The final scarecrow crumples to the ground, its burlap skin torn and leaking straw. The friends stand breathing hard in the dim afternoon light, their new pumpkin companions bobbing cheerfully at their sides—animated gourds with carved faces that grin despite the violence. The gloomy daylight bleeds away as they press onward, shadows pooling between the trees.
The attack comes without warning.
Three figures melt from behind thick-trunked oaks while a fourth, the largest of the bandits, strides forward. His leather armor creaks with each step, and he he aggressively seizes the horse’s reins in a grimy fist. The animal snorts, nostrils flaring. “Give us your valuables and we might allow you to live,” the bandit growls, his breath visible in the cold air.
Crystal’s lips twitch into a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Are you sure?”
The bandit’s face darkens. He draws his short sword with a metallic rasp that cuts through the evening quiet. Crystal’s fingers dance, weaving patterns in the air that shimmer and pulse with hypnotic light. The spell blooms outward like a flower made of fractured rainbows. Everyone freezes—Zilk mid-breath, Biblo with his mouth hanging open, even the horse stands eerily still. Only Crystal and Shifty remain unaffected, the latter’s eyes gleaming with opportunistic delight.
“If you are a highway robber, give us your valuables,” Crystal grins, her voice honey-smooth. “Everyone else should just stay still and quiet.”
Soon a stack grows atop the wagon: worn leather armor that reeks of sweat and woodsmoke, chipped short swords with nicked blades, a handful of tarnished coins that clink softly, and a gold-plated ring that catches what little light remains. As the bandits begin fumbling with their remaining clothes, fingers clumsy under the spell’s influence, Crystal waves a hand. “Keep your clothes. Start new lives as honest people in Vallaki.” The bandits shuffle away into the gathering darkness, their footsteps fading like a bad dream.
The group divvy up the gold and silver that the bandits carried. Crystal takes the shortswords, hoping to re-work them on her forge. Ratrick is given a pretty but likely not very valuable gold plated ring. It has an inscription within it: “To Artemisia, With My Eternal Love.”
The party elects to set up camp. Firelight flickers across tired faces as they settle in for the night. Crystal stays awake, her portable forge glowing orange-hot as she works the bandits’ crude shortswords, hammer striking metal in a rhythmic song. Sparks dance upward into the star-pricked sky. In the wee hours, her back aching from hunching over the forge, Crystal stretches and walks the clearing’s perimeter. Her boot catches something—a whisper of movement—and suddenly she’s jerking upward, the snare yanking her into the branches with a whoosh of displaced air. She dangles there, blood rushing to her head, until she manages to wake Biblo with urgent whispers and a well placed flame spell. The dragonborn stumbles over, scales catching moonlight, and uses one of the newly-repaired swords to saw through the rope. Crystal drops in an unexpectedly graceful leap.
The next day dawns grey and threatening. The wagon’s wheels creak through grey slush as they approach Kresk, the cold seeping through cloaks and settling into bones. Snow that has threatened since before dawn begins in earnest, falling heavily from the low clouds overhead. Other wagon tracks cut through the slush—evidence of travelers coming and leaving from the walled city. As they ride, Biblo and Nike listen wide-eyed to the tale of the Abbey, that terrible place looming over Kresk’s walls from its mountainside perch.
When the walls grow close enough to make out individual stones, Ilya pipes up, “Papa Ratrick, I am looking forward to seeing my other father and my mother.” Ratrick nods down at the boy, something warm and painful twisting in his chest. “And have you noticed,” Ilya continues, his small hand pointing, “the standing stones here look very like the standing stones outside of the windmill.” Ratrick studies them—the boy is right. The stones rise from the earth like ancient teeth, weathered and familiar.
The guards call down from the wall top, their voices echoing off stone. They welcome Ilya home. The gates swing open with a groan of iron and wood, and Burgomaster Dimitri Kreskovich waits inside, wrapped in a long bear cloak that makes him seem massive, a chain of office gleaming at his throat.
“Papa!” Ilya races forward, small boots splashing through puddles, and throws himself at the man. He hugs him fiercely around the waist. The Burgomaster’s voice catches, rough with emotion. “It is so good to see you, my son. You have grown! Now, run to the house to see your Mama. She has missed you so very much. I will see you shortly.”
The boy dashes away, leaving boot prints in the slush. The Burgomaster watches him go, then turns to the party. “He seems so very grown up now. Has he learned very much?”
Before Ratrick can answer, Zilk straightens with pride, recounting Ilya’s adventures—the battles fought, the skills learned, what a competent swordsman the boy has become.
“Very good,” the Burgomaster smiles, though something in it makes Ratrick’s fur prickle. “In a few years, he will make an excellent officer in the Kresk guard until it is time for him to take my place as Burgomaster of this town.”
Ratrick’s throat tightens, the words strangling him. “But we have so very much more to teach him…”
Ilya’s father regards the ratkin with gentle firmness. “The boy’s mother may have something to say about that. She has missed him deeply.”
The comment settles over Ratrick like a cold stone. Quickly, before the silence can grow teeth, Zilk steps in. “Let’s go get something to eat up at the tavern.”
Inside, warmth from the hearth washes over them, carrying scents of ale, fresh baked bread and woodsmoke. Biblo, Zilk and Nike find fellow travelers, dice clattering across scarred wood as copper coins change hands. Crystal catches their attention with a subtle gesture, her expression disapproving. “Those men are poor. You should not be helping them lose what little gold they have.”
Later, the tavern door opens, bringing cold air and Ilya with his mother. Her hands never leave him—touching his dark hair, his arm, his cheek, as though confirming he’s real. She smiles so widely it must hurt. The Burgomaster leans close to Ratrick, his voice low. “Getting his mother to let him leave again with you… she will have something to say about that.” He straightens, addressing the group. “Now, tell me about the coffin you carry in the wagon you came in. Ilya told us the tale but I do not understand what he meant.”
Zilk and Crystal exchange glances before explaining—they need someone who can cast a Resurrection spell, someone with power enough to restore life to death.
“This is powerful magic,” the Burgomaster says slowly, firelight dancing across his weathered face. “No one in the town can cast magic of that nature. But is it possible that you might mean the Abbot?”
The friends’ faces go grim, the warmth of the tavern suddenly feeling thin and false. That is exactly what they feared.
The Abbot, they know with sick certainty, is absolutely mad.
