As the man-creature's body ruptures, foamy bck blood is starting to leak and expand out of him/it, covering his arms, legs, and torso, and closing up over his head like a hood. I jump back in a panic, channeling, willing, forcing the mana inside me into a polymorph as I grow in height, my arms growing fur and elongating, my body expanding as I transform myself into a giant ape.

  I hurridly reach out, shoving my hand against the crust-like darkness, encasing the creature's skull in an attempt to crush it. I can feel something fighting back against my crushing strength, and despite the darkness, I can tell the creature is staring directly at me. With the crushing not working, I switch to pn B and switch my grip on it's head to try and force my thumbs into roughly where its eye sockets should be, despite the burning sensation and smell of melting flesh. Yet, with a single gut wrenching stab from the creature, I'm thrown backwards. Polymorph ending. As I get thrown, I sh out with a beam of raidiant sunlight, trying to burn its head off.

  Reorienting myself as I crash into a wall and get the air knocked out of me, the creature's hood-helmet pulled back, revealing a scorched face with a bright yellow eye, the other eye being a smoldering ruin. Smiling to myself, I feel a shock of unease as the faintest trace of a smile forms on his face, the scorched ruin exploding with foamy bck blood as it begins to grow the same bright yellow as its twin.

  Gcing around in the room, I see a single pedestal encircled in some sort of text on the floor behind the man. Presumably what he's guarding? Do I run there, try to kill it, or just run? Damnit. I can regrow limbs. Pain's fine. Drusil is expecting something from me.

  Looking back up at the man-creature, he's still covered in his bck armor but leaking yellow tendrils from his head down his torso. In either hand, he's holding what looks like a long, thin saber or scimitar-type weapon that's ridiculously curved and slowly turning the same yellow.

  "No chance, you just let me go, right?"

  He/it wordlessly takes a stance I recognize too well, and I dive just as he throws one of the sabers, which CURVES AND IS FLYING BACK!?

  "I guess that's a no. Right."

  Quickly dashing to the side as I cast an investiture of stone to put something between myself and whatever is going on with those weapons, I need to figure out if that yellow shit is gonna kill me. Right time to see if conjuring animals works better against this guy than it does against Drusil.

  Conjuring a pack of intangible animals, the creature is slowly slicing its way through them as I keep summoning more. I'm not seeing anything terribly worrying. Okay, time to end this. He/it might've been immune to crushing goril strength, but how does it handle the very bones of the earth?

  "Alright, bye fucker."

  Channeling every st bit of energy I can without debilitating myself, pilrs of stone burst from the ground under it, and there's a satisfying popping-squelching sound as it presumably dies.

  "....You dead?"

  "........"

  Imma take that as a yes. Fuck. Gonna just sit down here. Nice wall. Mhhmm cold. Waitaminute. Why is there a cracking sound? Oh, for fuck sake. Nope, I'm out, see ya.

  "That's our cue. Let's go, Batsy! We aren't dealing with this!"

  Shoving Batsy back into the bag of holding, gently because I'm not a monster, I start sprinting back towards the entrance of this hellhole. I don't care. No one said anything about unkilble body shedding super zombies with magic weapons! No time to think about it, throw up a wall of stone in front of the doors, mutter a prayer to the Saints, and run, leaping over dead zombies, deader zombies?, and before I even nd, I shift into a hawk. In this form, I don't have to worry about the ground and can just move.

  I hear metal on stone echoing down the halls, and I can only hope that means it's stuck behind the wall and not that it's chasing after me. I doubt it can catch me in hawk form, but I'd really rather not risk it. Oh, sweet merciful hells, I see the doors. Before I can think about it, I sag against them and colpse in relief.

  My eyes are closed, and I think I might be hyperventiting when the door is opened. Drusil is stroking my tiny little head and scritching my beak.

  "I said tomorrow," she scolds me without any bite behind it.

  "Did you run into a big scary undead?"

  I nod and shake a little.

  "Aww Precious. You'll be making up for this somehow. I'm currently thinking you might do some gardening. With just the two of us, it's getting a little unruly. Or maybe you can be my masseuse. It has been a hard couple of days for me, hasn't it? I'm sure you can use your abilities to reach all sorts of hard-to-reach spots."

  Arglebargle. If I wasn't still crashing from adrenaline, I might respond. This feels like I should be saying something, and if I had a little more focus and energy, I might press my luck, but no, I'm staying as a hawk. This is comfy. Especially the way she scritches my head gently.

  "Or don't. I never really expected you to accomplish this feat. Sure, it would've been good for your self-confidence and experience if you managed to st till tomorrow, but the real purpose was to show you what fighting something that only wants to kill is like. This'll motivate you more during our spars, won't it?"

  I nod. If I thought being beaten like a target dummy by the vampire was bad, the undying magic warrior is arguably worse. I'll take a game of hide-and-seek before I fracture your skull over an unkilble murder machine.