Clover shrieked and her skin paled as the ghostly, luminous fingers plunged into her back. She scrambled away from the wraith's touch, suddenly falling forward before collapsing in a twitching heap.

  Fritz activated Aspect of Eel, then lunged at the robed figure from where he sat. Mortal Edge, wrapped in the writhing shadows of Gloom Strike, bit into its dimly-glowing, insubstantial arm.

  The bone blade slid through spectral flesh. It felt as though he were cutting a jellyfish's cap and the spectral hand, severed at the wrist, dissipated in a flicker of faint smoke.

  The wraith, silent up until that moment, let loose a low mournful moan, one that set Fritz to shiver and sent the crew into flights of terror. Screaming, they tried to flee, but the handcart they had barricaded the room's narrow entrance with still blocked the way.

  The black shrouded ghost, which had been drifting away for a moment, ceased retreating, then glided forwards, its single hand outstretched, reaching for Fritz's heart. He, having seen his shadowed dagger harm the undead, leapt for the mana-lantern in the centre of the room. Dodging the freezing fingers and the chill around them by an inch.

  He grasped the Treasure and Activated it.

  A flash of bright white and a pulse of invisible power followed his touch, searing the wraith. Its moan became a distant shriek, and its insubstantial body was scattered like mist.

  Fritz scanned quickly for more ghosts, but found none. He turned to his terror stricken crew, discovering that the cart had been shattered and they were shoving at one another. Each were attempting to push past the press of bodies and into the tunnel beyond.

  "Hark!" Fritz cried. "Look here, hear me! Rally yourselves! See, our foe lies in ruin. Rally!"

  He poured Dusksong into his words, attempting to wield it in such a way as to allay their fears rather than swell them. His attempt succeeded, mostly, and the yells died down. The crew turned their gazes to him and the small chamber, and saw there was nothing left to be frightened of, save their Captain's displeasure.

  Slowly, they calmed, then, reclaiming their senses, they moved apart.

  Fritz didn't bother chastising them, he had more important things to do. Dropping to one knee by Clover's side, he placed his fingers to her neck, feeling for a heartbeat. Her skin was cold, but there was the faint drum of life. She was breathing, though it came soft and shallow.

  "Is she alive?" Trudge asked.

  Fritz nodded. "She lives, though I suspect she won't wake any time soon."

  "Was that a ghost?" Mel hissed.

  "A shadow-aligned ghost, or a wraith," Fritz confirmed, standing.

  "What's the difference?" Bucket groused.

  "I don't rightly know," Fritz admitted. "I'm not well-versed on spirits, spectres, ghosts or ghasts."

  "What exactly are you well-versed in? Apart from ordering us around like we're idiots," Nail grumbled, his eyes filled with accusation.

  "Many things," Fritz said. "Fire is one of them. If you recall."

  Nail lowered his glare in an instant.

  "What do we do, Captain?" Barge asked, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword tightly.

  "Wait here, I will scout for the wraith's master," Fritz decided.

  The faces around him creased with worry and yellow motes of fear floated around the chamber.

  "Ghosts will get us while you're gone. We're gonna die," Bucket whined.

  "No, you're not," Fritz stated. "Barge has an Ability that will let him harm the wraith, as does Mel. And if you fare poorly, I'm leaving behind a Treasure that will destroy them."

  "That flash? Was that the Treasure's doing?"

  "Yes," Fritz said.

  The crew looked to the mana-lantern still glowing in the centre of the chamber.

  "Thought you said that wasn't a Treasure," Barge said, shifting his shoulders.

  "Yeah, you lied," Bucket said.

  Fritz frowned. "My apologies, I had forgotten that I was leading a crew of pure and innocent souls. And that you've all been totally honest in word and truly honourable in your acts. Truly, for me to safeguard some small secrets is such a treachery as to warrant all the suspicion and all the scorn in the world and those that dwell beside it. If only I had been as forthright in the beginning as you perfect, profoundly decent folk then-"

  "Alright, alright, we get it," Reed said. "No need to carry on."

  "You're not angry our Captain lied to us?" Bucket accused.

  "No. I'd do the same if I were tasked with leading you lot of thugs and sneak thieves," Reed declared. "And you would too. Don't say you wouldn't."

  There were grumbles of disagreement, but the avoidant eyes displayed the truth of the matter.

  "Very well. I shall find the necromancer, and the lantern remains here with you," Fritz stated. While he could have used the potent Purge Shadow Ability the Treasure was imbued with, he could slay any ghosts without its aid.

  "Are you sure it's a necromancer? What if it's a deathknight?" Mel asked worriedly.

  "Knights? Two Floors in a row? I think not, this Spire has a chaotic bent and would never challenge us with the same thing back to back, " Fritz presumed.

  "Challenge? You mean murder," Bucket said.

  "Indeed," Fritz agreed. He bent and scooped up the lantern, then threw it to Reed. "Here, you're in charge of watching out for ghosts and for refilling the Treasure."

  "Me? Why?" he replied, only just catching the lantern.

  "Because you have some sort of Guard Path, do you not?"

  "You callin' me drizzler!?" Reed spat.

  "No, of course not, but you have Awareness," Fritz stated. "I can tell."

  Reed frowned. "It don't do much, I regret choosing what I chose."

  "Nonsense," Fritz said. "I'm sure you use it plenty, you just don't realise it. And be not beholden to regret, it is a waste."

  When the thief still appeared unsure, Fritz knelt beside him and gave a short and simple lecture on the Advanced Attribute. What he knew of it at least. All those small tricks and tells, and sensations and signs.

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  Reed nodded along, pensive, his brow furrowed in concentration.

  Although Fritz knew he had little time to spare, he also knew that this instruction could save their lives in his absence, and it only took fifteen minutes.

  "Understand?" Fritz asked, finishing his impromptu tutoring.

  "Mostly," Reed admitted, tilting his head thoughtfully.

  "Good. And if you get a hold of the basics, I'll teach you a Pattern. One of my very own design," Fritz boasted.

  "What's a Pattern?" Barge blurted.

  Fritz would have reproached him for eavesdropping, but the room was small, and the thug, along with the rest of the crew, couldn't help listening.

  "It's a way to wield your Advanced Attributes more effectively," he explained succinctly. "Though teaching that can wait for later, I have a necromancer to slay."

  He stood, turned, stepped into the shadowy tunnel and donned his Cloak of Dusk.

  Quietly, Fritz roamed the mine, avoiding the labouring skeletons where he could.

  Soon, he was lost in the unremarkable, countless passages, misled by the turns, crossroads and sudden dead ends. It was a maze and not one a man of his stature was well suited for. His head scraped the roof, even though he was crouched, and his breastplate's rigidity made the tight squeezes all the more cumbersome.

  Marking a wall with a stick of chalk, Fritz again cursed Craig. He was sure that if the prick had just taught him the mind map, he would have found the master of the undead without any of this trouble. As it was, he was stuck using these more mundane methods, or rather, he would have been if not for one of his Treasures.

  Smiling, mostly to himself, he Activated his Ring of Echolocation. A piercing note rang out from the Treasure, and his ears whined. The sensation of sound bouncing off stone and his mind being filled with the impressions of long winding tunnels was an odd one. It would have been a cacophony of jumbled images and noise if not for the Treasure filtering and focusing the picture forming in his mind.

  It occurred to Fritz then that this feeling, this refined sense of sound and its transformation into useful information, could be the basis on which he could build his own mind map. If he trained with this Treasure often enough, perhaps it could let him learn that elusive trick.

  He shook his errant thoughts from his head. That testing could come later, when his full attention wasn't needed for rooting out his well-hidden foe.

  He sorted through the impressions. While the ring had mapped most of the Floor, the tunnels were sprawling, and there were far more crevices, alcoves and chambers than he had expected. It could take hours searching each one. Fritz tapped his foot restlessly. He knew there was a trickle of clicking undead heading toward his crew. Eventually, it would be a flood of chattering bone.

  Fritz sighed inwardly, his gaze sliding to a toiling skeleton at the end of the passage. Suddenly, the undead stiffened and ceased its eternal labour. The change brought with it a feeling, a sound beyond hearing, like a string had been plucked. Fritz focused on the sensation, staring intently at the ambling bones as they turned and made their way up the tunnel, toward where he lurked.

  Thankfully, its goal was not to harm or locate him. Rather, it was heading to where his crew hid, and its eyeless visage spared him not a glance as it passed. Fritz watched its back, honing in on the thread he had heard just a moment before. It was fading quickly, but he was able to catch a glimpse. There, a thin, intangible line, grey and ghostly, stretched into the stone, joining master and servant.

  While it wasn't a trail of blood or bootprints left in the dust, it was more than enough to give direction to his search. Fritz followed the strand for as long as he could, sensing its faint chill through the walls with his Awareness, but it soon dissolved. That was no great hindrance. He swiftly found another skeleton and scanned it for the necromancer's cold thread.

  Now that he knew what to look for, it was a simple, if time-consuming, task to 'see' the bond and follow it to its inevitable end. He grew closer and closer to the puppet master, avoiding skeletal sentries and watching another shadow-robed ghost float through a tunnel wall.

  He gritted his teeth, staying his hand. He wanted to slay it before it could make it to his crew, but he had to trust them to deal with it themselves. While he didn't know if the necromancer could tell if its skeletal minions were returned to death, Fritz had a certainty that it would know if the wraith was.

  It was with a grim resignation that he kept searching. It wasn't much longer than six minutes later that he heard a mad cackling, then a tirade of half-formed, half-spit curses in some monstrous tongue.

  The horrible guttural sounds echoed down the passage.

  It was as if the man-alike had only the vaguest idea of what proper speech should sound like and filled in its ignorance with bestial growls and hisses where it had holes in its understanding. Those holes happened to be both frequent and profound.

  Though the noise was unpleasant to listen to, it made for fine cover for Fritz's footsteps. He skulked closer to the sound, halting before an alcove from which the clamour echoed.

  Pausing and placing his back to the wall, he activated his Ring of Echolocation. The piercing tone rang out, and Fritz found his mind filled with the details of the chamber beyond, both the dimension and what lay within.

  He was glad he did. The dark, dry room had eight slender, close-to-human figures standing sentinel while the ninth such figure hunched over an altar. The necromancer had kept some minions close. It wasn't so mad as to send all its defenders away.

  Even as Fritz comprehended what the ring had shown him, he noticed something ominous.

  It was silent, or rather, near silent. The 'speaking' had stopped and soft shuffling of light, halting steps approached.

  Fritz readied himself, sliding away from the chamber's entrance. He readied the crossbow, hanging at his side, placing the bolt quietly and aiming it at the alcove.

  Hissing breath and whispered babbling slithered through the tunnel. A malformed, wizened head poked out, waved violently, then drew back quickly.

  Fritz seized his finger with a thread of Grace so as not to loose the bolt. Impatience and apprehension had almost led to a mistake. He dropped to one knee, lowering the tip of the crossbow almost an inch, waiting for a clear target.

  A skeleton strode out.

  This time, Fritz didn't need to wield his Grace to stop himself from triggering the mechanism. He was prepared for another such feint.

  The undead stood in the tunnel, silent and still. The necromancer crept out slowly, leaning on a gnarled staff in its emaciated, elongated hand as it limped forward. Its body shuffled into view. It was garbed in a filthy, tattered robe, belted with a frayed rope, and its neck and fingers were adorned in gold and silver. Mismatched eyes, glowing with rings of pale, wispy light, stared into the gloom, searching.

  Fritz sighted his crossbow for only a second longer, then loosed with a shadow-infused bolt. In the same breath, he wove Lethargy over his foe, fearing that the necromancer had some trick to thwart his strike.

  He was right to think so. A thin grey shimmer slithered over the shambling figure before the bolt struck. While still in flight, the wood and iron warped with decay, withering into little more than a dry, twisted stick that bounced off the necromancer's head with a thin thud.

  The man-alike flinched, then fled back into its chamber.

  Fritz stifled a growl, unslinging and then setting down his crossbow as the skeleton sentry rushed toward him. Quicksilver met the undead abomination, slashing its skull from its spine.

  He both thanked and cursed his luck that the tunnels here were wider and taller. While it meant he could wield his two blades more skilfully, it also meant there was more room for skeletons to surround him.

  Fritz didn't let them do so; instead, he took up position next to the alcove's entrance and hacked off heads as the skeletons sprinted out in single file. None of them even came close to harming him, the last falling just as the first did. Fritz leapt over the twitching pile of bones at his feet, then cautiously made his way into the necromancer's chamber.

  The sound of gibbering and scraping, and the terrible stench of rot, leaked from the room, then a fervent, incomprehensible chanting could be heard.

  Fritz threw caution to the wind, suspecting that the necromancer could be casting some terrible magic. Rushing into the room, he could see the man-alike had its back turned to him. It was poring over some strange ritual circle drawn in what could only be blood. The red began to gleam, and a floating, spectral mass congealed in the centre of the, now shining, scarlet circle.

  Fritz lunged, but stopped his thrust midway as the man-alike's ghostly barrier returned. Cursing, he flicked a throwing dagger at the necromancer. It rusted, curled in on itself and blackened, then struck filthy robes without much strength.

  The dim light dissipated, and Fritz lashed out with Quicksilver.

  It pierced right through the necromancer's hunched back and deep into where its heart should be. The creature shuddered, spasmed, and its staff fell from its quaking hand. It stumbled, slumped and at the last moment lurched forward, tearing itself off of Quicksilver.

  Then it dropped, hitting the floor with a light thump and a cloud of foul dust. With one last rattling breath, it reached for the ritual. Fritz slashed the back of its neck, severing its spine, and stomped the fingers creeping toward the circle. They snapped like twigs under his heel.

  Fritz stared at the corpse, waiting for any further movement, any magic that might animate the necromancer. From the corner of his eye, he glanced at the ghostly power contained by the circle. He saw it pulse and gather, rippling like a sack of live squid. It hovered horribly, a slight shrieking emanating from its roiling surface.

  Slowly, his eyes crept up, watching only the spectral orb, intrigued by its strangeness. He wanted to touch it, to reach out and hold it. It would be cold and quiet. Silent. A reprieve from all the chaos and confusion that was his life. Still and serene, no more violence, no more blood, no more passion or rage or injustice. Just black. Just death. Nothing to be afraid of.

  Fritz threw off the uncanny thoughts in an instant, scoffing at the absurdity of choosing death. His life was his greatest treasure, the greatest treasure. So long as he had it, he would cherish it. So long as he lived, he would hope.

  While the influence fell away swiftly, it had still distracted him just long enough to lead him into peril.

  The body below him trembled one last time, making a crawling lunge into the ritual, its hand crossing over the bloody lines.

  The pale power sped into the corpse as if sucked down a drain, and the necromancer began to rise, glowing with a pale nimbus.

  Infuriated at his own lapse in vigilance, Fritz snarled, then stabbed. The black blade met no resistance, and the man-alike turned slowly, smoothly, gliding to face him. It had changed, its entire form was now grey, transparent. All colour, all life, had been washed away. Its mad eyes bulged, staring, and it cackled cruelly, reaching out with one terribly cold hand.

  It grinned its false teeth, stolen from corpses, set crookedly and scratched with mad runes. It thought itself triumphant, untouchable. And to many, it likely was.

  Fritz smirked, Activating Gloom Strike. His smirk fell away in a second. He had thought his Ability would let the blade, still held steady within the necromancer's intangible body, cut and catch his foe.

  It was not so. The necromancer gibbered, and Fritz leapt back from a lazily swept hand.

  It followed him slowly, taunting, babbling and coughing as he dodged this way and that. Soon, he had the measure of its speed and agility, and he danced just out of reach of its hands. For minutes he evaded its touch.

  The necromancer began to grow angry, furious that it couldn't lay one ghostly finger on its assassin.

  It screamed madly, sweeping its arms wildly in an attempt to catch Fritz. His smirk was back as he darted and dashed, slipping right under or around the ghostly figure.

  Still, he knew he couldn't dance forever; he would have to find a way to end the stalemate. That was when he noticed the necromancer's shrieks and ravings would increase in pitch and intensity when he was near the monster's discarded staff. It would try to ward him away from it, wailing and waving its arms in wide arcs.

  It seemingly feared that he would take it. Which meant, according to his thief's heart and Scout's intuition, he had to do so.

  Fritz gradually lured the spectre away from the gnarled staff, circling and staying just out of reach, tauntingly. Then, swift and cunning as a squid, he slid past the ghost with a spin and leapt for the length of old wood. He scooped it up gracefully, straightened and turned it to point at the ghost.

  Though he didn't know if the staff truly was a Treasure, as he suspected, he Activated it.

  Fritz expected a bolt or a banishing; what happened instead surprised him.

  The necromancer screamed in agony as a red brand of insane glyphs burned themselves into its chest, visible even through its ragged robes. There was a pulse of power, faint and elusive, then a thread appeared, tying the scarlet sigil to the staff.

  Although Fritz thought the ghost couldn't scream any louder, nor flail any more madly, it proved him wrong. It charged, throwing itself at him with abandon.

  "Stop," Fritz commanded.

  It stopped. Hovering in place, it tore at the air, it raged, and it cried out.

  "Be still and be silent," Fritz ordered.

  The red glyphs gleamed evilly, searing and shackling the ghost's will. It obeyed.

  Elongated hands fell to its sides, and the necromancer floated there, eerily quiet, glaring hatefully. Its eyes burned with malice and madness.

  Fritz met that glare with a smirk.

  "Interesting."