While waiting for the payment for the book to arrive, Anastacia focused on studying the necromancer tome. Every now and then she went outside the walls to see how the teachings worked in practice. Slowly but surely, her effective range of control and speed increased. She also moved around larger masses of bone and moved dozens of individual bones in intricate patterns to improve her level of control over material. None of this transferred terribly well over to controlling flesh and Anastacia had been jumping over any chapters dealing with it. She knew she probably shouldn’t have, but specializing in not touching the grosser parts of corpses felt like something she could pull off. Of course, it was a waste, like a skilled mage limiting themselves to only using basic spells, but projectile vomiting during combat wasn’t exactly the best technique out there.

Just like on the first six, on the seventh morning after their quest, Anastacia was sitting at a table in the inn, drinking her morning coffee and flipping through the tome to looking for something new to focus on. None of her friends were awake yet, as they had no need to do more quests for a couple of weeks at least, sleeping in had become a habit for them. Only Rosie was busy preparing for the breakfast rush but still found the time to chat with Anastacia while refilling her cup.

“You’re really into that book, huh? Is it interesting?” The innkeeper asked while pouring Anastacia her third refill.

The necromancer nodded. “Yeah, there’s tons of helpful stuff in here, but some parts are just disgusting. Like this one, ‘Smearing blood over the bones you intend to use can increase the effectiveness of your grasp over them, even better if they have some of their original owner still stuck on them.’ It’s really nice knowing that the insane person writing this is technically my ally.”

“Better than having them be your enemy.” Rosie pointed out.

Anastacia closed the book and leaned back to rest her eyes. Mikhail’s payment could arrive any day now and she wanted to get the money to do some serious shopping, so she spent most of her time where she could be found by a courier. The others were happy with just the money from the quest and gems, so the party had decided that Anastacia would get to keep everything she got for the book.

The tavern was almost empty, and aside from a couple of ratfolk adventurers in the corner table, Anastacia was the only patron there. It would be another half an hour or so before the other guests would start to drag themselves downstairs, and she had gotten her fill of pointlessly grotesque descriptions for the morning, so a quick walk seemed like a good idea. It was still dark outside but the sun would rise any minute now and Anastacia had always liked the sunrise. She put the book behind the counter and told Rosie her intentions before strolling outside.

Anastacia greeted the guard stationed at the gate and started to follow the wall to east. It was possible to navigate easily enough in the twilight, even without a lantern. She followed a well-traveled path that ran along the wall, close enough for her to touch the ancient stone surface.

Almost right away, she noticed an unpleasant odor in the morning air – the unmistakable tang of flesh and blood she was far too familiar with. “Hmm… That’s weird…” She muttered to herself and continued walking until her senses picked up something by the wall in the distance – something dead.

Figuring it could have been a meal some beast had forgotten there after being shooed away by the guards, the necromancer continued inching forwards. It didn’t take long for that theory to get thrown out when she realized the sheer size of the mess ahead. The mass of gore was far larger than she had thought, at least two meters in height and twice that in width.

The mountain of wet flesh appeared almost black in the darkness as it leaned against the wall, and Anastacia could only barely see it. Despite not feeling at all like she needed to see it and already gagging over the idea, she figured that it was wise to at least see what was up so she could report it to the guards.

“Please don’t be people, please don’t be people, please don’t be people…” She nervously repeated and uncovered the crystal in her lantern and pointed it at the mass.

Most of it was people. Hands and legs sticking out here and there, ripped skin and clothes. There was also at least a single sheep and probably a pig thrown into the mix.

Anastacia backed off before she’d throw up and a slight feeling of triumph came over her when she managed to keep her breakfast coffee inside her, but that didn’t last for long as the sun finally came up and lit the field outside the wall. Anastacia decided to take a final glimpse of the pile of gore, before reporting it to the guards. She turned around, and immediately fell on her knees.

Above the pile, the wall was drenched in blood which Anastacia hadn’t noticed it in the dark. Reaching from the top to the bottom of the 18-meter-high wall, were bloody letters spelling out the word – or more accurately, the name ‘Crimson’. Possibly the worst part of the whole message was the heart-shaped dot over the letter I.

The guard posted at the northern gate of Valor gazed at the beautiful sunrise that marked the end of his shift. The guard who was supposed to take up the post him had already arrived and was now doing some light warmups to wake himself up properly.

“Looks like the weather’s going to be good again.” The guard retiring for the day said and yawned.

“Yup, perfect for travelling. There’ll probably be a lot of people coming and going today.” The other one agreed while spinning his halberd.

While sparring, he noticed Anastacia desperately rushing towards them. Someone running for their life was generally something a guard didn’t want to see so early in the morning, so he notified the other guard and took a better stance to potentially face something that was chasing the girl.

“Isn’t that the necromancer that’s staying at Rosie’s? The little weird one.” The fresher of the guards realized.

The other one squinted worriedly. “Yeah, she left for a walk a bit ago… Go man the gate controls, we don’t want to fight something that made her run like that.”

The pair of guards took their positions and waited. Nothing seemed to be following the girl as she got closer, but the guard who had remained by the gate was the type to trust his instincts. He stopped Anastacia and demanded an explanation.

Out of breath, the necromancer took a moment to speak up. “There’s another necromancer out there! Close the gate and do not go out.” She said and further caught her breath. “Also, a pile of corpses by the wall down that way.”

Having said what she was going to, Anastacia ran off towards the inn, leaving the guards to do their job. Wisely taking heed to her words, they closed the gate and went to check the situation from the top of the wall. As soon as they saw the mess from above, they alerted the other nearby guards and decided to split up, one heading to the barracks for reinforcements and the other to the inn to see if the city’s resident necromancer was going to do something.

Anastacia stumbled through the inn’s door and fell over on her way to the stairs. She banged on Gilbert’s door until he opened it.

“Morning, Anna. I’m going to go ahead and guess that it’s another necromancer.” The groggy old adventurer said and scratched his messy beard.

“Yeah! Gear up and come to the kitchen!” Anastacia exclaimed while already running back down the hallway. She banged on Emilia’s door for a while but got no response even after several tries. “Damnit! I’ll just go and get the key.”

Almost tripping over in the stairs, Anastacia stormed into the kitchen. Rosie was still preparing the breakfast and was surprised by the exhausted necromancer.

“Kitten? Is something wrong?” She asked

“It’s another necromancer! Give me the keys to Emilia’s room, I need her prepared to fight!” The exhausted girl yelled and hopped in place to keep her momentum.

Rosie poured some water for Anastacia and pulled stool from under one of the tables. “Take a breather and let me go and get Em. She’s not in her room anyway.”

Anastacia had been running for a while now, so a break seemed like a good idea. She moved some of the chopped onions and carrots that were on the table, pressed her forehead against the cool surface and started to come up with some kind of a plan. Out of the remaining four inquisitors, Crimson was the one Anastacia feared the most.

Gilbert stepped in to the kitchen while still tightening the last straps on his shoulder guards. Rosie and Emilia soon followed him. The priestess hadn’t put on her armor as it would take a while to do and instead just carried it with her and started strapping it on in the kitchen.

Gilbert poured himself some coffee and opened the discussion. “So, what are we looking at? Another mean necromancer trying to drag you back to Mournvalley?”

Anastacia took a deep breath. “You wish! It’s fucking Crimson. She’s the nicest girl you ever meet, until she drowns you in blood because she’s just batshit insane. There’s no chance she’s here to take me in alive, that’s just not what she does.” She explained and kept gazing out of the kitchen, through the windows to the square.

“Any idea how we can beat her? I mean she shouldn’t be able to just explode us like you can, right? So do we just bash her head in?” Gilbert swung his mace in the air a couple of times while talking.

“I don’t know!” The necromancer yelled. “How do you plan against someone whose only plan of attack is to be the worst person on earth?”

The guard who had been at the gate knocked on the wall to announce his presence. No one had noticed him until now but he had heard the whole story. “Might you require help from the guard? This Crimson seems like something we don’t want around Valor, and you have the most experience on her, so we’ll gladly give you the reins.”

Anastacia was about to decline the offer because they would probably just be in the way, but realized that there might be a use for them after all. “How good are your archers?”