Kearse had been in a daze all morning.

It had started off normal enough. Waking up, eating breakfast with Chad, and talking about nothing. The baiting parties had apparently decided to get an early start, and there was already a small horde being chopped up at the front gates. The pair of young men still weren’t used to the noise, but were doing fairly well at ignoring it.

Then the entire camp had broken into chaos as a certain crazed homunculus ran past them at full tilt, stark naked, tossing wine bottles left and right, and being chased by none other than Knight-Paladin Damfeld himself. Again, he was reminded that while Indigo was quite attractive, she was also quite likely insane. Still, that didn’t stop the two of them from turning their heads to get a better look.

“Do you think she’s always like that?” Chad asked.

“Which part? The nudity, the wine, or the pissing off an expedition leader?” Kearse replied sourly. “I saw her with clothes on yesterday, but the other two seem to be a developing pattern.”

“Mm. Shame it’s not just the tits and wine.”

“Mm. Shame.” Kearse agreed. What man could argue with that? Even the two “bachelors” that lived across the street from him wouldn’t complain about tits if they came with free wine.

Commander Haylen ran up a few moments later to interrupt their breakfast with orders, and the entire platoon was soon rushing around the camp, trying to gather up as many of the bottles as they could. Once they had been safely stored in one of the arena’s back rooms, and subtly stored in a few other locations, the two of them returned to their tent to finish their now cold breakfast.

They had barely emptied their bowls when Indigo showed up again. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, she had put her clothes back on.

“Hello Chad,” she said, ignoring Kearse entirely. “I want rent your cousin. What is daily rate?”

The two of them haggled for a minute while ignoring Kearse’s protests, and before he could figure out what Indigo was renting him for, she had handed Chad two bottles of liquor. Kearse barely had time to grab his spear before Indigo began hauling him towards the front gates. The last he saw of Chad was a wave before the man ducked into the tent to hide his profits.

“He owes me at least one of those bottles.”

The two of them quickly met up with Corlo, Haylen, and Mayra, and he had only had the basics of their weird multipurpose mission explained to him before he was being pushed into one of the Ancestor’s ancient carriages.

The trip to Indigo’s home was a single long high speed nightmare while she and Corlo regaled the group with horror stories of the necropolis. Between that and the motion of the vehicle, he was feeling sick to his stomach by the time they finally arrived at the first stop.

Kearse was too focused on the fact that he was on the opposite side of the city from the expedition to pay any attention to the fat little structure Indigo lived in.

“I am going to die out here. I am going to die and become one of the cursed. I’ll wander this city for a hundred years, and the next time anyone sees me, it will be when they’re putting a spear through my face.”

They were about to start climbing the ladder up the side of the building when Indigo paused and her face went red.

“I uh… not have guests before. I need clean up. Wait one- no. Five minutes. Then come.”

With that she raced up the ladder like she had a pack of cursed after her.

“Indigo,” Haylen called up. “You’ve been surviving out here for two years. We’re not going to judge you on how clean your home is.”

“Is not mess thing. Is girl things!” Indigo shouted back, and for the first time, Kearse thought she sounded embarrassed. “I not want Kearse or Corlo see.”

Haylen and Mayra shared a look.

“But she was just running around naked this morning,” Mayra said. “After that, what is there to be embarrassed about?”

“Oh, I have got to see this.” Haylen chuckled, and she was up the ladder even faster than Indigo.

“We’ll let you know when it’s uh… suitable for the men to come in,” Mayra told them before starting up herself.

It wasn’t long before Indigo’s echoing wails, and the other women’s laughter bounced its way down to his ears.

Kearse looked to Corlo for an explanation, but the orc just shook his head. “If you can’t guess, don’t ask.”

The muffled noises died down quickly, but it was much longer than five minutes before Haylen’s head finally appeared over the edge and called them in. Corlo was concerned about the ladder supporting his weight, and so Kearse went first.

The roof of the building was flat, painted white, and only had a single hatch with another ladder leading to the inside. Half way down the second ladder, Kearse turned to look at the single large room around him, and nearly missed the next rung. It was downright lavish!

Several balls of light floated around the room, giving the entire place a magical feel, but even without them it still would have seemed wondrous. Rugs of every color and type covered the floor, and even the walls had been padded. Statues, paintings, musical instruments, and other works of art were scattered around haphazardly. Most of the furniture looked like it had come from a palace. The king of Orlis himself probably would have envied Indigo’s oversized bed.

Even the part that wasn’t richly decorated looked like it could have been an archmage’s private workshop. A large bookcase sat next to a row of desks and tables, and any of their surfaces that wasn’t covered in notes and designs was taken up by books, bars of metal, jars of strange liquids, glowing crystals, and other things that were completely unrecognizable to him.

Indigo was lying on the bed with her head under the pillows, while Haylen and Mayra were walking around examining the treasures before them. Kearse realized that he was still on the ladder and practically jumped the last half of the way down to make room for Corlo.

When the four of them had had their fill of gawking, Indigo, still blushing slightly, crawled out of the bed and began shoving things into the large grey room that was her storage space. Most of the tiny kitchen area was packed away immediately, but she was almost dismissive of most of the art and furniture, and only took a few of the smallest pieces with her. When Haylen asked why she was leaving so much, Indigo stated that it was all worthless to sell to someone who couldn’t understand their value, and too valuable to sell to someone that did. She also seemed to like the idea of leaving her home as a sort of treasure trove for whoever found it next.

“This deep in the necropolis, I think that will happen in about a hundred years past never.”

Mayra was immediately attracted to Indigo’s workbenches, and seemed personally offended that the notes weren’t written in a language she could read.

“This doesn’t look like any of the Ancestor scripts I’ve seen before. What is it? A personal cypher?”

“Is language I know when I wake up. I not know name. Is only one I write good, so I write it.”

Somehow, the homunculus could understand languages as soon as she was exposed to them, but actually using them herself was more problematic. Writing still needed to be learned normally, and speaking became increasingly difficult the more she thought about what she actually wanted to say. Mayra frowned at the answer, and began to pester Indigo about her origins, but gave up when most of the answers came back as, “Don’t know,” or, “No want talk about it.”

One of the tables seemed like an alchemy station, and Kearse began to actively avoid it when Indigo distracted the mage by talking about its contents. He had expected magical potions that could heal you or make you stronger. Instead it was full of chemicals that were either acidic, explosive, flammable, poisonous, or a combination of the four. Mayra was promptly banned from touching anything on that table when she almost dropped one of the jars.

“Well what’s this then?” Mayra asked about one of the objects on the other workbench. “It looks like a crossbow that’s missing half of its pieces, but at the same time it doesn’t look like it’s actually been taken apart.”

“Is a gun. Rifle. Is weapon. You right. It like crossbow, but shoot magic bolts. Not… arrow bolts.”

Kearse and Corlo had so far mostly been moving shelves and boxes around to make room for more things inside the storage space. Corlo, hearing the word “weapon” took a quick break to get a better look and Kearse went with him.

The thing did look like someone had detached the limbs from a crossbow. This one though, was a good deal longer than any crossbow he had seen, and the stock and trigger were also much more refined. It was also made entirely of dark metal and some other material he didn’t recognize.

“How does it work?” Corlo asked.

“Uses battery. Mana crystal like car, but smaller. Shoots like crossbow, but better.” Indigo told him. “It good weapon. I like it. But is… is weapon, so is dangerous. I still studying it.”

Indigo picked up the gun carefully, flipped a switch on its side, and a faintly glowing hand length mana crystal slid out from the stock. Careful not to point it at anyone, she held it up to show Mayra.

“This dangerous. You will agree. Is like combat magic, but not need mage training. If crystal have mana, anyone can use. That why dangerous.”

Corlo and Haylen seemed impressed by the weapon, but Kearse grimaced. Indigo and Mayra both nodded to him in agreement. If anyone could throw a fireball or hurl lightning like a mage, battlefields would become even more deadly than they already were.

“Well, at least Indigo isn’t totally insane. She might not think of it as one of her big secrets, but I doubt that’s something she wants to spread around.”

Indigo looked at the gun and frowned. “I little bit surprised. Thought you knew guns. Was hard to find because most already looted.”

“It’s possible they were taken during the Lost Era,” Mayra speculated. “Probably near the very beginning before people would have understood how the miasma drains mana. Once they weren’t able to reliably charge the crystals, the weapons were probably either lost or got broken.”

Indigo shrugged, but nodded. “Maybe,” she said. “Better than my old guesses.”

"Is this what you usually use to kill the cursed?” Haylen asked. “You didn’t seem too upset about losing your spear.”

Indigo’s spear had worked well enough, but it had looked like it had been assembled from scraps, and Kearse would be surprised if anyone would have felt bad about losing it.

Indigo shook her head.

“Spear was for fun. Whack zombie heads… feels right. This gun strong. Hits hard and lots of damage, but uses mana. Is not efficient in necropolis.” She leaned towards Mayra and added, “Mana efficiency important. Yes? Must not waste.”

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Indigo slung the gun over her shoulder so that it hung by a strap. Then she reached to the side of the desk, and pulled up a belt with a smaller gun inside of a sheath. It could be held in one hand, was much shorter, and lacked the stock of the larger one. While the rifle appeared sleek, this one seemed almost chunky.

“Pistol good too, but also inefficient.” She walked into her storage space and added them to one of the shelves. “I have much mana in batteries,” she shouted from inside. “If I use guns in city, I not have mana.”

There was a small clunk from inside, and she walked back out holding a handful of small metal balls.

“Sling stones?” Kearse asked.

Indigo nodded, and held them up for everyone to see. “Yes. Almost. But I no need sling.” She lowered her hand, but the balls didn’t fall, and stayed floating in the air. “Telekinesis,” she continued. “My mind is sling. My magic is sling. Very little mana, but very big effect. Is efficient.”

For some reason that was beyond him, Mayra seemed to object to what Indigo said, and they spent the rest of the time debating the merits of various arcane theories. It sounded like they were still speaking Common Imperial, but he didn’t understand a word of it, and he was glad that Corlo and Haylen looked as lost as he did. At some point, the metal balls stopped hovering in midair, and made their way back into Indigo’s storage space.

“She’s half crazy, has enough magic to leave the mages guild drooling, can probably kill anyone within viewing distance, and here I am helping her move house.”

Not for the first time that day, Kearse was tempted to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.

When they had moved everything that Indigo wanted into her storage space, they climbed up to the roof, and Indigo sealed the hatch behind her. Kearse thought she looked a little melancholic as she took in the view of the city around her, and knew what she was thinking.

For two years, she had wanted nothing more than to leave this hellhole. And for much of that time, this building had been her sanctuary. She had found it as an empty shell, and made it into a home.

“Maybe you can come back with the next expedition and raid this place again.”

She laughed, and her faint smile told him that they had been the right words.

Reinvigorated, she climbed down the ladder, and led them back to the atrocious vehicle known as a van.

* * * * *

Their next two stops went fairly easily.

First was a liquor store, which caused Indigo to bring the van to a screeching halt, and made Kearse glad that she had insisted on everyone wearing the harnesses attached to the seats. Before he could even get out of the vehicle, Indigo had run up to the shop and was throwing up the metal grate that covered its entrance.

Kearse had never seen so many varieties of alcohol in one place. In some sections, Indigo would carefully peruse the bottles like a connoisseur, and in others she would simply shove bottle after bottle into a basket before loading them into her storage. Apparently she knew what she liked.

When he asked her to help him find something for his father, Indigo promptly handed him two bottles of what she referred to as “damn good whisky.” The girl knew her alcohol, and helped pick out a few bottles for the others as well. After trying a small sample from his own, Corlo went back for a few more, and did his best to avoid the reproving looks Haylen sent his way.

Next was a grocery store. Indigo said that she had looted it before, but hadn’t taken much. The building was large enough that the outside light barely even lit the entrance. Like in Indigo’s home, she and Mayra put up several small balls of light that followed them around. The surrounding darkness was deep though, and Kearse held his spear tightly at all times.

This single store held as much food as an entire market back in Orlis, and as Kearse walked through the isles he tried to guess what was in each box or jar. Most of them had pictures, and they were all faded, but still clear enough to give hints at what he was looking at. This can had beef stew. That one had sliced fruit. Those jars had sauces.

One of the larger bags had a picture of a dog on it, and Indigo had laughed when he asked her about it. “Is food for dogs,” she said. “Not made of dogs.” When he found small jars with pictures of babies on them he was glad he had seen the dog food first.

Indigo only took enough of the canned food to refill some of her shelves, but grabbed as many of the spices as she could. He decided not to tell her that Orlis was a coastal city that exported large amounts of salt and sugar, and that the large bags she was stockpiling wouldn’t be worth nearly as much as she thought. She hadn’t told him about the van, or any of today’s plans really, so he felt like it was a minor payback.

When she started doing the same with coffee and tea, Kearse decided to be nice and tell her that she could get both in Orlis. Indigo however, only paused for a short moment before continuing to fill up an entire shelf of the stuff.

By that time it was early afternoon, and they used the plethora of food and cooking utensils available to make lunch. The group combed over the large selection and each found something they wanted to try. Kearse, Corlo, and Haylen, all wanting something hearty, chose the same beef and potato stew. Indigo and Mayra ate something called “instant noodles,” and Kearse had to wonder why they were called “instant” if they had to sit in hot water for three minutes before you could eat them. For some reason, Indigo complained about a lack of sticks to eat her noodles with, but seemed to do just fine with a fork.

During their meal, Mayra had pulled out a small pouch. From it, she took a few iridescent flower petals and placed them into a cup of hot water. Kearse had never seen them before, but he didn’t have to guess to know that they were mana flowers.

He wondered what it felt like, being able to touch your mana. He had never had the time to learn the normal way, but a single cup of Mayra’s tea could do in a few sips what took most people months, or even years to accomplish on their own. A few flower petals, or hours upon endless hours of meditation. It was no wonder that the rare plant was so valuable.

Kearse had no intention of becoming a mage, but he still eyed her drink with a bit of envy. Just being able to touch his mana could make his life a lot easier. But he knew she wouldn’t give him any. She couldn’t, and he wouldn’t ask. The tea was the only defense the mages had against the miasma, and the church probably paid a large sum of money to make sure that the expedition’s Mayra and the others had enough.

After leaving the grocery store, Indigo drover slower and more carefully. They were leaving the area that she usually kept clear, and while she wasn’t concerned with roaming packs, she didn’t want to alert the ones inside the buildings. They only encountered a few wandering loners, and instead of trying to lose them, she would halt the vehicle to let Corlo step out and cut their heads off.

“Necropolis probably get cursed at night.” She said. “That why most zombies inside homes and not outside or in shops. I think they come back in place they die. Is also why shop doors all locked.”

She was surprised when Corlo told her that the expedition agreed.

“Most necropoli are classified by a time of day. I’ve been on expeditions to others, and believe me when I say you don’t want to see a day necropolis. Thessil, one of the neighboring kingdoms, never sends less than a thousand soldiers on its expeditions. Compared to them, we have it easy. They had to build an entire fort near the exit just so they could have somewhere to make camp. They also have an arena, but the whole thing is filled to the brim with cursed.”

Kearse remembered the horde they had fought upon entering the city. At first the streets had seemed deserted and practically empty, but it’s hard to move three hundred soldiers quietly, and they hadn’t even gone a single block before bodies began to rain down from above. The cursed came from the windows and balconies of the buildings around them. Most died from the fall, but the ones that survived were still enough to make it the hardest fight of the week. If even a small fraction them had started on the ground, rather than in the buildings, the expedition likely would have been overrun.

They were approaching their next destination, a relatively short and chunky building Indigo said was called a shopping mall, when she let out a half strangled noise as if she was choking. She turned the carriage around so quickly that Kearse felt like he was going to fall through the wall. Rather than speeding up though, she allowed the vehicle to drift to a stop. She leaned out of her seat and stared intently through the window in the back.

“Shhh,” Indigo hissed. “No noise. Be quiet.”

Everyone turned to look out the window with her, but there was nothing to be seen. A minute passed. Then two. After three, Indigo finally relaxed and let out a sigh.

“Okay. We not seen. Not heard.”

“By what?” Mayra asked. “Is something there? I don’t see anything.”

“That place zombie trap. I not realize until got close.”

Despite being a shopping center, a place that usually would have very few of the cursed inside, Indigo said that the building’s design made it a natural gathering point for the undead, and that it most likely had thousands of the things shambling about just outside of it.

“Where?” Kearse asked while trying to position himself for a better viewing angle. “I don’t see any wandering around.” Despite sharing the front with Indigo, he had been thinking about Corlo’s story, and hadn’t been paying attention to anything outside.

“Can no see first floor from this angle. Floor you see is second.”

The structure apparently had the ground around it dug up, and its first floor would be on the same level as the basements of the surrounding buildings. Stairs along the street led down to a plaza that surrounded the mall, and Indigo stated that the cursed could easily walk or fall down the slope, but were unlikely to make the effort of climbing back up them without a reason. Over time and by pure chance, more and more undead would wander in and become trapped.

Kearse thought that they would go and find a different place to look for what Indigo wanted, but instead she unbuckled and hopped out of the carriage.

“I go kill them,” she whispered. “If you want watch, stay down. Stay quiet.”

“Indigo!” Haylen whispered as loudly as she dared. “Let’s go somewhere else. This is too dangerous.”

Indigo, however just shook her head and continued her tiptoe advance down the street.

“Will only take few minutes. Then safe. They not moving, so is easy. Could bait them, but that take too long. I do this before. Only take few minutes. Come or stay. You choose. Good mana outside. Good loot inside. So I going.”

None of them wanted to let her walk into such a dangerous place, but Kearse suspected that if they tried to stop her, she would only start running. One by one, they slowly got out of the van, and followed along as quietly as they could. Corlo was rather impressive with how quietly he could move despite the armor he was wearing.

When they finally caught up to Indigo, she was lying on the street with one of her large mana crystals in hand. She waved for them to get down, and then reached into her storage space to roll out a large blue barrel.

“This how I kill zombies,” she whispered.

She crawled forward, and approached the railing that ran along the walkway beside the street. As Kearse crawled with her, the ground surrounding the shopping center came into view, and suddenly the sound of his own heartbeat seemed too loud. Indigo hadn’t been exaggerating when she said there would be thousands. A dense horde, larger than most that would be fought off at the camp’s gates was standing just below them, and he covered his mouth to muffle the sounds of his own breathing.

“This is where she pulls back, right? This is where she says there are more than she thought and changes her mind, right? She’s not actually going to try and fight them, right?

She was definitely going to fight them.

To his horror, Indigo abandoned all attempts at stealth and, mana crystal still in hand, hopped up to sit on the railing. Kearse heard some of them groan as they noticed her and started to shuffle in her direction. Apparently unsatisfied with the lack of attention she was getting, she put her fingers to her lips and let out a loud whistle.

Every single cursed turned to look her way and, as one, began to walk towards her. Their moaning increased in volume until it was all that could be heard. Kearse nearly jumped as the barrel behind him popped open, and hundreds of small metal balls flew out. Like a swarm of bees, they gathered above the homunculus, and started to rotate around her. Faster and faster they went, until they were all a grey blur and even their afterimages merged with the rest.

Indigo made a quick motion with her hand, the cloud of metal descended, and carnage followed soon after. The metal balls were like a hailstorm of sling stones that never stopped moving. Cursed after cursed would approach the wall below her, and each would be torn to shreds in an instant. She didn’t even have to aim. They would simply walk forward, and fall as their entire body was perforated over and over.

It didn’t take long for the corpses to pile up, and Indigo leapt to the ground below. The storm of metal moved to surround her, and her shape became indistinct, hidden behind the blur of spinning steel. She walked casually, heedless of how completely surrounded she was. Nothing could touch her. Nothing could get close. Even the splatter of blood and pieces of rotten flesh were intercepted by the whirlwind.

She walked from body to body and held out a hand to each one. The large plated crystal she carried began to glow slightly, and Mayra lying beside him made a muffled sound, eyes wide. Kearse couldn’t see anything, but he knew what was happening. He had overheard most of Indigo’s first meeting with the expedition leaders. She was gathering mana from the bodies.

“She doesn’t even think of them as a threat. They’re just magic, waiting to be harvested. And we’re bringing her back to Orlis?!”

He tried to connect the crying girl he had found in an alley to the goddess of death he saw before him. She had told Chad that they hadn’t saved her by protecting her. They had saved her by helping her to leave the city. And now that she knew where the exit was, there would be no keeping her here. If they tried to leave without her, she would follow. If they tried to stop her, they would likely fail. All they could do was take Indigo with them, and hope that she never looked at them the same way she looked at the cursed.

They could trust her that much, couldn’t they? He looked to the others. They were as pale faced and wide eyed as Indigo usually was, and he knew that they were wondering the same thing.

How well did they really know the girl? She was more wild and unpredictable than any fae spirit of legend, and she was powerful enough to fight an army’s worth of cursed without batting an eye. Which Indigo was the real Indigo? The one who cried with joy at the sight of people? The one who laughed as she ran around naked? Or the one who walked through chaos and destruction like it was just another day?

As the horde thinned, the metal balls around Indigo slowed their spinning and began to take out targets individually. A single one would fly out, pierce through the head of a cursed and fly back. Instead of the careless storm from before, this was precise and methodical. When the last of the undead finally fell, less than five minutes had passed.

“Okay!” she called, giving them a wave and an innocent smile. “Is safe now! Sorry for mess!”

They stood up and exchanged looks, each hoping that someone else would know what to say.

“Well,” Corlo said, breaking the silence. “I think we’ve figured out why the number of cursed is so low this year.”

“Should I start praying?” Haylen asked.

Corlo looked over at Indigo who was making her way up the stairs to rejoin them.

“I have no idea.”