We let Flynt and Meg sleep another hour or so before Jonas can’t take it anymore and collapses down between them like the golden retriever he is, happily waking them up. It’s entertaining to watch if not necessarily entertaining to experience, and Tyrus and I can’t help but chuckle as a tousled Flynt clamors out of the sleeping bag to escape a highly annoyed Meg, whose irritation only makes Jonas laugh.

“There are better ways to accomplish your goals,” Flynt grouses as he wanders over toward us, raking his hand through his hair, which stands up in a variety of different directions. His eyes crease as he glances at me, adding age to his face in a way I can’t help but appreciate. I wonder how old he is, though is seems rude to ask given I don’t even know how old I am in this reality (if that is indeed what this is).

I’m also not sure how to gauge it. He’s half elf, so he could be seventy years old, for all I know, with a hundred more to go. He could also be twenty-five, though I doubt it. Who knows. It doesn’t really matter. Team booty is bad booty, and besides, Tyrus raised a good point about risks—despite it being none of his business.

Flynt pauses in front of me and inclines his head slightly. “May I retrieve my extra shirt from your bag?”

“Thank you for asking.” I hand it toward him and give Tyrus a meaningful look.

“You were asleep,” the dwarf says.

“Like you would have asked if I weren’t.”

“You’ll never know.”

“I can guess.”

Flynt sets the bag down on the large boulder nearby and lays his extra shirt on top of it before tugging off the one he slept in.

Now, let's be honest here. I knew that Flynt was fit. I’d seen his arms, I’ve been hugged by him, and I spent at least part of the morning gently snuggling. I just didn’t quite realize how fit.

He’s not as showy as a Marvel superhero, but it’s hard not to stare as he pulls the clean shirt on over his head, making sure the heavy cotton fabric is in place before he folds the sleeves halfway up his forearms, exposing parts of those light tattoos.

I glance at Tyrus who is also watching, and I swat at him. It’s hard to tell even through the shorter beard, but the tips of his ears turn red and I have to imagine he’s generally blushing.

“What would Jonas say?” I mouth at him.

“Shut up,” he mouths back.

I chuckle, glancing back toward Flynt who is folding his dirty shirt and gently placing it back in the bag, closing it and then opening it to make sure that it went wherever things that are placed in there go. He hands the bag toward me with a quizzical expression.

“What?”

“What,” I scoff, taking it from him. “I’m just wondering if you need any tape.”

“Tape?” he asks me.

“Yeah, because you’re ripped.”

There’s a small pause. “I don’t know what you mean,” he says, but the deeper green flush across his cheeks suggests otherwise.

I laugh. “Sure you don’t.” And Tyrus snickers too.

“How’d a scholar type get so many muscles?” Tyrus asks, scooping out some of the breakfast hash onto the same plate I used and handing it to Flynt.

“I don’t know where you get the idea that I’m so academic.” Flynt took the offered food and fork. “Nor do I understand the stereotypes. A scholar can’t be strong?”

Tyrus shrugs. “Sure. It’s just unusual. Usually, casters like you spend time strengthening the mind. Not the body.”

“I do both. I’ve wanted to do this a long time, Tyrus. A guy like me only gets the opportunity once or twice. I wanted to make sure I offered everything I possibly could.”

“It’s not your orkishness coming through?” Tyrus asks, raising one eyebrow.

Flynt scoffs, shaking his head as he takes a bite of breakfast. “You’re stronger than I am. Is your strength just your dwarvishness coming through?”

“Absolutely,” Tyrus says, laughing. “I don’t got time for it otherwise.”

“Oh.” Flynt frowns. “Well. The green and tusks aside, I’m naturally more elvish than anything. I have to work for the strength.”

“Fair enough. Speaking of.” He glances over his shoulder. “Meggers! Stop beating up Jonas and come get some food!”

As Flynt and Meg eat, Jonas, Tyrus, and I break down camp and pack everything away, then we head out onto the road with the traces of dawn well and truly gone.

We journey a couple hours before the cold breeze starts to blow in some weather, clouds darkening the sky and then breaking. For not the first time, I wish there were umbrellas in Qeth—or at least actually waterproof rain gear—but no such luck. As far as I can tell there isn’t even a spell to help keep you dry.

Fortunately, we only have to travel in the rain and mud for another hour or so before we find ourselves at the North Gate and make our way down toward the Emporium, where we use the back entrance that his father apparently asked we start using during business hours.

I stop by the kitchen to deposit the remaining perishable supplies as well as the dirty pots and plates, exchanging a smile and some pleasantries with Almira, the housekeeper, before popping upstairs. I just want a bath, but Meg is in there, and so I have to wait my turn. I do change though, getting out of my wet clothes, before heading down to the library study where I find the guys. Flynt is just starting the fire and hands me a blanket.

“I’ve told Nyssa that we’re back,” Flynt says. “She wants us to come report in.”

“We’ve already told her everything we found, haven't we?” I pause at the game table to take out the loot that we uncovered for Tyrus to sort through. He eagerly takes it, dumping out the various bags. Two are full of gems, which he sets aside along with the three boxes we collected: the broach, two necklaces, and the empty one. I replace the boxes in the bag. “What more does she want to know?”

“I’m not sure,” he admits.

“Can we go tomorrow? I’m really tired. I just want to take a bath, do some reading, and go to bed early.”

“Hear hear,” Jonas agrees, taking one of the bags with gems and looking through it. “Ooh, pretty.” He holds up a sapphire. “What do you think, Flynt? These looks more like jewelry gems than spell components.” He tosses the bag toward Flynt, who catches it easily.

“I think we need to report in sooner rather than later, unfortunately,” he says, moving toward his desk and dumping the gems out on top of his journal, whistling slightly between his teeth. “These are going to be valuable. We should definitely sell these.”

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Would your dad take them?” Jonas asks.

“No, we should go to one of the jewelers. I can ask if he would recommend anyone.”

“Won’t that raise eyebrows?” I ask. “Won’t they think we stole them?”

“We didn’t steal them,” Jonas says.

“They belonged to someone. That was someone’s storage vault.”

“It wasn’t an especially secure one if it was,” Tyrus says. “And you saw it. It didn’t look like anyone had been there in decades. Except the first team and whoever killed them.”

I turn my usual chair around a little bit before I sit so I can better see the others while still getting the benefits of the fire. I settle and drape the blanket over me, shuddering.

“So we think they were killed?” I ask.

“Those skeletons didn’t animate themselves,” Jonas mutters, shaking his head. “I found an animation coin on one of them.”

“I found one of those too.” I open my bag and pull it out, then toss it toward him. It’s far from expertly aimed, landing on the table instead and Tyrus picks it up.

“This has to be something else,” Tyrus says, frowning and shaking his head before handing it off to Jonas. “That’s the Terravin crest. An older version of it, but still.”

I snap and point at him. “That’s why it looks familiar.” Now that he says it, I remember seeing it in one of the history books I’ve been trying to devour in our downtime.

“I can’t see them messing around with the undead,” Jonas mutters, taking the coin and inspecting it.

I frown. “Are you sure? Because I’m pretty sure it’s an animation coin.”

“I guess we can’t be, but it’s pretty unlikely,” Tyrus says. “My understanding is Terravin magic is all about the natural order.”

Jonas shrugs. “Death is pretty natural, if we’re being literal about it. Though I agree, it would be unusual. I can’t imagine one of the Four Families actively engaged in darker magicks.”

“Really?” I raise an eyebrow. “People with significant power don’t try to get more in Qeth?”

“Of course they do,” Flynt says. “Raising the undead, though, is on a different level. What do you think, Jonas, does it look like the one you found?”

Jonas shakes his head. “It’s the same size and metal, but the Terravin crest isn’t exactly brimming with necromantic power. If anything, the rose and brambles are meant to be a counter to it. This wouldn’t hold an undead enchantment for very long, if at all.”

“I mean, that all makes sense,” I hedge, even though I know what my [Inventory] said—and I have no reason to doubt my little [Interface]. If it is unreliable, that’s going to require me to rethink some things I don’t really want to rethink.

If this coin wasn’t important, though, why would it have been ‘looted’ from the ogre corpse? We have to be missing something. Maybe Jonas’s understanding of it is wrong? Or maybe he’s covering it for some reason?

“What makes you think it’s a coin of animation?” he asks.

“I found it on the ogre.”

Jonas’s forehead furrows as he turns it over in his hands. He shakes his head. “Well, if it was, the enchantment is gone.”

“That has to be a good thing,” Flynt says.

“Absolutely. But there’s usually an echo left on something used to create and control undead. It would have to be an extremely powerful necromancer for an enchantment as strong as a reanimate spell to dissipate without a trace. The coin I found…” He moves, reaching into one of his pouches to retrieve something that looks almost identical to mine from this distance. “It’s still humming with it. And it has a traditional necromantic sigil carved on it.”

He tosses it my way and I almost fall out of my chair to catch it. It is cold and heavier than it should be.

“It feels weird,” I mutter, inspecting it.

“Exactly. That’s the residual dark magic. What you found doesn’t have that.”

The coin is the same size and shape as mine, but Jonas is right, it has a completely different design on it: the bas relief of a skull surrounded by what looks like a wreath of vertebrae. The metal is visually darker, too, as if it has a permanent shadow cast over it.

It gives me the creeps and I quickly toss it back. Jonas catches it and tucks it back into his pouch, tossing mine back to me. It just feels like a coin.

“So either I’m wrong and my coin is something else, or it was cast by a really powerful necromancer. Could a Terravin caster have gone… I don’t know how to describe it. Dark Side? Picked up death magic?”

“Death magic?” Tyrus scoffs.

“Necromancy. Whatever.”

“No, that’s fair,” Jonas says. “It is death magic. It’s not automatically evil, though. Some spells would only be cast out of evil intention, but the magic itself doesn’t have alignment. It’s only as good or evil as the wielder. You can do positive things with necromancy.”

“You can also do horrible things with other magicks,” Flynt agrees. He sits back in his chair, folding his arms as he considers everything. “I use nature magic. I can cause a lot of damage with it. Fire, force. It’s as destructive as anything. Maybe more so.”

Jonas nods, scratching a hand back through his short black hair. “Also a very good point. Similarly, a lot of healing magic has dark roots.” He doesn’t elaborate beyond that. I don’t divulge what I know, and neither does Flynt—though I’m not sure if Flynt knows Jonas’s magic is necromantic per se.

“So I guess my question still is, what is a coin with a Terravin crest doing on an undead monster?” I ask, glancing at Flynt and then quickly back to Jonas who shrugs.

“Who knows,” Jonas says. “Someone may have been trying to dispel it.”

“What do you mean?”

“It could have had a disanimation enchantment on it. It’s theory, so far as I know, though. Sound theory. But I don’t know of anyone who has managed to actually do it.”

“We covered the theory at the academy. It would make sense… A Terravin magic user encounters the ogre, tries the theory, only it doesn’t work, so the ogre maintains?”

“Exactly,” Jonas says.

“Then why didn’t I find an animation coin?” I ask. “Why did I only find that?”

“That’s a good question. I don’t know. Maybe you just weren’t able to look closely enough. Maybe it fell into the pond.”

“Do you always need an animation coin?”

“Outside of the Black Lake, yes,” Flynt says. “The Lake has a lot of dark energy around it, so it can manifest undead naturally, but undead can’t ever exist that far from the Lake. Anything this far out would have to be done intentionally. And, if it’s going to last outside the range of the original caster, it needs a coin.”

Flynt pauses, frowning, seeming to be thinking things through. Then, he shakes his head.

“We didn’t spend much time on necromancy, but it’s part of what makes it all so dangerous: the caster can cause havoc from miles away. They’d just need to enchant a coin, embed it on the creature, and leave.”

“General life magic can do the same, if you think about it—it just has more positive effects,” Jonas says. “Protection amulets, moon bracelets, shield rings. But that’s because it’s two sides of the same coin, so to speak. Life and death.” Jonas looks across the room to Flynt. “Nature magic is a little different, but you can create wands, right? Give others the ability to wield it.”

“Yes, but you have to have a talent for it,” Flynt replies. “That’s a lot of schooling and long apprenticeships.”

“So you didn’t make my little fire stick, then?” I ask.

“Oh, no,” he shakes his head. “It's not my area of expertise, much to Da’s dismay.”

“It’s hard to switch between quick casting and infusing. Entirely different muscles, for lack of a better term. Most people only have a knack for one or the other,” Jonas says. “But many necromancers are able to do both. The magic has an inherent stickiness to it.”

“Hate to break up the exchange of ideas,” Tyrus says. “But we had a good outing, my friends. Assuming Nyssa lets us keep it all, we have eighteen gold, fifty-seven silver, nine copper, and twenty-three iron each, with the same to the group funds.”

I can’t help but gasp. “Holy shit.”

“Let’s not tell Da.” Flynt chuckles. “He’s going to start making us pay rent.”

“Nah. Da would never do that,” Jonas says, grinning.

“Maybe not to you,” Flynt says, “but the rest of us.”

“Hey, I can’t help that I’m lovable.”

“This is before we figure out what we want to do with those gems,” Tyrus adds. “We might want to think about trying to get a couple of them enchanted, now that I think about it. That sapphire would make a good protection pendant for one of our squishier party members.” He looks pointedly between me and Jonas.

“That’s a very good idea,” Flynt agrees. “I think one of those necklaces we found may already be one.”

I frown. “How does that work, exactly?”

“What do you mean?” Jonas asks.

“You wear it and it’s harder to damage you,” Tyrus says with the most no duh tone I’ve heard outside of the sixth grade.

“Right, I got that much, but the hows have never been clear to me. Not a magic user, remember? I’ve never been around it much.”

“It’s imbued with a protection spell,” Flynt replies. “It makes you heartier.”

“Like, my skin is harder to break or something?”

“Something like that. Honestly, it can be better not to think about it too hard. We just know that it works. Magic can be difficult to explain sometimes.”

Tyrus chuckles. “That’s what makes something magic.”

Jonas nods and gestures in agreement.

The door opens, then, and Meg appears, looking like a much happier person than she’s been all day.

“Yes!” I launch myself to my feet. “My turn!”

“Sorry,” she says.

I wave a hand. “Don’t worry about it.” I pause by the table and scoop up my share of the loot as well as the party’s portion, putting each into the appropriate pouch and tucking them back in my bag. “I’m going to take a bath, warm up, and then, if it’s stopped raining, let’s go deal with Nyssa.”

“If it is still raining?” Flynt asks.

“Then we wait for tomorrow and hope she understands.”

“She may not.”

“Then she can come to us,” I reply. “I don’t want to go back out in that rain. It’s wet and it’s cold.”

“She has a point,” Meg agrees.

“Okay,” Flynt murmurs in a voice that suggests he’s not at all convinced it will be okay. “But I’m blaming you two if she gets angry.”