After dropping the newly acquired clothes and items into Iris’ room and picking a casual outfit for the her, the necromancers returned downstairs to kill time and eat. Thanks to the numerous delays on their shopping adventure, they had successfully avoided the lunch rush and arrived to a mostly empty tavern with only a few adventurers drinking away their day after their meals. They picked one of the tables a bit out of the way from the other people, the counter and the staircase before exhaustedly collapsing into their chairs.

“So how are you liking the city so far?” Anastacia asked while stretching her back, which was slightly sore from being tossed around by Armaata.

Iris’s answer came in the form of a tired, almost angry glare before she laid her head down on the table and closed her eyes for a moment.

“It just takes some time to get used to it. Valor still manages to surprise me frequently, but I got the regular quirks down pretty quick.” The adventurer continued, but received no further reactions.

Yulia, who was working in the kitchen with Rosie as usual, must have heard the necromancers arrive, as she peeked out of the kitchen and got hailed by Anastacia. She took a moment to finish whatever she was doing and headed for the table with quite a lot of pep in her step, no doubt caused by Gilbert’s return. The cheerful clacking of her hooves against the wooden floor had become an important part of the feeling of being home for Anastacia, but for Iris, it served as a remainder of the last time she and Yulia had met – the night Cobalt and her had broken into the inn and drugged the lamb before leaving with Gilbert. Their breakfast had been served by Rosie during a rather busy moment too, so the newest resident of the inn hadn’t actually been in contact with either of the people running it.

“Anna! Good to see you got back alright too.” Yulia greeted them and nodded towards Iris, who hadn’t yet dared to lift her head. “Who is your friend?”

Anastacia put her hand on Iris’ shoulder. “This is my new court cleric, and a student of Emilia, Iris. She’s been having a bit of a rough time lately and is going to stick around for a while.”

“Oh… That’s Awful!” Yulia frowned and leaned a bit closer. “Well, Iris, my name is Yulia. I work in the kitchen, so if you ever need to have a bite or a drink, don’t hesitate to ask!”

Iris remained silent and kept her face pressed against the table. Anastacia could tell that she was suddenly extremely nervous and seemed to be intentionally hiding her identity from Yulia.

“No worries! I know a thing or two about being sad and sometimes you don’t feel like talking. We can do this over again when you’re having a better moment.” Yulia smiled cheerily and ruffled Iris’ hair with her prosthetic hand before turning to the adventurer. “Anna, did you need something?”

“Two big bowls of whipped cream, a coffee for me and tea for her – also, can you ask Rosie to come over whenever she has a bit of time? We have to talk with her about something.” Anastacia made her order and leaned back in her chair.

The lamb diligently repeated the order in her head a couple of times before hopping back into the kitchen, gathering some dishes from the empty tables on the way.

Once Yulia was out of the way, Anastacia poked the other necromancer with her foot. “Care to explain why you’re pretending to sulk all of a sudden?” She asked.

Iris slowly lifted her head and scoped her surroundings before answering. “Cobalt and I drugged that girl the last time we were here.” She whispered and moved her chair to face away from the kitchen. “She kicked the crap out of Cobalt, got a good enough look at my face and heard me talk. The pois- tranquilizer I used doesn’t really cause memory loss in most people, so she would probably recognize me.”

Anastacia snickered. “You’re afraid she’ll whoop your ass too? She does get very kicky easily… But maybe, you know, don’t poison people? Worked really well for me so far.” She snarked, thinking that maybe she should have said something about someone poisoning her friend, but figured that Iris was in the middle of enough things and didn’t need additional blame on top of that. “So, you’re just going to dive on your face whenever she’s around then? You do realize that she works here, right? It’s going to be a pretty complicated couple of weeks if you do that.”

“I don’t know! Maybe?! I can’t exactly defend myself at the moment, especially in the middle of a city full of people that will snap me in half for hurting their barmaid.” Iris lamented while trying to keep her tone down.

“I promise I will drag her off you if it comes to that. Just remember to curl up to a ball and protect your head and neck with your arms.” The adventurer jokingly advised. “Works for both brown bears and buxom barmaids.”

Iris tiredly frowned and considered laying down again. “I assume both of those are a reoccurring problem to adventurers then?”

“More than you’d think, less than you’d hope.” Anastacia gave a nonsensical answer. “Whatever you do, don’t try to run from either. You’ve seen Rosie and I assume bears at some point, so you know it doesn’t work.”

The mention of the innkeeper’s name perked up the court cleric. “This Rosie, what exactly is she? She seems… formidable… from what I’ve briefly seen her, but her name seems to be exclusively mentioned in threats. Should I be worried over this meeting?” She inquired and seemed genuinely a bit worried.

“She’s just your average innkeeper that can and likely has killed a man with her bare hands, but the problem isn’t what she can do to you, but what she can take away. Inside these four walls, her word is the law, and if she decides you can’t have coffee, you’re not going to have coffee.” Anastacia explained the way of things in the inn, speaking in a much lower tone than before, clearly worried of a certain someone overhearing. “It’s not like this for everyone, but since Emilia has her ear by default on the account of the hanky-panky thing, she can basically blackmail me by threatening to get Rosie to stop serving me things.”

“That is a lot of information I didn’t know I asked for…” Iris mumbled and stared off into the void while trying to take in and process everything she had heard, not the least of which was learning that the world’s most powerful necromancer was being blackmailed with coffee. “Oh… I always thought that, you know, that sort of thing was banned for clergy – not to mention that sort of that sort of thing. There’s a lot I don’t know about Miss Emilia and her church…”

Anastacia chuckled at the impact the revelation had on Iris. “Is that a problem for you? I know Mournvalley doesn’t exactly encourage that sort of stuff.”

Iris shrugged somberly. “No, I’m just surprised. Even discussing changing our stance on those things isn’t on the table yet, I’m afraid. Personally, any of it just isn’t for me, so any combination of bits and parts people are comfortable smearing together seem equally valid.” She said lamentingly, but cheered up quickly after realizing she could make it a lecture on health and raised her voice without noticing it. “But biologically speaking, I’m obviously all for intercourse! The health benefits are numerous and-“

Anastacia put her hand on Iris’ mouth to silence her. “Maybe don’t scream that you’re ‘all for intercourse’ as the first thing the folks here hear from you.” She noted and nodded towards the other guests of the tavern, who had all suddenly become very interested in what the necromancers were discussing. “They’re all decent people, but is that really what you want to be known for? I almost killed someone with chicken on my second day here and still hear about that at least once a week.”

“Point taken.” Iris whispered and hastily ducked her head down, as if that did anything when it was just the two of them around the table in the mostly empty tavern.

After a few minutes of further barely coherent conversing with each other about things Anastacia claimed to have learned in Valor, which left Iris feeling like she might have actually become just a bit stupider than she had been before, Rosie finally appeared from the kitchen, carrying their order on a tray. The innkeeper handed each necromancer their large bowl of nothing but sweetened whipped cream and placed the drinks in their general direction. She then aimed her usual overpowering glare at Iris while sizing her up before even speaking and sat down within arm’s reach of Anastacia. The violent staring continued just long enough for the inquisitor to actually consider rolling up into a ball and start protecting her head, but then Rosie finally spoke up.

“This is the runt Em picked up then? Doesn’t look like much to me.” She scoffed in a humored manner.

Iris gathered all her remaining courage to speak up. “Ye… yes! My name is iris. Thank you so much for letting me stay here despite my… affiliation, Miss Rosie!” She stiffly uttered and stood up to bow.

“Em knows what she’s doing, and Kitten would have never accepted this if she thought you were of any danger to anyone here, that’s all I need to know. Besides, they’re footing the bill, so it’s all good on my end.” The tigress shrugged and stretched her legs to take everything out of the break she was taking.

“Kit… Kitten?” Iris confusedly asked, worried that there was yet another person she owed thanks to.

Rosie pointed towards Anastacia, who had been busy shoveling the cream into her coffee and then back into the bowl to hopefully imbue the taste to the rest of it without melting it all. Iris didn’t dare to comment on the matter more than she already had. It continually amazed her how casually even the normal people in Valor dealt with Anastacia, a person her team had spent many long nights discussing, just in case she would for whatever reason take aim at Mournvalley, but apparently here she was but a kitten to an innkeeper.

Suddenly Rosie placed her hand on Anastacia’s head and turned it up from the godless culinary alchemy she had started. “You had something we needed to talk about? I’d rather be quick about it, the new machine you brought is all thumbs in the kitchen and I don’t trust King to have the initiative to watch over them.”

It took a moment for the distracted gears in the adventurer’s head to find their place and for her to remember what she wanted to ask. “Oh? Oh! Have you noticed anything strange about Emilia since we returned?”

Concern briefly filled the innkeeper’s face as she thought back to the previous evening and the night. “Nothing comes to mind.” She eventually said. “Is something wrong?”

“Well that’s the thing, we don’t know.” Anastacia admitted. “Neither of us can feel any trace of her body. We can’t affect it, sense it or anything in it.”

“I’m not sure what you’re saying… She’s obviously there.” Rosie scratched her head.

“She has become completely immune to necromancy.” Iris explained more plainly. “Obviously she’s still there, physically. There’s a pulse, she breathes, sleeps, does everything else a normal body is supposed to do as far as I can see.”

“She knows everything she should know, acts like she always has, speaks and sounds just like before…” Added Anastacia. “I figured you should know, and that if there was anyone who would notice something being off, it would be you.”

Rosie retraced every moment she was with the priestess in the last day, over and over again, but couldn’t point out a single thing that stood out as uncharacteristic. Nothing Emilia had said or done was out of place. She knew the minute details of her movements by heart, the positions she slept in, her habits and minor details no one else had even the slightest hint of, but nothing was wrong. Anastacia briefly explained what had happened during the trip underground and that the change happened there at some point while they were separated. She left out some details about the fortress itself, as the guild did require it to be kept secret and it would have done nothing to get the innkeeper included in the mess of confidentiality the party was in.

“So what does any of this mean then? Is there something wrong with her or is that not her or what?” Rosie asked and started to get unusually agitated.

“Well, I don’t have any reason to worry that she isn’t our Emilia, nothing points to that being a thing here at all. Not to mention that King was with her the whole time and I know he’s exactly the same.” Anastacia explained to keep her calm. “But I don’t know if something is wrong – she’s the health nerd.” She said and pointed at Iris.

Iris hadn’t expected to be included in the conversation again, as she was only an acquaintance at best. “I… I’m an expert in things necromancy works on, not the things it doesn’t work on. I hadn’t even seen anyone it didn’t work on before all of this, but apparently that’s not uncommon in your life.” She said and lifted up her hands to show she had very little to offer. “I can give her an examination if one of you can convince her to let me do that, but I really don’t think we’d learn anything new from it.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Rosie exclaimed and turned back to Anastacia. “Common? You’ve seen this type of thing before?”

The adventurer pondered for a second about how to word what she knew in the least concerning way. “I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same, I think. The first obvious exceptions are people like King and Xamiliere, who just aren’t meaty enough to count and just get ruled out because of that. Then there are people and creatures with so much willpower of their own that we can’t do much about it, like goblins. Usually that just means necromancy is less effective, but I wouldn’t rule out being outright immune to it in some very special cases. Then there are literal gods and the like, either their bodies aren’t compatible or they overpower us mere mortals. Considering Emilia’s closeness to Sylvia, I would reason this is a case of the latter, but she certainly doesn’t seem any more divine than before.” She listed off the usual reasons she knew of and considered leaving out the last example entirely, one she had only learned about in the bottom of the fortress. After an awkwardly long pause, she however decided to share the knowledge on the account of having met Pyria, and that the fiend may have something to do with Emilia’s condition as well, even if she was now gone. “It’s also possible for a being to be… let’s call it ‘corrupted’, to a point where necromancy doesn’t work anymore. I’ve only seen what it does to a necromancer and it corrupted their powers as well, but I assume that a regular person would simply become untouchable – but this is all speculation on something I know nothing about.”

“I assume you haven’t told her since you brought this up without her here?” Rosie asked while ingesting the information for anything she could understand, as she had no real in-depth understanding of necromancy in the first place.

Anastacia nodded. “No one besides us knows. I figured it’d be up to you to tell her or not.”

“I will obviously respect your decision on that, but maybe she doesn’t need to know quite yet.” Iris suddenly commented, slightly out of place for her. “She doesn’t seem to be aware of it, of if she is, she hasn’t come out with it to us either. It might also be a temporary condition; in which case we would be worrying her over nothing. Miss Emilia seems to be in a downright frightening physical condition – in a good way. Unless that changes, I’m not sure this is a problem for anyone but us two in the first place.”

Nervously sharpening her claws against the already scratched surface of the table, Rosie took a while to consider her options. Occasionally glancing at the necromancers to see if anything in their expression suggested there was a reason to worry or if there was anything they weren’t telling her. “Okay… I’ll think about this… Is there anything I can do to help? Anything at all.” She finally said and got up from the chair. She preferred to work while thinking and sitting down just made her agitated.

“Can you get us a bit of her blood? Iris needs it for… a thing.” Anastacia immediately blurted out, hoping to use Iris’ unique talents to learn more of what was going on with her friend.

“Sure.” The innkeeper answered without batting an eye and flashed her claws to the necromancers.

Having expected a convoluted plan to somehow covertly drain a drop of blood from the priestess during the night or something similarly difficult, Iris couldn’t believe it didn’t even require persuasion to convince the innkeeper to draw blood for some questionable needs of a complete stranger. “That was way too easy…” She commented quietly, mostly for herself.

Rosie’s ears turned towards the cleric and picked up the whisper. “Nothing easy about it. I don’t know who you are or what you’re about, but what am I supposed to do about any of this by myself? I trust Kitten and I know Em trusts her, so if she thinks this is what helps, I’m not going to question it. I’ll have the blood for you by tomorrow.” She snarled, more annoyed by her own helplessness than by the comment itself.

“Oh…” Iris sank in her chair. “Just a stain on a napkin or something like that is enough. I don’t need much.”

“Anything else I can do?” The innkeeper asked and turned to leave.

Smiling as confidently as she could, Anastacia shrugged. “Just keep making sure there’s a person inside all that armor and cloth, I can’t tell right now.”

Rosie smirked. “Enjoy your ‘meals’.” She sighed and headed for the kitchen. She briefly stopped by the staircase, considered checking up on Emilia, but in the end returned directly to her work of teaching Leggy how to wash dishes.

Anastacia was quick to drop the subject once the innkeeper left and returned to her project of trying to make coffee-flavored whipped cream. Iris, on the other hand, dwelled on the priestess’ mysterious ailment for a while longer. Not being of much help didn’t with her feelings of uselessness and failure, and constantly being in the receiving end of so much help made her uncomfortable.

“Feels almost criminal to be even looking at this.” She said and moved the cream around with her spoon.

“Just eat it, should help with your sour mood, if nothing else.” Anastacia suggested and started spooning her portion into her mouth at a frightening pace.

Though she didn’t feel like eating, Iris heeded the suggestion and tiredly lifted a lump of the frothy cream with her spoon. As soon as it touched her tongue, she was overwhelmed by the sweetness her paltry palate had yet to witness. “Oh, I’m going to feel horrible if I eat any of this.” She lamented and took a second spoonful.

“Part of the experience, my dear cleric, part of the experience. You can’t be miserable about other stuff if you’re being miserable about eating too much sweet things.” Explained the adventurer.

“That seems like not a great way to cope with things…” Iris doubted the method but kept eating regardless. “Though it is very good and it would be horrible of me to waste it…”

Not being her first rodeo, Anastacia shrugged off the sugar overdose with ease, but rather predictably, Iris didn’t make it through her bowl without being unable to even look at anything sweet for the time being. The two spent a good while sitting about, making rough plans for the next day, coming up with ideas for Iris’ new wings and just chatting about things of no importance or consequence. To people less familiar with the two, it would have looked like they were fairly good friends, but of course both of the necromancers would have firmly denied such accusations. Few hours passed without either really noticing as Anastacia occasionally ordered them drinks and something more substantial and less sickeningly sweet snacks.

Eventually, when the sun had started to set, more adventurers started to appear from upstairs and outside, slowly filling up the tavern for the dinnertime rush. The simulacra were pushed out of the kitchen as the work there intensified and joined the necromancers in their table. Taking the surge of patrons as their cue for leaving, Anastacia and Iris finalized their rough plans for tomorrow and retired to their rooms.

“I’ll probably head back downstairs once people start to clear out again, you should come too, I’ll introduce you to my friends – if you’re up for that sort of thing, that is.” Anastacia said as they reached her room.

Iris yawned. “Thanks, but I think I’m just done for the day.”

“Alrighty, see you in the morning then.” The adventurer shrugged after hearing the answer she had expected and disappeared into her room, along with King and Leggy.

“Can’t wait what new nightmares you’ve lined up for me.” Iris said to herself and walked the rest of the way to her temporary room.

All the clothes and items they had brought were in a large pile in the middle of the floor, where Anastacia had tossed them while the two chose an outfit for Iris. Though she had every intention to neatly fold and store them, the cleric simply didn’t have the energy at the time and instead crashed into her bed to stare at the red sunset through the window. Recuperating from her day, she lost the track of time and stayed there for far longer than she had intended, almost until the red disappeared from the sky.

When she finally snapped back to the present from her less than cheerful thoughts, she remembered the candles that Anastacia had kindly paid for along with everything else. Of course, she had no need for illumination besides a crystal lantern she could have used already in the room, but needed the candles for something else. Being fairly thick, the candles were stable enough to stand on their own on the floor and Iris placed one between her bed and the pile of clothes. To light it, the strange merchant had given her a small metal case, which turned out to be filled with thin wooden sticks and a coin-like metal piece. Mournvalley still largely relied on flint and steel when lighting fires, so she obviously had no idea what to do with the strange arrangement of items. Luckily, etched into the inside of the lid were instructions to hold the metal plate in a particular way and touch both of its faces once with a stick.

“Weird, like everything else here.” She muttered and acted according to the instructions. Without so much as a spark, the stick lit up and slowly began to burn towards the end she was holding. Iris lit the candle, put out the stick by shaking it and tucked everything neatly back into the case. She then sat down on the floor, leaning against her bed and stared intensely into the flame. Minutes passed as she watched the tiny fire flicker, looking for something, anything, in it. “I might be doing this all wrong, but if you’re in there, could you say something? I know I’ve heard your voice through flame twice now and I saw you heal Maya right before me, so you have to be real.” She whispered and waited, waited and waited.

“I’m not exactly the type to turn to gods, but I’m starting to run out of options… I know I’m not cut for my job like the others, but I can’t just keep failing them right now. So… Could you maybe just give me some kind of a sign that I’m not just wasting everyone else’s time and generosity here? Am I even close to doing something useful for once?” She asked again after a while, her tone filled with apathy. “I’m probably testing Anastacia’s patience by just being here, and I’m sure you would have more important things for Miss Emilia to be handling too…”

As she waited for an answer, the last moments of twilight turned into night, leaving the little flame as the only source of light in the room. The orange light cast harsh shadows across the wall, but one in particular, the one left by the necromancer herself, grew even darker than others. Without her even noticing, Iris’ shadow spread across a wider and wider area, wrapping its dark tendrils around whatever it reached. Then, out of nowhere the necromancer felt as if she had been dropped into a pitch-black sea as she sank into the shadows under her.

Completely void of light, Iris couldn’t tell if she was unable to see or if there simply was nothing no see around her. There were no points of reference, no horizon or even a sense of gravity, only a dark nothingness. Yet, something prevented her from breathing as dark miasma filled her lungs when she gasped for air. Her movements were hindered by something as well, as if she was underwater, but unable to propel herself into any direction. The justified panic felt like it went on for ages as she flailed and tried to breathe, but in reality, must have only lasted seconds before she was distracted from it by a voice.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” A woman’s voice cursed from the darkness only a couple of meters away. “Can you at least give people a bit of warning when you do this? Including me!” The voice moved closer as it spoke, all the way until it was directly in front of Iris. “Boop!”

Iris felt a slight pressure on her nose, as if someone had just pressed it with their finger. This was followed by involuntarily retching as the darkness quickly escaped from inside her, leaving behind the very faint scent of dew settling on grass during the night. Finally able to breathe, the necromancer gasped and coughed intensely for a while.

“Breathe, darling, breathe. Slow and calm. Dropping by our realm tends to be a bit of shock for most people, and My Lord can be a bit… inconsiderate in his methods.” The voice said calmly.

At first, Iris almost started shrieking questions about the identity of the voice and what was going on, but having already lived through a day in Valor, she landed on her feet and sighed exhaustedly. “Can’t even sit in my room in peace in this damn city… Alright, what are we up to now? Did I get eaten by some kind of a monster under the bed?” She tried to look for the person speaking to her but couldn’t see anything.

“Can you not see me?” The voice asked surprisedly. “Hold on… let me just…”

A gust of wind blew some kind of moss-scented dust directly into Iris’ face, forcing her to close her eyes. When she managed to get them back open, she was still floating in the same void, but before her stood an owlfolk woman, carrying significant semblance to the night waitress of the inn, though more mature. Her white feathers shone with a very distinct hue of a starry sky in the darkness and were contrasted not only by the background, but a rather risqué gown that appeared to be made from the void itself, as well as a black shape of a moth on her chest.

“That’s actually remarkable. You’re a necromancer and somehow almost as much of a being of light as that uptight priestess of Sylvia – Even the little one belongs firmly to the night.” The woman spoke and offered her hand to Iris. “Estreya, a voice to someone concerned with current dealings. Pleasure to meet you.”

Even with her stunted powers, Iris could tell that the woman introducing herself as Estreya was physically a perfectly normal person and not one of the many unnatural creatures she had been forced to witness recently. “Iris, court cleric to the kingdom of goblins.” She introduced herself in return. “Is this going to turn into a fight or...”

“I would hope not. I was in the middle of eating a baked potato and pretty much just have a spoon on me.” Estreya chuckled. “All that’s going to happen on our account is some vague hinting at a threat that’s approaching your current situation in Valor – ‘unforeseen events set in motion by forces previously unknown threaten the fate of things’ or whatever, so you’re being warned and we need you to figure it out.”

Iris frowned. “I think you might have the wrong necromancer. There’s a way better one called Anastacia just a few rooms over, I’m pretty much dead weight to whatever this is.” She explained and pointed into a random direction as if giving directions.

The owlfolk smiled. “Fret not, little iron nightingale, we reached the exact person we hoped to. Anastacia is a great kid, but My Lord has decreed that this is something only you can do.” She said and immediately shut Iris down when the necromancer tried to protest. “Only you, Iris. Not Anastacia, not Emilia, not Gilbert, not any of the thousands of adventurers. You.”

“I don’t think I can help anyone…” The necromancer still lamented.

“My Lord has laid plans from the moment the sun set for the first time. His machinations have adjusted the way of the world in countless ways over millennia. The exact extent, their purpose and scale is not for us mortals to know, but understand that in his plots, the mightiest of kings weights just as much as the lowliest of peasants. However, above all else, his plans do not fail. If you have been decreed as the person most suitable for what’s coming, it means it’s well within your capabilities to achieve whatever is needed.” Estreya spoke and walked around Iris.

Iris didn’t know what to believe. Some weeks ago, she would have haughtily laughed at the idea of some type of a higher power trying to contact her in such a manner, but now, being told that she mattered by someone or something with presumably much greater insight than she herself had felt in some way comforting. She didn’t know if she actually had it in her to do anything, but someone else seemed to know. “Can you at least tell me what this ‘threat’ is or when something is going to happen?”

“Nope. I don’t get told shit in this relationship, so your guess is as good as mine.” The owlfolk groaned and glared upwards into the darkness. “All I know that you are supposed to be in Valor for now, and that apparently contacting you right at this moment to tell you absolutely fuck all of value was so very important and urgent that my dinner needed to be interrupted. Were you in the middle of something important too?”

“N… no. I was just-“ Iris was about to admit to just sitting on the floor before she realized something. “Wait, you mentioned Sylvia! Do you have some kind of relation to her? Did she put you up to this?”

The gears in Estreya’s head were visibly turning as she pondered the question. “Well, not directly, but My Lord has been known to align himself with the goddess of joy in recent times, though they represent two very different things. It’s not impossible that she had a hand in this, as My Lord generally doesn’t make urgent arrangements like this…”

No matter how indirect, even the chance that her pleads were heard gave Iris a bit of hope that she wasn’t only in the way while staying in Valor.

“But I would really like to get back to my dinner now, so I think it’s time we toss you back into your room. Work’s busy too, you know how it is.” The owlfolk signaled the end of the conversation and grabbed the necromancer’s hand. “Know that My Lord has his eyes on you, should you need further guidance. No doubt he has likely already influenced you in ways I don’t even know about. Also, on a personal note, there’s something important to me in Valor, don’t let harm come to anyone there. Oh, and don’t mention this to anyone, that’s a city full of meddlers.”

“Wait, I have que-“ Iris tried to say but felt a sudden force lifting her up, as if she was floating back towards the surface. When Estreya let go of her arm, the complete void returned and the thick miasma flooded into her lungs once more. The necromancer struggled in vain for a moment before flinching awake in her room, as if it had been a dream. Disoriented, she looked around while her breathing calmed and she could tell she was exactly where she had been taken from.

The candle in front of her had burned down noticeably, suggesting that she had been ‘gone’ for a lot longer than it had appeared. Iris stumbled up from the floor to properly get her bearings and cough up whatever murkiness remained in her lungs. She leaned on the table by her window and happened to look outside by chance. Immediately, she was absolutely stunned by the night sky above the rooftops of Valor. Each star appeared much brighter than before, there may even have been more stars than usually for all she knew and the moon itself seemed vastly larger than it should have been, as if the sky itself had somehow been closer to ground than normally. Still feeling the sting in her eyes from the remnants of the dust that was blown at her face, she rubbed them to get a better, less painful look at the sky. However, as soon as she opened her eyes up again, the sky had returned to its normal, still beautiful but less striking self.