Jack went back downstairs, shaking his head. He thought back about what the elven guard commander had said about unbound demons. Layla had always been impulsive. She liked to pull early and often, pushing Jack to improve his skill every time they played together.

She was also competent and driven. She was constantly researching, improving, driving the group toward the best-in-slot and best talents and combinations. When she wanted something, she put in the work. She once spent three weeks farming a legendary item from an old raid boss because the texture matched a set of gear that was coming out in the next expansion. 

He silently wondered how much becoming a demon had changed her personality. She had always flirted with Erin over voice. And Rory. Alright, she had always flirted with everyone. Even the randoms they’d pick up for the fifth slot.

Maybe her personality hadn’t changed that much.

He stepped down into the Molten Yam’s taproom and spotted Erin, still passed out on the bar. Jack walked across the rough, stained wooden floors of the inn, relishing the warmth of the fire and the gentle mix of smells, each one distinct to his enhanced senses.

“We all squared away, Tilly?” he smiled at the innkeeper.
“Aye lad, yeh’ve a bit on yer tab, but I’ll just mark it down and catch up wit yeh tomorrow. Take your lassie ta bed afore she falls an’ breaks my floor,” the dwarfess grinned at him.
“Thanks, Tilly. See you for breakfast. Any chance you do wake-up calls?” he hefted Erin onto his shoulders and looped her rucksack onto his foot, then kicked it up and caught it with his hand.

The innkeeper watched in amusement at the casual display of agility and strength, then snapped to what Jack had asked.

“Oh, aye, lad. I do wake-up calls,” a mad gleam shone in the dwarf’s eye.
“I’m not gonna like the wake-up call, am I?” he chuckled.
“No, yeh will not,” she grinned.
“Then we’ll pass. If we miss breakfast, we’ll grab something in the city,” he nodded and turned to walk over two-hundred pounds of armor and dreadnought up the stairs.

As he mounted the steps, he enjoyed the casual feeling of power. Back home, he could’ve carried Erin and her armor and her bag up these steps, but his legs would’ve felt like jello the next morning. Now it was no more difficult than strolling down a city sidewalk. 

He conjured a single shadow limb and smiled as it coiled around the key in his pocket and unlocked the door for him, then toed the door open and carefully maneuvered Erin inside. His shadow latched the door behind him, and he deposited his precious cargo on the down bed. He gently removed her armor, piling the trail-sodden mess on the floor in the corner, then pulled off her gambeson, blouse, and breeches.

She mumbled and grunted at him as he undressed her, but when her bare back hit the cool linen of the bedsheets, all objections ceased and she plastered herself across the bed.

“Do you want a bath before you go to bed?” he whispered to her.
“...they haff batth?” she mumbled.
“Yeah, magical running water. Tilly told us about it while you three were getting hammered. It’s on the first floor, though” he chuckled, his voice still low.
“...mrrnin, okayyy? Baff mrrnin…” she rolled onto her stomach and dug into the soft pillows and luxurious comfort of the down mattress. “...lffff yew, Jcksn…” she mumbled.

“Love you too,” he smiled.

He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her back and her hair until less than a minute later, a thick snore rippled through her. She rolled onto her side and clutched the pillow close, her face the most contented he’d seen since they’d arrived here.

Then he stripped off his own armor and piled it next to hers, vowing to find a service to clean it all thoroughly tomorrow, and if not, then to find a shop that sold what he needed to do it himself. He continued to tick off the things they’d need tomorrow, as well as priorities stretching out into the next few days. He didn’t have Rory’s memory or logistical prowess, and he wasn’t as clever as Layla, but Jack had something they both lacked.

Eight extra hours a night to plan. 

He laughed under his breath at the thought that he, the member of the party that overslept more than the other three combined, was now the last to bed and first to rise. 

Of course, he was absolutely cheating by not being able to sleep, but those were just details.

He gently laid the spare key for their room on the small table by the bed, then pulled a clean tunic, breeches, and smallclothes he’d received back in Mistelein from the bottom of his rucksack. Then he quietly snuck out of their room and headed downstairs after checking Rory and Layla’s doors to make sure they were still locked. He also knelt by the door and took a deep breath through his nose, pulling in the riotous medley of scents around him. One person he didn’t know had passed through the hallway recently, but the Chosen’s doors were absent all scent save their own.

Once he was satisfied they were safe, for the moment at least, he bounced back down the stairs into the Yam’s taproom.

“Tilly? Could you…” his question trailed off.

A portly dwarf and two humans wearing leathers were standing near the bar. The two humans were rough-looking, both shaved heads, one with a beard and the other with a day’s scrub on his face. They both had scars from past fights visible across their arms, faces, and heads, but neither had any markings that looked like the wound would’ve been mortal. They carried short blades in holsters on their belts, and both had their hands on the weapons. Thugs.

The dwarf wore no armor and carried no weapons, but his aggressive posture placed him leaning over the bar, where Tilly was giving him a hard glare that didn’t look at home on the mischievous woman’s face.

“I’ve told yeh, Branick, I’ll not pay yer scurrilous boss a copper. Next time yeh poke yer head in here, I’ll call the watch on yeh,” she growled at him.
“Talk tough all yeh like, Tilly, but it’d be a cryin’ shame if the Yam caught fire and the watch were busy somewhere else,” the greasy dwarf gave her a hard grin.

Jack sighed. No rest for the wicked. 

“It’s time for you to leave. You’re interrupting my bath,” he grinned under the grey hood.

The two thugs turned and started at the hooded figure standing only ten stride away. They hadn’t noticed him come down the stairs and weren’t paying attention when he called Tilly’s name. Sloppy. 

Jack liked sloppy in an enemy.

The dwarf finally turned, “An’ who the fuck’re yeh, longshanks?”
“A random guy you’ve never met in a dim bar, dressed in a sinister cloak, in a world where literally anyone might just be able to cut you in half before you can blink,” he laughed.
“Oh, yeh a bigshot hunter, there laddie? Stayin’ at the Molten Yam instea’ o’ the Guildhall or up on the hill? Ha!” the dwarf replied.
“Something like that, yeah,” Jack retorted calmly.
“Nae, laddie. If yeh were a new Hunter, ye’d be savin’ yer money cause the hall’s free. If’n yeh were a threat ta us, yeh’d be up in the fancypants inns. An’ yeh’d be armed and armored or carryin’ one o’ them silly staffs ‘r wands they like s’much,” the dwarf lectured. 

He continued, “No new brawlers or brain-picklers come through in the last couple days, so yeh’re just some fool stayin’ at a middlin’ inn, talkin’ shite cause yeh don’ know better.”

Jack threw back the hood of his cloak, revealing his stark white, pearl-like skin and the black abyss of his eyes. He shouldered the cloak behind him, and a forest of writhing black bladed limbs emerged and coiled like snakes ready to strike. He lifted a single hand and black fire twisted and swirled in his palm.

“Or, maybe, you fucking idiots, I just walked five hundred fucking miles through monster-infested wilderness and I want a bath and a bed for my friends, because I don’t sleep, and I don’t get tired, and if you make me your problem before I get to wash the dirt and guts off me, I will turn your entire organization into brainless zombies and gift you to the town to shovel shit out of the sewers.”

His eyes flared and burned, streaming dark mana as he took a single step forward.

“Oh depths! Branick, it’s a fuckin’ lich!” one of the thugs bolted for the door. 

The other wet himself and began to shiver, unable to take his eyes off the apparition in front of him.

The dwarf paled and took a step back as Jack advanced.

“O-o-our apologies, yer lordship. We dinnae know y-yeh were in town. I-I-I’ll let the rest o’ the boys know where yer s-st-stayin,” the dwarf backed into the other thug, who shrieked and followed his partner.

The dwarf barrelled after him, slamming into the Yam’s door and falling into the street.

As the door swung closed, Jack folded away his shadow limbs and allowed the storm of dark mana to wash away into whispers of black mist that vanished in the Yam’s lights. The bar was deathly silent, and all eyes were watching him.

“Sorry about that, Tilly. I just really want a bath,” he smiled weakly.

The dwarfess raised her head back above the bar.

“Are yeh really a lich, lad?” her voice wavered slightly.
“Nope. Nightwraith,” he smiled.
“I dinnae know wha’ that is,” she smiled weakly.
“Friendly neighborhood undead,” he replied.
“So, yeh’re not some undead noble from across the sea?” she slowly stood back up.
“Nah, just a Hunter here with his friends. But what do you mean ‘undead noble’?” he asked.

Tilly took a deep breath and exhaled, most of the tension visibly leaving her.

“Cross the sea, north end o’ Þorrvost, there’s an undead kingdom they say is twice the size o’ the White Empire. All full o’ wakened undead. They say the dead send messengers an’ nobles to make demands o’ cities an’ other kingdoms, an’ if’n they don’t give the undead wha’ they want, they turn the whole place into a dead grey wasteland,” she shuddered.

“Never heard of em,” he smiled. 

It wasn’t, technically, a lie. He’d never heard the name aloud, but he remembered the pulsing black sigil of the tomb-city of Necropolis. A kingdom of the undead.

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