— Lovisa Silverthorn —

Lovisa dropped heavily onto one of the sturdier stools at the tavern bar with a sigh. Looking down the bar she saw that Lin was busy pouring some ales from a keg, but she caught Lovisa’s eyes, clearly acknowledging her arrival.

While she waited Lovisa just sort of let her mind go blank as she stared at the wide variety of unique alcohol bottles on shelves behind the bar. Due to her undead physiology she was fine physically but mentally she was exhausted. In the days and nights since Keir and the small group with her had left the village she had spent most of her time either patrolling and fighting in the forest around the village or organizing the rest of the remaining guards and the small burgeoning militia. Between setting up patrols and training villagers with little if any combat training how to mostly point the dangerous end of their weapons at the enemy, even the time not spent stalking dangerous creatures through the forest were if anything more stressful.

While she was glad to have been granted a second life at all, the timing was not at all ideal. Fall was a horrible time of year to be without any walls in The Gateway Forest. Many creatures were stocking and or bulking up for the upcoming winter. Others, especially those who lived most of the year in the mountains, were moving into the relatively warmer valley. As a result all manner of creatures they rarely had to deal with were looking to the village for a meal or as a slightly easier path to migrate through. Even the disused roads around the village were still easier to travel along.

As she thought she found herself idly toying with the edges of the thumb width rent in her armor that extended from just above her belly button to the top of her left thigh. Framing that gash were a pair of thinner tears from the shorter claws on the massive bear's paw. Even with the inherent armor piercing nature of her spectral weapons she’d barely been able to get through the thick plates of bone armor and sturdy leather like hide of the almost fifteen foot tall short faced dire bear.

She was still more effective than the pair of guards who were trying to hold it back when she’d arrived. While the mummified harpy was still able to fly somehow, keeping out of the bear’s reach, and the dagger wielding gnomish man was small and agile enough to avoid being struck, their daggers and crossbow bolts barely ruffled the beast’s fur.

It had taken well over an hour but eventually they convinced the massive creature there were easier options to find a meal and it lumbered away back down the road it had been traveling along. At least Ahti had been able to use a mixture of alchemy and surgery to reattach the arm of his fellow gnome. She really couldn’t afford to have one of her scouts out of commission for long, they were short handed enough as it was.

Maybe it was her mental exhaustion but she was soon giggling to herself at the accidental short handed pun she’d just thought of. She was jolted out of it by the soft concerned voice of Lin saying “How are you holding up? Do you need me to patrol for a while so you can take a proper break?” Even as she spoke Lin slid a pint of Lovisa’s favorite fruity hoppy ale across the counter.

Normally Lovisa wouldn’t drink when she could be called to duty at any moment but since returning from the dead she’d found alcohol didn’t really affect her anymore. She took a long pull from the drink before saying “Um, This shift is pretty well covered but It would be great if you could help out around midday. Even with the effects of the Veil protecting us from the sun, staffing day shifts isn’t easy.”

After a few minutes of arranging for when and where Lin would patrol, mostly it would be along roads since they would be most visible from the air, Lin said “That sounds good. Actually while you’re here would you mind trying something for me?”

Lovisa didn’t even need to think about it and said “Huh, oh, sure. I’d be happy to.”

Clearly Lin was expecting that answer as she was already turning towards the kitchen as Lovisa began speaking.

Lovisa kept whipping her ale and perhaps a minute or two later Lin returned holding a tray with three bowls sitting on it. The first one was a wide shallow bowl filled with palm sized white puffy disks with a faint opalescent sheen. The next looked like oatmeal with a handful of dark red raisins on top. The final bowl held a sort of porridge with the same soul stuff like sheen as the disks and thin strips of wide flat mushroom caps.

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As Lin added a pair of wooden spoons she said “Now that Cara and Dervla have their first decent sized harvest of the new foods I started trying to cook with them. Dair could probably do more with them, but I managed some rice crackers, oatmeal, and rice porridge. Eat up and tell me what you think.”

Lovisa grinned slightly as she looked at the completely full bowls. It was just like Lin to make sure her friend was eating enough under the pretense of taste testing.

It hadn’t gotten too bad yet, perhaps from the monster culling she’d been doing, but there was a slowly growing pit of hunger in Lovisa’s stomach.

Unlike many other villagers she’d been too busy to sample the raw produce to determine which undead hunger was gnawing away at her, but she suspected she knew anyway. Between her new race being listed as Corpse Bound Wraith to the obvious soul aspect of her class she suspected that the soul replacing rice would be what her body needed.

Rather than go straight for that, however, she decided to start with the oatmeal. She was careful to get plenty of raisins along with the steaming hot oatmeal as she scooped up and ate a spoonful.

She was a bit torn even as she savored her first bite of real food in either days or years depending on how one thought about it. It tasted pretty good to her, even if she could tell it would no more sate the hunger in her than the ale had, but she was certain if she were still alive only the fact it was made out of care for her well being by one of her closest friends would have kept her from spitting it out.

Even though she could tell the oats were fully cooked they had a very thin crunchy layer, like the world’s thinnest egg shell and they had a dull, almost dusty taste. The raisins were no more likely to appeal to a living person's palette. They had slightly rehydrated in the oatmeal and while the texture was fairly normal for a raisin, the juice was oddly thick. The sweetness of the grape was also cut by a strong salty metallic taste.

After a few more spoonfuls she gave Lin her opinions on it and moved on to the porridge. Like with the raisins, she made sure her first bite included a strip of mushroom. The taste of the porridge was hard to wrap her mind around so she focused more on the mushroom.

Unlike the taste of the oats or grapes the flavor of the mushroom reminded her of a dish she enjoyed occasionally. When she visited her friends in Stoneshield they often went to a tavern that served blue steak with a thick pat of truffle butter on top. That mixture of mostly raw red meat with a strong mushroom flavor was the closest comparison to the taste and texture of the mushroom.

With that decided she ate another bite of only porridge to try to parse out the flavor of the rice. For a moment she tasted lightly salted almost smokey rice. Before that flavor really set in, however, it shifted to an uncanny sense of tasting feelings and experiences. Even after a third taste she could only explain it as somehow tasting like growing from a seed in small paddy steeped in fey and death magic under the watchful eyes of dryads and countless staring stars.

Lovisa was only about halfway through the bowl, her hunger rapidly fading, when system alerts began screaming in her head. With the degraded level of the guardhouse and other defenses as well as her own relatively low tier she didn’t get much information from the system. What she did learn was alarming. The village was completely surrounded by a superior force with the largest concentration on the somewhat rebuilt road to Stoneshield.

While the village system didn’t give her much direct information she was still able to figure out some things by context. From what she understood as the Guard Captain she only received alerts regarding sapient creatures. If she’d been a Ranger Captain instead she would have received alerts for the monsters she’d been dealing with.

As much as she wished she could ignore the problem until it went away or even better have someone else be the one stuck dealing with it she knew she had to deal with it as best as she could. She did allow herself the luxury of a frustrated sigh. Seeing the pleased look on Lin’s face crack and reveal hurt Lovisa hurried to say “No no, the food’s great, but we have a potential disaster to deal with. Apparently an armed force is surrounding the village. Can you scout them out from the air, I’m heading towards what's left of the gate on the side closest to Stoneshield.”

No matter what happened with the unknown force Lovisa knew she wouldn’t be getting back to her meal anytime soon so as Lin hurried outside she grabbed as many of the rice crackers as she could hold in one hand and darted out into the street.

Lovisa didn’t want to start a panic but she also needed to warn the village of the potential danger surrounding them.

She was just resolving herself to ring the newly rehung alarm bell when she noticed a person she recognized as a member of the still mostly unofficial militia. The woman was the only centaur in the village and had returned as a dullahan.

Lovisa was almost sure her name was Finnley but not quite sure enough to call out to her by name. Instead she hurried over and got her attention before instructing her to gather the militia and have them start warning people before meeting her at the gate she was heading towards.

While they didn’t have the tools or resources to make a proper wall, Ismini and her guild hadn’t been idle. Rough but workable spiked wood barricades, that Ismini was quite insistent were called cheval de frise, surrounded most if not all of the village. They were supposed to be finishing the last of the makeshift wall that day but Lovisa didn't know if they’d finished.

As she finished the last of the rice crackers, Lovisa looked out over the spiked wall down the simple packed dirt road. Just visible were the indistinct forms of what must have been dozens of calvary troops heading directly towards the village.