The rain that had been pestering us for the entire day finally let of as we slowly made our way out of the settlement, the sun was even beginning to break through. 

“So it looks like we are going to be adventuring together after all.” Sam comments to the rest of the group. 

“Yeah, we’re sorry to interfere with your outing.” My sister replies. 

“Well, it can’t be helped.” Max says, raising her axe behind her back and holding it in her neck. “It’s better that we just make sure we manage to deal with this problem in a good way.” 

 “That’s true.” My sister nods. 

“Are we going towards that pit you found first, Sam?” Hilda asks. 

“Yeah, I thought that would be best as it’s from there that I saw some tracks leave off. Or do you have a better idea, I’m all ears.” My girlfriend wiggles her ears as she says that, making pretty much the entire party chuckle. 

Hilda chuckles as well. “No, it’s a great starting point, and I would like to see the pit for myself too, not that I don’t trust your judgement.” 

“Don’t worry, I had already thought it might be best to show it to y’all anyway.” 

While Hilda and Sam continue talking, Nikki comes to walk next to Carol and I. 

“What magic do you specialize in?” Carol asks. “I don’t think you’ve talked about that before, and if you have, I’m sorry, I forgot.” 

Nikki laughs. “Don’t worry.” She then snaps her finger, making a little flame appear on top of her thumb. “I do mostly fire related magics.” 

“Nikki likes blowing things up.” I clarify. 

“I do, it’s very fun.” 

This makes Carol laugh again. “Oh, I can definitely understand that.” 

“And you are a water and lightning mage, right?” 

“Mhmm.” She nods. 

“Quite the opposite from me, apart from the fact that lightning is somewhat connected to mine more.” 

“When we get into combat, wouldn’t it be better for you to separate your attacks then?” I ask. “I mean, if Carol douses your flame or makes things humid… wouldn’t that make it harder for us to work through some enemies.” 

“I guess in a way.” Nikki nods. “But steam can also be a very effective killer, you know? That’s something firefighters need to be wary off, because they might get burned pretty badly if they handle a situation incorrectly thanks to that extremely hot steam.” 

“Oh, right. I hadn’t actually thought about that. And I suppose you could electrify said steam as well.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be too hard.” Carol nods. 

“Do you want to know how I know that, by the way?” 

“About the steam thing?” 

“Mhmm.” 

“Common sense?” 

“Well, no, your sister actually has a handbook laying around for firefighter exams.” 

“Does she?” 

“Yep!” My sister chimes in on her own accord. “It’s something I am looking into. To become a volunteer at the fire department.” She proclaims. 

“Oh wow, I didn’t know.” 

“That’s because I’m not really decided on it yet.” 

“What’s holding you back?” 

“First off, my sister suddenly showed up at my door so that made everything a little bit chaotic for a while.” 

“Oh…” 

“Don’t worry, sis, you know I love you to bits, but it’s still something rather unexpected that happened.” She waits for us to catch up and ruffles my hair when we do. “Secondly, I’m a bit hesitant because there’s rumors about fire department culture when it comes to women.” 

“Élise, I think I might be able to give you some insight on that.” My girlfriend comments. 

“How so?” 

“Well, if I remember correctly my dad’s colleague is a female firefighter in the city, I don’t think she would mind talking to you about it. I would need to ask dad to set up a meeting but that’s just a couple of phone calls away. My dad would gladly help you.” 

“Oh, would you want to do that for me? That would definitely help! Thanks, Sam!” My sister speeds up her walk a little bit so she can go and give my girlfriend a nice big hug. 

“Hehe, no problem.” 

The seven of us, together with our four doggos of course, continue following Sam’s directions until we end up a some stone ruins deep in the forest together with a big pit. 

“That’s quite a large pit, innit?” My sister stand by the edge and looks down into it. The way Sam had described it to us earlier really didn’t do the true size of it justice. This looked like a pit you would dig to start building quite the sizable pool. But just as she had said, now it was mostly empty apart from a couple of remaining bones, most of which are more shards than anything really resembling a skeleton. 

“This definitely was a mass grave.” Hilda nods before she looks around again. “But how did they find this though? It’s not exactly marked and the ruins are in the middle of nowhere. How did they know to look here for bodies?” 

Max walks over to the ruined, plant-overgrown wall and inspects it. “Yeah, this looks at least a thousand years old, if not more.”

“Mhmm.” Hilda nods and then looks at Sam. “And what direction did you say you though the tracks continued to?” 

Sam points to the South-East. “That way.” 

“Alright.” 

“Before we go, could you give Ami and I a couple of seconds to say a prayer to these disturbed souls?” My sister asks. “Just to avoid a situation similar to that black pillar stuff we saw back at Hofudstadr.” 

“That’s not a bad idea.” I nod. 

“Sure, go ahead, we’ll wait for you.” Hilda nods back. 

“Alright.” 

And so my sister and I took some time to get down on our knees to say a quick prayer to the people who had been buried here before. While nothing really changed, it does feel as though the air feels a bit lighter now. As a final act after our prayer, I decide to use a bit of my earth powers to cover up the bottom layer of the pit again so the remains of those left, get buried once more. 

With that all done and dusted we continue our way through the forest, there was honestly nothing to see here but I suppose that did make it a very suitable place for a bandit fortress. You could practically do anything here without anyone seeing you, and that includes some dark magic as well…. 

A couple of hours later, around nightfall, we do run into some more ruins, this time the site is a lot bigger than the pile of stones we’d found earlier. 

“This looks like an entire town.” Hilda says as she jumps on top of one of the stones. “Completely wiped off the map.” She gazes around for a bit until her gaze stops on a single point in the distance, making her quickly hop off.” 

“What did you see?” My sister asks. 

“I think I saw some very bad news.” She beckons us to follow along which we swiftly do.

We weave through the stone ruins until we reach a ruin made of marble, but what’s next to it, shocks me greatly. 

“Holy shit.” My sister says all our thoughts out loud as we look over an enormous pit in the ground in front of us. Just like the one we saw earlier but at least 20 times as big. 

“This must have been the town’s graveyard….” Hilda says as she kneels at the edge. 

Sam quickly looks for the highest spot around and climbs up. I’m a bit nervous though as the stone tower she’s climbing looks unstable at best. “Be careful, Sam.” 

She just nods as she deftly climbs up. It takes her only a couple of seconds to reach the top. “Girls… This isn’t the only pit either….” She points in three more directions beyond the pit we are standing at. “That graveyard extended a lot farther than this…” 

“Oh shit. That’s not good, is it?” Max grits her teeth. “So you are saying someone necromancied all these bodies?” 

“And relatively recently too. Nothing has started growing back yet.” Hilda replies. 

“The person who did this might be a little bit more powerful than we first thought.” Nikki comments. “If they knew where to find all this…” 

“That’s what I’m thinking too.” Hilda nods. 

“Are we talking ancient evil kind of powerful?” Lise asks. 

“Maybe. But it’s definitely not just bandits and goblins working together, that’s for sure.” 

“Bandits, goblins, shapeshifters, necromancers, undead, potential ancient evil….” Carol comments. “This quickly starts sounding like something that’s way beyond our paygrade….” 

“That’s for sure.” My sister chuckles. “But you know what’s a hard counter against all that evil? A good old Goddess like we have in our party.” She puts my hand on my shoulder and smiles. 

“Wha~?” 

“Don’t worry, you have six great comrades to support you, Ami. We won’t let you do this alone.” 

“The least we can do is spot it out and see what’s up.” Sam jumps down her stone tower and lands next to me, putting her arm around my waist. “We’ll see what we do after that.” 

-Well… I suppose we shouldn’t just run away and let the land suffer because of that…-  

FieryKathy

So ye, you have been warned about the post stuff after next week :)