In which I kick ass like I was always meant to

I turned around slowly, surveying the room I had never left as if I had never seen it before. The remains of my friends and companions lay strewn around the room. The lich's face showed triumph and glee, insofar as it could show any emotion at all. Its hands crackled with three live spells.

"I shall enjoy watching you beg for mercy, century after tortured century," it sneered, right before he hurled his spells at me. They fizzled and died en route to my flawless body.

"An ignorant trick!" he cried, not fully comprehending what had happened to me. I did not move, curious about the depth of my new strength, and he unleashed two more spells in my direction. I raised my hand and caught them in midair, a ball of raw arcana hovering in the space between us.

"It is no trick, monster," I said calmly. "Your time is up, and it time to pay the demons to whom you sold your soul long ago." I flicked my wrist and changed the ball of arcana, sending it back of the lich. It wrapped around him like a robe, and he started to turn to dust before my eyes. Faint shapes, monstrous beings, could be seen swirling around him, and I knew that whatever he had planed for me was nothing compared to the eternal torments which now awaited him.

Then I reached down, picked up the Heart of Darkness, and crushed it in my hand. I heard every undead spirit in the manor wail in anguish as I released them into the void simultaneously. The manor was cleansed forever.

The bonds holding Sorel had disintegrated with the death of the lich, and she fell to the floor, gasping and sobbing. I was by her side in an instant. When I touched her, I could feel power jump from my fingertips to her body, and she sat up. While she was still exhausted, her injuries had vanished.

"Quinn, you're different," she said. A 'thank you' would have been nice, but she had been through a lot.

"I'm still me," I said. "But I'm so much more. Tama Hama, the goddess who made us into what we are, she joined with me. Her power is in me."

"Tama Hama the Slut?" Sorel asked, using the common name, which now irritated me, for some reason.

"Be careful," I said. "You're talking about the goddess who granted you your immortal body."

"And turned me into a fuck machine," Sorel said. "How could you make a deal with a creature like that?"

Clearly Sorel was not seeing things clearly. "Look, this deal destroyed the evil that infested the manor. It saved us from the lich."

"Not all of us," Sorel said sadly, looking at the remains of our other friends.

I waved my hand, and Ev and Aleandra started to show signs of life. They slowly got to their feet, clearly confused about what had happened. Another wave and the bits of dwarf scattered around the room started to reassemble themselves into our last companion.

"I don't see any dead people," I said. Sorel gave me a look, one that I had never seen before. Part of her was frightened, but there was also adoration in her eyes.