I hit a rock. A spark flew out from the gardening trowel I was using. I grabbed the rod tossed it aside auro digging.

  The hole grew. Wet dirt stained my knees and seeped into my dress as I tore into the soggy ground.

  My fingers began to hurt. I dug deeper.

  The sun burned down onto my back. The hole was a few feet deep now. Not very even, not as deep as some. But enough.

  I lowered the package down, ed in the cloth of a banner I had found in the guard tower.

  I stared for a moment. The words were hard to find until a small smile broke out. “Rarr,” I said.

  Dirt fell onto the grave, filling it. Then I patted it down.

  The gravestone came . A pque made from a piece of a door, the stick holding it up once a spear that had saved my life.

  BonesyAn unnamed bard.A skeletonA friend

  I wiped my cheeks dry and got up.

  ***

  The armour I had been so excited about slipped on easily enough. There were knots to tie, and the material pinched in a few pces. But as soon as it was all oerial shifted and moved. I felt the faint stir of magic around my body, then nothing.

  It fit like a glove.

  That was good. I would .

  ***

  There were still only five ghosts. I had a long piece of cord by my side, the end heavy where I had tied my showerhead glyph. I held onto the small ‘magid’ in my other hand. I had a suspi I wao prove.

  The grass rustled and shifted as I walked closer to the church, to the graveyard. “Hey!” I called out.

  Five heads slowly turned my way, then their faces shifted into disgusting, disfigured expressions as if I had just walked over to them covered in rot and filth.

  “Hello,” I said. My voice was hoarse, a little raw. I blinked a few times, then coughed to clear my throat. “Hello. My name is Broccoli Bunch,” I said even as the first ghosts started to fly towards me, arms and cws outstretched.

  “W-would you be my friends?”

  The first ghost to reach me grabbed my face, cws digging into the bay head and cheek.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  ing magic shot into the ghost.

  The ghost burst apart.

  I swung my makeshift fil around in a tight circle, sweeping through the arms of the ghost to approach again and again, but it was still ing at me.

  The magid flew through its head and past the body of the ghost behind him. One fell, the other paused as the hole in its torso mended.

  I stepped to the side and shoved my hand into the chest of the ghost. Another pulse of ing magic. Two were left. I was down to the st third of my mana.

  My spinning fil spun through the already injured ghost as I moved onto the st and most intact of the group. A touch, a burst of mana. It burst apart like a sack of flour with a firecracker i.

  Then the fil did its job and the final ghost, already torn apart, whooshed onto the ground in a pool of dust. It left behind a thin, ghostly cloth.

  My knees hit the ground and I buried my fa my hands. My tears stung when they slid into the open cuts ay cheek.

  But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t stay and just wallow in my own sadness. I had a quest, a mission to do, and being sad, being down like that, even if, even if I had just killed my only friend. I swallowed, throat thick.

  Ding! gratutions, you have wiped out (5) enemies (‘Sentinel Ghost of Threewells by Darkwood’ Level 1! x5)!

  Ding! For repeating a Special A a suffit number of times you have unlocked the skill: Makeshift on Proficy!

  “,” I said to no one, because there was no oo hear.

  I got up. I wiped my eyes again. I used the st of my mana to my face, wiping away the drying blood and allowing a fresh rivulet to slip down my cheek. One more cut and I would have an even number of scars ay cheeks. I snorted, which turned into a giggle, which I stopped before I started g again.

  The shops. The church. Then the evil spirit. Enough time tain all of my mana and maybe eat some more honey and drink more lukewarm water.

  I picked up the ghostly cloth and brought it with me to the edge of the road where my haversack was waiting and tossed it in along with my magid. The showerhead I kept. Had to grind those Makeshift on Proficy levels after all. A gift, of sorts, from Bonesy.

  The first stop was a general store, the shelves emptied, some of them tossed to the ground. There were jars here and there, and some lengths of rope that looked det. I took one and looped it under one arm and over the opposite shoulder. It seemed sturdy enough, and good rope was never a bad thing.

  I found a backpa the back of the store. It was dusty, of course, and a little brittle, but the material seemed nid tough and hadn’t rotten away. I transferred the stuff from my haversato it, leaving behind some of the less handy things and ing others in the cloth I had. I didn’t want to make too muoise as I moved, which meant quieting dowtle of the stuff I carried.

  Mt iory, if I could call it that without sounding too geeky, sisted of:A y haversackTwo pieces of ghostly clothA key from the house with training dummiesFour jars of honeyOne jar of viwo bottles of wineA bottle of water from my showerheadOne pretty painting boat and dragonSome silverware in a clothOne silver dleholder with a dozen fresh dlesA small firestarterSome bits and pieces of cloth.A length of ropeMy map

  Not much of a hoard, but enough, I hoped, to get by. I wondered where and when I had mispced my rusty short sword. Not that it mattered much.

  The stop was the bcksmith’s shop. There was a bell that ked above the door, just loud enough and close enough to my head that I jumped three feet in the air at the noise. “Oh gosh,” I said as my heart pounded away. I shook my head, made sure I was still alone in the shop, then started looking around.

  This had to be the workspace of whoever lived in that one home I had found with the broken anvil. It was a busy pce, with tools ying all over and strange devices left to rust. From the number of hooks on the wall and the tools around, it was clear that the bcksmith had taken his or her share of them with them. The anvil was gone, but there was a big log where it might have sat. The huge fe at the back had remained, probably easier to move the rest of the building than that one piece.

  I didn’t anything as I moved to a small se that seemed to be made for dispying wares and suchlike to the ers. There was a safe with a key resting in its lock.

  “Huh,” I said as I easily opehe door and found... ingots of metal and a few knives iher sheaths. One man’s treasure, I guessed. None of the stuff within the safe was rusted, probably owing to the glyphs carved into the sides of the box.

  I pulled out one knife and sheath and ied it visually, then ran a thumb perpendicur to the bde. It sang a little. Sharp.

  “Insight.”

  A sharp steel woodsman’s knife, old.

  I shrugged, tossed one ko my backpad looped the other to the belt holding up my leather skirt.

  The rest of the shop didn’t reveal much of any worth to me.

  The third store, the one he gates of the vilge, had a strange sign above it. A staff with a ball above it and something going around it. Magic, obviously, but what sort was beyond me.

  The door opeo a few quick kicks and revealed a sort of ic, of all things. A pair of beds at the back, both with dirtied sheets oained with what might have been blood ohere was a ter with gss jars to one side, and beyond that a small room with mortar ales and alembics.

  “An alchemist’s shop,” I realized. “And a medical ic.” It made sehat they would be together. I picked up a bottle and shook it a little. “Insight.”

  An expired healing potion, old.

  “Shucks.” Not one of them was usable, muy dismay. I left them behind and explored some more, but most of the good stuff had left with the people living here or had been looted long ago. The sed floor of the building had a small bedroom for two and an office space with a strange et on the wall. There were some more tools within, and a single book. All perfectly untouched.

  I reized the glyphs from the safe on the inside of the et. It was locked.

  Safe from time the tents might have been, but not from a smack from a rock. The gss burst apart, sh the floor in tinkling pieces that I shied away from. “Sorry,” I said to the no doubt long-dead owners as I moved to the et. The book was fresh. Not quite new. In fact, it was worn and well loved.

  Herbs for Healing, Pnts for Power, read the title.

  “Huh, ,” I said. “Insight.”

  A herbology book.

  I leafed through the pages, taking note of the carefully hand-drawn images of pnts on nearly every page and the obviously mae-priext o them with descriptions and warnings and uses. There were notes as well, in a cursive hand that was hard to read but still prehensible if I squinted.

  I ed it in a bit of old bedsheets I cut off in the bedroom, the itom of my pack.

  That was it. There were some homes left to explore, and the church, but that was it for this er of the town. It was also it for me, at least for that day. The sun hadn’t begun to set yet, but I was tired, weary to the bone.

  I had o thing I wao look into, then I would be off.

  The town was as silent as ever as I crossed it. The only differenow that my head was held high and I weled any ghost that would e at me. None did. I reached the hole in the wall where I had first e out into Threewells and shuffled into it. My eyes lingered over where Bonesy had once been, but I moved on.

  In the office was the chest I couldn’t open. In my hand, the key I had found in the house with the training dummies and spare swords. It was just a hunch, but... The key slotted in, and I spun it around. The lock clicked and the top of the chest popped open with a whump of pressurized air esg.

  I opehe chest to find two binders filled with papers and a leather bandolier, all of its pockets empty.

  Well, it was there for the taking. I slipped off my leather jacket, then put on the bandolier so that it would be opposite the coil of rope I had, then I hiked the jacket ba and repced the rope. There. Now I looked like... well, the gambeson made me look like a marshmallow. A marshmallow with a skirt and a leather jacket.

  I smiled faintly at the image I must have presented. Far from the petent explorer I hoped to be. Still, it was good enough for now.

  I picked through the binders absently. The pages within were mostly intact, but all of them seemed like dull reports.

  I took them anyway. I needed something to keep me pany until m.