Before the attack, the chapel had been the star jewel of Delden Town. It was where the town gathered to celebrate births, unions, and seasonal festivals. It was where the dead were mourned, and their lives were remembered. The stained glass had once depicted the regional deities of harvest, love, and the afterlife as a farmer, a matron, and a wisp of silver. The pews that had once been pristine benches of golden oak had grown into a familiar shade of worn wood from good use.

Now the chapel was a swirl of torment and darkness. Souls hung in the air as wispy motes of silver. The stained-glass windows were shattered, and the only light came from the sun above the clouds. The pews were still intact but, in the darkness, the familiar worn golden color turned. It looked diseased. At the head of the chapel, the podium was turned over and the altar was smashed. The bandits had spared no expense in trying to rob Delden Town of every treasure they could.

In the center of the chapel, nestled in the darkness on a worn pew between two beams of light, Imp sat with her head in her hands. When she first entered the chapel, the souls hanging in the air had seemed like a trick of the light. She had wandered through the chapel, following the whistling wind as if it would lead her to shelter. As if the wind would show her that not all was lost.

Instead, as soon as she stepped from the darkness into one of the beams of light, the souls coalesced around her like a wreath of sadness. It felt all too familiar and overwhelming. She could see the faces of merchants and seamstresses that had chastised her as a child. They were aged beyond recognition, but she still knew them. In her mind, their eyes were hollow motes of silver light reminiscent of the souls that swirled.

When she stepped from the light and back into the darkness, the souls dispersed again. After trying to move from the darkness to the light, to be able to leave the chapel, Imp found herself surrounded by souls once more. This time, instead of recognition, she was hounded with guilt. How could she have left? If only she had come back, the powerful adventurer that she was, she could have protected them!

The voices of the souls were inaudible, but they cut lines directly onto her soul. Someone else’s tears started to well up and spill onto Imp’s cheeks. Hanging her head in her hands, she had retreated to the darkness of the pew. The souls, no longer drawn to her, were now wafting through the air like a melancholic reminder of Delden Town’s famed spices. Where the spices had filled the air with warmth and hope, the souls only stirred up dread as they swayed.

It was too much for Imp to bear. As she tried to lift her head to look for a path through the darkness to the door, a brighter soul descended from the rafters of the chapel. At first, she thought it must’ve been the soul of a powerful sorcerer or a magician. Maybe even some form of priest that could pull power from the beyond after death. Instead, as the soul drew near to Imp, she heard the giggle of a child. A voice that she had never heard before called out, the words lost between the living and the dead. The soul bounded through the air like the child was playing on the pews.

The tears on Imp’s face felt even more foreign as she cried for a child she had never seen in life. When it came closer, she wanted to take hold of the soul and let it know it did not have to stay in this place of torment. Imp’s thoughts were heavy as if they were not only her own but the thoughts of all the souls trapped within the chapel’s walls.

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She could feel the sadness of the child’s parent, wishing them a better end than this. She could feel the pressure of a guard at the door, struggling to keep the doors closed against the attack. Imp felt frayed at the edges when she looked at the child’s soul coming closer to her.

As she reached for the bright soul, the darkness swelled in her mind—silver cracks formed at the edge of her thoughts. The child’s soul called out to her, but Imp could not hear it as she fainted from pure spiritual pressure.

In a blank realm of silver light, Imp stood still as a statue. She could feel herself slumped forward in the pew, but she could not move. All she could see was the silver light of souls. The world seemed to shift beyond her vision as something moved around her. The pew was gone, the weight of the world vanished and then settled on her chest. Her back found comfort in something soft, but her heart still ached for the souls that she had seen.

With a snap, darkness blanketed the silver. A lone candle flickered into existence. Imp found herself laying on a bed, looking up at a stone ceiling. It sagged toward one side with age. It let her know that while she was comfortable, she was not forever safe here.

Minimal furniture surrounded her. Next to the bed was a dresser. Next to the dresser was a table where the lone candle burned. Next to the table was a chair.

On the chair sat a priest who somehow looked more tired than Imp could comprehend. His eyes were heavy and golden, his face was covered in weeks’ worth of scraggly beard, and his hands carefully paged through an old book.

“Finally awake.” He said, barely looking up from his book to make sure she was awake.

Imp let out a held breath, “Are you Delden Town’s priest? What happened to Father Yarrow?”

The priest closed the book carefully and lifted his head just enough to hold eye contact, “What happened to all of us in the end…”

That brought another weight to Imp’s chest. The finality of Delden Town was just a version of what awaited everyone. Trying to sit up in the bed, she asked, “If they are all gone, why are you still here?”

The priest set his book on the table and picked up the candle as he stood up. The candlelight turned his golden eyes into flickers of flame. “I will be here until there are none left that require my aid. For if I had left, what would have happened to you, traveler?”

Imp nodded and scooted up the bed to rest her back against the headboard. “Thank you. I’m not sure what came over me.”

“Souls.” The priest said simply. “The souls of Delden Town have not yet found peace. You must have a particular constitution if the souls of random townsfolk affected you so.”

“Not so random… or maybe I am of that particular constitution.” Imp frowned as she looked down at her hands. They were calloused and cracked from years of hard adventuring, but beneath them, she could almost see the hands she once had before she left Delden Town. “I’m originally from here. My family lived on the hill.”

The priest nodded as if he already knew, “Welcome back, Ms. Morosia. However, I am sorry to say that your return cannot be celebrated like it might have been in the past. There is no one here to light the brazier, no one to hold the pipes, and no one to belt the tunes. Much less anyone to bake a single pie.”

“I did not come back to live here.”

“Truly.” The priest said with a sad smile. “No one could. Delden Town’s days are at their end. Once my work is done, I will move on as well. Until then, let me know if there are any services I can provide. Even if it is just to listen to your life’s tale.”

Imp swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. Fragments of her mind were still worn down by the pressure that caused her to faint, but she did not wish to stay in the priest’s quarters of the chapel any longer. She wanted to go home, or at least to the closest thing to home Delden Town could offer.

“I may call on you, Father.” Imp nodded as she stretched her arms, “but now all I need is to walk for a bit.”

“Be well and be wary of the souls. Some are more troubled than others.”

Imp nodded at that and left the chapel. The sun was hanging low on the horizon, it would only be an hour or two until nightfall. She turned to the South, toward her family home, and started walking through the corpse of Delden Town.