Though her bed was warm and comfortable unlike any other she had slept in before, Anastacia found it hard to fall asleep for some reason. She kept checking up on everyone else inside the lodge despite almost all of them being fast asleep already. Only ones awake besides her were Strawberry, a single servant that maintained the fire in the great hall and the two representatives that had sat down to discuss their differences in the library hours ago.

When the adventurer had visited them, they seemed to be engaged in a fierce debate, but not one that appeared likely to go beyond that. Lady Helia hadn’t relied on her crab yet and Teal knew all too well that he was going to get tossed through a wall the second his powers flared up.

After a good while of tossing and turning, Anastacia gave up on sleeping for the time being and got up to stretch her legs in the dark room. The magnificent northern sky and the pure white snow below it reflected an eerie light blue glow that gave off just enough light into the room so that she could avoid bumping into the furniture despite the unfamiliar layout.

Knowing that she still had some candies stashed away in her backpack she felt around for it and fondled her luggage in the dark until she found the pouch at the bottom, spreading the rest of her stuff on the floor in the process.

Chewing on a lemon-flavored lump of caramel, the adventurer collapsed into one of the armchairs positioned near the window and gazed at the stars and the faintly visible, green northern lights among them. “Well, this isn’t terrible.” She mumbled to herself and tried to find some of the constellations she knew and wondered if she could figure out which direction Valor was in.

While absentmindedly staring at the sky, Anastacia suddenly felt a strange chill go down her spine, the kind one gets when something is clearly wrong, but there’s no obvious way to tell what. Instinctively she assumed that it was her necromancy picking up something, but nothing appeared to be wrong when she focused her mind to it.

There were no strange sounds to be heard nor was anything else out of place in the room, but just to be safe, she got up and peeked into the hallway to see Strawberry sitting on one of the benches along it and tie up stacks of paper that he had sorted and would need to be filed once he got back to Valor.

“How on earth does he still have paperwork?” The adventurer wondered and closed the door. “Maybe sugar in the middle of the night was a bad move? I should just get back to-“ She interrupted herself and stared at the window she had just gazed out from.

Only a couple of meters beyond it was the head of a massive, stone-scaled viper, whose eyes flickered like torches as they stared down at the necromancer. Its breath fogged up the window and the very tips of its forked tongue whacked against it a couple of times.

Anastacia lunged behind her bed for cover and grabbed one of her spears from the stack of weapons she had accumulated. Preparing to launch it through the window, she peeked over the bed and was surprised to find the beast gone, as if it had suddenly vanished into thin air. Naturally her instinct was to try and locate it again, but she realized that at no point had she felt anything even remotely that massive nearby, even when it had been staring at her through the window. While that didn’t necessarily mean that the snake hadn’t been there, it was somewhat unlikely that something that big wouldn’t have a piece of meat or bone in them.

With a rather impressive roll, she advanced behind one of the armchairs and popped up with the spear aimed at the window and the vacant field of snow behind it. The beast was still nowhere to be seen, so the necromancer performed another roll towards the door to her room’s balcony and quietly pushed it open. Regretting every barefooted step she took on the freezing cold balcony, Anastacia glanced at the ground below.

The snowbank was completely undisturbed and certainly hadn’t been rummaged through by a building-sized reptile. Even if it had been a magical construct or some kind of weird being that as immune to necromancy, it should have still left tracks, but there was nothing of the sort anywhere nearby as far as Anastacia could see.

Retreating back to the warmth of her room, the adventurer sat back down with the spear next to her and started chewing on another candy. “I swear to fuck, if I have to deal with a giant ghost snake or some bullshit like that, I’m just going to throw Strawberry at it and make a run for it.” She muttered and wondered if the whole thing had just been a combination of lack of sleep, sugar and her own imagination toying with the story about the hunters she had heard earlier, since that had a big snake in it too.

Slowly but surely, her vigilance began fading as she started to nod off. Going to sleep still felt a bit off since that’d leave her wide open for a possibly-but-not-certainly-imaginary snake attack, and so she kept fighting the losing battle against it.

She had no way to tell if she had nodded off for five seconds or five hours when her pile of weaponry falling over snapped the necromancer back awake again. Not thinking anything of it, she just lightly smacked her cheeks a couple of times to perk up and continued her vigil, at least until she started to hear a repeating clanking noise behind her.

Readying her spear, she dove behind the chair and started scanning the room for threats. What she found was one of the swords she had taken from Teal, standing upright and scraping its tip against the wooden floor. She could tell that it was indeed the inquisitor that was puppeteering it, but not with the intent one would expect if it was meant to be an attack, instead his grasp on the weapon was barely there and only really detectable at times.

“What the…” The adventurer mumbled and took a second to check up on the other necromance, who appeared to be in one piece, though his heartbeat was elevated, as was the Ouan representative’s, who was still with him in the library.

Anastacia grabbed the sword and tossed it back into the pile with the rest of them. On the way she happened to glance at the marks on the floor it had made, and even in the dark she could tell that they resembled very crude letters. Wanting to be sure, she grabbed her lantern and lit the room with it.

“H – E – L – F” She tried to make out what the sword had been trying to spell, but it must have been near the limits of Teal’s range, as the lines barely connected and it took more than a bit of generosity to call the scribbles letters in the first place. Nevertheless, it was definitely intentional. “Ohhhh! It’s probably ‘help’, isn’t it?” Anastacia realized and was weirdly proud of herself for a second. “Shit! it’s probably ‘help’!” Hastily pulling on most of her uniform, she grabbed a spear and dashed into the hallway, passing the guild official as she headed for the library.

“You know, you could at least take the time to wear your uniform properly.” Strawberry commented to the running adventurer and was immediately filled with regret for it, as Anastacia turned around just to pick up one of his paper stacks and hurled it as far along the corridor as she could before running off again.

On the way, the adventurer kept scanning the entire lodge just in case, but just like before, nothing appeared out of place, even Teal and lady Helia were both alive and well, and as far as she could tell, simply sitting still. As she reached the third floor and could see the library, Anastacia slowed down and listened for any clues of might be happening, but the only thing she could hear was the Ouan diplomat’s never-ending prattling in the distance. She couldn’t make out what lady Helia was talking about, but she clearly wasn’t in any type of distress.

Quietly peeking into the room, Anastacia assessed the situation and grinned widely at what she saw.

Absolutely terrified and with a pleading look in his eyes, the inquisitor glanced at his fellow necromancer and leaned as far back in his chair as possible.

The reason for this was the far taller and somewhat spiky Ouan that loomed over him with one of her hands combing through the inquisitor’s long, black hair and the other on his thigh. “Surely the necromancer inquisitor Teal understand that the pure are far superior when it comes to appearances too? Ours was gifted by the divine, while others spawned from some primordial ooze. So it is understandable, isn’t it? For the necromancer inquisitor Teal to feel such attraction. But am I to respond? The pure are free of such earthly wants and desires. Yet, I find the necromancer inquisitor Teal, a vile cretin of pure darkness of all things, appealing. It has the manners of a much higher creature. Entertaining and intriguing.” She hissed and lowered her face nearer to Teal’s, who was almost shaking by then.

At first Anastacia wondered if she should just go back to her room to laugh her ass off, but she figured that the inquisitors restraint had a limit to it, and that he had already done well by alerting the adventurer instead of using his powers directly. So instead she knocked on the doorframe to alert the Ouan about her presence.

Lady Helia retreated to her seat in a flash and picked up her lantern. “Who goes there? Perhaps the human adventurer Anastacia?” She asked as if nothing had happened.

“Yeah, it’s me.” Anastacia said and held back laughter. “I just figured I’d come to check up on you. It’s getting pretty late and it’d make my job a lot easier if everyone stayed in their rooms for the night.”

“Is that so? Maybe it does make sense?” Lady Helia nodded and promptly stood up. “Perhaps it is time for us to cease these… negotiations? It has been adequate talking to you, necromancer inquisitor Teal. Might it be possible to continue tomorrow? We believe the matter of Mournvalley renouncing their disgusting corpse ruler is yet to be expanded upon.”

The inquisitor just nodded and smiled nervously.

Anastacia laughed. “Sure! Why don’t you two take it to… a more private setting? Like, I’m sure one of you has some maps or intel or something in your room that you could use to make your point.” She suggested just to mess with Teal a bit more.

“Such a grand idea from such an insignificant being! Maybe high magister Ilyu Minerva was correct about you? Perhaps there is a hint of something of worth in you?” Lady Helia said happily and lifted her lantern higher. “Might I be directed to my quarters?”

The adventurer told the Ouan to follow her and took out her own crystal lantern to help the diplomat to see a bit more. Surprisingly, the light shed by the crystal worked well with lady Helia’s unique eyesight, and she asked to see the lantern. Since she had a spare one in her backpack, and a third one back at the inn, Anastacia just let her keep it – mostly so she didn’t have to worry about a half-blind person stumbling around an extremely flammable wooden lodge with a bunch of oil and a lantern.

“Has someone brought their dog along?” The Ouan asked suddenly while they were walking down the stairs.

Anastacia frowned. “A dog? Not that I know of. How come?”

“When all else is quiet, we keep hearing it growl and snarl at us in the dark. Reeks of a wet beast as well.” Explained lady Helia.

“Well, if there was one in here, I’d know about it.” Anastacia reassured her and opened up the door to the last room that had been prepared for the guests.

Just like the high magister’s room, it was more or less the same as her own, though perhaps a tiny bit smaller. The Ouan representative’s luggage had been brought there earlier and placed neatly by the end of the bed.

“Before you may go, we should give this back to you. We have understood that the necromancer inquisitor Teal has no plans for our assassination.” Lady Helia said with something that very remotely resembled a smile on her face and handed the supposedly cursed crab back to Anastacia before slamming the door on her, without so much as wishing good night.

Since their rooms were next to each other, Anastacia unsurprisingly ran into Teal on her way back, and for some weird reason, she in no way could have expected, the inquisitor seemed to be a bit ticked off at her.

“What are you doing?!” Teal asked with an odd mix of yelling and whispering.

Anastacia grinned. “I’m being a wingman, or at least what I think one is, I’m not totally sure to be honest.”

“I don’t need you ‘wingmanning’ an over two-meter-tall insect-like religious nutjob on me!” The inquisitor exclaimed.

“Why not? She’s kind of cute, don’t you think? And she’s obviously way into you for some weird reason, so just stop being a coward and steer into it.” The adventurer shrugged and threw the crab at Strawberry when they passed him.

“That is not the problem here! I was sent here to make peace, not… well, this!” Teal continued fuming and unintentionally playing right into the adventurer’s hands.

“Oh? so you do think she’s cute then? Poor little Helia Pain, living in perpetual darkness where everything is scary and blasphemous, just waiting for a valiant knight to show up on a bone white steed to guide her steps, am I right?” Anastacia kept mocking the inquisitor, knowing there was nothing he could do about it. “Now, good night to you, sir knight.”

As the adventurer disappeared into her room, Teal was left standing in the hallway with only the guild official as company. The two of them shared a look and sighed in tandem.

“On behalf of the guild and Valor as a whole, I can only apologize for our hand in the makings of that nightmarish person.” Strawberry said, sounding genuinely apologetic.

“Mournvalley appreciates your gesture, guild master, but ultimately it was us that released her upon this unsuspecting world.” Teal laughed tiredly.

A sharp knock on the door woke up Anastacia from her guard post by the window. Disoriented as usual, she spent the next few moments trying to figure out where she was and what was going on. By the time a second, a bit more forceful knock snapped her fully awake.

“Anastacia, the breakfast will be served in thirty minutes. Freshen up and dress yourself properly.” Strawberry said from the other side of the door.

“Ffffffine…” The adventurer mumbled back and lazily flung herself up from the chair.

Because her room was facing to the west, the rising sun hadn’t woken the necromancer up earlier. It did however light up the field of snow beautifully and made it appear slightly orange. Just to be sure, Anastacia took a look at the bank right below her window, and found it still lacking any marks from a giant snake, which was more than a bit vexing for her.

“Fuckass ghost snake.” She muttered and pressed her face against the cold glass for a while to wake up.

After getting herself to a somewhat presentable condition and dressed, Anastacia strapped her weapons on her back and slowly dragged herself downstairs to the great hall.

Teal, Magnon, Fang and Farcie had already arrived at the table, last of whom was talking with the host of the event about something, but quickly scurried away after seeing the wreck of an adventurer descending the stairs.

“Grand morning to you, Anna!” Nikolai greeted her happily. “I trust you slept well?”

Though he appeared as cheery as ever, something seemed odd about the commander. His smile seemed ever so slightly fake, and something about his appearance bothered Anastacia, it was as if he wasn’t feeling well. Figuring that maybe Nikolai was just as terrible of a morning person as she was and was only smiling for the guests while actually dying inside, Anastacia didn’t spend too much of her, at the time very limited processing power on it.

“Mfffpghrl…” Was as much of a response as she was able to conjure after collapsing to her seat.

The host laughed warmly. “Splendid! Worry not, the coffee will be served in no time. I’ve made sure to reserve some of my favorite blends for this event, so do tell what you think about them later.”

Soon after, lady Helia and the slightly hungover high magister appeared from the upper floor to greet Nikolai. The Ouan even briefly nodded at Anastacia while passing her, which was likely a much bigger sign of approval than the adventurer understood.

The high magister picked up on Nikolai appearing a bit under the weather as they spoke, but she suggested that it may have been the same self-inflicted nausea and headache she was suffering from, they did both have their fair share of drink after all.

Once the rest of the guests had sluggishly found their way to their seats, a couple of servants entered the hall and began serving coffee to all that wanted some, starting from the ends of the curved table.

“All the sugar, was it?” Asked the servant that Anastacia recognized as the one that told her the story behind the carvings on the night before. “Did you sleep well, miss adventurer?”

The scent of fresh coffee was enough to wake Anastacia up to a point where she could lift her head to nod for the girl, who began shoveling sugar into the drink. After every five or so spoonfuls, the servant gave and increasingly awkward glance at the adventurer, who just told her to keep going. Eventually the servant’s warm smile turned into sheer horror as the cup overflowed with the sweet lumpy mess of coffee infused sugar.

“I… I’m sorry, but there’s no more sugar…” She stuttered and showed the empty bowl to the adventurer.

Anastacia yawned. “That’ll do… for now anyway.” She mumbled and started chewing on her ‘coffee’.

“It takes weeks to export that specific type of coffee bean from the Cabian islands to here, that is, after outbidding every other royal family and aristocrat for the shipment in the first place. There’s even a chance someone died shipping it through the pirate infested waters around there, and this is what you do with it?” Vice commander Lumira commented on the adventurer’s habits, sounding more than a bit annoyed.

“Now now, Lumira. Coffee is meant to be enjoyed and that is what she’s doing. It’d do you some good to learn from her.” Nikolai remarked merrily while he and the vice commander were served their drinks.

With everyone served, the servants disappeared back into the kitchen, only to return with baskets full of different kinds bread and platters containing almost anything a sensible person could consider a topping. Bowls full of exotic fruits and berries were placed next to them, and to Anastacia’s delight, there was even an amble selection of pastries available.

With the aid of his second in command, Nikolai stood up and addressed everyone present. “Good morning, friends! Please help yourself to this grand meal our helpers have prepared, as once it is over, we will move on to the more serious matters at hand and I’ve found a plentiful breakfast to be an unsurpassed aid in negotiations and arguments.” He said with the usual warm smile on his face. “Though our beverages are somewhat untraditional for the job, I would suggest that we start the day with a toast of sorts.” The host continued and lifted up his coffee. “For the north!” He let out a bellowing cheer and took a good, long draught.

“For the north!” Everyone repeated after him and sipped their drinks.

Suddenly both Anastacia and Teal shot up from their seats and turned to Nikolai, who had gone pale as a sheet and had a droplet of sweat rolling down his temple. Both of the necromancers had felt the old man’s heart suddenly cease pumping and now rushed to his aid.

Anastacia, being closer to him, tried to catch the Vassundian commander as he fell, but didn’t nearly have the strength for the job. She did manage to slow down the fall enough for Lumira to notice what was going on and help lowering Nikolai to his chair.

Coughing up foam, he spasmed a couple of times before slumping down lifelessly into Lumira’s arms.

“Someone, do something!” The vice commander roared while the general havoc began spreading to the rest of the room.

Ilyu and Magnon hurried over to move their old friend on the floor, where the high magister and the inquisitor did what they could. However, it didn’t take long for both of them to lower their hands and give up on trying to help Nikolai in any way.

“He’s gone.” Teal sighed and stood up to give room to the forgemaster. He then glanced at Anastacia and nodded, clearly knowing what was inevitably going to happen next.

Lumira’s eyes lit up with rage as she scanned the room for the servant girl that had given Anastacia, Nikolai and her their drinks. Finding her target, she leaped over the table and pinned the servant against a wall. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” She yelled and pressed her forearm against the servant’s throat.

Amidst the screams of the other servants and confusion among the guests, Anastacia grabbed her staff and turned to the guild official. “Say, if this happens, does the authority go back to Vassund or…” She asked calmly.

“According to the agreement, you are the one in charge.” Strawberry confirmed.

“Good.” Anastacia nodded and struck her staff on the floor. At the same time as cooling the room a bit, she used necromancy to freeze everyone in place to avoid any further chaos. She walked around the table into the middle of the room and made her declaration. “As per my contract, I am exercising the authority given to me and taking control of this meeting to guarantee the safety of everyone in here, and as you can see, I’ll do it literally if I have to. It’s easy to tell that the death of our host was not natural, and it falls on me to find out what I can and act to upon my findings. I know how pointless it is to say this, but do not go at each other’s throats over this, and instead leave that to me.” She addressed everyone briefly and shoved the vice commander off the servant she had attacked. “That means no lynching. I will however welcome any and all help I can get, so in case someone noticed something odd, please do tell me. I’ll begin by questioning this girl, since she was the one that presumably poisoned Nikolai. The rest of you will go and wait in your rooms until I decide otherwise. I will know if anyone tries to fuck around and I will assume it means they had something to do with this. Am I being clear enough?” She tapped her staff on the floor again and released everyone from her grasp.

Probably because of the shock of having someone poisoned in front of them and then inexplicably being frozen in place, most of the guests and servants obeyed Anastacia’s order and quietly left the hall, but Ilyu and Magnon both needed some convincing from Teal to leave their friend’s side. Both of them seemed understandably broken up about the situation and took one final glance at Nikolai before taking the stairs to their rooms.

Lumira hadn’t budged from the spot the adventurer had pushed her to, and obviously didn’t intend to. Instead she kept glaring at Anastacia like she was trying to intimidate her into stepping back.

“I’ll have none of this, Lumira. I get that she may or may not have just poisoned your boss, but this is out of your hands now.” The adventurer explained calmly. “How about this? Go get a sheet and move Nikolai into the cellar with Strawberry. I’ll probably have to look at him again later and well… you know, the smell.”

Accepting that Anastacia wasn’t going to back down, the dark elf left to find something to move the body with.

Anastacia grabbed the servant’s hand and dragged her all the way to her own room for the interrogation. Shocked out of her mind, the sobbing girl wasn’t going to yield much information for a while, even if she actually knew anything. So the adventurer just sat her down by the coffee table and waited while staring out of the window and making sure everyone else heeded her orders.

“I… I didn’t poison him…” The servant finally sniffled after a few minutes. “You- you’ve got to believe me!”

“I’m pretty sure you didn’t – on purpose at least.” Anastacia revealed, even when not actively surveying her surroundings, she could usually tell if something was amiss. For example, if someone’s heartrate was higher than normal or their heart stopped altogether. “Either that or you’re some kind of super trained assassin that doesn’t even get nervous when killing people. What’s your name anyway?”

“S…Stel.” The servant said and wiped her tears with her sleeve.

The adventurer sat down opposite to Stel and groaned. “Would have been really nice for me if you did kill him though, now I have no idea what’s going on.”