Despite their commendable traveling pace, Anastacia and Gilbert hadn’t quite reached the town they were heading for before the dark, and since neither of them really felt like walking at night, they agreed to just make a camp a few kilometers away from their destination. Gilbert figured that it’d be a good opportunity to get Anastacia used to a normal camping without a simulacrum, who completely negated the need for someone to be awake in guard duty at all times. He also worried that his own camping skills would rust thanks to the ridiculous advantage King gave to the party when traveling. And so it was decided that Gilbert would take the first shift, as he was more used to staying awake late and Anastacia was exhausted from being annoyed for the entire trip so far.

He sat by the fire and smoked his pipe calmly while staring into the shadowy forest. By facing away from the fire, his eyes didn’t get used to the light and he was able to see far better in the moonlight. Since he didn’t have the same gifts as Anastacia – or curses, as the necromancer herself called them, he had to rely on his eyesight and hearing only. Luckily, even with the crackling of the fire, the calm, windless weather allowed him to hear their surroundings well. While every crack of a branch or shuffling of the undergrowth could technically be something they needed to be worried about, generally it was easy to tell apart deer and other harmless creatures from the ones that had taken interest in the camp. Friendly critters usually stopped when they noticed the fire, took one long look and disappeared back into the forest, while predators either just rushed towards them or circled the camp for a while before deciding whether the adventurers were a worthwhile prey or not. Often the fire alone was enough to discourage them from attacking and making noise to wake up the rest of the party took care of almost all of the remaining ones. Usually the things that decided to attack the camp regardless, were far from stealthy and it was possible to get everyone ready to fight in time, but what travelers really needed to worry about were bandits; despite the seemingly limitless bestiary of vile and cruel creatures the forests and swamps had to offer, all of them fell short compared to people. Bandits knew their area like the back of their hands, they knew where to step to make no sound at all and where to find cover in the shadows, and it was always a complete roll of a dice whether their attack was signaled by a whistle or an arrow right into the chest of whoever happened to be the unfortunate guard. This could be mitigated somewhat by setting tripwires or their arcane counterparts, but the area Gilbert and Anastacia stayed in wasn’t heavy in traffic and it was extremely unlikely that they would run into such trouble, so they hadn’t bothered with such things.

All in all, the night had been calm and forest had stayed silent, boring almost. Gilbert had forgotten how long the nights could feel when nothing happened, and he could already hear the endless complaining that would no doubt ensue after Anastacia had been forced to go through the same. The young necromancer had many troublesome qualities, and her inability to deal with boredom was without a doubt at the top of the list, as it was frequently the reason she got into trouble. However, Gilbert knew well that some young people just were like that and even he himself remembered doing quest after quest when he first arrived in Valor, rarely resting for a full day in between. In some ways he missed those days, seeing the world, its people and creatures, but he certainly didn’t mind the current situation either. Despite being confined to a relatively small area around Valor, there were still many interesting things to do and see, and he even had a couple of young adventurers to guide along the way. He laughed after catching himself thinking like an old man again, as if he didn’t still have plenty of years left to see what became of his party.

Suddenly he was snapped back from his thoughts by a very faint humming sound emanating from the forest. The sound slowly changed to become more complex and audible, and fifteen minutes later it almost sounded like there somehow was a full choir hiding in the darkness. While the hymn definitely did have distinct lyrics in it, they were either in some language Gilbert didn’t understand in the slightest or simply didn’t mean anything. On top of providing the area with a pleasant ambient mood, there was something else about the voice that somehow made the adventurer feel like he should search for whoever was singing, and if it would have been his first encounter with a song like that, he very well may have taken a stroll into the darkness. “Interesting.” He smiled and turned to nudge Anastacia awake.

The necromancer flinched awake and looked around for a bit before the groggy confusion faded and she noticed the song. “What… sing?” She said, struggling to form a sentence so quickly after waking up.

“Aye, obuwielings.” Gilbert nodded and pointed in the direction of the sound.

Anastacia squinted and gazed between the trees but wasn’t able to see or feel anything. “Fight?” She asked and stumbled up.

“Nay, they’re harmless little critters, slightly creepy looking but they don’t approach camps. I still wouldn’t let their song get to you though. If you follow it into the forest, they’ll knock you out with rocks and steal your shoes.” The old adventurer explained with an amused smile on his face and knocked his boots together.

The necromancer frowned in disbelief. “Really, shoes? Why?”

“If you were to search around there for a bit during the day, you’d find a dead tree with shoes at the tips of every branch. Those little buggers sleep in them while the sun is out. I’m sure someone has tried to figure out why they only use shoes, but I have no idea.” Gilbert shrugged, put away his pipe and stiffly laid down next to the campfire. “It’s about time we switch. You can probably keep an eye on our surroundings better than I ever could, but if you’re unsure about something, just wake me up. And please, don’t stray too far.”

“Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, I’m not a child, I can handle this much.” Anastacia reassured him and tossed a log into the fire.

It didn’t take long for Gilbert to fall asleep and leave Anastacia alone with her thoughts. She listened to the song for a while, trying to figure out if it was just gibberish or not, but couldn’t come up with a real answer. Every now and then she could swear she heard a complete sentence, but even they largely made no sense in the slightest. She actually didn’t mind the song at all, it wasn’t loud enough to be annoying and went through several different moods, ranging from very melancholic sounding to upbeat quick tunes.

No matter how hard Anastacia tried, she couldn’t locate any of the singing critters, so they must have been much deeper in the woods than it sounded. The necromancer felt like she had to reward them for their efforts, since they made the wait much more pleasant but wouldn’t be getting any shoes out of it. She opened her backpack and began going through her rations to see what she could spare. Not having a faintest of ideas about what the obuwielings ate, Anastacia chose a piece of jerky and some roasted almonds and put them into one of her spare socks before loosely tying it around a rock and flinging it as far as she could in the general direction of the sound. After pretending to look away for a while, she could feel a single, roughly chipmunk-sized creature approach the gift. Surprisingly, the tiny creature felt more like an insect than anything, like some kind of weird combination of a dragonfly and a fairy. Despite its small size, the creature was able to fly away with both the sock and the rock, and swiftly escaped beyond Anastacia’s range.

Anastacia tossed some more wood into the fire and continued to listen to the song while gazing at the stars, trying to remember more of the useful constellations. A while later, something small landed on the grass next to her. She felt around for it until her hand touched something metallic. “A key?” Anastacia muttered and picked up a small, slightly bent key. “Thanks, I suppose…” She whispered at the forest, took out a bit of string from one of the pouches on her belt and began strapping the key onto one of the antlers on her helmet. It was a habit she had picked up from the goblins she ruled, who had a tendency to tie anything moderately interesting they found on themselves. Over the months, her antlers had housed quite a collection of anything even slightly shiny, such as cutlery, pieces of shattered blades, fragments of glass and a few bent and corroded rings. Their policy was to tie the items on and then let them fall off on their own but picking up what had fallen off was strictly prohibited.

Before she even realized it, the song started to fade away as the eastern sky turned red and sun peeked over the horizon. Somehow Anastacia had made it through the night without dying of boredom. She stood up, looked at the sleeping giant of an adventurer and was about to wake him up before realizing something. The necromancer stepped on one of the rocks that gave the camp some cover against prying eyes from the forest and leaped down to hit Gilbert in the abdomen with her elbow. Unfortunately, her calculations hadn’t taken his armor and the considerable padding under it into account, and the strike did nearly nothing beyond almost shattering her own elbow.

“You need to put more mass behind it.” Gilbert commented and yawned. “You either commit to it or hurt yourself.”

They prepared a quick breakfast before putting out the campfire and continuing their journey, with only a couple more hours left until they would reach the village. The weather had all the signs of staying beautiful for walking, and as the sun climbed higher, leaving the warmth of the fire behind didn’t feel as terrible. Anastacia was in a considerably better mood as well, so the conversation wasn’t as awkward or one sided as before, and Gilbert managed to actually teach her a thing or two about traveling.

It wasn’t even noon by the time they arrived at the village of Bassemund, which was more or less your average logging and farming village of less than fifty people. Cozy wooden huts, a mill, a blacksmith’s forge, a small watchtower; all the hallmarks of such settlements. The only thing about it that stood out was the roof of a massive mansion, rising above the treetops a little way to the north. The village’s inhabitants were busy with their errands of doing the few final touches of preparing for the coming winter months and barely stopped to glance at the adventurers as they walked through the village, looking for anyone who seemed like they would know about the quest.

“Oi!” Yelled an older gentleman, who had been loading a cart with a couple of younger men until they had spotted Gilbert and Anastacia. “You two! You seem awfully adventurey to me, are you here about the mansion?”

“Aye, are you the client?” Gilbert asked.

The old man gestured for the others to continue the work without him and walked over to the adventurers. “That’d be me, yes. Is there something you need from me or should I just show you the way there?” He asked and took his hat off, something about him made it seem like he was extremely relieved that someone had picked up the quest.

“Anything you can tell us about this man that’s missing or the mansion itself on the way there would be helpful.” Gilbert nodded.

“This way, I’ll show you to the gates, but won’t go any closer than that, there’s something wrong with that place.” The villager said and started to lead Anastacia and Gilbert in the direction of the mansion. “His name is Bartholomew, some kind of relative to the local lord, hence the big house. He has almost as many years under his belt as I do, though none of them easy. You see, he originally moved here because both his wife and daughter died, if I remember right, there was something odd about it and people started to talk, you know how it goes. So he moved here to get some peace.”

Gilbert nodded. “Reckon he did it?”

“Not a chance, does blame himself for it though. We’ve known each other for almost twenty years now, never seen him smile, not once. Real nice fellow though, the apple trees in his garden are always free pickings for the folk here and he makes toys for the children, bit of a craftsman, you see. Spends most of his time tinkering and sewing clothes.” The man continued and smiled, he was clearly talking about a good friend of his.

“Any chance he, you know, did himself in?” Gilbert asked a bit crudely.

The old man shook his head. “He’d have done that ages ago, and I’d like to think that he’d have said something to me.”

They reached a large iron gate that as a part of a high stone wall, which blocked the way to the mansion from the village. Above the gate was an intricate crest of the family that owned the premises, it featured an open book and a quill. The villager took off the chain that had been wrapped around the handles on the gates, preventing them from being swung around by wind.

“How come none of you went to check up on him?” Gilbert continued his inquiry.

“He’s the type to enjoy his privacy, every now and then he’d invite us over though. We did try to go and look for him a few times, but the doors into the mansion wouldn’t budge and he didn’t react to us shouting outside. Last time we tried, something bit one of the lads in the shin in the grass, left a real ugly mark too, so I figured it was better to just close gate and search for professionals, like you two.” The old man explained and pushed the gate open, it made a loud creaking noise as the hinges turned for the first time in a while. “This is as far as I go. Now if you’ll excuse me, the lads need my help, can’t leave the young ones unsupervised for too long or they’ll get lazy.”

“Fair enough. We’ll get back to you once we’re done here.” Gilbert said and began to shed off some of the camping gear that he wouldn’t need next to the gate. After the old villager was far enough away, he glanced at Anastacia, who had been awkwardly staring at the ground ever since they arrived at the gate. “Found him?”

Anastacia nodded. “Yeah, top floor, laying on the floor all curled up. Been dead for a long time. Should I have said something?”

“Nay, I reckon he knows already, people don’t just stay alone inside for a year. Just needs someone to get the body so he can see it with his own eyes.” Gilbert sighed and adjusted his armor. “You ready? I doubt there’ll be any problems, but you never know.”

“Sure.” Anastacia said, took her spears and staff and tossed her backpack next to Gilbert’s.

They walked through the gates into the massively overgrown, untamed garden. Its lawn had been taken over by tall grass and weeds and the flowerbeds were barely even distinguishable anymore. On both sides of the road, were multiple statues that had been covered by vines during the summer and were now hidden by the dried leaves. All around the garden, were trees that had already dropped their leaves for the year and made the area look slightly cursed.

“See, even the trees are dead. There has to be something evil going on!” Anastacia exclaimed and pointed at one of the trees.

Gilbert sighed. “Those are apple trees, they drop their leaves for the winter.”

The necromancer frowned. “What? Why?”

“You know a walking and talking tree, I don’t think I’m the one you should be asking that from, but I think they’d just freeze off in the cold anyway.” Gilbert shrugged. “Do you feel anything else in the mansion?”

Anastacia closed her eyes for a few seconds. “Nah, there’s one body in there and a lot of dead rats.”

“Huh… dead rats? Well that’s at the very least a bit odd, maybe there is something to this after all.” The old adventurer said and tried to peer inside from one of the windows.

The mansion itself was massive, the main building had three floors, all with large windows and elaborate decorations lining the outside walls. Attached to it on both sides of the building, were two smaller extra wings with two floors on each of them. The whole thing was made with some kind of white stone, but its maintenance had been ignored for far too long and the walls had started to crack and stain. In front of the main door was a small pond, that was now overgrown and murky. Next to it was a fancy looking carriage that had been eaten up by vines and beaten by the weather as well.

“Okay, this looks haunted as shit, but how do we get in? The old guy said that the doors wouldn’t budge.” Anastacia asked.

Gilbert dug out a lockpick set from one of the pouches on his belt and kneeled to take a look at the lock. “Doors like this are built tight and the lock looks well made, it probably just needs a bit of work and a good pull.” He mumbled and started to work on the lock.

Anastacia peeked in from one of the basement windows and tapped on the glass. “There’s a wine cellar. Are we allowed to loot? I hear wine can be expensive.” She asked and moved to another window.

“Well the guild’s policy is that we can take whatever from things we kill, unless we’re there to specifically fetch something back. So unless the building attacks us and we have to kill it, I don’t think we can.” Gilbert laughed and changed to another lockpick.

“Oh! There’s a bunch of mannequins wearing fancy dresses, if he made these, he was really good at it.” The necromancer said and pressed her face against the window to see better. “I kind of hope the building attacks us now, I want one of those.”

Gilbert chuckled. “You in a fancy dress? Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t think it’d suit you in the slightest.”

“Shut up, you old fart. I’m a queen these days, so obviously I need like the dumbest huge dress there is.” Anastacia protested and threw a pebble at Gilbert.

“Anna, last time you visited your little goblin kingdom, you were gone for less than a day and somehow managed to return with charcoal face paintings, a shirt made from a sack and without shoes. The dress would survive for less than five minutes.” The old adventurer pointed out. Suddenly something in the lock let out a quiet click and he was able to turn the mechanism inside. It took a few brisk pulls from Gilbert to crack the door, but once he got it unstuck, he was able to open it just fine. “There we go, lets head inside.”

Anastacia followed him inside into the massive foyer. The air inside had a very distinct moldy scent and was no warmer than outside. Decorated with marble and gilded wood, the room was absolutely stunning, even without lighting. There were three doors, one of which led directly ahead, deeper into the mansion; one on the right, which presumably was the way to one of the wings; and one on the left, probably leading to the other wing. On both sides of the middle door, there were two large staircases that led to the second floor.

“Ghosts! If you’re here, come at me!” Anastacia yelled, still absolutely sure that the mansion was haunted.

Gilbert quickly covered her mouth. “Don’t do that! Even if it’s unlikely that there are any, you don’t want to provoke them.”

All of a sudden, the door they had just opened slammed shut with enough force to rattle the windows near it.

“Damnit, Anna!” Gilbert yelled and rushed to the door. He tried to tackle it a few times but now it really wouldn’t budge.

Anastacia grinned. “No ghosts, eh?”

“Just shut up and try freezing the lock, maybe it’ll make it brittle enough to break.” Gilbert sighed. “And it’s not necessarily a ghost, the time of the day isn’t ideal for them and ghosts just tend to attack you straight away.”

Anastacia pressed the tip of her staff against the lock and tried to cool it down with ice magic. “Huh… That’s weird, nothing’s happening. It’s like I’m not actually touching it.” She said and tried tapping the lock with her staff a few times, but it sounded perfectly normal. Somehow the lock just wasn’t susceptible to magic, which would be the first time Anastacia had heard about something like that.

Gilbert tapped the narrow window next to the door with his knuckles. “I’ll just break this, and you can slip through and try it from the other side.” He said and hit the window with his elbow, but the window didn’t break, a few more attempts later, he moved on and tried to kick it, only to achieve just as little. “Umm… This might be an issue.”

“Move.” Anastacia ordered and took one of her spears from her back. “I’d get behind me if I were you.”

Gilbert didn’t feel like questioning the advice and covered behind the necromancer. “What are you up to?” He asked.

“I’m making us an exit. Remember the fisher I killed? I had these spears made with a bone core, so I don’t need to sacrifice so many snakes and socks.” Anastacia smiled and spun the spear to look cool. She took a step back, lined the tip of the spear with the stubborn door and threw it as hard as she could. As soon as it released from her hand, her necromancy took over and launched the spear at a ridiculous speed directly at the door. Bits of wooden shrapnel rained all over the room as the raw power of the spear had turned most of the shaft into dust upon hitting the door. But when the mangled metal tip of the spear fell on the marble floor somewhere behind her and the dust revealed a completely unharmed door, Anastacia’s confidence took a bit of a hit.