For a moment, I was simply stunned. Just how was I supposed to deal with the crying orc in front of me. Part of me wanted to simply leave, returning to Sigmir and the others, but the idea didn’t sit right with me. It was so easy to empathise with her, just thinking about losing Sigmir was enough to bring tears to my eyes.

Reaching out, I placed a hand on her shoulder, simply offering silent sympathies, without acting too intimate or familiar. She shrunk a little further at my touch, making me regret the gesture but before I could pull my hand away, her hands grasped it, holding it tightly. Tight enough to hurt, but it was a minor inconvenience combined to the pain she was still radiating outwards, battering against the shroud of darkness I had pulled up. Curiously, while the emotional projection, if that was what I was feeling, had become stronger with her pain, the heat around us had mostly died down.

For a minute, I just stood there awkwardly, my hand held in a vice-grip, while Dura was crying. I considered trying to reach her with my Mind Magic, maybe I would be able to offer a more direct form of support. For once, my common-sense won out over my curiosity, especially due to the change of my Mind Magic after crossing the second Divide but even without that change, it wasn’t the right time to experiment.

Finally, the heaving sobs died down to sniffles and her hunched over form started to uncurl a little. It was almost comical, the first thing she seemed to become aware of was my hand, still clasped and held by her and I could watch how her eyes started out at our hands, followed my arm upward and ended up looking at my face. There, she stopped for a moment, before her eyes flickered back to our hands, returning to my face after a second, before she suddenly let go of my hand, as if burned. It was difficult to see a blush due to her dark skin-tone, but this one was strong enough to show, making me wonder if she would spontaneously combust. In her case, that felt like a real risk.

With my hand no longer gripped, I stepped back, trying to give her a little space to compose herself, and sat back on the rock I had been sitting on. In turn, she reached into the bag on her waist, pulling out a piece of cloth and used it to clean her tear-stained face. It was sorely needed, not only had the tears left wet streaks down her face, even her nose had begun running, but I chose not to focus on the sorry sight of her, simply giving her a moment. Partially because I had no idea what to say, whether to ask a question, whether to change the topic, I simply didn’t know.

How did one deal with an acquaintance breaking out into tears in front of you? I would be hard-pressed to come up with a good reaction to anyone, but Sigmir. For SIgmir, it would be holding her until she was feeling better or erase whatever was causing her pain from existence. Maybe both at the same time. For anyone else? I didn’t even know where to begin.

When Dura reached down, picking up her flask I noticed the sweet, slightly stinging smell of the liquid spilled from it, confirming my suspicion about the content of her flask. I knew about my own forays into drinking that getting drunk was a bad idea and decided to stop her, when her hand raised the flask to her lips,

“I think you’ve drunk enough. Give me a moment, if you need something to drink.” I told her, acting before she could confirm that she was thirsty. Partially because I wanted to show off, just a little.

There was enough heat around us, both physical and magical, that the simple Ice I could conjure with my magic would melt within moments, unless I kept it supported with my own Astral Power to stop the laws of physics. That meant, if I created tiny particles, like the Diamond Dust I could easily form, the surface-area would be massive, compared to the volume and it should melt nearly instantly.

First, I conjured a fresh mug, made from Ice but carefully kept it connected to my own Astral Power, allowing me to keep it cold. Into the mug, I conjured a small cloud of Diamond Dust, using as little Astral Power as I could to create the biggest amount, trying to give every particle as little as possible. It worked, mostly, without looking very closely I would have missed the original particles making it look like I was conjuring water out of thin air. It wasn’t real water-magic but maybe it would keep the orc in front of me guessing.

There was a look of surprise on Dura’s face when I handed her the mug, her eyes going from my own mug, which I casually refilled with Liquid Moonlight, her flask and the transparent mug of water in her hands.

“It’s so cold.” she muttered, her voice hoarse. It made me chuckle to myself, of course it was cold, what did she expect a mug made from ice to be? Warm? Maybe her mind wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

“There’s just water in your mug.” I assured her, when her eyes flickered to my mug again, the Liquid Moonlight inside containing enough power to cause serious harm, maybe even kill someone, if they were careless and I let it get out of my control.

“Thank you.” she said with a nod, after taking a small sip, her voice sounding a little better.

“You are welcome.” I replied. Part of me wanted to urge her to continue her story, curious just what had happened to her and her friend, but I managed to keep myself quiet, letting her decide on the course of our conversation.

Again, it took her a few minutes, only interrupted by small sips of water, before she spoke again.

“There is a set of ancient ruins near Kuresu, maybe a week journey to the north-east of it, near the Calm Sea. Legends say that there was a mighty city there, hundreds of years ago, but something happened and the city fell. What exactly happened is a mystery, as is what happened to the inhabitants.” she began her tale again, and I perked up when she mentioned a mystery.

“It was a major city, that much is obvious both from the ruins left behind and the old tales and records. But today, the city is a place of despair, where not even death is a certain escape. At some point, it turned into a dungeon but one so vicious and unpredictable that nobody wants to claim it. At times, not a single undead appears in months or even years and sometimes, hundreds of them appear, suddenly flooding out of the city, bringing death wherever they go.” I felt myself swallow at the description, it sounded intriguing. But also incredibly dangerous and, sadly, in the wrong direction. Otherwise, I might have decided that investigating further was a good idea, even if the place had killed Dura’s companion, that only meant we had to be more careful.

I felt a mix of curiosity and apprehension coming from Lenore, who was listening just as intently as I was, even as she wondered whether it was a good thing that the place was definitely not on our way and we would have to turn around and travel in the wrong direction for a few weeks. Maybe Lenore was right and it was better that there was no temptation to actually investigate, even if it sounded like an interesting place. Some sort of intelligent dungeon, maybe?

“When we went there, it was supposed to be a dormant phase, allowing us to look around and investigate, maybe learning more. Thronar was convinced that we would manage to find something truly ground-breaking, something that was good enough to convince Marj and Kwyla that they should stay with us, that travelling would do more for their understanding of magic than years of studying in the Guild.” she chuckled again and I noticed her eyes going back to her flask, before she took another sip from her water.

“We were wrong. The outskirts seemed to be deserted and we ventured into the ruins, carefully making our way, until we ran into an ambush. We tried to fight but there were many of them and we had yet to get used to fighting as a pair, instead of a group of at least four. Normally, Marj would use her magic to immobilize our enemies, allowing Kwyla and me to unleash out powers, turning them to cinders. Thronar’s job was to keep them back, until Marj managed to do her thing. We had planned to work in a similar manner, with Thronar holding them back for me to blast.” she paused again, taking another sip.

“It didn’t work.” she admitted, her voice breaking, causing her to take a deep breath, letting it out slowly.

“By the time I had channelled enough power for a big spell, Thronar was wounded, a chest-wound. Seeing him like that, I got angry, so incredibly angry. Those rotting sacks of bone, they had hurt my Thronar, hurt him bad. I took revenge on the undead that struck him, and all others nearby. I don’t think my fire’s have ever burned that hot and bright, they certainly have never since. But it wasn’t enough. The undead were destroyed but Thronar’s wound was a fatal one. And I had managed to get the attention of every rotten thing in that place.” her voice broke at the end, new tears streaming down her face.

“He made me…” she croaked, her voice not getting past her lips. Raising the mug again, she took another drink, only to choke on it and start coughing. Once her coughing fit was finished, she took a deep breath, trying to talk again.

“He asked me to make sure that he wouldn’t turn into one of the undead, haunting the place for some ancient misdeed. I did as he asked.” she admitted, her voice forcibly controlled, so it wouldn’t break again.