Gedresial lagged behind while Iraiah forged ahead. Tight spaces separated Rusk from both of them for a moment, and a pinch of anxiety made him turn around to make sure Gedresial was still following. He was, just very slowly. It seemed the further they went from the dungeon the slower he became. Rusk backtracked over debris and white stone that severed his connection to the Elva whenever he laid bare skin over it, and eventually realized what was keeping Gedresial from keeping pace. The necromancer’s spell, whatever it had done, ate at his chest more and more, turning his veins purple the closer they got to the exit.

Or the further from the necromancer himself, Rusk gathered.

“We’re gonna have to leave him,” said Iraiah who had doubled back when she realized Rusk wasn’t keeping up with her. “He’s a goner anyway.”

“Are you really friends with Mandy?” snapped Rusk. “She’d never leave someone behind. Never.”

Iraiah scrunched up her face. “How long has it been since you’ve seen her?”

That didn’t make Rusk feel any better. He reached for Gedresial and yanked the poor guy through the crevice he’d become stuck inside.

Gedresial grunted and then swallowed his scream.

“She’s right,” said Gedresial. He clamped a hand over his chest and looked at Rusk and Rusk saw his eyes were turning purple too. His skin looked sickly green. “That ‘mancer, he did something. This is as far as I go. I can feel it. It’s in my bones. My bones.”

Rusk clamped a hand on his shoulder. “But not your soul. Remember that.”

“Is this the part where you say something like ‘fear not, we’ll come back for you’ or something?”

“You are not helping.”

“Yes I am. I’ve helped more than either of you. You’re dead weight as far as I’m concerned.”

“Then why are you helping?” Rusk pulled her closer by the collar of her cowl and demanded with fire in his eyes. “Why, if we’re just dead weight?”

“Because Mandy asked me to.” Iraiah didn’t flinch. She didn’t even twitch. She was telling the truth, but she didn’t like it.

Rusk let her go with more of a shove than a release. It felt good in the moment, but he immediately regretted what he’d done once she straightened out her cowl.

She spun around and kept picking through the debris, forming a path with her knife whenever she had to.

“We will come back for you,” said Rusk. He took Gedresial’s hand to reassure him, and then he followed after Iraiah feeling like he’d failed as a human and a Hero.

The path opened up and they popped out in the castle’s garden. Rusk wiped his forehead with the back of his arm and squinted through the dust that still hadn’t settled. Iraiah waved him after her as she sprinted through the courtyard. Apparently she’d done this before because she picked the perfect pathway where they wouldn’t be seen even with debris and broken castle everywhere.

Now outside the confines of that strange inhibiting stone, Rusk pulled the Elva Bow from the Elva along with some Elva Arrows easily. Their weight felt comforting in his hands as he knocked one just to be safe. But from the looks of it there wasn’t anyone around. Strange. He figured the castle would be more crowded. Then again maybe people ran off when the building started crumbling down on them. Still, that didn’t much excuse the guards whose job it was to take care of these things. He raced after Iraiah, who was way faster than she looked, and hoped her loyalties weren’t in question.

At the edge of the garden, which was long and winded Rusk who hadn’t had any food by the end of the run, there was a stone wall made of the same stuff as the dungeon. Rusk stowed away the Elva Bow and scaled it. Iraiah scolded him to go faster even as she helped him scramble over the top. He landed hard on the ground outside, winding himself by landing mostly on his chest, and then she was dragging him up to his feet and saying go, go, go, and then there were guards.

They had on his knees the guard who had been in charge of Rusk’s cell, and Rusk saw them slit his throat. They hadn’t noticed Iraiah and Rusk apparently, but Rusk hesitated in that moment to watch because he simply couldn’t not, and then the guard who had smuggled him bread rolls was on the ground pale and dead still bleeding from the gash in his jugular.

And then with a glow of purple from deep within him, he rose back up to his feet, returned his helmet to his head, and walked off as if he hadn’t just been murdered.

“Come on,” hissed Iraiah. “Let’s go!”

Rusk stumbled over himself following. They broke into a wooded area and then after that the rest of the capital, full of market squares left abandoned in the dark and districts Rusk couldn’t keep track of. They also passed a residential area and only slowed down once they reached what could’ve only been the slums or outskirts with the way everything was dilapidated. Then Iraiah bent over to catch her breath. And only then. She stayed there for a while but not nearly as long as Rusk expected, and then rose up again.

“So you’re the infamous childhood friend huh.”

“I’m infamous?”

“Well. You’re the only one Mandy used to talk about from her home village. In the forest territory, right? Good, you’ll like her new place then. Deep in the woods. She’s got a cottage outside the city’s walls.”

“There’s more walls?” They’d already climbed over four, and Rusk didn’t feel like climbing over another.

“Yup, to separate all the nobles from the lowly monsters. Didn’t you know? This area is full of them. Or wait, have you not been outside your home territory until now?”

“Oh,” said Rusk. “I’ve been everywhere.”

Even so, the thought of another climb followed by more monsters didn’t do much for his constitution. But if anything he held onto the hope that he could really see Mandy again by the end of it. So onward they walked. At a reasonable pace this time.