Back To Nightshade

 The skeleton had informed the trio of all that had passed through the village of Skullvale in the past fortnight, Millie nodding as though she understood the passage of time around this world. She still glanced over at Amaia, hoping they could shed a little light on that situation. They simply patted her on the shoulder, as if to reassure her that the internal clock would kick in eventually.

The biggest thing they learned from the skeleton, however, was that Niles had been through there at some point in the last couple weeks, drained all of the village’s natural resources to create some kind of monster, and then left. There wasn’t any indication as to where he disappeared to after that, much to the group’s frustration.

Where the hell had this guy gone, anyway?

They regrouped with Anton’s group, Talia, and Sara, who had all been strategizing, as well. The larger group turned to face them, wondering what news they brought.

“Okay, so good news,” Amaia started, “he was here at some point. Less-great: he also left and hasn’t come back.”

Talia groaned. “So that bird led us away from our target, is what I’m hearing…”

“Pretty much,” Millie sighed.

So that meant that they’d have to keep the search up. Plus, Amaia had been ready to leave for a while, anyway. That one skeleton took issue with Vertiwhip, and it definitely occurred to them that if other residents showed up, it might incite an angry mob, and none of them really needed that right now, particularly not the pair that’d be dragged back to the Underworld if they didn’t pull this off.

But how to figure out where Niles had gone to after that…

They headed back outside of Skullvale’s borders, trying to decide what to do. It was then that they noticed that the lopsided spy-bird they’d created was still around. And it could probably be controlled, the more Millie thought of it.

“Hey...can you understand me?” she asked it.

It squawked in response.

“Okay, great! Can you fly a bit past the village? I want to see if there’re any clues.”

It squawked again, flying off to do just that. And as it flew off, she could see everything it saw. So much of what lay past Skullvale, as it turned out, had been horribly ruined, turned into a wasteland. But most of what she’d seen so far had been forests, cities, and villages.

“Hey...are wastelands part of the geography around here?” she asked.

“No, dear, they aren’t,” Talia said.

“Well, crap...because I’m seeing a lot of that...how much damage has this guy done…”

More of what the bird saw reached Millie. And before long, it was in a very familiar forest. It was where she’d first appeared in this world. And she muttered a few curses as she put two and two together.

“What is it?” Talia asked.

“Well, beyond here, going that way, is a lot of wasteland. And then I saw that forest where your castle is. I didn’t see him, specifically, but there’s a good chance he’ll be headed that way.”

Talia stared in shock. On the one hand, it didn’t surprise her that he’d head there sooner or later, given that she was the one that sent him on the quest in the first place and he probably had it in for her. But on the other hand, she was surprised that it was happening so soon.

“...Would we even be able to make it in time?” Amaia asked. “Because wandering the wastelands does not sound ideal, and it took a week just to get to this point.”

Millie blinked. Well, it was nice to know how long she’d been around there so far. But had it really been a week and change? She really did need to get that internal closk thing figured out, didn’t she. It also made her wonder something.

“Hey, how long was I dead, anyway?” she asked.

“About a day,” Talia told her.

Somehow, it felt like less time than that.

“So, how do we want to do this?” Nibbles asked.

Talia tapped her chin. “It might take less than a week because we know what to expect in that one pocket of light. But Kevin might have changed his mind. But the wasteland might be a shortcut, and a shortcut may be what we need.”

“Maybe…” Anton suggested, “we can split into two groups. My family and I can go one way, you guys take the other one. That way, at least one of our groups can get there first.”

It was soon decided that Anton and his group would deal with Daylight. The human and werewolf could likely go through the city unscathed, while the gargoyle could take the zombie and the dullahan’s head over its borders. The only one with sunlight issues was the werewolf, but her other form was that of a human, so she should be okay. Talia and her group would go through the wastelands.

As they parted ways for the time being, Talia was trying not to panic.

“He might already be in my home…” she breathed, shaking.

She may not have been trying very hard.

Sara looked at her. “You okay?” the drider asked, as they all entered the wasteland.

“In all honesty? No. I was entrusted with the family home, keeping our lands safe. I’ve been pulling people in to help with that. And now? Now there’s a very real risk of the FIRST such champion I’ve summoned for that task ruining everything. He’s already been hard at work with that, too. He took control of the entity that killed my mother right in front of me, and then went on to hurt others!”

Millie sighed. “All the more reason for this to hopefully be a shortcut…And on my end of things...I did kinda like the Underworld, sure, but I have no intention of getting pulled back there without some kind of revenge. I promised those that got killed by the Soul Stealers that they’d be avenged.”

“Hey, when you saw a few of the fallen, was one of them a vampire? Looks a bit like me?” Talia asked.

“No, I didn’t...are vampires excluded from the Underworld?”

“Oddly, no. We still have some kind of consciousness, so we can still end up there. We just don’t go to any of the Fields, or even Tartarus.”

Amaia blinked. “Ah...so, she might have been summoned back for some reason. Hades warned me about souls disappearing and reappearing.”

That, as it turned out, did not make Talia feel much better about the situation. It wasn’t enough that her home may have been under attack, but there was the possibility of her mother being unwillingly dragged into Niles’ work?!

“I get it,” they replied, now hoping to mitigate the damage. “My brother was down there. Just because he was when I got to him, that doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods, either…”

Millie felt a little better about her own situation. She may have lost her job to the Soul Stealers back home, but it wasn’t like that was a family member. Yes, it was her dream job and everything she’d trained for in college, but it was still jus tthat: a job. And if they hadn’t seen fit to keep her there after all those years, then that just meant they’d lost their soul already. She was much better off where she was now (even with the threat of being pulled back to the Underworld over her head). Down there, she already knew where she’d probably be headed, anyway; they already decided she’d be on her way to the Meadows. But she still didn’t want to leave Nibbles behind again, and had no idea how Amaia would be judged. And she didn’t want to think about either of those for a good long while.

The wastelands, thankfully, were unpopulated save for the quintet wandering through them. But it was clear that what used to be a thriving field was irrevocably messed up. Part of what they trudged through was a dried out former riverbed.

The journey lasted for a few days. In that time, Millie had allowed Talia to feed on her a few times, and had experimented a bit with using her scythe to fly. The attempts caused her to pass out a few times, but she’d finally managed to visualize hard enough to get Final Draft to lift her off of the ground, seated on the staff. She felt this completed the witch look.

Aside from Talia, they hadn’t really eaten anything along that trip. They’d have to see about remedying that when they got back to Nightshade proper.