Thank God, it’s finished. Finally gelled at the last moments. Up on Patreon later.
On the other side, there was… well, it was once a man. There were still fragments of clothes on its long, splayed-forward arms and torso, and the withered wisps of what must have once been a full beard and head of hair. Its fingers were stretched forward, impossibly long, and I didn’t need magical senses to feel the closed circuit of sorcerous energy that flowed between it and the corruption, sustaining both, and neither.
I did need those magical senses to taste the flavor of the magic involved. I nodded, once. “Mage’s Alliance.”
The figure heard me. It couldn’t move its head, but its eyes swung towards us. It even managed to talk, after a fashion. “Another mage! Quick, help me destroy this filth–”
That’s when I interrupted it. “You’re on the wrong side of the river,” I told it calmly, and slammed the tip of my staff straight through its earhole, and out the other side. That probably would have done the job, but I let loose a little magic through the staff anyway. Better safe than sorry.