On the right side, a cliff, on the other, an empty desert filled with hostiles. The men before her were mostly silent and she wanted to pee.

“Can’t fucking believe that I’m pretty much back to Afghanistan.”

“Squee?”

“Except for you of course my darling.”

They were on foot this time, with the carts left behind. The terrain was simply too rough. She had at least thirty kilograms of gear in her large backpack and she was still the lightest person around. Marruk was the worst off. She had to carry Solfis on top of everything else.

“Why are you carrying that heavy stuff anyway?” one of the guards asked her.

“I’m practicing so I can lift your mom.”

It appeared that spending too much time in the barracks was having a deleterious influence on the straightforward Kark, Viv thought.

The trek was a bit monotonous, with the only thing of note being how hard it was. Viv was at the top of her form physically. Her body was reinforced by magic. She just huffed and sweated behind the column of soldiers who moved as if they were doing a nice afternoon hike. The only interruption came later as afternoon was advancing.

//Buried undead detected.

Viv froze in her tracks as the entire guard turned around, some with their hands on their weapons.

“It… speaks?”

Viv looked at the yellow eyes and realized the ploy. Solfis had chosen to reveal that it could indeed communicate, which most golems could do on a basic level anyway, but it kept the exact extent of his capacity hidden.

“Location?” she demanded as if used to the weird robotic exchange.

//Direction: fifty paces ahead.

//Nature: worm or necrarch.

//Estimated danger: very high.

“So that’s why you kept that thing around!” the previous guard said, “Very useful that, you could just have told us.”

“It’s a very valuable thing to have,” Lorn retorted, “you cannot blame her for being careful. Although, to be fair, I think that we have determined beyond the shadow of a doubt that we were on the same side. I believe that you could trust us with that much, Lady Bob.”

Viv shrugged.

“Sorry, keeping it secret is more of a habit at this stage.”

Lorn glared at her in a way that said that he didn’t believe it, but would let it go for the sake of group harmony.

“Can you guide us around the hidden danger, golem?” Lorn asked with importance.

Silence fell as they waited for an answer and Viv realized quickly, but not quite quickly enough, that Solfis was snubbing him.

“Oh, I forgot to mention, the golem is bound to me. We will require directions, Solfis”

//Of course, Your Grace.

There was just a hint of smugness here that the guards should not have picked up. Farren had clearly been ill at ease during the whole exchange. He knew what Solfis truly was.

It did not take long for the golem to guide them in a wide circle around whatever hid beneath the sands. Viv kept stealing glances at Lorn as the two were at the head of the formation.

“Is something the matter?”

“No, just, I always expect religious orders to try and kill every monster they come across. I know it’s not based on anything real. I was influenced by the stories I heard in my youth.”

The leader of the temple guard snorted once and passed a hand over his greying beard.

“And if we were close to a village, I would have led the charge myself to prevent that horror from snatching kids. We are not, though. We stand on the edge of Param’s ulcerous bunghole. I could kill one of the big fuckers every day and die of old age before the place was cleared.”

“Yeah. You showed your valor several times already, I’m just glad that there is a brain behind all that brawn. I must say, my place of birth has a poor history with groups claiming to be righteous and behaving like total twats. You guys are a relief.”

Lorn smiled ruefully. Viv expected it to be the end of it, but the large warrior actually laughed.

“Ah, if only the rest of Param shared your opinion! It comforts me to know that we humble servants of the temple managed to convince an outsider.”

“A righteous fight is easy to pick when the enemies are monsters, less so when rebellions and wars are involved. Is it righteous to back a rebellion when people suffer? Even if thousands will die? What happens if the rebellion goes too far, should the temple then switch sides?” Farren commented bitterly from behind.

“I am familiar with grey morality, thank you. What I find curious is: what does Neriad think about it?”

“He gives us the freedom to choose,” Farren says.

“What do you mean?”

“So long as you believe that you fight for justice, he will support you within reason. You will often find his followers on either side of a conflict, for is it not righteous to fight for your people?” Lorn answers.

“And those who act in anger…”

“If the follower commits atrocities or loses faith in his cause, the power of the golden god will be denied to him until he finds absolution,” Lorn continues coldly.

“Implying that Neriad does not have a clear idea himself of what is right and wrong?”

“Sacrilege!” Lorn bellowed. Viv jumped in alarm but the powerful man merely grinned. The guards behind them snickered.

“Just kidding. His will is clear. Neriad wants us to unite against monsters and the dark gods’ servants. And stop being cunts. He won’t force us, though. Too much trouble. It’s up to us to decide what we stand for.”

Discussions started among the ranks after that, though Viv soon grew too tired to participate. She almost sighed in relief when they found a cave higher up the path in the late afternoon. The issue was that it was quite obviously not a natural formation. The group gathered a little further down on a slope that gave a good view of the entrance. Shields and weapons were drawn as a precaution.

“So, think it might be one of those horrible digging insects?” one of the guards asked.

“Could be a gut spiller,” Viv suggested. The others turned to her.

“How do you reckon?” Koro asked.

The witch pointed at the entrance, which was round, large, and lacked the sharp claw marks she would expect from something insectile or worse, a nascent necrarch. The stone had a porous, pitted quality that she had seen in the aftermath of monster vomit. Not even post-bender puke could match its vile acidity.

“This was dug with bile, not claws. I think.”

“Yeah, you are right,” Lorn admitted.

“Witch Bob is good hunter and fighter,” Koro the Amazon said, “Find husband soon!”

The large woman leaned forward to whisper in Viv’s ears.

“But not Courtesan Yan, please.”

“He’s all yours. Now, I can usually make short work of gut spillers but I need a clean line of sight. You think you can lure it out, somehow?”

“We can certainly try. Alright folks, drop your backpacks. Half circle at good range. Those with no shield stand a bit back and mind the puke.”

“Yeah yeah it’s not our first kill,” a bald older guard grumbled.

The group split up and positioned themselves with the efficiency of a well-practiced quad. Viv stared with fascination, eager to see what skill the experienced warrior would use to drag the beast out. Lorn carefully walked up with his shield raised and leaned forward at the entrance. He soon banged it with his sword.

“Wakey-wakey you cocksucker! Come on out now, don’t make me drag your sorry ass outside!”

Something roared in answer and Lorn trotted back as the ground rumbled with the footsteps of a giant. Viv was… a little bit disappointed.

A gut’s spiller giant head, with the twin horns that gave Solfis his eerie appearance, emerged first. It crawled out, first showing arms like tree trunks, then a large belly.

“Bob?” Lorn asked with calm.

The creature finished rawling out and revealed legs as large as an elephant’s.

“Bob?” Lorn asked more urgently.

The creature stood up to its full size, which was close to four meters high.

“Bob!”

“YOINK!”

Her overcharged spell would have struggled to flood the creature’s conduits only two months ago. Now though, it was like filling a gutter with typhoon water. The creature turned to ash and collapsed on itself.

“I had to wait until it was out or we would have been shovelling ash out of the entrance until night fall,” the witch calmly explained.

The guards were clearly a bit upset but it didn’t last. One of them pulled the more or less intact skull from the pile of ash and bone it was embedded into.

“Wow. Nice size that. Should we keep it as a trophy?”

“Sure thing, Erlas, as long as you carry it.”

The skull was left where it was, a mute witness to the violence that had occured.

The group explored the cave and found it empty. It offered a decent shelter for the night. After a stew, Viv crawled under her covers, played a bit with Arthur and promptly fell asleep.