Author's Note: My story, much like Pikdude's, will center on a witch who happens to have a morbid interest in minions, both undead and otherwise. I do plan on taking my tale down a bit of a different path though (pun intended).

Chapter 1 – A Rude Awakening

I awoke to a sensation that caused me to begin coughing violently, expelling liquid from the very back of my throat in a manner not at all unlike vomiting… only, I wasn't vomiting. I couldn't be. I hadn't done such a thing since I was a small child and besides, this had a visceral, salty taste to it.

I opened my eyes, feeling cold and wet as water splashed against me, steadily making its way up my body. I couldn't find the energy to react. When the water flooded over my head and filled my throat and lungs with more liquid I violently coughed again, exorcising the salty swill. I sprang up to a standing form without even thinking, examining the terrain while small, involuntary coughs continued to escape me. It was dark and I was completely soaked from head to toe, wearing nothing more than the rags I had managed to find in my former swampland home. Where was I?

A quick survey of the land to my right and all I could see ahead of me was endless beach decorated with patches of jagged, jutting rocks and makeshift base camps. Some still had burning fires in them, even. I was not alone here, I could not be, and yet there were no signs of life anywhere to be seen. Flashes of lightning, while nearly blinding, illuminated enough of the rock wall that adjoined the beach to show it was not something I should attempt climbing. In my weakened state, something so tall would only serve as a precarious perch to fall from when my muscles finally gave out.

A wheezing from my left caused me to jerk my attention in that direction and immediately try to conjure up some form of alchemy, but I couldn't… memories of why slowly leaking back into my brain. I gradually approached the being that had made the sound, cautiously keeping my distance. It was a man, or at least it looked to be a man. The end of a paddle oar was protruding from his stomach, its splintered end tearing at a mortal wound that was gushing blood with each breath he gasped in.

He looked up at me and I could already see the life fading from his eyes.

"We're all that made it? They dumped two dozen of us exiles off that ship. Guess that makes us the lucky ones. Luckier than this poor bastard beside me, at any rate." He gestured over to the corpse of a man next to him, laughing a little as he did and immediately wincing in pain. I stood quiet, fixated on the injury that would soon be the death of him and he took notice of my stare. "Splinter sticking out of me? Missed all the important bits… I saw smoke at those ruins up the beach. Go get some help, and I might just-"

The dead body beside him suddenly jolted and sat upright. Its glazed eyes scanned the beach for a moment before falling on the man speaking to me. Without hesitation, the thing lunged at my surviving castaway, digging fingers into the flesh around his collarbone and sinking its teeth into the man's scalp. I heard a 'crunch' noise, one that could only be attributed to bone crumbling under the pressure of something, and the man released a single scream before it and he died altogether.

As the thing continued to munch away on its ample food supply, I quietly took a step back, and another, and another. The last turned out to be one too many as the back of my heel caught on one of the protruding pieces of pointed rock and I fell backwards. I collided with the wet sand beneath me and the loud 'splat' sound it produced tore the creature's attention from the feast in front of it to my sprawled, moving form. It shoved the man aside and began to descend upon me. If there is one thing I can commend the undead for, it is their instinctual obligation to not only seek out food, but stockpile it for their insatiably appetite. I frantically pulled myself back, reaching for whatever I could grasp to defend myself. There was a piece of driftwood next to me and I held it fiercely in my soaked palm, not at all realizing how invaluable what I had just picked up really was. It was the leaves, the few shimmering, purple and blue colored leaves that held delicately to the piece of wood, which cued me in to what I had. Those leaves were a dead giveaway to what was undoubtedly a branch of an Ignis Fatuus tree. They were sacred to those of us who happened to dabble in black magic and accursed to those who followed the Order. Entire forests of the tree were burned in Oriath at the instruction of one former High Templar or another. I didn't know how it got here on this beach and I didn't care, all I knew was that I had to take action before my brains were spilling out of a hole in my head.

I raised the cluster of twigs to the approaching abomination and willed my physical strength to manifest itself and project forth. To my utter surprise and delight, my arm kicked back violently as a transparent wisp of energy shot forth and struck the corpse in the neck, severing its head from its body as if I had just sliced through the rotted area with a sword. Blood instantly began spewing from the creature's open wound, spouting upward and outward like one of the beautiful fountains I so adored as a child. After releasing a gracious amount of its ichor, the thing tumbled to the ground in a heap, the decapitated cranium rolling into the waves and being pulled back into the sea.

In the span of about a minute, I awoke on a strange land, watched a man die and dismantled a rogue undead that was about to eat me. By all accounts, it was going to be a glorious day.

A smile spread across my face as I concluded that the Sovereign Priest who had sealed away my abilities to summon dark magic had either failed to properly lock in the hex or my spirit was stronger than his conviction and it was breaking through his pitiful barricade. I may not be able to attempt the feats I once could, but the way I disposed of my would-be attack was no trick, it was my powers coming back to me.