It was well past midnight when they pulled up to the wood where the shack Kreet had grown up in stood. The path was overgrown, but Kreet had no problem working her way in with her night vision, while she had the others stay behind. She’d never believed in life-after-death unless animated corpses counted, but as the vine-covered remains of the shack came into view she felt the old monk’s presence anyway. The place even smelled familiar. She wondered what had ever happened to his cat.

The windows were just open holes now, the porch they had sat on years ago was crumbling, but a chair still sat there as if waiting for it’s owner to return.

“There are ghosts here,” Kreet said to herself. “But I brought them with me.”

Inside she had to step carefully as the floorboards had broken through in many places, but the fireplace was intact and the brick was still lodged in place. She slid it out carefully and reached far back. A spider or two may have been disturbed, but she smiled as she remembered their taste. It had been a long, long time since she’d eaten a spider. She felt the leather-bound map and drew it out, dusting it off. As she looked at it, more memories came back to her. She knew the lines of this map not as old charcoal scribbles but as a real place she had once lived in. She tucked the package under her arm and started to make her way back out.

Suddenly she stopped. There was a ghost standing in the corner, dressed in Ka'Plo’s robe. She knew it was a ghost because it was the one point of darkness her vision wouldn’t light. It did not move, but just watched her.

“Master?” she asked quietly.

“Kreet, my child,” it answered back as if from a long distance. “You’ve returned. How is your life? Did I do well by you?”

“I am fine, Master,” she said, glad she had tucked away the map. Tears would stain the old parchment. “You did well.”

The ghost didn’t move, but she heard it’s voice again. “Good. That is good. I know your family. They are proud of you, Kreet.”

It was too much. She collapsed on the rickety, dusty, leaf-strewn floor. “My family? You know my family?”

“Yes, Kreet,” the apparition said. “They have forgiven me. You are my redemption, Kreet.”

“Me? But I’m nothing. I’ve done nothing. I’m a worthless Tavern Wench who hasn’t done a thing with her life.”

“Oh! So that’s when you are. We don’t see you as you do, Kreet. We see all of you. We even see you here with us. You are much more than that, my child. Or you will be. Or you have been. It’s hard to explain.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Master, can you help me? There’s a demon… and…”

The ghost didn’t move, but it did reply, “We cannot help. We can only watch. But we’re proud of you, Kreet. You are our child.”

The voice had changed. She realized it was speaking in the Kobold tongue now.

“Mother!” she cried, finally recognizing the voice from so long ago she didn’t think she could recognize it.

“I am here, child. But this is not good for you. Go now. We will see you soon enough. Your Master is right. We are so very, very proud of you.”

“I miss you Mother. I miss you all so much.”

“I know child. We all know. We miss you too, in our way. But you are here with us too. You won’t live forever child. No one would want that. You’ll be with us again, and then we will celebrate. But you have your life to live first. Go and live it well, as we know you will. Don’t despair. Life is long and hard, child. You know that already. But it doesn’t last forever. And when it is over, we will all celebrate your return to us.”

She began to tremble. She didn’t know why. Someone else was coming, though the ghost didn’t move. She heard another voice, one she recognized too.

“Kreet,” it said. “Save me.”

Her eyes grew large and a blue glow began, though the voice was fading.

“I will,” she said, staring into the blackness as if to see who it was beyond.

The voice faded out and she realized she had been praying. The hole that she thought was a spirit was just an old robe, left behind, empty and forgotten. She walked over to it and took it down from it’s hook. It crumbled to dust and rags, but something fell from it and she picked it up. It sparkled in the moonlight from the broken roof, and even more when a tear hit it just right. It looked like a black jewel. “Death is not always evil,” she said to herself, even if she didn’t quite know why. She pocketed it and left the shack to it’s crumbling fate. She didn’t care about it anymore. She carried her spirits with her.

The others waited by the wagon.

“Did you find it?” Karl asked hopefully.

She nodded, but didn’t say anything as she hopped back into the back. Kevin took her hand. “Are you alright?” he said, actually not leering at her for a change. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

She looked at him. “I think I’m okay. I saw no one,” she said. “Only what I brought with me. But I found this.”

She pulled the shiny black jewel from her pack and showed it to Kevin.

“What?” he said, confused.

“This. I don’t know what it is,” she said, holding it up closer for him to see. Surely even in the starlight of the night he could see now.

“Kreet, there’s nothing in your hand,” the Cleric Quint said from her other side.

She looked at him curiously, then back to the jewel. They couldn’t see it? Odd.

“Sorry, bad joke I guess,” she said, but Quint noticed she put something back in her pack.

Kevin took her hand. She jumped a little at the heat and realized she was cold. “Kreet,” he said. “You’re freezing!”

“I… guess I am! Kevin, don’t read anything into this - really. But… can you hold me a little?”

“Sure Gator,” he said happily and did so.

“He might be a perv,” Kreet thought as she threatened to tail-slap his hand away from parts it had no right to stray to, “but he’s a perv for me. And he’s warm. He’ll do for now.”

The jostling of the wagon and the warmth lulled her to sleep for a few minutes as they approached the caverns she had grown up in. She didn’t dream.