”TWO?! We almost got killed fighting one, how can we even fight two at once?! Emilia yelled. “I mean we have two necromancers too, but Anna is not… right.”

“We cannot, we need to get to Valor first, maybe get some more people who can handle themselves and then plan out our move.” Alizarin answered. “If we do not leave, we will be at a disadvantage because we can not just kill the citizens for materials, they probably will not be as courteous. Miss priestess and Rosie, go gather any items you might have left at your lodging and head straight to Valor. They can not track you properly if you do not have either of us with you. Anastacia and I will pull them to the other direction and go around them, we just need to travel light.”

Alizarin hesitantly handed over his bag of notebooks and the like to Rosie, knowing he might lose some valuable data on Anastacia’s behavior. But for now, their lives were more important.

They said their goodbyes and parted. Anastacia and Alizarin ran along the rooftops, towards the city gates. Reasoning with the gate guard would have taken too long, so Alizarin just forced him to stay still while he got the keys for the gate.

The pair of necromancers ran through small paths made between the fields that surrounded the city, this was really uncomfortable for Anastacia, whose boots were in their room at the inn.

“Hey, Alizarin. I don’t feel like running, let’s just fight them here.” She said and stopped running.

“What?! No, we have no chance here, we have no weapons or gear of any kind, there’s no materials anywhere. These two were sent to hunt me down, nothing I can do will work. Carmine and Cerise may be musclebrains, but they’re good at their job.” Alizarin tried to reason while nervously looking into the horizon.

“So it’s those two? Well, at least it will be interesting, and what’s the worst that can happen? We die? You’re not real to begin with and why would I lose in a world that’s made for me?” Anastacia explained with a smirk.

Alizarin may have underestimated how far gone the girl was. He couldn’t leave the girl behind or all their work would be for nothing. Fearing that this might be his end, all he could do is come up with something to defend themselves with.

Rosie shoved everything she found that could be Anastacia’s into her backpack. Clothes, boots, an adventurer’s pearl, the token… That should be everything that wasn’t in there already.

“Look, Rosie. I’m so sorry…” Emilia started to plead but was interrupted.

“Not now. We’ll discuss about this when everyone is safe. I think I should just run with all I have to Valor, we’re not really in any danger so it’s not a problem if we get separated. You just get there as fast as you can.” Rosie said, full of contempt.

While she actually thought that it was the best way to do things, she just didn’t want Emilia around for now.

“Yeah… I’ll check the room once more and leave after that.” The priestess uttered.

Rosie left in a hurry and slammed the door on her way out.

The room seemed to be clear of their gear, Emilia checked under the beds but found nothing. As she was about to leave, she noticed something glimmering in the corner of the room.

“A ring? This must be the one causing all the trouble… Better not leave it behind then.” she said to herself and put the ring in her backpack.

Emilia would have been fine with leaving Crescent as soon as everything was back in order. With the citizens once again properly worshipping lady Sylvia, and the false church destroyed, she felt like all her goals were fulfilled, and she could finally return to her life as an adventurer. But now everything in that life seemed to be in ruins. Rosie was furious at her, Anastacia was going insane and being chased by two necromancers at once. She offered a quick prayer for Anastacia and Alizarin before leaving the inn for good.

The streets were being cleaned by pretty much everyone who was able to help, it would take ages before the stains would clear out but at least they wouldn’t smell like the rotting meat that was lying here and there. As the priestess walked past, everyone greeted her. They seemed to be slightly discouraged by the obviously departing “leader” of their new church, but whenever she was stopped, she said she’d return for a visit every now and then. By the time she reached the gate, there were dozens of people following her, wishing to say their farewells.

“Let us pray for the safety and wellbeing of this great city.” She declared before stepping out of the gates.

The fields around the city were thriving, perhaps because of Sylvia’s blessings were now affecting them, or perhaps they were like that even before Emilia and her friends had arrived. She hadn’t paid too much attention back then.

When she came to the edge of the forest, she picked up the pace slightly and prayed that whatever lived in the forest would stay hidden and not bother her while she passed through it.

Roughly a kilometer before the spot they had their break at on the way to Crescent, she spotted two men, dragging a third, unconscious one to the side of the road. Even the two more lively ones were badly injured and limping. Emilia recognized the bandits as the ones that were trying to rob them before.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?” She greeted them as she didn’t expect them to cause any trouble again.

“Please! No more! The tigress already almost killed us!” One of them wept “She… she kneed Thomas in the groin and he’s not waking up anymore! Just leave us be!”

It was now far too late to escape, Anastacia and Alizarin would have to fight. Two red figures stood only 100 meters away from them, just waiting. One of then was female, not much larger than Anastacia, donning the red robe of the inquisition that was heavily altered. The whole bottom part of the robe was removed and replaced with a baggy pair of shorts. What was left of the robe’s upper part, had been stuffed under a black leather vest. The other inquisitor was considerably larger, while not quite as big as Gilbert, he would have been very intimidating from closer up. He was wearing the usual red robe but as an added feature, it had some metal plates strapped to, probably to serve as armor.

“What are they waiting for?” Anastacia asked.

“They are not waiting for anything. They are trying to figure out what you can do. If it was just me standing here, they would have already attacked and killed me.” Alizarin explained nervously.

The smaller of the two hostile necromancers lifted her hands up but nothing seemed to happen at first.

“NEEDLES! Try stopping whatever flies at you!” Alizarin yelled after realizing what the inquisitor was doing.

Suddenly the two were showered in thin, sharp bone needles. Anastacia protected herself on the last possible moment and stopped the oncoming needles, or so she thought before looking at her palm. One had hit her right in the middle of her hand.

Anastacia barely had time to comprehend that she had been hit before everything started spinning. Her vision became blurred, and a ringing noise filled her ears, making it completely impossible for her to focus on the combat. Another panic attack started to set in, or maybe it was just another effect of the poison on the needles. This wasn’t supposed to happen, why would Sylvia allow this in a world created as an apology for Anastacia’s death? Suddenly nothing made sense anymore.

As their enemies started to close in on them, the needles flew back towards their caster, no doubt to stop alizarin from using them as a weapon.

The inquisitors stopped about ten meters away from their former colleague.

“One and a half meters. That is the lethal range of your pathetic powers over the living. Upper class of necromancers my ass.” The female inquisitor spoke.

“A pleasure as always, Cerise.” Alizarin responded.

He knew there was no way out of this for him, but perhaps there would be a way to save Anastacia. He started to slowly walk towards the Inquisitors.

“Anastacia, you should be able to hear this by now, since the poison’s effect should be wearing off. It saddens me that we fall for a weapon I made. Anyway, Soon enough you will be able to walk, and that is what I need you to do. Walk, run, jog, whatever you can manage, just get away from here and do not look back.” Alizarin stated as he lifted his arms towards the inquisitors. “One and a half meters is only half true.”

Cerise and Carmine weren’t willing to take the gamble that Alizarin had somehow increased the range he could control living matter from, and reached for their weapons.

Within the next few seconds, Cerise threw a dagger and hit Alizarin dead on in the heart, and in turn, Alizarin controlled the bones in his own arms, shooting them at his enemies and injuring both of them seriously. All three inquisitors fell over as Anastacia finally got up and ran.

Alizarin lied on the ground, armless and now dead.

However, the other two were luckier. Alizarin’s bones had ripped into their flesh, causing massive hemorrhaging but not instantaneous death. Despite the unbearable pain, both of them got up and started to limp away.

“Shouldn’t we chase her?” Carmine spoke up for the first time.

“No, not in this condition. Alizarin’s dead and that’s all that matters, for now.” Cerise responded and tried to laugh. She quickly found out that something had hit her lung.