Gild clinked some coins down on the counter of the inn he had been staying at. The man behind it regarded them with a cool sense of apathy towards whether he was leaving or not.

“That should cover my stay here, as well as Turwyn’s,” Gild nodded his head towards the paladin, who stood behind him, his mouth a small frown, eyes staring into some distant memory or thought.

After getting back to town the previous day, shortly after their meeting with the necromancer of the cave, a name they had given it since none of them could decide what the hell it was, they immediately set to packing their gear and getting ready for the next leg of their trip. Excitement fluttered in Gild's stomach the entire night, making it damned hard to sleep. He finally had a solid lead, a place, a task, something he could do that would bring him that much closer to busting Giselle out of the demonic prison they called the Other.

The three of them had gone over a rough plan, much to Turwyn’s displeasure. The paladin claimed Gild had led them into thinking he had a solid plan outside the necromancers cave. Instead, they had pulled a map up, located the valley Linith was located in, and Gild proudly proclaimed they would walk there, sneak into the valley, and steal the soulstone. If they were caught, they’d kill anyone in their way.

“Just like that?” Turwyn had asked, eyebrows raised.

“Just like that. Easy and simple,” Gild responded.

“What if something goes wrong?” Prisolyna had asked, sitting at her customary spot by the window, letting the soft starlight fall on her.

“Like what?”

“We get caught, spotted, go to the wrong valley, trolls eat us, a giant finds us,” the Star Elf ticked off a finger with each item. “I can go on and on.”

“Didn't you hear the second part of my plan? The one that encapsulated all contingencies and what-ifs? We kill anyone in our way until we get the soulstone.”

“But-”

“Kill our way out.”

“What if-” Turwyn tried to interrupt.

“Kill our way out.”

Gild looked at the human and elf. What was so difficult to understand about his plan? “It’s not like we are going to be dealing with real people. It's a necromancer, commanding an army of likely undead creatures. Back me up on this one Tikpuk!”

The imp shrugged. “I see no problem with it. Of course, if you all die during this, I can just pop back into the Other and find myself another travelling buddy, so there's no real problem for me.”

Seeing Gild would not be persuaded any other way, Prisolyna and Turwyn sighed in near unison.

“Fine,” she acquiesced.

“We kill our way out,” Turwyn said. “At least I’ll be doing some good, finally, and might gain favor with the Seraphim through this.”

“Do the Seraphim care about raising people from the dead?”

“Of course they do,” Turwyn said, looking aghast, as if Prisolyna had just insulted his mother.

“But how do you know?” she asked. “I mean, you can't really ask them, and necromancy isn’t part of what demons do. Aren’t the Seraphim just beings in mortal conflict with demons? What does it matter what we do to each other on our own plane, as long as demons don't get involved?”

“Too involved, that is,” she shot Gild an apologetic look. He raised a hand indicating no offense was taken.

“It absolutely is an issue with the Seraphim, the High Priest decreed it so back when the Seraphim were still around!”

“I thought the High Priest didn't come around until after the Seraphim had left, like one hundred years after,” Gild ventured.

Turwyn glared at the two of them, slowly moving his smoldering between them. “Regardless of what you all believe, necromancy is an affront to nature and I’m sure it will be looked favorably upon by beings dedicated to freedom and allowing mortals to live their lives unswayed by beings from other realms.”

“Fine, fine. We won't ask anymore questions about your faith,” Gild said as Prisolyna smirked.

The man behind the counter, watching them impassively as they argued and bickered and poked fun at their paladin, raised another eyebrow. “What ‘bout her?”

“Who?” Gild asked, turning back to the man. The innkeeper just looked at Prisolyna, his face remaining flat.

“She wasn't part of our rooms and never slept there. She was just a guest who we held late night liaisons with,” Gild said. His choice of wording earned him a swift punch to the shoulder from the elf.

“She was there, gotta pay for her too.”

“You’re joking,” Gild said. “Should I expect to have to pay for a magical being as well, such as my familiar?”

The clerk chewed his cheek a little, obviously giving the idea serious thought.

“Just take it,” Gild said quickly, before he had to argue that point as well. He dropped a few more coins on the counter, letting them roll and spill from the others.

“We hope to see you again,” the man said in his monotone voice.

“Fat chance of that,” Gild grumbled as they turned away. The bright sunshine that lit the air when they stepped out onto the street lifted his mood, but only by a bit.

“What's the first step?” Turwyn asked.

“Down to business, I like it,” Gild said. “Do we want to walk, or should we see about another form of transportation?”

“I don't have any money to my name, beyond enough to feed myself, at the moment, so I will be walking.” Turwyn held his head high as he spoke. Gild couldn't help but roll his eyes a little. The concept of followers of the Seraphim being impoverished as they served was just plain silly. As if the people at the top of that little structure were living lives of repentance and prayer, and not the decadence they surely partook in.

“I actually don't have any money either,” Prisolyna said, a bit more sheepishly than Turwyn had. She splayed her hands and shrugged. “It hasn't been a good season of work for me.”

“Not to worry!” Gild declared, holding a bag aloft. “I have enough to pay for everyone's travels right here.”

“Even after paying for the inn?” the paladin asked, his eyebrows raised doubtfully.

“I manage my money extremely well,” Gild said, putting the purse in a pocket in his robe. “I also know how to save for emergencies like this. Shall we go get ourselves some horses?”

The group set off down the street, Turwyn in the front and using his bulk to help part the already crowded roads. People bustled by, hardly offering them much beyond an occasional glance, their curiosity dulled by the minutiae of their day to day lives and their own worries. Prisolyna slipped besides Gild and bent down, keeping her voice low.

“So how did you cheat that innkeeper out of his money?”

Gild put on a face of mock shock and offense, covering his chest with a hand. He quickly dropped it and grinned back at the elf. “Oldest trick in the book. It's an illusion, and a particularly good one if I may be allowed to toot my own horn a bit.”

“Aren’t illusions easily discovered?”

“Only if you know what you are looking for. This one gives the weight and feel of the coins. If he had bitten it, or tried to bend it or something, it would've shattered quickly.”

Prisolyna smiled at the gnome. “Will it last long enough for us to get out of town?”

“Undoubtedly. Being a warlock, I was able to pump quite a bit of mana into the spell to keep it around. It should last between five to six hours. Long enough for us to escape, but not so long he spends the coins and gets accused of creating the illusion himself.” Gild smirked. “I do have a little bit of a heart left in me.”

“Excellent,” she snickered, “And you still have enough mana for spells after that? I don't perform magic, but it must've taken a sizable amount of mana.”

“Of course,” he waved his hand flippantly. “Remember, I get to draw on other magical creatures' magical reserves.”

On the outside he was casual and indifferent. Inside, he knew it was a bold faced lie. Delvios had taken much of his mana pool with the last two interactions. The spell had nearly drained Gild, leaving him with enough mana for a fireball or two. He seriously hoped they would need his magic for a couple of days. By the time they made it to the valley, it should be recharged enough, drawing on the natural mana in the air, as well as from Delvios.

It was something he didn't want to trouble his two friends with.

The Star Elf gave him another punch on his shoulder. “That's for calling me a liaison of the night.”

“I wasn't alluding to anything bad,” he said, cradling the now sore spot. “And I am shocked at you looking down upon what some people have to do to make money in this world. There is nothing wrong with performing acts of a sexual nature in exchange for money. It's just another form of physical labor.”

Now it was Prisolyna’s turn to smirk. “I wasn't upset that you alluded to that fact. I didn't like you assuming you could afford me if I did take that route in life.”

The elf picked up her pace and went to walk next to Turwyn, her head held high. Gild shook his head and trotted to catch up with the long-leggers.

They found themselves on the outskirts of town, next to a reasonable looking stable. There were quite a few options to choose from all over the city, Gild made sure to pick one that seemed to be well enough off they wouldn't get a horse that would drop dead after six paces from its home, and one not catering to the rich and charging exorbitant amounts of coin for what was still essentially just a horse.

After a quick exchange, they only had themselves and small packs on their backs, the three trotted out of town on three reasonable horses. They were of medium stock, not bulky like a warhorse, but certainly not spindly and leggy like some race horses. Good all around breeds for long distance travel that, to be honest with himself, Gild was not in an eager rush to get to.

For all the bravado he put on, he was deathly afraid. Not of dying, though dying and being brought back by a vindictive necromancer doesn't sound like his idea of a good time, but of finally finding a way to get to his wife, Giselle.

What if, after all this time, she wasn't there? Maybe she had been killed years ago. Or what if she hated him for abandoning her? All of his pleas and attempts to tell her what he had gone through would be nothing faced with what he was sure she had faced, living in the Other. This all assumed the soulstone would allow him to get to the Other, let alone find her.

Tikpuk had assured him using the soulstone and then trapping Delvios in it with his brother would provide enough power to get him into the Other, as well as back out. Tik had never expanded why exactly he was willing to help Gild, and he had never pressed the issues. As the idea was becoming more and more solid, more of a reality rather than a distant idea, something for him to hold on to at night, Gild was terrified.

Turwyn drew Gild from his mental fog, calling back to him. “Let’s get going little man. We have a necromancer to smite and a soulstone to nab!”

Turwyn gave his horse a small kick, sending it from a trot to a gallop. Prisolyna did the same and Gild followed. Whatever happened with the soulstone, at least he had his friends help.