Arlette Faredin grabbed hold of the side of the wagon as one wheel hit a large rock and the entire side lurched precariously into the air before smashing back down with a massive crash. She readjusted her makeshift shield, really nothing more than the top of a broken barrel, getting ready to block as many of the incoming projectiles as possible. She batted away a stone the size of her fist, then dropped to the floor to avoid the spike of ice flying in just behind it. The icicle pierced through a floorboard with a terrifying screech, lodging a good two hand widths of itself into the board. Luckily, the wood held.

The stones were annoying and posed a major injury risk, especially if somebody got hit in the head, but they wouldn’t do much to stop the wagon they occupied from continuing its thundering flight through the last few leagues to Stragma. The icicles, on the other hand, were more dangerous, both to the people of the wagon and the wagon’s structural integrity. Some of them, like the last one, came in at such speed that she didn’t trust her impromptu shield to stop them. But rocks, ice, and even arrows weren’t why she was standing at the back of the wagon. No, the real concern was the fireballs. Just one fireball landing in the wagon would start a blaze that they’d be hard pressed to quench before a second fireball landed, and then a third. Only with an intact vehicle did they stand a chance to escape for the last time.

The trip had been quiet and uneventful enough for Arlette to get her hopes up. Lucas and Liela had been true to their word. They’d arranged for a wagon and gotten them into a trading caravan headed for Stragma, one where, as long as they kept their heads down and faces hidden, nobody would ask questions. The group had traveled like that for almost twenty days, heading southwest through the desert sands towards the mountains that marked the border to freedom. But somehow the bounty hunters had found out. They always seemed to find out. This time, however, failure on their part meant losing their reward for good, so it seemed that those that remained had finally teamed up.

They’d struck in the pre-dawn light, coming out of nowhere. Most came in battlewagons and several chariots, pulled by armored garophs. The weight of the people and armor meant that, even with more beasts per wagon, those hunters could give chase but were too heavy to easily catch up. That was not a problem, however, except for the vekkel riders.

If garophs were the ideal beast of burden for heavy loads and peaceful times, vekkels were their opposite, fast-moving lizards that carried a single rider only and excelled more at fast sudden strikes than sustained long-distance travel. Vekkels were rare and people trained enough to ride them rarer still, but somehow at least five vekkel riders had been part of the attack.

Together the bounty hunters had overwhelmed the caravan’s few guards and begun to make their way through the wagons, killing anybody who wasn’t one of their targets. Chaos beset the camp and Arlette’s group had fled, making a break for the nearby border while they still had a chance. The vekkel riders had descended upon them fairly quickly once it became clear they were the target. Arlette had managed to kill a rider with a lucky toss of a throwing knife, but the others had veered off, using their fast, agile mounts to get ahead and set up ambushes, popping out at the worst times to attempt a strike against the garophs.

That was how Arlette and her companions had ended up careening towards the nearby mountains, garophs frothing from one part terror and one part exhaustion, as at least a hundred hunters gave chase. Jaquet stood by the front, using his weapon and anything else he could to protect the garophs and Sofie from the incoming assault and any vekkel ambushes from the front. Sofie, not one for long-range battles, or any battles really, was doing her best to steer the panicked beasts around the winding road. For somebody whose only experience driving a cart was a few shifts guiding the wagon during the earlier part of the journey, she was doing a fairly good-

The wagon lurched again as a wheel struck another rock, sending Arlette tumbling to the floor. She desperately twisted her way out of the path of an incoming arrow, managing to receive a long thin cut on her forearm instead of an arrowhead to her shoulder.

“Sofie,” she cried as she staggered back to her feet, her eyes locked on their pursuers, “we’re going to break an axle!”

“I’m doing what I can!” came the reply. “It’s like trying to steer the Titanic!”

“Duck,” came a voice behind her. She did, and Basilli unleashed a fireball of his own back at the pursuing hunters. The flames rocketed towards one of the wagons, only to strike the metal armor and burst with little effect. This was just another reason they were in such dire straits. Long-range fighting was not a strength of their group. Basilli was just about the only competent long-range fighter they had. Jaquet and Arlette had a few throwing knives each, but the distance was much too great for those to do anything at all. For the thousandth time since the events in Kutrad, Arlette asked herself why she hadn’t bothered to take up the bow when she was younger. Now they were stuck with nothing but Basilli and his flames as a means of counterattack, and those flames were woefully weak against these specific enemies. Well, that wasn’t entirely true; there was one other thing they had up their collective sleeves.

“Pari! Give me another!”

Pari’s small dark arm reached out from behind a clump of sacks, her hand holding a small red candle shorter than it was wide. Her other hand reached out over the wick and snapped its fingers, bringing a small flame into existence just above the wick. The wick caught fire and Arlette quickly reached down and grabbed the proffered weapon before spinning about and tossing it towards the oncoming mass of pursuers. The drivers of those wagons recognized what was coming at this point, having been hit by several other “bangcandles”, as Pari called them, already, but they’d made the mistake of bunching up too much, limiting their ability to maneuver.

Living up to its moniker, the bangcandle exploded with a bang, shredding apart the front section of one of the battlewagons from beneath as if it were made of straw. The wagon’s wheels disintegrated and it veered to the side, clipping another battlewagon hard enough to knock it over as well. Arlette grinned. With those two disabled, that meant that only seven of the initial twelve wagons chasing them still remained. They had a chance.

“Great! One more, Pari!” she called.

“Pari doesn’t have more! That was Pari’s last one!”

Never mind, they were fucked.

A cry from the front drew Arlette’s attention, and she spun around to see the vekkel riders attacking from the side of the road ahead as the path left the twisty cliff side and opened up into a small, heavily-wooded valley. Three of the riders charged, each leveling a lance at the garophs, while the fourth hung back and loosed an arrow at the nearer garoph. Jaquet stepped forward, his halberd whirling out and down to bisect the shaft just before the head could pierce the beast’s hide.

“Goin’ ta need some ‘elp ‘ere!” he shouted as he pulled out a throwing knife. Arlette and Basilli responded immediately. Arlette pulled her last throwing knife from the sheath strapped to her right thigh and whipped it at the farthest rider, just as the wagon hit another bump. Her aim thrown off, the knife sailed not at the rider, but at the vekkel she was riding, slicing into the beast’s scaly neck. The dying mount bucked and tumbled out of control, right in front of the nearest garoph.

That was enough. Accomplishing in death what it had not in life, the vekkel’s dying body tangled with the garoph’s legs, tripping the barreling beast and taking it and its partner to the ground. The sudden shift in momentum was too much for the wagon and it tumbled forward and to the side, throwing Arlette and company from the cabin to the ground.

It was over. All that fighting, all that running, only to fall short within spitting distance of their goal. Arlette looked at the lance tip hovering a finger-width from her chest, then up at the vekkel rider as he stared down at her, a triumphant smile on his face. She could try something, maybe, but she just didn’t have the energy anymore. She’d lost. They’d all lost. The sound of the seven remaining battlewagons pulling up only confirmed it.

The hunters hooted and hollered in excitement as they rounded up their prey. Several burly men yanked Arlette roughly from the ground and dragged her unresisting form towards a group of five bickering people. Looking about, she saw Jaquet on the ground, out cold, a hunter posing with a foot on his chest as if he were a prize hunt. She couldn’t spot Sofie, but could hear her complaining to somebody loudly somewhere nearby. Basilli was already bound by tucrenyx cuffs, sitting dejectedly on the ground near the bickering hunters. Pari was nowhere to be seen.

“Here she is, Rak,” said one of the men holding her.

“Excellent, the head lady herself,” said a muscled man with a shaved head and an eye patch. He stepped forward and inspected her. “I have to admit, you did incredibly well, my dear. Everybody knew where you had to go, and they knew how you had to do it, and yet you still very nearly made it. Your little group must be very talented. But the Trackers of Boforda always get their marks eventually. I have one question. How did you elude us in Olenset? I know now that you were there while we were. Sate my curiosity and we’ll go a little easier on you on the trip back to Kutrad, hm?”

So this was Rak, the same man who’d been just paces from them back in Olenset? Arlette wasn’t too impressed. She didn’t bother to answer the man’s question, his “incentive” obviously a load of crap anyway. The man bounty hunter leader clicked his tongue at her non-response.

“Hold her there for now,” he said to his men, pointing at a place beside Basilli. “I’ll deal with her once I finish this.”

“You’ll deal with her?” said one of the other hunters in the small scrum. “Stop acting like she’s your prey. She’s all of our prey. That was the deal. Even split across all of us.”

“That’s strange,” Rak replied, “I don’t recall any of you providing the intelligence of where they were. That was us. Without our informant, none of you had any chance of finding her before it was too late. It is only right that we take more than an even split.”

“You bastard!” snapped a different hunter, a woman. “You think that you can just cheat us now that the work is done? Five of my men died today!”

“I think that, of all the survivors, the Trackers of Boforda outnumber all the rest of you combined,” Rak replied with a malicious grin. “You should be thankful for the fact that I’m willing to part with any of the reward at all.”

“You hung back and let the rest of us take the losses, you cocksucker!”

“We believe in fighting smarter, not harder.”

“You-” the first complaining man snarled. He tried to make a move for Rak, but merely fell flat on his face instead, both his lower legs entangled by vines growing up from the ground. Rak stepped back as the other man face-planted, a smirk of bemusement on his face. Arlette’s respect for the man reluctantly rose. To be able to observe plants and grow them around your opponent not only without them noticing but also while not directly looking at them took incredible skill. She would know, she had to do it all the time.

“If you want to even think about challenging me,” Rak mocked, “you’ll have to do better than...” His eyes went to the man’s ankles and his voice petered off, his eyes widening with surprise. So it wasn’t Rak’s doing after all?

Something was off. If it wasn’t Rak, then who? The other people in the group had no reason to do it, since it would be actively sabotaging their own side. The only other people who were paying attention were the people holding her down, and if their strength was anything to judge by, they were definitely Feelers. The other hunters were partying it up, celebrating the end of a long, successful hunt. So who had done it? If not the hunters then the only other option would be...

Rak apparently came to the same conclusion. He reached for the sword by his side, opening his mouth to shout, but before he could make noise a bird call echoed across the area and suddenly people all around began to drop like flies, arrows sprouting from all over their bodies. Pandemonium reigned as the remaining hunters each made a break for the nearest battlewagon, but many began to trip as plants reached out and snagged their feet as they passed by. All the while, more and more arrows rained down from all directions, taking lives left and right.

Another bird call, and the arrows instantly ceased. Slowly, men and women emerged from the forest, each holding a sword or a spear in one hand and a bow in the other. Some were human, while most sported the telltale animalistic ears and tail of a beastman. Their bodies were covered in clothes made from various furs, and some of them had strange markings painted on their faces and arms. Stragmans.

“Trespassing is a very serious crime in Stragma, you know,” said a man stepping out of the forest to Arlette’s right. Her eyes immediately went to the man’s long, bushy, hair which alternated between black and white in long, vertical lines. Tiny little black and white round ears poked out from his head, barely visible through his thick mane.

“N-n-no, it’s not possible!” stammered Rak, who was somehow still alive and untouched. “This isn’t Stragma! You can’t cross the border!”

“Oh, didn’t you know? Stragma’s border is the forest’s border, and a forest grows. You’re in Stragma right now. It’s very strange,” the man said looking around, “we were expecting a caravan to arrive today, but we haven’t seen hide nor hair of them anywhere. Would you happen to know where they might be?”

“I-I-”

“They killed them,” chimed in Basilli, a sadistic grin plastered on his face. “Or at least most of them. Sent the few that still live running every which way, taking your goods with them. If you’re lucky, a few might still try to come this way in a few days, but most of that is gone. All thanks to that guy right there.”

“And who might you be?” inquired the Stragman. He approached the two of them and squatted down to get a better look, staring at Basilli’s and Arlette’s faces in puzzlement. “You two look somewhat familiar...”

“Waterbloom-blou, sir! Over here! Look!” The three of them turned to see another Stragman hefting up Jaquet’s unconscious form as best he could.

“That mustache, that weapon... no, it couldn’t be!” Waterbloom rushed over for a closer look. “It is! Jaquet the Quick himself! And that must mean you’re The Dancing Phantasm, Arlette Demirt! You’re here! You actually made it! Oh, Palebane-chos is going to be overjoyed! I might even get a promotion... Oh, silly me. I’m Commander Ahmakiq Waterbloom-blou, the man in charge of this transport team. It’s a pleasure to meet warriors as strong as yourselves. Welcome to Stragma! It is just the three of you, yes?”

“Two more,” Arlette replied. “Sofie, Pari! Get out here! Now!”

The two youngest members of Arlette’s ragtag group each came out, Pari lugging her gigantic sack behind her.

“Well then,” the beastman said, turning back to Rak. “That shipment was very important for us, you know. So I’ll make you a deal. We’ll wait here for several more days. Any longer and we’ll miss the migration. For every wagon that arrives, we will let one of you live.”

“But that-”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have killed the merchants we needed, hm?”

Rak’s protests continued, and the beastman continued to humor him, but none of their words reached Arlette’s ears any longer. All that has been pushed aside as her mind finally came to realize the truth and an unbearable weight lifted from her soul. They’d made it after all. They were finally safe again.

The incident began as many recent incidents had: with the foreboding giggling of a mischievous little girl. Pari Clansnarl was the kind of child who had a hard time sitting still and staying out trouble, and that excess energy usually came out in the form of pranks. It didn’t help that Basilli was always encouraging her tomfoolery and giving her ideas for new forms of mischief.

Pari tended to exclusively target Sofie with her silliness, and Arlette’s theory was that Pari and Basilli got a kick out of the older girl’s overreactions. She couldn’t deny, Sofie had a unique talent for unnecessary hysteria that some might find amusing. The problem with Pari as a prankster was that she was so incredibly bad at it. A truly masterful prank required a blend of timing and surprise, but Pari would get so excited about what was to come that she’d start giggling before she’d even done anything. Her telltale childish “hehehehehehe” served as a harbinger that something was up well in advance of anything actually happening. And yet somehow Sofie always seemed to fall for whatever it was. Arlette had always assumed she was faking it for the younger girl’s amusement, but she was rethinking that assumption now because Sofie had just thrown herself off a cliff.

It had been five days since their “arrival” in Stragma. The group had stayed for another two days, waiting in hopes that part of the caravan would magically show up, and, to the merchants’ credit, several actually did. Some had even loaded up with extra goods taken from the wagons of the slain. Between the supplies and their arrival, Commander Waterbloom had ended up in a surprisingly pleasant mood. He was true to his word and let some of the surviving hunters free, though Arlette and company made sure that Rak was not among them.

Then the journey to join up with the Stragman people began, and it became clear that they still had a long trek ahead of them. Progress came slowly as they fought their way through the thick forest on thin winding paths through the treacherous mountains on the forest’s north side. Stragma was easily the lushest, densest forest Arlette had ever seen. The trees seemed nigh infinite, as every time they would crest a mountain all they would find would be another wall of green on the other side.

Arlette was not enjoying her taste of Stragma so far, and the other two mercenaries felt the same. Trees, bushes, ferns, and the like seemed to cover everything. The air was so humid she felt like she could swim through it, leaving her dripping almost constantly, unable to get dry. And that was only when it wasn’t raining, which it was, a lot. The moisture was so bad that they’d each been given a large bag made from some sort of monster’s stomach or something, specially designed to keep out as much moisture as possible. Arlette had been keeping her sword and knives in there to prevent them from rusting, but it made her worry about accessibility. A mercenary that couldn’t pull a weapon in a flash was a mercenary that felt helpless.

Their grievances, however, were but specks of dust compared to the boulder that was Sofie’s displeasure. Stragma seemed like a place designed with the intention of subjecting the poor girl to everything she hated without rest. She hated the humidity, the rain, and all the rest, but nothing bothered her more than the bugs. Stragma had an endless supply of bugs, in all shapes and sizes, and Sofie hated them all with a fiery passion. Every step she took was that of a woman on edge, waiting for a trap to spring out from the concealing foliage.

Pari, on the other hand, seemed to love everything about Stragma. She would run about, inspecting every new tree, plant, and fern she could find like they were each some trove of wonder waiting to be discovered. She would break off tree branches and sniff the sap, crush berries and sniff the juices, and snap ferns and sniff them as well. Pari did a lot of sniffing, Arlette noticed. But nothing excited Pari more than a new bug, of which there were many. She’d chase them around, pouncing on them when they landed, and proceed to inspect every inch of them as if they held incredible secrets. Then she’d start giggling and shove them in Sofie’s face. This went about as well as one would imagine. Sofie would scream and panic, Pari’s giggling would intensify, and then after a few moments Pari would run off once more on her never-ending quest to look at every tree and rock in Stragma.

This time, however, things had gone somewhat differently. The group, all hundred-plus Stragmans and the five of them, had been hiking around the side of yet another mountain, the trail taking them along a narrow cliff side just six or seven paces wide. The drop off from the path was not a sheer cliff, but it was close, the angle far too steep to stand upon. Instead of falling to your death, you’d tumble down, slamming against rocks and trees, until settling at the bottom as a crumpled, broken heap of flesh and bone. Then you’d die. Probably. It was impossible to see how far down the cliff went, as a thick fog bank obscured the entire valley below.

It was while they were traveling this dangerous path that Arlette had heard that infamous Pari giggle start up again. Before she could say or do anything, Pari zipped past her and ran up to her “sister”, throwing her cupped hands up high to reveal a thin insect over a hand-width long, with long, thin legs and a body that resembled a tree branch.

“Gaaaaahhhhh!” Sofie had screamed, eliciting more gleeful laughter from the tyke.

“Pari! You have to stop doing that!” she’d scolded. “You’re going to-”

That was when the insect had leapt from the beastgirl’s hands directly onto Sofie’s face. The young woman’s entire body recoiled in horror as she let loose an unholy shriek, her arms flailing about in a desperate attempt to dislodge the bug. She’d taken a step back, then another, tripped over a rock, and fallen backwards over the edge. In just a moment she was gone, lost in the fog below. It had happened so quickly that Arlette hadn’t even begun to react before Sofie’s body disappeared.

So there Arlette stood, looking down into the grey sea below with a stone in her gut, trying to come up with the best solution. Pari was beside herself. She’d initially tried to climb down after Sofie but Commander Waterbloom had hauled her back up immediately. Now she was crying and fighting with several of the members of the transport team that Waterbloom had tasked with keeping her under control.

“A shame, really,” he said as he approached. He sighed. “She will nourish Ruresni, becoming one with the forest, if that is any consolation.”

“It’s not,” Arlette replied. “We should go down there. She might still be alive.”

“Absolutely not. Nobody enters the Valley of the Mist. It is a haunted place.”

“I have to go look! If she’s still alive down there then we’d be leaving her to die, and I can’t do that!”

“Even if she’s alive, the spirits of the dead will take her before you even find her. I said no, and that’s final.” He turned back to the group and signaled for everybody to continue and the Stragmans began to move out. Arlette had no choice but to follow or be left behind, lost in the middle of a forest of immeasurable size.

An hour or so later the path descended back to the forest floor and they all stopped for a rest. Arlette couldn’t help but look back. Just a little behind them was the entrance to the “Valley of the Mist”. Maybe she could sneak in there while the others were resting...

“Don’t even think about it,” came Waterbloom’s voice behind her. “I’ve made my decision.”

“Then I sugges’ ya reconsider tha’ decision.”

Arlette turned about to find the leader of the Stragmans with the blade of a large halberd resting against his throat. Almost as one, every Stragman with a bow took it out and drew a bead on the large mercenary’s body. Basilli meanwhile observed a large ball of flame in front of him and took a stance near Jaquet.

“What are you doing? Put that down before any more people die today,” the Stragman commander demanded.

“Don’ think ya will be gettin’ ou’ o’ this so easily. Ya know my reputation. Ya know my strength. Tha others’ll take me down eventually, bu’ I’ll carve yer ‘ead clean off before then. Do ya really wanna die so readily?”

“The law is clear! No Stragman may enter the Valley of the Mist, for any reason! It is forbidden!”

“What was that?” Basilli interjected. “No Stragman? We are not members of Stragma. At least not yet. Thus the law does not apply to us.”

The black and white haired beastman looked down at the blade gleaming in the light filtering through the forest canopy, thinking hard. Several moments later, he looked back up, his eyes steady.

“I will not have all three of you die before I deliver you to Palebane-chos,” he said. He looked towards Arlette. “You may enter, but only you. The other two must stay. If you are not back by tomorrow morning, we will leave without you.”

Jaquet withdrew the weapon from the Stragman’s windpipe. The commander signaled for his people to lower their bows and they did, slowly, while continuing to eye the three mercenaries. Arlette hoped that this wouldn’t hurt their relations too much in the future.

Grabbing her pack, Arlette headed back towards the opening of the Valley of the Mist. The fog thickened as she approached and she stopped several steps inside for a second to look into the valley. Practically nothing was visible through the grey haze. She sighed — finding somebody in this soup was going to be a challenge.

The pitter-patter of small feet, followed by the soft rattle of various assorted objects in a sack caught her ears, the sounds moving by her off to the side, somewhere in the mists.

“Pari!” she called sternly. A clatter and a high-pitch “nya!” confirmed her suspicions. “Pari, come here!”

At first Arlette didn’t understand how Pari had managed to get away from the others, but on second thought it wasn’t that shocking, really. The Stragmans valued combat strength, and as far as they were concerned, only she, Jaquet, and Basilli were worth anything in a fight. Commander Waterbloom had allowed Sofie and Pari to tag along out of deference to the other three’s wishes, but really only the fates of the mercenaries concerned him. He’d even said that he could not have the three of them getting killed, not the four, showing he hadn’t even considered the little girl in his decision. Now that they were off the ledge and back on solid ground where Pari couldn’t throw herself off a cliff, the Stragmans must have just stopped caring about her again.

The girl, ratty coat, sack, and all, emerged from the mist, her ears flattened down to her head. Despite Arlette’s best efforts, she and Pari were still not exactly on the best of terms. Sofie was, and would probably always be, the girl’s most treasured person amongst the group. Basilli came in a distant second, mostly because they shared a love of mischief-making, and possibly because he’d been the least antagonistic of the three mercenaries when they’d all first met.

Arlette, on the other hand, remained a figure of suspicion in the girl’s eyes, despite the mercenary’s best efforts. Pari didn’t hide behind Sofie anymore, but she tried her best to never engage whenever possible. She didn’t speak to Arlette unless spoken to and generally avoided her as much as she could. Arlette could at least be thankful that Sofie had convinced the girl to follow her Arlette’s commands during battle, but that was about all.

“Pari, they say it’s very dangerous in there. You stay here.”

The little girl looked up at her with sad eyes that were puffy and red from crying. Her tail jerked and twitched this way and that, broadcasting her anxiety.

"P-Pari wants to go look for Sofie-sis," she said, her lip quivering. "It's Pari's fault that Sofie-sis fell..."

Arlette gave the girl’s request a moment of consideration. Unlike the Stragmans, Arlette was well aware of how dangerous the girl could be. She also might be able to find Sofie quickly in the fog using that nose of hers. But more than anything, Arlette knew that if she said no, Pari would just go in on her own soon after anyway. If Sofie was still alive, finding her but losing Pari would just be trading one miserable person for another.

“How many bangcandles do you have right now?”

“Five!” the girl stated proudly, opening her ragged coat to show Arlette the candles tucked in little pockets on the inside lining.

“Alright, you can come along, but stay close to me so you don’t get lost, okay?”

“O-okay...”

She grabbed the child’s hand and together they stepped into the mist.

Haunted or not, the Valley of the Mist sure had the atmosphere down pat. A disquieting stillness pervaded the place, the fog soaking everything from the sounds of the wildlife to their own footsteps and calls for Sofie. Light filtered through the haze and the trees to cast strange shadows across the ground. Everything felt just a little off, a little uncanny. But still, in the end the Valley of the Mist was nothing more than just that: a valley with a lot of mist in it. Or so Arlette had thought. Now, as she gazed at the strange structure before her, that talk of spirits suddenly felt far more viable.

It was a house, or something along those lines. Much of it had fallen in, the rubble overgrown with roots, vines, and the occasional tree, but parts of it still stood, unwilling to bow to the might of time just yet. These parts, unlike those that had collapsed, were almost entirely composed of metals covered with the scars of corrosion. Some pieces were obvious, beams and walls and the like, while others served purposes that she could not discern. Metal vines hung limp from walls and ceilings. Strange protrusions stuck out of floors and countertops. It felt wrong for her to be in this place, like she was trespassing on the grave of some unknown people.

As soon as it became clear that Sofie was not hiding in the house, or whatever it was, Arlette and Pari gratefully continued on, only to stumble upon a second ancient dwelling shortly after. This building was in no better condition than the first. The two wannabe rescuers searched it much like they did the other, once again finding nothing but a building sense of unease.

Arlette understood now why the Stragmans would not enter this place. This was not a land meant for the living. This was the domain of a people long past whose spirits did not find the two rescuers welcome. Arlette was sure she could feel their malevolence, the foreboding atmosphere it created eating away at her composure as they worked their way deeper and deeper into the valley. What once were simply odd shadows now became bizarre outlines filled with malice. What once was just the rustle of leaves now became the first sign of something sinister out there in the mists, lurking just beyond the limits of their vision. She would see things, hints of motion in the periphery of her vision, that she told herself were nothing more than the swaying of branches combined with her imagination, but telling herself that did nothing to silence the voices whispering in the wind. The haze pressed in around her, squeezing her, boxing her in.

But still they pressed bravely onward, hoping against hope that they would find their lost companion alive, and soon. They passed a third ancient ruined domicile, and then a fourth and a fifth. The houses were all aligned in a similar orientation, she realized, as if opening towards a street. The thing was, streets usually led to something. What did this street from a bygone era lead to? Arlette was wondering just that when the fortress emerged from the gloom, and she had her answer.

The building before her was not like a normal fortress. It wasn’t more than maybe thirty paces tall, far shorter than other fortifications, though it was long and wide, stretching so far off into the distance that the fog obscured her view of its true size. She couldn’t see any arrowslits, moats, or watchtowers, but still, it had to be a fortress. Why else build a giant building entirely out of metal?

Indeed, the massive structure was nothing but metal as far as she could see. No windows, no doors, just flat metal walls that curved inwards as they went higher before transitioning into a dome-shaped roof. Like the houses, the scars of time showed all across the building, but Arlette could not spot any section that had collapsed or worn away.

Either way, as peculiar and incredible as the fortress might be, with no doors or windows there was no earthly way Sofie would be inside. That meant they didn’t have to explore it, thankfully. Arlette turned away, ready to head off once more, but Pari pulled back, lifting her nose and sniffing the air intently.

“Pari smells Sofie-sis!” she declared excitedly, pulling Arlette towards the gargantuan building. Of course. She should have known that nothing came easily when Sofie and Pari were involved.

Arlette held her sword in her left hand and the girl’s hand in her right as the two slowly approached the fortress. Arlette braced herself for something to happen, but the spirits of those that rested there stayed their hand and did not strike. Not yet, at least. Still, she could see nothing that they could use to get inside. Together they turned to the right and made their way along the building, Arlette making sure to position herself between the wall and the girl in case the spirits changed their minds.

“Sofie-sis was here, Pari is sure,” the beastgirl stated with confidence as they continued along the wall. “Pari can-”

A terrible screech, like the wailing of a thousand vengeful souls, erupted from the building just beside her. Arlette’s body reacted before her mind could, scooping Pari into her arms and sprinting away from the spirits’ wrath as fast as her legs could carry her. A second screech, similar to the first, pierced the fog and Arlette kept running. When her brain finally caught up with the rest of her, Arlette found herself huddling with Pari on the ground behind a boulder, the fortress nowhere in sight.

Arlette held the girl against her chest plate as her lungs heaved and her heart beat a thousand times a breath. Slowly the shaking in her limbs subsided and her breathing normalized. Part of her wanted to berate the rest for losing control, panicking like a greenhorn in his first battle, but this was not like the fights she was used to, where death came in the form of another person, somebody alive and breathing. No, she’d never trained for this. How do you kill that which is already dead?

Pari squirmed out of Arlette’s loosening grip, picking up her sack and heading back around the boulder.

“Pari, where are you going?” Arlette asked.

“Sofie-sis is near the metal place. Pari is going back to find Sofie-sis,” the little girl replied simply, as if this were all a normal occurrence.

“Didn’t that scare you?”

“No, Pari was surprised but Pari was not scared,” she said matter-of-factly. “Grandfather’s snores are much louder.”

Arlette stared in disbelief as the nine-year-old girl strode confidently into the mist, ashamed that a child had more courage than she did. She had a job to do, she told herself. She would find Sofie, and then they would get the hell out of there and never go back. She pushed herself to her feet and hurried into the mist after her companion.

The walk to the fortress was filled with silence. No animals, no wind, nothing but the sound of two pairs of feet treading on the soft, wet forest floor. This time, the pair moved along the fortress at a distance as Arlette kept her sword in front of her, both hands gripping it tightly. Arlette’s hands shook as they passed by the location of the spirits’ attack, but strangely nothing happened. Soon after, Pari suddenly stopped.

“Pari can’t smell Sofie-sis over here,” she said.

“Where was the place that you could smell her the most?” Arlette inquired.

Pari pointed at a spot near the fortress wall, and Arlette’s stomach fell like a stone. The girl was pointing right where they’d been attacked. Of course.

Slowly, carefully, Arlette approached the spot, her eyes moving this way and that in search of threats, but nothing stood out. Even the wall looked the same as the rest. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She did spot a small, red crystal embedded in the wall about three paces above her head. Other than that, though, everything seemed normal, or as normal as this place could be.

Taking a deep breath, Arlette took one more large step, and then jumped back as the building let loose another horrid screech, venting its fury at her trespass. Arlette leaped back as slowly the fortress opened its mouth, ready to swallow her whole, only to watch as, with one more wail, the mouth closed again and everything returned to stillness.

The strength in her legs left her and she sat down, dropping her sword and placing her head in her hands. She stared blankly at the dirt as the reality of her life hit her head on.

She heard a screech, then a second screech.

A door. She’d nearly shat her pants over a door. An extremely loud door, yes. One that opened seemingly on its own, yes. Yet still just a door like any of the thousands she’d opened and closed in her lifetime.

A screech. A second screech.

Once upon a time her life had been simple. She’d thought it complex at the time, leading a group of mercenaries into battle, finding employers, and all the other headaches that came with being the leader of a mercenary band, but now she understood just how good she’d had it.

Screech. Screech.

The old Arlette would never have been scared of doors. But that was then. The old Arlette had never watched her friends die, or been hunted by an entire country, or been forced to explore and ancient valley filled with monuments to the dead.

Screech. Screech. “...hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe...”

This was what she was now: a nervous wreck who hung out with a crazy young woman and a bizarre beastgirl, clinging desperately to what remained of her sanity. A woman clinging to any piece of wood within reach just to keep herself from drowning in the torrential rapids that-

Screechscreechscreechscreechscreechscreechscreechscreechscreechscreech-

“Pari, spirits above! What in the world are you doing?” Arlette cried, her head shooting up from her hands to find the girl jumping forwards and backwards on the muddy ground and giggling like a madwoman while the door danced to her tune. Pari had figured out the haunted door’s secret, Arlette realized. While she’d been too busy being scared or awash in self-pity, the beastgirl had fearlessly deduced that it opened when you entered a certain area and had immediately proceeded to abuse that knowledge for her own amusement.

Arlette’s words of protest died half-formed at the sight. Pari was no different than she, the mercenary thought. They were both swept up by chaos far beyond their control that threatened to bury them in an avalanche of the unknown, but instead of shrinking back this child chose to embrace it, welcoming the deluge of new and unexpected experiences with open arms and an inquisitive mind. What was stopping her from doing the same? Arlette had never expected to receive life lessons from a child not even ten years of age, but the girl had it right. It was time to start rolling with the punches.

“Pari, don’t disrespect the spirits like that. We need to focus. Do you smell Sofie in there?” Arlette asked as she picked herself up off the ground.

“Ah!” the beastgirl cried, as if she’d forgotten the reason they were there in the first place. She sniffed. “Pari smells Sofie-sis even more now!” she exclaimed as she picked up her sack.

“Now remember to stay with me so we don’t get separated, okay?,” Arlette reminded the girl as they stepped cautiously through the door.

“Okay.”

Then they were through and into the fortress, and Arlette’s mind went so blank that she didn’t even register the screeching of the door closing behind her. It was as if they had been transported into a whole other world. The entrance hall where they stood glowed with an ethereal light, illuminated by strange glowing rectangles set inside the ceiling every few paces. The room was perhaps forty paces deep and twenty or so paces wide, with several hallways beginning at the other end. The floor was composed of tile after tile of the smoothest, most polished stone she’d ever seen. Sliding her fingers along the tiles, Arlette could see the seams where they were placed together but a strange hard, clear coating on top turned the entire floor into a single, smooth surface.

Strange fixtures and implements dotted the room and the hallways that branched from it, mixed with an array of almost-normal recognizable objects. Arlette spotted chairs, tables, a desk, and many others, though they all had something out of the ordinary. The chairs were largely metal, with strange circles attached to the ends of the legs. Wheels, perhaps? The tables were largely just tables, but the tabletops seemed to be made out of solid glass, flatter than any she’d ever seen. To be able to afford to create many panes of glass to that level of perfection... The people who’d created this place must have been richer than kings.

Much of it didn’t make sense, though. For a fortress, the layout lacked any sense of defensibility. An unguarded gate, opening directly into a living space? The people smart enough to create such wonders would surely have understood such concepts. Perhaps she’d been wrong the entire time? But if it wasn’t a fortress, what was it? She wasn’t sure. One thing she could be sure of was that this place was truly ancient. The inside had gone undisturbed for so long that even the layers of dust had layers of dust on them.

Following Arlette in, Pari gasped, looked around at the fortress’s interior with gleaming golden eyes, and took off to explore, her promise made moments prior now completely forgotten. Arlette felt a pang of guilt as she spied the muddy prints Pari left behind on the dusty but otherwise immaculate floor. At least that would make her easy to track.

After a few more moments of contemplation, Arlette set off into the structure, following Pari’s tracks down a nearby hallway. As incredible in some ways as this place was, she still wanted to get away from it as soon as possible. Where the outside had felt like treading on the bones of people long gone, this felt far more immediate, like she’d snuck into some person’s house while the owner had stepped out for a moment, and they could return at any time and catch her. Plus, Commander Waterbloom had given her until sundown, and the day was getting on. If Sofie was around, they just had to find her and get out, mission accomplished.

Pari’s scream pierced the relative stillness, followed by a strange whooshing roar. Arlette pulled out her sword as the impish beastgirl sprinted out of a doorway farther ahead, running like her life depended on it. On her heels came the source of intense noise, a grotesque cylindrical metal beast about the same height as Pari, with a long trunk that reached all the way down to the ground. Some sort of guardian beast, perhaps? Pari cut to her right, turning up the hallway and heading away from Arlette. The guardian beast gave chase, turning to follow the girl. Arlette sprinted after them, closing the distance as quickly as she could.

Pari took a left turn this time, through another doorway, but the beast was not fazed. Its high-pitched roar continued as it followed close behind. Arlette raced through the doorway a moment later to find Pari cornered, her back up against a wall, her ears back against her head, and an expression of absolute terror on her tear-streaked face as the noisy guardian closed in, its trunk extending towards the girl.

Thinking quickly, Arlette leapt forward and tackled the beast from the side, knocking it over. It continued its gusty scream, the trunk moving back and forth in fury over being attacked. Years of training and experience told Arlette that striking something so metallic with her sword would do little good, especially since she couldn’t see any obvious gaps it the beast’s armor, so instead she grabbed a nearby stool, made entirely of metal like so many other things there, brought it up over her head, and swung it down with all of her might. Metal crashed against metal and the beast’s armor dented slightly, but the beast roared on. Arlette raised the heavy stool back up and brought it down once more, then again, and again, and again. At some point the beast ceased to draw breath, though she could not say that it was after the final hit.

The guardian defeated, Arlette tossed the stool aside and let out a tired exhalation. “You okay, Pari?” she asked.

The dam inside Pari broke and she ran into Arlette’s arms, bawling her eyes out. “Waaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Pari was so scared!” she sobbed as she clutched the mercenary tight.

“It’s okay, it’s dead now,” the mercenary replied, rubbing the poor girl’s head and murmuring soothingly. She looked down at her kill as the girl let out all her emotions, studying the creature. For a guard the animal sure seemed strange. Arlette couldn’t find a single claw, tooth, or any other sort of weapon on the thing. Was it really a guardian at all?

“Oh, there you are!” came a voice from the room’s entrance. Arlette’s head whipped around towards the familiar voice to find Sofie standing in the doorway, alive and well, waterproof bag slung over her shoulder. A glance revealed no major injuries of any sort. In fact, she got the impression that the young woman was actually somehow better off than before.

Pari’s face lit up when she heard the voice, the anguish of a moment ago suddenly vanished. She dashed over to her “sister” and leapt into her outstretched arms. Sofie caught her and lifted her up, spinning the two of them about as the beastgirl laughed happily.

“You little rascal!” Sofie play scolded. “What have I told you about shoving bugs in my face?”

“Pari sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you this once, but don’t do it ever again, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Are you hurt?” Arlette asked the young woman holding the happy purring child in her arms.

“I’m mostly alright,” Sofie replied. “I got really lucky. Part of the cliff side juts out from the rest just beneath the mist. I hit my head and got knocked out and when I came to, you were all gone! I tried to climb back up but I couldn’t make it so I had to climb down. It was really scary!”

“Well I’m glad you’re safe. Now let’s get out of here.”

“Awwww, do we have to?”

Arlette stared at Sofie’s disappointed face in disbelief. “Don’t tell me you actually like it here...”

“Are you kidding?” Sofie gushed. “This place is the best place I’ve seen since I came to this world! It’s so nice and quiet! I feel so safe in here!”

“Of all the boneheaded, ignorant, crazy things that I have heard come out of your mouth since we first met, nothing even comes close to what you just said. This place is a waking nightmare. Now let’s leave it while we still can.”

Sofie sighed and released Pari, who scurried back towards the metal beast to retrieve her sack of things.

“Oh?” she said, spying the guardian’s crumpled form. “What happened here?”

“A big mean thing attacked Pari, but Arly-sis beat it up! Arly-sis was so cool! Arly-sis was like wham! Bam! Bang! Arly-sis is the best!”

“‘Arly-sis?’ Uh-ohhhhhh,” chuckled Sofie with a devilish grin. “Looks like somebody got promoted. Welcome to the family, ‘Arly’.”

“Don’t you dare start calling me that.”

“Would never even think of doing such a thing, Madame Demirt,” came the obnoxious reply. Sofie stepped over to the metal creature to get a closer look. Reaching down, she picked up the beast’s trunk and inspected the oddly shaped nose filled with lines of long, bristly hairs, and let out a loud snort and then a giggle.

“Is... is this the big meanie that attacked you?” she asked Pari, trembling and fighting back more snorts of amusement.

“Yes!”

"Was it trying to... snrk... suck you up the whole time so it could eat you?"

"Yes!"

Unable to contain her mirth any longer, the young woman burst into uproarious guffaws, her body heaving with such gusto that she fell on the ground and began to roll back and forth. “Oh,” she choked out between bouts of laughter, “that must have been so very scary!”

Arlette didn’t understand what was so funny. “Don’t make fun of Pari. Who knows what it might have done to her if I hadn’t stopped it! The beast chased her through whole rooms, and it didn’t stop roaring the whole time!”

Instead of stopping, Arlette’s comments unexpectedly made Sofie laugh even harder. Tears pour from her eyes and she pounded the floor with her hand. “I’m sure it did!” she wheezed out, glancing at the girl’s mud covered shoes for some reason. “Oh god, I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! AHAHAHAHAHAHA...”

“Come on, let’s go,” said Arlette as she lifted the howling Sofie to her feet and began to escort the two back to the screeching door, a strange smile peeking through her stern facade. Sure, she was stuck with a crazy, naive young woman who made no sense half the time. Sure, she’d just been adopted by a strange, feral girl with an unknown past and a penchant for explosives. Sure, she’d had to run for her life across the entire continent and now had to live in a giant muggy rainforest to stay safe, but this wasn’t so bad. Did she want her old life back? Yes. Without a doubt. But Jaquet was still here, as was Basilli. The Ivory Tears lived on through the three of them, and she owed it to them and to the spirits of her former companions to keep living, to keep fighting in their memory. She was still alive and she was not alone. Life was about to be a lot different, but who said that meant it had to be miserable? She just had to roll with the punches.