It was all going so well. 

Neil and Calliope had not been a poor team, though whether he found it surprising, he hadn't really thought about it. The scoundrel had always had good eyesight, but he felt a bit more used to the dark ever since his resurrection. He couldn't see into darkness as if it was nothing, but he felt he could adapt to it better. At first he had the horrible thought that he might be a vampire, or one of the undead. That sort of life really didn't suit him. He'd rather be dead or alive than some faux realm in between, perpetually stuck in a single place or form. But after checking he had a heartbeat and could survive the sun, he was pretty certain he was still mortal. Maybe his vision was just him, or maybe it was due to the the Jymen's blood. Either way, it was a nice touch to his skillset. 

Calliope was an entire thieve's toolkit along with an armed guard, all wrapped up in a darkly beautiful package. Sure, pretty much every other man that Neil knew that wasn't some pompous lord who thought they could control her would be off-put by many things about her, and the fact that...well, she tried to kill him twice and pretty much indirectly led to his death. But as excruciating as it had been, he found he liked her. Plus they were two dates in! 

But after evading a few patrols, they wound up bumping into something that couldn't be controlled or even real without magic that was likely outlawed by every major magisterium's ethics committees across the continent. Calliope would know far more than Neil, but from what limited knowledge he had, necromancy was the art of soul manipulation. The minotaur this thing had been in life could not conceive the state of eternal slavery or the bodily invasion of eldritch spirits that caused it to still move and wave its axe around after its death. 

Neil threw himself left as Calliope leaped right, the bone-beast's horns stabbing into the mortar of the wall, sending small bits of rock scattering to the ground. Neil hit the floor in a roll, planting his right hand behind him to halt the tumble. Just as he planted it on the ground, the faux stone gave way. Neil face went from surety to a surprised expression as he went from a sitting position to prone as his hand went from solid ground to empty air. He nearly fell down the hole, and if he didn't have a strong core that kept his body rigid, he would have. 

He scrambled away from the edge of the hole, the carefully carved stone split from the minotaur's next attack, cracking the stone right where Neil had been just a moment ago. Neil dived between its legs, going behind the thing. It didn't have eyes, but somehow it could still only see from where it's skull was pointed. Meanwhile, Calliope whipped a line of black nether energies like a bullwhip emanating from her hand, cracking against the minotaur's femur, causing a hair-line fracture in the bone. Neil looked up at the undead monstrosity from behind, and he began to notice something as the abomination fixed its gaze at Calliope. 

Some...aura. Something that [i]glowed[/i] darkness, if that made sense. A weave of latent energies that wound around the thing, woven into the shape of a circle around the center of the skeleton. The lines of energies flowed through the black magicked runes like estuaries of abyssal power. He could tell it was extremely significant to this guardian of necromantic energies. Damn. 

He had no idea how this could help. 

Calliope controlled the black length of the whip as if she had years of experience, her feet firmly planted and her lips curled into a wicked smile. Unfortunately, the spell wasn't picking the guardian apart fast enough. The thing began to move, but not its legs. Rather, it lifted its huge axe up, and Neil knew it meant to throw. Calliope was more physical than Neil would have first thought, but at the range in this narrow corridor, he didn't know if even he could dodge the blow with certainty. He saw Calliope saw it too, trying to spin away as she sent the black whip at the axe to try and wrench it from the skeletal hands. Neil wasn't finished with her yet, so he hopped to his feet and sent his foot into the leg the sorceress had cracked. 

It was a strong kick, in fact a donkey probably couldn't have done it better. Unfortunately it didn't break the bone and just lengthened the crack. The thing began to pull the axe forward over its shoulder to throw, and Neil did something stupid. He grabbed the minotaur's leg and pulled it off the ground with a great yank, causing it to lean off the stance it had. The axe swung, but when it left its hands, it flew awkwardly to the left of Calliope's position. Neil had other things to worry about, being pulled forward as the minotaur's weight fell forward into the trap-hole. Vainly it grabbed at the opposite end of the expanse, but its skeletal hands found no purchase as it began to plummet. 

Neil began to fall too, but with a strangled yelp and quick reflexes, he pressed his feet down on the skeletal body below him, pushing himself against it and giving him just enough for a second, unimpressive leap to reach the other side. Desperately, he grabbed at the edge like a wet dog trying to get into a boat. Once he grabbed a flaw in the stone in front of him, he managed to haul himself out right at Calliope's waiting feet. 

He breathed a sigh of relief, changed his face from desperate to debonair, and gave her a smile as if he hadn't just been in a manic state of survival. 

"How was that? Hot right?"