For once, the trip went according to the plan and the high walls of Valor were almost visible in the horizon when the second day of traveling from Ebonywatch came to its evening. In total, they had spent nine days on the quest, but to Anastacia it had felt far longer than that and she was totally spent. Yet she was in better shape than the rest of the party’s non-simulacrum members. Starting from the bottom: much like her home, Yulia was still in ruins and barely functional beyond walking and eating; Emilia was similarly in shambles, godless and tired beyond description; and Gilbert’s back had started to bother him even more, forcing him to give up most of his remaining gear for King to carry. Over the course of the quest, the simulacrum had proved his usefulness in both combat and utility over and over again, and the party dreaded to think what it would have been like without him.

“How about we don’t do these kind of quests anymore?” The necromancer suggested and took off her shoes. Walking barefoot on the grass by the side of the road was something she tried to do as often as possible, but most of the time tree roots and other plants made it uncomfortable.

“Usually quests aren’t this… eventful. You just get to the location, see if you can do something about the problem and then get back. Like our trip from Mournvalley to Valor. Sure, we had to make sure we weren’t followed but nothing really happened…” Gilbert pointed out wearily, hoping that the troublesome journey hadn’t ruined the profession for Anastacia and Emilia. “I suppose we accepted a pig in a poke with this one, since we had no idea what we’d run into, but I’ve never had this much trouble just on the way there and back. It’s almost like we’re attracting problems... Or someone is guiding us to them.”

“Please don’t go on another tirade about gods… We get it, you’re not a fan.” Emilia interrupted him.

Anastacia had hopped on a rock and was peering towards the direction of the city. “Guys! I think I can see it!” She yelled and ran ahead of the group.

The promise of the warm beds, tasty food and mead of the inn being so near gave the party a burst of new energy and their walking pace quickened, and it didn’t take long for the small dot in the distance to grow into a massive wall spreading as far as the eye can see in both directions.

“We’re supposed to report back to the guild as soon as we arrive to the city, but how about we leave that for tomorrow? I don’t feel like dealing with any of that right now.” Gilbert suggested, knowing that he wouldn’t even get an answer, but he didn’t need one either as it was obvious when he glanced at the priestess that looked like she might fall over at any second.

Anastacia stopped by the gates to wait for the others and to chat with the guard, whom she had seen in the inn a few times but didn’t know by name.

“Returning from a quest? Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen you guys around for a while.” The guard asked when Anastacia sat down on the bench next the guard outpost.

“Yeah, we got a town destroyed and kidnapped the only survivor.” The necromancer answered and pointed at the rest of the party in the distance.

By now it was common knowledge among the guards to take whatever Anastacia said as half-truths, so the guard knew well to reserve judgement until he got the chance to talk with Gilbert. “I see… Did you have fun? You’re pretty new to this, right? So this was probably your first long one.” He asked to keep the conversation going. Guard duty was often boring, so this would probably be the highlight of his evening.

“Kind of, pretty much everything went wrong but no one… none of us died. I feel like can see the appeal in all of this.” Anastacia said and laid down on the bench. “Did we miss anything interesting?”

“Hmm… You know the nature spirit that lives in the same inn as you? Has probably tried to grope you at some point and her name starts with an X… Xa-something? Anyway, she got cursed with some kind of floating curse and Rosie threw her out from the inn this morning. She floated pretty high up and we almost couldn’t get her back. One of the elves tied a line to an arrow and shot her with it so we could pull her back down.” The guard recounted. “Imagine having to do the paperwork on that.”

Anastacia giggled while imaging the incident. “Aww man… Why did I have to miss that? Is she still cursed?”

The guard shrugged and greeted the rest of the party that finally arrived at the gate. “Evening. Is this the one you kidnapped?” He joked and pointed at Yulia. “Look, Gil… I’m not going to tell you what you can and can’t do out there, but this is the second girl you’ve kidnapped now…”

“First of all, I didn’t kidnap Anna and--” Gilbert started explaining.

“You totally did! It’s just that I was okay with it, but if you ask the folks back at Mournvalley…” The necromancer pointed out.

Gilbert sighed loudly. “That’s not how kidnapping works and you know it.” He grunted and grabbed Yulia’s hand. “We ran into some trouble and this lass is the last of her town, so we couldn’t just leave her behind.”

“Figured it was something along those lines.” The guard said, turned to the sheepfolk and took a look at her. “Hmm… You look like you’ve been through some stuff, so I won’t bother you with the formalities today – just make sure Gil takes you to the guild office at some point, if you wish to become a citizen. For now, I welcome you to our humble city! Do not be afraid to turn to us if you have any troubles.” He said cheerily and bowed.

Yulia nodded silently.

“We’re all pretty exhausted, so we’ll just head in if you don’t mind.” Gilbert said and led his party back home.

The cold stone of Valor’s streets felt refreshing under Anastacia’s bare feet and the sounds of people merrily talking inside the shops and inns was something she hadn’t realized she missed while on the road, but from now on, she would. The merchants had just gathered their wares for the day and the square right behind the gate was almost empty. Anastacia pranced to the inn’s door, but just as she was about to open it and proudly declare her return, she was stopped by Gilbert.

“Let her go in first.” He said and pointed at the barely conscious husk of a priestess they had with them. “I have a feeling it might be dangerous for us to enter before her.”

Too tired to comment, Emilia accepted her fate and entered the inn. Seconds later, a loud thump was heard as Rosie tackled her against the wall with window-rattling force. Gilbert counted to ten and deemed it safe for them to enter as well.

Anastacia rushed inside and looked around for something. “Where is Xammy?!” She yelled and fell on her knees from laughing as she saw the disgruntled spriggan floating among the rafters with a lead tied to her waist. Once she regained her composure, the necromancer grabbed the lead and dragged Xamiliere outside with King’s aid. After tying a longer rope to her, she pushed the spriggan and sent her up above the rooftops. Xamiliere had protested the entire time, but neither she or her words held any weight.

Gilbert escorted Yulia into the kitchen, away from the commotion their return had caused. The lamb perked up slightly when she saw all the kitchenware around her; compared to her tavern, Rosie’s kitchen was far better equipped in both quality and capacity.

“Just sit down anywhere, once Rosie is done over there, we’ll find a room for you. If there’s no room, we can just make Anna sleep on the floor, so don’t worry about that – if anything, she deserves it. I feel like Emilia and Rosie will be a bit busy tonight and something’s wrong with Xamiliere, so just bear with the little idiot for now. She can show you the baths and so on.” He explained, went into the storage room and returned with two bottles of mead. “Have some, it’s really good.”

Yulia took a bottle but continued to stare at the stove.

“Rosie will let you try cooking if you just ask.” Gilbert said and took a good, long sip of the mead.

“I can’t…” The sheep uttered and lifted up the melted hand. “I can’t do anything anymore…”

They drank their mead in an awkward silence while waiting for the innkeeper and when she finally returned, Gilbert let out an audible sigh of relief.

After hearing most of the story from Emilia, it took Rosie one glance and less than a second to figure out everything she needed to know about Yulia and how to deal with her. “How nice of you to bring me a snack. She’ll make a perfect roast, just the right amount of fat…” She said and grinned widely.

Just a few days ago, Yulia would have backed into a corner and started kicking, but now Rosie’s comment only got a tired sigh out of her.

“No reaction, huh? Well that doesn’t matter. From tomorrow on, you work for me.” The tigress said without asking for anyone’s opinions on the matter.

“But I can’t cook anymore…” Yulia repeated.

Rosie put her face uncomfortably close to Yulia’s and whispered. “I. Don’t. Care. You’ll do what I tell you to do.” She pinched the lamb’s cheek and left the kitchen but poked her head back in a few seconds later. “I’ll wake you up in the morning, you’ll sleep in Anna’s room.”

“But…” Yulia started again but Rosie had already disappeared.

Gilbert quickly left after the innkeeper and caught her carrying Emilia on her shoulder towards the baths in the staircase. “What was that about?! She just lost everything she had and you’re being like this?” He asked angrily. “When I brought Anna here, you were nothing like this!”

“This is how the tigerfolk deal with weak children. Your little lamb is pathetic and sad to even look at, and if you keep pampering her, she’ll stay like that until something just breaks. Unlike her, Anna was never weak, just a little disoriented.” The tigress explained without stopping to talk. “When I’m done with her, she’ll be a tiger and able to deal with her issues. It might take a couple of weeks or a few years, but if she has even a spec of persistence in her, she’ll pull through… Oh right! Can you go coax Anna to come to the baths as well, you guys reek – and burn your gear, I can smell the dried blood from the other side of the city.”

Gilbert took a look at his armor. He had done his best while cleaning it in the river but apparently it wasn’t enough. While he may have not agreed completely with her methods, Gilbert figured that it was probably a good thing to have Rosie keep Yulia busy. When he went back downstairs, Anastacia had returned inside and ceased tormenting the spriggan.

When the necromancer noticed him, she rushed over. “It’s Vilja! She was here too!” She exclaimed and pointed at the cursed nature spirit.

“We might never meet her again, my arse…” The grizzled adventurer grumbled. “Yulia’s in the kitchen, go take her with you to the baths. I’ll go see what I can do about that massage I promised I’d take.” He instructed Anastacia and went to exchange a few words about the quest with Dammar before leaving.

With their baths done, Anastacia was giving Yulia a short tour of the floor her room was on. “This one is Xamiliere’s, it’s not safe for anyone so don’t go there. Ever. Then there is Gilbert’s room and Emilia’s. Rosie’s room is the first one next to the stairs and mine is right next to it – or ours, I suppose. Rosie said she brought us a second set of beddings, so I’ll just take them, and you can have the bed. It’s pretty comfy!”

“Let me sleep on the floor…” Yulia uttered, trying not to impose on the adventurers more than she already had.

“Who said anything about the floor?” The necromancer asked and opened the door to her room, where king had been told to wait for them. She grabbed the spare blanket that had been placed on the bed, wrapped it around herself and bumped into King. The simulacrum sat down into the corner of the room and Anastacia hopped on his lap. “Floor is for chumps.”

On the small table by the window, there was a package Anastacia didn’t recognize. Neatly wrapped in paper and twine, the parcel was almost as big as the table itself and had a sealed letter on top of it. While the setup was relatively unassuming and could have been any kind of a regular delivery, upon closer inspection the necromancer recognized the seal immediately. There was only one group of people who had a skeletal hand in their seal: Necromancers. Since Coquelicot had a habit of breaking into people’s rooms without a second thought, it was safe to assume that the letter and the package under it was from her. The other side of the conflict in Mournvalley certainly didn’t have a reason to send anything to her either. Anastacia grabbed them and turned to Yulia. “How about we go eat something before sleeping? I’ll check these out downstairs too.”

The lamb nodded and followed Anastacia to the tavern, where they sat with Dammar’s party. Gilbert had already left, and Emilia was lying against the table, waiting for her order. “What’s that?” She asked and pointed at Anastacia’s parcel.

“No idea, it was in my room. Pretty sure it’s from Coquelicot.” The necromancer shrugged and opened the letter. After clearing her throat, she began reading it aloud:

“Dear Anastacia

As you probably guessed, I made it back to Mournvalley without much trouble. Hopefully your quest went smoothly and helped you get your mind off from the whole bracelet incident.

But enough with the pleasantries, I have a resistance to run and I’m sure you have some very important matters to attend to. I have begun to rally my forces and crushed the royal weaklings in some towns near the front. The timeframe for the final push is still somewhat foggy, but it is going to happen soon enough, and that is where you come into play. As it is, I have no one substantial enough to challenge Amaranth in my service, but there is a certain child that got my husband killed over absolutely nothing and thus owes me a massive favor for not strangling her on sight. That child will answer my call when the time comes and do whatever I ask, without so much as a snide comment.

Delivered with this letter, should be a parcel that contains two items. The first one is another tome that I discovered while reading through my late husband’s research. Its contents should be more fitting for you than the inquisitor’s tome I gave you earlier, so study it with care and train as much as you can. The second item is something you can do whatever you want with. As you travel around the world rescuing kittens from trees or whatever you do these days, you are representing all necromancers, whether you like it or not. The idea of you doing so with that poorly made elven drab as your uniform disgusts me, so I have taken it upon myself to arrange a more worthy cloak for you. I know how you feel about our traditional design, so I had it made with more common looking one, thought I did pick the color. If you look at a rainbow, you will find it to be the one that’s the furthest away from inquisition’s red and the most fitting for the one that will end their reign. Hopefully it is to your liking as well.

Sincerely

High Necromancer Coquelicot”

Anastacia skimmed trough the letter again and folded it away. “Sometimes I have trouble telling whether she likes me or hates me…”