Kanan swung her greatsword viciously, the blade singing through the air as it cleaved through an advancing skeleton with ease, sending shattered armor and shards of bone falling to the dirt unceremoniously. She sidestepped the newly created pile of rusted metal and detritus before moving onto the next undead foe, her sword lunging to parry an incoming spear before catching its neck on the backstroke.

A flurry of arrows zoomed past her, all of them missing their target, and the paladin turned to see a trio of skeletons wielding rotted bows as they nocked additional arrows. Letting out a war cry, the paladin charged at the undead as they loosed more volleys at her. Most of their shots went wide, and the few that struck deflected harmlessly off her armor, the skeletons' equipment far too old to be combat effective.

A stab felled the first archer, her sword crunching through its rib cage as the rest of its bones came apart. She closed in on the next, a scything uppercut bisecting the shambling undead. The final skeleton let loose a last arrow at close range, a shot that Kanan only barely avoided as she ducked back, the arrow doing nothing more than cutting short a few hairs from her ponytail. A swift cut saw her foe vanquished, the sinister light dying from its soulless eye sockets.

Kanan assumed a ready stance, eyes darting around in search of additional threats yet finding none. Slowly, she exhaled, lowering her sword and relaxing her muscles. This was the third group of undead she had encountered tonight, and it was certainly not to be the last.

Surveying the remains for anything of use, Kanan felt pity for these mortal shells of the lost and the damned. They were nothing more than wayward wanderers of a world that was no longer theirs, clinging to fragments of Ages past. Perhaps now their souls might know peace.

She continued her journey to the moonlit castle looming in the distance, not for the first time wondering if she should have just stepped off the disused road and camped until morning, allowing herself to be lulled to sleep by the distant echoes of seawater crashing upon shore. Certainly her visibility would be better and she wouldn't be carrying the lingering fatigue brought on by an entire day's march.

But the paladin always pushed herself to excel, always feeling like there was a potential she had yet to live up to despite the assurances of her senior paladins. And when her patron deity bestowed upon her a vision and a quest, Kanan felt driven to move heaven and earth to prove herself worthy of her goddess's attention.

She dismissed these thoughts as the castle gate came into view, and her mind focused itself for combat once more.

Clearing the courtyard was a simple task. Two undead swordsmen and a half dozen archers manning the ramparts were banished by her biting blade, and even the skeletons that had clawed their way out from shallow graves in ambush were dispatched as little more than an annoyance.

As she pushed in the double doors to the castle's looming entrance hall, she was met with a single skeleton with bones of burnished charcoal as it stood opposite her, facing further into the keep. Her brow furrowed. She'd never seen a black-boned skeleton before. As she took her first steps into the moonlit room, a deathly hiss echoed around her, and the black skull rolled back to flash a single menacing eye.

Kanan readied herself, but before she could charge, the skeleton acted.

It whirled with an inhuman roar, gouts of flame alight in each hand as it hurled a ball of fire at the lone paladin.

Purple eyes widened at this unhallowed blend of fire and death, and Kanan quickly dodged aside before rushing in, her movement hassled by the flaming projectiles constantly thrown her way from the undead's bony fingers. Ducking and weaving amidst a veritable torrent of incineration, the paladin managed to gain ground, slowly closing the distance between them as magical fire charred the stonework around her. The charcoal skeleton attempted to backpedal away from her, but Kanan uttered an incantation and mystical binds flashed into existence around her foe's feet.

The skeleton let out a low and otherworldly groan as it tried in vain to extricate itself before quickly realizing the futility. Ceasing its rain of fireballs, the undead thrust its arms forward and began channeling magical power, building its arcane might into a burning sphere between its palms. Kanan closed the meters between them with words uttered on her lips before the skeleton conjured a mighty gout of flame that engulfed the paladin in an unavoidable conflagration, hot enough to singe the very flesh from her bones.

The tide of fire was cut off abruptly when a greatsword swung out of the inferno and severed the skeleton's arms, revealing the mighty paladin whole as she glowed with the power of a divine aura. Though the undead could feel nothing, it appeared to give off an expression of disbelief as Kanan finished it off, scattering black bone across the stonework as a lifeless black skull flew towards the heavens.

Kanan exhaled as she watched the skull sail into the darkness above, the paladin's divine aura fading to leave her as an ordinary human once more, her patron's blessing expired. She briefly pondered the implications of this new foe, trying to work out a proper threat assessment and how it would affect her approach to fighting in the future.

Her idle thoughts ceased to be when a pale hand reached out of the darkness of the entrance hall's upper landing and caught the black skull in mid-air before pulling back, vanishing into the shadows. Violet eyes widened in alarm.

The great wooden doors she'd entered through slammed shut suddenly, and Kanan whirled around with sword raised as sconces along the walls began alighting with enchanted white-fire.

"Well, well, well," came a voice from above. "What have we here?"

Kanan gazed upon the new arrival, looking on uncertainly as the form of a beautiful pale-skinned mistress in crimson clad stalked out of the darkness, a staff of obsidian topped with a pulsating violet crystal held confidently in her grasp, the black skull held aloft in the other. This woman was the source of the undead, Kanan realized. It wasn't any lingering magic from the Turn of the Ages, or misbegotten souls unable to let go of life; it was a necromancer. Kanan suddenly felt very unprepared for the remainder of her quest.

Piercing emerald eyes sized her up. "You're a paladin," she accused. "No doubt here to 'purge this castle of my corrupting taint', as your kind would so eloquently put it." She quieted, almost daring Kanan to confirm her suspicion.

"I am a paladin," confirmed the blunette cautiously, "But I'm not here to purge anything, not specifically. I didn't even know you were here."

The necromancer scoffed, the crystal atop her staff glowing ever so slightly brighter. "Do you expect me to believe that you just happened to wander into a castle full of undead because you were looking for shelter from the rainstorm?"

Kanan frowned. "What rainstorm?" she asked.

The loud crash of thunder echoed around the castle as a flash of lightning lit up the glass skylight, revealing dark roiling clouds overhead as the downpour began, filling the room with the cacophony of precipitation. Kanan couldn't help but gulp and shiver nervously. She was never very fond of the elements, especially when they merged to form the literal incarnation of her goddess's wrath.

"That rainstorm," remarked the necromancer blandly. "Tell me then, just who are you and why are you here, cutting up my sentries and invading my home?"

She took a breath to steady herself. "My name is Kanan Matsuura, paladin of Mera, Goddess of Sea and Storm. I come seeking the Amulet of Sea Striding. Tales of old say it was a treasure kept in the vault of this castle's previous lord."

The ravenette hummed in contemplation. "I see. Then you're here to investigate the Midnight Sea?" she guessed.

"I am," confirmed Kanan. "Do you know something about what plagues the waters?"

"I do not. I sense the presence of something wicked beneath the waves, but beyond that I see nothing. Your divine sense could likely tell you more than I." The necromancer tilted her head in thought. "If I were to acquire this trinket for you, would you leave me in peace?"

"You would be willing to go out of your way to help a stranger on her quest? Even after I've defeated so many of your skeletal minions?"

"I wish to be left in solitude, and violent confrontation between us would not serve that goal. And minions are easily replaced. So? Do we have an accord?"

Kanan smiled. While some would never bargain with a puppeteer of the departed, Kanan was not so uncompromising, and her deity was unconcerned with such practices. She nodded. "I give you my word."

"Very well then. I'll look through the vault and see what I can find." She turned to leave. "In the meantime, I'll have one of my skeletons guide you to the dining hall and prepare you a cold meal."

"And just who do I have to thank for showing me such hospitality?"

Over her shoulder, the necromancer called back. "You may call me Dia."