Rather than answer any of her questions, the Uman woman interrupted Irihi with some indecipherable turn of phrase. It took the sorceress a moment to comprehend. That Emelia was telling her that she could not hear Irihi's words.
Was she deaf? Maybe it was a better idea to eat this Umans soul, after all. It was not as if Umans were completely worthless sources of necromantic energy, just weak and disgusting. Like slaying the scum on a pond or a flock of carrion birds. Irihi gestured to draw out the woman's life force.
The leylines felt different. Not just different but finer, more distinct. She could sense a subtlety to them that she had never known before. Yet, when she tugged at them, drawing at the soul of the woman before which she stood, they barely thrummed. Only the ethereal metaphysical presence of the living being responded to her touch. Emelia's vitality was firmly anchored to her living body. While she drew breath, Irihi could not make use of it. Her Necromancy was effectively neutralized.
Again, she summoned the Ghoul Eye, and turned its gaze inward.
Irihi gasped. She was shattered; her blackened soul was aught but a shell, and now she remembered why. She had bound it to the Fiend, and then cast it into the Maelstrom, dragging the Monban back into the Chaotic Plane.
This made no sense. She, herself should then still be tethered to the Greater Fiend. Yet that leash was burned to ashes. She could sense the traces of it trailing from her metaphysical presence, but they were as torn cobwebs, trailing into the ether. They went nowhere. Her connection to the Unending Maelstrom was gone. How had that happened?
Again, the runic tatoo upon her forehead writhed, and the question receeded from her consciousness.
She had no magic. She had no allies. She did not even have a voice. " Καλά με γλείφει. " She said, arms akimbo.
" You are worse than useless. " She said to the Uman. " Would you be so kind as to kill yourself so that I might gather up your soul, dear heart?" She asked, partially as a test to ensure she was completely mute, and partially because that WAS how this ape-woman could make herself more useful to Irihi.
Presumably getting a negative or no response at all, Irihi turned back toward the cave's entrance. As she did so, a shaft of late afternoon illuminated her. Almost immediately, she faded mostly from view.
" Oh, you're Καλάing kidding me! " As the sunlight drove her into the spiritual plane, the world changed. The walls, sky, ground all faded into darkness. Afternoon birdsong gave way to a deep and pervasive moaning, as if from a mournful gale blowing across high mountain graves. Streamers of black smoke skirled from rock and tree like obscene prayer flags flapping in an unfelt wind.
Irihi knew this place. She oft looked into this plane through the Ghoul Eye. She was in the land of the dead. Literally one foot in the grave. Through the dark landscape now surrounding her, luminous figures meandered; spirits of the departed, ghosts, remnants, malevolent spirits. There were always a great many more of them about than anyone would care to know.
Out of this dirgeful landscape came one point of light with greater purposful stride than the others. It headed straight for Irihi. Before the sorceress could react, it stretched out a luminous tendril toward her hand.
Irihi popped back to full physical presence in the physical world right before Emelia's eyes. And now she was hand-in-hand with a small being goblinesque in both stature and features.
" YICK!" Irihi jerked her hand away with a silent shriek.
The goblinoid had tears running down his craggy cheeks and snot dribbling from his elongated nose. " Oh! Oh! M'ilady, m'lady! At last I hath found thee!" He cried, fully audible to mortal and spirit alike.