Nightwalker's Curse

This spell is a part of the Fang spell chain and can be found in the Fang rune stone.

There are those who seek the power of the nightwalker willingly. They have heard the stories of the power of the vampire. Stories that talk about their  impossible speed. Tales of a strength that does not tire. Tellings of a hunger that sharpens every sense into something almost beautiful. They romanticize what they do not understand. The necromancer does not romanticize it. They have sat with Pain long enough to know that every gift it offers comes wrapped in something that will not let go when the gift is spent. And yet here they are, reaching for it anyway, for the situation demands a power that the necromancer along does not possess.

When the necromancer casts Nightwalker's Curse they are not casting it on an enemy. They are casting it on themselves. It is an act of deliberate surrender to Pain, an invitation for it to remake them into something faster and more dangerous than they were ever meant to be. Pain answers immediately and without hesitation, as it always does when the necromancer offers themselves willingly. For the duration the necromancer becomes something that walks in their shape but is no longer quite them. Their Power doubles. Their Offensive and Bow Power double. Their Speed doubles and every Speed trait gains +2. Each physical strike they land drains 10% of the struck target's Vitality directly back into their own, feeding a hunger that is entirely real and entirely Pain's design.

Pain's cost for this transformation is the necromancer's magic. Their connection to their runic soul is severed for the duration, rendered hostage by Pain as the transformed necromancer feeds. The necromancer accepts this. They knew the terms before they cast the spell. To become something they were not is to surrender something that defines them. When the transformation ends they return to themselves. Mostly. There is something that remains. It is a memory, a faint craving at the edge of awareness. The necromancer remembers ever so faintly of how the blood felt and they feel a pull that was not there before the first casting. Whether the necromancer acts upon it is their own burden to carry. There are stories of this spell becoming something permanent, but the necromancer dares not share these stories casually for they know that Pain is always listening.