Mibbet awoke with a groan, a grump, and a grouchy grumble. She was not chuffed, it felt like several tiny men with tiny hammers were pummelling away at the inside of her skull. So this was what a human headache felt like, she had to admit she was not a fan, even if it was an improvement (barely) over a hangover. Why was everything so bloody loud? The door opened with the mother of all squeaky creaks, eliciting further grumps from Mibbet. She took it back, this was exactly as bad as a hangover, just without as much dirtied water..

Well at least she had learned multiple very important lessons from this, 1. When you launch a lot of pressure one way you’d better be well anchored or you will fly off in the opposite direction. (This was the moment the first frog discovered the third law of motion, though given that she was in a human chassis, with a human brain, and access to human education facilities, not to mention non soggy books, it technically didn’t count realistically.) 2. 50000psi was a lot of water pressure, and she was not a lot of frog OR princess, if she wished to prevent any future impromptu flying lessons she really, really, really ought to make a memo of that, or better yet, not bloody do it again, and 3. trees bloody hurt, even, or maybe especially when they break your fall. In fact she was willing to go out on a limb and say she may be less uncomfy right now if the trees had chosen to leaf her alone. (She seemed to have missed the fact for the most part those trees couldn’t really get out of the way, with the exception of the Ent, and he was a grump, who wasn’t about to make way for a squishy meat-sack, flying or not.)

Well the lesson was still a success, and she tagged the spell under the name “the ouchmaker” for rapid deployment in case of absolute last resort. So from all this she had figured out she was especially strong in water magic, not bad in ice magic. Had the brains to give in to her inner monster (which was screaming FIRE BAD, FIRE BAD) on the issue of fire magic, and earth magic didn’t seem to like her very much. As for Light and Dark, well according to Rosalind those two often get involved in prophecies, Mibbet decided then and there she wanted nothing to do with them. It was bad enough she was a literal frog princess, with an enchanted weapon, she didn’t need prophecies going around adding their particular brand of mythic bullshit into the mix. (In her opinion Prophecies were the non dairy creamer of Destinies. They were either very good (extremely rare.) Very bad (most often,) or came at a ridiculously overly high price, were generally unpleasant, and left everybody involved with a nasty taste in their mouth. Which was the default setting.

So water magic was the way to go , not hydromancy (which was just plain old water magic for the snobs, you know who I mean? the kind of people who spat perfectly good wine into buckets, while willing to swear blind they could taste the difference, while not even noticing the server spit in the bottle. Or who considered Civet coffee to be the best thing since sliced, artisanal, pumpkernickel bread.)

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The Palmer couple were finally ready to move on, now the killer had been set to pay for his crimes. Apparently the plan had been to spook those who refused his assistance storing their records into selling up cheap. But that plan had backfired, big-time. After much consideration they agreed to pass the old place on to a lovely young couple, who were just starting off on their first steps together. Who were of course overjoyed (if a bit wierded out, one didn’t usually get their inheritance, formalised via poltergeist penmanship.) With that taken care of there was only one, tiny insignificant detail to take care of.

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Malachai Blight was having a very bad day indeed, the fact he had just been loaded into a prison wagon may have had something to do with it, and being cuffed to a wagon wall, may also have been a contributing factor. But the cherry on top of this particular misery sundae came in the form of an itchy nose he couldn’t reach. Then, just when he thought the day could not get any worse the wagon went dark. By which I mean shadows lengthen, something is watching you kind of dark, not plain old regular dark. Blight looked around nervously, he really, really REALLY did not like the look of this. He tried to slip free, but the manacles were far too tight.

Then, just as suddenly as it had manifested, the darkness faded. Malachai sighed in relief, it seemed it was just his imaginat......

*BANG*

Ok he definitely wasn’t imagining that, though he wished to every god that cared to listen to his whimpering that he was.

*BANG*

“Wh-who-who’s there?” he stammered.

There was of course no answer forthcoming to his question (maybe it would have been worse for him if there had been really.) Save another, and this time much louder,

*BANNNGGG THUMP THUMP BANG.*

That was not really the answer he was hoping for, as you can imagine. By this point Malachai was to say the least not a happy bunny after all of this. But he was about to get a whole lot unhappier.

The shadows lengthened once more, and from a shadow on the wall appeared a silhouette of a scarecrow., complete with crows. With a whimper he started to squirm, but that soon swapped to a scream, as suddenly a lot of the wagon was occupied by the former farmer Palmer, bathed in a fiery hue.

“Ah Malachai, I was sent back with a message for you from below.”

At this point Malachai was desperate to get out of here, but as you can imagine prison wagons were not exactly built with escape in mind (inconsiderate I know, but that’s how it is.)

“The big guy has been watching you for a while, and he made a decision.”

“d-d-decision?”

“Yes, and here it is.”

The phantom formerly known as Farmer Palmer leaned in, close enough for Blight to not feel the breath on his face, then whispered.

“He wants you too Malachai.”

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The screaming coming from inside the wagon was piercing, as Palmer appeared once more, looking perfectly normal beside his wife.

“That’ll make him jumpy.” chuckled the former farmer, he’d never really tried to haunt anybody seriously before, turns out one way to make a man seek redemption was to scare the hell out of him. He’d made it all up of course, but Blight didn’t know that did he? That done it was time to move on. With one final chuckle the couple dissipated, heading heavenward.