It was cold. Encrusted blood flaked off as it moved, taut skin tore. In the time it took to travel so far away, the warming gasses of life and decay had been released in mess of steam and squelching. The chill was all that was left.

That, and anger.

The fiery emotion did not belong to the invisible corpse, but to the one who animated it. To the archmagus, seeking a killer. To the archmagus, seeking justice through the victims.

The undead Dinah aimed at the man humming in the distance. Her frozen, opaque eyes did not blink, did not move from the target. She pulled the arrow back against the bowstring, fueled by a mix of atrophied muscles and magic. The arrow whizzed through the air, arching towards the man.

It missed by a hair's breadth. The humming continued, uninterrupted. A happy tune.

Undead Dinah tried again. The shot was a foot wide. The man was half-dancing to his own tune, his limbs moving with lazy grogginess.

Another shot missed, then another. There was a new feeling brewing in the cold. Frustration. Even when someone else moved her, even when she was dead, Dinah couldn’t strike a living thing.

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The undead slung the bow across her ruptured shoulder. She was invisible. There were other ways to fight, where she couldn’t miss.

The man opened the door of his house. It was a heavy oak door, but it looked beaten up, as if someone had pounded it with a log to urge it open.

The undead waited a few moments. The dead were patient, but the living force urging it to complete its quest was not. Dinah’s corpse slipped inside.

There was a sound coming from the kitchen space- movement, the clatter of pans, something sizzling. Undead Dinah crept over and the target stumbled before she could reach out to strike. The frying pan in his hand flew free, directly into Dinah’s ruined face.

The scalding oil broke through the chill. Most nerve endings were dead, but the magic making the corpse move had brought a few back. Dinah swore in a tongue only known to the dead and those that wake them.

The target got back to his feet, looking in dismay at the pan on the ground. “Shouldn’t cook when I’m this drunk,” he hiccuped.

Undead Dinah moved to strike, to burrow a dagger into the target’s head. Her blade met only air. He’d bent to pick up the pot.

She shifted her momentum, swerved around- and the frying pan smashed her in the face.

“Oh no, that’s not where it goes,” the target said as he flailed around for the stove.

The undead snarled, ready to pounce, animalistic instincts activated. Meanwhile the target went back to cooking, completely oblivious. He dropped spices and salt on the floor as much as in the frying pan.

The Archmagus’s magic pulsed in Dinah before she leaped, overriding the directive. The Archmagus saw l what her necromantic tool was witnessing with bloodied and now fried eyes. The man in the kitchen had the right name, but it was not the same man as the one in the guild.

The undead Dinah walked out through the still opened door, shutting it behind her.

***

Anders crawled outside after noon, yawning and rubbing his eyes while cursing the bright sun. The whole fresh air for good health nonsense was terrible. He looked at the side of his house and frowned. Five arrows poked out of it.