> [You have been healed 32 points]

> [You are at Half Health]

> [Achievement: I Know Magic!]

> [Achievement: From the Brink]

> [Special Achievement: Lived to Tell the Tale]

Jonas sits next to me looking pale, sweat at his temples as his hands rest approximately where the blond woman shoved me. He sees me blink and offers a light relieved smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“I think I hate this campsite,” I mutter, throwing an arm over my face. I don’t feel quite as bad as I did when first waking up in my room at the Wide Sky, but it’s very close. There’s a dull throb in my ears, and my chest feels like someone is sitting on it even after Jonas lifts his hands away. I draw as deep a breath as I can. My lungs crackle slightly, making me cough. “Is everyone else okay?”

“We’re all a little worse for wear,” Jonas says, sheepishly, “but we’re alive. We took out the skeletons. The necromancer and her immediate group retreated up the mountain. That’s what Meg said.”

“Where are the others?”

“Flynt is scouting the perimeter, Tyrus is down by the river cleaning up, and Meg’s just outside.” He pauses. “It’s a good thing you insisted on those healing elixirs, Keira. We probably would have really lost someone otherwise. Or at least, someone would still be in pretty bad shape.”

“Better safe than sorry. Do we have any left?”

“I have three on me. I don’t know if you have any in your bag.”

I shake my head and groan as dizziness washes over me. “This feels awful. I really didn’t intend to do this again.”

“It can’t be pleasant.”

“It really isn’t.”

He pauses and clears his throat quietly. “Did she say anything to you?”

“Who?”

“The necromancer.”

I shake my head.

“Oh.” He sounds disappointed. “Did you recognize her?”

I pull my arm away from my eyes to stare up at him. It’s only now that I realize I’m back in the tent laying on my bed roll. One of my legs is weirdly tucked up under the other in a way that’s tweaking my back, like I was just sort of dumped down so Jonas could do his thing.

“Jonas, why would I recognize her? I know you guys, and I know Nyssa, and that’s about it.”

“Right.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He glances around, then smiles grimly to someone I can't see at first, but Meg appears over his shoulder, staring down at me, her expression knit into concern.

“So that went well," she says to me. "What made you think you could take on a necromancer by yourself?"

“She’d already seen me. I didn’t know what else to do,” I mumble.

“Run,” Meg says. “Sometimes you just have to run.”

“Right. Well. Point taken. I just... didn't think I had much other choice.”

“I barely got there, Keira. You’re not invincible, here. You can die.”

“I know, Meg.”

“I barely got you out. Barely. We’re lucky she didn’t decide to pursue, because she could have wiped all of us out on her own.”

I wince. “I’m sorry."

Meg’s jaw tightens as she frowns down at me. “Jonas, if you’re up for it, go find Tyrus and get Flynt back here. We need to have a party meeting.”

Jonas nods and stands, disappearing out of view. Meg reaches down toward me and I groan before taking her hand. She pulls me up to a sitting position and I can’t help but hang my head as the world swims around me. She holds on to me for a long beat, then gives my hand a light squeeze before releasing it.

I clear my throat as I get my bearings. “Jonas said everyone got beaten up?”

“Flynt and Tyrus both had to take elixirs. Jonas had to top me off. Those skeletons are hard to damage. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t take a lot once you do figure out how to get some cracks in.”

“I guess that’s good.”

“Did she say anything to you?”

“What?”

“The necromancer.”

“Jonas asked the same thing. No, she didn’t say anything. She just looked menacing and then smoked over to me like Dracula. I honestly thought I had enough distance and room to distract her and then retreat, but she just formed out of nowhere right in front of me.”

“It was a projected double,” Meg says. “Some strong mages are able to create one and send it several dozen feet to conduct touch-related spells at range.”

“It felt pretty solid when it hit me.”

“That was its magic hitting you, not something material. Still hurts though.”

“How do you know about it?”

Meg shrugs. “I knew someone once who could do something like it. She was one of the good guys though.”

“This is not one of the good guys.”

“No,” she agrees, shaking her head. “Did you notice anything else about her?”

“Blond, had a bit of an H.G. Wells vibe going on. I think she was elven.”

“H.G. Wells?”

“Lots of dark tweed, a women’s waistcoat. Like an evil Victorian librarian.” Part of me knows she’d have no idea what I mean, but I can’t think of any other way to describe her, and my head is still spinning too much to try. “Had that whole hot-elf thing going on. Or would have, if she weren’t trying to suck my life force away.”

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Meg scoffs. “She wasn’t trying anything, Keira. She was succeeding.”

Heavy footsteps crunch outside, and Meg pulls her sword partly out of her scabbard as she leans back to look past the edge of the tent. It must be the guys, though, because she relaxes. Slightly.

Flynt comes into view first, his expression knit, complexion a little gray. His shirt is torn in several places and there’s blood on the collar. He doesn’t say anything to me, but does meet my eyes, and his jaw tightens further.

Tyrus, meanwhile, has a bruise on his face and one arm of his shirt is ripped and soaked in drying blood; considering we were fighting skeletons, I have to assume it’s his.

Both, however, seem to be up and about okay. They settle on the nearest log around the fire pit, facing toward us. Jonas takes a seat on his bedroll, while Meg remains standing, arms folded across her chest.

“We’re out of our depth,” Flynt says, before anyone else can break the silence. “We all know it.”

Meg nods. “I agree.”

“I don’t think any of us can deny that we’re all a little fragile right now,” I say, glancing around at my party. “We had a tough evening and a rough morning. That doesn’t mean we can’t handle it, though. We know what we’re up against, now.”

“How can you be so casual about that?” Jonas asks, frowning. “You and I nearly died.”

“But at least we saved each other?” I offer a thin smile. It’s not returned. “Does everyone want to drop the quest and go back? Is that what you’re all saying?”

Flynt clasps his hands in front of him as his elbows rest on his knees. “Keira, we have to be realistic. We simply don’t have the power right now.”

“This is how we get it though,” I argue. “Right? Isn’t that what you all explained to me when we started this? This is experience. Experience is how you get power, which is how you put a stop to bad things happening.”

I look around at all of them, their slightly ashen faces, the fact that none of them—not even Meg—want to look me in the eye right now.

“Okay. Then. What are we going to do instead? Go be security for some wealthy travelers? Hunt some more goblins? Maybe we could get lucky and find a troll or two. In between fetch quests and delivery details, of course.”

“It was one fetch quest.” Flynt’s tone is low as he raises his index finger. “One. And you all act as if it’s definitive of what our experience is going to be! We’ve only been at this for a few weeks. And you all want to jump to the big stuff we're just not ready for. Or am I the only one who heard Nyssa?”

“Hey, don’t bring me into all of that,” Jonas mutters. “I was against this, remember?”

“We’re all a little on edge,” Tyrus says, spreading his hands in front of him as if trying to calm a loud child. “Let’s walk carefully before we let that get the better of us.”

Heat rises under my collar and the tips of my stupid ears burn hot. “Flynt, it’s not about jumping to the end, it’s about making sure we don’t get stalled.”

“There’s determined pursuit, and then there’s recklessness, Keira. The latter isn’t going to get you a ticket home, wherever that even is—it’s just going to get you killed, and probably going to take us along with you.” Flynt’s cheeks have darkened, his eyes are hard. He wipes a sweep of hair out of his face.

“At least I have something I’m trying to achieve! And getting good at this is the only way I have for doing that. I know I’m not the only one.”

“Flynt’s right about that, though,” Jonas says, softly. “We can’t achieve anything if we get ourselves killed.”

“We can’t achieve anything playing it safe, either,” I reply more sharply than I mean to. “Didn’t Tyrus say just that a couple days ago?”

Under normal circumstances, I’d come at this more logically, I know that, but I didn’t sleep enough, and I spent at least some of the morning mostly dead, which is making me hurt all over. I also really, really don’t like emotional confrontation, I am not at all good at it, which current events surely reinforce. Flynt's tone hurts.

But I make myself pause and draw a deep breath. “I know that this is where we’re meant to be going.”

“How?” Tyrus asks, his tone remaining the calmest of anyone so far.

“I just… do.”

“Sometimes you can know that,” Meg says, slowly, “but also be misinterpreting it. Maybe we’re meant to go down this road eventually, but not quite yet.” We stare at one another for a long beat, her amber eyes unblinking. “The world doesn’t usually send people into situations they can’t handle.”

“Doesn’t that suggest we can handle this, then?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer me directly, just shakes her head. “It will, sometimes, offer signs when you shouldn’t chase something right away.”

“I still don’t love the idea of chalking this all up to fate,” Tyrus says. “I really wish we would stop suggesting that.”

“Look. This will just find us,” I argue. “We chase it, or not, eventually, it’s going to find us, and if we don’t push ourselves, we’re not going to be ready then, either.”

“Why do you want this so badly?” Flynt asks, exasperated. “Why are you so determined to have a death wish?”

“I don’t have a death wish!” I can’t help but exclaim. “I just want to find a way to understand what is happening. I want control of something. Okay? And maybe it’s not logical, and maybe it’s not reasonable, and maybe it makes no sense, but this Stone may be a way to find that. Or at least, prevent other people from taking even more control from me.”

“Zendriel’s wings, Keira, you’ve been through some shit haven’t you?” Tyrus asks, frowning.

“We all have.” I adjust my shoulders. “But I mean, we were all on board with this plan before. Except Jonas, admittedly.” I motion gently toward him in acknowledgment of his previous hesitations. “But then things get hard and that changes?” I look around at them. “Really? Flynt, you were in this on the other side of the Sound.”

“We weren’t facing a high-powered necromancer, then. And didn’t we just discuss this, Keira? I don’t want to lose anyone! Why is that so hard to understand?”

“I don’t want to lose anyone either! But Tyrus was right. We’re not getting into this to play it safe or have fun. We’re in this to make a difference and maybe a little money.” I add that last bit while looking at my dwarven companion whose mouth is pulled into a tight line.

“I agreed with you before,” Tyrus says. “And I still do. We’re here, we might as well try to see what we can find out. That doesn’t mean we should go charging in and picking fights, but a little scouting can’t hurt. Then, depending on what we find, we go to Nyssa, contritely, confess what we’ve done, and follow it up with what we’ve found.”

“Assuming we’re able to get back to Nyssa,” Jonas says. “I’m almost out. It’s going to take most of a day to get anything back. You have to be, too.” He nods toward Flynt. “And Keira, you can’t be at full health either. I could only get you up so far.”

“I know.” I’m not sore, I’m not in pain, but I feel drained and weirdly hollow. “But what did your farmer friend say? It’s at least another day’s walk, right? We get close. Camp. Rest. Hope we don’t have a repeat.”

“And if we do?” Flynt asks.

“We are more ready,” Meg acknowledges, somewhat grudgingly. “We know how to fight them. If the worst this necromancer does is throw some skeletons and some psychotropic fog at us…”

Jonas shudders. “And if she comes at us herself?”

Tyrus shrugs. “There’s five of us. If we work together like we’ve been training instead of go off on our own…”

“Even if we were at full strength, it’s a bad idea,” Flynt says, looking directly at Meg. “You know it. We’re not ready.”

Tyrus scoffs, and then offers me a small smile. “Not with that attitude.”

I feel bad that of all of us, he’s the one I know the least, though Tyrus definitely has his guarded side. It’s not as obvious as Meg’s, but it’s there. It’s true I haven’t pressed to be let in, but he hasn’t reached out either.

He moves from the log and settles next to Jonas, squeezing our healer’s arm before taking his hand and interlacing their fingers.

“How about this. We pack things up here, and follow Keira’s suggestion. We find somewhere far enough out from the ruins that we’re not going to set off any undead alarms, and then Elf Girl and I do a little quiet scouting—with a promise of no shooting this time. Then we gather back with what we’ve found, and we assess from there.”

Meg and Flynt both look unconvinced, but Meg sighs and settles in Tyrus’s place on the log. “I just wish we had any way to communicate with each other aside from shouting.”

“That should be the first thing we remedy,” Flynt agrees, voice downcast. “I should have taken those enchanting stones that have been sitting in the Emporium.”

“Enchanting stones?” I ask.

“I know a communications spell I could imbue on them, which would create Meg’s rockie-talkies. Unfortunately, my skill in utility spells is fairly rudimentary, so I need matériel that’s already tuned to take enchantments.”

I raise a finger and reach back, pulling my bag out from under my makeshift pillow. I reach in and extract the two stones that have been there since Day One—they were originally the glowing novelty ice cubes in my free adult beverage at the Experience tavern, but the transition to Qeth converted them to smooth opalescent cubes that have a glittery, liquid core. [Inventory] helpfully labeled them. I display them in my hand, then hold them out toward him.

Meg frowns as she watches Flynt take them from my palm and inspect them. “Where did you get those?”

I shrug. “They came with me.”

Tyrus scoffs. “You’ve been carrying around enchanting stones all this time, but you didn’t even bring a change of clothes. And this is who we let do the packing.”