“What is a memory if not a ghost?”

― GennaRose Nethercott, Thistlefoot

It was a long, slow night. Alyssa stared at the room's ceiling and counted the cracks in the old stones. Quarried and fitted stone, not the burned bricks or even the more newfangled methods of pouring a lot of mortar as some of the newer factories used.

Just stone.

With cracks in it.

Onehundredsixtythree.

And counting.

Mireille shifted in her sleep and snuggled closer. Grinning, Alyssa tried to disentangle herself as some of her coat buttons were poking her, but the other girl had a death grip on herself. Sighing, she relented and simply moved the offending pieces of fabric to the side.

If she had had a sister like Mireille back in Firswending, would it have been enough? Enough to pull her father out of his hole or at least better their lives?

The metal diadem wrapped around her head felt heavy and somehow constricting, and she tried to adjust it a bit but found it stuck fast.

'Perhaps it's grown in already,' she thought morbidly

The night was long when you did not have to sleep. Even vampires had some downtime, even if it was - impractical enough- the daytime

The hours drifted by, and the grey of dawn was replaced by the cold, pale light of the winter sun filtering through the barely fitting shutters. 'They could have at least given us a better room.'

"Morrrnin'." Mumbled a sleepy voice next to her ear.

Turning toward the noise, Alyssa bumped into Mireille's nose. "Ouch." Blinking owlishly, Mireille let go and rubbed her face.

"Good morning." Alea chimed in and drew more of the covers over her small form. Helpfully, Butler One tucked it in with somewhat jerky motions.

"Is Butler One alright?" Alyssa sat up and looked at the construct intently.

"Mh. Just a bit scuffed and banged from the fighting. I hope we still have some time for repairs."

"Vanessa won't be ready before tonight, so have at it." Mireille yawned.

Warming the still mostly frozen water in the washbasin with carefully applied firemagic, they quickly did their morning ablutions and cast a few spells to clean clothes and equipment before exiting the room.

Silent corridors greeted them with dustmotes drifting in the silent, cold air. Pale sunlight washed out every color that time had left on the old hangings and pictures gracing the walls.

"I guess we should go down?" Mireille said hesitantly. "Never heard of a dining room being on the roof."

"In Grunewald, they had a restaurant with a flat roof and a garden. I once went with my grandmother." Alea helpfully interjected.

Silence fell as they walked down the nearest set of stairs.

"Are you alright?" Alyssa asked. "Especially you, Mireille, you were bleeding a lot."

"Alea fixed me up." She twirled and nearly fell down the stairs before grabbing the railing. "Ahem. Right as rain."

Cyrus gave a scoffing hiss at that.

"Does he understand us?" Mireille raised a solitary eyebrow.

"He understands me and is much more intelligent than a normal wyvern. So...perhaps?" Alyssa smiled and scratched Cyrus's pointed head between the horns, eliciting a throaty rumble.

A pale-looking servant came up from below and, as he saw them, hastily went into a side-passage.

"Is there still some blood on my coat?" Mireille asked doubtfully. "Or is it on my face?" She grabbed Alyssa by the shoulders and turned her head to have her get a good look.

"You are fine. Let go!" Brushing off her friend, Alyssa grinned a bit. "It's more that after yesterday, they might be a bit extra cautious, and who can blame them."

Her eyes were drawn to the side passage, and she wrinkled her forehead. Motes of strong void magic flowed from down the corridor the servant had taken.

"Might we have a look? I sense a lot of void down that passage."

A growl from Mireille's stomach interrupted the brief silence following those words.

"Sorry." Mireille looked a bit sheepish. "But I think the last time I ate was yesterday in the afternoon. But it's no big deal!"

Alea simply nodded.

Entering the side passage, they saw a row of portraits stacked on the walls, haphazardly arranged in different shapes and sizes. Two doors, one at the end and one to the left, led further into the keep. The one ahead was decorated with bronze banding inscribed with runes.

"That one looks important," Mireille remarked.

The side door was not completely closed, and the girls could hear a few hasty steps departing away from them.

"So much for the servant." Mireille shrugged. "Should we try to open it?" She pointed at the ornate door.

"Lets. One of our possible objectives was to obtain more knowledge. Perhaps we can find something here." Alyssa inspected the door from a distance. "I fear we will have neither the expertise nor the means to open it quietly, though."

"Pff. There is void magic here, and this is a vampire duke's castle. We are only doing our due diligence. Besides, I don't think Jamila will blame us." Mireille grinned. "So what's the plan?"

"We will stand back, and I will bombard the door with void until we get in." Alyssa scratched her cheek in embarrassment. "Or we find Jamila and ask for a key if something like that exists."

"Let us ask for a key. No need to destroy something without asking first." Alea said softly.

"But what if she does not have the key or doesn't have time for something like this?" Mireille asked.

"The servant might know about a key." Alyssa mused.

"But the servant is gone."

Alyssa frowned and then waved at them imperiously. "Step back. I don't want whatever it is to remain here or fall into the wrong hands." Concentrating, she drew glyphs in the air and summoned the amply available void from within and without.

"Wait...!" Alea stretched out her hand.

Mireille grinned and pulled the smaller girl back to the stairs. "No sense in risking anything. Perhaps it's trapped."

The first bolt of darkness impacted the door, and with a ripple, several runes cleverly hidden inside the engravings came to life, and the energy was harmlessly deflected toward the wall, where it devoured a particularly dull painting.

The next few met with a similar fate, but the glow of the defensive runes began to wane. With another exertion, the runes sparked and flickered before then becoming dull. Wisps of smoke drifted toward the ceiling.

The whole time, there had been a resounding thump whenever the bolts impacted the shielding runes, and the racket would undoubtedly be heard on the whole floor.

"I think this was more meant to deter a particularly enterprising servant than a mage," Mireille remarked. "Nirileth be praised." She added piously.

Alea eyed her suspiciously. "Don't tell me all this is because you were too lazy to look for Jamila."

With a hiss, the void energies ate into the lock, and the metal became scuffed and brittle in the time it took to draw a deep breath.

"That should do it." Alyssa looked at her work with satisfaction.

'You should be more careful. Any trap worth the effort would have an effect even here.' Asandria, who had been taciturn of late, remarked.

"Aw, you do care." Alyssa regarded her out of the corner of her eyes.

'Less snark, more caution.' Asandria gazed back at her with a complicated expression in her eyes.

"Mh." Alyssa strode up to the door before giving the lock a good kick, dislodging the rotten and brittle metal and cracking the wood around it. The door refused to go further as the hinges were on the outside. Grabbing the makeshift opening, she pulled and broke some more of the wood before getting a firm grip. With a final heave, she forced the door open, behind which a study became visible.

Large cabinets with glass fronts rose toward a high ceiling, and a desk made of polished, petrified wood took most of the space before a narrow window. Ice flowers bloomed on the wavy glass, further distorting the light. As the door was opened, mage globes inset in the walls flickered to life, illuminating all in a pale yellow glow.

Shelves on the walls devoid of cabinets held curios and trinkets, a dagger with a blackened and cracked tip, a broken skull inscribed with gilded runes, some chalices with suspicious, rust-colored crusting. A few scrolls and a tablet made of fired clay.

A large ornate and upholstered chair took center place before the desk, and the worn leather of the armrests implied heavy use.

"Looks like we found gold." Mireille grinned, let go of Alea, who was nowhere near as interested looking, and walked in after Alyssa.

"...be careful," Alea murmured to no one in particular.

"This one." Alyssa looked at a large tome held inside the largest cabinet. "Most of those things..." She let her gaze trail over the shelves. "...are void aligned. But the book seems to be what I sensed." She turned back and inspected the cabinet.

Many books and a few small coffers were crammed into the relatively spacious but still packed interior.

Finding nothing of note, Alyssa invoked the eyes of the night and formed the dark mists. The latter were mostly effective against light magic, but as she had grown more proficient, she had woven a bit of water magic into the whole, and the mists had become more...slippery...if that was the correct way to describe it. It should help a bit, at least.

"Here goes nothing." Grabbing the handle, she pulled open the cabinet.

The carved wooden door with the glass insets swung open on oiled hinges without making a sound. Alyssa gave a relieved sigh as a soft breeze began to stir, and something manifested in the corner of the room.

A ghostly form made of shadows and seemingly inadvertently aligned cracks and lighting showed a hunched-over old woman with a servant's dress. Her hands were claws, and her eyes were deep holes bleeding darkness down waxy cheeks.

Mireille stumbled back a step before summoning her lightning spear. With a swift and practiced motion, she pierced the breast of the ghostly apparition only for a hateful cackle to sound from all corners of the room as the figure vanished only to reappear splayed on the ceiling, clinging to a dark corner like a bloated spider.

With a shudder and a piercing hum, the objects lying around suddenly came to life, and the dagger with the cracked tip shot at Alyssa, stabbing her in the neck before she had the presence of mind to react. Hissing, she grabbed the hilt and ripped the blade free as dark blood seeped from the deep cut.

The chalices and scrolls began to hover around the room, the chalices releasing dark red clouds of smoky liquid that hissed ominously and the scrolls crackling as some of the words on them began to burn with a greenish light.

With a shout, Mireille activated her haste of the storm and jumped nearly four meters toward the ceiling, surprising the still-cackling ghost. With another sweep of the lighting spear, she cut through its ephemeral substance, scattering it into dozens of ragged pieces. Smiling, she fell back down only to be met by a chalice and the dark red cloud of liquid splattered at her. Wherever the drops of red hit her, smoke rose as skin grew red and blistered, and Mireille clenched her teeth in pain.

Alea, who had been outside, quickly ran up to the door and loosed a beam of pure light at one of the chalices. With a hollow, metallic clatter, the suddenly lifeless cup fell to the ground, the rusty coating flaking off to reveal brittle metal that burst from the sudden fall.

Alyssa meanwhile wrestled with the dagger still going for her throat and, with anger in her eyes, infused her hands with copious amounts of void magic. The blade shone with black energy, devouring what light fell from the mage globes or the window, and with a ripple that seemed like those spots you sometimes see in times of exertion, the dagger vanished into fine dust.

Drawing a deep, unneeded breath, Alyssa staggered back as one of the scrolls shone with a fiery aura before crumbling to ash and losing a firebolt at her. Cursing, she ripped a small fissure into the air. The void leaked from the breach like blood, and the bolt was swallowed without a trace.

Another cackle came, this time behind Mireille, as the ghost reformed out of the ambient darkness and needle-like claws slashed at the girl's back.

Alea had barely time to shout a warning, but Mireille, with unnatural speed, twisted around and slashed the ghost with her spear.

"It's the skull!" Alea pointed at the gold-encrusted relic lying still on one of the shelves.

Alyssa turned, and her eyes flashed as the jewel in her wrist burned with dark fire. Tendrils of void flowed toward the skull. The ghost desperately interposed herself, hunching over the gold and ivory cranium.

The tendrils pierced the ephemeral figure and enclosed the skull before tightening with a brutal twist.

The ghost vanished, and the levitating objects fell to the ground.

"Phew. That was unpleasant." Mireille rubbed a bit of sweat from her brows before wincing as some of that got into a spot burned by the chalice. "Aleeeeeaaaaa....!" Turning, she held her red-spotted arms toward the smaller girl while looking deeply aggrieved.

"Yes, yes. I will heal you. Spare me the theatrics." But the smaller girl was looking concerned all the while.

Alyssa marveled at how far Alea had come from the taciturn, barely speaking girl to making jokes in a situation like the one they found themselves in. Taking the time to give herself a once-over, she grimaced as she found another deep rip in her skin. The muscle seemed intact, and there was no more bleeding, but the tear did not want to close.

With more force than she had intended, she grabbed the large tome and pulled it from the cabinet. "I hope you are worth it." She hissed through gritted teeth.

'Incipit Vita Nova' was written in bold cursive inlaid with something that might be an alloy of lead. The cover was made using a thick dark leather with a slight impression of scales. The whole thing was impractically large but would still fit in her backpack. Especially with her spatial magic to even things out.

"And? Anything good?" Mireille asked while Alea was still fussing over her burns.

"Don't know yet. Could be." Alyssa cursed under her breath as she was not very fluent in this language, but she would make do. In the worst case, she would ask Asandria.

Taking another look, she found an open coffer containing enticingly glimmering gold coins. The aura of decay surrounding those pieces of metal told her, as much as her common sense, that these might be cursed. Whoever had used this study had really hated thieves.

Another smaller book gave off a more muted but still palpable aura of entropy. Grabbing this, too, she stuffed both into her backpack. Touching the mana crystal attached to the spatial formation, she estimated it to be good for another week or so.

Looking through the other cabinets, a smile bloomed on her face as she found a small pouch containing around a dozen more impure mana crystals and some simple jewelry, none of which appeared magical even to her enhanced sight.

"Are you done?" Mireille asked while playing idly with the skull.

"Give that to me." Alyssa grabbed the thing from her friend's hands before stuffing it in her backpack. "I have only controlled the ghost. It's still there."

"Ew." Mireille rubbed her hands on an expensive-looking hanging carpet. "The old thing looked pretty unsanitary."

"You are one to talk." Alea looked unimpressed at the dust and dirt her red-headed friend had accumulated during the fighting.

"Is anyone there?" Outside, they heard quick steps nearing the corridor. With a shrug and a last look, Alyssa motioned for her friends to leave the room.

Outside, they met the soldier who had brought them to their rooms the night before.

"There you are." The soldier eyed the broken-down door and seemed to struggle with his words before giving a quick shake of his head. "Lady Jamila von Nordmark." He emphasized the last. "Would like the pleasure of your company for breakfast if that is agreeable."

"Fancy." Mireille looked impressed. "Then let's go! I'm famished."