Anastacia stared at the bubbles swirling around the surface of what could very well be the very last cup of coffee she was going to drink in Valor. She had already packed everything she needed for the trip and was now just stalling and delaying her departure. Finally, it had actually hit her that she needed to go back to Mournvalley, which was the absolute last thing she ever wanted to do, but there was no way around it. She either had to go there on her own or face Coquelicot and probably get forced to go anyway.

“Are you okay? You seem kind of absent.” Gilbert asked after watching the girl stare at her drink for over five minutes without so much as a word.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking about stuff…” She answered without lifting her gaze from the cup.

“That bad, huh? If you’re that worried, are you sure you don’t want any of us coming along?” Gilbert said and placed his hand on the necromancer’s shoulder. “You just need to ask, and anyone here will come with you.”

Anastacia sighed. “You’ve been there. You of all people should know that it’s no place for regular people. Xamiliere can’t come either, because she’d be thrown into the sky in a second. I wouldn’t even take King, but I need him…” She said and finally took a sip. “It’s just that… What if I fuck up again and have to stay there or something. I’d rather die.”

“You won’t, you’re far too tenacious for that to happen. Just get there, do what Coquelicot asks and come back. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of days if you have King carry you there and back, of if that weirdo has mounts up his sleeve.” Gilbert laughed and tried to cheer her up. “Rosie will have a meal ready for you tomorrow evening and you’ll be back by then to eat it, okay?”

“Either that or I’m a smear on some wall in Mournvalley by then.” She winced. Even though Anastacia knew she could beat Amaranth, she had been brought up to fear the inquisition, and that feeling wasn’t going anywhere. All the fights against them so far had only ended in her favor because she had plenty of help and even then, none of them were easy. Now she was somehow supposed to kill the strongest member with just King. “I should have trained more…” She mumbled into her mug.

“Calm down! I’ll pray for you the entire time, there’s no way Lady Sylvia would let you get hurt.” Emilia joined the conversation. “Here, I promised I’d give you this back. Remember: only use it if you absolutely must. There’s no telling what it’ll do to you this time.” She said and handed Anastacia the third enchanted ring she had kept, the one that had caused her to break down in Crescent.

Anastacia took out the other two rings from her pouch and placed them on the table with the third one. If things came to it, she’d just shove all three on her fingers and hope for the best. Maybe the combined effect wouldn’t backfire on her and she would be able to overcome whatever nightmares Amaranth had readied for her. “Thanks, I’ll be careful.”

Gilbert and Emilia quickly began talking about what they’d do once Anastacia returned, hoping to improve the mood a bit, but the necromancer was too far in her own thoughts to follow the conversation.

Suddenly the inn’s door was slammed open and Valimir pranced in. He quickly located Anastacia and got uncomfortably close to her. “I’ve been told you’re heading back home for a brief visit. My brother is shit at farewells, so I’ve come alone to bring you this!” He declared grandly and placed a small sheathed dagger on the table in front of the necromancer. “He told me not to say this, but that’s dumb and I want to say it anyway. He worked the last three days on this piece, barely sleeping and eating to get it ready before you left. Think of it as a good luck charm from us!”

Anastacia picked up the knife, it had surprising amount of heft to it despite its small size and even though it appeared somewhat crude compared to some of the other works from the same blacksmith, the edge was absolutely perfect and had an unusual purple hue.

“He made it from the last piece of dwarven lake iron he had. Told me it was basically metal that gathered in the bottoms of underground lakes around dwarven mines. Apparently, it’s a mix of all kinds of stuff and more or less priceless.” The half-dwarf explained and as his hand slowly wandered down Anastacia’s side. “You could stab rocks with it for days and it wouldn’t lose its edge.”

“Wow, that’s cool! Take your hand off or I’ll test it on you.” The necromancer threatened and slapped off Valimir’s hand. “But tell your brother I said thanks and that I’ll visit him if I get back.”

The dwelf laughed. “That’s not the best part though, this is!” He said, snapped his fingers and ran them along the blade of the knife. As he did that, red sparks flew off from the spots he touched. “That’s my gift to you. All I ask is that you think of me when you get lonely at night!” He said, continued laughing cheerfully and started looking around for something. “Now, where’s that floating vegetable? A coven of witches broke up a couple of days and there’s a group of buxom enchantresses in town, hoping to make do as adventurers. I may need help with this one.”

Xamiliere hastily crawled along the ceiling from the kitchen, where she had been bothering Yulia despite multiple warnings against it. It was starting to get unsetting how used to her weightlessness she was getting, almost to a point where returning back to normal would have probably slowed her down. She gave a quick thumbs up to Valimir before floating to Anastacia. “Are you absolutely completely totally one hundred percent sure that you don’t want me to come as well?”

Anastacia nodded. “Coquelicot would probably throw you into the sky herself, so it’s better if you don’t.”

“Fine… But if you’re not back in a week, we’re coming to get you.” The spriggan said sternly before pressing Anastacia’s nose with a finger to propel herself through the door and out of the inn after Valimir.

Gilbert took the knife from the necromancer to make sure that the blacksmith’s brother hadn’t cast any unsavory enchantments on it. Nothing about it seemed different, nor did holding it seem to cause any sort of effects on the wielder. “That idiot is a utility mage, so we can rule out offensive enchantments at least, but that also means it can be almost anything else. I once saw a bow that turned pumpkins into cabbages when you hit them with it but did nothing else besides that.” He explained and spun the dagger in his hand to see how well balanced it was – not that the blacksmith had ever made anything other than exceptional weaponry. “Typically, enchantments on weapons wear out in use rather than over time, so I guess you just have to start stabbing things if you want to find out what it does. Hopefully it isn’t anything too stupid because he really undersold the work his brother did for this. It takes over a day of constant heating to make this metal malleable in the slightest and they’ve been known to serve decades without maintenance.”

“Why wouldn’t you just make armor from it then?” Anastacia asked and grabbed back her new blade. “You’d be invincible unless you’re being attacked by a sentient furnace.”

Gilbert laughed. “They have, turns out you’ll just get pinned down and stripped. Shields made of it also tend to be too heavy to use in most cases, so a small blade like that is ideal for the material. Dwarves also like to make tools from it but it’s usually cheaper to make a bunch of steel ones and replace them when they break.”

Anastacia attached the leather sheathe to her belt and made sure the priceless knife would stay in it. She then drank the rest of her coffee in one gulp and took a deep breath. “Okay, I need to go now. If I don’t, I’ll just end up delaying it forever.” She sighed and got up. “So I guess this might be my goodbyes to all of you. It has been fun… mostly.”

“Don’t be like that, you’ll crush that old tart in a blink of an eye.” Rosie said as she came out from the kitchen with Yulia. She placed a wrapped parcel on the counter and picked up the necromancer by the waist. “The food there is shit, so we made you a few things. You’re not allowed to share them with anyone, even if they asked.” She embraced Anastacia with a crushing hug before lowering her back down.

Anastacia shoved the parcel into her backpack and gave that to King, who was already carrying everything else they needed but didn’t seem bothered by the extra weight in the slightest.

“So uhh… We’ll just go now, before this turns awkward…” she said and took a few steps towards the door before turning back around. “Oh and if I don’t get back, Yulia gets everything in my room.” She continued and took a few more steps before turning around again. “And if you guys bet on this, I’ll kick everyone’s asses.” After that she still stopped once again by the door to wave and one more time outside, to wave through one of the windows.

At the gate, the pair stopped once more to look at the city and its inhabitants. Even with everything she had gone through along the way, Anastacia still considered herself to be lucky, as she was the only necromancer that had lived outside Mournvalley for quite some time. She was sure that even the necromancers that considered themselves ‘free’, would feel like prisoners if they spent even a week in the outside world. All of it made returning to Mournvalley for any reason feel even more insane.

Not far past the gates, Anastacia could feel another necromancer’s presence in the distance, no doubt Periwinkle was already waiting for her, and surely, she found the masked necromancer sitting on grass by the road.

Since their last meeting, the inquisitor’s attire had changed quite a bit: one of the lenses of his mask was broken and the plate covering his mouth and nose was bent, his robes were also missing a sleeve. The sleeveless arm was also bandaged and supported by a thick branch that was working as a splint. His movements had also slowed down, and he was obviously in great pain as he slowly stumbled up to greet Anastacia.

“What happened to you?” Anastacia asked and considered pushing Periwinkle over just to cause some extra agony for him.

“What do you mean what happened? HE HAPPENED!” The injured inquisitor yelled and pointed at King.

“Yeah, well. That’s what happens when you start killing people left and right. Consider it as a learning experience.” Anastacia shrugged and kicked periwinkle in the knee to make him fall over. “Let’s get this over with, I don’t want to deal with you fucks any longer than I have to.”

Periwinkle slowly stumbled back up. “Fine then, give me a second and I’ll get us rides. There’s a pair of elks I’ve been tracking in that grove over there.” He coughed and opened a small bag on his belt.

A thin streak of what looked like white smoke rose from it and coiled around the inquisitor before spreading towards the tree line along the ground.

“King can just carry me, so can you maybe not kill both of them?” Anastacia suggested, knowing that it didn’t really make any difference.

“But wouldn’t the other one be lonely then? Surely it’s better for them to go together?” Periwinkle asked while trying to peer between the trees.

“The sun is barely up, I’ve been out for less than ten minutes and somehow everything is already this messed up. I hate you people so much…” Anastacia groaned as she felt the innocent animals suffocate on their own blood. Out of frustration she punched the inquisitor in his broken arm, which did make her feel slightly better. “Okay, just promise me that you’ll have someone cook them when we get to Mournvalley.”

“Please stop hitting and kicking me, it hurts way more than you think. But as you probably know, Mournvalley isn’t exactly teeming with fauna to hunt, so the field kitchens we have will take any meat thrown at them. They’ll be more than happy if we bring some with us.” Periwinkle explained as the bone dust started to gather around him again.

Two large moose staggered out from the forest and walked around for a while. With every step, their posture and movements became more natural and by the time they got over to the necromancer controlling their bodies, most people wouldn’t have been able to tell that there was anything wrong with them.

When a decently skilled necromancer got ahold of a recently deceased corpse, it was very easy to make the movements seem extremely natural, as long as the bone and muscle structure was mostly intact. Of course, they could do as they pleased with the materials, but there would always be a ‘natural’ way for the remains to act that could be converted into relative autonomy with control patterns and skills in reanimating.

Reanimation itself was probably the most well-known area of necromancy outside of Mournvalley’s borders and possibly the main reason for the hatred towards necromancers in almost every corner of the world. While the ones like Anastacia, who simply hurled material towards their enemies, would have been accepted in most communities, the stigma of a generic necromancer who raised the dead to do their bidding was a massive hurdle to overcome, and the differences between regular people and necromancers would more than likely cause some sort of conflict way before there was even a chance for peace form.

Looking at the undead monstrosities Periwinkle had raised, Anastacia couldn’t exactly blame people for being wary of necromancers. Even she thought that there was something deeply unnatural and disturbing about it, and almost threw up when they lowered themselves so that the necromancers would be able to climb on.

Anastacia took out a rolled piece of cloth she was going to use as bedding in case she needed to sleep on the ground and spread it on the elk’s back to hopefully make riding the undead beast slightly more comfortable. She also tied a piece of rope around the animal’s neck to have something to hold on to. With a bit of aid from King, she climbed on and managed to not fall off when the elk stood back up.

“Are we ready to go? We’ll be going as fast as these things can, so hold on for your life.” Periwinkle said and casually hopped on his ride, clearly having ridden undead animals many times before. “We should be there by the evening, even if we have to stop a couple of times.”

“I already hate this, so I think I’ll just close my eyes and think of kittens or something. Just don’t steer me into a ditch or I will kill you.” Anastacia sighed and took her backpack from king.

And so, they departed. It didn’t take long for Anastacia to realize that elks weren’t made to be ridden at all, and riding sidesaddle was pretty much the only way to make the pain manageable. She considered backing out on the deal and just letting King carry her, but the simulacrum was already struggling to keep up and getting the whole mess over with as quickly as possible was the priority number one.

Along the way she recognized a few of the places from her original trip to Valor with Gilbert, even when they thought that they were escaping from whoever Mournvalley sent after them, the trip back then was infinitely more fun than speeding though rough terrain on an undead moose against her will to get to the worst hellhole in all of known lands to kill one of the most dangerous people in the world.

As the sun started to near the horizon again, Anastacia picked up on the all too familiar rotten stench of Mournvalley in the wind.