When they left the stricken village behind the next day, Natalie lay on one of the seats with dark circles under her eyes. She looked more drained than the horse had, apparently for the same reason. She mumbled something about long distance communication being hard before pool then fell asleep. Saul ceded the whole seat to her and spent the day mostly reading in his room.

The following day, she was mostly back to normal, and everything settled back into the usual rhythm, though Saul found himself keeping a closer eye on Bart and Ziba. Both men met the conditions for the soul curse. The fourth day after they left the village, he learned that Natalie shared his concerns when Ziba spoke with him privately on the roof of the carriage.

“I apologize for bothering you, my lord,” Ziba said with a seated bow, “but I thought it important to tell you about something.”

“Go on,” Saul nodded.

“Miss Natalie privately offered to give me an icon yesterday evening. She said that it would help me if I got sick.”

Saul rocked back with raised eyebrows.

“I attempted to decline,” Ziba continued, “but she was quite insistent that it would be in my best interest, and that I would be under no obligation to her related to the gift. Ultimately, I told her that I would consider it.”

“Interesting. And what do you think of the offer?”

“Begging your pardon, my lord, I do not wish to have my soul Marked. Miss Natalie has difficulty understanding the complications her generosity would entail, a cultural difference of course. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would your lordship be so kind as to explain this to her? She seems to view the positions of myself and Bart as slave-like.”

Saul sighed, “we can talk to her—”

He was cut off as Bart seized him by the shoulders and threw him down.

Something splattered against the man’s back and began eating through his shirt.

“TOBY! Attack!” Saul yelled.

Toby was on the roof in seconds.

Bart pointed off the left side of the carriage, and Toby waved a rigid hand at the second blob arcing toward them.

The liquid was repelled midair with a splash.

Natalie joined them as well.

“Can you push them away while I go after the monster?” Toby asked her quickly.

“What?”

He waved another glob away. “Do you still have wind manipulation?”

“Yeah,” Natalie agreed.

“Can you make enough wind to blow the—” another wave, “—acid off course?”

“Probably?”

“Then do it!”

She looked out at the grass beside the carriage.

“Now!” Toby insisted, “Just keep it up, don’t try to react.”

Natalie took a deep breath and blew, the air around them kicking up instantly.

Ziba scrambled down the ladder back inside.

The next glob fell short of the carriage, and Toby leapt off the side.

Riding the wind somewhat, he landed in the grass blade in hand.

Swinging it in a wide arc, dozens of feet of grass in front of him were cut in an instant and blown away.

In the much shorter two to three foot grass, something was visibly moving.

Toby lunged.

Other than the rapid swings of his sword, it was impossible to tell what he was fighting. Toby yelled something at one point, but he was inaudible over the wind. Eventually, he stopped throwing himself at moving patches of grass and started dragging something back toward the carriage. Natalie let the gale subside.

“What is this thing?” Toby called up as he broke out of the grass.

He was dragging a small, corpulent pig. It was covered face-to-tail in warty folds of flabby flesh and was leaking a clear fluid from cuts across its body.

“Ew, I don’t know,” Natalie replied. “How was shooting that acid?”

“I don’t know,” Toby dropped it by the road. “It could turn its whole body into liquid, probably something to do with that. Saul, I told you to get back inside!”

“We couldn’t hear you,” Saul called back. “The wind was too loud. Do you want to dig a makeshift condensation pit and stop here for the night, or do you think there are more?”

Toby looked at the front of the carriage and back to Saul, “might as well stop. The horse turtled up.”

Saul, Natalie, and Bart went to the front of the roof and looked down at the stone dome that covered the horse and driver’s seat.

“Dinah, are you unharmed?” Saul asked.

“I’m fine, my lord,” her voice escaped from the few inches of clearance between the dome and the cart. “Geronimo Tanny is a bit panicked, I don’t think I can get him to put the stone back any time soon.”

That essentially forced their decision. Saul and Toby debated how to dig the pit, settling on a faster method that had a lower chance of condensing anything truly valuable. Retrieving a pair of shovels, they got to work.

“You’re actually doing this yourselves?” Natalie asked when she left the carriage.

“Monsters are a noble’s duty.” Saul replied simply as he dug.

Once they had a hole three feet wide and about as deep with a bowl-like slope, Saul started sticking quarters into the sides at regular intervals and Toby began cutting the monster into small chunks.

“There’s basically no chance you’ll get an icon out of it that way,” Natalie criticized.

“We know.” Toby and Saul said simultaneously.

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She waited, but they didn’t elaborate. Once Saul had pushed forty quarters into the sides of the hole, he pulled out a whole simple ring and buried it under a thin layer of reddish dirt at the very bottom of the pit.

“If you don’t know what icons it’s connected to, you can still use a mirror ring,” Natalie suggested. “It won’t work as well as a matching ring, but you’ll probably get a better harvest.”

Saul paused, then pulled out a mist mirror ring, burying it in the middle of the much larger simple ring.

“Thanks.”

“Do you have any other insights before I start tossing the pieces in?” Toby asked.

She shook her head, so he began throwing in the bits of monster. Saul got a tarp from the carriage, then joined in.

“The tarp won’t trap the mist very well,” Natalie pointed out.

“Well, we aren’t taking off one of the carriage doors, so unless you have something better, it’s what we’re using,” Saul said.

“If I can have some of the harvest, you can use my four foot square sheet of quarter-inch thick steel,” she offered.

Toby and Saul paused to look at her.

“What?” she said defensively, “did you think I came completely unprepared?”

“That would be perfect, thank you,” Toby agreed after a moment.

They resumed throwing, but paused again when she hefted a huge sheet of metal from inside her jacket with both hands.

“Storage satchel,” Natalie remarked, letting the sheet fall with a reverberating, if muffled, thwumb. “I think I mentioned I had one. Where did you think I was keeping my spare clothes?”

“How did you get that out of the opening?” Saul asked. Fully unzipped, his was only a foot wide.

“Spatial compression?” She answered. “It has to be powered, unlike the displacement, but it’s a standard part of the artifact. Does yours not do that?”

“…no.”

“I suppose that explains the portable hole. They do have their uses, but a good satchel is better most of the time.”

Saul asked a few more questions about the satchel as they finished piling the wet meat in the hole. They then dragged the sheet of steel over the top and piled some of the dirt and rock in the middle.

The following morning, Toby and Saul shoveled the dirt back off of the metal first thing. They banged on the sheet thoroughly while holding it in place, then let it sit for another half hour.

While they were waiting, Saul asked Natalie, “I didn’t think to ask yesterday, but you don’t happen to have an ability related to icon condensation do you? It’s too late this time, but…”

“No, sorry,” she denied. “That wasn’t one of my priorities. Who knows how many cloud fragments I’d have to go through to get something like that. Much less the esoteric fragments that give the best versions of such abilities.”

“How esoteric? Most of the nobles who tend the pits where we live use cloud and wind, water, or earth. What is the elvish practice?”

“Cloud and time is best.”

“Time?!” Saul repeated.

“Time. Space can also work, anything that can completely cut the pit off from the rest of the rest of the world.”

“How could you possibly source either of those reliably enough for it to be considered standard practice?”

“You can give six people the ability for each icon you find,” Natalie pointed out. “Elves live longer, and I think we have better centralized distribution of resources from what you’ve told me.”

“That reminds me, on another subject entirely, Natalie, we need to have a somewhat serious discussion.”

“Oh?”

“You put my servant, Ziba, in a difficult position.” Saul brushed off his hands and crossed his arms. “He spoke with me privately about how you had offered him an icon and continued to insist when he politely declined. While your relative rank is somewhat nebulous, it would not be appropriate for him to tell you off, so he came to me.”

“Oh. That. And what gives you the right to tell him what to do with his soul?”

“You offered, he declined. I was not part of the discussion.”

“And yet, it’s plainly obvious that being in your ‘service’ is affecting his decision,” Natalie countered.

“He is employed by and indebted to my house, yes, but I would not prevent him from taking the icon you offered if that was what he wanted.”

“But you would punish him for it, he said you would put a slave mark on his soul.”

“It isn’t a ‘slave mark,’ it’s a Soul Mark,” Saul replied. “They’re standard for peons. Technically, taking it would be his choice, but he doesn’t want to be forced to make that choice.”

“Then don’t force him to. I’m the one giving him the icon.”

“It isn’t me forcing him! This is a legal matter. Anyone with a proper icon not from the church is required by law to be either part of or Marked by a noble house. The fact that he wouldn’t be getting it from a noble is if anything even more litigious.”

“That’s absurd,” she said with distaste. “A blatant restriction to keep the humans under the heel of the first of you to grasp a scrap of power.”

“I don’t see your villages giving every one of their members three proper icons and passing around fragments like party favors. I seem to recall only the ones who fight monsters being awakened.”

“That’s a practical requirement. Most of the older villagers do actually have a couple abilities awakened, actually.”

Toby put a hand on Saul’s shoulder before he could reply and partially interposed himself.

“This isn’t helping anything. Natalie, what you’re saying is that you don’t believe Ziba doesn’t want the icon, despite him telling you otherwise. What do you want? Us to tell him to take it against his wishes?”

“I—no?” Natalie came up short.

“If you didn’t believe him when you asked him alone, then what?” Toby continued, “we could include him in this conversation, but I don’t think that would help.”

“Wait, you're ignoring the main reason I offered to begin with,” she realized. “The curse in that village was much worse on people who had a simple icon but an incomplete soul than the ensouled ones. I offered him an icon so that if he did get infected, the curse wouldn’t be as severe.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“Of course.”

“Then he made an informed decision,” Toby shrugged, “that’s that.”

They waited by the pit in silence for a few minutes. Nearby, Dinah finished caring for the horse and securing his harness. She then approached them.

“My lord, your honor,” she bowed to Saul and Toby. “We are ready to leave at your convenience.”

Saul nodded.

“Pardon, m’lord, but I may be able to allay some of Miss Natalie’s concerns if you wouldn’t mind?”

“By all means.”

“Miss, I think you misunderstand my husband,” Dinah turned to Natalie. “He gave you reasons he didn’t want that icon, but really he just likes his job working for House Ficial and doesn’t want it to change. We came on this trip mostly because I wanted to see more of the world and make our anniversary special. We got married almost a year ago, you see.”

“But what about the curse?” Natalie objected. “If he gets sick, another icon will help make sure it isn’t as bad.”

“The honorable Toby has healing magic. I know he’ll treat Ziba, and let us know if there is something to worry about.”

Saul rolled his eyes, but didn’t correct her. Misunderstanding what ‘magic’ actually referred to was fairly common. Toby did speak up.

“You can abbreviate my title if you want, just ‘the hon’ is fine. I told both of you this weeks ago.”

“Sorry, your honor,” Dinah replied. “Ziba told me that was only appropriate for someone closer in rank.”

“Well…yeah, but it feels unnecessary right now. I don’t know. You have my permission while we’re on this trip.”

“I think we can go ahead and harvest the pit,” Saul said. “Natalie, will you drop the icon thing, at least for now. We can revisit it if Toby thinks someone is getting sick.”

“Fine,” she agreed.

They hefted the sheet off the pit and returned it. While Natalie wiped it off and maneuvered it back into her small satchel, Saul hopped into the pit and started piling up the contents in two piles on the edge. The first pile was just the simple ring, mist mirror ring, and forty quarters he’d lined the pit with. The second was the relatively slight harvest, two halves, one third, ten quarters, four small blue mist-sized rings, and a brownish-yellow small mist-sized ring.

“Only about a fourth of a ring total,” Saul lamented. “Decent number of mist rings though. I assume these are water, but do either of you recognize the yellowish one?”

Toby shook his head, while Natalie took it in hand and considered it with eyes closed.

“Mist fear ring,” she said, handing it back.

“I would have thought we’d get acid,” Toby commented.

Saul put everything in his satchel and they filled the hole back in before getting in the carriage.