“Thank you, Kate and Valentina, Valentina and Kate. My name is Chaele.” She finally put down the hood of her robe, revealing her face in the orange-tinted hue of the dusk.

The one thing I noticed immediately was the color of her eyes – I’m one to look in the eyes, they are by far my favorite part of one’s body. She had these bright, cornflower blue eyes, and around the pupil there was a slight hint of green present in them. Various times I have heard you can tell a lot from a person from just their eyes, and these eyes had “kindness” written all over them. Her face had a pale, yet healthy color. Her hair had a brown, chestnut color; it was slightly curling and was long enough to still hide its tips under her robe.

She looked strangely familiar, as if she reminded me of someone. I just couldn’t quite place of whom she actually reminded me off.

“Well then, Chaele. I would love to know what happened here, but I think we should head back to wherever you live, to patch up that horrific wound on your hand.”

“Agreed. It’s not far up north.”

She pointed her right hand in the northern direction and started following it, as we followed her through a small portion of forest.

“One thing I have to ask,” she started when we were going through the forest, “Valentina is a Wisp right? I remember reading a book about Wisps, and she looks just like one of them.”

I didn’t need to answer that, as Val blinked from her comforting purple to an agreeing green.

“I thought so. But why do you keep her as a friend, Kate? Don’t you know...”

“…that every sentient creature that can manipulate Essentia is hunting Wisps down? Yes, I’ve been made fully aware of that already.”

“Why keep her then?”

I sighed, because I now realized I would be answering this question countless times.

“Valentina was the first thing I met when I came down upon The Lands. In fact, she was the only thing I saw when arriving at The Lands that actually cared to investigate an outsider like me. Long story short, I made her a promise: I would protect her if she would guide me to the nearest civilization, and since then we’ve never parted from one another’s side.”

“Wait, so you aren’t of The Lands?”

“You didn’t know? I thought it would be obvious from my appearance, I haven’t seen anything like me on The Lands.”

“Me neither, but I’m not a reference; all I know of The Lands is knowledge from books, I haven’t seen anything in the real world yet.”

“Why don’t you go out exploring then? Go search for adventure, seek out all there is to seek out.”

“I can’t. I am a Necromancer. And besides, it only causes for these kind of things.” She showed me her left hand again.

“Oh, I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t be. It’s probably better this way, I’d get in too much trouble otherwise.”

It really wasn’t a long way to the place she where lived, we were barely walking for ten, maybe fifteen minutes and I already saw a cluster of tents surrounding a central wooden house.

“This is where we reside. The camp of the Necromancers.”

“What’s the one house in the center about?”

“That house is of Aeldrich. Son of Ildroch and father of Necromancy. He, who was the first enter The Ethereal Plane as a living creature.”

“He must be quite the important person then.”

“He is.”

“Wait,” I noticed something hopping in front of us in a straight line, “What’s that?”

“That is one of the many sentries of Aeldrich; he keeps the place well-guarded by slaves of his necromantic arts. It’s an undead hare. It won’t hurt you, don’t worry.”

When we approached, I saw this creature was the same creature from back in the forest before I met Chaele: the tiny bunny made of the smallest breeze, which was eating from the cloudy carrot under the tree. This one was bigger in size though, and its eyes were filled with a very light blue color and seemed to give off light. It stopped its movements when we passed it, and it looked right at us, analyzing us. After a few moments it ran straight towards the center of the settlement, and jumped in the house through an open window.

We entered the tent which was nearest to the open field we just came from.

“Welcome to my home,” Chaele greeted me, “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

She did, indeed, not have a lot in the tent. She had a field bed on which lay a sky blue pillow and a blanket in the same color. To the side of it was a bedside table, with on top of it a dozen books. I could only read the title of the book on top: “Forbidden Magiks – Book I: An Introduction to Forbidden Magiks”. Tons of these books were scattered all around the small tent, most of the lying open on a seemingly arbitrary page, with passages circled in a black color.

“You have to live here?” I was genuinely shocked someone had to live in a tent the size of a broom closet.

“Yes, why?” She didn’t understand my shock, “I have lived here for as long as I can remember living somewhere.”

“But isn’t that unbelievably unfair? I mean… Why does Aeldrich deserve a full house and you are all forced to sleep in tents.”

“Aeldrich is the oldest Necromancer alive. He is the creator of Forbidden Magiks. He is the founder of Necromancy. He was the first one to defy the Spirits by entering The Plane alive. He is probably the wisest and most intelligent living creature in the entirety of The Lands.”

Chaele put herself down on her knees and reached for a small box underneath her bed which wasn’t even worthy of the name.

“The wisest and most intelligent?” I repeated her words literally, “What about the Dwarves?”

She immediately got up to her feet and placed her finger in front of her lips, while looking at me with eyes that would kill if they could.

“Don’t. Bring. Up. The Dwarves.” She whispered in my direction, “And most definitely not in the presence of Aeldrich. He will destroy you.”

“I… Sorry, I had no idea.”

“Would you mind helping me with this?” She ignored my apology.

She put a piece of white cloth in my hands.

“Sure, I have to say I’m not a doctor, so I’m not experienced in applying bandages.”

Just as I was about to patch Chaele’s hand, a long figure burst through the opening in the tent. The person was dressed in the same black-like purple robes as Chaele, which also covered his face.

“Come with me. Both of you.”

“Excuse me, but we’re pa—”

“Yes, of course, Daemion.” Chaele interrupted me.

I wanted to ask her why she was so obedient, but when I turned to look at her face, it was no longer there: it was covered by the same black shadow from before.

“What about your hand?” I whispered carefully, making sure the other Necromancer couldn’t hear me.

“We’ll worry about this later. Aeldrich doesn’t like to be held waiting.”

We – Chaele, Valentina and myself – were guided to the wooden house in the center of the settlement, it wasn’t anything luxurious compared to other houses I’ve seen, but it looked more comfortable than the tents surrounding it, at least. The entrance of the house was a reasonably sized door, with the only part of it that looked a slight bit costly being the doorknob, which shimmered in the sunlight of the setting sun with a golden shine. We entered through here, and right before us sat another Necromancer upon a throne made of stone. He wore a completely black robe; there wasn’t a single hue of color present in it. His face too was completely hidden beneath a darkened shadow, but from it where coming two faint, yet bright blue lights. He was resting both his arms on the elbow rests of his throne, revealing two gray, old hands of which the nails were rather on the long side. To the right of his throne, a person was standing, looking anything but healthy: his skin was pallid and he looked malnourished to such an extent I could barely see if his skin wasn’t just his bones. From his eyes came forth the same light blue glow as from the patrolling hare. Remarkably, he stood upright without much trouble, as if his body wasn’t in the shape it was currently in.

I heard the door close behind us again while we were all three standing – that would be hovering for both Val and myself – in the center of the room. On the exact moment the door closed, Chaele fell to her knees before the Necromancer who goes by the name of Aeldrich.

“What are you doing?” She whispered to me.

“What do you mean?”

“Get down on your knees! You’ll regret it if you don’t!”

“I don’t know if you noticed but I don’t have any knees!”

Aeldrich must’ve heard our conversation as he clenched his hand into a fist in annoyance.

“SILENCE!”