“You said this one would be easier!” Darkos bellowed. He looked behind him to the swarm of angry villagers armed with torches and pitchforks.

“Without Malevo, it should have been, but—just keep running!” Geela hated peasants with pitchforks, and, apparently, these had known the two were coming. Sunnydale was proving more challenging to rid of cultists than they’d expected by a landslide.

A blast landed on a tree near Geela, which exploded into a splash of mud and slime. She shrieked in fury and disgust as the three high priests began to charge up another attack.

They ultimately made it back to their camp, where a nervous Darkos paced, and a furious Geela schemed. She’d dealt with enough angry mobs over the years; she wasn’t about to take this treatment from fools she was trying to save.

By the time they got around to launching the next attack, the villagers had managed to mount something of a defense. A magical field surrounded the village, save for the narrow entryway. No doubt they expected her to launch her attack through the choke point.

In a sense, they weren’t wrong. Within an hour of sundown, a towering figure dressed in horned armor of black and green approached the gates, shrouded in a slithering cape and surrounded by dark purple lights. No, they weren’t entirely wrong about how Geela would respond to the shield.

They just weren’t entirely right either.

___

Darkos huffed and puffed as he ran through the swampy jungle. Geela’s stupid boots didn’t fit well and kept getting stuck in the mossy ground. He should be grateful that she’d adjusted the armor as well as she had. The process was so uncomfortable that there was only so much he had let her do before making her stop.

Now he regretted that decision. The armor squeezed him in places it shouldn’t, all while having open spaces his body could never hope to fill. And the damn cape and helmet were not meant for running through a jungle. The horns on the helmet had probably accumulated a half dozen vines from the trees as he wound through the wooded area. Geela had better be moving fast. Destroying the crystal may have, in hindsight, been more fun than playing distraction.

___

A small figure clad all in black slunk up to the forcefield around the village and pressed herself against it. The void magic pulsed at her touch before humming to her frequency. With nothing to support her anymore, she fell through as lithe and dignified as a sloth that had accidentally grabbed its own arm instead of another branch.

Geela sprung to her feet, eyes darting around the little thatched huts to make sure she hadn’t been spotted. But, because she was Geela and had already memorized the patrols of any remaining priests, she hadn't been.

She continued forward until she found herself at the manor, where the High Priests had holed up, allegedly protecting the old and infirm of the village.

“So I said to the guy, get lost, get out, get a bloody job. We don’t run a charity!”

Geela crouched outside, listening through a window as the three High Priests ‘offered up holy prayers.’

“You did not, Autumn. That? In so many words?” This voice cackled, a high, grating noise.

“Oh, Ashe, could you imagine if I did? No. I may have phrased it more pleasantly. Ahem.” The voice faked a cough before rising an octave. “Child, your cause is your own. Do not seek help from the divine, for Alerion helps those who help themselves.”

“Code for: beat it.”

“Scram.”

Geela’s shield cracker gave a feeble whine as it attempted to break the field around the house. Unfortunately, it was overtaxed from absorbing a hole in both the village and property shields. It needed a break. One more try on the manor proper, and it could fire off like a tea kettle. Geela needed to get on the property without wasting her shield cracker on the perimeter. So she backed down and headed for the village exit. They would come back tomorrow. Besides, she was starting to worry about Darkos.

___

Darkos lay face down in a puddle of mud. He was pretty sure he could feel a snake on his legs, which were covered in a thin layer of shimmery chainmail of dubious strength. This particular set of armor was meant primarily for appearances, but did the boots really need spikes on the toes?

He groaned and pulled himself to his feet, only to find himself surrounded by pitchforks and torches.

Shoot.

___

Geela raced through the jungle, running as fast as her weak ankles would take her. She had a trace on Darkos and was closing in.

Finally, Geela spotted him. Facedown. In the mud. Oh, Darkos.

The villagers were closing in on him, waving their primitive weapons menacingly as Darkos slowly climbed to his feet. Geela couldn’t see his face under the helmet, but she imagined it was weary and annoyed. That’s what she’d be feeling in his situation.

“Today!” shouted a member of the Senior Clergy. “We take down a menace that has plagued our people for too long!”

Exactly who do they think she—Darkos—was? The only plague that had menaced these miserable peons for any significant amount of time was their own stupid God.

As the villagers began their final approach, Geela sighed and plunged a hand in her bag for some void powder.

Just a few moments of darkness was all she needed to slip in and snag Darkos.

Later in their tent, the two bemoaned their evening. “I thought I was done for. Geela. That costume. Absolutely ridiculous. I’m going to have indents in my sides for the rest of my life!” He flopped onto his bedroll. “If it wasn’t for your little poof of darkness—”

“It’s not a little poof, Darkos. It’s a cloud. And that costume was the best thing for this!”

“You don’t have anything better for physical protection or invulnerability?”

“Oh, Darkos, that is not a question you want to be asking. You won’t like the answer.”

The two spent a few hours ‘debriefing’ before actually debriefing and then devising a new plan to crack the High Priests’ manor…

—

Geela was contorted and cramped, twisted like one of those giant fluffy pretzels that her cousins always ruined by dipping in mustard or cheese. She even had the unnerving shade of orange to match it since she wasn’t going on any covert mission without the necessary garb to protect her. Especially not one where she was stuck inside the temporarily wooden interior of her faithful pack mule.

Shaun wasn’t going to look her in the eye for a week after this, but it was necessary. This was, after all, why she traveled with him. It was just the benefit of having such an… altered animal. Besides, Darkos had sworn up and down that he’d read old sacred texts explaining how surrendering enemies would leave hollow wooden animals as gifts.

Geela had told him that this was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard and that no one in their right mind would ever fall for it. She’d also tossed in that if they did fall for it, then the entire village needed to apologize to the Jungle Region for so tirelessly producing oxygen that clearly never made it to anyone’s brains.

As the mule was wheeled in amid ringing bells and shouts of ‘the witch is dead!’ Geela stewed in fury, already preparing the forced apology she’d make the village read.

—

Darkos lurked over the walls, where Geela had cracked the shield the night before. He was decked out in stealth garb and bobbed anxiously, listening as the mule was wheeled up to the High Priests’ manor. Once it arrived, he would have to wait until the crowds died down before Geela caused a huge disturbance. Then he’d join her in taking down the High Priests.

The people were due to leave at the conclusion of the acceptance ceremony, during which the offering was blessed and then burnt as a sacrifice—

Oh no. He’d forgotten.

Geela had said she could survive a degree of punishment but surely not being lit on fire. Without a second thought, he sprang from the wall and bolted down the hill, just as the first few flames went up.

—

Til his dying day, Darkos was pretty sure he’d never be able to figure out how he managed to get Geela out in one piece, no immediate healing required. Yet somehow, he had, with nothing but some minor burns, a bad mood, and a hundred angry villagers at their backs.

They’d fought their way to the manor and sealed their pursuers outside. Geela’s sealing chains wouldn’t last forever, and Darkos was just beginning to despair of ever finding the energy crystal responsible for empowering the High Priests, when he burst down a staircase and found a very ominous gem glowing atop a pile of human skulls.

These priests were about as subtle as the Void Fiend they worshipped.

“I found the crypt!” Darkos shouted up the stairs. “I’m leaving the explanation completely and one hundred percent to you.” He pulled his sword out and held it up against the crystal, before opting for a large rock, similar to the one that had been used to destroy the Sunnyville crystal.

He would crush it and let Geela break the bad news to the villagers. It wasn’t easy telling them that they had, sadly, been worshiping a malevolent Void Fiend their whole lives and that every young priest they thought had been sent out to the world to convert had actually been sacrificed to said Void Fiend. Darkos knew this wasn’t easy, cause he’d done it in his hometown, and it had broken him. Geela could handle this, like she’d promised.

“Give me a sign when you break the crystal so I can let them in!” she yelled. “I’m not opening the door until I know their power is gone.”

“Don’t worry!” he responded. “I will.” Then he lowered his voice. “Some of us can remember to give signals.”

—

“That was a… mixed bag of events,” Geela said as the two headed out from Sunnydale.

“Showing the villagers the tomb or watching them take out the High Priests?”

She paused, considering this. “Well, you’ve already seen the former, so you know it’s not a great time. But have you ever seen someone torn limb from limb by an angry mob?”

Darkos blanched. “No. Not at all.”

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly. “Watching those High Priests get turned on by the very villagers they tricked for so many years?” A grin split her face. “Oh, it was marvelous.”

Darkos chuckled weakly. “Glad you had fun.”

“And it was perfectly timed too.” She inhaled, picturing the sound of the crystal being crushed, Darkos’s weird, animal-like howl thing that had probably been his signal, and then the roar of people as she mentally unlocked the chains on the manor doors. It hadn’t been hard to cause a ruckus in the crypt, drawing the villagers’ attention. Once they’d arrived, they fell on the High Priests and Senior Clergy like the crows they used to slavishly worship. “Just great.”

“Glad you enjoyed it.” He pulled out his map, studying it intensely. “We got one left. Sunnyland.” Then he folded it back up. “Bit of travel, but it’ll be worth it to finish another chapter in the whole Noire saga.”

Geela’s eyes fell to Darkos, who had started whistling under his breath, probably to cheer himself up. Poor boy had no idea how tightly his very own history had been written into that book.

—

Darkos raced on the back of a borrowed horse, one of the two that Geela probably wouldn’t ever return. Behind them charged about a hundred duplicated Shauns. Darkos hadn’t known the mule was so versatile.

Geela also looked back then, a wince on her face as one of the Shauns brayed. “I’ll make it up to you, you big baby,” she shouted back. Then she rolled her eyes at Darkos.

The two rounded a large rock formation to find their target ahead of them, the sleepy town of Sunnyland. It was a tiny little thing, maybe only two dozen houses, with sprawling farms around them, apparently harvesting tumbleweeds.

The town was also entirely and utterly undefended.

—

They couldn’t stop the Shauns fast enough.

Geela was already on thin ice with him after the wooden mule debacle (it had taken her the better part of two days to restore him), and he wasn’t about to pay her much heed.

The impact of mules against buildings was enough to give Geela a migraine. Villagers ran everywhere as the Shauns went wild. The temple, a roughly constructed wooden chapel, didn’t stand a chance.

Geela stood in the midst of the desolation feeling very awkward, even if she didn’t look it. She was decked out in a long black coat and a low, heavy hat that masked half her face. A bandana covered the other half, and where the two met, her green eyes glowed. She took a few steps, and the spurs on her boots jingled with each heavy thud from her feet.

When she spoke, her words drift in on the whistling wind.

“People of Sunnyland. Your lives have been saved, and you are released from this wicked place. Consider this your reckoning.”

“Was this about the void cult?” shouted one hick from the back. “Cause uh, we got your letter. Fixed ‘em right up. We can show you the bodies if you want. You didn’t have to go tearing up our homes, I don’t think.”

“Your town was a regrettable casualty of our righteous assault,” Geela said. She resisted the urge to cross her arms defensively and managed to stay cool and collected.

An old man with a golden star on his vest and a hat big enough to rival Geela’s stepped forward. “Mighty understandable, but we’re still in a pickle. Got nearly a hundred of us now and no way to rebuild our village. Closest town’s a bit aways. We’ll never make it on foot.”

Geela felt like screaming because this was the last thing she wanted on her mind. Instead, she looked to Darkos, hoping he’d have some way to assure her that these yokels would survive after they left. However, instead of looming ominously behind her, he was wrangling a pack of Shauns, trying to calm them down.

Geela’s eyes landed on the mules before turning back to the hundred or so very homeless villagers.

An idea had just come to her.

—

“You think we’ll ever see Shaun again?” Darkos asked. “He—they—the Shauns all seemed pretty tired after they ferried the villagers to Saggy Flats.”

“Of course, we’ll see him again,” Geela snapped. She rolled her eyes and softened her tone. “I made him what he is.”

“Yeah, but I think he’s kind of regretting that.” Darkos blinked before peering at her through the dark. The two were currently sharing rather cramped quarters, and Geela could barely make out his face. “Geela, if he could do all that, why didn’t you ever use him before?”

Geela stared down Darkos, green eyes menacing. “Well, we didn’t need a wooden mule before. And besides, he clearly doesn’t like being used, since he ditched us in Saggy Flats.” The nerve of her infernal mule.

“I thought you said he was just going back to the castle.” Darkos sounded distressed at the mule’s betrayal.

“He is. It just doesn't help us since the castle is north and the Celestial City is south. Trust me, if we could have avoided our current situation by riding him, we would—” Suddenly, the two pitched violently, and Geela slapped a hand over both hers and Darkos’s mouths.

“Did you hear something, Thiss?” a gruff man’s voice asked.

“How’d’ya mean?” a gruff woman’s voice asked.

There was silence for a moment before, “Oh nothing. My old ears are going. Ever since we loaded up in Saggy Flats, I’ve been hearing voices in the cargo.”

“Just Plains Fever. Or you’re losing your mind. Wouldn’t be surprised either way. But it ain’t drugs, and we’re running late, so let’s keep on keeping.” With the snap of reins, the wagon started moving again, bumping over rocks and roots, the two drivers unaware of the stowaways stashed in one of their larger crates.

Geela let out a breath but was nonetheless pissed. She was truly never hiding in a cramped wooden space again.

Darkos’s thoughts were clearly on a similar path. “No offense, but I kind of can’t believe you agreed to this a second time,” he said, laughing, as he pulled out a small pouch of breakfast. Dried squirrel jerky. His new favorite since entering the Arid Region. “If I’d been the one inside Shaun, I don’t think I could have done this again.”

It was for the best that Darkos couldn’t see Geela’s expression in the cramped crate. “Just keep your voice down for another three days, and we’ll be in the Celestial City and can take some real transportation.”

God, if this Professor Elle, this blasted realm studies instructor, didn’t have something good for them, Geela would curse the woman until she was speaking backwards her whole life. This miserable traveling situation would be too much work for some nobody who may have, in fact, randomly sent Darkos’s parents to a random village, with no sinister motives at all. If the stupid traders driving the wagon had just accepted Geela’s pay for passage, she could have avoided this whole ‘cooping up in a crate for three days’ situation.

“We’ll find something at the academy,” she said, voice bitter. “We’d better.”

Darkos treated her with a placid smile, and she realized that she hated this far more than he did. She cut him back a mutinous look.

“Want to play a game?” he asked. “Kill some time? We used to have one back in Sunnyville called I Spy, but it’s pretty dark in here. I guess we could do I Hear?”

“Neither of us will survive to the Celestial City if we play ‘I Hear.’”

“Hmm. Not your thing. Okay, what about twenty questions?”

“Darkos.”

“I’ll go first.”

“Darkos.”

“Try asking if it’s alive. That’s a good start.”

It was going to be a very long three days.