[b]Herbert[/b]

The ascent had left Herbert aching in the joints and with muscles afire, yet he had not complained. He leaned heavily on the loaned walking stick, a black thing with a rubber handle and peculiar spike on the bottom. Even still, so stretching was the exertion that Herbert was almost glad when they were able to halt, even if it meant at the foul ruins. The wrongness was still here, but it seemed more nuanced now, no doubt due to his recent enlightenment. Twain’s methods had been… interesting, but Herbert had willingly accepted the existence of magic; the evidence was next to irrefutable. Shades of the world previously hidden, now danced in all their grimness. 

An outcrop of slab and stone invited Herbert to rest against it, and he obliged gratefully. The team went about excavating. He knew little about them beyond their names; he had spent much of his time alone or with Twain; after all, they all had their respective homes to return to, it made little sense to become attached. After he regained his breath, he pulled a bottle from his pack and swallowed in three large gulps, the water icy cold and oh-so refreshing. He wiped the beads of sweat from his brow with a gloved hand and stared up at the sun. The snow still clung to the mountain in thick blankets and droves, but Herbert was sure he had burnt the exposed areas of his face, for they were tender and felt rather too hot. 

A chittering caught his ear, stealing him from the brief respite. A flash of fur sent off-white bones sprawling. The sight of the bone creature recalled to him another such beast. 

“Ariel, stop.” Herbert’s voice rasped with urgency. Pushing himself off the wall, he strode over to the main pile of bones. The bones were small and eclectic, but tiny spider-web strand seemed to stretch between them; it’s magic still holding. “I do believe we may have met, or at least his kin.”

Herbert went about gathering the bones up, stooping and crawling, following the barely perceptible hints of magic that bound in. Occasionally, thrown-up piles of snow bounced against him as he searched, oblivious to all else. When the bones sat in a jumbled pile, Hebert stood and brushed off his hands, watching expectantly.

“This creature may be like us, or it might be from this world. Regardless, it is not doubt important in understanding in its fullest what happened here.”


[b]Mallaidh[/b]

Perhaps the quietest of all the party, Mallaidh rarely took her eyes off the ground a few feet in front of her, yet they focussed on a point far beyond. Her brow was imperceptibly creased. The great sword leant against the front of her shoulder and she held in with both hands, clinging to it with white knuckles. However, even the sword did little to comfort her, and she felt a touch dirty and dishonest for holding to it with such a fervent determination and stubbornness. It was as though the floor of her heart had been pulled endlessly inwards, and the gaping chasm it left had been filled with an aching numbness; such was singular to the hollow grief of loss.