Ame takes aim at the ghouls. Five missiles left. Five dead ghouls. Then it's sword time.

The part of her mind that is taking in the scene rather than the immediate combat flashes through a series of connections.

It's not too late for Lily. Lily is actively trying to hold the tentacles' attention. Tentacles reaching the blood-ball is bad.

Ame doesn't get any further than that before she's too busy slaughtering ghouls before they can slaughter her to think of anything else. She moves like a razorblade in a tornado, weaving and twisting between claw swipes and slashes, her own sword snapping out to sever limbs and heads, an almost continuous dervish of deadly momentum.

-Fuck fuck fuck she can't cast around the fucking B rank amounts of dhar and she has basically no non-casting combat ability - she pushes undirected energy out against the thick miasma, clearing a bit of it away - fuck where's her dagger- She swings with her wyldfire staff with Staff Fighting level 3, what a pathetic attack-

BANG. The necromancer drops to the ground. Click-clack goes the lever action. BANG, tearing the jaw off a charging ghoul. Click-clack, BANG, a round into the chest of another that doesn't quite kill it-

She fires off seven shots, then grabs a shotgun and fires two more, then grabs her first revolver and fires six more times, then her harpoon and -

- huh, all the ghouls are dead. Necromancer is sitting up and doing something probably-magic, though. She pulls the next revolver and aims it at him. Glances over at Ame.

Ame is staring at Lily and the tentacles.

With the ghouls dead, it's instantly obvious what her comparative advantage is in this situation.

"I don't think we like what happens if the tentacles reach the meatball," Ame says, panting, her skirt hitting the ground, followed quickly by her panties, which she throws herself into a freestanding summersault to remove without getting them stuck on her boots. "Can you two handle robe dude if I go help Lily?"

"Counterspell," she says for the benefit of the other two as she lances out a careful probe of rowdy aqshy, burning the cord the necromancer was weaving. "I don't know what this does but it might explode if we kill him. Bys, let's go threaten him into explaining-"

That sounds like a yes to Ame.

She sheathes her sword and bursts into motion, force surging through her (taking something more subtle than mana from her) as she goes from zero to arrow-in-flight in under a second. She leaps, twisting her body as she sails over the ritual space and through the gaps in the formation of dhar that she knows better than to touch.

Ame crashes into the tentacles that were escaping Lily and about to reach their destination, latching on hard to bleed off her momentum using the tentacles' own efforts and hit the ground in an unmarked spot hard enough to make her leg scream but not hard enough to break anything or collapse any of the ritual structures. It's a close thing, though, and Ame feels a thrill of fear at how close she was to fucking up that landing.

"Lily! Rose sent me! What do we need to do?!"

She spits out the current tentacle occupying her mouth with a wet noise, not pausing her other ministrations. Her eyes are wide as she gasps for breath.

"Ohgods maybe I'm not about to die! Um! Blood and darkness, um, get them to pre to feel the ghost, then make them cum! Do NOT let 'em cum inside!"

Ame is about to ask what happens if they do cum inside, but, corrupted eldritch ghost-jizz shooting damned souls into her body, it probably doesn't matter what exact flavor of bad that is, she can fill in the blank well enough.

But why would it matter if they can feel the ghost-

"'Her'," Ame quotes in sudden realization. "What is he looking for? What does he want you to find?"

(She grabs a pair of tentacles, wrestles them to her crotch, and gasp-moans as they plunge into her holes, before grabbing the remaining free tentacles in her hands. As she saw before, the tentacles aren't that eager. They seem to feel pleasure, but if she doesn't actively pleasure them they'll stop being distracted by her holes and start seeking the meatslurryball again.)

"I don't knoooow his dead girlfriend or something this thing is horrible and gross," (her Skills are almost operating on autopilot, here, she can spare five seconds to a freakout), "Make it stop make it stop make him stop it-"

(The tentacle in her ass starts to throb; with a twist of her hips she lets it slip out and replaces it with one of the others. She catches it with her leg, bending to twist it around her ankle and then pin it down, the tip pointing away from them as it spasms and spurts. This time the apparition that forms before being horribly torn apart looks vaguely avian. Once spent the tentacle slackens and retracts into the portal.)

"Hey, hey!" Ame calls to keep Lily's attention. "We're trying. Hold it together, alright? We can handle this."

(The tentacle in her pussy starts to throb; this time she holds on until the last moment, feels the first spasm of ejaculation right as she yanks the tentacle out. The drops of ghostly seed that make it inside her flood into her soul. It hits her with a crawling wrongness that almost makes her falter, her body, her self, feeling alien for a long, disorienting moment. It passes quickly, but she knows before she sees that the next apparition will be reptilian and small.)

"C'mon," Ame says, her voice only shaking a little. "What else? What else did he say?"

Meanwhile-

"Wait, stop! It's almost complete! I can still get them back, it never too late! I just need to prove this works, I can't give up get OFF ME-"

Abyssia sticks the barrel to his cheek. "Explain. What's this for, what happens if it finishes, raise an army of undead to conquer the province?"

"What? No! It brings people back! This is the dawn of a new era, if this works I can bring people back from the dead, for real, whole, and what happened to me will never happen again! How is that not the most important thing anyone has ever attempted you should be helping me-"

"You're trying to resurrect someone?" Elizabeth demands incredulously. "How is all this a resurrection, you're so full of dhar there's got to be hardly anything left and you're sacrificing a girl you kidnapped off the street!"

"It's not a sacrifice! She's a catalyst. I know dark magic's reputation but it was my only lead. And I found ancient secrets, a Demon Lord's writings. Rituals. Dark magic turned to good ends! There's no way of bringing people back from the dead- Without dark magic. I'm practically a hero for doing this research, with how it fucks with your head!"

Abyssia looks uncertain, then glares.

"You've gone too far. You're going insane. Can you stop it? Dispel, cancel, whatever."

"I'm not insane. I know the risks and chose to take them. Even if I die I won't regret the attempt! Besides, it's in motion! Pushing that much energy could kill me, and then there's nobody to get them back!"

"But can you do it? You can, right?"

"I- Maybe. But I won't! It's so close, everything's ready and bound up, your party member didn't even break the circle when she jumped in, so close. In just another minute they'll find Viera and then I can refine this, bring more people back-"

"-It's some kind of resurrection," Lily explains to Ame, "He was raving about it. For 'Viera'. To let her through, only her or it'll make a boss - I think. But he's insane and it's never going to work and we're all gonna die-"

A thrill of excitement fills Ame's chest, even as she holds Lily's gaze, trying to convey strength through comradery. It all clicks, falling together into a clear picture; it makes sense now. Souls on one side. Meat on the other. A massive ritual to unite one with the other.

If it wasn't for what Ame'd already heard about the perils of dhar it might actually seem sound, in theory.

No.

That isn't even the problem.

They're sorting through souls looking for a specific person. But they haven't been sorting through human souls. In fact, every soul they tasted and then spilled into the air to be destroyed has been some form of lesser animal... and maybe not even an individual animal, but more like the concept of that animal?

Wherever these tentacles are pulling souls from, it isn't an afterlife. It isn't somewhere with people-souls. But that makes sense. If it was that easy to reach somewhere with people-souls, then resurrections would already be a thing.

Ame's insides twist with turmoil. If there's any chance that they might actually find Viera's soul---but no. It's a glorious effort but it was doomed from the start. All Ame can do is hang on and try to keep Lily sane until they're saved. Revitalizing Lily should help with that... and while she's at it, can Axiom affect the tentacles?

Lily perks up at the healing. More for the help with exhaustion than anything else. She grimaces and shuts her eyes tight, tensing all over, then nods back at Ame.

The Axiom of Physicality has a tenuous hold, at best, on the eldritch tentacles. It's like they're not really there, composed mostly of some energy that isn't a Wind of Magic or the dark magic of dhar- With just enough substance to feel and not quite enough to be physical in the right way.

Seconds pass. More and more tentacles emerge from the portals at the seventh point of the circle, with the oily dhar seeming to gather up into a fever pitch.

Abyssia and Elizabeth were arguing with each other in hushed voices - maybe Ame can heal dhar poisoning, maybe they should kill him after all, maybe it makes sense to try this even if it turned incredibly fucked up - with one wary eye on the unfortunate unnamed necromancer-

-Until he looks around in panic. "No, no, no- She hasn't found her yet? It's draining too much power... I don't have enough!"

He does - something - to the Winds of Magic, trying to forcefully pull in more dark magic to fuel the ongoing ritual. It doesn't seem to help. "Help me reinforce it, or the resurrection will fail!"

"No. I won't touch dhar. I'm sorry," Elizabeth manages to say, despite her disgust for the whole thing. "I understand thinking magic will save you... But it won't. Dark magic poisons the mind. You're poisoned. Rotting. It's over."

"You won't help? Fuck you. Murderers! I was trying something worthy, and you're putting it out of reach forever! Everything is ruined for nothing if this doesn't succeed!"

He reaches for Elizabeth, springing up with a punch, but Abyssia bodily shoves him and pins him to the ground. She's not sure what to make of all this either; She mostly feels a pit of dread and disquiet in her stomach.

"More dark magic isn't the answer," Bys says, the only thing that is clear to her, here.

"Dark magic is the only answer! The only thing that gave me any hope!"

The necromancer glares up at her, fists clenched, as the energy fueling the ritual thins out, the thick knots tying it all together twanging and twisting as they thin and fray. New tentacles stop coming through, and the ones that still exist fade into nothingness, the ritual circle threatens to come apart at the seams as the ball of viscera falls to the ground in a foul heap-

-But exits with a whimper, only disintegrating once the vast majority of the energy is long gone. The remainder is barely noticeable against the thick background of foul energy staining the ruined, half-burnt village.

The necromancer starts crying, kneeling on the ground in his heavy black robes.

Ame catches Lily as the other girl collapses into her arms. Ame does her best to comfort her while the ritual finishes dissipating, then gets them up and heads over to where Bys and Liz are standing over the necromancer.

(She detours slightly to pick up her skirt and panties, but she just stuffs them into her pack, leaving herself bottomless.)

Seeing the young man in the dark robe crying on the ground fits what Ame has figured out is happening here.

"I'm sorry," Ame says, somewhat more sincerely than Elizabeth did.

Gentle, but also blunt: "You were never going to find Viera. Whatever you were calling up, it wasn't the souls of the dead. Lily explained what you wanted her to do. She tried. I tried too, once I understood, but there was nothing... I'm sorry, but your friend was just not there to find, and probably never was."

The figure curls in on himself.

"...Theodore Ambrosius Martelli. 'Hope until the very end'."

Uh, "What?"

"My epitaph. I hope you'll at least bury me after you dispose of me. I'm in no place to ask for favors, I suppose, but I'd ask for that rather than something stupid like 'don't torture me'."

Oh.

Ame kneels down next to him and brushes his hood back, running her hand through his hair. She slowly and carefully pushes her Axiom at his head, in case that helps with whatever all the dhar is doing to him. But she's also just petting him, because, well, she gets it. She's not one to shy away from extreme methods herself, if it's important enough.

"I can't speak for Letersoot, but we're not going to execute you," Ame says, glancing to Bys and Liz (and Lily) to gauge how they feel about this decision.

They seem to be following her lead and standing back, though Elizabeth is scowling. (Lily is searching for her clothes, carefully avoiding all the bodies.)

"You probably should. I'm a necromancer. I tried to kill you. Who knows what I'll do next," he says, completely tonelessly.

"Presumably, you know what you'll do next," Ame says, even though it's not necessarily true.

She pushes a little harder on his brain with her Axiom.

"Why don't you tell us how it came to this in the first place?"

"There was some sort of accident. Or a curse, or something. I was trapped inside our house for days, there was smoke. When I came out everyone was dead or gone. No sign of - anyone escaping. Or of what did it. I tried - I'm, I have some magic-related Skills. I tried things on the bodies. Tried to heal them. Of course it didn't work. Then I tried necromancy. I found - these old books, in the ruins, about necromancy and rituals, and if it can animate the dead, surely- They can come back- So I wanted to practice until I had enough levels to try it. I didn't care about dhar. I thought I'd watch myself and stop if I was going insane. When I noticed myself going insane, I didn't want to stop anymore. So I didn't. Would've been worth it, if it worked."

Why haven't they killed him yet? Is this some sort of interrogation? He doesn't really have the energy to care.

"What are you doing to me?" Maybe she'll actually answer, too. She's acting sort of unstrategically. 

That's a story. And she doesn't think he's lying.

"I'm a healer. A weird and powerful healer," Ame explains. "Is it helping? Do some of that noticing. How do you feel?"

"It doesn't hurt right now. Existing, I mean. I... Gods forgive me. The puppets killed people. I killed people because they were in the way. That's - the opposite of the point-"