Over the next few days, Vaska caught up with the business that her frequent trips away often neglected. When Vaska was in the city, she lived in an empty upstairs rooms, in Rael's house when she was in town. It was there that she woke up the next day to the sounds of Rael already up and giving Thomas the tasks that he would be expected to fulfill each day. She took her daily dose of medicine and with the sun staring to lighten the sky, she got up dressing in her town clothes and went through her morning duties, oiling her leather armor and cleaning her sword. Those done, she went down to rejoin the world.

“I’ve almost forgotten what you looked like out of armor.” Rael said, as she caught sight of Vaska coming down the stairs. As Vaska looked at her plain clothes, Rael continued “You should put the armor away more often.”

“I’m too busy for that you know that.” Vaska said as she went to the kitchen.

“I wish you weren’t.” Rael said almost to herself. Vaska didn’t hear it as she was already in the other room. Thomas was at the washbowl, cleaning and drying the used vials. The porridge was still sitting on the hearth, so Vaska helped herself to the meal. There was a certain amount of peace in settling into the routine of the city.

“Let Rael know that I won’t be back until later in the day.” Vaska said to Thomas before heading out on the first of her tasks.

The man who had taught her how to wield a sword had retired from the guard when he could no longer hold a sword with any certainty. Now he spent most of his day teaching the youth the basics of sword fighting, before they went off to their own careers. It was there, in the training yard, that she found him shouting at the youth as they took swings at one another. The currently sparring pair hadn’t quite tired of the sounds of the wooden swords clacking against each other.

“No! No. That’s not how you fight, the point isn’t to make noise. It’s to gut the bastard.” The old soldier shouted at them. He was about to continuing to shout at them when he caught sight of Vaska approaching “Go home and think on what you’ve learned today.” They all scattered, a few stopping to watch Vaska approach, before following. “Well,” he said, “I see that your still alive.”

“And so are you old man.” Vaska said with a smile.

“If my hands could still hold a sword, I’d feed you that ‘old man’” He said, a faint smile crossing his face before disappearing. “Tell me of all your adventures.”

“So you can tell me what I’ve done wrong.” She stated.

“It wouldn’t be good for you if I didn’t.” He said. They went in and Vaska told him of the travels that she had since the last time they had spoken. When she spoke of Thomas, the old man burst out laughing. “Now you know what dealing with you was like.”

Vaska frowned “I was never so stubborn.”

“No, you were much worse. You came every day, and only left when your hands and feet bled.”

She held up a finger in protest. “That was different,” Vaska said, she could remember that well.

“Not so much.” He said. She could only remain silent at that and they quietly finished their conversation, their minds now on those that had been lost. She spent the rest of her time in the city catching up with friends that she had neglected over the time, and that she didn’t get to see nearly as often as she saw Rael. When rumor’s of monsters started to flow into the city from the north, she prepared to leave. Rael gave her a full bag of medicines as she was packing her bags. “Hopefully these last you longer.”

“Thanks.” She pulled Rael into a hug, Rael hugged back, her hands on the back of the shoulders. She tucked the medicines into her backpack and started out on her way walking to the north.

The road north was lined with stone and hard beaten earth between, wagon’s from the fields loaded with their crops, bundles of leafy boarsweed (Amaranth) resting in the back their wheels packing the dirt harder, passing by staggered fields of Teff. A herd of goats crossed forcing Vaska to listen to the swearing of the wagondrivers, the banality of it was refreshing. One of the goats paused to sniff at her and bite at her leather armor. Vaska smiled and with her hands around their muzzle, told them no. Once released the goat bleated and followed the rest of it’s kin.

She made her way to Bear Falls, a small town by a small river that fell into a pool. The area was refreshingly green compared to the chaparral of the city. In the time that she had been there, there hadn’t been very few strangers in town. The four of them currently in town were all in the local inn, Vaska herself made five. They had all come in together, they looked like a merchant and his guards. None of them were old enough to be a veteran of the Black Lake Campaign, but that didn’t mean that they couldn’t still be cursed. One of the guards was a blond, who smiled at her and lifted his cup to her. She looked back at her cup, she had to be a bit more circumspect about watching them.

The night was getting long, and Vaska was rolling her shoulder to relive the tension that indicated that tonight she would have quite a lot of pain in them by the morning. The Merchant was well on the way to getting drunk, hoisting the flask of spirits up above his head, a little bit of the liquid falling out of it with each jerk of his hands. She was by the stairs when the murmur of the common room changed from soft babbling into a cavalcade of screams. Vaska spun around and the merchants guards were standing uselessly by when their master was starting to crack from the inside out. Lines crazed up and down his skin and the black blood started to pool out.

“Get away from him.” Vaska shouted as she ran. Two of the guards, turned to look at her and they were surprised when their former boss slashed out at them and they dropped to the floor. It was far to late for the merchant, now she could only grant him the peace of death. The locals were all smart enough to have fled at the first sight of trouble, so that was one problem out of the way. She jumped over the fallen guards to cut a wound into the side of the still humanoid monster. It roared and started to attack her, she braced herself for an impact and looked for an opening only for it to turn back. The blond guard had started to attack on the other side, distracting it from her. She pressed what little advantage she had and tried to cut off it's head. She cut it's neck, blood trickling out. It reflexively slashed at her, she backed up and tripped over one of the fallen guards who had been trying to get up, knocking them both flat. The other guard managed to get to his feet and stabbed the beast. He over extended in his panic and sent the sword through all the body, allowing his head to be clawed off.

“Don't let it scratch you.” She called out as she got her feet back under her. The blond nodded and resumed his attack, now that it was pinned by the dead guard's sword. Vaska flanked and between the two of them they made short work of it. They stood over the body and Vaska's mind flew along the pattern that was presenting it's self. The merchant's group had arrived in town today not long after her, so he couldn’t have gotten it here.

“Where were you before this?” She demanded.

“We came from the Fal'ion Chambers, to the East.” The blond said. Vaska knew where that was, it was very close to the Black Lake.

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“If any of you got scratched, go to the capital and ask for the healer Rael. She'll help you.” Vaska got her back pack and started walking, if she started now she could reach it by morning. As she walked out she finished off a vial of medicine, she would need it.

Behind her she heard the footsteps following her. Glancing over the shoulder she saw the blond guard following her. She turned back around and ignored him, if he was just going on his own way. Soon enough he caught up with her and they walked in silence for quite a while. “Is there a reason that your following me?”

“Well you might need directions to Fal'ion Chambers, and it looked like you know a lot about what happened back there.”

“I don't need directions, and I suppose I do know enough about it.”

“See many people turn into monsters then?”

“Enough.” She didn’t need anyone following along getting killed while she did her job. But maybe if she told him enough he would realize how much trouble he was in and leave. “It was the Black Curse.”

“What? That's a superstition.”

“Did what happen seem like a superstition?” The blond shook his head.

“Einnar.”

“What?”

“Einnar. It's my name.”

Vaska looked over at him, he was smiling at her again. She just nodded and gave him her name. The light was starting to break when the reached the outskirts of Fal'ion Chambers. It was a town that was built over the ruins of an earlier city. Sometimes the new building collapsed into the old buildings, killing anyone who was in them. Einnar pointed out where they had gone to stay for the night. It was in a small inn not to different from the one that they had just left.

“There was a merchant selling expensive beer, over in the square.” Einnar said, as they walked to the green.

“No one's here.” Vaska said. The town was very close to the Black Lake, she frowned at the ground. Was it possible that the infection was going through the tunnel's? It was a possibility if the ruins had flooded. But then why didn’t everyone else get infected?

“Did your employer do anything that the rest of you didn’t.”

“He went over and got the expensive beer.”

“Was that it?”

“That was it.” Vaska growled to herself, another dead end? No, it couldn’t be she started to walk around to try to find something anything that may have lead to the link that she needed. Someone was spreading the Curse deliberately. She wanted to ring his neck. She was stomping around the edge where Einnar had said that they had camped, when the ground gave way. With a surprised yelp she dropping into the ground. She landed in a room, that was half filled with water. Einnar had gone to the edge of the hole, and was shouting down. She waves him off, “Go get a rope!”

The edge of it started to crumbly forcing her back, she ducked back into an enclave and discovered that it was a hallway, as her hand hit old rotten wood. She was waiting for the dirt to stop dropping into the hole, when she heard the a faint chittering noise from the dark. With the room behind her filling up, she was forced to go toward the noise. She drew the sword as she advanced. Water oozed down the walls, moss fully covering the walls and as she walked thought it the moss came off the wall onto her. She would want a bath as soon as one was available, or at the very least wiping down. The thoughts of boiling water and being clean filled her mind, keeping her going on, as cold water dripped down the back of her armor. More chittering sounded from the dark intact halls. She couldn’t get the sound out of her head as she walked in the dark. Wanting any sign of light and wishing that she could see in the dark. Hopefully Einnar would see that the hole had collapsed and would find an exit and help her escape it. But most likely she was on her own.

She suspected that the water might be from the black lake, if she could see it from the light. Is there was something here that was afflicted by the curse in here with her. Then they were heading for a fight. As she continued to walk slowly the floor started to slant up and the water level stared to lower. She also felt a rat dart by her feet, that was where the chittering was from, they must just be swimming around in the ruins, darting up to the town for food then coming back to the ruins to not be disturbed. As she got out of the water, she could hear the dripping of the water onto the dry ground, and she felt a chill in the air. She saw the opening of what seemed to be a cave opening and she walked into the cave toward the light. She thought that it was easy going before she noticed that there wasn’t a big rock, but in truth a bear that was sleeping. Any sane person would do their best to avoid bears at the best of times and now here she was having to quietly sneak past one of them. If there was anything that cared at all for her, let her sneak past this bear without it waking up.

She carefully put one foot in front of the other, keeping her eyes upon the bear. When ever she thought that the bear might wake up she froze and watched until it settled. She was near the entrance when. She heard nearby Einnar shouting her name, she held her breath hoping that he would stop shouting long enough for her to get away.

There was no deity smiling upon her as Einnar got closer, the sounds of his shouting woke up the bear. There was a low deep growl and Vaska started to back away keeping her eyes on the bear at all times. While Einnar kept shouting. The bear was watching her now.

“I'm here!” Vaska called out. No point in being silent now, now it was safety in numbers that would protect her from the bear. It was sniffing the air in her direction.

Einnar charged through the brush to Vaska's side, he stopped when he saw the bear looking at them. She grabbed him by the arm and started to walk backwards away from the bear. Now that there was two of them the bear seemed to be loosing interest in attacking them for being in it's home.

“How far did I go?” Vaska asked as they turned around and she looked at the area that she had emerged into.

“About a half mile from the town.” Einnar said.

“It didn’t seem that far.” Vaska said.

“Maybe not in the dark.” Einnar said. They all walked back to the packs and went to set up the camp on solid ground or at least as solid as they could detect. It was but the work of moments to start a campfire and started to feed it the wood that they had picked up. In a pot Vaska started to boil water and strip out of her armor, leaving her in her padding beneath the armor. She dipped a rag into the boiling water and after waiting for it to cool to a tolerable temperature started to wash the parts of her that were not covered. The heat on her skin was relaxing to her muscle and the pain that she had been feeling. The padding went onto the ground near the fire to dry out, leaving Vaska in her basic shirt. Einnar for his sake, was trying to pretend like he wasn’t looking at her. Vaska couldn’t find it in herself to care.

“That's a nasty scar.” He said, causing her to jump a little bit. He mirrored the position of the scar on his own stomach by placing his hand there. “I've never seen a black scar like that before.”

“And where have you been that you have never seen a black scar?” Vaska asked.

“All up and down the coast of the Weeping Sea.” He said. Vaska raised her eyebrows, the Weeping Sea was quite a long way from here. He grinned at her reaction.

“So how did you end up here?”

“I got tired of the sea, it came to be that I couldn’t turn around without running into someone that I knew so, I put an oar to my shoulder and started walking inland.”

“Just wanted to be among strangers.”

“Something like that.” Once she thought that her armor and padding had dried enough, she put them back on. Then on the hard ground she curled into her blankets and the last thought before sleep was Einnar sleeping on the other side of the fire.