Ratface sat in the wagon and watched as Alvinshire faded into the distance. She hadn’t gone back into the place after their battle in Halvin’s rest. It was difficult for her to argue she hadn’t been the one to break into the guild when she’d been at the secret mission fighting. At the same time, she and her group were directly responsible for keeping everyone alive. She imagined the guild didn’t like the idea of Lurian and goblins now having a spot on their doorstep, but they probably liked the idea of all of their adventures dead a lot less.

  She had seen them begin preparations for a wall though. Goblins were apparently more of a concern than the Emptiness.

  A shiver ran down her spine. She hadn’t been ready for the Emptiness. She certainly hadn’t been ready for dealing with a goddess.

  She’d been so focused on helping Abigail at the time that she hadn’t really had time for the fear to really run through her. Now though, the thought of that thing surrounding her made her hands tremble. She took no comfort that it couldn’t touch her. It had still done so much even separated as it was.

  “I’m surprised the elves pray to her,” she mused out loud.

  “They don’t,” said Abigail. She was sitting in the back with Ratface out of her armour. It was put into neat piles in front of her as she systematically inspected each piece and recharged it.

  “Well, that’s not entirely true. The elves do pray to her. It’s just their prayer is to keep her asleep rather than wake her up. No elf wants their goddess’s attention.”

  She paused on her recharging to fix a rune on her chest plate. She pulled out her grafter and began retracting lines and smoothing where it had broken. Ratface was surprised how little maintenance she had to do. Her fight against Halvin had been brutal and taxing, yet the old knight had held up remarkably well. Ratface focused her eyes and saw how the energy twisted into the armour. It looked like it was coming from all around them. The arcane was confusing to Ratface. It wasn’t as easy to understand as a connection to nature like Tiffany for example. It made her think of Vin’s goblin runes she used.

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  “I saw something strange when I was with the goblins,” she said.

  “You mean besides an empty goddess?” asked Abigail. She smiled to take the sting out of it.

  “Vin used goblin runes to do magic,” said Ratface. Abigail went silent as she finished her chest plate’s repairs.

  “That shouldn’t be possible,” she said once she finished.

  “Shouldn’t be possible sums up our journey so far doesn’t it?” asked Tiffany from the front. She and Albert were guiding the wagon while Kryssa and Halmir went out and hunted. The two humans had seemed exhausted after the battle and had yet to bounce back as fast as the other two. Once mana had rushed back into Halvin’s rest, Halmir and Kryssa had quickly regained their stamina. The perks of being partly mana Ratface supposed. She couldn’t imagine fighting the Empty had been particularly easy for the two.

  “What’d it do?” asked Albert. He was still talking to Ratface which was good, but he still seemed distant. She still owed him a chat.

  “It made us be able to hear around the Empty.”

  “That’s surprising. There isn’t really any magic that can combat the empty. Most of it is just outlasting,” said Abigail.

  “What about that big wave you did at the start of the battle?” asked Tiffany.

  “Ah, that. I saturated the area around us in mana. The Emptiness may burn away mana, but it takes time. It’s a common technique when you have a squad of rune knights against the Emptiness.”

  They all sat in awed silence as they digested what Abigail had just said. The old woman was basically admitting to fuelling everyone’s spells during that entire fight. It was easy to forget, but Abigail was an old adventurer in a world where old adventurers didn’t really exist. The fact that it took elves to even come close to her just gave Ratface and idea of how terrifyingly strong the old woman was. She wondered how many battles they’d survived because of her presence.

  “Whatever the runes, we’ll test them when we rest for the night. I have a few ideas for our path to the Butterfly Plains and I need to prep you all for that journey.”

  It became clear that Abigail didn’t want to talk anymore as she got back to fixing her armour. She didn’t look like she was vulnerable out of it, but Ratface had to admit they did seem to keep finding themselves fighting things bigger than what they were prepared for. Having someone who could go toe to toe with a golem was probably worth a bit of silence now and then.