…

          While it had been day when they had arrived in the city, it had become rather dark since then. Traffic in and out of the city had become a bit much after they had arrived. It was almost like all of Nfirea’s luck had run out on him.

          At least, that was what it felt like. The sky was dark now, that was for sure. What was even more annoying was that his horse seemed to have it to here while walking and had slowed down now. He looked to the adventurers that had followed him from here to Carne, and then back to the city.

          Currently, miss Viridael was taking a nap on the backside of the Wise King of The Forest. It was honestly pretty cute how she simply sank into the fur on her back. The large rodent was actually picking up a lot of attention as people along the street gazed at the image of them.

          Nfirea had seen Nabe and Viridael talk about the softness of Hamsuke’s fur while they were outside of the city. But when the line to get inside had become long and stagnated, Viridael had simply taken a nap on the rodent’s back.

          Lady Nabe had seemed rather shocked by this. It seems that Miss Viridael didn’t do things like this that often. In fact, she seemed like the person to hold off on it in favor of simply doing it in private.

          That had somehow reminded him of where he was right now. Right now, they were stopped in front of the adventure’s guild. The two groups were talking about what to do with the massive rodent that was drawing a lot of attention from the passersby. Nfirea didn’t really mind the looks. He himself was a rather famous pharmacist so wherever he went, people gawked.

          But that was a thought process for another day. Right now, he had to pay attention to what the two adventuring groups were planning to do now. They seemed to be talking about the payment and how to split it. Then after what seemed like hours within his own thoughts, Momon turned to him.

          “We have come to the agreement that my team will help out with the whole quest thing and documentation, and the swords of darkness will go with you to help you unload everything,” he told the young man.

          Nfirea nodded his head and responded in the positive. The second group set themselves up behind the cart that he was driving, and they made their way to his shop. Soon after they had arrived at the back side of his place of residence, he got off the seat and fished in his pockets for the keys.

          When he found them, he plugged them into the lock of the door and turned them to open it. There was no light on, and he soon began to call out for his grandmother as she was usually late up at night making potions and tonics and the like.

          But as soon as the group had fully entered the building to gather the payment, the adventurers tensed up. They seemed to sense something from the doorway that led to the rest of the house.

          “Hello there Mr. Pharmacist. I was getting bored while waiting here, you know?” spoke a woman from the darkness of the doorway.

…

          Viridael was awoken by a large, gloved hand patting her on her left shoulder. She looked up to find that Momon was standing beside Hamsuke and seemed to want to tell her something. It was probably the payment and the success of their first job.

          It was then that she noticed the elderly woman behind Momon. It seemed to Viridael that this woman was important by the way the Momon stood, and the way he shifted his feet on the ground.

          “Yes?” she asked him after getting down from her large rodent NPC.

          Momon responded for the old woman behind himself. She seemed annoyed at being denied the effort to introduce herself, but let it slide from herself and mind.

          “Viridael, this is Mr. Nfirea’s grandmother. Could you let her ride on the back of Hamsuke?” he asked of her.

          Viridael groggily nodded here head as she had just been woken up form a rather nice nap where she had a dream that she was an insane German loli in magic WW1.

          She walked over to the elderly person and set her hands in low so she could safely step on them to get on Hamsuke. After the woman had stepped up and settled herself onto the back of the large rodent, they started to walk back to the shop.

          It was then that Viridael noticed something. As soon as they got to the shop, she spoke up about what she saw to the three others. Nabe had been hanging in the back and not speaking. She herself didn’t like the people of the land very much at all. Viridael turned to the grandmother and spoke.

          “Do you keep undead in your basement?” she posed the question to the now befuddled grandmother.

          She simply continued with her line of speech after she simply got a blabber of what she assumed were confused questions. She then turned the undead in plate armor.

          “Momon, there is a couple of weak undead in the basement of the shop where I assume Nfirea was. I can’t sense him in the house,” she told the undead.

          He simply nodded his head and rushed into the shop that Nfirea had been in not even an hour ago. As he made his way inside Nfirea’s grandmother looked at the paladin of the Atomic Flame. It seemed that she was rightly confused.

          As the three of them made their way inside after Momon had peeked his head out after dispatching the now dead undead, Viridael explained herself.

          “As a member of the Tenders of The Atomic Flame, I can detect all life and all matter around me in a rather large radius. This is why I know that the undead in your house were there. It is also why I know that Nfirea isn’t there either,” she explained.

          “Then why don’t you find him with the Flame?!” the elder retorted in a rather indignant tone.

          Just as she was about to answer, Viridael stopped herself when they got to the room with thew now undead corpses of the swords of darkness. As she stopped herself, she looked around the room in slight confusion.

          There appeared to be a message on the wall written by the boy that wasn’t in the room right now. But from what little Viridael and Momon could muster of their memories of the young man’s writing style, this wasn’t made by him.

          Lizzie looked among the dead on the floor after she herself had deduced the same idea in her mind, as she was much more familiar with her grandson’s handwriting, and spoke.

          “Who are these people? I don’t remember Nfirea saying anything about even more adventurers,” She asked.

          “They were another adventuring group that came with us that we convinced Nfirea to hire as they had a druid that could help with finding herbs,” Momon answered with an apathetic voice.

          “Sorry for your loss,” responded with a rather sorry tone of voice but Momon just responded with a ‘don’t be, we barely knew each other,’ that unsettled her.

          “Now, what do we do?” Viridael asked more herself than the old woman.

          “What do you mean?! We’ve got to find Nfirea!?” Lizzie retorted in outrage.

          Momon simply turned to her from his crouched position. His towering form stood up, lending weight to the simple line of text. A silent pressure of ever so slight greed came from him. It reminded the elderly woman of a spirit she once encountered when she was little.

          “That is mighty convenient, right now we are free of any contracts. If you were to hire us, then we would find your grandson for you. It would cost you though. It would cost you everything,” spoke the giant of a man.

          “What?” was all the woman could muster.

          “I said, it will cost you everything. All of what you own, and all of your trade. For that, we will find your grandson,” he responded.

          “Sure, I will give you everything for the life of my grandson. Even my soul if I must give it,” she sealed the deal with her vow.

          “Then we have a deal,” he nodded his head.

…

          Inky blackness, Ninya didn’t know what this was, but she could tell that was where she was. Then, a hand, a fragile hand but a hand none-the-less, reached out for her. she gripped it in her mind’s eye and light blossomed in her field of view.

          The room she was in was the room she had been dragged from after her companions had been slain. She sat up and looked around the room. there, by her side was Miss Viridael. Right now, she seemed to be rather convinced of something that only her mind knew about.

          “Ninya, I only have so many scrolls of speak with dead, and can only be used on you like five times before your body disintegrates. I can only ask you three questions before I have to refresh the spell. I will make myself very clear with these questions,” she stated.

          “…What?” was her only response.

          “Who killed you?” she asked.

          “An orange haired Girl that called herself Clemintine,” she responded without thinking.

          “Where did she take Nfirea?” Viridael asked her second question.

          “To the graveyard I think she said,” she responded once again without thinking; it was getting rather annoying.

          “Ok, this next question is going to be rather large and heavy. I have a spell that will permanently resurrect you, but you won’t be human, and I will have to choose your new race and abilities. You won’t have the knowledge that comes with your job anymore. This question is, would you like to be resurrected permanently? asked the Paladin.

          “Yes,” said Ninya without much thought; she didn’t want to die.

          Then, life faded away from her and death embraced her like the embrace of a cold blanket.

…