Anne knelt by one of the corpses; Thomas kept well back, digging. Those were dead people. He'd seen a lot of death already, but the thought of dead people still made him ill. The shovel was from an equipment token, and it really was just a little bit shitty. It just didn't work very well, particularly when he was using inhuman size and using it more like a two-handed fork.

“Strangled. Then her throat was slit.” Her gaze turned to body Thomas was currently digging a grave for, body laying on its side a few yards from him. “For some reason.” Thomas had taken one look at the boy, and wasn't eager for another. The lad had been tortured.

“This one isn't hard to figure.” Norris was digging the second grave, using some kind of weird spacial distortion magic to cause dirt to fall up and at an angle in a slow, methodical fountain. Arias had stopped him from looking at that one. He was pretty sure he could smell it, though.

“Less than twenty four hours.” Arias had moved ahead, following the trail that lead away from the site. Two people, one small; perhaps another child being taken away to be tortured.

They hadn't come here searching for murderers, or torturers. They were supposed to capture a site that a local group of thieves had been using to store their stolen goods. According to a captured member of the circle of thieves. According to Anne.

Thomas paused. Debated. Made himself lift the dead boy and place him gently down into the grave, a task made simpler by his size. The body was cold and stiff. The stiffness somehow made it more apparent this was just a body; he had expected the body to be limp, and somehow the stiffness reinforced that this was just a body; whatever had inhabited, no longer did. It felt dumb to treat the bodies with this much respect; their real value was gone. He covered the body with dirt, careful although there was no reason to be, and put up a stake.

He began the second hole. Norris was still working on his. The woman went into this one. Anne and Norris … dealt with the third body. Their group moved on, following Arias' trailsigns.

Thomas moved in a state of mechanical horror through the scene. Anne narrated.

“So here we have two animal skeletons, and a body. The body looks to have itself been animated by a raise skeleton spell, judging by the state of the body.” Thomas carefully did not judge by the state of the body.

“Scratched arms, stabbed in the back. This woman was defending herself from the skeleton when somebody killed her from behind.”

“This man has blood on his sword. He succeeded at least somewhat in defending himself from his killer.” Arias stopped, as they were walking to the next body, and turned, moving quickly towards the barn. Anne was a step behind her; Thomas brought up the rear behind Norris, dashing into the darkness of the building.

There were voices. A little girl, wearing a red shirt and plaid pajama bottoms, held in the arms of a teenager, light all weird around him. Pajama bottoms? Like home? He stared in confusion. Voices. The girl was saying something.

“Hurtshurtshurtsmakeitstophurts” Oh. Oh. Her shirt wasn't red. Oh shit. Scissors. Cut shirt off. That's a cut, across chest and shoulder. Deep. Bad. Other hands were beside him; a poulice was applied by expert hands. Wrinkled. Anne's. Bandages. Blood squirting. Apply pressure, apply bandages, bind. That was a lot of blood. That's a lot of blood. She's talking, good.

A hand. He looked up, and Anne took him and gently began pulling him away. She was saying something. Pajamas. Home. That was a little girl, from home. This wasn't a place for little girls. Holy shit this wasn't … holy shit. Holy shit. Anne noticed his gaze, and turned. She stiffened at the sight of … how many bodies was that? All in various states of undress. Dressed in things from home. That body had … had a watch.

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They'd … appeared. Like him. They'd appeared here, in … in a den of thieves. He had appeared in … was the prison related to the choice of bandit? He had thought so for a while, but had changed his mind. What did bandit even mean, in a world where bandits were some kind of crazy fucked up natural phenomenon? His brain stopped. He was still looking at bodies. So many bodies. Would his shovel last through all of them?

It did. The work kept him occupied while Anne, who was far more experienced than he was, tended to the wounded girl. Norris was interrogating the boy. After a few minutes he called Anne over. She talked to them. Then they left him with Arias, and walked over to him, while he moved through the plots adding stakes to each.

“Thomas? Did you know these people? Are they from your cult?” He looked up, then over at the boy. Well. Didn't really matter now, did it? They'd believe him or they wouldn't.

“It's not a cult. I'm not from this … I'm not from any of these planes. This place is wrong, and alien, and nothing is like it is at home, but I can't remember home anymore, so I can't even say what is wrong, only that it is.”

“Earth?” He stopped. That … was the name of his planet.

“Yes. I, uh, I did not remember that.”

“As far as I can tell, neither did he, a few seconds after he said the name. There's some kind of ongoing magical effect there. Don't try to remember anything, it might trigger you to forget. What's the name of your home?”

“I … ” Thomas froze. He remembered … that … Norris had said … “Earth. Gods. I can only remember you saying … saying … Earth.” Thomas shook his head. That was … terrifying. Okay. No trying to remember things.

“We'll need to see … I have no idea what that effect could even be. Thaumaturgy, maybe, or Biomancy. Maybe Necromancy.” Norris frowned, looking at the graves. “The boy's description is that they just woke up here, and then the thieves woke up, and found people here, and started killing them. He seems to think he was maybe kidnapped?”

“What … profession, did they choose? No, I think I know. They chose 'Thief'.” Norris stared at him.

“Profession.” It was a statement. Thomas didn't wait, and moved past the confused-looking mage, to approach the boy; Arias watched Thomas approach, her face neutral.

“Kid, what profession did you choose, during avatar creation?” The boy slowly turned, his eyes widening.

“T-thief. It had … it had the best statistics. Are you … are you a PC?” It took Thomas a moment to interpret that. He … understood the question, but felt confused about the … implication that other people weren't … weren't people. Had … had these two gone on a killing spree thinking that nobody else were … real people? His brain ached. No, focus.

“Everything is real.” The boy stared at him for a moment, then in the direction of the bandages, still-whimpering but otherwise apparently unconscious girl, then turned to look at where the dozens of dead bodies had lain.

“Y-yeah, I guess … I guess I already knew that. They started killing us.” He looked down, plucking at the … at the odd … magical shadow clothing? It didn't react to his attempts to interact with it. “We ran. A few of them fought back, but we ran. The little black girl went … went … ” He stopped and swallowed. “Can't remember. It was offensive anyways. She helped me. We came back to try to help people, found … found something terrible, and then she started killing them. Then one cut her. It didn't look bad at first, she didn't even cry out, she just killed him, and took two steps, and, and, is Madelaine going to be alright?”

“She will be fine. Anne is good at what she does.” They hadn't known each other. “What did you find?” Norris' voice from behind him replied.

“They found what we found earlier. They did in the man and the woman. Took them by surprise. Don't make the kid repeat any more than he has to, Thomas.” Thomas paused, considered that, nodded. Swallowed.

“Okay. Sorry, uh. I'm Thomas. What is your name?”

“Elijah.” They shook hands. The teenager's hand trembled.

“Okay. What class did you choose?”

“Selenomancer. Shadow magic.” The boy paused, then blushed. “Some of it only works when I'm naked. Works best that way. Gives me magic shadow clothes.” Norris chuckled, behind Thomas.

“No enchanted gear. Mind how you dedicate yourself.”

“He means take distinctions. That's a dedication.” Thomas explained. Elijah's head slowly nodded. “What did the girl take?”

“Accursed.” A hiss of breath from multiple sources; Thomas looked around at the faces around him, who all turned to look at her. Elijah looked around at them, confused. “Is that bad?”

“Not bad, just … challenging.” Anne had rejoined them, her face turned towards the girl as she spoke. “You can get lucky. You can get unlucky. It's a bit like … randomly choosing your class, every time you ascend.” Thomas turned to look at the girl. She was laying on multiple bedrolls, forming a cushion against the hard floor, thinking back to his first few days.