I hit a rock. A spark flew out from the gardening trowel I was using. I grabbed the rock and tossed it aside and returned to digging.

The hole grew. Wet dirt stained my knees and seeped into my dress as I tore into the soggy ground.

My fingers began to hurt. I dug deeper.

The sun burned down onto my back. The hole was a few feet deep now. Not very even, not as deep as some. But enough.

I lowered the package down, wrapped in the cloth of a banner I had found in the guard tower.

I stared for a moment. The words were hard to find until a small smile broke out. “Rarr,” I said.

Dirt fell onto the grave, filling it. Then I patted it down.

The gravestone came next. A plaque made from a piece of a door, the stick holding it up once a spear that had saved my life.

Bonesy

An unnamed bard.

A skeleton

A friend

I wiped my cheeks dry and got up.

***

The armour I had been so excited about slipped on easily enough. There were knots to tie, and the material pinched in a few places. But as soon as it was all on the material shifted and moved. I felt the faint stir of magic around my body, then nothing.

It fit like a glove.

That was good. I would need it.

***

There were still only five ghosts. I had a long piece of cord by my side, the end heavy where I had tied my showerhead glyph. I held onto the small ‘magic wand’ in my other hand. I had a suspicion I wanted to prove.

The grass rustled and shifted as I walked closer to the church, to the graveyard. “Hey!” I called out.

Five heads slowly turned my way, then their faces shifted into disgusting, disfigured expressions as if I had just walked over to them covered in rot and filth.

“Hello,” I said. My voice was hoarse, a little raw. I blinked a few times, then coughed to clear my throat. “Hello. My name is Broccoli Bunch,” I said even as the first ghosts started to fly towards me, arms and claws outstretched.

“W-would you be my friends?”

The first ghost to reach me grabbed my face, claws digging into the back of my head and cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Cleaning magic shot into the ghost.

The ghost burst apart.

I swung my makeshift flail around in a tight circle, sweeping through the arms of the next ghost to approach again and again, but it was still coming at me.

The magic wand flew through its head and past the body of the ghost behind him. One fell, the other paused as the hole in its torso mended.

I stepped to the side and shoved my hand into the chest of the next ghost. Another pulse of cleaning magic. Two were left. I was down to the last third of my mana.

My spinning flail spun through the already injured ghost as I moved onto the last and most intact of the group. A touch, a burst of mana. It burst apart like a sack of flour with a firecracker inside it.

Then the flail did its job and the final ghost, already torn apart, whooshed onto the ground in a pool of dust. It left behind a thin, ghostly cloth.

My knees hit the ground and I buried my face in my hands. My tears stung when they slid into the open cuts across my cheek.

But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay and just wallow in my own sadness. I had a quest, a mission to do, and being sad, being down like that, even if, even if I had just killed my only friend. I swallowed, throat thick.

Ding! Congratulations, you have wiped out (5) enemies (‘Sentinel Ghost of Threewells by Darkwood’ Level 1! x5)!

Ding! For repeating a Special Action a sufficient number of times you have unlocked the skill: Makeshift Weapon Proficiency!

“Neat,” I said to no one, because there was no one to hear.

I got up. I wiped my eyes again. I used the last of my mana to clean my face, wiping away the drying blood and allowing a fresh rivulet to slip down my cheek. One more cut and I would have an even number of scars across my cheeks. I snorted, which turned into a giggle, which I stopped before I started crying again.

The shops. The church. Then the evil spirit. Enough time to regain all of my mana and maybe eat some more honey and drink more lukewarm water.

I picked up the ghostly cloth and brought it with me to the edge of the road where my haversack was waiting and tossed it in along with my magic wand. The showerhead I kept. Had to grind those Makeshift Weapon Proficiency levels after all. A gift, of sorts, from Bonesy.

The first stop was a general store, the shelves emptied, some of them tossed to the ground. There were jars here and there, and some lengths of rope that looked decent. I took one and looped it under one arm and over the opposite shoulder. It seemed sturdy enough, and good rope was never a bad thing.

I found a backpack in the back of the store. It was dusty, of course, and a little brittle, but the material seemed nice and tough and hadn’t rotten away. I transferred the stuff from my haversack into it, leaving behind some of the less handy things and wrapping others in the cloth I had. I didn’t want to make too much noise as I moved, which meant quieting down the rattle of the stuff I carried.

My inventory, if I could call it that without sounding too geeky, consisted of:

A now-empty haversack

Two pieces of ghostly cloth

A key from the house with training dummies

Four jars of honey

One jar of vinegar

Two bottles of wine

A bottle of water from my showerhead

One pretty painting boat and dragon

Some silverware in a cloth

One silver candleholder with a dozen fresh candles

A small firestarter

Some bits and pieces of cloth.

A length of rope

My map

Not much of a hoard, but enough, I hoped, to get by. I wondered where and when I had misplaced my rusty short sword. Not that it mattered much.

The next stop was the blacksmith’s shop. There was a bell that clunked above the door, just loud enough and close enough to my head that I jumped three feet in the air at the noise. “Oh gosh,” I said as my heart pounded away. I shook my head, made sure I was still alone in the shop, then started looking around.

This had to be the workspace of whoever lived in that one home I had found with the broken anvil. It was a busy place, with tools laying all over and strange devices left to rust. From the number of hooks on the wall and the tools around, it was clear that the blacksmith had taken his or her share of them with them. The anvil was gone, but there was a big log where it might have sat. The huge forge at the back had remained, probably easier to move the rest of the building than that one piece.

I didn’t clean anything as I moved to a small section that seemed to be made for displaying wares and suchlike to the customers. There was a safe with a key resting in its lock.

“Huh,” I said as I easily opened the door and found... ingots of metal and a few knives in leather sheaths. One man’s treasure, I guessed. None of the stuff within the safe was rusted, probably owing to the glyphs carved into the sides of the box.

I pulled out one knife and sheath and inspected it visually, then ran a thumb perpendicular to the blade. It sang a little. Sharp.

“Insight.”

A sharp steel woodsman’s knife, old.

I shrugged, tossed one knife into my backpack and looped the other to the belt holding up my leather skirt.

The rest of the shop didn’t reveal much of any worth to me.

The third store, the one nearest the gates of the village, had a strange sign above it. A staff with a ball above it and something going around it. Magic, obviously, but what sort was beyond me.

The door opened to a few quick kicks and revealed a sort of clinic, of all things. A pair of beds at the back, both with dirtied sheets on them stained with what might have been blood once. There was a counter with glass jars to one side, and beyond that a small room with mortar and pestles and alembics.

“An alchemist’s shop,” I realized. “And a medical clinic.” It made sense that they would be together. I picked up a bottle and shook it a little. “Insight.”

An expired healing potion, old.

“Shucks.” Not one of them was usable, much to my dismay. I left them behind and explored some more, but most of the good stuff had left with the people living here or had been looted long ago. The second floor of the building had a small bedroom for two and an office space with a strange cabinet on the wall. There were some more tools within, and a single book. All perfectly untouched.

I recognized the glyphs from the safe on the inside of the cabinet. It was locked.

Safe from time the contents might have been, but not from a smack from a rock. The glass burst apart, showering the floor in tinkling pieces that I shied away from. “Sorry,” I said to the no doubt long-dead owners as I moved to the cabinet. The book was fresh. Not quite new. In fact, it was worn and well loved.

Herbs for Healing, Plants for Power, read the title.

“Huh, neat,” I said. “Insight.”

A herbology book.

I leafed through the pages, taking note of the carefully hand-drawn images of plants on nearly every page and the obviously machine-printed text next to them with descriptions and warnings and uses. There were notes as well, in a cursive hand that was hard to read but still comprehensible if I squinted.

I wrapped it in a bit of old bedsheets I cut off in the bedroom, then placed it in the bottom of my pack.

That was it. There were some homes left to explore, and the church, but that was it for this corner of the town. It was also it for me, at least for that day. The sun hadn’t begun to set yet, but I was tired, weary to the bone.

I had one last thing I wanted to look into, then I would be off.

The town was as silent as ever as I crossed it. The only difference now that my head was held high and I welcomed any ghost that would come at me. None did. I reached the hole in the wall where I had first come out into Threewells and shuffled into it. My eyes lingered over where Bonesy had once been, but I moved on.

In the office was the chest I couldn’t open. In my hand, the key I had found in the house with the training dummies and spare swords. It was just a hunch, but... The key slotted in, and I spun it around. The lock clicked and the top of the chest popped open with a whump of pressurized air escaping.

I opened the chest to find two binders filled with papers and a leather bandolier, all of its pockets empty.

Well, it was there for the taking. I slipped off my leather jacket, then put on the bandolier so that it would be opposite the coil of rope I had, then I hiked the jacket back on and replaced the rope. There. Now I looked like... well, the gambeson made me look like a marshmallow. A marshmallow with a skirt and a leather jacket.

I smiled faintly at the image I must have presented. Far from the competent explorer I hoped to be. Still, it was good enough for now.

I picked through the binders absently. The pages within were mostly intact, but all of them seemed like dull reports.

I took them anyway. I needed something to keep me company until morning.