Gilbert woke up when the morning sun’s first rays of light shone directly on his face and almost blinded him. The desert sun was a whole nother beast compared to what Valor got. It didn’t take long for him to thaw out enough to get up and stretch a bit. The undead bird was still gliding back and forth in the horizon, keeping eye on the party. Gilbert was tempted to go throw rocks at it or try and shoot it down with a bow, but he had no idea if that would actually do anything since it was already dead and decided to give up on it. Nonetheless, he disliked the idea of being followed by it, even if Anastacia wasn’t too concerned about it.

It hadn’t gotten quite as cold as he had worried and the girls seemed to have fared well enough, even without a campfire. Emilia had rolled herself tightly in her cloak and was probably being kept warm by the deity she worked for - or at least that’s what Gilbert assumed since the priestess seemed to gain some very weird perks from her employer. Anastacia on the other hand had found a more earthly way of keeping warm. The scorch marks on the simulacrum gave Gilbert a decent idea of what had transpired between the two.

“Oi! Laddie, quit spooning with the girl and come with me.” He ordered the simulacrum, assuming that King had just been lying there fully awake at Anastacia’s bidding.

King got up slowly to not wake up Anastacia and walked to Gilbert.

The adventurer tested King’s temperature with the back of his hand. Even after the night, the simulacrum’s chest was still warm enough to give someone a pretty cozy place to sleep. “Whatever you’re made from, I need a few slabs of it for my back; it gets awfully stiff on cold mornings.” He joked and tapped King on the shoulder. “Now, let’s go before they wake up. Sleeping without a fire is not that big of a problem, but not getting the lass her cup of morning coffee is not worth the risk. Of course, I do like a cup of something warm in the morning as well.” He explained their mission to the simulacrum. “We just need to find some dead branches or something to get a fire going. This place wasn’t always quite as dry so there should be some around. They don’t really rot out here, you see.” He continued.

They made a quick plan to cover as much area as possible in fifteen or so minutes and acted on it. Unfortunately, both returned empty handed. The area had most likely already been scoured by people who came to look at the canyon next to their camp.

Gilbert scratched his head and tried to think of something. “Do you think you could hold the kettle long enough for Anna to boil it? The kettle probably wouldn’t survive it though…” He thought aloud and kicked a small rock around, when something suddenly blotted out the sun and descended on the pair. Both Gilbert and King instinctively hit the ground before even getting a proper look at the attacker.

With a loud screech, a gigantic eagle swooped back up and started circling them to find an opportunity to attack again. Dodging the next two dives was relatively simple since the bird had lost the element of surprise, it didn’t take long for it to realize that these preys were not worth the trouble and it began heading towards the party’s camp, no doubt after spotting the other two adventurers in the distance.

Emilia suddenly flinched awake, interrupting a very pleasant dream she was having. Even after the details had vanished from her mind, she was annoyed about it. Wondering what woke her up, she looked around the camp and realized that half of the party was missing. The first thing that came to her mind was the undead bird, and what if there had been an attack during the night. But the bird was still there, and it was pretty unlikely that both Gilbert and King were somehow attacked without her or Anastacia waking up to it. The priestess figured that they must have left to gather something and would be back soon, since their gear was still spread around the camp.

“Hmm… Would be nice to have something warm for a breakfast, maybe they went out to get some firewood…” She said to herself and slowly got up. After wiping off some dust from her armor, she started to strap it on to prepare for a morning prayer. Sylvia didn’t actually demand for her to do so every morning, but Emilia felt like she should at least do something to justify her vocation. “My Lady is far too lax for her own good…” She mumbled and made sure the uniform was neatly on before kneeling down for the prayer.

“My child! Heed my word and prepare!” She suddenly heard the goddess call to her. “Don your medallion and grasp your weapon. A bird of prey has its eye on the tiny one. Sadly, I can not take your place in this fight, but I shall lend you my power. Rid the world of this beast in my name and the deserts shall join our cause!”

As soon as the goddess fell silent, Emilia took out the medallion they had taken from the temple in Crescent and threw it on. A rush of energy filled her body, every sound became clearer, time slowed down and moving felt lighter than ever. But the priestess didn’t have the luxury to get used to the power loaned to her, as when she turned around, the eagle was already barreling towards the sleeping necromancer. Barely in time, she threw herself between Anastacia and the eagle’s razor-sharp claws and got dragged along the ground towards the edge of the canyon.

Anastacia woke up just in time to see her friend get dropped off into the gorge, and the eagle to get dragged down with her by metal wires that wrapped around its wings. It took some time for her to realize what exactly was going on, but she felt like she had seen the massive bird somewhere before. “The goat!” She yelled when it dawned on her. It was the same eagle she had briefly ran into while going through the time loops the goat had caused. Scrambling to get up, she slowly moved towards the edge of the canyon but couldn’t make herself look down. Emilia and the eagle were already out of her range, and likely seconds away from being a stain at the bottom of the canyon. With the situation out of her control, the necromancer collapsed on her knees and wailed. “NO NO NO NO!”

Gilbert and King were finally back at the camp and had seen what happened from the distance. The simulacrum grabbed Anastacia and helped her away from the edge while Gilbert took a deep breath and looked down into the depths of the canyon.

“She was just… I didn’t… But…” The teary necromancer tried to explain but couldn’t get a coherent sentence out.

Her howling was quickly muted by the eagle’s ear-shattering scream and Gilbert throwing himself away from the edge. The eagle shot up from the ravine with the priestess hanging from its neck. Together they flew far over the camp and crashed into the desert. The eagle was the first one to get back on its feet and proceeded to stomp Emilia into the dirt a few times, piercing her chest armor with one of its claws. Assuming it had won over the seemingly lifeless priestess, the eagle lowered its head to look at the creature that had caused it so much trouble. However, it proved to be a mistake as Emilia slammed the eagle’s face with her divine mace, staggering the creature. As the priestess stumbled up, Gilbert rushed to her aid.

“Stay away! I need to do this on my own!” Emilia warned her friend and hit the eagle again.

The stunned beast fell over and gave her a second to gather her thoughts. The gaping hole in her armor oozed molten metal and she even coughed up some. Without a doubt, she was mortally wounded, but could barely feel anything. She wasn’t even really tired, just slightly exhausted and out of it thanks to the crash landing; but above all else, she was happy. Without really knowing why, the priestess was filled with joy as she wiped the coughed-up metal from her lips. Quickly unstrapping the broken piece of armor, she tossed it aside and continued her assault on the eagle. The bird flapped its wings in panic but only managed to flip over and get stuck on its back. Still flailing frantically, it kicked Emilia’s arm and disarmed her. Not that it really helped the poor animal, as the priestess stepped over its neck and began ruthlessly punching it in the head. Slowly, her curly hair grew out and began to resemble metal wire that wrapped around the eagle’s legs and wings. As its bones began to snap under the crushing grasp of the wires, the bird’s movements slowed down and eventually stopped. After a few more hits to make sure that the eagle was dead, the priestess hopped off and took a deep breath before removing her medallion. In a few seconds, her hair returned to its usual length and wounds cauterized and healed themselves, leaving behind no marks or even any soreness.

“Anna!” She shouted and rushed over to the crying necromancer. “It’s alright, no one is dead or hurt.” She said as calmly as she could and brushed Anastacia’s hair. “Lady Sylvia told me to protect you, so it was my fight, not yours. You couldn’t have done anything, so just calm down.”

Gilbert went out to get Emilia’s mace and chest plate, mostly to make himself feel useful. On the way, he took a glimpse at the dead bird. Its head was little more than bloody mush on the sand and the rest of its body was horribly crushed. The only other people he had seen to cause as much damage were all necromancers. He couldn’t help but to think that he was slowing down the rest of the party during fights but decided to not say anything about it, since they’d obviously just deny it immediately. And he still had a few things to teach them before they’d make it on their own, which made him feel a bit better about himself.

With the necromancer calmed, Emilia returned to her fallen enemy and kneeled next to it in prayer. She was still devoted as ever, if not more so; but the inn was not a great place to practice religion, since most of the adventurers weren’t exactly the religious type. So she was rather pleased with the trip so far, being able to heal a few people and now defeat a beast on the goddess’ request made her feel like a proper priestess for once.

The idea of a warm breakfast had been forgotten and the rest of the party started gathering the gear that had been spread out to dry. Still not keen on finding a scorpion in her sock, Anastacia went over hers twice before shoving them into her backpack. Gilbert couldn’t bear watching the girl waste so much packing space and made her take them out again to fold and pack them properly.

“Don’t tell this to her, but if I didn’t know Emilia, I’d assume she’s working for the god of overkill. If there is one.” Gilbert joked and nodded towards the praying priestess. “Who punches birds to death?!” He added.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Maybe Sylvia has some anger issues to work out? She got kind of pissed at me when I met her for the second time.” Anastacia agreed and presented an especially neatly forded shirt she was especially proud of to Gilbert. “You know, I think I ran into that eagle when we were dealing with the goat situation. I probably could have killed it there…”

Gilbert sighed and ruffled the necromancer’s hair. “Please don’t start killing things because they might become a problem later. That’d be terrifying.” He said and laughed. “But that more or less confirms the goat theory. After all, those things have been extinct for a good while now. Turns out that the big flying things that eat cows and sheep are the first ones to go when people invent cannons.”