[h3][color=thistle]Io[/color] at the Isolated House[/h3]

Io cocked her head at the description of the mark. A sign of collaboration? Such information would be useful for the locals, both to protect themselves as well as find those who had sold out Shizuyama. But before she could get more details, reinforcements arrived. They were faster than Io thought they'd be.

Io noted the change in her resurrected zombies - Io wasn't sure if she was the cause of that or something else. She would have to peruse her memories, as it had been a decent amount of time since she used that specific flavor of spell, and she had an awful lot of memory built up over her wanderings. Either way, she didn't mind the change. The form was much more appealing than their original one, so if anything it was an improvement in her mind. 

Still, the ones she raised wouldn't stand up against that number of enemies. She would have to support them. She grabbed her grimoire, the pages flipping wildly on their own to a specific page. Despite being written in ancient runes, it was a spell that many mages knew well: a bolt of lightning. It wasn't her forte of necromantic spells, but it was too useful to ignore. "[color=thistle][b]That many will not be an issue. Please stay inside.[/b][/color]"

Stepping outside, Io faced the incoming Varjans. Holding her hand forward, a magical circle quickly formed, and with a crack of thunder the lightning arced towards the frontmost Varjan brigand, jumping to the next one, and the next, striking several at once. For a brief moment, the entire field was lit up with the lightning.

Io picked the spell for a few reasons - Obviously it would arc between metal equipment, but the crack of thunder might also scare away their hounds unless they were particularly well trained. And of course, the possibility of stunning them rather than killing them meant Io could round them up... Which had plenty of applications. Stopping their charge with a flashy attack would also give her resurrected minions a chance to ambush the Varjans as well.