Book IV: Chapter 16: Lantern Light
"Prince Leinmiri the Lightbearer sailed the sea of stars. Filling the twinkling silence with ship-song as he sought the jewel-world of his father's father. Strong of soul and wise of spirit, the prince sighted countless shores but knew none to be his inheritance. For when he shone his lantern true upon these untouched domains, each was marked as a place of desert and doom. So onward he sojourned, following the seleneian paths, until all but one were mapped."- Translated excerpt from 'Lightbearer's Voyage', a Sidhe epic poem.
Cole opened his eyes and took a deep, shaky breath, which turned out to be a mistake. The pungent stink of animal filth, rotting meat, and other equally awful odors slammed its way into his brain like a rondel dagger. It took a lot to overcome his resistance to bad smells, but being immersed in the fetid barn's aromas right upon resurrecting did the trick. Jumbled thoughts managed to reorder themselves into lucid concerns, and he groped at his face and head. Feeling familiar features and scars beneath his fingers, Cole sighed in relief.
Natalie came into view then, staring down at him with obvious concern. "Are you alright?"
Grunting, Cole managed to prop himself upright. "I don't have a pig's nose or ears; so yes."
"What?"
"I used up my entire soul freeing Lyander. I didn't know how I'd changed upon resurrecting."
Natalie barely managed to suppress a laugh. "Sorry, sorry, inappropriate. But, uh, what did change?"
Back on his feet, Cole walked around a little, testing his body. "I… I don't know."
After a minute of flexing, stretching, and prodding, Cole was forced to admit. "Nothing's different. At least nothing I can sense."
Slowly circling him, finger tapping her lips, Natalie mused. "Maybe the circumstances weren't right? I mean, we're still pretty much in the dark about how any of this works."
"Perhaps, but even if that's the case, it's still worrying. A change to a pattern you're barely starting to understand is rarely a good sign."
Deciding that this new enigma could wait, Cole hoisted Lyander's body onto his shoulder. "Come on, we need to cleanse this place properly, then bury him."
Reaching the barn doors, Cole looked at the late afternoon sun, a new concern striking him. "How long was I dead?"
"Ten minutes at the most. I'm actually a little surprised you're alive already."
"I wasn't suffering any major physical injuries, and I'm already immune to most necrotising blights, so that at least makes some sense."
They found Cumber's small shrine then, and Cole got to work digging a fresh grave. The holy site and its surrounding burial plot were in good condition compared to the rest of the village. Whatever sparks of sanctity clung to the shrine had been enough to keep the pigs at bay. Glancing back at the barn they intended to burn down, Cole considered how rapidly events in this village escalated into something so horrific.
Even if Isabelle's cure successfully fought off the plague, how many more nightmares like this dotted the Southern Marches? All it had taken here was some livestock following their instincts at the worst possible time to create a man-eating herd of festering mutants. Mutants who'd somehow summoned a petty demon that rapidly birthed generations of increasingly twisted offspring. The latest batch of which were more hellspawn than piglet. Camber's story was a stark warning, and one Cole intended to heed; it took very little for things to collapse, especially when there's someone intentionally pushing matters past the brink.
Natalie and her wolves resurfaced from scavenging the village. She'd found a clean sheet to serve as Lyander's shroud, and a collection of miscellaneous flammables to help scour this place of corruption. Once the grave was deep enough, Cole wrapped up the dead acolyte and buried him. Sticking Lyander's sword into the wet dirt as a headstone, the paladin offered another prayer and a promise. "I won't let your sacrifice be in vain."
The next twenty minutes were passed in somber silence as the couple got to work burning down the village. They wouldn't be able to purify this place in its entirety, but Cole's transfusion of sanctity and then a little cleansing fire would hopefully be enough to stop anything else metastasizing from Camber's corpse.
Standing at the village's edge, they watched as the flames grew and spread. Letting out a weary sigh, Natalie crouched down and scratched Grist between his translucent ears and said. "Almost nostalgic, this isn't it?"
Cole nodded, he'd also been thinking of Lungu, another town turned funeral pyre by them. Putting away his tinderbox, he added. "I miss my sparkstone."
"You should have asked the dwarves if they had another," replied Natalie as she turned to head northeast."
That got Cole to pause and then curse. "I didn't even think of that."
"Well, too late now, I guess. Should I try to find where the others are?"
"That would be a good idea, let me take care of something else while you do that, though."
As Natalie shut her eyes and began communing with Yara, Cole set down his bag and rifled through it, finding a tightly bound serpentine bundle. Picking it up gingerly, he got to work unwrapping the object, first removing the cloth Deborah had blessed and then the prayer beads Morri had gifted him, revealing a human spine. Quietly, Cole whispered to the bones. "Pankrator Marcus, can you hear me?"
Green sparks started to flicker between the vertebrae, and a crackling voice rasped. "Can't talk easily, still too far from Wolfgang."
"Has he moved?"
"No, at least not much, still probably in Harmas."
Licking his flame-chapped lips, Cole considered his next words. Marcus was technically an enemy and bound by powerful necromancy, so Cole needed to be careful what he shared with the Dullahan. That being said, other concerns, some practical and some honor-based, necessitated this conversation.
"I encountered one of your temple's acolytes, a Lyander Damus."
A hissing pop escaped the spine. "What? How? Where? Is he-"
"He's dead, I'm sorry, but he did his duty. I spoke with him a little before he passed, and I have questions."
Marcus was silent momentarily, his sparks glowing steadily brighter. "Ask them."
"Lyander claimed that part of the river fleet escaped the battle for Crowbend Castle and is beached north of Harmas. Is that possible?"
"The Duke and his entire host were there," was the Dullahan's answer.
Head hanging, Cole gritted his teeth; it was as he feared. Lyander's presence in Camber was, on the surface, a divinely crafted coincidence, but a few details, especially the timeline involved, fed Cole's paranoia. If Lyander really had set out from somewhere just north of Harmas, then he'd probably been on the road for three or four days to reach Camber; despite it having been weeks since the start of Crowbend's siege, and Marcus's death. Sure, dozens of mitigating circumstances could explain this discrepancy, but that period, three or four days, was suspicious. It had been that long since Cole killed the giant rattler, something that surely would have caught someone's attention. Then there was the fact that Lyander, a mere acolyte, had been travelling by himself. Again, a dozen different innocent answers were plausible, but the discrepancies in all these facts were enough to get Cole's hackles raised.
Yet before the paladin's opinion could properly settle, Marcus added. "The fleet had Hierophant Dalla. She's an incredible illusionist, and Lyander was on the same ship as her. Perhaps… perhaps in the chaos of pitched battle, she might have been able to slip a few boats through the carnage."
Cole genuinely didn't know if this fact made him more or less concerned. Lyander's story became marginally more plausible, but enough loose threads still dangled from the tale to seem suspicious.
Crackling words pulled him from his thoughts. "Lyander? Is his soul free?"
Marcus's question carried another one inside it. Did Lyander escape a fate akin to his?
"Yes, I blessed and buried him myself; his rest will be untroubled."
A sigh like cold water striking hot metal escaped the Dullahan. "Thank you, Paladin Cole."
The green sparks faded, and Cole wrapped up the warrior-priest's remains. Staring down at the bundle containing a trapped soul, Cole made a decision. He'd honor Lyander's final words and seek out the surviving river fleet. At best, the paladin would be following a fellow divine servant's last wishes and doing his duty. At worst, he'd be stepping into a trap, a trap he could prepare for. Flexing his fingers and then gripping Requiem, Cole rolled his shoulders. If something was out there, waiting to snare potential rescuers, they'd soon learn to regret it."
Yara sat high up in an elm tree, staring at the surrounding night-shrouded fields with the type of nervous focus any prey animal must learn to master. The group had set up camp for the night shortly after Natalie got back in contact and were now waiting for the vampire and paladin to return. That had been a few hours ago, which meant Natalie should be arriving any moment now. Hence why her thrall was sitting between bud-laden branches, watching for the agreed-upon signal.
There! Out in the distance, Yara caught sight of three silver-blue flashes. That was Cole's amulet and meant he'd spotted the campfire. Scrambling down the tree, Yara found Mina responding with identical flares of holy magic. As the last of the light faded, Alia, who lay nearby, muttered. "Told you we'd see it fine from ground level."
Unabashed, Yara waited silently until Natalie and Cole materialized out of the darkness. The surge of joy the thrall felt died upon seeing the scowl upon her mistress's face. Running fingers through her long, dark hair, the vampire said. "Well, do you all want the good or bad news first?"
"Good, just for a change of pace," replied Alia as she rolled over on her bedroll.
"The pigs are dealt with," was Natalie's answer. "But Cole thinks we might be headed into a trap."
Grim looks were explained around the camp, and Grettir asked. "What kind?"
Cole related what they'd found in Camber and his suspicions about the dead acolyte. Yara paid the details relatively little attention; her focus was on the priestess. Mina stood ram-rod straight, neck veins visible as she listened to the paladin's theory. Apparently, the idea that another priest or almost-priest had been subverted was striking a nerve. Soon, the discussion turned to travel plans and a debate over Cole's desire to reverse the possible trap and ambush whoever or whatever waited north of Harmas. But before any conclusion could be reached, a sudden shout pulled everyone's attention.
"Finally!"
Kit had bolted to his feet and was staring at his hands, a wild grin upon his face. Looking up from his digits, he found a camp worth of weapons drawn. Wincing slightly, he whispered. "Sorry, sorry, but I've made a big breakthrough."
Still smiling, he wiggled his fingers and made several complex gestures, and a nearby pebble zipped up into his palm. As the Magi let go of the stone, he held his forearms out for inspection, revealing he'd replaced Deborah's enchanted dressings with something… else.
"The fuck are those?!" spat Mina, in a very Alia-like tone.
Over a dozen small needles were stuck into Kit's forearm, each capped by a tiny crystal fleck. As the Magi flexed his fingers, pulses of violet light flared beneath his skin, strangely reminding Yara of a torchbug's glow.
"Synergy!" replied Kit as he continued testing out his newly restored dexterity. "I've combined some principles of eastern internal magic manipulations with necromancy. See, that severed forearm Yara found earlier made me consider a few factors on how necromancy works and-"
With surprising alacrity, Deborah was up and next to Kit, examining the needles, her porcelain face set in a frown. "You're puppeteering the damaged tissue?"
"Yes! And this is just the start. See, animating the muscle fibers like this isn't actually all that complex. With some time and resources, I should be able to replicate the process and-"
Deborah moved to start pulling the needles free, but Kit pulled back. "Hey! This wasn't easy with my injuries."
The Seraphilim's perfectly symmetrical features contorted into a mask of outrage. It was the first time Yara had seen the angelblooded woman with such an expression, and she doubted she'd ever forget the sight. "Do you know what kind of damage this might cause? You risk undoing all my labors and permanently maiming yourself!"
To Yara's surprise, Kit wasn't cowed by a higher being's wrath, and instead, he simply nodded. "Of course."
It was a strange thing to see a living saint be taken aback. "Then why are you doing this?"
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"If I'm going to play my upcoming role, I'll need my hands and my magic. This will let me use both, and with some work, ensure I'll never be robbed of them again."
Pulling away from Deborah, Kit picked up his lantern and showed it to her. The Seraphilim's expression grew worse upon seeing the strange item. As he moved his fingers, the pulses of violet light beneath his skin were matched by a faint twinkling in the lantern's gemstone heart. "See, I've been thinking about this jagged thing for a while now, and I've settled on some questions. But the most pertinent of them is this. What is a lantern for?"
Mina spoke up. "That thing is a fae relic; we can't know what its purpose is."
Kit held up a finger, visibly pleased he could once again engage in such melodramatic gestures. "Not this lantern specifically, but lanterns in general."
There was a long pause as everyone considered this. Yara thought about how many nights she'd wandered the dark halls of Castle Glockmire, of her only source of comfort and guidance on all those errands through blood-soaked shadow.
"They light the way."
Everyone looked at Yara, and it took her a moment to realize she'd said that aloud. Acrid terror filled her mouth, and she was just about to test exactly how strong her ability to avoid attention was when Kit beamed. "Exactly!"
"See, the fae like their symbolism, they like it a lot, and don't give things a certain shape without some multilayered reason. This lantern is meant to be carried, to help guide a person through the unknown. It's a tool of exploration and understanding, but not just in the Mundane! All this time, I've been using it as a power source, but that's just the tip of what it can do. Back in the cavern, the spell I pulled off with the tower's defensive array should not have been that easy. I was repairing and repurposing an unfamiliar magical system in ways that really shouldn't have worked."
Yara's mind drifted back to the gravity-shifting pins Kit had crafted, how he'd used them to turn the tide in the group's favor on multiple occasions.
Gesturing between the pins in his arms and the lantern, Kit continued. "I didn't fully understand it at the time, but this relic was helping me map out and comprehend the dwarven rune work. Honestly, in retrospect, I wonder if it pointed me in the direction of discovering the Lictorim being used in the forts, but that's a question for later. As the question for now is, can I use the lantern to learn how exactly the muscles and nerves in my forearms work? And so far, the answer is yes!"
"You risk permanent damage if you do this," whispered Deborah, her face a pensive mask.
"Yes and no. Sure, the actual tissue might end up jagged, but that won't matter much if I can manipulate my flesh and also understand the processes involved. With a little time, I should be able to decouple my spellcasting from my hands, or at least this set of them."
This was getting confusing, and Yara looked to her mistress for guidance and received only a puzzled shrug in response. Deborah at least seemed to be following a long. Voice thick with frustration, she said. "This is completely unnecessary; my spells would have your forearms perfectly healed within months."
Kit gestured with one hand, and his fiddle and bow snapped free of their case and came to his hands. "I am a concert violinist and Ivory Tower adept of the seventh circle, capable of weaving music and magic with my hands. Yesterday, these hands of mine couldn't toss a rock with any accuracy, let alone work any spells. Tomorrow and the days coming after, will require a magi, not a cripple. Time is only on our side in a divine sense. I need my hands back, and this was the best way to get them."
"Hold on now, you weren't half-bad with the sling," said Alia.
"Oh, I was cheating. I could barely do that using an earlier draft of this spell. Thanks for helping me practice it by the way," was Kit's answer before returning focus to Deborah. "Besides, I've already got some ideas on how to build upon this magic; I think variants of it might revolutionize prostheses along with healing spells related to severe muscle and nerve damage."
Lips pursed, Deborah shook her head. "This is faerie magic, it cannot be trusted."
Kit shrugged. "I mean, technically, it's closer to necromancy, and besides, the Tower will do truly exhausting tests back in Vindabon before doing anything properly dangerous with this."
That did not soothe the Seraphilim. Rubbing at her brow, she let out a long sigh. "So you, with full knowledge of the potential consequences of this to your body, wish to continue, ignoring my concerns in the process?"
"Yes! Now, do we think it's safe enough here for me to practice my violin?"
Settling down next to the fire, Cole took off his helmet and rubbed at his brow. "Go ahead."
Seeing everyone's surprise at that, the paladin shrugged. "Today, I fought a herd of man-eating pigs and banished a petty demon before giving a soldier barely old enough to shave last rites, so some music sounds good."
"You're not worried about attracting attention?" asked Natalie.
Cole tapped his axe. "If anything out in the darkness becomes a problem, it won't be for long."
Fiddling with his fiddle, Kit looked to Yara then. "That pin I gave you, the noise-canceling one, I should be able to get it working."
The thrall hesitated as she watched the group get comfortable around the campfire. Music was dangerous. But… Yara was safe, or at least as safe as she could be.
"No, I'm fine without it."
Natalie ran a finger over the dusty bartop, tracing patterns in the grime as she walked through the abandoned inn. Boots crunching on broken glass, she stepped around a pile of gnawed-on bones and went for the building's staircase. Her fingers continued their work upon the touch-polished wood of the bannister as she went up two flights, reaching the remains of a trap door. Ugly scratches layered the splintered wooden planks, marking where dozens of scrabbling hands had clawed at the trap door until the weight of effort burst the deadbolt.
Preparing herself, she passed through the ragged hole and up into the inn's loft. Long dried blood left a curious texture on rough-sawn planks, showing where spilled crimson had soaked into the wood. Little of the loft's walls, floor, and ceiling lacked that texture. Scraps of torn clothing and patches of unidentifiable filth dotted the attic, more markers of what transpired here. Carefully, Natalie picked her way over to the space's far wall and the broken window there. Using her sheathed shortsword, she finished smashing the glass and then crawled up through the aperture and onto the inn's roof. Perched atop worn shingles, she looked north-east and found the reason she'd come to this vantage point. Sitting halfway to the horizon was the shadowed form of a city, its walls and spires sticking out of the Alidon River like malformed teeth.
A voice shouted from the ground far below Natalie. "Well, are we almost there?"
Squinting down into the inn's afternoon-lengthened shadow, Natalie spotted Alia along with Mina, Kit, and Yara. "Yep, I can see Harmas."
After taking one final look around at the ruined lands surrounding them, she leapt down from the crossroad inn's roof, landing near silently upon the old gravel. Brushing her hands off, she elaborated. "I think we're about five kilometers out, no sign of the river fleet, but I really wasn't expecting to spot them."
Checking his map, Kit nodded. "We're on the right track, then. This road will avoid the major estates and the farms by the river. With a little luck, we'll be at the city by nightfall."
Alia made a concerned noise. "I don't like the idea of arriving in the dark. Is there a place we can stop? Somewhere close enough to scout the city's surroundings tomorrow, but not have us sniffing its breath with the moon in the sky."
"Let me check." After another minute of crinkling parchment, the Magi nodded. "I've got a few options, but I don't know what the infestation around them will be like."
It had been two and a half days since the run-in with the swine herd, and since then, the expedition had been lucky, only encountering a few errant ghouls who'd been easily dispatched. But, according to Cole, that good fortune was probably at its end, as Harmas's outskirts were likely to contain a whole mass of undead unsuited to join the corpse-tide. If they were going to manage the final approach to the city without incident, then an even healthier dose of paranoia was in order.
Kit came over towards Natalie and showed her his route ideas. "I'm thinking the orchards here, on the edge of the Elasab, are a good place to get north of the city without running into anything too terrible. Could you send some wolves to scout?"
"That seems like a good idea, but let's check with Cole. Just in case we need to worry about some kind of horrible undead that only lives in jagging apple groves," replied Natalie.
"I think the orchards are mainly pear and plum trees, but I see your point," muttered the Magi before adding. "Also, any idea when his lessons will be done?"
Glancing over towards the inn's stable, Natalie said. "Right about now."
Cole, Deborah, and Grettir had just emerged from behind the structure and were returning to the group. They'd been dealing with the handful of badly damaged ghouls scattered around the crossroads. Or more accurately, Cole, under Deborah's tutelage, had been practicing his magic using the ghouls, while Grettir watched.
After the trio reunited with the group, Kit explained his ideas and route. Listening intently, Cole shook his head. "No, there aren't undead associated with fruit trees. Other trees, though, that's a different story."
Eyebrows raised, Natalie snorted. "Seriously?"
"Remind me sometime to tell you why I don't like weeping willows," was his response.
Cole reached up and gently pulled a blossom-laden branch to his face. Sniffing the white star flowers, he grimaced as his sensitive nose filtered through layers of smell, finding what he'd expected but hoped wasn't present. Mixed in with the rich floral-and-honey scent expected from pear blossoms was a note of decay. This wasn't the damp odor of a dying tree or even the sign of some arboreal infection; no, this was the smell of rotting flesh, and it had no place wafting off a pear tree. Miasma had tainted the tree, and any fruit it bore was likely to be fetid and malformed.
"What's wrong?" came Natalie's voice from behind him.
Letting go of the branch, Cole replied. "It's the entire orchard, the miasma has sunk its claws in here deep."
From a little farther back in the column, Mina added. "Once the war is done, Mother Earth's servants will be busy here for a long time."
"This region has potent spirits, hopefully, they can be coaxed to help the land's restoration." Cole's words were thin consolation, and he didn't even know for whom.
They'd been in the orchard for a few hours at this point, and the sun was getting uncomfortably low in the sky. The Alidonian Mountains would swallow the light soon, and the idea of navigating this maze of branch and bower in the dark wasn't appealing. That was the double-edge of places like this; they provided all manner of cover and hiding spots, but didn't discriminate on who or what used them.
"Natalie, can Lupus tell you how far we've got to go?" the paladin asked, hoping for some good news.
Eyes shut, two wolves at her side, Natalie walked a little behind Cole. Every second or so, her nose would twitch, and she'd shake her head in a manner that danced between endearing and unnerving. Letting out a sharp exhale, his lover nodded. "We're close to the orchard's edge, and I'm not sensing any ghouls."
"But I'm sensing a 'but' in there."
"But, our prospective lodging has seen better days."
This close to the river and the city, camping out in the open just wasn't feasible anymore. So they'd marked out a small, walled estate bordering the orchards as a potential place to spend the night.
"How bad?"
"The front gate is missing, and my wolves can smell a lot of death coming from inside the actual buildings. Ghouls, corpses, and something else I can't quite identify. I'm guessing survivors were hiding there until the corpse-tide…"
Another ugly story they were just getting glimpses of. Scratching at his chin, Cole turned his attention to Kit. "What are our backup options?"
As the magi fumbled with the maps, Mina spoke up. "Why don't we just clear out the estate?"
"That's a possibility, but getting tied down in a fight like that right here and right now could be bad."
Stepping forward, Kit held out his map to Natalie. "Before we make any more plans, could you send some of your wolves along this road here for about a kilometer, maybe two?"
"Yeah, that's within my range, but why? There's nothing there, just-" Natalie paused and squinted at the map. "Oh. Oh!"
"What did you find?" asked Cole.
Kit tapped a spot on the treated parchment, it was a stretch of empty river bank just north of Harmas, and within a few kilometers of their current location. A minuscule pictogram sat on the bank's edge, its meaning obvious to anyone who'd spent time on the water. Voice quiet, Cole said, "A sandbar."
"Exactly the sort of place a ship might run aground," mused Kit.
Smiling, Natalie ran a finger along the Lupus skull. "Good catch, I'll have some wolves go and see what's there."
They continued onward through the orchard, following the loose dirt path that wove between different copses, heading for the cultivated forest's edge. Aside from the ever-present miasma, the orchard was in good condition, especially when compared to the other farmlands they'd caught sight of. Like any tidal surge, the corpse-tide had followed the path of least resistance out of Harmas, flowing over empty fields and roads instead of between tangled fruit trees. Kit had planned their route well, and the mild circuitousness of navigating the orchard was well worth avoiding the potential dangers of the many ruined habitations to be found scattered near the Alidon River's bank.
Chief among those settlements they sought to avoid was Elasab, the small borough that sat next to Harmas's western bridge. Once an outgrowth of the city inhabited by its poor and petitioners, Elasab had been the first settlement in the corpse-tide's path. It was there, Cole expected to find the worst concentration of undead left behind by the tide. Of course, as much as skirting around the bridge town was the correct move right now, soon enough, Cole needed to investigate it. They were still relatively in the dark about how exactly Harmas's quarantine was breached, so Elasab would hopefully offer answers, and potentially a way into the city.
"I… think I've found something," Natalie muttered, her face set in a worried frown.
The group halted as she drank in the sights and smells of her wolves. "But it isn't good. Two of my pack have made it to the riverbank, close to where you said Kit, and they've found some beached boats, just no sign of life."
Cole's guts turned to lead. Were they too late? "Can you have them get a closer look?"
She absently nodded, the majority of her focus far away. "There's one large barge and a couple of smaller river craft, none are in good shape." Drawing in a hissing breath, Natalie winced. "Lupus smells corpses, lots of them and a few ghouls, the majority in the barge."
An ugly silence settled over the group, and Cole's grip on Requiem tightened to painful levels. Here he'd been fearing Lyander had been subverted, his mind and memories twisted to bait out the giant rattler's destroyer. But the acolyte's words were true, and with them the oath Cole swore. He'd failed these survivors, more people he couldn't jagging save.
Shutting his eyes, rubbing his brow, the paladin fought to keep his posture straight. "Fixed stars preserve us. See if the pack can learn anything, and then let's figure out where we're making camp."
Natalie started to nod and then paused. "That's strange."
"What?"
Holding up a hand for silence, she dove into her familiars, entirely focused on whatever they'd noticed. After a few tense moments, Natalie winced and stumbled back, Cole catching her. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"
To his and everyone else's surprise, Natalie began to smile. "Hierophant Dala, she's very, very good." Recovering herself, the vampire continued to beam. "I sent a wolf to investigate the barge's interiors, but she didn't get far before something attacked her magically. It was fast and broke my wolf's body near instantly, but I still sensed enough to recognize the spell type."
Looking over to Mina, Natalie said. "I really ought to thank you for nearly taking my head off back at the Equinox. Someone inside that barge struck my familiar with a bolt of holy power."
Understanding rippled out from the vampire, and Kit chuckled, "Of course! Illusion magic works best when it conforms to your expectations. She's made the barge seem exactly like what one might expect, a corpse-laden hulk. I should have expected this from a servant of Aunt Seeress."
"Let's rendezvous with them then," Cole said, then looked at the sky. "Do you think we can make it there before nightfall?"
Natalie shook her head. "Probably not, but we can try."
Nodding, Cole sighed. "Well, better to travel a little in the dark to make camp with allies." Pausing, he bit down a grimace. "That is, if this isn't a trap."
"We're still worried about that? If this were bait on a string, why the illusion magic?" asked Alia.
"Good point, but after everything, I still think caution is key. We should approach carefully and be prepared for an ambush or similar."
Yara's quiet voice joined the discussion then. "Even if this isn't a trap, they might still attack us on sight."
Natalie winced. "Jagged edges, you're right, my wolves will have them on edge."
"Lovely, any idea how we avoid having this escalate into another total mess?" spat Alia.
Cole looked over the group and then nodded. "We put our best foot forward, but still keep some daggers to ourselves."