The rest of the evening was largely spent in awkward silence. Once she realized what Anastacia had done with the topaz ring, Emilia tried to find out what she had heard, but the necromancer wouldn’t budge. When even bribery failed, Emilia accepted that she probably wouldn’t get an answer no matter what she did.

Suddenly she remembered something. “It’s a set of three rings, right? I think I might have one of them back at the inn.” The priestess said while taking a look at the two Anastacia had on her. “I found it in our room when we were leaving Crescent. Remind me to give it back to you when we get back to Valor.”

“I kinda thought I had thrown it away to be honest. If I put all three on, they’ll give a neat combination of enchantments - though with my luck, something will go wrong and I’ll turn into a screaming mess.” Anastacia explained and put the ruby ring on her thumb. She would use it more often, but it was a size or two too big and she worried about dropping it during a fight.

They had probably stopped a bit too early for the locals' liking, since they still kept an eye on the party from the distance. Despite their intense hatred for necromancers, Gilbert was certain that they wouldn’t try anything during the night, because crafting weapons simply wasn’t a thing in their culture. Having lived in the lifeless wastelands for hundreds or even thousands of years, the desert folk didn’t have anything anyone would attack them over and thus no need for weapons. But even if they did try something, stopping them would be child’s play for any of the adventurers; so they were able retire for the day in peace. Once again, King was told to keep the fire burning for as long as there was fuel left, and the party lied down around it as close as they safely could to ward off the cold.

Anastacia rolled up some of her spare clothes and put them down on King’s lap to make it a tad more comfortable before laying down her head. “Please don’t let any bugs get into my hair. I can feel them coming closer to the fire…” She whispered and closed her eyes.

Waking up to the scent of coffee was a welcome change for Anastacia. No one was screaming or being dragged away from the camp. Before opening her eyes, she checked the surroundings and could only feel some insects and two, familiar lumps of living meat and bone she had felt in the evening as well. King hadn’t moved from his place at all and was now holding his hand up to shield Anastacia’s eyes from the bright sun.

“Emilia, did nothing attack you during the night or did I just not wake up to it?” She asked and considered opening her eyes, but instead just wrapped her cloak tighter around herself. It was still a bit nippy, so the coffee would have to wait.

“I did stomp a scorpion earlier. Does that count?” The priestess asked and went along with the joke.

“How big was it?” The sleepy necromancer mumbled and almost fell asleep again.

“A bit smaller than one of those cookies Rosie makes.” Emilia estimated. “The new ones, the ones she started making after your complaints.”

With every cup of coffee, Rosie served one to three cinnamon cookies, the number depending on how much she liked the patron in question. They were surprisingly popular, and so the decreased size caused some dismay among the customers. Anastacia happened to be one of the two people exempt from this rule and usually received a whole plate of them, blinding her to the troubles of the common folk.

Gilbert was looking at his map and didn’t really pay attention to the conversation until now, but the comment about cookies caught his attention. “What?! This brat is the reason they got smaller all of a sudden?!” He yelled and grabbed Anastacia’s cloak from her, exposing the necromancer to the cold air and forcing her to get up.

After what seemed like a genuine scream of agony, Anastacia got up and took back her cloak. “It should be a crime to serve cookies that don’t fit into the cups for dunking, everyone knows that.” She said and took the coffee Emilia had poured for her. “I merely informed her about the flawed design.”

“Why couldn’t you just nibble at the sides until it fit?” Gilbert asked and lit his pipe before returning to his map reading. “Bet you just whined about it until it was easier to make them smaller to get you to shut up.” He continued under his breath.

“And eat it dry?! I’m royalty damn it! I may not have any land or anything, but I will not tolerate any dry cookies!” Anastacia exclaimed. She didn’t actually feel anywhere near as strongly as it seemed about the matter but arguing about things that didn’t matter had become one of her favorite ways of passing time.

“Anyway… Where are we heading today?” Emilia asked to change the subject.

“Good question. We should reach a river around noon. If we follow it, we’ll get to a small town called Ebonywatch.” Gilbert explained and traced the route on the map with his finger. “There should be an inn there, so we’ll be able to get baths, fresh food and warm beds. The townsfolk are also likely to know if there’s been anything weird going on and once that’s settled we’ll head back home.”

“So anyone want to bet on what’s wrong with the village? I’ll bet a pair of arm socks on crab people. They’ve either eaten everyone or turned everyone into more crab people.” Anastacia joked.

“Hmm… I’ll go with man-eating plants. A free blessing of any kind on an invasion of man-eating plants.” Emilia said and went along with the joke.

Gilbert sighed and rubbed his brow. “Fine, there’s no way it’ll go as planned… We’re about due for vampires. Five drinks on vampires. A vampire lord touched the goat and got stuck, now he’s free and has taken over the town.” He said, having accepted that whatever they did on this trip, was doomed from the start. “Put out the fire and we’ll get going.”

As they continued to travel, the plant life slowly became more and more diverse. Green grass and bushes, some smaller trees and wild wheat, possibly once farmed by people living in the area before the desert dried up entirely. Anastacia spotted a couple of deer in the distance and pointed them out to the rest of the party. Emilia suggested catching one for some fresh meat, but according to Gilbert, they had already seen the party and getting a clean shot at them with a bow would be unlikely. Neither of them even considered asking Anastacia to kill one, since it wasn’t absolutely needed. Even when she offered to do it for the good of the whole party, Gilbert made up an excuse about them still being too far away from the next camping spot and that dragging the deer along would have been more effort than it was worth. In truth, they were almost at the river and they just didn’t want to have the necromancer carry out any unnecessary killing right now, as it would have probably involved vomiting and possible fainting.

When they came to the river, something seemed odd about it. It had swollen far past its usual width very recently.

“Hmm, the grass is still alive underwater… Must have been very recent. But there’s no sign of heavy rainfall anywhere else. If anything, the ground is dry. There must be something blocking the water down the stream.” Gilbert reasoned.

“Beavers?” Emilia suggested and took off her boots to wash her feet.

Gilbert scratched his head. “Might be, but I think the people of Ebonywatch would have destroyed the dam as soon as the river was even slightly blocked.” He said and turned to Anastacia. “Can you feel anything under the surface?”

Anastacia shook her head. “Just fish. I’ll keep an eye on it. Looks pretty good for crab people though!”

While Emilia and Anastacia gathered some fallen branches to make a fire, Gilbert taught the simulacrum the secrets of fishing. During the trip, the two had developed some mutual respect for each other, or at least Gilbert liked to think that it was mutual - the simulacrum’s inner thoughts were still a mystery to him. At first, King intended to catch fish by hand but Gilbert stopped him, and instead handed him a branch and a fishing line.

“This isn’t a good place for that, the water’s murky and there are no good spots to trap them in. So how about I show you how to make a simple fishing rod?” He said and sat down on the grass by the river. “There’s nothing much to it to be honest, but it’s a useful skill when you’re out and about.”

King copied everything he did as Gilbert started to snap the smaller twigs off from his branch.

“The most important thing is to make sure the line stays attached to the rod. You can make a small groove for it but just cutting the branch just above a knot in the wood is usually enough.” He instructed the simulacrum and pointed at a suitable cutting point on the rod. “So… anything interesting going on with you?” He asked and wasn’t quite sure why he was trying to start small talk with a mute simulacrum.

At the same time, the campfire was finished and only needed to be lit when Gilbert and King returned. The women of the party were taking a well-deserved break by the river. The water was cool and refreshing and lying down in the shadow of a big tree felt heavenly, especially after a few days in the desert.

Emilia figured that it was as good a time as any to have a talk with Anastacia. “So… How are you feeling? Everything okay?” She started clumsily.

“Are you still worried about me being mad at you? I might have overreacted there a bit, but being insane and not knowing it is something I actually worry about a lot.” The necromancer said and took off her boots.

“You shouldn’t, you’re perfectly normal as far as I’m concerned. So just do what comes to you naturally and you’ll be fine. And you can always come to us if you need help.” Emilia reassured her. “You even have your silent guardian watching over you… Tell me, what is he to you? And no stupid jokes, I want the real answer.” Having found an opportunity to confirm her theory about the pair, the priestess decided to go for it.

Anastacia glanced over at the fishing simulacrum before closing her eyes. “He’s… nice. When I close my eyes, I can feel you, Gil, the fishes in the river, the birds in the trees, even the bugs everywhere around us, but I can’t feel him – I really like that. Sometimes I worry that he thinks that I just keep him around for labor and that he’ll get bored.” She explained after thinking about it for a few seconds.

Emilia had to take a couple of deep breaths to control herself. “Oh, I’m sure he’s very happy with you. You have no idea how scandalous you can be though…” She remarked and only barely managed to stop herself from telling the necromancer how their partnership seemed to an outsider. “There’s another talk we need to have later…”

As they continued to converse about how Anastacia liked her new life and if she had any other troubles, Emilia got the feeling that her worries about the necromancer’s wellbeing were more or less unfounded, and that the girl was very content with the freedom she now had, even though Anastacia hadn’t realized the full scale of it. She mentioned how she wished to travel around the world and see what it was like, but seemed to think that something was keeping her in Valor. Of course, her friends would like to keep her around and make sure she’d survive out in the world before leaving, but no one actually had any intent nor authority to force her to stay against her will. Emilia chalked it up to the unique upbringing the necromancer had and assumed that it’d just take some time for her to grow and realize her full freedom. It must have felt like a dream to not have anyone to answer to.