic, no, humanity restoration, no, aha! Wither cure! Thankfully it requires no material components."

She quickly reads the entry and puts all the effort she can into performing the spell.

Rain's body is engulfed in a dark light for a few moments and then his skin returns to its normal tan color and he coughs a few times, returning back to consciousness.

" I'm so happy you're alive." Stella sobs while hugging him.

" You're squeezing a bit too tight." He gasps back.