"Another round, bartender!"

Pale couldn't help but wince as Evie's voice resounded throughout the tavern. She'd already downed three mugs of ale in less than an hour, and her head was absolutely swimming. Kayla was faring no better, despite being a drink behind her; she was currently nursing what was left of her second, and was swaying unevenly in her seat.

Pale suppressed a groan as another mug of frothing amber liquid was pushed in front of her. She was about to turn her nose up at it when she felt a hand on her shoulder; she didn't even need to check to know who it belonged to.

"Why are you doing this…?" Pale muttered, massaging her temples to try and ward off the impending migraine.

"Lighten up a little!" Evie said with a chuckle. "We've got good food, good drinks, good music, and good company. What's not to like?"

"I feel like I'm about to regurgitate the undigested remnants of whatever you were forcing us to eat earlier."

"Ah, that means it's working!" Evie gave her a light smack on the back; Pale felt her insides roil, but managed to suppress the urge to get sick then and there.

"Can I at least have some water?" she asked.

"Of course!" Evie replied, her grin widening. "Hey, bartender! Some water for the two lightweights, if you don't mind."

She flicked him a piece of copper, which he pocketed before sending over two more mugs, these ones mercifully filled with clear water. Pale didn't waste a second before reaching for hers and beginning to greedily drink it down, only for Evie to grab hold of it and pull it away from her lips.

"Slowly," Evie advised. "Drink that too fast after all that ale and you really will get sick. That goes for you too, Kayla."

"Eugh…" Kayla managed to get out as she regretfully lowered the mug of water. "You somehow always know the worst thing to say to me…"

"Ooh, someone gets feisty when she's drunk."

"I'm not drunk!"

Evie waved her off. "Whatever you say, Kayla."

"Why are you doing this to us?" Pale repeated. "This feels awful. People really drink this stuff to excess for the fun of it?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," Evie said, giving her a grin. "And as for the why of it… well, that's pretty simple, actually."

"I'm listening."

"It took your mind off of what happened earlier, didn't it?"

Pale couldn't help but pause at that. In truth, Evie had a point – thoughts of her earlier failure and nightmares had faded away the drunker she'd gotten. Granted, that was less because she was enjoying herself and more so because she was so dead-set on trying not to lose her dinner, but still, results were results.

"Don't take that as an endorsement of this kind of behavior," Evie warned, her jovial demeanor suddenly replaced with one of utmost sincerity. "This is a special occasion. You two needed to cut loose and relax a little, so I figured I'd give it my all for a change. This isn't the kind of thing you can just do every night."

"I figured…" Pale muttered.

"So, be honest – do you feel better?"

"In some ways, and yet still worse in others." Pale downed more of her water, then leaned back in her seat. "Still, I suppose on a certain level, I should be thanking you – this certainly did get my mind off the events of the past few days, at least for a time."

"Unfortunately, moving past them permanently is going to be tough," Evie said. "But you'll both manage in time. You're strong like that. Just remember what I said, though."

"I know – we can't make stuff like this a habit."

"Yup. Drinking for fun is one thing; drinking to forget? That's quite another." Evie downed what was left in her mug, then set it down on the bar. She went to walk away, but Pale hurriedly reached out and took her by the arm, stopping her.

"If you're going to keep drinking, please be careful about it," she implored.

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Evie blinked, then gave her a grin before nodding. "Don't worry, I know my limits. Unlike some people."

She motioned to Kayla, who had slumped over in her seat and fallen asleep. Pale's brow furrowed.

"Watch her for a bit, would you?" she requested as she rose from her seat.

"Of course," Evie replied. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Just for a walk around town," Pale said without looking back. "I want to explore a bit."

"Are you sure that's wise? You've had quite a bit to drink."

"I'm fine," Pale insisted. "I just need some fresh air for a time. I won't be gone for more than a few minutes."

Evie hesitated, but eventually acquiesced with a nod. "Fine. But if you get into trouble, give us a shout, one of us will come running."

Pale nodded, then continued on her way out of the bar, leaving her two companions alone as she stepped outside.

XXX

The moment she left the tavern, the cold air hit her like a bullet. Pale suppressed a shiver as she bundled her winter jacket around herself, then began walking.

In the time since they'd arrived in Stonebriar and started drinking at the tavern, a light snowfall had started to descend upon them. A thin layer of white coated the ground and the buildings, crunching underfoot as she walked through it. Despite that, Pale found it easy to navigate – there were posts lined with oil lanterns situated throughout the town, which marked her way visibly enough. She used these as landmarks as she walked, being careful to note the subtle differences she spotted along the way as a way to retrace her steps when the time came to return to the tavern.

Stonebriar was a very comfortable-looking town, she had to admit; it made her think of how Kayla's town would have looked before the massacre, only much bigger. The buildings here were made out of stone rather than wood, and most of them were two-story save for the more affordable-looking homes. A few of them were even larger than that, stretching up to three stories tall.

Of course, they were all absolutely dwarfed by the castle on the hills above.

Pale almost did a double-take when she first saw it looming over the rest of the town. It was big, resembling something out of a fairy tale rather than anything earthly. Its walls were hewn from stone, but something about how it was built up made it look infinitely more professionally-made than the stone buildings scattered through the rest of the town. She stared at its battlements and turrets with awe, watching as small flecks of light moved back-and-forth across them in the distance – those must have been the guards on a nightly patrol.

Pale allowed herself to stare for a moment, then shook her head and continued on her way. No doubt that castle was where this city's Lord resided, and while it was interesting to her from an architectural standpoint, the last thing she wanted was to risk getting on the city guards' bad side by staring too intently at it.

Speaking of the city guard, they seemed suspiciously absent from the city streets. At first, she hadn't thought anything of it, but seeing the guards patrolling the castle walls had given her pause. It was cold, yes, but the guards at the castle were still patrolling, and if anything, that was the most well-defended and fortified position in the entire town. So why, then, were they out and about there, but not on the ground level? It made her wonder, especially given how close they were to the sea – Kayla's town had been far away, and yet, it had been sacked by barbarians.

At that thought, Pale's attention turned towards the letter she'd found on the dead barbarian not too long ago. It was still in her pocket, though she hadn't thought to read it since Sven and his men were already dead. Still, her curiosity piqued, she ducked into a nearby alley and withdrew it, then flicked her lighter open and held it up to the paper so she could read it.

As she read, her gaze narrowed. Evie had referred to it as a letter of marque earlier – a letter issued by a governing body to a group of pirates or mercenaries giving them a blank check to raid whatever enemies their employer needed them to. She hadn't been wrong, that was for sure, but there were things about it that didn't add up. Evie's caravan was described in it, as were several other towns – Kayla's included, Pale noted with no small amount of disgust – but past that, the details were surprisingly sparse. There was no mention of a time frame, a meeting place, a method of payment… nothing.

If this truly had been issued by a governing body, then it was the single most informal document she'd ever heard of one giving out. Even her most basic military orders left this letter in the dust in terms of complexity. Granted, the people of this planet were nowhere near as technologically advanced as her creators were, but to leave out significantly important details like that struck her as odd.

Pale finished reading the letter, then pocketed it and her lighter as she shook her head. She would have to ask Evie about it later; for now, she needed to get back to the tavern.

Pale stepped back out into the streets, only to pause when she heard something strange. It sounded like nothing she'd ever heard before – it reminded her of something rapidly running across stone, but it was far too large and fast to be a small animal, or even a person. Slowly, her hand drifted to the knife still at her waist. As the sound closed in on her from behind, she hurriedly turned around, drawing her blade in the same motion.

There was nothing there but falling snow and an empty street.

Her heart hammering in her chest, Pale lowered her blade, breathing a sigh of relief. She sheathed her knife and went to start walking once more when a woman's scream suddenly pierced through the night. A chill went down her spine, and in the blink of an eye, her knife was drawn again as she took off sprinting towards the sound.

Pale found the source of it not long after she'd started running – a woman lying face-down in the snow. She checked to make sure everything was clear, then cautiously approached her, still keeping her knife clutched tightly in her hand.

"Miss," Pale urged. "Can you hear me? Are you okay?"

There was no response. As she drew closer, Pale noticed something – the woman's clothes were hanging very limply around her body, as if they were several sizes too big for her. Pale got within an arm's length, then carefully turned the woman over with her boot.

A dessicated corpse stared up at her, its mouth frozen in a silent scream.

Pale blinked in shock, bile rising up in her throat at the sight of it. She managed to hold herself back from expelling the contents of the night's reverie out onto the snow-covered cobblestone below, instead lurching backwards and leaning against a nearby building for support as she doubled over, coughing to try and clear her throat.

Then, she heard it – footsteps all around, and the rattling of steel plates against steel plates. She looked up, just in time to see several guards closing in around her. They all locked eyes on the woman's corpse, a mixture of shock, fear, and disgust passing through them for just a moment before their gaze landed on Pale.

Then, before she could say anything, they all drew their weapons and began to advance upon her.