”Think I’ve burned my arms in the sun.” Anastacia said and tapped the reddish skin on her pale arms. “I was hoping to get a tan going, but it’s not going well...”

Gilbert sighed. “I’ve told you to use long sleeves at least four times now. It’s your own fault. This is not the place to get a tan anyway; you might as well scorch off your skin with fire while you’re at it. At least the soot would give you some color.” He pointed out in a slightly annoyed tone. Gilbert had started to realize that perhaps the necromancer was just a little bit stupid on top of being inexperienced in almost everything. A trip as long as the one they were on was quite a long time to be with her too, and it certainly didn’t help that Emilia often chose to join Anastacia in her mockery and idiocy instead of keeping a level head.

“Well It wasn’t me who thought that a desert might be a fun place to visit, now was it? And I didn’t pack anything with longer sleeves.” Anastacia retaliated and kicked some dirt at Gilbert.

“And why is that? Can’t you just use your cloak?” Gilbert asked and rubbed his brow.

Trying to come up with any other reason than the fact that she just didn’t think about it when packing, Anastacia dug out a pair of knee socks from her backpack and wore them on her arms. “The Goblin Kingdom doesn’t believe in sleeves, we think they hamper the economy.” She explained from the top of her head while digging out another pair to put on King’s arms. “On a side note, can I interest you in some arm socks? I’ve got like fifteen pairs left.”

“I’ll take a pair.” Emilia pitched in.

“Don’t enable her nonsense!” Gilbert exclaimed. “King, you don’t need to go with her stupid ideas either.” He added when he noticed Anastacia trying to force the arm socks on the simulacrum.

“Are you mocking our royal attire?” Joked the necromancer, now trying to pull the sock off. Kings arms proved unsuitable for socks, as they barely stretched over the simulacrum’s knuckles and got stuck between the armor plates on his wrist joint.

With Anastacia’s arms covered, the party resumed their journey in silence. The plan was to reach the other edge of the wasteland by sundown and hopefully find something to make a campfire with. With no landmarks nor stars to guide them, Gilbert could only guess how far they had traveled based on their walking pace and sun’s position in the sky. Something he was also concerned about was staying on course, since they only had to walk in a very slight curve to end up kilometers off from their path, or even get lost in the desert. But this wasn’t his first rodeo and he was able to use the sun to correct any slight deviations in their course. And just to be on the safe side, they stopped for a rest when the sun was at its highest.

Emilia was extremely unhappy with the gaping hole in her armor and spend the break trying to bend the metal back to its original shape. To her, almost getting killed by falling off a cliff wasn’t even worth thinking about when her uniform had been defaced so badly. With a bit of help from King, she managed to get it to a point where she wouldn’t be embarrassed to death if seen in it, but a visit to the blacksmith was at the top of her list now.

“Where are the desert people you were talking about earlier? I think I have some business with them.” She asked from Gilbert. Sylvia hadn’t been very clear about it, but Emilia assumed she’d need to make contact with them.

“Oh, they’re probably been following us for a while now. If you just go back a few kilometers, you’ll run into one or two of them.” Gilbert explained and gestured towards the horizon in the direction they came from. The undead bird was still following them relentlessly, but no one else was in sight. “They avoid meeting people who aren’t looking for them or don’t need help. So if we stay put long enough, they might check in on us; but if you need them for something, you’re better off walking back a bit.”

“Oh… In that case, we need to go back. I hate to cause another delay, but this is kind of important for me.” The priestess said despite clearly being bothered by it. “I can go alone if you two want to go ahead. I’ll just follow your tracks when I’m done.”

“Nay, I’ll come with you. It’ll be interesting to see what they’re up to and safer if we stick together.” Gilbert shrugged and got up. “Anna, are you coming with us or will you wait here?”

“Might as well check them out, but let’s try to be quick about it.” Anastacia said. She wasn’t even a bit interested in meeting the Children of The Sun and just wanted to leave the desert as soon as possible, but there was no stopping Emilia from going and Anastacia wasn’t quite ready to let the priestess out of her sight yet. Not after waking up to almost losing her.

It didn’t take much backtracking before they could see two figures in the horizon, who seemed to have stopped to take a closer look at the undead bird that had been following the party. When they noticed that they had been discovered, the desert dwellers rushed over to see if the party needed help. On a quick glance, they looked much like elves with tanned complexions: tall, slim and pointy-eared. But unlike regular elves, the desert people had stone scales on their arms and legs. One of them also had two larger stone growths on his clean-shaven head, resembling horns. The pair was only clad in skimpy clothing and mismatched armor, no doubt either looted or traded, and probably worn just not to be rude to outsiders while still getting plenty of sunlight.

Before they got to the party, one of them suddenly stopped, screamed something and pointed at Anastacia. This made the other one stop as well and take a good look at the necromancer before turning to Emilia.

“You are the one who downed The Great Shadow. The elders have predicted your arrival, but they also spoke of the vile creature that follows in your wake.” The horned desert dweller spoke and pointed at Anastacia. “We would like to have a word with you, but the sands it has walked upon will remain tainted until it’s blood has been dried by The Father of Light. So could you please dispose of the despicable thing before we continue?”

Stunned by the absurd rudeness and hate towards her friend, Emilia didn’t know what to say. After briefly considering just beating them up for their insults, she turned to Gilbert for help. The party’s leader was similarly surprised by the frigid greeting. Nothing he had heard about the natives had suggested they’d hate Anastacia, for any reason.

“What did I do?!” The necromancer asked and stepped forwards.

Both desert dwellers flinched backwards, almost like being anywhere near the girl was toxic to them. “Could you please kill it already? We heard that its words spread plagues.” The horned one said, completely ignoring Anastacia’s question.

“No! No one is killing her!” Emilia immediately refused. “What do you think she is?”

The native sighed. “We know a vile necromancer when we see one, there’s no use trying to hide it! They are the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst and the darkness incarnate! The old tales tell of a time when a necromancer with immense power darkened the moon and half of the stars, just to spite The Father of Light and challenge him to a duel. A duel the necromancer almost won!” He recited.

Emilia glanced at her necromancer friend. “One of you… I mean them, tried to kill the damn sun?” She whispered.

“Yeah, that’s a thing. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s no limit to how stupidly evil some necromancers have been.” Anastacia admitted and shrugged. She couldn’t exactly blame the natives for hating necromancers when she hated them almost as much.

“Okay then!” Emilia declared. “We’re not killing anyone here. Yes, she is a necromancer, but she’s also under the protection of Lady Sylvia. The goddess who saw the plight of your people and sent me to your aid. You would have to be awfully rude to discredit her over an ancient grudge…”

The natives looked at each other and exchanged a few words in some language no one in the party understood. Based on their gestures, the hornless one seemed to be adamant about killing the necromancer and wouldn’t even consider a compromise.

The horned one took a second to translate their decision and turned back to Emilia. “We understand, and her name will certainly be mentioned in our prayers, but the necromancer needs to bleed on the sand. There’s no other way.” The horned one explained. “If it truly is a follower of a goddess that would help us, it can be allowed to live. But it must still pay with blood for the crimes of its kind.”

Emilia shook her head. “You can’t possibly ask a child to…” She started but was interrupted by Anastacia pulling on her sleeve.

“I’ll do it. Have you got anything sharp?” The necromancer said and wouldn’t hear any objections. “Look, they’re out for blood and the simplest way is to just do it. I get a bit of a gash, they get what they want, Sylvia will get a few more prayers out of it and everyone will be happy. Now has anyone got a knife or something?”

Gilbert reluctantly handed his knife to the girl. He was against the idea of getting Anastacia hurt, but had to agree that it was the simplest way out of the situation. He had never heard about the natives being this aggressive and didn’t know what would happen if they kept refusing. “Are you absolutely sure about this?” He asked before releasing his grip from the knife.

Anastacia nodded and looked at the blade. She had no idea how to get someone to bleed without killing them and looked and Gilbert for help while holding the knife on her wrist. He shook his head and moved Anastacia’s hand so that the blade would cut into her palm. Emilia looked away before anything happened, she was still against the idea and couldn’t look at her friend hurting herself.

Anastacia took a deep breath and mentally prepared for the blood. The pain would probably be pretty bad, but nothing she couldn’t handle. It was the blood she was worried about. She liked to think that she was a bit better with it now, but this time it would be her own blood. The necromancer closed her eyes and took one more breath. “Here we go… I’m going to do it… Any second now… This isn’t stalling…”

King slapped the knife from her hand before anything happened.

“Damnit, King! I need to do this! I won’t be seriously hurt, so just stop it!” Anastacia commanded the simulacrum and picked up the knife. After a bit more mental preparation, she tried again.

King slapped the knife to the ground again.

“For fuck’s sake… Go stand over there!” Anastacia raised her voice and tried to push the simulacrum away. “I just need to get some blood and we can get going.”

The simulacrum picked up the knife and lifted it up. High enough for Anastacia not to be able to reach it. And when she tried, King flicked her nose.

“Fucking give me the knife, you idiot. We’re going to have a talk about this later.” The necromancer snarled and hurt her hand trying to punch King. “Can you believe this asshole?” She asked and turned to her friends, not noticing that her nose was now bleeding profusely. From Emilia’s horrified look, she could guess something was wrong, but realized she had a nosebleed only after Gilbert pointed it out. “Oh…” She uttered after seeing the bloodstains on her arm sock and collapsed on the sand.

Having seen the necromancer hit the ground, the desert dwellers exchanged a few words in their language. The hornless one didn’t seem exactly satisfied but didn’t seem interested in pursuing the matter any longer either and ran off into the distance.

“This isn’t what we meant, but its blood did touch the sand and the story of a necromancer humiliating itself like that will please the tribe. Just never bring it here again and you can rest assured that the kindness of Lady Sylvia will be remembered.” The horned one said, took one last look at Anastacia and ran after the hornless one.

Emilia rushed to aid her passed out friend and tried to stop the bleeding by squeezing the bridge of her nose. The amount of blood suggested that Anastacia probably wouldn’t be back on her feet until the evening.

“So you think that’s enough for your purposes? They’ll just think about how great it was to not get eaten and it counts?” Gilbert asked and took his knife from King, quickly nodding to the simulacrum to thank it.

“She will make herself know to them… I think.” Emilia said while wiping away the blood from Anastacia’s face with her sleeve. “The instructions I get tend not to be very precise.”