Emilia felt like shit. It was like every single bottle of wine she had ever drank had come back to give her a hangover of mythical proportions. The sound of her own heart beating felt like a church bell ringing inside her head; no muscle was spared from the most agonizing pain she had ever felt and even the slightest movement made it a million times worse.

“Miss? Miss? Are you awake?” Yulia asked softly, to not startle the priestess.

Despite the sheepfolk’s efforts to lessen the blow, to Emilia her words felt like no less than cannon shots just a couple of steps away. However, the crippling racket inside her head didn’t bother her anywhere near as much as the absence of the single voice that she needed to hear. A voice that had greeted her every morning for years, sang to her during silent moments and kept company to her thoughts. Sylvia was gone.

“Where are they?” Emilia asked with a wavering voice.

“Y… your friends never came back…” Yulia told her, expecting to get yelled at. “I’m so so so so so sorry!”

Slowly, with unsure movements, the defeated priestess got up and opened her eyes. Feeling like she had aged thousands of years in just a few hours, she glanced at the window and was blinded by the bright morning sun. “I see… Could I get something to drink… and a bucket?” She asked and tossed the room key to the floor.

Yulia hastily picked it up and unlocked the door. Since she was older, the lamb figured that the priestess’ orders outranked the ones the young mage had given her earlier. “I have some blackcurrant juice, wine, mead and cider; water from the well isn’t drinkable anymore...” She listed and peeked into the hallway. “What do you need the bucket for?”

“I don’t need it, just don’t feel like throwing up on the floor. And I’ll take some juice.” Emilia explained while trying to stay as still as possible.

When Yulia disappeared into the hallway, Emilia staggered up to start her morning prayer in a desperate attempt to reconnect with the goddess. Time and time again, she recited the prayer, but heard nothing. Slowly the prayer turned into begging for even a single word of guidance, but that didn’t change the outcome at all. She even tried using the medallion to no avail. Before she had the chance to fall into complete despair, Emilia was startled by a high-pitched scream from downstairs. She took a deep breath and very slowly charged out of the room. Barely able to walk and dragging herself along a wall, she reached the staircase. “Just hang on, Yulia…” She grunted and swallowed vomit for the third time. One by one, Emilia lowered herself down the relatively steep staircase, until she could feel the slippery slime under her boots.

Much to her to annoyance, she discovered that Yulia wasn’t in any danger at all, but had simply been scared by a knife stuck into the tavern’s counter. Attached to it, was a single light-green knee sock – or an arm sock as its original owner would have called it. Emilia pulled out the knife and tossed it away before pulling up a chair and taking a seat by the counter. The priestess stared at the sock silently, trying to figure out how anything or anyone could possibly catch Anastacia.

“Are… are you okay?” Yulia carefully asked, placed a bucket and a bottle of juice on the counter and started to open it.

Emilia didn’t respond and just kept staring at the sock. Out of habit, she kept waiting for advice and reassurance from Sylvia, despite knowing fully well that it wasn’t going to happen. All color had left her face, making the bags under her eyes appear even darker.

Yulia noticed that she was clearly on the brink of some kind of meltdown and took a bottle of wine from the shelf behind the counter. “My mother always said that a glass of wine would help with any situation. Maybe it’d help you too?” She suggested and poured some for the priestess.

The deep red color of the wine looked extremely inviting and Emilia grabbed the glass. She swirled it around and took a quick sniff. It was a cheapish local wine with a weird, wooden tang to it, possibly even home-made. Not really what she used to drink, but she wasn’t too fussy about wine. It did indeed seem like the perfect solution to many of her problems at the moment: it’d cheer her up a bit, help with the headache and get rid of the vomit taste in her mouth; but what it wouldn’t do is reestablish the connection to Sylvia or find the rest of the party. “If you’re not happy with whatever is going on, why haven’t you just left the town?” Emilia asked to distract herself from the wine.

“You can’t run from them. They don’t get tired like people do…” Yulia explained and started to hop from foot to foot, making a muffled knocking noise when her hooves hit the hardwood floor under the layer of water and slime covering it. Only after doing it for a couple of minutes, she noticed that the noise worsened Emilia’s headache and quickly stopped. “Oh no! I’m making it worse, aren’t I?! I start doing it unconsciously when I’m nervous…”

“So you’re just always nervous then? I don’t think I’ve seen you stand still for more than a second.” The priestess pointed out and pressed her forehead against the cool countertop.

“Yes! Almost always. You can’t see it because of the water, but I’ve actually worn my way half through the floorboards where I’m standing now. I named the tavern after it too!” Yulia explained while swaying back and forth, trying her best to not lift her feet.

Yulia told Emilia everything she had told Anastacia earlier and whatever else she knew about ‘Them’ and the people at the chapel. She had no idea what ‘They’ actually were and just knew that the people at the chapel worked under them or with them for something else. During the time Ebonywatch had been under their control, people had tried to fight them a few times, but it always resulted in them getting captured. Emilia still wasn’t feeling very talkative, so she just sat there and stared at the wineglass.

Suddenly Yulia started to hop again and pointed at the window next to the tavern’s door. Behind which a middle-aged man was fixing his cuffs “Oh no! He’s Robert from the chapel. He’s always really mean to me.” She whispered.

Emilia was too tired to care, at least until the tavern’s door was kicked open with a loud crash.

“Good morning to you both! I came to make sure our little incantation worked. Feeling well miss priestess?” The man asked with a wide grin on his face. Dressed in expensive looking formal attire, he had clearly been a man of some stature even before the whole mess and seemed like exactly the type of power-hungry asshole that would jump at any chance to gain even more control. When Emilia didn’t react to his attempt at antagonizing her, he kicked her chair. “I’m speaking to you, wench!”

Yulia tried to stop him, but only managed to get herself slapped and yelled at.

“You are already on thin ice, Yulia. Do not push me or I’ll make an example out of you!” Robert shouted and raised his hand for a second hit.

Emilia wasn’t exactly fond of the lamb, but felt like a line had been crossed. “You said you did this to me? Would you be kind enough to undo whatever it was?” She asked and stood up. But instead of waiting for an answer, the priestess grabbed the half-filled wineglass and smashed it into the man’s face, lacerating it thoroughly. “Or maybe you know someone else that can do it?” Emilia continued and whacked him with the juice bottle. She had hoped that it’d break too, but unfortunately for Robert, it was a bit sturdier than she had expected – but this was nothing a couple of extra hits couldn’t fix. “You know, the problem with me not being under My Lady’s guidance is that everything has been left to my silly, flawed, mortal judgement abilities. So, blinded by rage, I don’t know when to stop.” She calmly explained while dragging the bleeding and bruised man outside. Holding his head underwater a few seconds at a time, she began interrogating him. “Where have you taken my friends? How do I reverse this curse?”

Robert didn’t get a word out before passing out from the bleeding and lack of oxygen.

“You’re in so much trouble now!” Yulia pointed out and looked at her unconscious tormentor. “What are you going to do now?”

Emilia felt extremely ill after moving around so much and had to lean on a wall to not fall over. “I was expecting for them to be some extremely skilled mages or something… But I feel like there’s no turning back now. We might as well go all in and check out the chapel.” She said and closed her eyes, hoping it’d stop her head from spinning as much.

The sheep girl started hopping again. “Do… do I need to come too? I can’t fight at all…”

“I need someone to hold my hair when I throw up.” Emilia explained and started wobbling towards the chapel with Yulia hopping behind her. She felt like she should watch over the helpless lamb for now.

The townsfolk were curious about what was going on and peered at the priestess through their windows as she dragged herself forwards along the ebony walls of the houses along the way. Many of them assumed she was just filled with drunken hubris, which couldn’t be further away from the truth: Emilia was both sober and almost certain that things would go south very quickly, but there was no one else left to do it, so the responsibility fell on her.

The trip to the chapel was barely over hundred meters, but it still took the better part of an hour for the priestess to drag herself to its black doors. From close by, some chatter could be heard from inside and Emilia was sure she could make out at least three different voices. If that was it and the rest of the chapel residents were as fragile as the first one, three to one was almost a favorable matchup for her. After a moment of mental preparation, she took her mace and knocked on the door with it.

The voices inside fell silent until someone waded through the water to the door and opened it a few inches. “You know perfectly well that we aren’t to be bothe…” Said the small elderly woman through the gap before she realized who their guest was.

“Do you have moment to talk about The Lady of Joy, Sylvia?” Emilia asked and forced the door open.