”Check this out!” Anastacia said proudly and slammed a piece of paper onto the table in front of Emilia and Gilbert, who had been enjoying their breakfasts when the necromancer had suddenly crashed into the inn.

Gilbert glanced at the paper while chewing. “You picked up a quest?”

“Yeah yeah yeah, but look at what it’s about!” The necromancer demanded excitedly.

“Basically, we need to check up on some guy who hasn’t come out of his mansion for a year?” Emilia asked after skimming through the text on the note.

Anastacia sighed, disappointed that her party wasn’t as into the quest as she was. “No! It says there has been some weird stuff going on as well, things on the premises move around at night, people have seen something scurry back inside when they approach the mansion, and there hasn’t been any lights on inside for months, but sometimes they can see someone staring at them from the windows!”

“I mean, he’s probably just dead and wild animals have moved in. Besides, the reward is kind of crap.” Gilbert pointed out and underlined the relatively meager number that had been listed as the reward.

“You’re kind of crap.” Anastacia sulked and took back the paper. “Either way, I’ve already accepted it, so we have to do it.”

Gilbert grabbed a boiled egg from his plate and cracked it against the edge of his cup. “Mmmhm… Tell me, did you ask for them to register it for all of us?” He asked and took a bite.

Anastacia quickly ran through what she had done at the guild offices and slowly lost the rest of the excitement as she realized that the quest was only in her name.

“Figured. But it’s not that far away, and you and King can easily handle a few animals.” The old adventurer said calmly and continued to eat his breakfast.

“He isn’t coming.” Anastacia declared very decisively.

Emilia and Gilbert both stopped briefly. “What?” The priestess asked, looking worried.

The necromancer hit the table slightly harder than she meant to. “He decided to be an ass, so he’s not coming.” She said and folded the quest notice into her pocket.

“But you can’t go alone!” Emilia exclaimed and turned to Gilbert. “But she can’t go alone!” She repeated.

“Why don’t you two go then? I have things to do and places to be.” Gilbert suggested.

The priestess muttered something quietly and blushed under her white hood.

Gilbert had to work hard to hold back his laughter. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Could you repeat?”

“She said she’s grounded.” Rosie pitched in smugly and handed Anastacia her breakfast, which she had missed because of King. “What happened to your package?” The innkeeper asked and poured some fresh coffee for the necromancer.

“King threw them all down a well, because he’s a dick.” Anastacia said and pushed around the roasted cherry tomatoes on her plate. While their meals were otherwise identical, Gilbert had a small pile of blueberries on his plate for some reason, which Anastacia did not and was slightly jealous of, as she liked them but they weren’t on the inn’s menu all too often.

Rosie frowned. “That’s odd… But he doesn’t really seem like someone who’d do that without a good reason, so keep that in mind. Anyway, Emilia is grounded for now, so Gil will come along with you, because you are not going alone.” She decided without asking Gilbert and started to look for anyone else with an empty cup, that was in need of a refill.

“But I have things to do.” Gilbert protested.

“And now you have other things to do, deal with it. Max and Dammar are out on a hunt and Xamiliere is still floaty, so they can’t help.” Rosie disregarded the protest and collected some empty plates before disappearing back into the kitchen.

“Come on, it’ll be fun! Like the deer quest we went on when I first got in Valor.” Anastacia encouraged Gilbert to rethink his stance on the quest.

The grizzled adventurer finished his breakfast and lit his pipe without saying a word. After puffing out a bit of smoke a few times, he sighed. “Fine, I guess I could teach you a thing or two about traveling and camping during the winter along the way.” He caved. “We’ll leave before noon, pack enough clothing to stay warm and whatever else you might need for three or four days. I’ll ask Rosie to pack us something for the road and meet you here.”

Anastacia nodded, she was full of excitement once more and started shoveling her breakfast down as quickly as she could before storming off to her room. She tossed her backpack onto the bed and started going through her wardrobe for clothing she wanted to take along. As usual, she packed enough socks to last for over three times the time they planned for the quest to take. Socks had over and over again proven to be one of the most reliable pieces of clothing she happened to own, and she could always wear multiple pairs to keep her feet warm. Gilbert also kept reminding her and Emilia that keeping their feet dry was almost as important as having a source of food, because walking with wet socks even for a day would turn the entire trip into a nightmare of stopping to patch up their feet every fifteen minutes. In cold weather it would also be like asking for some frostbitten toes. She had also bought a few pairs of gloves that fit under the gauntlets she had received from Coquelicot. Those and the armored vest had sat at the back of the wardrobe for a long time because Anastacia didn’t really like using Mournvalleyan equipment, but they were both undeniably useful and she still kind of felt bad for Alizarin, who had gone out of his way to make them fit her. She also had a coat that fit well under the vest and they both under her cloak. That had been enough to keep the cold at bay until then, so it was what she decided to go with again. Anastacia had also upgraded her boots to ones that went almost up to her knees and offered some protection to her shins.

With her backpack full of clothes, she grabbed the bundle of spears she kept in the corner of the room and strapped them on it as well. “Huh? It’s a bit heavy… Oh well, I’ll just get King to- oh, right.” She muttered and threw the whole thing on her back, grabbed her thermal staff and headed back downstairs.

Gilbert was far more organized with how he kept his gear, so despite having more of it, he didn’t need to go through his entire wardrobe to pack and had already been waiting for the necromancer for a while. “Did you get everything? If so, let’s go. We only have so much daylight this time of the year.” He said and tossed a full water canteen at Anastacia.

Anastacia caught the canteen with a bit of a struggle and nodded. They said their farewells to Emilia and Rosie, but King was nowhere to be seen, which annoyed Anastacia, as she would have wanted to rub the quest on his face before leaving.

The sun had risen high enough to light the streets and warm up the city air a bit, but stepping outside for the second time that morning still felt colder to Anastacia, even with far more suitable clothes on. She exhaled slowly a few times to allow her breath to make as much steam as possible and mimicked smoking a pipe. The cold had also quelled much of the merchants that usually inhabited the market square between Rosie’s inn and the gate out of Valor, though a few of the more stubborn ones had still set up their stands as usual – and probably would throughout the winter months. on their way out the pair greeted the unfortunate guard that had been given the task of watching the gate and Anastacia offered to make a fire for him, but apparently fires weren’t allowed so near the walls for reasons she didn’t bother to listen to.

Since her return from Mournvalley, Anastacia had put a few days’ worth of effort into clearing up the mass graves below the fields surrounding Valor. Starting from the gates and the road leading up to them, she had torn every piece of bone up from the ground and turned them to dust before shoving it back down again. This hastened their decay so much that even though it had only been a couple of months, Anastacia was barely able to feel even a hint of them anymore, and what she considered to be more important was the fact that the permanent rotten smell of death, that no one else really noticed, was gone. She had done the treatment for the area immediately around the road, roughly two kilometers in every direction. So it didn’t really do much in terms of defending the city from necromancers, but it brought Anastacia some peace of mind as her range for sensing such things slowly increased overtime, whether she wanted it to or not.

“I have to admit, this is pretty nice. I think it’s good for your health to be out and about on days like this.” Gilbert said, took a deep breath of fresh air and stretched his arms. “So, uhh… do you want to talk about this whole thing with King?”

“No.” Anastacia said with more than a bit of annoyance in her tone. “I just think it’s a bit unfair of him to do whatever he wants, when it clearly involves me. We’ve been together for what, over half a year now? And he still thinks I can’t handle whatever the fuck this is? I took him along to kill Amaranth because he wanted to come, yet he can’t let me help? Must be some pretty big trouble if the most powerful necromancer in the world needs to be kept out of it for her own safety.” She continued despite her initial answer.

“Okay.” The old adventurer sighed, now regretting poking that hornet’s nest.

“I know that he can’t exactly tell me about his day, but it’d be nice to know what he’s thinking about every now and then. Honestly, I can’t always even tell if he’s listening or not, sometimes I feels like I’m talking to an actual statue – and I should know! My best friend for about twelve years was a literal stone wall.” Anastacia ranted and threw rocks she had picked up along the way.

“I would be willing to bet money that he’s literally not thinking anything besides you, at any given moment, and that wall thing is really, really sad.” Gilbert pointed out as his eyes slowly glazed over, knowing that his comment wouldn’t even really matter. He had been there before.

“Now that I think about it, he hasn’t told me anything about himself, I basically just know that he was in a forest when I met him, no idea why he was there or who he even really is. I’m goblin-married to this asshole and I only know his name because I gave it to him! Somehow he knows how to go about killing massive skeletal monsters that literally no one knows anything about and he’s able to just rip apart an undead wyvern, like… what the fuck is he even?” The necromancer kept going on without an end in sight.

Gilbert had figured that if he wasn’t being listened to, he might as well have an entirely different, far less awkward conversation. “The weather’s pretty nice, clear skies and not even the slightest of breezes. Even a bit of wind would make it feel a lot colder than it actually is, and the sun can actually warm you through your gear on a day like this.” He said in a monotone voice.

Anastacia let out a frustrated scream before continuing. “And another thing! Does he even have feelings? Every time I try to get anything that even loosely resembles a mood of any kind going, he just acts like nothing is going on. Like I’m here, doing my best trying to make this thing be an actual relationship instead of whatever the fuck this is, and he just pats my head and goes to sit in the corner.”

“Anna, please, I don’t need to know any of this, in fact no one does…” Gilbert pleaded for the necromancer to stop. “Also, don’t you be creating any kind of moods with anyone for the next ten years, maybe twenty, actually can you just wait until I die of old age?”

This continued for a couple of hours, Anastacia kept complaining and as a direct result of that, Gilbert slowly lost his will to live and started to regret coming along for the quest more and more. The walk to the town they were heading for was supposed to take a little more than a day, but thanks to her frustration, Anastacia was able to actually keep up with Gilbert’s pace, and by the time they started to consider stopping for a meal, they were already well ahead of the schedule. Gilbert pointed out a small patch of trampled grass that already had the remains of someone else’s camp on it and started gathering tinder and firewood while Anastacia tossed fireballs at a branch until it caught on fire and she was able to use it to start the campfire. Despite training every now and then, she had not managed to tone down her fire magic – if anything, even her weakest casts had picked up more power.

“So, what are you actually hoping from this quest?” Gilbert asked while arranging the supports for their kettle, hoping he would finally be able to divert the conversation after the necromancer’s train of thought had been interrupted.

“Ghosts.” Anastacia said, sounding very determined. “Or at least some curses or something. Think about it, a huge mansion with its only inhabitant missing, mysterious sightings in the garden and windows. It has to be ghosts or maybe the owner has gotten into some dark magic stuff or found a relic from an evil god.”

Gilbert laughed. “Or maybe he slipped in the bath and we’re just going to have to drag a rotten corpse out.”

“That’s gross.” Anastacia frowned.

“You might be the only person in the world that would rather fight ghosts or evil gods than touch a corpse, which is also odd because you’re one of the relatively few people who wouldn’t even need to actually touch it.” The old adventurer pointed out. “Besides, do you even know how to destroy any kind of ghosts?”

The necromancer took off her helmet and dropped her backpack. “I figured I’d throw fire at them.”

“Wrong, you’d be dead – in most cases anyway. There are a few kinds that can be kept at bay with fire, but they’re rare and that won’t solve the problem permanently.” Gilbert said and sat down to begin his lecture. “For starters, the only way to permanently kill almost all ghosts is to destroy the corpse, since they can’t wander too far away from it, it’s just a matter of protecting yourself from them before you get to the body and burn it, hack it to pieces or otherwise get rid of it. Certain kind of ghosts, that have a strong link to magic, can be fought by throwing magic at them. Others, that appear more physical, can be actually hit with normal weapons, for example spirits that possess items, you can just break the item and force them to look for a new one. Some don’t fall into either one of these categories and require more specialized means, like weapons dipped in blood, special metals, enchanted equipment, diamond dust, rune circles… Basically they’re a massive hassle. There was a time I had to deal with a ghost, whose body was buried in a collapsed mine, and nothing seemed to do anything to the spirit. Eventually we had to track down one of its living relatives, persuade them to come along to give blood for our weapons for three days while a stone mage worked his way through the mine. Needless to say, he was dry as a raisin in the end.”

“Wow, that’s impressive.” Anastacia said and clapped.

“Why thank you, it was one of the more difficult quests I’ve done.” Gilbert said proudly.

Anastacia stopped clapping and laid down on the ground. “No, I mean you somehow managed to make ghosts boring.”