The Morosia family had not owned Delden Town. They were not the rulers, nor were they the founders. They were not even a family that had started off in these lands. Their origin was that of travelers, caught in Delden Town during a festival due to an illness. The youngest son of the family caught a fever, but it was so severe that the local doctor dissuaded them from leaving Delden Town for at least a few weeks.

During those weeks, a lot happened to the Morosia family. Ydril, the Matriarch of the family, fell in love with the scenery. Toman, her eldest son, fell in love with a local. Sam, the one with the illness that caused them to stay, fell to the fever. After the funeral, no one had the motivation to travel.

The Morosia family, which numbered fifteen after Sam’s death, stayed in Delden Town. They did not take over anything, instead they went to work with the rest of Delden Town. Ydril taught at the chapel, Toman married into the tavern keeper’s family, and several others worked the spice fields.

A change came to the Morosia family with each generation. When Ydril passed away, Toman became the de facto leader of the family, but he had no desires or passions to lead the family. When Toman passed away, his eldest daughter became the Matriarch of the Morosia family in name only. Being born of the tavern keeper’s daughter, Misha Morosia was the final link in the bridge between the old Morosian life and the family’s new life in Delden Town.

Slowly the family spread their roots through the town. Those that worked the spice fields gave birth to children that cultivated the spice. Those that cultivated the spice gave birth to a generation that traded the spice. Any traveling urge left in the Morosian family was taken by those that became merchants. Some returned seasonally, others never found their way back.

The last vestige of the Morosia heritage was in the stories shared late at night. First by Ydril, then by Toman, then by Misha, and so on until Imp’s mother shared the stories with her. Those stories were the spark that led Imp to want a life outside of Delden Town. However, she was born into the closest thing the Morosia family had to the main branch. She wasn’t born with her cousins as a merchant or a fieldworker, she was born to the Matriarch. Her duty would be to learn how to craft the spices that helped Delden Town grow.

If that was not what she wanted, her family saw her only other option as giving up the role of Matriarch. While that was what she ended up doing, the family view was that she would then become the next outstretching link of union for the Morosia Family. Instead, Imp had done her best to revert to the old Morosian heritage that was left behind when Ydril settled the family in Delden Town.

As Imp walked up the hill from the proper Delden Town to the Morosia family home on the hill, she wondered how far the roots of the family had spread. Delden Town was gone, but the Morosian name might not be. She was just one adventurer, tired from a long life of dungeon delving and monster hunting, but some of her cousins might still be scattering spice to the wind somewhere.

They had the right to walk these steps, not her. Yet, none of them had returned and it had been weeks since the destruction of Delden Town. Imp wondered if that meant she alone carried the name. If she had stayed in a Guild, she might have never come back. She would have been Imp of Red Mage Four. The nonsensical name still made her grind her teeth, but that was how they had been known. The closest thing to a family she had felt, but Imp left them behind when the Guild settled into a city instead of continuing the adventure.

As Imp reached her family home, it did not feel like hers. The exterior had been ravaged by time. The plank siding flaked and was missing in some places. There were vines growing upward from a trellis that once contained them. Now they stretched toward the eaves and slipped around blurry windows. The roof looked fine, but a few wavy lines hinted at leaks.

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The porch creaked under her boots. Imp made her way to the door. She tried to open it. A heaviness in her heart disappeared as she had to laugh. The door refused to open. It was locked and she never had the key.

Turning her back to the house, Imp walked a few paces off the porch and then sat down on the hillside. Delden Town sprawled out below her. From where she sat, the town looked abandoned, not destroyed. She knew that burned-out buildings were hidden somewhere in the cluster below, but they were blocked by the chapel and the others that were still standing.

The sun had just about fully set. The locked door would not keep her out for long, but Imp wanted to wait before breaking into the family home she was supposed to live in. Just like the cousins in her distant thoughts, Imp wondered what kind of life the townsfolk had lived before they died.

Imp had slept on mountainsides with nothing but a tarp to hold the snow off. She had slept in ruins surrounded by magical constructs that threatened to wake if she rolled over wrong. She had even slept in the hollow of a dragon that her Guild had taken down. Had the townsfolk ever slept somewhere that wasn’t the same bed? In the same building? In the same town? Imp wondered if there was a hidden meaning that the townsfolk had found but she did not.

Unaware of anything other than the town in the valley below, Imp felt a familiar weight on her shoulders. Her father used to set his heavy hand on her shoulder when she was troubled by thoughts like this.

She started to speak, “If Assan could see me now, he would laugh. To him, I was always the fearless fighter. When we first met, he was a bookish little nerd with more anxious thoughts than mana in his heart. However, while I stayed the same, he turned into a powerful magician.”

Unseen, a faint mote of silver light hovered behind Imp. It was the source of her father’s presence, but she had not noticed it. Instead, she continued talking, “On a night like this, we defended a Mining Hold from an onslaught of wyrms. Then the next morning we delved into that same hold to kill a dungeon before it could form. My blade and his magic... we led Red Mage Four on so many expeditions that the Regent tried to knight us both… You should’ve seen his face when he heard the news. Nothing was worse to that nerd than recognition. Dame Imp Moro-“

Imp cut herself off with a deep breath. The pressure had left her shoulder, the faint silver mote had flickered out of existence after using all of the energy it had to be present with her. Now Imp felt like she was talking to nothing but the wind.

After a few minutes passed as Imp sat silently looking at Delden Town as the night crept over the streets. The darkness reached the hill she sat on, it washed from one side to the other and her eyes followed it until she saw a graveyard halfway down the hill. Even though she had to have walked by it on the way up, her eyes had been focused on the hilltop house and her family’s heritage. Now, she saw that the graveyard was larger than it should have been.

No one should have died in Delden Town at the volume that the priest had to deal with. The original rock and hedge wall of the graveyard once contained all the bodies, but now there were newly dug graves stretching out westward from the walls toward the last bit of sunlight that crept over the horizon. There was a wooden fence constructed around the new graves, no doubt holding a blessing trying to appease the souls.

Imp stood up from the hill and told herself she would pay respects in the morning. For now, needed to get as much rest as her tired soul would allow. She turned back to the house, ready to break in. A locked door couldn’t keep a real adventurer out for long. Yet, something pricked the edge of her mind as soon as she looked away from the graveyard.

Sensations like that were what kept her alive in the field. To feel it here, Imp’s heart clenched in her chest. She turned back to the graveyard just in time to see a brilliant flash of silver light. For a moment, every single grave was illuminated. Beyond the original dead residents, there were dozens and dozens of new graves with hastily made gravestones. The light faded and with the darkness came a sound. Like metal scraping on stone, Imp looked for the source but could only tell that it was coming from the graveyard.

As she took a single step in its direction, the noise stopped suddenly.

Suddenly a shrill scream filled the air. It blocked out all other sensations. Imp could only feel pain and desperation in the sound. It called for help, not just from her, but from anyone or anything. Imp felt her heart unclench and pull her toward the graveyard.