#tradersrecords

Reaper crouched behind a crumbling pillar, peering around it and scanning the rolling plains pervaded by fight towers. She sighed, narrowing her eyes. Her search for a village had been nothing short of fruitless. All she'd found was more and more remains of fights long past, the towers groaning as they slowly started to fall apart, The Black slowly releasing parts of it to succumb to gravity. She glanced up, frowning at the multitude of floating rectangular pieces of oak planks and mashed cobblestone high above her head. She hoped they had a good amount of time left. She didn't want to risk getting hurt from them cracking her in the head.

She moved from behind her pillar, crouching as she quickly made her way behind another. She hadn't seen—or Sensed—anyone nearby, but it never hurt to still be careful. In fact, usually it kept her alive. Her iron sword and her armor all sat in her quick-tier, only one mental command from appearing in the physical realm. Some would have argued that leaving her armor on would have kept her more protected and ready for an attack. But she'd seen armored people attacked in the open more than those without it. Armor was a sign of resources and valuables, and people craved those more than they feared the possibility of the victim being well trained in combat.

Reaper continued on her way, ducking between pillars and squinting at the horizon in all directions. Some pillars were thicker than others, and closer to the ground between them were cobblestone or oak walls–hurried forms of protection that hadn't mattered in the end. In the back of her mind, she had already kept a mental note of where the direction back to Phoebe's forest and home was. She had always been good at directions. A trait that had helped her excel at disappearing from hunters and traveling as a Drifter.

Drifter. She'd never truly liked the title. It meant someone who drifted away from the small, corrupted hearts of the world. Someone who explored and never settled anywhere. Those people labeled her as an outcast when they had never welcomed her in the first place. In her eyes, they had no right to label her as anything.

Reaper sighed, shaking her head. She was wasting time thinking instead of looking for a village. Phoebe had told them there were no villages for miles, but there had to be one somewhere in this part of the Biome. It was the only way they could start looking for a cure for Wolf. Reaper had promised they would, and she didn't do that lightly. Promises were something she had seen broken too many times by everyone else, used as simply a means to get what they wanted from the people around them.

Reaper despised that. Wolf and Coder didn't deserve more deceit and betrayal after they'd been murdered and torn from their home. Her promise to them was one she'd sworn to herself that she'd keep.

The sun slowly arced across the sky as hours passed Reaper by. She'd set out from Phoebe’s home near dawn, because going out at night would've arguably been more dangerous, with all the monsters The Black Awakened. Reaper sighed, looking at the sun high overhead, shielding her eyes from the light. There were only twenty-one hours in the day, and currently it was hour eleven. As she was deciding whether or not to start the trek back home, Reaper froze as the distant sound of a strummed note echoed in the air.

Reaper spun around, her eyes scanning her surroundings. She paused as she saw a figure perched on one of the cobblestone walls twenty feet behind her. When did they get there? Reaper wondered. She hadn't Sensed them coming near. Maybe they weren't a threat? Her sensing usually only kicked in when she was in direct danger.

Regardless, Reaper stayed still, studying the figure. They had one leg horizontal on top of the wall, the other dangling freely over the side. Resting against them was a tall, thin wooden instrument with a bottom shaped like a pentagon. Spider strings lined the front of it, and it was at these that the figure plucked at carefully. The tune they played was idle and carefree, echoing to the sun above almost like a parrot soaring through the sky.

Slowly, Reaper crept closer, ducking behind another pillar. The figure was facing her, but hadn't made any move to talk to her. Reaper narrowed her eyes. The urge to summon her sword grew stronger, and she started to feel the chill at her shoulder as she held herself moments from doing so.

As she got closer, she saw the figure was not only a figure, but a woman—one who was dressed in long blue robes that held intricate, swirling red designs sewn into the hem and at the shoulders. The swirls carried from the shoulders and moved to the hem of the hood that covered her face. Sections of long dark hair draped down on either side of her head from underneath her hood, her head bowed as she continued playing her instrument. The carefree tone was still there, but it had quickened, almost as if the bird from before was in a hurry. The freeing joy turned to urgency, a need to reach their destination faster than before.

Reaper shook her head. Enough of this. “Hello?” she called, over the thrumming tune. In an instant, the woman's bandaged fingers held against the vibrating strings, silencing them. Reaper tensed at the sudden cut of noise, and the woman slowly raised her head. Reaper's eyes widened as she saw the woman wore a golden strip of cloth over her eyes, one that matched the golden sash around her waist.

The woman tilted her head toward where Reaper's voice had come from, before slowly, she smiled. “Ah, a visitor!” she said. She sounded oddly genuine about someone being here with her. “Welcome!”

“Who are you?” Reaper raised an eyebrow. She eyed the instrument resting against the woman's body. Reaper couldn't care enough to remember what it was called. “What…are you even doing?”

“Playing.” The woman shrugged. She tilted her head, looking thoughtful. “What are you doing?”

Reaper narrowed her eyes. “That's none of your business,” she said. The woman's lips quirked up in a smile.

“Of course not, dear,” she said. “You have yet to pay me for any of my business services.”

Reaper raised an eyebrow again. Business? She only heard of a few people who freely traveled, for a price. “Are you a Wanderer?” she asked. Part of her wanted to just turn and leave, but she had a feeling that wouldn't be wise. The blindfold this woman wore could be a trick. And Reaper didn't know enough about her to deem her safe or not.

“Am I a Wanderer?” The woman echoed the question thoughtfully, putting a hand to her chin. “Well, that is a good question indeed. To many I am many things. A scammer. A trickster. A messenger. An offer of peace. And many, many more.” She chuckled.

Reaper frowned, hesitating. Then, she asked, “What do you think of yourself as?” she asked. “What do you call yourself?”

“All the same things, in honest truth. I never said the many things I am in the eyes of all were any lie.”

It took Reaper a second to process the twisting sentence. She narrowed her eyes, but nodded. “Okay,” she said slowly. “But that’s not a name.”

“You never asked me for a name,” the woman said, holding up a finger. “You asked me what I called myself.”

“That’s what a name is. Something you call yourself.”

“The same could be said for a self-deprecating insult. Or perhaps a title.”

“What’s your title then?” Reaper took a small step back. This woman was merely dodging questions, and wasting Reaper’s time.

The woman however, still smiled. “There are quite a few of those as well. But the one people use the most is a trader of tales.”

“Tales?” Reaper frowned. “Who in their right mind would sit down and share stories when they could be killed?”

The trader fell silent, tilting her head as if the thought had never occurred to her. When she answered, she spoke slowly, her tone more serious. “Death, I believe, holds some of the most powerful stories. Those hold some of the most prominent concepts of this world: pain, suffering, loneliness.”

“So people share their problems with you,” Reaper stated. “Those aren’t really stories.”

“So what is a story, my question-filled friend?” The trader leaned forward against her instrument. Her smile had disappeared, and yet again she looked purely thoughtful. It was harder to tell if that was her only emotion, though, due to Reaper not being able to see her eyes. That unnerved her slightly. People’s eyes were the doorway to their true intentions, their true feelings. And now here she stood, talking with someone who had hid them from view.

The two stood in silence, and it took Reaper a few moments to realize the trader seemed to actually want an answer from her. Reaper shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. She took another step back, turning away. “Look, I have to go. Maybe you can find your answer from someone better.”

Reaper started to walk away, sighing and shaking her head. She didn’t know why she’d stood there and stayed with the strange woman, but it was distracting her from her current mission of finding a village.

“‘Better’?” The woman sounded almost amused. “I’m not sure if there’s any better than you, dear. Most would have tried to kill me before I’d gotten my second word out.”

“Oh, there’s a few better than me.” Reaper had spoken the words before she’d had time to think it through. She stopped in her tracks, turning towards her right, where in the distance the forest hiding Phoebe’s cottage lay. Phoebe was better than her. Wolf was better than her. Coder was better than her. All of them didn’t kill first and interrogate afterwards. They all sought for the better in the world. All Reaper did was hide from it.

Reaper heard the woman jump down from the wall, her sandaled feet hitting the grass with a soft thud. Reaper turned sharply, and the woman’s instrument disappeared into a burst of black wisps, replaced by a thick, tall staff via the same wisps a moment later. Reaper now saw the trader was as tall as she was.

“The ones suited best to tell stories are often the ones who refuse to share them,” the trader said. “These are the ones who, oftentimes, are in dire need of a listener.”

Reaper narrowed her eyes, sizing the woman up. “I don’t need one,” she said coldly. “I don’t have anything to give you. I am no one. My stories wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

“Well, no one is better than being someone.” The trader smiled. “Everyone is a someone. Being no one makes for a much more interesting story. Much better than the ones I’ve gotten from the settlers nearby. Perhaps that is because they are all merely someones.”

The trader turned and started to walk away, her staff thudding against the ground with her steps. She ran her hand along the cobblestone wall, feeling her way to move around it as she walked. Reaper’s eyes widened and she stepped forward after her. “Wait!” she called. “There’s settlers nearby? Where?”

The trader paused, looking back over her shoulder. “Now, why would a no one be searching for a settlement?” she mused. “Much more interesting, indeed…”

“Hey!” Reaper walked towards her, grabbing her attention again. Reaper tamped down her urge to summon her sword—it wasn’t going to help here. “If there’s a village nearby, I need to know. It’s…” She breathed deeply. “It’s important.”

The trader turned to face, raising an eyebrow above her blindfold. “I would like something in return,” she told Reaper. “I am a trader, after all.”

“Alright.” She nodded. “What do you want?”

The words, once more, had left her before she’d thought them through. But she didn’t care. This information was too important to leave behind.

The trader smiled at her. “Your answer,” she said simply, “of what a story is.”

Reaper stared at her incredulously, before she sighed, shaking her head. “I told you, I don’t know. Surely I can give you something better than that. I have iron? A sword?”

“All of which will corrode with time and age.” The trader shook her head. “Information is much more timeless. That is, if people know how to reach it. Maybe you are not quite there yet as I had hoped.”

Reaper frowned, shaking her head quickly. “Well, hang on! A story–a story is–” She stopped as the trader raised a hand to silence her. She lifted her head, and even though Reaper couldn’t see her eyes, she felt as if they were staring into her own.

“A fabricated answer is not what I wish from you,” she stated firmly. Then, her expression softened. “But, the answer is yet to come. For now, I simply ask for your task, No One. What do you need this settlement for?”

Reaper hesitated, before she steeled herself. “To help people I know,” she said. The trader nodded slightly, smiling in amusement.

“That is a rather vague answer.”

“You never said I had to be specific.”

“This is true,” the trader agreed, tilting her head aside, before she turned her head towards Reaper’s left. Reaper instantly knew the direction as north, due to the sun’s arc toward the west behind her. “The settlement is a few miles in that direction. Marking it is a large, lone oak tree at its beginning. The settlers title it Oakview. Remarkably creative, of course.”

Reaper nodded. She turned towards the north, shielding her eyes from the sun as she squinted in the distance. She didn’t see any trees yet; it seemed she had a way to go.

She looked over at the mysterious trader. “I…appreciate it,” she told her. The woman smiled underneath her hood.

“I have a feeling that you have more to you than you believe, No One,” she said. “But, next time we meet, I expect that answer from you. I think you will have it by then.”

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[SOMEWHERE UNKNOWN...]

Phoebe Awakened in a cold place.

The woman gasped, her hazel eyes flying open, sitting up as she grasped her chest. She...hadn't she just been with the others, at the mountain base? No, she'd been with Reaper, cuddled close in her room. She'd just confessed.

And now, she...

...she wasn't anywhere she recognized.

Where am I?

The dirt underneath her was a shade she'd never seen or heard of from any Biome; it was nearly sand, a pale gray that sparkled in the light. There was hardly any grass, just small patches that looked... dead. The clouds above her were thin, slowly drifting across the sky. Everything, even the sunlight, seemed to have a hint of gray, a looming essence that made it seem drained of all life.

Phoebe jumped with a yelp as she heard a groan, and she spun around, instinctively requesting from her Innate Gift. She froze as she felt The Black respond, and the item dropped into her hands a heartbeat later: her diamond axe, shimmering with newly made enchantments.

On the ground in front of her laid Wolf and Coder. Wolf was pushing himself up...but he...

Phoebe's eyes widened, and Wolf looked up, squinting. His eyes widened. "Phoebe?" he asked, in Dridonic.

"Wolf..." Phoebe's axe lowered slightly. Coder sat up next to him, frowning and looking around. He also froze as he saw Wolf.

"What is it?" Wolf asked, and looked down at himself, twisting. "Is it an ice slug?"

"No... brother, your scars!" Coder exclaimed. "They're gone!"

Wolf stopped, then lifted his coat sleeves. Gone were the spiderwebbing lines, the scars of heat that had littered his arms and chest for months. Wolf trembled, tears welling in his eyes, and Coder whooped in excitement, hugging him tightly.

"They're gone! We–we..." Coder trailed off. He looked at the others. "Did we do it..?

"I..." Phoebe frowned, then looked around. Behind them, fairly close, was a large settlement...only it looked more like a Remnant, with how decrepit it was. Tall buildings, taller than she'd ever seen, had the tops ripped off, windows of glass shattered within the walls. Other homes around those were blackened and charred, and some nothing but piles of rubble.

"What...this is no Biome I've heard of," Wolf said, his voice quiet, his eyes wary as he looked around.

"Look." Coder's voice was hushed as well, and he pointed towards the settlement looming above them. Standing near its edge was a lone figure, almost hunched over, swaying slightly. Phoebe narrowed her eyes, tightening her grip on her axe.

"Do we...ask them for information?" Coder weakly suggested. Wolf and Phoebe glanced at each other. They both knew that in any Biome, outsiders weren't welcome. And the desolation of this place didn't really change their hopes with that.

"I say we try to inspect the city," Phoebe said. "We sneak in, avoiding anyone. I...I think that's the best course. We do not know what the people of this Biome are like."

I wish Reaper were here, she thought. Reaper was better at plans. Her or Galisa, either of them were better at leading than she. But right now, she was all they had.

Wolf and Coder nodded, and Phoebe requested from four slots at once in her First Gift. The Abyss responded, and plates of armor burst into existence in the air around her. Each place, many more of them than she'd had for many days of her last Awakening, was sharp and angular, made of glittering diamond gemstones, the strongest material known to mankind. Her shadow beneath her extended, wrapping around her feet, then her legs, quickly covering all parts of her but her head and morphing into something more solid, like an imitation of cloth that wasn't quite perfect. The plates floating around her snapped towards her, locking into place atop the shadows underneath from her feet upwards, interlocking with each other as her set of diamond armor formed. Her helmet was last, shadows swirling around her head as the plates locked together, her visor slamming down with the sound of ringing crystals, and forming as the last step.

Wolf and Coder followed suit, seeming as surprised as she was that they had items upon their Awakening. They summoned their weapons—a diamond standard sword for Wolf, and for Coder a diamond glaive—before Phoebe led them to the right, giving whoever stood at the edge a wide berth.

Oddly, this city had no walls—just a simple road made of a hard stone it seemed, and colored black—that led directly inside. There were smaller paths to either side, looking to be made of sandstone, with their color. The trio stuck to the edge of black road, tense as they looked around. Inside was worse, in Phoebe's opinion, because the silence somehow was loud. There was no life to anything. It was...empty. There didn't seem to be any people to ask for anything.

As they traveled further into the city, Coder and Wolf behind her peeked into the buildings. There seemed to be something similar to Archivist's archives, yet...entirely alien. No shelves for scrolls or books, but thin machines with glass faces gone dark. Phoebe frowned, gripping her axe. What was this place? So strange, so devoid of life.

Except that lone figure, she reminded herself. But even thinking about them...something had made her uneasy. She wasn't sure if it was just the fear of being judged for not being from here.

Phoebe yelped as suddenly someone grabbed her, and quickly turned—only to see it was Wolf. The man pointed behind her, putting a finger to his lips as he did. Coder was hiding behind him, his eyes wide with fear, his hands clutching his glaive. Phoebe slowly turned, and froze.

Shortly ahead of them was a crossroads in the large path, and it was full of more people. Only these people were covered in blood, posture hunched as they simply ambled around. Their skin was a dark gray, actively rotting off of their bodies, bones sticking out and being seen in places where they shouldn't. Yet somehow they still stood, unfazed by the undeniable agony they were in. Unintelligible groans rose from a lot of them, the sound nearly haunting against the unyielding silence from before.

"What..." Phoebe breathed.

"Perhaps we should leave," Wolf whispered.

Phoebe nodded, turning, before her eyes widened as she looked behind Coder. "Coder!" she cried out. The boy nearly jumped out of his armor, yelping loudly as he whirled around, lashing out with his glaive. He froze as it chopped halfway through the skull of another rotting figure. They looked even worse up close, the stench making Phoebe's eyes water.

The figure groaned, its still whole eye looking down at Coder. The boy yelped again, swiftly removing his glaive before skewering them through the mouth and brain. He quickly kicked them off, stumbling back and shaking, staring at the corpse that pooled blood underneath it.

Wolf caught him, and Phoebe stilled as the groans behind them suddenly got louder. She spun, and her eyes widened as she met the gaze of one of the figures. More of them slowly looked up, others snapping their heads towards them, all of them groaning in confusion, in curiosity.

"Guys," Phoebe whispered. She jumped, gripping her axe as the figures started shambling towards them.

"Guys, RUN!"

Phoebe turned, urging Wolf and Coder along before the trio started running back the way they came. Coder looked at his bloody glaive. "Wh-What are those things?!" he yelled. "They are not people! They—they are living corpses!"

"But people cannot permanently die!" Wolf said. "That's not possible!"

"I don't know!" Phoebe told them. "For now, we focus on getting out of here—!"

Phoebe stopped in her tracks, the brothers doing the same as they saw another figure ahead—the same one they'd first seen. It limped towards them, behind it now another fairly large group. Where did it get that?!

Phoebe turned, seeing the other group of rotting corpses quickly catching up. She held her axe in front of her, facing the new group. "We have to fight through them," she said. "With our enchantments, it should be a decent advantage."

Neither of her friends seemed thrilled about it, but they raised their weapons anyway. With a yell, the trio charged the new group, leaping into the horde and starting to tear them apart. Fighting with diamond weaponry was exhilarating, the armor light yet resistant, her axe a blur around her as she fought with it expertly. The corpses snarled as they threw themselves at her, clawing against the diamonds fruitlessly, or even chomping down onto it. She kicked those ones away.

Corpses burst into flame as she cut them apart, slicing through them with a blade sharper than normal. Wolf and Coder fought close by, and the trio pushed through the horde slowly. But the other was still coming.

Wolf stabbed and slashed through the corpses, shoving more of them away, his the only weapon that didn't give him too wide of a safety circle. He grunted as he stabbed a corpse through the head, then spun as he heard Coder yell a cry of alarm. More of the corpses were going for him--did they know he'd already killed one of them? It didn't matter, Wolf ran towards him, hacking away at the corpses in between. Coder freed his glaive from a corpse he'd stabbed into the ground, but hadn't noticed one behind him.

"Coder!" Wolf shouted. The corpse grabbed and scraped at Coder's pauldron, and Coder turned, screaming as the corpse gnawed on his helmet. The corpse yanked on the pauldron as the boy turned, and Wolf watched in terror as the pauldron snapped off, clattering to the ground.

What?

Wolf sliced three heads from three pairs of shoulders, watching as his little brother grabbed the place the armor had been ripped from. The shadows there were thinner somehow, almost open. That wasn't possible. That shouldn't have been possible.

What was this place?

Wolf finally breached the crowd, yelling at his brother to keep fighting, the two becoming a whirlwind of diamond blades. Coder had become an expert in the glaive in the short time they'd trained, and watching him fight made Wolf nearly the proudest he'd ever been. Wolf focused on his half of the fight, and the two of them continued to push onwards, Wolf tracking Phoebe's location in the corner of his eye, by the flying heads and splatters of blood that flew into the air.

Killing had never fully been Coder's comfort. He knew it was necessary, but he chose to believe in the good in people. Everyone he'd met, he knew had the capacity for good, for kindness.

Whatever he fought now, was not good. They were evil things. And still, he found part of himself feeling a small bit guilty as he slashed them apart, flames erupting from the wounds and quickly consuming the rest of them.

Coder's movement was crucial to the glaive, twirling the weapon and stabbing it in multiple directions. It spun like his mind did, reeling at the lost pauldron. The Black didn't let the armor pieces release. His shoulder felt horribly exposed, a place he had to be extra careful to keep the corpses from. They seemed horribly fond of trying to bite him, so it was in his best interest to not let that happen.

Coder and Wolf started fighting to get closer to Phoebe, the circle of corpses never ending around them. Wolf hacked a few zombies down, clearing a temporary path. "Come on!" he yelled, dashing for Phoebe on the other side. Coder stabbed into a zombie on his right, but was too slow to check his left, the side the pauldron had left. A corpse crashed into him, then another, dragging him down.

Wolf spun around as Coder screamed. A corpse bit into the flesh of his little brother's shoulder, before tearing a chunk out with a wet squelch. Wolf's body froze as he stared at the bloody chunk, the chunk taken out of his brother—

"Coder...CODER, NO!" Wolf screamed, running forward. He stabbed into one of the corpses on him, then slammed his boot into the face of the other. The skull caved and squished, but the living corpse flew backwards, tumbling. Wolf hauled Coder up, seeing his shoulder now a dark gray.

"Coder! Coder are you—" Wolf gasped as a sudden strength, an energy filled him, and looked down to see green orbs of light absorbing into his body. Leaving Coder's. Plates of Coder's armor started clattering to the ground, his glaive clutched in his hand. Items formed out of shadows around Coder's feet. Items of his reserve.

Wolf took a step back, tears welling in his eyes.

"Kuhal?" he whispered.

Little brother?

The plates of Coder's helmet hit the ground, and Coder's rotting face screeched at him, flesh drooping and splattering from his skull.

Wolf backpedaled quickly, shaking his head, his eyes blurring and burning with tears. Phoebe grabbed him, maybe for reassurance, but for a moment two of them stared at Coder's body, ambling towards them with the same murderous intent as the others.

Phoebe dragged Wolf through the horde, fighting her way through, and Wolf eventually found the will to help. He would not let Phoebe die, too. Die like...Coder…

But the horde only seemed to get bigger, the corpses they'd first found having joined the fray. There didn't seem to be an end to their ranks. Wolf kicked one away as it tried to grab his armor.

He didn't know where the others were. How would he break the news? Tell them that he failed? Were they even here? His heart ached for one reason too many—he wished they were.

May The Black be kind to us, Wolf thought, as one final prayer. For themselves, for Coder. And guide us in our journey onwards.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Reaper woke up falling from the sky.

She gasped, her red trenchcoat and her hair flapping in the wind. Her hat was somewhere above her—where was she? She was just in Apocryphal. She hadn't learned yet how to control her World Shifts, but it was starting to get really—

Reaper turned, her thoughts pausing as she saw a crumbling city underneath her. And in it, towards her right—south, her Sense told her—was a crowd, near the edge of the city. In the center of them, she could see a large circle, two people within.

Two people with armor that glittered blue.

Diamonds? she thought, her eyes wide. This place didn't...look like the other Worlds she'd been to. Something about it felt off. The dirt was too gray, looking more like sand dunes than anything else. Reaper angled herself towards the people in diamond armor, and as she got closer, she saw their weapons setting the crowd aflame when they cut through them. Enchantments. But then what was happening?

Reaper paused as she saw someone on one of the figures' armor: a green cloak, interwoven with white. Her heart started to race. Was that an axe they were holding?

No...it…

It had to be coincidence.

It doesn't matter, she decided, and yanked from her first tier as she spun through the air. The shadows of her body lengthened, wrapping around her as netherite plating--deep maroon and sharp enough to skewer through flesh--appeared around her in a flurry of exploding black wisps. Those wisps ducked to the undersides of the glowing purple plates, and they snapped towards her, boots, then leggings, then her chestplate. Shadows swirled around her head, Reaper's expression hardening as the plates of her helmet zipped towards her, locking into place before with just a thought the visor slammed down, the sound of faint crystals ringing mixing with screams of the damned.

Reaper let out a yell, twirling in one final spin as her netherite scythe appeared in her hand, rearing it back just before she crashed into the horde.

Years of survival and training kicked in as Reaper rolled to her feet, spinning and slashing through the crowd around her. Her Sense flared, registering the crowd's individuals all at once, sending chills down her spine with each and every movement. The first thing she noticed was that they were dead, corpses that walked and snarled at her, trying to grab at her armor. Zombies, she thought. She'd experienced these once, long ago with Yoda, but even then her memories were fuzzy.

Reaper yelled out, watching as zombies burst into flames at the touch of her scythe. The horde wavered, and Reaper saw flesh and blood fly towards her left. She'd landed in front of the two diamond armored figures, closer to the edge. Reaper took out a row of zombies in their direction with a wide slice of her scythe, then another. The two seemed to notice her, before they started fighting in her direction.

"The edge is that way!" Reaper yelled, pointing south. "Come on!"

They two seemed to stare at her for a moment, before they rushed past her. Oddly, she felt an odd synergy with them, her Sense of their forms seeming almost familiar. One of them had a standard diamond sword, and the other—the one with the half cape—did have an axe after all. The three of them fought together and in sync, Reaper unconsciously Pulsing directions to them that they subconsciously acted on. Just like she had back on Dridon, even if she hadn't realized it yet.

Reaper could Sense the side of the crowd in front of them getting thinner. "We're nearly to the edge!" she shouted to the strangers. "Just keep fighting! We—"

Reaper turned as one of the zombies grabbed at one of the plates covering her hips, the left one. She kicked it away, raising her scythe—before terror and confusion seized her all at once, freezing her body in place.

Recovering from the stumble, the zombie growled at her. But its eyes, while now desaturated and grayed, were familiar. They were two different colors, the right one brown, the other an ice blue. Around the zombie's neck was a light blue scarf. A scarf Wolf had made. A scarf the boy had often used for comfort, in the many horrible situations they'd found themselves in, even when the world was against them, and all hope seemed lost.

Her scythe remained raised in the air above her head. Reaper's voice cracked.

"Coder?"

She was stirred out of her shock as a web attached to the boy's head.

And the shock turned to horror as the web was pulled taut, the rotting flesh ripping at the neck as the head of her old, dead, friend was pulled off, launching into the air, the body falling limp.

Reaper staggered back, before her head snapped up, her eyes widening. The other two turned, the one with the sword freezing as they saw Coder's headless body fall to the ground.

Her Sense chilled down her spine as it registered the newcomer, but flared, reminding Reaper of the hundreds of other threats surrounding them. Slowly, Reaper spurred herself back into the fight, fighting with more vigor, less mercy. They'd taken her friend. Coder had somehow been here. She tried not to think about his corpse, somehow twice dead, only ten feet away. But the image was burned into her mind.