Said knowledge is all too happy to offer up a way to magically inflict torment on another being. It'll take a couple tries, but eventually the zombie will stop moving. The woman nods in approval.

"Basic abilities are as easy as breathing. More advanced magic will take practice and stamina, and will deplete your reservoir of energy."

The next gate opens, and three new zombies begin to claw their way out of the ground.

"Lay these dead to rest. Silence the call."

This does not look very much like learning. But fine, if the dream lady wants her to slay dream zombies, she'll slay fucking dream zombies.

She can sense their - not their hearts, per se, the physical organ is shriveled and defunct, a lump of dead flesh like the rest - but perhaps the equivalent of it, in whatever is animating the zombies. Some central nexus that is just as vital to their existence. The blood magic eagerly offers her a way to hook her will into claws and yank on that nexus, hard.

This option suits her mood. Yoink.

One of the zombies falls down and doesn't get up. The other two go from wandering aimlessly to paying attention. Not the good kind of attention.

She very impolitely interrupts them with some more of that first magical attack.

It's apparently not as distracting as the heart-pulling thing. One stumbles, then recovers its footing. Both of them groan and advance on her. They go much faster than zombies in the movies.

Oh, how about another yoink then.

That'll do it. The air goes dark and heavy, smelling of honey and salt. Two voices speak simultaneously, one the sourceless male voice from the first dream and/or hallucination, the other the voice of the woman in white.

"Be mindful of the voices. They will whisper in your sleep," the woman warns.

"Listen to the voices that whisper in your sleep," the man urges.

The air abruptly goes back to normal. The air pressure doesn't change, but it feels like it should have.

"You are both voices whispering in my sleep," Naomi points out.

No response. The gate to the next section of the cemetery creaks open. The woman in white is waiting next to another lamppost, under a tree.

Naomi proceeds toward her.

"You must learn focus and control," the woman tells her. "Each weapon you use provides a focus for your abilities. As you give of yourself to heal your own body and others', a magical echo will accrue in your blood. As you do harm to others, the opposite of this echo will take hold. These echoes can be exploited to bolster your abilities, but they can easily turn inwards and begin to devour you."

A pale gangly thing appears, tied by its wrists to a thick branch of the tree. Its limbs and fingers are too long to be human, and its skin is unhealthily pale and gaunt. Black metal circles its joints and head, but whether the metal is an adornment or actually part of its flesh is unclear. Its head is hung limply and its feet do not touch the ground.

"The Rakshasa have also come to heed the song. Have pity, but spare them no mercy. They were once like you."

"Is there some purpose to murdering the helpless abomination? I'm really not seeing what I'm supposed to learn from this."

The woman frowns a little. "They are a blight on your world, and wretched out of their own. But you must learn to balance the opposing forces of your magic within yourself, and I would have you do it here and now, and not when inexperience may kill you. I can only intervene once, and only in dreams."

Okay, fine, balance. What does she have in the way of healing abilities?

She can block incoming damage, which isn't exactly healing, but it's sort of the same general shape. This is the sigil for it and this is what it will cost her to cast it.

She does the thing, and pays attention - does she get any kind of sense of where her balance stands, or is she going to have to track it by guesswork?

She feels a little lighter, maybe slightly giddy. There's also a golden haze at the top of her vision, but that turns out to be from the thing that blocks damage, which has manifested as a sort of golden umbrella over her head.

Hmm. Okay. And if she does the thing a bunch more times?

Well, she's not injured, so it doesn't heal her, but she can feel the parts of the spell that are supposed to straighten bone and knit flesh going past her all the same. As it is, she feels a bit refreshed, as though she's just had a drink of cold water. If she pauses between casts, she'll notice the effect only lasts maybe five or ten seconds, tops.

After the fourth round, it starts getting harder to draw that sigil in the air, like she's been sprinting and needs to take a breath.

...hmmm.

Pause, wait, try again after a short rest?

It's just as easy as it was the first time.

Huh, okay.

She experiments with harming the helpless abomination next, to see what the feeling is like.