The dead deserve to rest. The most respectful thing you can do is to make sure they will rest in peace.- Kalinarthra Deathspeaker of the Boodclaw

Adrian

The damn nightmare dream finally breaks, and I bolt to sitting upright. I look at the clock. 10:12 there is no way I should have slept that long, dammit something definitely was wrong with that living nightmare. Or did I finally pass out from the torture treatments at that insane asylum? I hope this is real, I don’t want to wake up to that nightmare of a life.

The corpses are gone, someone must have dragged them outside. My stomach growls, I feel famished, I pick up the burger next to me and see Tomas’s dead body a few feet away. Dam, not even my delusion is pleasant. No, this is real the other thing is fake. Or is it? No, can’t follow that train of thought, bad, dangerous how can I return here if it was real.

I feel tears come to my eyes as I eat the cold burger. At least my friends still care about me, another reason why this is the real reality. The other has to be fake, my friends there are either dead, murdered by me, or stabbed me in the back. I’m not going back there.

I finish my burger with a sigh, I hope that the weird Grey Dream crap worked again. It taught me to heal, so this elven language should be real to. Or is the Grey Dream what those girls were talking about when they said the tainted grow faster? As in the get stronger faster? Should I ask them about it? No, if it is connected to the tainted they try to kill me afterwards. But how can I explain it otherwise?

I look around the store for a while looking for a shovel; there are none. Lets hope someone’s garage has one. I pick up Tomas’s body, he was always short but he seems a bit shorter now. Lighter too, blood loss or did I get stronger? He still isn’t an easy load but I can move quickly enough while holding him.

As I walk out the front door, I notice the trio of women pulling the corpses of humans and elves? out of the remnants of the battle yesterday. Bryan is watching Jason pull every single goblin and orc corpse into a pile.

“Is this a punishment for what he did yesterday?”

“Adrian, you finally up. Yes, I thought he should clean up since he didn’t help defend.”

“I’m looking for a shovel, any idea where one is?”

“The hardware store down the street will have one.”

“Thanks, I’ll be back.”

I walk down the street to the hardware store. Its front windows are broken and most of the shelves are on the floor, I guess something like what happened to us happened here last night. I grab a pointed shovel, too many rocks for a flat head to be useful. Time to honor my friend the only way I can now, a deep hole so nobody will disturb his rest.

Kythia

The elf sisters asked me to help them clean up the dead, I guess I’ll help. I don’t think that Adrian guy is really a lord. While the buildings around here are grand, far greater than anything I have ever seen before they are no castles. Maybe I am wrong and he is, I don’t really care, he smells strong. If the servants are really servants, they are better treated than any servant I have ever seen. I think that his words of my friend just died were literal, the dead guy was his friend not a servant. I’m not going to correct the sisters, I want to follow him.

He clearly will fight for the life of his friends or charges, strong and kind to his allies. That’s all I want from a leader, Talia is like that but she cannot rule. Just like I cannot rule, all of the clans and tribes are ruled by the men. Us women have our own authority but the men are right we get too emotional, gods know I’ve lost myself in both rage and empathy more than once.

I would still like to rule though, but I would get the three of us killed if any one of us died. Talia know she would too. She doesn’t even want to lead, the elves were very strict about the role of women, the humans are more so. Lysan is smart but hesitates too much when it’s time to make a decision.

“I think we were wrong about the drunk, he can’t be a noble if a servant is making him clean all the dead” Talia says interrupting my wandering thoughts.

“Maybe having to do all of the cleanup is a punishment for not waking for the fight?”

“That servant doesn’t seem like it was a willing arrangement” add Lysan.

Adrian walks out carrying the corpse of his dead friend. He speaks a bit with the male servant who is watching the other work. I think the servant gave Adrian directions and he walks toward another of the buildings. I watch him enter the building and come out with a shovel, I think its shape is weird. I’m sure that he is too far for the sisters to see what he is doing. It’s easy to guess though, dispose of the body, if it takes a long time it was burial, if there is smoke a fire, or if it's fast he diched it.

“Want to take bets on what he is doing with his friend?”

The two sisters give me a weird look, dam I wanted an easy favor. We are almost done with gathering our dead, just remove the equipment that can aid the living and burn the remains to keep the dead from rising. The sisters start stripping the armor of the dead women, there were only four and so they finish all of the women quickly.

Lysan ends up stripping the equipment off of one of the men before her sister. She turns red embarrassed as she removes the unbroken armor over his waist. I smirk, should I tease her?

“Don’t get excited by the dead girl.”

She turns a much darker shade of red, and her sister starts to laugh. I grin looking right at her, she sees my grin and realizes I was messing with her. Innocent girl, I hope that Adrian actually will be able to keep us safe, the nobles that were too scared to claim me would ruin her. We finish taking what armor is still usable from the dead, and retrieved their weapons. Now to burn the dead.

“I’ll start the fire, you can start with the green skins. They don’t deserve it but I’ll not let disease from their corpses get us.”

The two sisters nod and go to help that drunk. When they do, the male who was just watching joins in. I stand up near the pile of corpses, chanting the words to invoke fire and spread my fingers the thumbs touching. Fire bursts out of my hands in a short wave, I feel my mana drop a bit; the bodies are now burning they will be little more than ash in a few minutes.

The two male servants stared for a bit at the fire coming out of my hands. I dismiss my spell, I don’t need to hold it any longer. Most of the corpses of the green skins are now stacked up, I turn to see Adrian digging a hole, I guess he really cared for his friend.

We finish stacking the dead in a pile, I light this pile aflame as well. That drunk kept staring at me as I helped stack the tainted dead. I bare my teeth at him, he is weak, he smells of fear. I don’t think he regrets his behavior during the fight either.

The female servant comes out to us with some food and water, I liked the sweet cold bubbly water from last night more. Is there any more of it? I wish I could ask for some. I’m sure Lysan will cast her translation spell again, I’ll ask for it then.

The competent male accepted his rations and began to walk in the direction he gave Adrian earlier. The female follows.

“I think we should show support to our host.” The two sisters nod and we follow behind the two who left. The drunk walked back to that market building, I’m sure the sisters have recognized it for what it is. Adrian told us after all.

Adrian looks up at the five of us but continues to dig, the corpse of his friend in the shade of a nearby building. The female finished eating first, and then walked over to the corpse. I think she is cleaning it up. When the male finished eating he walked over to Adrian and was passed the shovel.

I sit and enjoy the meal in silence with the sisters. This is clearly some form of morning, who was this friend to deserve such treatment after death? The sun slowly moves across the sky, the hole is already deep enough to hold the corpse. The hole is already ten hands wide and four deep, is that not enough?

Both Adrian and the male are sitting, drinking water. I walk over to the shovel and pick it up, before I manage to start Adrian walked over to be and put his hand over where I am gripping the shovel and shakes his head. He takes the shovel from me and begins to dig, even though he just stopped.

I step back and go sit next to the sisters. I mutter, mostly to myself “why can the male help you dig but I cannot? Am I not worthy?”

“A man deserves to be buried by his friends and family. Bryan and me are the only ones he has here; we have to dig the hole.”

I stop stunned. Adrian answered my question. I look at the sisters, they have blank stares. They are surprised. I thought that Adrian did not know the elvish tongue, I usually speak it as the sisters despise the only other language they know. How did he learn it so fast? Nobody taught him, I don’t think that he duplicated Lysan’s spell. I felt no mana, no ripple, how does he now know our tongue?

The male, Bryan I guess is also surprised, and confused? He clearly doesn’t know what Adrian said so it wasn’t a translations spell.

“I thought you didn’t know our language” says Lysan.

Adrian doesn’t respond, I guess they are not to speak in this funeral like service? I sit down and wait, after a short while the male swaps with Adrian. A man deserves to be buried by his friends and family, that doesn’t seem specific. Does everyone here receive such great honors upon death?

We sit the sun now halfway to dusk, the woman left and brought back more of those meat-inside-of-bread. Its tasty but why are we being served the same thing multiple times in a row. Are they trying to get rid of these rations? They surly cannot be traveled with.

The hole is now 10 hands deep when the two stop taking turns digging, the only two sentences spoken were why I am not to dig. I don’t think that the sisters will care anymore if Adrian isn’t a lord. Any man that will go so far to honor his friend deserves to be a lord.

Adrian and the other male carry their friend to the hole and place him in it, the female brings another of the odd shovels and gives it to the other male. The rest of us watch as the two put the dirt over the body of their dead friend. I see some sort of blackness in the dirt falling from Adrian’s shovel, I don’t know what he is doing, but that won’t animate the dead so it must be some ward against it.