Everyone fell silent for a short while, either to drink, eat or to contemplate about what they’ve heard.

“I guess it’s our turn then, unless you three want to go on first.” Quentin said as he looked at Cruz and her sister while Osmond was busy finishing the roasted fish he was given.

“Go ahead,” Cruz shrugged. “At least we’ll have time to finish our dinner.”

“Thank you. In that case, allow me a proper, if late introduction. As you know, my name is Quentin and I am, or rather I was a police officer in London.”

“You were a cop?” Khan turned towards his friend with as much surprise on his face as the rest of the group.

“I was part of the London PD. Or to be more precise, I was a detective. At least that was where I was officially placed, although I was mostly a desk worker with a few days of riot control experience. Anyway; on the evening those shadows appeared, I was home, getting a call in. Once I got to the location of a reported civil unrest that was close to my home, I waited for my partner as reinforcement.”

Quentin went silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts regarding that strange night.

“My partner, Adrien, soon arrived and saved my life yet again, but he accidentally stepped on a gateway coin. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. There was panic everywhere and after saving a child from a shadow, I accidentally struck too hastily as the thing was dissolving. The coin it was forming shattered and I got dragged through whatever that black thing was. Upon my arrival, I’ve found myself dressed in strange clothes and in a body much younger than I should have.”

“How much younger?” Valerie eyed up the wannabe paladin with a smirk.

“If you’re asking my age, I was supposed to celebrate my thirty-eight birthday this winter.”

“Oh shit,” Khan spat out his food into the fire. “You’re as old as my dad.”

“Perhaps, but he does look fine for his age.” The infernal woman chuckled as she finished her food, laying beside the fire, using her brother’s lap as a pillow.

“Ahem,” Quentin cleared his throat with a surprisingly thin voice. “Anyway; after my arrival, I quickly assessed the situation thanks to the help of a few refugees who were kind enough to tell me about their circumstances and about Hunor in general. After the guards announced the recruitment at the marketplace, I immediately volunteered to help and a good half an hour later I met a certain trouble magnet outside the town’s walls.”

“For the record,” Khan spoke up immediately. “I wasn’t the one to start that fight. After my arrival and a few hours of wandering around in Hunor, I finally got the chance of getting some starter gear and they would even let me fight. It was a good deal, so I took it. Of course, a bunch of morons that claimed themselves to be mercenaries almost immediately started picking on me. Told me that I looked like a farmhand and that I was better off inside the walls. It went down from there quite fast.”

“And by that, he means he pretty much jumped at the chance of fighting the loudmouth merc one on one.”

“And I won.” Khan puffed out his chest.

“Barely,” Quentin added. “I was ready to intervene, since the way he talked and introduced himself was a dead giveaway that he was from Earth, but I didn’t have to. His narrow win was still a win, so the mercenaries kept their word and backed off. I went ahead and introduced myself, telling him how I too was from Earth and that it would be for the better if we kept together.”

“Which I accepted, since I didn’t know anyone else and having someone to watch my back was a good thing. After night fell, we went on and became a pair of undead slayers in just a few minutes, racking up kills like madmen.”

“The only mad one was you,” the wannabe paladin sighed. “What was more important then laying the dead to rest once more, was that we soon found out from a marked mercenary’s actions that we could gather Amaranth from our fallen enemies.”

“Yeah, that was a weird experience,” Khan shuddered. “But we did get to find out more about it the next morning. After the sun rose up, a guard called us over, telling us to gather what we could and follow the mercs into the church for healing.”

“And that we did,” Quentin nodded along. “It was there that the priest who healed our wounds told us how he heard about our exploits on the battlefield. He was kind enough to answer our questions after I’ve explained our circumstances and he even taught us the use of Amaranth and a few constellations. When I revealed my intention of becoming a guardian of sorts during our next visit on the following morning, he taught me the chant of healing light and thus I stepped on the path of light. Sort of.”

“We met you three the night after that. You already know the rest.” Khan ended their short tale as he too finished his dinner.

“I guess we’re next then,” Osmond sighed as he looked at Cruz and Letty. “Following Valerie’s example, I won’t bore you with details about my ancestry. It’s enough to say that the Schtein family is also a prominent force when it comes to having connections, money, and knowledge regarding the arcane.”

“Schtein,” Fabien mumbled. “As in, that Schtein family?”

“Yep.” The pale youth nodded with a neutral expression.

“Are they a big deal?” Amanda asked from Valerie, earning a question as a curt answer.

“Have your read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein before?”

“Yeah, why?”

“The Schtein family is pretty much the originator of that. If what I’ve heard is true, then she was a distant friend of a member of the branch family back in her time and wrote the book based on what she heard from said friend. The book is a watered down and kid friendly version depicting some of the original Schtein family’s dealings. They’re real, mean as hell, hardcore necromancers who deal in death and undeath alike.”

“Oh.” The blacksmith’s mouth stayed agape at the revelation.

“Thank you for boring everyone with my family’s dirty laundry when I didn’t want to,” Osmond said as he patted the head of the skeletal wolf puppet that sat beside him with an eerie silence. “Now that we have that out of the way, let’s continue with the part that does actually matter. The shades appeared when I was in school, but not before I got a phone call from my family, telling me to get my ass on the next plane and go home because apparently, they already knew about the planar conjunction event that was about to occur.”

“We also received a similar call on our end,” Cruz added with a disdained smirk. “As Osmond told you before, Letty and I were pretty much his gardedames. We were sent to the same school as he was, thanks to our family being their lapdogs. When the phone call came and Os turned even paler than his usual self, we knew that something bad was happening. The moment the call ended, he smashed his phone to the wall and told us that we could go back home if we wanted, but he was going to get his hands on a gateway coin and leave those fucktards for good.”

“We decided to come with him, since neither families treated us like actual people over the years, unlike he did.” Letty added with a low voice as she looked at her sister.

“After dealing with a few shades and getting our hands on three identical gateway coins, we stood in a small circle, holding each other’s hands. Then we stepped on the coins to break them and those goopy tentacles dragged us through the gateway together. We managed to hold on to each other till the end and we landed together in the slums of Hunor as well.” Cruz explained the circumstances of their getaway.

“What came next was pretty much the same as it was for the rest of you,” Osmond added. “We asked around to get a general feeling of the place and to get oriented. Then, we volunteered for the guard duty recruitment to get some proper equipment and to gather Amaranth for our constellations. A few days of close encounters and meagre meals later I met Regis as he was unceremoniously sacrificing blight rat corpses to get a few extra shards for himself. Later on we joined you outside the walls of Hunor for the night battle. End of the story.”

“Wow,” Khan clicked his tongue. “You really did rush over your origin story there.

“Not everyone is fond of sharing their fucked up childhood with others.” Cruz scoffed as she looked at the young fighter.

“I guess that leaves only Regis.” Sophie pointed out as everyone turned towards the young spell weaver who was in the middle of grabbing the things he wanted to enchant.

“You already know my story,” he answered, earning a wave of head shakes. “Fine. I’m the second son of a no-name family with low ranked arcane inheritance. I got to read most of our family’s records, minus the ones only the first born is allowed to. I was in the middle of getting chased by a few assholes, whom after taking care of the appearing shades, continued on by kicking the shit out of me.”

The dark elf picked up a few more miscellaneous parts while letting out a sigh.

“I reached out and grabbed the nearest gateway coin left behind by the shades and landed in the sewers of Hunor. I near immediately got two of my fingers chewed of by an overgrown blight rat, later met Bray and again a bit later decided to volunteer for guard duty. Killed a bunch of fallen on the first night, looted the corpses and then met Amanda and Sophie at their workshop. The rest of it happened in front of you. End of the story.”

“I take it back,” Khan said it to Osmond. “He’s better at glancing over details and rushing his story.”

“As Cruz said before,” the pale young man looked at the dark elf’s retreating figure. “Not everyone’s fond of talking about their family circumstances. So… shall we use the same guard roster as last night?”

“I’ll let Quentin start this time. I have some crafting to do, but it shouldn’t take too long.” Regis noted as he raised a wall to cut off a small part of the yurt for himself to use for his temporary workshop.

He tossed the mill sack with the spare materials and the soon to be recycled equipment inside before turning back towards his companions.

“I’ll modify and enchant your shield to a decent enough state,” He said it to Quentin before he turned to Sophie, looking at her bow. “Do you mind if your bow gets a bit heavier? Using bronze for the durability enchantment does increase its weight, but it should add more damage then using earth elemental stones would.”

“The extra damage would be nice and I’m strong enough to use a heavy bow as long as the grip stays the same.” She answered as she handed over her newfound weapon.

“Do you want added elemental damage or are you fine waiting until I have more to choose from than just fire and ice?”

“I’m… I think it’s fine without anything like that for now. Thank you!”

“Alright.” the young spell weaver nodded as he turned towards the firewood that was placed beside their campfire, scrutinizing each piece. As he noticed a few similar looking ones with a pleasant light colour and some decent weight to them, he cast charlatan’s wisdom on tone to get some proper information.

{Linden wood}

{Item rarity: common}

{Item quality: ordinary}

{Crafting material}

“Letty,” the dark elf turned to the young woman. “Is linden good for you or would you like your shield to be made from another type of wood?”

“Oh, I…” She mumbled as she tried to answer, but Osmond helped her out.

“Linden has a nice colour to it and it’s also quite sturdy.”

“Although historically, most shields were made from spruce and similar split resistant woods, lime and linden wood could also be an acceptable choice.” The dark elf noted as he remembered his time reading about the historical records of shield making from his bored childhood.

“It should by fine, especially if you further enchant it. I’m sure it will become good piece.”

“Right, and I guess you also want it to be enchanted using earth elemental stones instead of bronze.”

“Yes, please!” Letty nodded fervently before settling down beside her sister onto her bedroll.

“Alright, good night then everyone! Oh, before I forget; can I get a look at your bone wolf?” Regis turned towards Osmond and the creepy looking skeleton that lay beside him like an ordinary pet would.

“Sure, why?” The pale youth asked while Regis neared the skeletal creature, casting charlatan’s wisdom on it.

He was somewhat surprised by the information that revealed itself above the skeleton.

{Skeletal wolf puppet}

{Rarity: common}

{Quality: ordinary}

{Durability: 100/100}

{Defence: 18/18}

{Damage: 14}

“It seems to have a description similar to an item.” He said with his eyebrows raised.

“Yeah,” Osmond nodded while patting the skeletal wolf’s head. “Bone puppets are similar to golems in a way. They’re basically pre-programmed robots of a sort.”

“Do you think it can be enchanted?”

“Wait, what,” the shadow touched spell weaver stuttered as he looked at his friend. “You even want to mess around with my skeleton puppet? Is nothing sacred for you?”

“I… I didn’t mean to…”

“I’m just messing with you,” Osmond let out a subtle laugh. “I don’t know if bone puppets could get enchanted, but I wouldn’t mind trying it out. At worst, nothing happens. At best, I get a better one than what I had before. So, what do you need for this little experiment?”

“I just need you to leave your pooch over at my temporary workshop. I’ll work out the rest, if possible.”

“Alright,” the wannabe bone puppeteer agreed and a moment later the skeletal wolf stood up and walked over to the area appointed by the dark elf. “A quick question though. If the puppet is indeed enchant-able; could you add a fire rune onto it? I kind of like the idea of a burning skeletal beast.”

“I’ll try. Anyway; good night.” Regis nodded as he grabbed whatever he needed for his work.