By the looks of it, half the squad was present at the temple that was transformed into the shop and headquarters of Victor's crew.

  The shop's produce moved closer to the edges of the refurbished temple to make space for a wooden table and several chairs in the middle.

  There were other changes to the shop as well. A wooden door was added to the inner chamber, and many cracks and missing stones were mended and replaced.

  The place was getting homier as time passed, and what could make it homier than a good poker night?

  They were gambling.

  I couldn't sense anything from the chips they used, but by the intense atmosphere and the fact that most of the chips were concentrated in Edith's hands, it was going on for a while.

  I planted myself next to Kenny, who was in a position of an observer like most of the crew and several outsiders.

  "What's the prize?" I asked in a low voice.

  Kenny acknowledged me with a glance and turned back to observe the game.

  "The title of poker champion and the medal," he nodded at one of the players at the table, who was wearing an ornamental metal disk with the four suits embossed on it. "I made it," he added, satisfied.

  The game continued for quite some time. The chips changed hands several times, but the transactions failed to make a meaningful dent in Edith's pile. Eventually, the game came to a close.

  "Read 'em and weep," Edith exclaimed after the last round of all-ins.

  Three of a kind.

  I grinned. The sly gal didn't raise once, only matching when pressed for it, letting her opponents do all the work. The game couldn't end in a better way.

  "Give it here," Edith extended her hand to the previous title holder. "It ain't a beauty pageant."

  He attempted to awkwardly put the medal around her neck, but she unceremoniously snatched it out of his hands and lifted it up.

  The small crowd hollered with renewed vigor at the display.

  When things calmed down and most people left the building, I could finally get to business.

  "Well, we were definitely right about the ghouls going extinct," I started without a preamble. "There's a lot less of them now."

  "Don't we all know it," Victor sighed wearily. "Only the whites are bagging them like clockwork. The rest of us are taking longer and longer every time we go out."

  "What about the sick?" I asked. "Were there more raids? They're almost completely gone."

  I couldn't miss the much-reduced number of them. When there were a couple hundred at the peak, there were now fewer than two dozen.

  I didn't want to voice my other suspicion of them being used as fuel by the same people who previously defended them.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  "They vanished," Kenny replied, shaking his head. "Once it started, it was like a dam broke. The remaining ones have a day left in them, two tops."

  He sounded genuinely regretful.

  "The only raids going on are against the smaller groups outside of the plaza," Edith added, chest puffed in high spirits from the game. "I'm leading my own group now. Nobody's fool enough to go out on their lonesome anymore." She gave me a meaningful look, playing with the shiny medal around her neck.

  "Congratulations," I offered, unperturbed. "I'm sorry to sour this moment for you, but I have more bad news."

  "What's it this time?" Victor groaned. "Why is it nobody comes here with some good news for a change?"

  "I went outside the city walls-" I said.

  "Alone?" Kenny interrupted me with an unreadable expression.

  "-Made the whole loop around the city," I continued. "And things are getting worse."

  "Worse? Worse, how?" Victor asked.

  "The fog is getting thicker. It's practically touching the far most buildings," I explained. "You remember how it was when we came to the city. We could see it from quite a distance," I reminded Kenny." Well, no more. It's right at our doorstep now."

  That brought everyone to a stop.

  "Fuuuck..." Edith trailed eventually. "What does that even mean?"

  They looked at Kenny for some reason.

  "Can't know for sure," Kenny hedged without confidence. "We know things disappear in the mist and even distances distort," he started to go through his thought process. "And we know that some things had an effect on it—using the Sight on it and maybe just looking at it? Or having more people around? On the day we arrived, it lifted around the city, or at least the city center," He looked at Victor for confirmation.

  Victor nodded along.

  "And nobody knew of the Sight back then," Kenny added. "So I'm assuming it's either the act of observing, being near it, or having active magic go through it that keeps it at bay."

  "The vanishings," Viktor said, and when we turned to look at him, he elaborated. "The folks that vanish are down on their life force, and it only happens when nobody's looking."

  "So what? If the fog gets to us, we'll all vanish too?" Edith asked in a raised tone. Her eyes were wide, and all the cheer she had at the start of the discussion evaporated.

  "It already got to us," I replied. "I walked through it for hours, and I'm still kicking."

  "Maybe we weren't deep enough," Kenny disagreed. "Or maybe it takes more time, and we got out before it could take us."

  "Just great," Victor groused. "Ghouls are running out, we have cannibal raiders on our hands, and now this fog that can erase us from existence is rolling over. And the only thing we know that can stop it is having more people—observing it or just being near it. And just as luck would have it, the same exact people we need to fight it that are too busy killing each other and starving to death."

  Every one of the problems made the other ones worse. When it rains, it pours.

  "We may have a solution, at least a temporary one, for the ghoul problem," Kenny said, looking at me.

  "Oh?" I asked.

  "Shades, ghouls," Kenny listed, "and people. They are the only sources of energy and essence we have-"

  "We are not eating people," I cut him off.

  "No, not that," Kenny replied. "I'm not saying to use people. I'm saying there is one more source we didn't try."

  The three of them looked at me.

  "Are you gonna fill me in, or are we gonna make doe eyes at each other?" I asked.

  "You should take this mask of yours off sometimes," Edith sighed. "It would make this whole communication bit a lot simpler."

  "I'll sooner take off my underwear," I replied to her chagrin. "What's the other source?"

  "The Squid," he stated simply.

  I... didn't exactly forget about it, but I failed to consider it a solution to our sustenance problem.

  When I first encountered it, I didn't know about magic or that we had to gain essence from somewhere to survive; it was all before those discoveries. So it completely flew under my radar now when it was relevant.

  "The squid?" Edith asked. "What squid? We've already sent people to look at the water. Days ago. There was nothing there."

  "Riiiight," Viktor said, nodding, looking between Kenny and me. "You did say something about that, didn't ya? Could it replace the ghouls?"

  I was at a loss for words.

  Not because of the slip of my mind but because even considering it, it felt insurmountable.

  "Victor, I-" I tried to find the right words. "You don't fight a fucking building. Did you think I was exaggerating?" I hefted my spear in the air giving it a couple of shakes. "Do you think this thing will do anything to a creature the size of a barn? It wouldn't even feel the prick."

  I shuddered, remembering its appearance and the wet sounds it produced. I would do anything to not find myself next to this thing ever again.

  "We have magic," Kenny stated excitedly. "We could think of some spell that would do the trick. People hunt whales and elephants all the time. We can start working on it right now. We could-"

  "No," Victor interrupted him. "It's good to have the option for the day ghouls run dry," he placated Kenny. "But there is an 'opportunity cost' to the whole deal," he continued. "The white robes are bringing in ghouls faster than anyone else. Double our speed. We can't go waylaid now. Nobody will steal the Squid from under our noses. It can wait."

  Kenny looked like he was about to argue, but one look from Victor made him wilt in defeat.

  That was a great example of why I wouldn't like to accept someone else being put in charge of me. You should make your own decisions, for better or worse, especially in things that directly impact your life and survival.

  But hey, that was me. Ultimately, people get to live their lives the way they set things up to be.