Eilidh stared up at the decrepit cabin, a pensive frown taking the place of her normally upbeat expression. Everything about this situation was wrong, and to be totally honest Eilidh didn't even want to be here. The letter she had received was from one of her childhood friends, a girl named Caitla, back in her home village, and she desperately hoped that the letter was faked. It was bad enough that her village had been torn apart by the machinations of one selfish stranger, but a curse? Unfortunately the handwriting had certainly been Caitla's, and her village had been close enough to the Forbidden Forest, which she had since found out was part of the Cursed Lands the the rest of Fiore avoided with a passion, that it would make sense for Caitla to have run here, especially if she didn't believe that anyone or anything would follow.
The Cursed Lands, that was another problem all together. Eilidh was no stranger to forests housing things far beyond human comprehension, the forest directly surrounding her village having held a thriving population of the fae, but whatever existed in these woods, and existed was definitely the best term because whatever force in these woods was certainly not alive, made her skin crawl. Whatever it was it was hostile, mindless, and so utterly wrong that every ounce of her being screamed at her to get away before she was infected by it's perversion of nature. Unfortunately she couldn't leave, she needed to know what had happened, she needed confirmation either that the letter was real and she had a horrible task ahead of her, or that someone had tried to lure her out, in which case she would make them regret it.
Eilidh's gaze hardened with grim determination as she stepped towards the door to the cabin, prepared to do whatever she had to to either save her friend or take revenge for being manipulated, when she heard something that made her stop. It sounded like very quiet scraping, though she was having difficulty identifying it's source, it wasn't coming from inside the cabin, or from anywhere around her...
Eilidh jumped back just as a rotted hand burst from the ground beneath her, flailing wildly about as it failed to grab on to her leg. Before she had even landed Eildh reacted, extending one hand and launching a courscating ball of light and darkness at the hand, "Chaos blast!"
The ball of energy impacted the hand just as the rest of the corpse began to drag itself out of the ground, and when the resulting explosion cleared all the was left of the ghoul was a bit of spine sticking up from the ground where it hadn't managed to completely drag itself out of the ground.
Eilidh's attention was drawn from the result of her attack by the crumbling of earth as four more ghouls pulled themselves out of their shallow graves, their listless moans echoing through the woods and sending needles down Eilidh's spine. Without bothering to think about the situation Eilidh acted on instinct and cast a spell to protect herself even as she dashed towards the closest undead, "Scales of the Nebula!" As she blurred through the air Eilidh's form was covered by scintillating scales made from the night sky itself washing down her form to cover her whole body, enveloping her hand just as it made contact with the face of her target.
The rotten flesh and bone crumpled under Eilidh's blow, offering next to no resistance as her fist continued through it's face and out the other side of it's head. Momentarily taken aback Eilidh blinked in shock as the now headless ghoul toppled to the ground, motionless. Her shock didn't last long however, and as she heard one of the other ghouls coming up behind her and whirled, catching the monster in the torso with a roundhouse kick. She felt the sickening crunch of weakened ribs as the ghoul was flung away from her, but unlike it's compatriot it began to get back up as she turned towards another of the abominations as it lunched towards her. Eilidh stepped past the lunge, bringing one arm up under it's outstretched arms to push against it's chest as she placed one foot behind it's ankle, causing it to topple to the ground. Eilidh stomped on the ghoul's head as she backstepped out of the way of a lunge from the fourth ghoul before reaching out and grabbing it's arm, yanking it off balance and pulling it to her before pushing it back towards the zombie she had kicked down as it finished standing back up, causing them both to tumble back to the ground as she took a deep breath, a ball of light and darkness forming in front of her mouth, "Nebula Dragon's Bellow!" A thin beam of light shot out from her maw and pierced the two zombies, burning away at their flesh as they both went rigid, then fell limp.
Eilidh stood there panting, her normal feeling of battle euphoria absent in the face of the horror of what she'd been fighting. Beasts like that were a perversion of life itself, and just being in their presence had filled her with rage at the injustice of their existence. Eilidh started to take deep breaths to attempt to calm herself down when she heard the door of the cabin creak open, causing her to whirl around to face whatever was coming out to face her now. What she saw caused her blood to run cold in horror, followed immediately by the roaring heat of inarticulate rage.
The thing that had stepped through the door had undeniably been Caitla at one point, but now was nothing more than a shambling, mindless, hideous abomination. Only a few patches of her golden blond hair remained, now matted with blood and dirt. Her jaw was missing, her swollen tongue hanging obscenely in the air. The rest of her body had fared no better than her head, limbs bending at horrible angles, a simple homespun dress hanging from her emaciated frame in tatters as gaping wounds across her body wept a sickly black ichor, but her eyes? Her eyes were unchanged, still the same brilliant blue as Eilidh remembered, but instead of laughter they were now filled with the abject terror she had felt in her last moments.
With a howl of loss and fury Eilidh launched herself at the figure staggering towards her, knocking it to the ground as she used her bare hands to tear at the monster before her, ignoring it's few strikes it managed to land through her flailing blows as they simply glanced off of her enchanted scales. Finally the zombie managed to push her off, causing Eilidh to roll down the slight hill that the cabin was resting on. Eilidh sprung back up as soon as she could get her feet under her, looking for the target of her rage, and when she caught sight of it, she stopped.
All of her rage drained out of her as she saw the pathetic form of her lost friend pathetically dragging itself towards her, it's legs no longer moving as it mindlessly attempted to get at it's her. Tears began to stream down Eidlih's face as the thing got closer, and when it finally reached her and weakly tried to claw at her still scaled leg she chocked out a sob, dropping to her knees and pulling the last remains of Caitla into a shaky hug, being careful to restrain it's arms so it couldn't scratch at her, one hand holding the head back for similar reasons.
"I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry Caitla. This never should have happened. I don't know what he did, but I promise I'll make this right."
Eilidh stayed there for several more minutes, her body wracked with sobs until she finally took in a deep breath and let out a single, shaky word, "Starfall."
Even after the blinding pillar of stellar light burned away Caitla's remains and Eilidh's scales fell away she wept.
