The guild office was full of people as always, so Gilbert and his party had to wait in line for about half an hour before reaching the counter and getting their quest registered as completed. The clerk shuffled around some forms before finding the right one for Gilbert to write his report on. Since the area where the ruins of Ebonywatch were belonged to a nation that had generally been on good terms with Valor, it was unlikely that the incident would cause any further ramifications for anyone. Most likely the area would just be resettled, and another town would get build to harvest the valuable ebony and export it. But since the guild was still the guild, some paperwork was unavoidable.

While Gilbert was filling the form, the clerk turned his attention to Anastacia, who was testing out her new violet cloak and bothering people by asking them whether it suited her or not. “Miss necromancer, we would like to have a word with you, so if you would be so kind as to head to the meeting room where you were heard previously about the simulacrum-matter.” The guild clerk explained politely.

“What? Did I do something?” The necromancer asked worriedly and returned to the counter.

“No. There are simply a few matters the guild would like to inform you about. Neither of them affects your standing as a citizen as they are. So please, head over to the meeting room.” The clerk said dryly and pointed at the direction of the meeting room.

Anastacia wasn’t sure what to make of the sudden request, but she had no reason to cause trouble for anyone, especially when they had just returned from a quest that was supposed to make them look good in the guild’s eyes. So She grabbed King’s hand and left the counter.

Two guards were positioned on both sides of the meeting room’s door, and all of them were obviously nervous about the simulacrum’s presence as they kept their eyes locked on him. As Anastacia was about to open the door, one of the guards lowered his halberd to stop them from entering.

“The simulacrum is to remain outside for safety reasons… please.” The guard stated with a shaky voice and a pleading look in his eyes.

“That’s dumb, it’s way safer for everyone if we’re together.” Anastacia argued and tried lifting the halberd.

The guard had a drop of sweat running down his cheek as he got a bit closer to the necromancer to whisper to her. “Please… Just make it stay still. I have a wife and kids…”

Anastacia couldn’t help but to giggle a bit at the guard’s worries. “Just relax, he’s not going to do anything.” She calmed the guard and turned to King. “Looks like you have to wait here, but don’t bother these guys, okay? They just work here.”

With the safety issue cleared, Anastacia was allowed inside, where the same three guild officials waited for her.

“We were lucky that you happened to come by while we weren’t otherwise engaged. Summoning people here takes time to arrange and the sooner we handle these matters, the better. Especially with an individual of your caliber.” The middle official said and gestured towards the empty chair opposite to them. “We’re told you and your party successfully took on one of the quests we offered. Well done! No doubt your report will be an interesting one to study.”

Anastacia took off her cloak, neatly folded it and sat down. “Alright, let’s get this over with. What do you guys need?” She asked bluntly. The guild probably wouldn’t have summoned her over some trivial matter, so this was either going to be about some new regulations that were going to be forced on her or the simulacrum waiting outside, or they desperately needed a necromancer for something.

“Very well… We would like to start off by apologizing: the guild has regrettably misplaced your inactive simulacrum.” The leftmost official explained and slid a folder to Anastacia. “Inside that folder, you will find the full investigation report. At some point between our last weekly check and this morning, the simulacrum has been removed from the vault. There was no damage to any of the surfaces of the vault, nor was the physical or magical seal placed on the door broken. The enchantments placed on the room should make any attempts at tampering with it immediately lethal, but none of them had been triggered either. Simply put, we have no clue what has transpired.” He continued, without actually looking like he was sorry at all.

“You lost the prince? I don’t think it’s me who you need to apologize to, he was King’s friend, I just promised to fix him.” The necromancer pointed out while skimming trough the surprisingly long and detailed report. “Do you want me to bring him in?”

“Apologizing to a simulacrum is beyond pointless. You wouldn’t apologize to a table if you lost a chair, but we are willing to negotiate about a fitting reimbursement with you. Rest assured, we know how valuable a simulacrum is for research.” The rightmost official said.

Anastacia got up from her chair and leaned on the table. “You want to negotiate… about a reimbursement… for losing King’s friend?!” She repeated. The officials had managed to push her buttons with an unfortunate efficiency by both insulting King’s sentience and treating the prince as a simple misplaced object. “How about you fucking find him?!”

“Miss necromancer, please calm down! We would try to find it, but there’s absolutely no clues! There is no way for us to search the entire world for a single broken simulacrum. We don’t have the resources or…” The middle one tried to explain but his words did nothing to calm Anastacia.

“Say ‘it’ one more time… and what the fuck was the second thing we needed to talk about?! Word it very carefully…” Anastacia asked and started to pace back and forth behind her chair to keep a level head.

“Are you threatening us? It’s very unwise for anyone to do so.” The leftmost official stated and took out a second folder. “The second matter is about Mournvalley. According to our informants, the situation there is reaching its boiling point, and we would like to remind you that Valor must always appear neutral on political matters. So we advise you to ignore any attempts of communication from your old home, as we cannot allow an adventurer to meddle with matters that do not belong to us.”

Anastacia took her cloak and headed for the door, as she had heard all she needed and just wanted to get out.

“The punishment for doing so ranges up to and including banishment from the city!” One of the officials yelled as Anastacia slammed the door shut.

The necromancer grabbed King’s hand and stormed out from the offices, leaving Gilbert and Emilia behind. They ran all the way to the city gate and through it to the fields outside Valor. With enough distance between her and the city, Anastacia screamed out of frustration and half-accidentally pulled up every piece of bone within thirty meters of her. She began spinning them around herself and as they picked up speed, the necromancer was surrounded by a vortex of bone. As she stomped the ground in anger, waves of flames were sent out to all directions. These flames were then picked up by the vortex, lighting the whole thing on fire. The massive storm of bone and fire raged for a good minute or so, scorching the area around Anastacia until it began dying down and sending burning pieces of bone in every direction. Exhausted more by the screaming and flailing than the impressive feat of necromancy and magic, Anastacia fell on her back on the small patch of unburned grass that was left in the middle.

King, who had followed the episode from right next to her, sat down next to Anastacia and waited for her to calm down.

“Sorry, I lost it a bit there. Something about those crystal horn assholes just ticks me off.” The necromancer apologized and reached out to King, who grabbed her hand. “They lost the prince and there’s nothing to start the search with. It’s not really their fault but they were being shits about you guys, so I just sort of snapped. If I hadn’t stormed out, it would have cost me my citizenship.”

King showed no reaction to the news of his friend going missing, he seemed to be more concerned about Anastacia and kept holding her hand while she recounted in detail what the officials had told her.

“So do we look for him?” Anastacia asked and sat up to lean against the simulacrum.

King shook his head and pointed towards the sky.

“Really? I thought you’d be more worried, but then again, you guys probably have a way to find each other, right?” She reasoned and peered up to see if there was something in the sky but couldn’t see anything worthy of note. “What about the other matter? I have to help Coquelicot, but if I do, I might get tossed out. I’m infinitely more scared of what she might do if I don’t help, and the first thing she’d probably do is break you – and she’s probably right about me owing her that much… Maybe I can tell the guild asshats that I’m more or less being forced to do this and get off with like some fines and stuff?” She wondered and closed her eyes to rest a bit before returning to the town. The smell of burned grass and bone wasn’t terribly calming, but the slight breeze flowing over the fields felt amazing. “Too powerful to be happy and a good person, huh?” She chuckled at her own troubles and started to slowly fall asleep.

“Where do you think she ran off to?” Gilbert asked Emilia after the necromancer had ran past them. “She was clearly upset about something.”

The priestess shrugged. “Back to the inn maybe? King is with her, so she’ll be fine until we’re done here.”

Gilbert was putting some finishing touches to his report and wondered if he should mention Yulia at all in it, because the guild would probably summon her for a hearing if he did and that’d only serve to upset the girl more. Adjusting facts in reports wasn’t uncommon at all, but the guild had its ways of finding out the truth eventually, often resulting in increased taxes for the quest reward; but since there was no reward, there probably wouldn’t be a sanction if he ever got found out.

“I think that might be our idiot over there.” Emilia suddenly said and pointed through a window at a massive firestorm that raged outside the walls of the city. “Hopefully that temper of hers subsides with age.”

“I’m sure it will, I was like that at her age too.” The old adventurer reminisced and smiled.

“You were? I was busy getting taught utter nonsense about Sylvia and the inferiority of beast races while she was talking in my head, correcting everything they said.” The priestess said and tapped her temple.

Gilbert grinned and almost remarked how they both could vouch that the beast races were superior in certain aspects but felt like it probably wasn’t needed, as Emilia’s disgusted stare revealed that she knew exactly what he was thinking about. “Is your goddess still keeping silent? You seem to be feeling a lot better now.” He said, attempting to steer the conversation away from such topics.

“I’ve been better, I’ve been worse. I think the goblin god’s visit here was a good sign, since it means My Lady is still working through her. I just need to figure out a way to restore the connection…” Emilia sighed and wrapped her cloak tighter around her. She had dropped off her damaged breastplate for repairs before the party had headed to the office and felt almost naked without it, despite still having a fairly generous amount of heavy armor on.

“Good. I think I’ve got everything written down, so I’ll just drop this off and we can head back to see if Rosie has eaten Yulia yet.” Gilbert said while signing the form. He handed it over to Emilia to see what she thought about the slightly changed details.

Once the form had been returned to the clerk, Gilbert and Emilia took their time walking back to the inn. They stopped by a couple of stores to replace a few of the items they had lost on the trip and took bets on exactly how badly the innkeeper was treating the lamb. As much as the priestess would have liked to portray Rosie as a reasonable and fair person, even she had to admit that Yulia was probably going through hell under her command.

When they entered the inn, the awkward silence in the tavern accompanied by the helpless weeping and occasional clangs from the kitchen painted a pretty clear picture of what had been going on while they had visited the office. The guests recognized them as the only persons in the world capable of reining in the innkeeper’s behavior and with pleading looks asked them to make her stop. Placed on the counter was a sign by Rosie, which basically explained that the food would come when it’s ready and told everyone to stop whining about it. It was rudely worded and barely legible, like most things the innkeeper wrote.

The floor of the kitchen was flooded with soup stock, vegetable pieces and various other ingredients and utensils Yulia had dropped during the morning. The sheep herself was similarly drenched and extremely unhappy about her situation. When she saw Gilbert, she got her hopes about the nightmare finally ending, but those thoughts were swiftly crushed by Rosie.

“If either of you tries to help her, you’ll be the ones doing the cleaning and carrying the extra stuff I need to buy thanks to this clumsy thing.” She growled from the corner of the kitchen while sipping mead with her feet on one of the tables.

Yulia continued to clumsily chop potatoes with the knife in her remaining hand and sniffling hopelessly.

“Don’t cry on the potatoes, you’ll make the soup too salty.” The innkeeper commented and gestured for Emilia and Gilbert to sit down.

When the sheep was finally done with the vegetables, she strapped a huge kettle of soup stock on the stump of her right hand with a belt to avoid it slipping and falling on the floor when lifting it on the stove – a mistake she had done twice already. After adding the potatoes and carrots, she looked at her employer and ran away to the other corner of the kitchen when Rosie got up from her seat.

The tigress stirred the soup with a ladle a couple of times before pushing the kettle off the stove, once more spilling the whole thing on the floor. “The potatoes and carrots weren’t chopped properly, I could do a better job with a fucking longsword! Start over and at least try to make the pieces uniform in size.” She said and left the kitchen to tell the patrons that the meal would be delayed by at least thirty more minutes.

Gilbert followed her to give her a piece of his mind. “What the fuck are you doing?! She’s already messed up and now you’re abusing her for no reason!”

“She’s doing things, is she not? Do you want me to make her just sit in the corner and wait until something happens?” The tigress whispered. “It took me an hour to get her to hold a knife so the progress she’s made is fucking stellar as far as I’m concerned. Everyone here is cheering for her and once she actually manages to make something worth serving to a person, she’ll be over the moon about it.”

Gilbert couldn’t deny it but felt like he should still say something. “Just be less evil, okay? I get what you’re doing here, but you could at least act like you’re not enjoying it as much as you probably are.” He said and returned to the kitchen, where Yulia had already started to prepare the next batch of soup stock.

The sixth one also ended up on the floor after Rosie didn’t like the way Yulia prepared the fish. Gilbert had managed to convince everyone to stay patient and to not stray away to get their lunch from elsewhere, while Emilia distracted Rosie long enough for Yulia to be able to toss away the fishes she had failed to gut properly. When the seventh pot of fish soup had survived to a point where it was ready to be served, Rosie stirred it once more, poured some into a small bowl and handed it to Yulia. “Would you serve it?” She asked, grinning widely.

By now it was obvious to everyone that Rosie was doing this at least partly because she enjoyed playing with the helpless lamb.

With a shaky hand, Yulia took a spoonful of the broth and tasted it. She immediately went pale when she realized her mistake. “Th… there’s no salt…” She quietly admitted.

“What a shame, what a shame… Guess we have to throw this one out as well.” The tigress shrugged.

“NO!” Yulia suddenly screamed and jumped up from her seat. Surprising everyone, including herself. “I… I can just add salt now… It won’t be great, but… but people can eat it…”

“Look at the little lamb, trying to defend her soup. Go ahead then, add salt if you think you can!” Rosie laughed and stepped between Yulia and the pot.

“Damn it Rosie, you’re being evil again.” Gilbert said, but quickly realized that there was no convincing her about this. “Emilia, help me! Yulia, add the damn salt!” He shouted and grabbed the innkeeper into a neck hold. It took all of his and Emilia’s might to drag Rosie out of the kitchen and give Yulia the chance to finish her cooking.

As soon as Rosie was sure they couldn’t be seen by Yulia anymore, she stopped struggling and grabbed Emilia to her crushing embrace. “You guys played your part pretty well. I figured I’d give you the chance to play a hero, so you’d shut up for once.” She whispered.

Gilbert sighed and rubbed his brow. “I swear, if Anna doesn’t stress me to death soon enough, you will.” He said and sat down to catch his breath so he wouldn’t have to admit how winded he actually was. Even if Rosie had an advantage thanks to her age and tigerfolk physiology, it was still slightly humiliating to not be able to restrain her alone.

The tigress shrugged. “I don’t get to go on adventures like you guys do, so I have to create my own, and it’s pretty rare for you to bring me things to play with. At least this one won’t run off with you guys within a day like Anna did.” She said and laughed. “Now, go find the simulacrum. There’s at least hundred a liters of soup on my floor and I have to start cooking too. Wouldn’t want it to soak into the floor, now would we?”