Explorer of Edregon

Vin had to admit, he was equal parts curious and concerned based on how secretive Myers was being as she grabbed a bag from the supply room before leading him past the outer wall and away from camp. Though seeing as she'd just helped him interrogate a dead body for the better part of an hour, he figured she deserved at least a little bit of faith.

The two of them weren't exactly trying to be stealthy, but they did move under the cover of darkness, and Myers continued glancing around as if making sure they weren't being followed.

"Want me to make sure we're alone?" Vin offered after she paused to look around the third time.

"That would probably be for the best," she nodded slowly. "We're not doing anything technically illegal by any means, though I don't like the precedent we might be setting."

Shrugging, Vin began casting the occasional Sense Life pulse to ensure they weren't being followed. And after remembering Golrim's trick, he quickly followed it up with Tremorsense just to be safe. Sense Air wasn't designed to be used in such a wide range pulse, but Tremorsense was perfect for checking to see if anything was hot on their trail.

After confirming that they were still alone, Myers brought them to their final destination. Located only a few minutes away from the town wall, she finally stopped beside a lone, gnarled tree.

"This is the place," she said, staring at the tree with a slight frown on her face.

"Myers… I'm not a Druid. I can't talk to plants."

"It's not the tree I brought you here to talk to," she frowned, her eyes flicking down to the earth. "It's the body under the tree that might have answers for us."

Vin stared at the cryptic lieutenant, his own eyes snapping onto the dirt. Now that he knew what to look for, he was actually able to tell that a large portion of the earth at the base of the tree had been recently disturbed a few weeks back. And based on how it was slightly higher than the surrounding earth, something had been buried here.

Or a lot of somethings.

Tracking increased to lvl 8! 800 exp gained.

"Myers…" Vin said carefully, wondering if he should have let any of his friends know that he'd gone on a late-night outing with the lieutenant. "…who is buried under that tree?"

"This is where we buried the members of the first wave that fell during the battle for wave two," she finally explained, staring at the earth with a sorrowful expression. "Two dozen dead men and women, and we didn't even have the time or energy to spend digging individual graves for all of them. They deserved better."

"Yeah," Vin agreed, memories of the brave Earthers fighting and dying to try and keep the monsters from overrunning camp flicking through his head one after another. He'd personally witnessed many of these people die right in front of him, and he couldn't say he was a huge fan of disturbing their eternal slumber. "Myers, who exactly-"

Vin froze, the answer finally clicking into place even as he was asking the question. Slowly, his gaze swept up to the lieutenant, taking in the thin line of her lips.

"…You can't be serious. You buried her here as well?!"

"Like I said, we were trying to be efficient," Myers said, her hands balled into fists as she prepared herself for what came next. "Even after going to Kyle himself, we don't have any leads, Vin. If anyone is going to have answers for us, it's going to be her."

Vin could only stare at the somber lieutenant as his mind raced to formulate some sort of argument. Yet as much as he didn't want to disturb the grave of the few dozen first wavers that died fighting for them, he had to admit she was right.

Kyle hadn't seen anything useful, but there was at least one other person the vigilante killed who may have.

"At the very least, do you remember the rough spot you dropped her body?" Vin asked weakly, stepping up to the disturbed earth and preparing himself. His mana had recovered a little during the walk out here, but he was still running rather low after their lengthy interrogation.

"Start on the left half," Myers said, finally revealing what she'd taken from the supply room.

Collapsible shovels.

Shivering, Vin accepted the shovel and got to work. It was a small consolation, but with his myriad of sensing spells, he was able to pinpoint precisely where the bodies were buried. The two of them spent the next hour digging up corpses under the cover of darkness, and Vin had to agree with Myers that he didn't much like what they were doing either.

If it had been anyone but her, he probably would have refused outright.

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Finally, after they'd been thoroughly covered in dirt and sweat, they found who they were looking for. Vin did his best to ignore the familiar rotting faces as he gulped, taking up his position beside the body they'd come here for. Even if she didn't have a crossbow bolt lodged deep into her brain via her left eye, he still would have recognized her by her tall frame and long hair that was still attached to her decomposing scalp.

"Ready?" Vin asked, glancing up at Myers and getting a nod in return. Taking in a deep breath and almost choking on the smell of death, Vin put his hands on either side of the corpse's head and cast False Life.

With a shaky gasp, Patty tried to take her first breath in over three weeks. There wasn't much left of her remaining eye after spending so long in the dirt with the insects, but what remained clearly tried to match his gaze.

"Patty," Vin shuddered, doing his best to ignore the dead woman's condition. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes," she spoke, her voice raspy and seeming to rattle in her very lungs. Vin knew that she wasn't even using her vocal cords to talk, and that it was all coming from the magic of his spell somehow, but it was still eerie as anything to hear her speak as decomposed as she was.

Vin had to pause and remind himself that it wasn't actually Patty he was talking to right now. Despite the fact that he was using her decaying corpse as a medium to access her memories, it was nothing more than an advanced, magical copy. He hadn't brought the sinister woman back from the grave, he was just tapping into what she knew in order to potentially save countless lives down the line. He was doing this for the greater good.

Right?

Not wanting to spend any more time 'talking' to Patty than necessary, Vin dove right into it. "Did you see who killed you?"

"Yes," Patty rasped.

"Who was it?" he asked, his heart leaping at the realization that this might all have been worth it.

"I don't know," she answered, staring unblinking at him as she awaited his next question.

"Damn it!" Vin cursed, almost going to end the spell before Myers stopped him.

"Calm down, Vin. Just because she doesn't know the person, doesn't mean she can't give us more information," Myers said firmly, laying a hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry, I know," he said, frowning at Patty's watchful corpse. There was something about digging up and crouching within the grave of the very men and woman he'd tried so hard to save that was heightening his emotions.

"What details can you give us about the person that shot you?" Vin ventured, before remembering he had to be more specific. "Were they a man or a woman? Did they have any other weapons on them other than the crossbow? Did you see their face?"

"It was a woman," Patty rasped bluntly. "She had a staff. I saw her face."

"A staff?" Myers mumbled, her thoughts obviously going straight to the members of the first wave that fought with anything even closely resembling a staff. While she did that, Vin continued the interrogation.

"Any details you noticed when you saw her?" he tried, grasping at straws. "What was her expression? What was her hair color? How far away was she? Do you think she'd planned to kill you or did she just take advantage of the opportunity when it arose?"

"She was tall," Patty said immediately. "Her face was hard but resigned. Her hair was dark. She was thirty or so feet away. I don't know."

"A tall woman with a staff, dark hair, and the ability to land a crossbow shot from range," Vin murmured, trying to think about who from the first wave met that criteria as his mind began to ache from his dangerously low mana reserves. It was unfortunate that he hadn't really spent any time getting to know any of the other Earthers, let alone those from the first wave. Assuming whoever killed Kyle wasn't just a copycat killer, then this vigilante also needed to have had good reason to kill both Patty and Kyle. The problem was that Patty had had no lack of enemies, and Kyle had shouted his murderous threats loud enough for the guards to hear, who no doubt immediately went to spread the word across camp.

Something about that thought tickled a memory in the back of his mind, and Vin paused his line of thinking, trying to focus on the sensation. What was it that his subconscious had flagged? Something about the guards spreading the word? Myers had already mentioned that they interrogated the guards via truth-gem, why had the thought of the guards stood out to him so-

"I think I know who it was," Myers suddenly said, snapping Vin out of his thoughts as he failed to make any headway. "Or at the very least, who it was that killed Patty. We still don't know if it was the same woman that killed Kyle, but I think the odds are good she did."

"Really? Who?" Vin asked, his flesh and blood arm all but shaking as the last dregs of his mana cycled through the spell connecting him and Patty. Myers must have noticed he was flagging, as rather than answer him, she quickly turned and directed her next question to Patty.

"You said you didn't know who the woman was, but had you seen her before?" She asked.

"Yes," Patty responded.

"Was she from the military half of the first wavers?" Myers added.

"Yes."

Pausing for just a moment, Myers took a deep breath and asked her final question.

"Was she standing guard outside the command center when you entered it for the final time? When Vin finally returned to camp and you went to start your coup and tried to take over the camp as the new leader?"

Vin finally realized why he'd gotten hung up on the bit about the prison guards as it all finally clicked and he sucked in a shocked breath himself. He did know a single member from the first wave that matched all the criteria they'd been given. They'd barely exchanged more than a few sentences with one another, but he knew them nonetheless.

A tall woman, former military, wielding a quarterstaff, who was in tight with the camp guards because she herself was one. Not only had she been standing outside the command center during Patty's failed attempt at a coup, which meant she'd almost certainly personally overheard everything that had happened, she would have been one of the first people her fellow guards went to spread the gossip about regarding Kyle's threats to kill everyone once he was free. She had the motive, she had the means, and she must have decided to take it upon herself to do what she thought was right and enact justice with her own hand.

All this flew through Vin's mind in the blink of an eye, and he started as the last flickers of his mana swept through Patty's head, allowing the dead woman to answer Myer's question and confirm without a shadow of a doubt that her killer was precisely who they suspected. Staring up into his eye with her rotting orb, Patty answered one final time before his mana finally ran out and the spell ended, sending her copy back to the great beyond.

"Yes."