“Should we say something, maybe?” asked Abby as Zeke deposited Tabby’s remains into a hastily dug hole. There really wasn’t much left; even the girl’s bones had crumbled almost entirely into dust. They had walked for a little more than an hour from where they’d made camp earlier that night, and they’d both agreed that they had found as good a spot as any to bury what was left of Tabby.

“Like what?” Zeke asked, climbing out of the pit. He immediately started pushing the heavy, red clay that was native to the region atop what little was left of the girl who’d attacked them. “She tried to kill us, Abby. I know we didn’t mean for her to die, but…”

Abby sighed. “But she’s probably better off,” she lied to herself. Indenture was rarely pleasant, but it was usually only temporary. Even the worst indenture contracts had a way out. Death did not. “It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

Zeke didn’t answer. Abby knew the man wasn’t an unfeeling monster. She had seen plenty of evidence of just how deeply into his emotions he could descend. However, there seemed to be a clear demarcation in his mind between enemies and everyone else. And he had little sympathy regarding the former. Abby wished she could be more like him.

Finally, Zeke said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about death, lately. About the things I’ve done.”

“And?” she prompted when he let the though hang in the air.

“And I don’t know, Abby,” he said, shaking his head. Idly, he ran a hand through his hair. It had gotten a bit longer and wilder, but she had to admit that the look suited him. “At first, I killed those trolls because it was either that or die. I didn’t really go out of my way to find a fight, you know? But the longer I was down there, the more I started to think of them as this great enemy. Then, I found that room with all those corpses…”

He sighed before continuing, “I went a little crazy down there. Maybe a lot crazy. Some of it’s a blur. I killed every troll I could find after that, though. It didn’t matter if they were a threat. It didn’t matter if I could avoid them. I went out of my way to exterminate them. I wish I could say that I did it because I wanted to protect people from ending up in a troll’s belly, but I think I was just angry. You know, frustrated with my situation. And I was strong enough that I could take all of that out on those trolls.”

“They were monsters,” Abby assured him. She reached out to touch his arm. “They deserved what they got.”

He looked up into the night sky, then closed his eyes. “That’s just the thing – I don’t know if they did. They were just living according to their nature. I don’t know if they were like people, if they were sentient or sapient or whatever – always get the two mixed up – but if they were…if they were, I slaughtered a whole society, and what’s worse, I started enjoying it. Not in the sense that I was grinning like a maniac as I killed them, but more that I got this deep sense of satisfaction from taking them out. From exterminating them. Like I was doing the right thing. That’s worse, I think. You know, worse than taking joy in the death part. I could convince myself to do a lot of horrible things if it came with feeling like I was right.”

“I’ve felt the same thing,” Abby said. Hers usually stemmed from the accomplishment of a goal, but she’d met plenty of people like Zeke, who took pride in neutralizing a threat. She had also met the other sort, the ones who just enjoyed killing, regardless of the reason.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing in her direction. “I think it’s necessary if you want to do what we’re doing. You have to justify it somehow, right? I thought killing people would feel different, though.”

“Doesn’t it?” she asked.

He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Not really,” he said. Seeing her briefly concerned expression, he let out a slight chuckle. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go crazy and start murdering whole towns or anything. But I really don’t feel bad when people who choose to attack me end up dead. I can kill them without feeling even a little bit guilty. That’s weird, isn’t it? I probably shouldn’t feel this way.”

Abby really didn’t know how to respond. They had brushed against the subject on a couple of occasions in the past, but he had never been so forthright about his lack of empathy concerning the death of human beings. Certainly, that lack only extended to those he considered his enemies, but for someone with his level of power – who was only going to grow stronger – it was still concerning. A lot of lives could eventually depend on his judgment.

“I think the fact that you’re worried about it says a lot about who you are,” she said.

Again, he shrugged uncomfortably, saying, “That’s a pretty low bar.”

“It’s a brutal world populated by people with superpowers,” Abby stated. “The leader of the Radiant Isles could kill the entire population of Beacon without breaking a sweat. And I’m sure those other islands out there have similarly powerful people. Nobody can tell them what to do. Not really. And you’re on your way to being one of them. The best we can hope for is that you at least try to do the right thing.”

“Again, a low bar.”

“It’s kind of up to you to be better, then,” Abby said. “Because it’s not going to be long before there’s nobody out there to make you do anything you don’t want to do. You’re already there, to some extent.”

For a long moment, Zeke didn’t reply. Instead, he silently covered Tabby’s remains in clay. Nearby, Pudge gnawed on one of the leftover legs they’d looted from the drachnid queen. It was tough enough that he hadn’t been able to destroy it yet, which couldn’t be said for most things that found themselves on the wrong end of the bear’s jaws.

“I do feel bad, you know,” Zeke said after he’d finally filled the hole. “Not because she died. If that was the choice we’d made, it wouldn’t have bothered me. The issue I have is that I told her I’d do one thing, but then…well, I didn’t mean to break my word, but it happened all the same.”

“Yeah,” Abby said. “A bad situation all around.”

After a few moments, Zeke awkwardly broke the silence, saying, “Alright – let’s get going, then. No reason to stick around any longer.”

With that, Zeke strode toward Pudge, pulled the drachnid leg away, and dismissed it into his spatial storage. Pudge clearly didn’t like that, but he was well-behaved enough not to make his feelings too obvious. After that, the trio set off toward the road, which was around two-hundred yards to the west.

For the next week, the party trekked north, skirting around Redoubt and into the wild forests that abutted the mountains which spanned the northern part of the Radiant Isles. The further they went, the colder it got until they crossed into an area that seemed like it was perpetually covered in snow. They were attacked a few times by enterprising monsters, but nothing proved to be much of a danger, and they dispatched their attackers with ease. The closest call came when, on the fifth day, just after they’d set out from where they’d summoned the cottage for the previous night, they were ambushed by a pack of snow goblins.

The creatures weren’t any bigger than their cousins to the south, but instead of green, scaly skin, they were covered from head to toe in thick, white fur. Only their pale, white, and incredibly ugly faces remained free of hair. To a goblin, they all carried long spears, hide bucklers, and wore rudimentary leather armor.

Their equipment did them little good. In fact, it was almost amusing to see Zeke’s mighty swings launch the creatures dozens of yards away, where they would only stop because they collided with a boulder or a snow-covered pine tree. However, there were more than a hundred of the little monsters, and they were quicker than they had any right to be. So, their party inevitably ended up taking a handful of wounds that were more annoying than life-threatening. But it did slow their progress to a crawl, a situation that was only exacerbated by the increasing elevation.

On the eighth day after they’d buried Tabby’s remains, something wholly unexpected happened. Abby was so focused on the narrow trail that they’d been following that she stumbled at the sudden notification that flashed before her eyes:

Quest [Investigate the Vale] Discovered! Nearby, there is a mysterious valley. Investigate it, and you may be rewarded with a unique opportunity!

“W-what?” she muttered.

“I guess you just got a quest, too,” Zeke said from behind her. Even Pudge huffed his agreement. “So did Pudge. Didn’t even know he could get quests.”

“That’s…that’s weird,” Abby said. Everything about Zeke’s soulbond with the animal was strange. “Do you want to try to do the quest?”

Zeke shrugged. “I’ve never regretted doing one before,” he said.

“But we’re on the clock here,” she reminded him. “We’re supposed to be saving the princess, right?”

“First of all, she’s not a princess. And second –”

“You literally referred to her the same way a few days ago,” Abby accused, rolling her eyes.

“Whatever,” he said. “Second, doing one little quest isn’t going to make a difference. Chances are, she’s already dead. Lady Constance intimated as much. We’re just supposed to figure out what happened.”

Not for the first time, Abby muttered, “This mission is so weird. None of it makes sense. Like, why would Lady Constance send her daughter up there in the first place? And there’s no reason she should trust us with something this important. She doesn’t even know us. She’s got hundreds of people more qualified than us that she could’ve sent up there. The whole thing smells –”

“I know,” Zeke said. “Believe me, I do.”

Truthfully, Zeke didn’t know the half of it. The rumors surrounding Talia Nightingale were many and varied, but none of them were good. Abby had even heard that Lady Constance had tried to force the girl down a healer’s path against her daughter’s will, making her take the same skills her husband had had. And given how the woman had reacted when Jeremiah had died, it wasn’t a leap to think that something was wrong there. Not that anyone said as much where it might get back to the ruler of Beacon; no, those rumors were confined to whispers.

And now the girl had been sent into one of the more dangerous areas of the Radiant Isles, and what’s worse, she’d gone missing despite being accompanied by a living legend. It stunk, and if Abby was even a little braver, she’d have refused the request and tried to run away. But people didn’t just turn down Lady Constance. Doing so was a good way to end up as a pile of ashes.

“I’m okay with checking it out,” Abby said. “But we don’t need to spend too much time on it. A day or two, at most. We don’t want Lady Constance to find out we delayed.”

“Fine,” Zeke said. “Do you want to split up so we can find this vale? Or just…”

“Why don’t you make camp here?” she asked, looking up at the darkening sky. There was still a couple of hours until nightfall, but logic suggested that if the quest triggered, their destination was close by. So, they wouldn’t want to keep going and get too far away. “While you’re taking care of that, I’ll scout it out. I can move through the woods faster than you.”

Zeke was a lot of things, but he was no woodsman. His survival in the wild was due more to sheer stubbornness than because of any innate skill. And Abby, though she hadn’t had the opportunity to take any of the requisite skills, had often occupied the role of scout in any party she joined. So, she’d grown used to moving through the wilderness.

Zeke reluctantly agreed, and as he summoned the cottage, Abby set out to scout the area. It didn’t take her long to find the vale mentioned in the quest. Set between two prominent mountains, the valley was covered in a thick fog that obscured its contents.

“Well, that’s not ominous at all,” she muttered to herself, wondering all the while what was hidden in the mist. After staring at it for a few seconds, Abby made her way back to the cottage and told Zeke what she’d found. As she described the valley, she made a point to cast her skill, [Makeshift Camp]. She’d learned her lesson the hard way, and she wouldn’t let herself be lulled into a false sense of security again.

“Still want to chance it?” he asked. “No telling what’s down there.”

Abby nodded. “You were right before,” she stated with more confidence than she really felt. “Quests are there for a reason, right? If we want to get stronger, we have to take chances.”

Zeke glanced up at the sky; night had already fallen, and a half moon hung high in the sky. “Tomorrow, though,” he said. “Something tells me we shouldn’t go down there in the dark.”

“Probably for the best,” she acknowledged.

The rest of the night progressed just like the previous few, with the pair making idle conversation while Pudge occupied himself with his various toys, which were just spare monster bones or drachnid parts that could stand up to the force of his jaws. Then, they went to their separate beds, which, due to the expansion of the cottage, were now located in their own rooms.

The next morning, the three set out towards the vale, and after only an hour, they reached the mist-covered valley. Zeke said, “Looks creepy.”

“I thought the same thing when I first saw it,” Abby said, looking down at the obscuring fog. She could make out the vague shapes of various trees, but they were mere shadows in the mist.

“And now?”

“Still super creepy,” she acknowledged. “I am not looking forward to seeing what’s inside.”

He glanced in her direction, and Abby looked back at him, a challenge in her eyes. Zeke had donned his rust-red armor for the occasion, even strapping his massive shield to his arm. He was ready for battle. “Last chance to turn back,” he said. “If you think it’s a bad idea, I won’t argue.”

By way of an answer, Abby just squared her shoulders and strode forward, picking her way down the slope and into the valley. Zeke followed, his footsteps loud, and soon, they were enveloped by the mist. Still, they pushed forward, ignoring the obvious sense of danger clinging to everything in the valley.

After a few minutes, Zeke stopped dead in his tracks. “Oh, this was a huge mistake,” he breathed.

“W-what is it?” she asked, her heartbeat spiking.

“Runes,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth. “Lots and lots of runes. And they’re everywhere. More complicated than anything I’ve ever seen before.”

Pudge let out a little whine.

“Turn back,” Abby said. “Let’s just –”

Then, the entire valley lit up with the blazing light of a thousand glyphs, and Abby’s vision was obscured by pure, unadulterated whiteness.