The proto-astral space was south of Rome, close to Mount Gemma. But the inside was nothing like the Mediterranean sight outside. An industrial sprawl, half dystopian nightmare half steampunk spread as far as the eye reached. The Pitch black night only illuminated by the thin, sharp sickle of the moon and flickering shine of electrical lamps spread around the pocket realm. Melissa stood in the cracked yard of some sort of factory, her breath forming small clouds in the ice cold air. Rising like ghosts in front of her. At the other end of the yard a bronze-rank abomination crawls. Yet unaware of them. Its body a twisted fusion. Raw fleshy limbs pushing out between slick, oxidised copper armour plates. Not vampire, not undead. Still a killer.

  Melissa rolls her shoulders, readying herself. Alexander stands of to the side, cleaver and armour summoned but otherwise relaxed “Bronze-rank. Hungry and a good bit stronger than the average monster of its rank. You want to advance? You take it alone.” he says almost casual. She swallows. Its one thing to stumble in a fight and do everything to survive. But it is a different thing to seek something that much stronger out on purpose. “you sure I'm ready?” Alexander just grins. Reckless and bright. His red eyes gleaming like a sunrise on blood. “You faced worse and came out the other side. Time you do more than just survive” she nods and gets a small bottle out. It is filled with fine powder. After one more Breath she opens the cap and starts pouring a circle with it. Its a simple thing. White ash, traced by hand, uneven and imperfect. Its not ment to bind, only to remember. holding her hand out her voice drops. An eery whisper, like a prayer bevor an old grave she intones

  “grief once sown, grief once torn,

  by what was lost, let pain be born”

  when the last words leave her lips the ash does not flare but listens. Blue veins draw through the ash. The air in the circle thickens. Sound itself stalling out in it. Pressure builds, not outward but, inward. Drawing the world toward a single quiet wound. The temperature drops further. Not cold, but the absence of warmth.

  Then the Echo rises.

  It does not climb from the ground so much as seperating from it. Peeling like a reflection from a lake of grief. First only a distortion, a rippleing shape like a person, taller than it should be, thinner, stretched by time. Features follow, ghostly, reluctant. The face resolves last and when it does, it is unmistakable. Its her. Or what she would have become when grief had finished its work. When undead had taken her.

  Its form mirrors her posture, the fall of her her hair and the abyssal black of her eyes. But everything is older. Lines carved deeper, hollowed not by age but unanswered suffering. Where she breathes, the echo does not. Where her voice is has warmth, the echo's mouth hangs slightly open, as if in the middle of a cry that never ends.

  Its edges are not solid. It frays, wavers and hums faintly, like a scream, remembered rather than heard. The circle of ash beneath it darkens, as if stained by something that can not be washed away.

  When the echo finally turns its head, it does not look at her with malice. It looks with recognition. A shared understanding. I am what you called. You are why I exist. It bows its head before Melissa, just a fraction. And from deep within its throat, to low to be sound and to sharp to be thought, a wail begins. Not loud, not wild, but endless, waiting to be given purpose.

  She has not raised the dead. Her soul not allowing such a transgression. She has invited her own grief to stand beside her and her grief answered.

  Ability: Wailing Echo (banshee)

  (summoned sound-phantoms, resonance, battlefield control)

  grief once sown, grief once torn,

  by what was lost, let pain be born

  Base cost: Moderate mana

  Current rank: Iron

  Cooldown: long

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  Iron, Wailing Echo: I summon a single Wailing Echo, forged by my voice within a summoning circle of white ash. Resonance, shaped of sound and woe. It wails, glides and attacks. Using echoes of my own abilities. Disperses if silenced or deprived of resonance. Not a ghost, a memory that learned to scream.

  For a moment everything seems to stand still. Then a deep, metallic, vibrating shriek sounds from the bronze-rank abomination. The summoning not going past its attention. It barrels towards her with frightening speed. She smiles “lets see what we can do now” she says and reaches her palm out to the monster as if to grasp it. Her aura flooding out, no longer tucked away. The echo charges, half material its hand forming spectral claws. A Shrieking Lance tearing from its throat as it flings itself against the abomination. Meanwhile Melissa chants another incantation “suffer the echo of agony” her voice a promise of pain as the curse takes hold on the monster.

  Ability: Resonance Curse (banshee)

  (echoed suffering, sound-feedback torment, debuff amplification)

  “Suffer the echo of agony”

  Base cost: Moderate mana

  Current rank: Iron

  Cooldown: short

  Iron, Echo Trace: I mark a foe, and the sound remembers them. Each time they are struck by my voice, my wail, pulse, or note, a faint echo returns to strike again. The reverberation deals sonic damage. Small, but unending. The first blow lands, the second arrives from memory.

  Finally she moves herself. Starting a deadly dance, around the abomination. Her movements in tandem with the echo mirrored, refined. She shrieks, the echo mirrors her action and the curse repeats both. One attack becoming two, becoming four. The Discordant effect of her aura building up faster now.

  Discordant, affliction: its an ailment of sound and mind, while it piles up it amplifies the damage of my other powers while also tricking the mind of those afflicted. Their tone does not resonate, it staggers.

  Alexander watches grinning as she fights. “that`s my girl” he whispers. His voice lost between the roars of the monster and her Shrieking Lances. “Come on! Fight me! Break on me!” Melissa shouts at the beast. It obliges. Metal spikes shooting at her like crossbow bolts. She dodges two and as two more are about to strike she uses her Spectral Body to let them pass through her. Her movement graceful calculated, each step where it needs to be. “remember your end” she whispers the incantation of Reverberating Decay. The next Spectral Strike hitting with extra necrotic damage.

  It lunges, the Echo flickering in its way, delaying it just a moment, but a moment is enough. Melissa jumping over the long limb as it strikes out. Smiling as the abomination comes to a halt just beside the flickering distortion in the air she placed before the fight.

  Ability: Wraithmark (sound)

  (spiritual, sigil, sound)

  Base cost: Low

  Current rank: Iron

  Cooldown: medium

  Iron, The Silent Mark: My first mark is subtle. A sigil of sound, a footprint of my soul. Only those I choose can perceive it: a whisper, a shiver, a flash of presence. It carries a single emotion, a warning, guidance, or mourning. If the mark is in range i can dissolve it to use it as a starting point for any of my other sound based powers. Secrets tracking, silent messages, a ghost’s first trace.

  “lets end this” she says and charges in tandem with the echo. Health, stamina and mana are drained as she feeds her Banshees Wail but at the same time she activates her last new ability. Her scream rips through the air shattering the copper plates of the abomination and invade its very being. The Echo mirrors her scream, amplifying the damage. Then the flickering distortion in the air explodes in a concussive wave of sound as I simultaneously dissolve the Wraithmark to use Resounding Rapture in its place. The combined assault of three sources finally are enough to overwhelm the bronze-rank defences. With one last cry the abomination collapses, first twitching, then it finally falls still. A hush falling over the battleground like the silence after a thunderstorm.

  Melissa stands there, her breath coming in harsh bursts. Her Echo hovering beside her, faint, flickering, waiting for the next order. Alexander approaches, the slap he plants on her back nearly enough to topple her over. “not bad. Not bad at all.” he grins with pride. “we need to get the rest of your abilities, then you are ready to advance in no time.” Melissa looks first at him, then at her spectral twin. Its black eyes mirroring hers. A reflection of her pain, her grief and suffering. Now a weapon in her hand. And for the first time, she feels capable. Not safe. Not whole. But able. Like she can truly stand on her own.

  “if our enemy's get to be powerful. Why shouldn't we?” she asks him and he puts his hand on her shoulder “then lets give them something to fear”