The dust of the conflict had barely settled. Ed stood there, breathing heavily, as his mind raced with adrenaline from the confrontation.

“Are you insane?” Ren hissed at Ed, her voice low but laced with fury. “We were supposed to follow them, Ed. Not launch an assault in broad daylight.” Ren gestured to the crowds watching them.

Ed met her gaze, his eyes burning with a mix of defiance and uncertainty. “I couldn’t just stand there and watch…” Ed replied, his voice shaking.

Suddenly, through the fog of emotions battling inside his head, Ed remembered the Deathwhisper.

“Ren, buy me some time. I need to talk to these men,” he said.

Ren nodded as she knelt down to comfort the crying child.

As he had done previously, Ed conjured the image of the Deathwhisper spell in his mind. The bodies on the illuminated with an otherworldly glow as he concentrated. Two ghostly figures rose from the corpses, awaiting Ed’s questions.

The first man who died, the one Ed’s skeletons had killed, was hard to look at. He was cut and stabbed and bruised, looking gruesome even in his ghostly form. Ed avoided looking at him as much as possible.

Alright, I need to make this quick.

“Where were you taking the child?” Ed asked in a hushed tone. He didn’t need the onlookers to think he was crazy.

“Up north,” one man stuttered. “There’s a hideout where we drop the children off. We get paid and leave, don’t know what happens from there. Never asked.”

“Got a map in my back pocket,” the other one spoke up. “Always different locations. Always at night, when the sun has been down for hours already.”

The ghost pointed to his corpse, referencing the map in his pocket. It made him uncomfortable, something felt surreal and unnatural about it. Best to wrap this up quickly, he figured.

“Who is paying you to kidnap children, and what do they want?”

The men glanced at each other uncomfortably. “Don’t know. Someone takes the kids and hands us a bag of silver. Always wears a hood. Never even heard their voice.”

Ed sighed. More lowlifes without real knowledge. There was something sinister going on, but they weren’t privy to the details. Just hired help, willing to ruin lives for some silvers. Ed felt sick looking at them. He considered his last question. How could he squeeze any useful information out of these useless men?

“Is there anyone else involved in this scheme that you know about?” Ed asked.

The mutilated man with the bruised face answered. “Just one. We were partyin’ at the tavern in Silt a few months back, real late at night. Some guy approached us and led us outside of town.”

The men looked uncomfortable as they recollected.

“Not sure why we followed him,” the other man spoke up. “Was like he put some kind of trance on us. He was a real big fellow, bigger than anyone I’ve seen I think.”

“Oi, he had those purple eyes. Remember?” the other man said as he jostled his memories.

“Purple eyes? What do you mean purp—” Ed started to ask before the System cut through his thoughts.

[Deathwhisper question limit has been exceeded.]

The ethereal men faded away mid-conversation, leaving only their corpses behind.

“Goddamnit,” Ed muttered under his breath. He brought his mind back to the courtyard, where Ren was speaking with a crying mother.

“Thank you, thank you for saving my son,” she sobbed, clutching the boy so tightly it probably hurt.

The boy looked up at Ren, intimidated but in awe of her presence.

“You’re the biggest soldier I ever saw!” the boy said, looking up at her.

Ed watched as Ren smiled, a warm and comforting smile that looked foreign on her face. She had dismissed her scythe, which made her look somewhat less threatening.

“Next time pay more attention when you’re playing alone,” Ren said to the boy with a hand on his shoulder. “You never know what kind of danger is lurking.”

“I want to be strong and fight off the bad guys like you,” the boy proclaimed.

“One day you’ll be big and strong. You can be the greatest hero anyone has ever seen,” Ren told him. “But you have to grow up first, okay?”

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“Okay,” the boy agreed, not masking his disappointment.

Ren gave the mother a stern look, conveying that it was time for them to leave now. Ed looked back at the townspeople as they stared, still unsure of what to make of the situation.

“What are you?” a man said as he walked towards them.

Ed and Ren shared a glance, entirely unsure of how to respond.

“They’re heroes as far as I’m concerned,” the mother said as she walked off with her son. “Come, Bensen, let’s go home now.”

The young boy Bensen waved to Ed and Ren as they disappeared through a side street. Ren waved back at him.

The silence was awkward as neither of them responded to the man’s question. The crowd started murmuring, likely coming to their own conclusions. Ren looked at Ed expectantly, but he was overwhelmed by the emotional toll of what had happened.

“We’ve been commissioned by Magnar Aldo,” Ren shouted, addressing the crowd. “We’re looking into the disappearance of children in Silt. Our first lead led us to the convoys, which was proven to be correct.”

The hushed conversations in the crowd grew louder at the mention of the missing children. Ed couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.

“Since when does the Magnar care about this? We’ve been complaining for weeks!” an older woman yelled. A few others cheered and shouted in support of her statement.

Ren stood firm as she continued talking. “Your Magnar has let you down. Trust me, we hold no special favor with him. My partner and I were arrested on our first night in Silt and taken to his dungeons.”

There were some more comments from the crowd, though Ed was having trouble discerning any of them. His skeletons approached him, eliciting a few gasps from the group. Ed considered dismissing them, but the situation still felt somewhat hostile.

Ren glared at him but returned to her speech. “Yes, we have powers we can’t explain to you. But trust us that we’re going to use them to bring the children back.”

The crowd seemed satisfied enough with that answer. A few mothers approached Ren, telling her specific details about their children and when and where they were last seen. No one approached Ed, though they all eyed him uncomfortably.

Ren listened to every single grieving mother until the crowd had dispersed entirely.

“Well, that was a fucking mess,” she said sharply.

“Yeah,” Ed said.

“Any leads from the Deathwhisper?” she asked quietly.

Now that the crowd was gone, Ed hurried over to the corpses and fished out a folded piece of parchment from one of their back pockets. He carefully spread it out, revealing a crude map with a large red circle.

“This is where we’re going,” Ed said, pointing to the spot on the map. “This is where they were going. They knew next to nothing, were just getting paid to kidnap and drop off kids when the convoys traveled through town.”

Ren gazed at the closest corpse with a fierce look. “Human scum,” she muttered under her breath.

“The worst kind,” Ed agreed. “They meet at the location late at night, well after sunset.”

“How far north do you think this is?” Ren asked, squinting at the map.

Ed scratched his chin as he observed the map. “Hard to say, probably a few hours. This is a rough map, probably drawn up specifically for this purpose.”

Ren glanced up at the sun, shielding her eyes. “We’ve got time, but we shouldn’t linger here. We should at least get away from the bodies before the guards show up. Don’t fancy having another run-in with the Magnar right now.”

Ed nodded, gathering himself as the duo set out from the nearby gate. It was sometime in the late afternoon, always Ed’s favorite time of day to travel. The sun’s rays were warm and comforting as nightfall approached. As they traveled out of Silt, Ed relished the silence of the open desert. No shouting, no noisy wagons rolling through town, no clanking of hammers and tools. Just the sounds of wind rustling through the landscape.

Ed checked in on his System updates from the slain men.

[You have defeated an enemy!]

[Name: Mercenary Peet

Experienced gained: 2

Loot: None]

[You have defeated an enemy!]

[Name: Mercenary Pau

Experienced gained: 2

Loot: None]

“Only two experiences from those men,” Ed said to Ren. “Why do you think it’s so low? We got forty from the two big coyotes.”

“Not sure. Maybe because they’re just normal people and we’re Netheryn? Those coyotes were tainted with Somnia’s influence,” Ren said.

That was probably it. Mortem had mentioned that there were other Netheryn operating today. Hundreds of them. The thought still seemed absurd to Ed. They were barely able to keep their powers a secret for a few days. How have hundreds of Netheryn been operating without drawing attention?

Ren’s mention of Somnia stirred Ed’s memory. “Ren, there was something else they told me.”

“What’s that?” she said, not turning around as she led the way north.

“I asked them who else was involved in this scheme. They said they were originally approached by a large man who put them under some kind of trance.” Ed hesitated before continuing. “They said he had purple eyes.”

“Huh,” Ren replied. “Well, Mortem told us the bitch’s influence was strong in Silt.”

Ed appreciated Ren’s nonchalance.

“Do you think we’ll find her?” Ed asked.

“Who, Somnia?”

“Lila,” Ed said quietly.

Ren stopped, turning around to face Ed.

“Can’t say, Ed. The king of Telmaris has gone missing and we haven’t learned shit about that either. Right now, it falls on us to do something about it.”

Ed nodded. They kept moving, not speaking much more as the sun set and darkness encroached.

A few hours later, when darkness had settled, they neared the location marked on the map. It wasn’t clear where exactly the meeting spot was. But if those two mercenaries could figure it out, Ed wasn’t worried.

“Do you think they’re going to bail when they see it’s not the mercenaries?” Ren asked.

“Hmm, it’s hard to make out someone’s features in the dark,” Ed replied. “We are missing a kidnapped child though…”

Ren echoed Ed’s concern. “True… we need to come up with something.” She eyed Ed up and down with a curious look. “You’re not that big, maybe we can pass you off as the kid?”

Ed scoffed at her. “I don’t think so, Ren.” His eyes were drawn to the lumie resting on her shoulder.

She noticed his glance and smirked. “He’s a lot smaller than a child, though.”

Ed removed his thin jacket and urged the lumie to hop into it. The sleepy creature did so without complaint, snuggling up inside the warmth of Ed’s clothing.

“I’ll tie him up by the sleeves, like what Juna did to him,” Ed said. “It will look like we’ve got the kid tied up in a sack or something.”

Ren looked unconvinced but didn’t argue.

Later, after locating the meeting spot, Ed and Ren stood in the darkness. The lumie kicked and chirped from Ed’s makeshift sack, which made him feel bad.

“Not much longer little guy, we’ll make it up to you,” Ren whispered.

A figure appeared suddenly from the shadows.