We did not have to wait long until we heard Peter’s voice: “Students, assemble at the centre of the camp.”

Nyx decided to ride on my head as we walked towards the teachers. It did not take long until everyone was there.

“As many of you have heard, there was an incident.” Peter started. Now that we were close, he did not amplify his voice with magic anymore. “Archibald Winston was severely injured by a vampiric nightshade. He will make a full recovery, thanks to Victoria's healing talents. Those plants should not have been in the area. They were concealed with magic. At this point, we cannot determine how many there are. Combined with the spiders, it is clear that this area is no longer suitable for a field exercise. Therefore, we shall leave tomorrow. Also, the royal army will start an investigation into those incidents. Be assured that whoever is responsible shall suffer the consequences of their actions. Dismissed.”

As we walked back to our tents, I heard a familiar voice. “I would start the investigation right there.” Florence said, pointing at us. “Surely they are involved.”

I would have ignored her but Helena responded: “We were attacked too. But we just killed the plant. Because we can do more than talk.”

“Probably more artefacts. Clearly Nyx is not your creation and you had help. I wonder what you had to do for those favours…” Jack said while leering at me.

“You all look remarkably healthy considering Archibald’s condition. Did you deliberately feed him to the plant? Because I could understand that.” Helena said while smiling sweetly.

“What? How dare you!” Florence said.

“Did you even kill the plant? Or just take Archibald and run away?” I asked. Their faces turned red.

“Of course we did not kill it! We had to ensure Archibald got medical care after our useless group leader led us into the ambush!” Florence protested.

“Blaming others for your failure. How sad.” Cassie said while shaking her head.

“You just wait. When the royal investigators arrive, we shall see who laughs!” Florence said.

Then she left with her group.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Royal investigators?” I asked my friends.

“A subsection of the military. They handle crimes committed by nobles, or look into foreign sabotage.” Helena explained.

“Could this be a foreign plot?” I wondered.

“Ilestria does like to stir up trouble.” Skadi said.

“I am not sure why they would go after the Korrah Forest, but who knows? They are a bunch of nutjobs.” Cassie said.

“Nutjobs?” I wondered.

“They hate death magic.” Helena explained. “They think it’s evil.”

“They even think blood magic is evil.” Skadi added.

“They are really silly. As if burning someone would be better than withering them with death magic.” Cassie said. “Killing is killing and it is rarely painless.”

“Good for us, in a way. Nethena welcomes necromancers who flee from Ilestria. Really pisses them off too.” Helena said with a smile.

It was late afternoon by now and we returned to our tents. There was nothing left to do until tomorrow.

“I am looking forward to proper food again. And a bath.” Helena said as we prepared a campfire.

“Well, looks like we will have stew for dinner, with the last of our boar. How much did we get for selling the meat?” I asked.

“I got us one gold for the meat and five silver for the hide. We still have the horn.” Skadi said. She was handling the finances. “I think we might be able to get up to six gold for the horn back in Lupos.”

“We should have kept more of it. It will take us four days to get back…” Helena said.

“I don’t think four days of heavily salted boar meat would have been that great.” I countered.

“Crackers. We are facing four days of crackers.” Helena said.

“We survived spiders, a horned boar, a vampiric nightshade, we will survive crackers too.” I assured her.

She looked sceptical.

“Maybe we can convince Nyx to go fishing in the Jinso?” Skadi proposed.

All eyes turned towards my head. Nyx did not react, she was curled up and sleeping.

“Maybe. We won’t reach the river before tomorrow evening.” I said.

“You should feed her the goblins. Surely that is a fair trade.” Cassie suggested.

“We will see.” I liked my goblins. Having undead guards around did appeal to me. I should get more minions.

“What are we going to do tonight?” Helena asked.

I considered that. “I think I will practise some magic. The water shield was really useful. I need to work on that. And some offensive ice magic.”

“I can’t do much alchemy here. I am looking forward to my lab again.” Cassie said.

Helena sighed. “It’s a shame we did not bring any cards.”

“I don’t know any card games.” I admitted.

“We need to change that when we get back!” Helena declared.

“I… I don’t have much money to play with.” I did not want to gamble away what I had.

“Not all card games are about money.” Skadi assured me. “There is a fun one that works with four people. And you can just play for points.”

“Oh yeah! Jacks is a great game.” Cassie said enthusiastically.

“Jacks?” I inquired.

“It’s called that because the jack is the strongest card. In most games it’s the king. But the jack kind of symbolises an assassin posing as a normal person. Or that is how the story goes. It’s a fun game, that is what matters.”

“Sounds fun. I look forward to it.” I smiled. Having friends was great. We talked some more, had some food. and afterwards I trained my magic a bit. When it was time for bed I barely felt the wounds in my legs anymore. Nyx settled only my tail and I fell asleep quickly.