"Ereshk," the mage stated quietly as the man named Greyson Onyx tossed him back his grimoire. "My name is Ereshk, and I will not let you die here this day." Ereshk started wiping off the blood on his book with his sleeve. He swallowed as hard as he could, desperately trying to force the bile back down. 
[i]This is it. This is what being a mercenary is about.[/i] The dark mage cracked open his massive spellbook, quickly flicking through the pages to the one he had bookmarked. [i]This is the life you chose. Get used to it.[/i] Ereshk began chanting in the odd language of elder magic. He stretched his mind out into the void. Feeling its infinite darkness, he channeled that power through himself as he approached the doorway to the house. An eerie calm fell over the mage as he continued to chant. There was no rage within Ereshk this time, no emotion for the darkness to devour. He was simply a living conduit of the infinite void; cold, emotionless, and eternally hungry. 

Five bandits were in the street out front. The man named Greyson Onyx stood between the bandits and Ereshk, trying to intimidate the enemy. It did not appear to be working very well. Ereshk stood behind the man named Greyson Onyx, using him as a shield of living meat. The dark mage peeked his head out around the side of the man and found his first target. The infinite void coursing through his soul was unleashed. Like a burst dam, a sudden surge of shadow rushed out from Ereshk's body. Tendrils of darkness zipped along the ground, passing harmlessly under the man named Greyson Onyx, before lunging up like savage wolves at the bandit closest to the house. Armour. Muscle. Flesh. Bone. None of it meant anything to the tendrils of flux. What did these primitive mountain apes know of the Void? Nothing. They had no resistance to the power surging from within Ereshk. Their only defense was their sheer bulk. The mage canted his head curiously as he continued to chant softly in a foreign tongue. His target was not dead. The man, though grievously wounded, still clung to life. His delicious crimson blood oozed out of numerous gashes all over his body, and yet somehow, the man still stood. 

That had to be rectified. The Void hungered. It demanded that Ereshk feed it, and the dark mage was compelled to comply.