Through what could only be considered miraculous luck, Rosie hadn’t gotten rid of the two small trees in Anastacia’s room, and the pair was able to return directly to the inn instead of the freezing fields outside the city. Though there still was a fairly strongly worded and barely legible letter left attached to one of them with a small kitchen knife, to inform the two they were nothing like off the hook about the mess in the room. Anastacia took a moment to change into something fresher from the pile of clean clothes she kept in front of the mostly empty wardrobe. Finally being back home hadn’t quite hit her yet, as the amount of people suddenly around the area kept her a bit on edge whether she liked it or not, but she knew it to be something that would pass in a matter of hours as she was distracted by conversations and good food – and most importantly, coffee.

“So, what’s the plan here?” Xamiliere asked as the necromancer stepped out of her room.

“Well, you’ll probably get thrown out on sight. I assume I’ll be stuck in the kitchen for a good while, getting chewed out and whatnot. If Emilia is there, that’ll help, but I can’t tell where she is anymore. Gil probably doesn’t think this concerns him, but he’s downstairs at least.” Anastacia laid out the situation as if they were on a quest, about to enter the lair of something nasty. “Yulia and Iris are down there, but they’re unknowns in all of this anyway. I’d say there’s no time like now. Try to sneak out if you can, and I’ll deal with it. Go somewhere where Dammar or Max can find you, I’ll have them get you back once the coast is clear.”

Xamiliere nodded but didn’t answer, instead focusing on enjoying the creaks of the floorboards under her regained weight as they snuck closer to the stairs.

Ever vigilant, Gilbert immediately spotted them on the stairs from across the room. He quickly lifted his fist directly up, which the necromancer knew to mean that she should stop in her tracks. With him, in one of their usual tables, were Emilia, Leggy and Iris. The old adventurer whispered something to Emilia and subtly pointed out Anastacia to her with his pipe. The priestess nodded to the necromancer, stood up and headed into the kitchen to presumably try and improve the innkeeper’s mood beforehand. Gilbert signaled for Anastacia to wait where she was for a moment, to which the necromancer responded with gestures suggesting that Xamiliere could sneak out. Gilbert surveyed the situation in the kitchen as well as he could from his seat, but in the end suggested that they abandon the idea. Iris, who had no doubt immediately known of Anastacia’s return, was still wingless and stared at a small candle on the table in front of her, only briefly lifting her gaze to greet the other necromancer. Meanwhile Leggy had also noticed their arrival, but had been pushed back down into her seat by Gilbert when she had attempted to get up, so now she could only excitedly stare at Anastacia from across the room.

Eventually their received their go ahead from Gilbert, and with one last cheery glance at each other, they parted ways at the bottom of the stairs. Xamiliere swiftly made it out into the cold, wintery Valor, while Anastacia hesitantly stepped into the doorway leading to the kitchen.

“Can I get a coffee?” She warily asked.

The sounds of vegetables being chopped and dishes being washed immediately ceased as everyone in the kitchen turned to look at the necromancer.

Shoving aside the weighty stone simulacrum like he wasn’t even there, Rosie dashed through the kitchen and lifted Anastacia into a warm, spice-scented embrace. It almost lulled the necromancer into a false sense of safety from repercussions, but soon enough she realized that the innkeeper wasn’t letting go and that she was being carried to the back of the kitchen.

“Where’s that twig? I’ll turn her into toothpicks!” Rosie asked as she set the necromancer down into a chair specifically set aside to lecture people – often the same one as on this occasion.

“Somewhere safe.” Anastacia responded. “Can I please get that coffee before the lecture? I’ve been days without…”

Rosie snarled at the idea of the spriggan escaping her immediate wrath, but picked up a coffee pot and started working on a fresh batch. “Fine, but only because I love you.”

The innkeeper returning to her work for a bit allowed for Emilia and King to move in with their own concerns. The simulacrum gently placed his hand on the necromancer’s head and inspected her for signs of harm. His finger slowly moved over the little left mark still barely visible on her cheek, but in the end, he must have understood it to be harmless.

“Everything alright?” Emilia whispered, conducting her own inspection.

“Better than when I left, I’d say.” Anastacia shrugged. “Figured out some things about stuff, learned a lot and we managed to return Xammy’s weight.”

“That’s nice.” The priestess nodded, seeking for any signs of concern. While not as overly protective of the necromancer as her other half, she didn’t exactly trust the spriggan. “Anything we should talk about, in private or otherwise?”

Anastacia shook her head. “Nothing like that. I can’t say it was nothing, but I need to get some other stuff off my books before I can focus on causing you all some actual worry – did find out I have a type though, so that’s fun.”

“Is it tall, non-fleshy people? Ideally a bit bottom heavy.” Emilia guessed. “If so, you’re just about the last one to know.” She said and pointed at King. “There have been signs.”

“Yeah, it explains a lot of stuff, doesn’t it…” The necromancer realized and reviewed some of her past actions in a new light.

The priestess leaned a bit closer to ask about something Rosie probably didn’t need to hear much about. “And Xamiliere?” She whispered.

“Maybe someday, probably, I think…” The necromancer admitted, knowing that her friend could be trusted with a secret. “She behaved very well too, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good. As long as you’re fine, the rest really isn’t any of my business, but we can always have a chat if you want.” Emilia sighed in relief and moved out of the way so that Anastacia could cling on to her simulacrum while waiting for her coffee.

Clearly suppressing immense rage, Rosie poured fresh coffee into a cup she placed in front of the necromancer, along with a small bowl of sugar. She then sat down across from her and waited for Anastacia to take her first sip. “What the fuck were you thinking?!” She exclaimed so loud that it silenced the entire tavern on the other side of the wall. “Actually, were you thinking at all?!”

“It’s not that big of a deal, I just-“ Anastacia tried to answer calmly but was interrupted.

“Of course, it is a big deal! Do you have any idea how concerned I’ve been this entire time?! You could have told literally anyone here, but no! I spent over a day just worrying about where you were because no one knew anything, before Iris happened to mention that you probably went away with that fucking twig of all people!” The innkeeper almost yelled.

“I do actually agree that you should have told someone. She even made me go and check with the goblins.” The priestess pitched in much more calmly.

Anastacia shrugged. “I guess I just figured that it wouldn’t take that long… and since I’m, you know, an adventurer, you would figure that I could take care of myself.”

“I know who you are and what you can do, but you’re also my kitten and I’ll never stop worrying whenever you’re out there – whenever any of you are out there. The least you can do is at least tell me where you’re going and with whom, is that really so much to ask?” Rosie asked, calming down a little.

“I guess not, but it’s not like I was out there on my own. There really aren’t that many things Xammy and I can’t handle together…” The necromancer said, thinking it would at least slightly help that she had someone more worldly with her to watch her back.

“If you had been by yourself, I wouldn’t have worried a tenth of what I did!” Rosie slammed her fist on the table, almost knocking over the coffee. “I’ve told you a million times not to trust that spriggan! She’s bad enough in public, I can’t even imagine what she would do…”

“OH! So the problem is not that I went, it’s just who I went with?” Anastacia answered, getting a bit annoyed at Rosie’s attitude towards Xamiliere.

The tigress gritted her teeth. “I just want you to stay safe, okay? I get that you’re friends, but you haven’t know her for years like I have. I don’t know what she has said to you, but I can guarantee you’re not even the hundredth person she tries it with.”

“You have no idea how wrong you are.” The necromancer let out a haughty laugh.

“Oh, I would love to be wrong, but so far I haven’t seen anything to suggest otherwise.” Rosie hissed, unable to see a hint of decency in the spriggan, perhaps for a reason, perhaps not. “It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she somehow planned the whole weightlessness thing from the start.”

Anastacia jumped out of her seat, slapped the bowl of sugar out of the way to lean over the table as much as she could for her height. “I’m not going to sit here and have anyone, not even you, talk shit about my friend! You clearly know fuck all about her, because if you did, even you would realize that us going to the grove was the last thing she ever wanted to happen!” She yelled, refusing to be lectured about her choice of company. “I’m more than able to live my own fucking life at this point, and don’t need some has-been pirate lording over my comings and goings. Here’s and idea! If you’ve got the time to obsess about my life, why don’t you figure out what’s wrong with Emilia?! I know what it is, but only because I trusted Xammy enough to go with her, but I guess that was a mistake, huh?! Go on then, find your own answers from someone else!”

“Anna, that’s not…” Rosie uttered, not having intended for things to turn into a screaming match.

The necromancer immediately realized that she had probably crossed a line with her previous comment, but was far too stubborn to let go of the insults directed at her dear friend. Instead of doing the reasonable thing and backing down even a bit, she screamed out of frustration and stormed out of the kitchen. “Since you need to know my location at all times, apparently, I’m going to check on the goblins – alone.” She yelled form the stairs, on her way to get some warmer clothes for a visit to her own realm, where she wouldn’t be bothered and could wait for herself and Rosie to calm down.

No one in the tavern even dared to breath too loudly while doors were slammed upstairs and the necromancer returned, donning her violet cloak, goblin crown and some other essentials. The constant flaring of necromantic powers caused by Anastacia’s mood had stirred Iris from her new hobby of staring at a flame, and the inquisitor rushed after her fellow necromancer after she had stomped her way out of the inn into the darkening evening outside.

“Everything okay?” Iris asked, only stepping a few meters out of the door since she wasn’t clothed for the weather.

Anastacia stopped but didn’t turn around so not show that she was starting to tear up. “Yeah… I just need to calm down.” She muttered. “How are your wings coming along?”

“They should be ready tomorrow…” The inquisitor said, unsure if she wanted to burden Anastacia any more than she was.

“We’ll go get them in the morning then, I’ll come pick you up before noon.” Anastacia said and started shuffling towards the gate.

The bright rays of the morning sun shining through the window of the room Iris was borrowing woke up the necromancer from her sporadic sleep filled with weird dreams that had plagued her ever since she arrived to Valor. Every time she closed her eyes to rest, one of three visions returned to her without a fail: the endless corridors of a library, filled with countless bookcases full of black, leatherbound books without titles; the view of earth from somewhere far higher up than the tallest of mountains or even clouds; or a boundless field of rotting corpses clothed in violet and shiny silver armor, and an unsatiable anger towards them – much like what she had felt when she had come face to face with the two members of the sect. None of these visions felt like they were meant for her, and aside the from maybe the last one, she really had no connection to them that she could spell out – in fact, none of them felt like dreams in the first place, they were more akin to the feelings she could derive from eating or biting materials that reacted to necromancy, but much more intense.

Her concern over her homeland had never really eased for more than a moment, which made falling asleep almost impossible. The sole remedy she had found was one taught to her by the priestess: immersing oneself in prayer. Apparently, there were no established rituals when it came to the worship of The Goddess of Joy, so Iris had come up with one that worked for her, even if it was somewhat of a fire hazard. Every evening she laid down on the floor by her bed, lit a small candle that would burn no longer than an hour or two, and simply watched the flame, hoping to see some answer in it. And, to a degree, it worked. It was impossible to tell if it was simply her own delusion, but she felt listened to as the flame calmingly flickered in front of her – and the fact that nothing had burned down yet must have meant something.

Usually, mornings were no easier than the evenings, but this time the inquisitor didn’t struggle to get up from the floor – today was the day she would finally get her wings back and regained her power. She stretched her back and made a brief visit to the baths to wash her face and freshen up before heading downstairs, for the first time since her arrival to Valor, with a slight pep in her step. She sat down to her usual table by the counter and greeted the two simulacra already sitting by it. King still made her a bit nervous to be around, but she had definitely started to warm up to them over the last few days – enough to notice that today something was different.

“You two seem… listless today. Is something wrong?” She asked from the ancient machines.

Leggy swirled a spoon in a cup that had never been filled with anything and occasionally stopped to stare at it, emulation behavior she had seen around the inn. Meanwhile King turned his unintentionally menacing stare to the necromancer. Both of them were definitely deep in thought.

“Well, if you think it’s something I can help with, just ask.” Iris cheerily said and leaned back in her chair.

Looking at the simulacra and the weathered parts in their bodies, she couldn’t help but to wonder what could have possibly driven two machines, that predated the entire history of necromancers, to come to Valor in the first place. She knew that King was an adventurer in a party with Emilia and Gilbert, but even that seemed like an odd choice for a simulacrum.

As she pondered the pair of machines, the owner of the inn approached the necromancer with a cup and a pot of coffee in her hands. “Here you go, kitten.” Rosie said in an exhausted tone.

Being called ‘kitten’ immediately struck Iris as weird, but she wasn’t going to say anything. Maybe she had simply crossed some arbitrary line of familiarity with the innkeeper and had gained a nickname thanks to her relatively small size compared to the tigress herself – but even then, it felt somehow off. “I’m actually more of a tea drinker.” She said, but still took a sip of the drink she hadn’t ordered.

“Really? I could have sworn I’ve gotten you coffee every morning… Well, maybe I’m just not on point today…” The innkeeper sighed. “Do you want me to get you some tea then?”

“Nah, this’ll do, this’ll do. Who knows, maybe I’ll like it so much that I’ll start drinking coffee instead?” Iris laughed and took another sip. The coffee definitely tasted better than she remembered. “Is something wrong? You seem tired.”

“It’s Em. She figured out about the whole necromancy thing with her.” Rosie sighed and sat down. “She’s acting like it’s not a big deal, but I can tell she’s not happy we kept it from her. She didn’t sleep a wink last night, so neither did I.”

“Damn. Anything I can do?” Iris asked.

Rosie yawned and rested her elbows against the table to hold her head up. “Just tell her the truth if she asks you something – like we should’ve done immediately.”

“She doesn’t seem like someone who would hold that against us though. It’s not like we meant her harm, we just didn’t know what to do.” The inquisitor attempted to ease the innkeeper’s worries with her view of the situation.

“You’re probably right. It’ll be that goddess of hers she’ll likely suspect of it. There’s been some stress on that relationship already for a while now, and it’s starting to wear her down. Now, I’m no fan of any gods or whatever and it does hurt my pride to admit, but Em needs Sylvia.” Rosie lamented while ignoring the dozen or so other patrons in their tables around her. “But honestly, it’s not even just that… There’s this exhausting dread in the back of my mind, I just feel upset for no reason.”

“Maybe you just need a vacation?” Iris suggested.

“Maybe.” Rosie let out a tired chuckle. “What about you? You seem unusually cheery today.”

“Oh, I’m getting my wings back today!” The necromancer proudly announced. “I’m just waiting for… for… What am I even waiting for? I guess I shouldn’t be outside alone, but I already went to buy some clothes and ordered the wings in the first place.” She immediately downed the drink, slightly burning her mouth in the process, and stood up to look for money in her pockets. “I… appear to have lost my gold.”

“Just go.” Rosie smiled and gestured towards the door. “We’ll sort it out later if we need to.”

“Thanks!” The necromancer bowed and dashed out of the door, forgetting to get anything warmer to wear in her excitement.

Her rush was halted short though, as the entire market square was teeming with guild guards. Most of them appeared to be just a part of the crowd, but two lines of them were keeping the road from the gate to the guild offices open for some reason. This more or less blocked Iris from getting to the blacksmith and it started to look like she would be forced to wait anyway. Annoyed but curious, she pushed through the mass of people to see what was worth such a commotion that it delayed her wings. Trying her best to avoid direct line of sight with any guards who seemed at all interested in securing the road, she found a gap she needed to get all the way to the front row.

At the gate single guild official, though not the one she knew, as well as a guard accompanying her appeared to be finishing up some kind of negotiations with another party and started heading back towards the guild offices. Of the group following the two, the most noticeable were the six simulacra knights, with an eerily similar appearance to King and weapons so large and heavy they would have been nothing but an inconvenience to anyone else. In the middle of these six walked another official, or at least a person with a very similar look to them. What separated her from the others was the orange shade of her crystalline horn, as well as the worn armor of stone that was a far cry from the spotless purple uniforms of the guild. Behind these seven, walked along a large mechanical spider with clear signs of some major mending being done to their stone body, as well as a few mismatched legs. On the back of this simulacra arachnid was the last member of the troupe: a humanoid being, completely wrapped in bandages which had light blue markings typical to simulacra inscribed on them. The only visible part of their body was a set of deep violet crystals growing from their head. Seeing their color immediately caused all alarms to go off in Iris’ head, but upon further inspection, there didn’t seem to be a detectable aura of ill-boding and decay that typically surrounded everything that had anything to do with the sect.

Whatever this was, must have been a fairly big deal, as so many guards had been dispatched to what felt like a two-fold job of keeping the curious adventurers back and the visitors in line. Iris didn’t really know if this sort of thing was common in Valor, but based on the amazed reactions from the crowd, she was willing to bet it wasn’t.

Distracted by the violet color of the crystals, Iris failed to notice the pair of guild guards who were not a part of the security for the event, but instead had been heading towards the inn before spotting the necromancer. She was only alerted to their presence by the sharp sound of a metal point of a polearm’s lesser business end striking the paved road directly next to her. The sound immediately cleared out a small area around them as the guards greeted her with a friendly smile, but also blocked the most obvious escape routes.

“I just got curious of the commotion; I promise I’ll go back inside now!” The necromancer immediately tried to excuse her lack of supervision.

“Okay? You’re the necromancer though, right?” One of the guards asked and compared a guild form that described the city’s only necromancer to the one in front of him. “Iris, no known last name, this says.”

“I’m a necromancer…” Iris admitted, starting to think she wasn’t being busted for going outside. “And an Iris…”

“Right, well I think you’re the one we’re looking for then. You’ve been summoned by the guild to appear in an advisory role regarding something – effective immediately.” The guard explained and handed over a folded piece of paper that had been sealed with wax. “You can read that if you want, but all it basically says is that you’re pretty much required to come with us, but are also entitled to a compensation for your time – in about fifty times the words I just used to say the same.”