Absolom surveyed the carnage with a satisfied nod, a pillar of calm amidst the tumult of battle. He was in his element, directing orderlies with minute gestures while netting fallen souls in his rapidly perspiring mask. The bodies of the wounded were lain out haphazardly wherever they could fit around the Skeleton, converged around the closest thing to a medic the Legion had, aside from Scripo. And Scripo's specialty was making sure that the soldier lived long enough to get treatment. Only Absolom, with his mastery of Necromancy, could get them fighting again in short order. His solutions were only temporary of course; he was only able to 'resurrect' the wounded flesh for a short period of time if he limited himself to fragments of each soul he used for power. And considering the levels of casualties they were sustaining, combined with the defensive spells he was having to spit out periodically, the battlecaster NEEDED to be conservative with his expenditures.<br/><br/>Though he stood still, magic coursed painfully through the Skeleton. He was fed by a surging river of a thousand streams from the battlefield, a fraction of which he cast back over his troops in a shimmering lattice of defensive wards and distorting illusions. The nature of the souls he consumed limited what he could provide in the way of support; the plaid souls of the Deep Ones were diluted enough that they served best as minor necromantic enhancements to strength and speed, while the disturbingly plentiful advanced souls of the Legionaries -made all the more pliable for his trade by their enlistment oaths- were enough for the more reality-bending illusions.<br/><br/>The rest of his power reached out like cephalopodic tendrils to the wounded around him. Some of the spells dulled pain, others 'resurrected' the failed flesh of his soldiers. Some, unfortunately, were spells of execution that snuffed out patients too far gone for his ministrations to provide for. He handled these the souls of these mercy-kills with an uncharacteristic modicum of respect, saving their power to imbue patients hanging on the brink with enough life to weather the battle or a soldier on the front line enough strength to punch through the scaled carapace assaulting him.<br/><br/>Big Problem with being a spellcaster. Nine times out of ten the individual is a scholar who didn't spend enough time maintaining the physical in addition to the mental. And probably expends more focus on his spells than the battlefield. Ordinarily, Absolom would have done a better job of the latter. He wouldn't have survived in the army otherwise, and the training for White Veil Style<span style="font-style: italic">demanded</span>it. But maintaining so many spells, enduring the wailing of<span style="font-style: italic">so many</span>deceased -both living and dead- was taxing him beyond belief. Not even the small cadre of support spellcasters the Legion had been outfitted with did much to alleviate the strain. Even mages have outcasts after all.<br/>So it was almost understandable when something large, scaly, and reeking of fish bowled him over.<br/><br/>Almost.