Dulrak held a square of paper between his first two fingers. “Selvank looks upon us with favor. This is a map to a tomb.”

Mery sat down beside him. “Had that long?”

Lund entered the sheltered ruin next and leaned against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. Isa paused at the threshold of the makeshift doorway. Lund was tense; Mery seemed wary of the dwarf’s words, but why?

“I just got this! From yon captain.” Dulrak gestured through the main doorway where they’d fought the bandit leader.

“Didn’t know we were looting already.” Mery’s voice sounded mild.

“Come now! Don’t play games. I wanted to make sure he was good and dead. Unlike your friends there, I like to make sure my enemies are dead before I turn my back on them.”

“Why are we bickering, and who’s Selvank?” Alice asked as she sat down on the other side of the dwarf.

“He’s my god, the source of my power. Watches over the rocks and rivers and rain, he does.”

Alice nodded and then said, “Where I come from--”

Mery leaned forward and caught Alice’s eye. “Not to be rude, let’s talk about this map and this tomb.” To Dulrak she said, “Are we going to get more visitors do you think?”

Isa took up a spot beside Lund. “Yeah,” she said quietly, “I should have made sure he was dead.”

“You were thinking about Alice.” He pushed himself off the wall and announced, “I’ll take a look around outside. See if those 2 runners have found their courage.”

Mery looked puzzled so Isa said, “We were fighting 3 people and when the leader, I guess he was the leader, when he fell, they ran.”

“I don’t know,” said Dulrak in answer to Mery’s question. “It’s a map not a battle plan.” He held the square out to Mery.

She spread it on her knees and leaned forward to view it by the firelight. Alice and Dulrak leaned forward, too. After a moment Alice glanced up at Isa. “Looks like a baseball diamond.”

“What sort of diamond?” asked Mery.

“It’s not a real diamond.” Isa crouched beside Mery. “It’s a shape.” She traced her finger along the vertical line of the map. To Isa, the map simply looked like half a square with only the bottom parts showing. An arc connected the two halves about halfway up, and on the left side an X sat to the right of the line. On the right side, almost on top of bottom part of the square, was a circle with a line through it. “OK,” she said, “maybe it’s a map, but where do you get the tomb part?”

Dulrak reached over and brushed his finger against the letters at the bottom of the page. “That spells out Menesia. And that, down below says ‘Resting place.’”

“But this is just someone’s drawing,” said Alice.

“Yeah, that’s generally what a map is.” Mery shook her head slightly. “Quiet, everyone I need to think. The name is familiar. Menesia.”

Isa stood. “Maybe one of the others has something on him. More of the map or something. Ally, wanna help me?” Isa held out her hand to Alice.

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“Help you?” Her girlfriend looked up blankly.

“With looting. The bodies. We need to see if they have anything useful.” As the words left her mouth she knew what Alice was feeling. It was the same trepidation that she herself had felt in the early days. Picking items off a fallen enemy in a game is one thing. Touching the body of a dead person, taking possessions from their lifeless corpse, was quite another. And Alice hadn’t been faced yet with this part of combat. The wyvern fight, they’d fled and left the battlefield looting to the gnolls.

Alice took Isa’s hand and stood. “Right. Of course.” Her voice was tight.

“It gets easier,” Isa murmured as they squeezed through the cracked opening.

“It’s just -- looting in the game is always so fun. Fun for Michelle, fun for us. But this….” Alice gestured at the 2 dead bandits crumpled on the ground. “This feels like desecration.”

Isa knelt beside one of the men. “This is a hostile place. Most things out here are trying to kill us, or maybe I mean that nothing cares if we live or die, so we have to care.” She unbuckled his scimitar and pulled the sword and scabbard free. The sword felt fairly light, especially compared to her staff. But the staff…. It was versatile, simple, powerful. It was there whenever she needed it.

Alice’s voice broke through Isa’s thoughts. “I said, how do you know what to keep? Encumbrance is a real thing.”

“I take the coins and the weapons and tend to leave the rest unless it’s unusual. Like Wat found these lucky dice once, and….” Had she asked Mery about Wat? She made a note to do that when they were done here.

“It’d be too much to hope to get a nice notebook filled with information--”

“Notebook! Alice, love, you are brilliant!” Isa scrambled to open the dead man’s bag. “Have I asked you to marry me?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you say?” Isa’s hands had found the hard shape of the man’s notebook.

Alice looked at Isa. “If you have to ask….”

She was flipping through the pages. “This guy had a 13 intelligence. What was he doing with this bunch? He should have known better.”

“I rest my case,” said Alice, but there was a smile on her face.

“Babe,” Isa walked on her knees to Alice. “Check this out: under Quests, ‘The tomb of Menesia, king of Kelima. Journey with Rucker to the tomb and recover the crown of Menesia for Walver Stonegrime. Reward 500 gold.’” Isa looked at Alice. “The crown of an ancient king. That’s pretty badass, right? What do you think Ysel would think about a small side quest?”

Alice sat back on her heels. “The same thing I do - no. We don’t have time.”

“But what if there’s something we can use? What if there’s something we’re gonna need? Maybe that crown or a scroll or something. Maybe this isn’t a side quest.” Isa’s hand went to her side to get her notebook, but her bag was by the campfire. “I want to look at my quest log. Maybe this Menesia is part of the, the tapestry of our quest, huh?”

Alice stood and brushed off her hands. “Why are you so reluctant to-- No, that’s not the right way to phrase it.” She touched Isa’s arm. “What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing I’m not telling you.” She turned so that her back was to the opening and spoke quietly. “Look, Ysel sent us out here, right? She sent us. She didn’t lead us. She’s not with us. Yeah, she lectured us about the dire outcomes if we fail and about how the Shimmer is dying, but if she really thought that we had only days to complete this, she’d have come. Right? She’d have come.”

Alice looked at Isa and in the dim light, her eyes seemed dark and unreadable.

“I’m not saying we’re doing this, Al. I’m not. But if we have a new quest, well, I don’t know maybe that’s a sign. Maybe that’s Her telling us, guiding us.”

“You don’t want to leave here, do you?”

Isa gestured at the ruins. “There’s not even a full room here. Of course I want to leave.” Isa crossed her arms. “I don’t--”

Alice placed a hand on Isa’s arm. “Let’s join the others.” She touched Isa’s forehead and pushed a lock of hair from her eyes. “I understand. I do. I understand.” She moved past Isa toward friends and fire.