”Screw you, Gil! There’s no way sloths are real! Nothing that inept at life can not at the very least be extinct.” Anastacia argued and hit the tavern’s table with her fist.

“I’m telling you, they are very real. Why are you so persistent about this?” Gilbert asked, struggling to believe that he was actually having an argument about whether or not sloths were real.

The whole thing had started when Gilbert brought down some of his old bestiaries for Anastacia to read. For the most part the necromancer was at least somewhat familiar with the more common ones, but for some reason she had always thought sloths were fictional.

“Then show me one! That’s right, you can’t! Just like demons and platypuses, sloths are just fantasy animals that were made up to teach kids some stupid lesson about not being lazy or whatever.” The necromancer boasted and slammed the book shut.

“First of all, platypuses are also real—” Gilbert started but was stopped by Anastacia, who grabbed a knife from the table and pointed at the inn’s door.

“A necromancer just stepped through the gates… Far too weak to be Coquelicot.” She whispered and started looking for anything that might be dangerous in the hands of a necromancer.

“One of hers then? Is there no way to tell?” Gilbert asked and whistled to signal everyone in the tavern that there might be trouble coming. The twenty or so adventurers grasped their weapons and prepared for whatever was waiting outside. Without the element of surprise, there was no way any necromancer, no matter how powerful, could take a step inside before getting hit with a dozen arrows, King’s sword and possibly a bottle.

“Not really. They haven’t killed anyone within my range, and I doubt anyone that’s here to kill me would bother getting past the guards peacefully.” Anastacia shrugged while she took control of every piece of meat and bone in the tavern, the other necromancer wasn’t strong enough to wrestle the control away from her and would have to use only the material they had on them. “They stopped on the other side of door.”

The few seconds of silence before anything happened felt like an eternity. The only sounds in the usually noisy tavern were from bows being slowly drawn and Rosie’s tail whacking against the wall as she excitedly wagged it, waiting for some action.

“Uhh… Is there like a password or something I need to say so I can enter without being horribly, horribly killed? Coquelicot didn’t brief me about this at all.” The unknown necromancer said, finally breaking the silence. “Is it ‘coconuts’? ‘Beige’? Could I get a hint?”

“He is wearing blue.” Maximillian confirmed after briefly peeking out from a window.

Gilbert whistled again to signal that the danger was over, and the adventurers were quick to return to their conversations.

“Wait a second, is he wearing a…” Anastacia muttered and moved to the door to confront the unwelcome quest. She slammed the door open and pointed the knife at the other necromancer. “Take your robes off, right the fuck now!”

“Wow, are you actually threatening to stab me with a steak knife? You could kill me with a meatball and you chose something that’s not even a weapon. I like the direct approach though, if we could just move to your quarters first… Well I suppose it’s dark enough already.” The unknown necromancer commented and lifted up his hands to show that he was surrendering – not that it really made a necromancer any less dangerous.

His robes had the same blue shade as the robes used by Coquelicot’s new apprentices, but as far as Anastacia could tell, he wasn’t a part of the ten – or nine now, she had briefly met during the bracelet incident. She couldn’t be absolutely sure since his face was hidden by a leather mask with goggles and a metal plate with small holes in it, covering his mouth and nose. His build seemed lean and on the short side even for the relatively stunted population of Mournvalley, and he sounded relatively young. The robes themselves were made from thicker and more rugged material than what necromancers usually used and was covered in dozens of pouches and a harness that had small leather bags dangling from it.

“Just shut the fuck up and take the robes off, or I will rip them off and take your arms with them.” Anastacia demanded again.

“Oh fine! But I just got these and I’m telling boss to send you the bill for the next set.” He laughed and started unstrapping the harness slowly. “I don’t really see the point though, it’s not like I could even do anything with you here… You really have no idea what you’re capable of. Anyway, my name is Joh… I mean Periwinkle. Sorry I’m kind of new to this, I only got promoted like a week ago. I’ll have to keep the mask on by the way, we don’t take them off in front of people.” He happily prattled on while dismantling his uniform.

Once Periwinkle had removed his robes aside from the mask, Anastacia thanked the gods he was wearing something under them and picked up the discarded gear. She ran to the gate with them and asked the guard there to burn the robes or take them away from the city.

“I can’t believe Coquelicot would allow you people to keep operating.” She said and glared at the masked necromancer. “Are you here to take me to Mournvalley?”

“Well yes and no. I’m here to tell you that you have a week before I’m taking you to her. I can also help you train and all that.” Periwinkle explained. “I’m actually a bit of a fan so it’s an honor to meet you in person!”

Anastacia groaned in frustration. “Shut up and follow me, one wrong move and I’ll snap you in half.” She sighed and returned inside.

As Periwinkle followed her, every adventurer inside glanced at him quickly to see what the commotion was about. They all more or less knew Anastacia’s situation and could guess that the masked weirdo was probably from Mournvalley, but they also knew that Anastacia had a handle on the situation and didn’t let it ruin their evening.

“Who is this?” Gilbert asked when Anastacia sat back down.

Before she had the chance to respond, Periwinkle bowed politely and introduced himself. “I am Periwinkle of the new inquisition. I’m here to replace Alice as Anastacia’s handler, since she is now out of the picture. For religious reasons I’m forbidden to show my face and I apologize for that, thank you for your hospitality and understanding.”

Gilbert had to hold back his laughter. “There’s an inquisitor called Periwinkle? How did that happen?”

Periwinkle dragged a chair next to Gilbert and sat down. “Ah yes, it’s the name given to me by Coquelicot. Needless to say, she’s not terribly fond of me.” He laughed.

“Well you seem unusually agreeable and chatty for a necromancer; does she hate you because you’re not overtly evil?” Gilbert joked.

“No, she hates him because he’s a religious nut and probably eviler than she is.” Anastacia pitched in and glared at the inquisitor.

“That’s a crude way to say it, but The would-be Anchor is correct. I’m the last living member of my sect, the others were wiped out by the new inquisition during the night she escaped. Our ways were never accepted by the royals, but our potential was recognized, and we were allowed to keep practicing in the farthest corner of the country.” Periwinkle explained in a weirdly cheery manner considering the subject matter. “As for why I’m still alive, before the new inquisition purged the sects of Mournvalley, they posed a question: Do you speak, or do you listen? If the leaders of the sect say that they speak, it means that they believe it’s time for Mournvalley to make its presence known and they joined the rebellion; but if they say that they listen, it means they will stick to the old ways and bide their time, and then Coquelicot’s new inquisition slaughtered them. Pretty obvious what happened with us, we were a pretty faithful bunch after all. Yours truly was always a bit of an outlier and boy was I ready to speak. Usually Coquelicot isn’t big on making exceptions, but she probably wanted to have one of us around since it was suddenly a possibility. Though she totally sent me here expecting Anastacia to kill me on sight… But she didn’t so it’s all good! And the part about being evil is vastly overblown. Sure, we have history with the red inquisition, but those times are long gone and if anything, we made it easier for everyone. Sometimes the inquisition is just cruel and inefficient.”

“It’s a bit worrying to hear someone call what used to be one of the most dangerous groups of people ‘inefficient’. I’m starting to get why Anna isn’t happy to see you.” Gilbert pointed out and lit his pipe.

“Someone like Coquelicot or Crimson isn’t terribly helpful when you need to kill an entire city.” Anastacia scoffed. “So what they did was take Petunia over here and have him spread bone dust all over the place and rip apart the lungs from anything in the city that was unfortunate enough to breathe. Killing him would be a favor to the world.”

“Periwinkle!” The masked necromancer reminded.

Gilbert rubbed his beard and pondered the situation. “Good call on taking his gear, the mask doesn’t seem dangerous on its own, so might as well let him have it.” He reasoned. “Does this mean you’re taking Anna today?”

“In seven days, I have to make sure she’s ready first. It’s actually really fortunate for me to be sent here, I have wanted to see her for a long time now. I believe she could be the next white one, it’d be such waste to make her The Anchor and just have her sit in a corner forever!” Periwinkle exclaimed happily. “I mean Coquelicot is certainly strong and everything, but red is definitely her color.”

“I’m not going to be anything from your weird-ass necromancer fantasies! Now leave, I have more important matters to solve. This old fart thinks sloths are real.” Anastacia demanded and kicked Periwinkle legs under the table.

“Ow! You’re throwing me out?! I was kind of hoping to sleep here. Where did Alice sleep?” The chatty inquisitor asked and lifted his feet up from the floor.

Gilbert glanced at him and coughed a bit. “Yeah, that’s not happening… Just to be safe.”