As the sun rose over the treetops on the opposite side of the river, it shone its light directly onto Anastacia’s face, waking her up into the morning filled with songs of birds from the tall trees and the pleasant aroma of the coffee brewing on their campfire. The air hadn’t quite warmed up yet and the grass around her was still moist with morning dew, but the first rays of light had already began to change that for the warmer.

“Ah, the young one awakens!” Maximillian greeted the necromancer from the side of the campfire with a smile and a wave of a stick with a roasted perch on it. “The breakfast will be ready in a couple of minutes. You should take this chance to freshen up.”

Only barely registering what was being said at all, Anastacia looked around in a groggy daze. While Maximillian and Dammar had been awake for hours already, both Gilbert and Emilia had the same vacant look on their faces – the one people get when they wake up in a forest after barely enough sleep. In the other end of the spectrum, there was Xamiliere, whose body had grown several flower buds overnight and seemed just overall healthier than usually, like a houseplant that had been watered.

In her daze, the necromancer kept staring at the spriggan and let her mind wander off. She started questioning the spriggan’s need for sleep in the first place, or if they actually needed to eat at all. She had seen it happen several times, but Xamiliere’s body was literally made out of plants, so why didn’t she simply grow some roots and eat nutrients from the soil, like plants are supposed to do?

Delighted by the befuddled attention she was receiving, Xamiliere winked at the necromancer. “Go ahead and admire, touching is also allowed.” She whispered.

“You make no sense…” Anastacia mumbled tiredly, stumbled up from the ground and started wobbling towards the river.

“The best things never do.” The spriggan answered.

The water was clear, cool and refreshing, and was able to rinse off most of the necromancers remaining drowsiness as she washed her face. For reasons unknown to her, there were several flowers placed in her hair, many of which didn’t even grow anywhere nearby. She considered leaving them be, but ended up deciding against it because of an inexplicable chill in her spine when she touched them.

While washing her still sore feet, she happened to realize there were no fishes by the riverbank, large or small. On a closer inspection, she found out that there were none anywhere nearby. Curious, she focused for a while longer and tried to find a reason for their absence, until suddenly, she could feel something massive slowly drift across the bottom of the river. She quickly lifted her feet from the water and moved a bit further away.

“Umm… Guys, there’s something big in the river…” She reported her findings as the mystery creature slid out of her range.

Dammar walked up to the river and gazed into the water. “Like a fish or something?” He asked.

“All I know is that it was huge.” Anastacia explained and spread her arms as wide as she could to show what she meant. “I think it swam away though…”

“Could have been a sturgeon, they grow over twice as large as a man and sometimes swim through here.” The dwarf guessed, considerably less stressed about it than the necromancer. “But whatever it was, it’s in the water and we’re on solid ground, so let us not dwell on it and have breakfast instead!”

Anastacia hesitantly left the riverbank to join the others for a quick meal before they had to continue their journey. Though she had grown up with food meager in both amount and taste, the delicious and full plates at the inn had quickly increased her standards. She stared at the piece of bread with a small pile of fish meat on it and couldn’t help but to find it a bit lacking. A bit of butter would have gone a long way to make it more appetizing, but the necromancer understood that it was as good as it was going to get on the road and didn’t complain.

After eating and extinguishing their campfire, it was time to continue walking. Though they were still sore, sleeping had successfully turned the aching of Anastacia’s feet into a more muted pain that felt like she could just walk it off – and to a large degree, it worked. Instead of slowing everyone down by dragging her feet, this time she chose to lead the party along the side of the river.

With the weather just as amicable as on the day before and their most troublesome member full of energy, at least for now, the party started to make good progress towards their goal. However, after only a kilometer or so, Anastacia spotted something weird by the side of the river. Covered in rocks and seaweed, a half-butchered deer carcass laid on the ground with its back legs in the water. Even from afar, she could tell that it hadn’t been killed by wolves but did appear to have been dragged for a good distance. What blood it still had in it had long since congealed, which made the necromancer a bit less hesitant to approach it out of curiosity.

“Well, that is odd.” Maximillian noted when he noticed the carcass.

“What is?” Gilbert asked.

The elf pointed at the dead deer. “That’s the one I caught, but I left it deep into the forest…”

It took a second for the gears to turn in Gilbert’s head as he watched Anastacia creep closer to the deer. Perhaps because it was still so early, he didn’t immediately connect the dots, but as soon as he did, the old adventurer dashed forwards and yelled. “ANNA, GET AWAY FROM THE WATER!”

But he was only a moment too late in his warning. As the necromancer turned around to see why she was being yelled at, an eerily familiar large mass shot across the bottom of the river at an incredible speed and emerged from the water before Anastacia even realized it. The creature appeared vaguely horse-like, but pale green and partly covered in slimy scales, with a large fin running down its neck and a second set of bulging fish-like eyes next to the usual pair.

The creature latched its teeth on the necromancer’s boot and using its far larger mass, dragged her into the river before she could do anything about it. It swiftly moved all the way to the bottom and placed its foot on Anastacia’s chest, holding her down while emotionlessly staring into her eyes and waiting for her to drown. Her vision quickly darkened as she began to run out of air.

At the surface, the party that had worked together for years started acting immediately, before Gilbert could come up with anything and Emilia even properly realized what was going on. Dammar snapped his fingers and caught a dagger Maximillian threw at him. “Xammy, get us back up!” He ordered the spriggan and without hesitation, lunged into the river.

The dwarf’s heavy gear and generally dense build quickly took him to the bottom and right next to the beast, where he jabbed the knife into the creature’s neck a few times, causing it to bleed profusely. Wisely, it took this as the tide of the fight turning against it and escaped down the river before the dwarf had the chance to completely gore it, leaving behind a trail of red in the water.

As several vines reached down from the surface and started wrapping themselves around Dammar, the dwarf grasped onto Anastacia and tugged on one of the vines. The spriggan struggled to drag both of them up, but wasn’t about to let her new necromancer drown just like that. Both Gilbert and Emilia grabbed onto the vines that had grown from her back and helped with the pulling, until finally, the pair resurfaced and Dammar rolled Anastacia onto the riverbank.

To everyone’s relief, she started to cough up water as soon as Emilia lightly whacked her on the back and seemed to be fine. The devotee tapped her back a couple more times before turning her attention to the foot the creature had bitten.

“Looks like the boot took the brunt of it. It’s going to leave a bruise but I’m not seeing a wound or anything – you’ll live.” She diagnosed and moved the ankle to make sure it wasn’t broken either.

“What was that?” The necromancer managed to ask between coughs.

Gilbert, who was keeping a watch on the river just in case, obviously knew the answer. “That would be a kelpie – a rather rare aquatic beastie in these parts. They can turn into a hideous lanky human-like creature to crawl onto land, where they’ll look for carcasses to bait other animals with like that. They’re big but honestly can’t put up much of a fight even in water, but can still be dangerous if you get caught unaware. If you have to fight one, even a relatively minor injury is enough to get them to back off.” He explained briefly. “You owe these three a round or two once we get back home.”

“Thanks…” The necromancer uttered.

“It’s quite alright, hardly a quest if someone doesn’t almost die from something unrelated.” Dammar laughed and tossed the dagger back to Maximillian. “But I will take a free drink.”

The elf simply bowed politely and started drying his weapon.

The vines growing off Xamiliere withered and snapped off when she moved to embrace Anastacia. “Or…”

“No.” Emilia immediately stated.

Since their gear were now thoroughly wet, Anastacia and Dammar had to take what armor they had off to let it and their clothes dry in the sun as they walked. The day being warm, it wasn’t an issue, and the spriggan was more than happy to carry Anastacia’s things. Not that long into their walk, the necromancer started to once more complain about her legs, this time pointing at the one that had been attacked. While it was bruised, it actually didn’t hurt all that much, and that much was obvious for anyone who could read Anastacia’s poor acting. However, Gilbert simply didn’t have the energy to spend another day arguing about it, so he begrudgingly picked the girl up on his shoulder and the journey once more continued unhindered.

Despite the almost lethal interruption, it started to look like that party was going to make it to the machine fortress well before dark. Their plan was to camp out by the outer perimeter of the fortress and figure out an approach once they got there. Typically, goblins weren’t hostile and camping near them wasn’t an issue – as long as you kept an eye on your gear. Any harm they caused was typically accidental and even more often than that, aimed at themselves. The world generally considered them a nuisance and didn’t understand them, and they certainly did not understand the world. Some of them could talk and understand speech to a degree, and in no cases had the cunning to lie about anything; so, there was a chance, however small, that the entire quest could be completed by asking a goblin why they were there.

Late in the afternoon, Gilbert pulled out his map and compared it to a few landmarks he could see and the shape of the river. “The fort should be on the other side of that hill. So, before we go, remember: we don’t want any trouble with the goblins. Am I making myself clear, Xamiliere?” He reminded the party.

“Bah!” The spriggan scoffed. “Do as you may, but you’re just as likely to step on their holy turnip or whatever, or accidentally insult them by scratching your chin. We’d be better off by just going in and wiping them all out.”

Maximillian was appointed as the scout, so he ran ahead of the group to check on the situation while they climbed the hill. When the rest of the party finally caught up to him, they found a stunned elf staring into the distance from the top – and for a good reason, as they soon found out. Around the fortress by the base of the hill, was a sea of knee-high green critters that numbered in the thousands. The usual number of goblins a single tribe had rarely went over thirty as far as Gilbert knew, so calling this ‘a gathering’ was a vast understatement.

“Please, check the ground for holy turnips before you step on it…” He uttered and re-evaluated the harmlessness of the critters.