Veldanis watches the two embrace, pity turning his guts. He's seen some s*&# in his short life, but the sight of the two women consoling each other drives home just how much they must have gone through to get here. The stories of their heroics twist into a horrifying reality in his head: watching countless neighbors and friends get slaughtered or enslaved, wading through armies of blood and viscera to secure victory against an endless horde of monsters bent on their destruction, time after time clinging to life as deadly enemies rip and tear and stab them...
He turns away from them, squeezing his eyes shut. It feels now like he's intruding on a private moment, and to view it would be tantamount to sacrilege.
He puts a hand on Rand's shoulder. "C'mon. Let's see if those bastards gathered up anything useful."
Rand sees the blood mingle with the dirt below the two women, and an old hate stirs for just a moment, one long thought suppressed. The sight of good people suffering causes a single momentary flare of cruel pleasure. He knows it's not his--it belongs to his asura lineage--but he feels it as if it was, and he hates it. It makes him feel like he's not in control of himself. He's fought and struggled and trained for nearly his whole life to earn that control, and even now it sometimes eludes him, even if only for a brief second.
It's not hard for him to turn away from the women at V's encouragement; he's terrified of what will happen if he keeps looking.
For a brief, glorious moment, he forgets all woes and tragedies as he stares wide-eyed at the pile of loot, and whispers reverently, "holyf$@!ingshit"
With Trjega to look over them, Rand and V feel that the women are secure enough that they can take a look around. The ogres had conveniently gathered all the valuables, but the true treasure lies in what was clearly Kosseruk's command center in one of the wooden buildings: intelligence. Several maps of the Hollow Hills region detail the forces and camps that the party battled in the struggle for Longshadow. A neatly tied stack of war correspondence -- surely worthless to the ogres -- sits on her oversized desk.
Over the next hour, Rand and V sift through the correspondence and learn many useful tidbits:
- General Azaersi rules the Legion with an iron fist, but much of the day-to-day operations are left to her commanders. Kraelos commands military operations. Taurgreth directs the Legion's special forces, such as scouts and spies. High Priest Azlowe sees to the Legion's spiritual needs, casts divinations, and oversees their army of faithful. A fourth advisor, Zanathura, works outside the command structure and seems greatly disliked by all except Azaersi herself.
- General Azaersi has been consolidating her power for 2 years, ever since meeting the witch Zanathura in this same valley and learning from her how to open the Stone Road and maneuver her troops unseen.
- Several letters speak of a place called "Onyx Citadel" as a central location from which the Legion launches its attacks, but nothing mentions the citadel's location.
- Phaendar, now Fort Phaendar, continues to consume huge amounts of resources and appears to have a well-supplied garrison defending it from any possible counterattack.
- Zanathura's morlock servants dwell in caverns below the collapsed dwarven ruins at the far end of the valley.
Freyja lies motionless. She is aware of the tremendous pain she is in and she is aware that Katia and Trjega are nearby, but that awareness is distant and dim. In her conscious mind, there is nothing. Numbness. Void.
It's a relief to feel nothing. Maybe this is where she should stay.
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Katia keeps holding Freyja for several minutes. After about half an hour, she sits up, wearily takes out the wand and starts seeing to their wounds.
Despite the physical wounds being gone, the pit of her stomach is a horrid, tight knot. She looks at one of the nearby structures, mostly just staring at it without seeing, but after a few moments she stands up and walks over to it. Her eyes follow the lines of cracks and divots where weather has battered the wall, down to the overgrowing grass beneath her feet. Then she's hunkering down in the grass, staring at every blade, working with every fiber of her impressive intellect to memorize each imperfection in every inch, then back up to the wall, studying its grooves and textures, running her fingers along it, breathing in the scent of grass and tree and bush, working with every ounce of her willpower to memorize the location.
Rand steps out of the command center, V hot on his heels with a stack of intel, when the monk stops and stares. Freyja still lies on the ground, and the witch is staring at the wall.
"Uh, V?" he murmurs, motioning the ranger over. "We got a problem."
V's brow furrows in concern. This... is bad. He turns back to Rand. "Go talk to Katia, see if you can snap her out of it. I'll go talk to Freyja."
Rand sidles up to Katia, hands behind his back. "Hey, uh. Whatcha... whatcha doin' there?"
Rand stares blankly at her. "Studying... a wall?" He purses his lips. "Are you like... taking a wall exam, or...?"
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Katia turns irritably toward him. "For a spell." Seeing his blank stare not abating, she takes a deep breath and reminds herself to be patient. He's not a caster, he doesn't know.
She doesn't try to sound patronizing as she says it, but the tiefling is kind of bringing it out of her. "A teleportation spell. The more familiar I am with a location, the easier it is to teleport to it without error. If I was a stronger caster, there would be no room for error, but I am not a stronger caster, I'm me. So I'm stuck with the bargain bin version, which is still an insanely powerful spell, so if you don't want to see what else I'm capable of, please go somewhere else and let me concentrate."
She swallows and looks down. "Sorry."
Rand waves a hand dismissively. "Nah, I was kinda being an ass. I don't mean to be, it's just my nature, I guess. So, may I ask where you plan on teleporting to?"
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Katia's jaw clenches, and she realizes it was an unconscious reaction to her quivering jaw. She's scared. She's so f+@#ing scared. This was nothing like the coma. When she went down she... went somewhere else. Just for a moment, but it was gods-damned close.
"It's... in case we need to make a quick getaway on the road ahead. If we need to flee but don't uh... don't want to teleport all the way back to Longshadow."
She nods as if to affirm her own words. She'd probably be more convincing if she could look him in the eye when she says it.
Rand sighs and crosses his arms. "Look. I get it. I get fear. No idea what that was for you today, but I'm guessing it was bad. If you need to bail, ain't nobody here gonna blame you. Hells, after all you two did and survived, I'm impressed as f@+& you ain't bailed already. So if this is the end of the road, I understand. We'll take up the fight in your stead."
He grabs her arm, gently but firmly, and makes her look him in the eyes. His gaze and words are intense, but his voice is soft. "But do not abandon us. You hear me? You wanna bow out, you make sure we got a way back here on the double. Do not leave us down a body in this fight."
Rand throws his hands up. "Sure thing, ma'am. Whatever you say."
He storms off toward the command center, muttering irritably under his breath.
Veldanis watches Rand storm off, shaking his head bemusedly. This isn't the first time the monk has rubbed someone the wrong way. He grows on you eventually, I promise, he thinks at Katia, but he turns his attention to his fellow ranger.
He sits down near Freyja, close enough for conversation but not so close he's invading her space.
"How you holding up? You took some nasty hits out there."
Freyja isn't ready to leave the void. Outside the void, everything hurts. Inside, she feels nothing but at least it doesn't hurt. The void isn't completely cut off from the outside, though; she knows Katia laid with her and healed her, she knows that Trjega is there, and she knows... she knows that V is talking to her now.
She doesn't answer for a long time. She is grateful that he doesn't talk again but also that he doesn't leave. He knows some of what she has endured. He has endured similar hardship. And Katia has been there from the beginning. Freyja is not alone. Part of her wants to be alone. Most of her, even.
No. She can't come out yet. She isn't ready.
Without opening her eyes or even moving, she whispers to V, "Can we stay here tonight? Please?"
Hearing that small, scared voice breaks V's heart. Without hesitation, he murmurs, "Of course. We'll let you know when the camp is set up."
He gently squeezes her shoulder before standing up and approaching Rand. He answers the monk's inquisitive look with a small shake of his head before moving over to Katia.
"Listen, um. Freyja's in a bad way. Let's set up camp here. Can you make that cottage again? I think she could use four walls around her right now. Might help her feel more--" He stops himself before he says 'safe' and instead finishes with, "--more comfortable."
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Katia looks up irritably from where she's been studying the surface of a large stone embedded in the dirt next to one of the huts, but her face immediately softens when she sees her friend's state.
"Yeah. Of course. Let me just... let me get started."
She pulls out a stone chip and a wooden splinter, placing them under her tongue. She then draws out her canteen and a handful of sand from her component pouch, muttering her lengthy litany as she splashes water in four equidistant spots. She then walks the perimeter between these wet spots, drizzling out sand as she continues the incantation. It's tricky enunciating magic words with a wooden splinter trying to stab your frenulum, but she manages.
Ten minutes later, the cottage has fully reformed once again. She moves over to Freyja and gently squeezes her arm. "Hey, hon. You wanna come inside? Might be a little more comfortable."
If the ranger lets her, Katia leads her inside to one of the lower bunks, helps her remove her armor, and tucks her in. She doesn't try to make her eat anything--she doesn't really feel like eating herself, to be honest--but she tries to get Freyja to at least drink a little water before stepping outside the cottage to give her some time alone. Well, not completely alone. Trjega will be by her side no matter what. Katia hates the idea of leaving her friend's side, but at least she's got a guardian. Not that she needs it within the magic cottage--few buildings are so sturdy. She's heard of powerful casters creating entire demiplanes to rest in, but she's nowhere near that strong.
For perhaps the first time in her life, she doesn't punctuate the thought with yet.
It's not that Katia suddenly thinks she can't get there. For the first time in her life, she wonders if she wants to get there. Does she want that kind of power? The immense abilities she already has are intimidating enough. A stray placement of her lightning bolt could kill an ally, or an innocent bystander. A misspoken command during an enchantment could have disastrous consequences. Hells, just the very idea of ripping someone's autonomy away from them, even for a few minutes or hours, is objectively horrifying.
She comes out of the cottage to see that Veldanis and Randall have already started a small fire. She closes the cottage door, which locks quietly behind her (from the outside; Freyja is not trapped within) and sits down in front of the warmth. The flames crackle merrily, as if the falling dusk is pleasant and beautiful. As if the day was a languid stroll through majestic mountain valleys rather than a brutal trek ending in violence. As if a demonic ogre sorcerer didn't almost murder her. Didn't almost murder her best friend. Didn't completely upend her self-confidence and will to fight.
She looks up at the other two, shame burning in her cheeks. "I don't think Freyja can go on. I... I don't know if I can, either."
Veldanis glances at Rand, who has turned away, a mixture of emotions warring on his face. He's traveled with the monk long enough to know the general state of his thoughts, if not the specifics: Rand is hurt. He likes the witch. He's fancied her since they met. V can't blame him, even if he doesn't share in the attraction. She's smart, curvy, doesn't take s@@%, and is incredibly capable. But she's clearly been through several months of absolute Hell. Both of the women have. V gets it, but Rand is struggling. He's always had abandonment issues. It comes with the territory when you have a history like Rand's.
V sighs and stirs the fire with a long stick as he tries to collect his thoughts. They need more than just the two of them, he knows that much. "It's a long trek back to Longshadow. I couldn't in good conscience let you go it with just the two of you. Well--three, with Trjega, but still. Besides which, we'd need to recruit new faces to the cause; Rand and I can't take all this on alone, so we'd need to go with you to Longshadow to find more bodies. It's going to take time out of our mission, critical time. I don't say this to dissuade or guilt you. Just laying it out for you."
He watches her from across the fire, trying to gauge her reaction.
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Katia shakes her head, not looking up from the fire. "I can teleport. It's not without risk, but it is instantaneous. I could teleport us tonight, if you wanted, though you'd have to wait until tomorrow for me to bring you back here. You'd probably need at least a day to find replacements." She doesn't seem to realize she's unconsciously included herself in the leaving of the party. Of course, she practically said as much already. As much as she wants to believe it's a difficult decision, the shame in her face stems from the fact that she has already made it, and she knows it.
"So you're just gonna let the Legion win?" Rand snaps. He regrets the words as soon as they've left his lips, but he sticks his chin out stubbornly anyway, refusing to take them back. He can take her vitriol. Hells, he wants it. He wants to see the fire he saw when they met only a few days ago, the irritation he causes her, the rise he gets from her every time he says something stupid. He wants her to be angry. Anger is good, anger is useful. It's a powerful motivator.
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Katia can't stop it now. She bursts into tears, head hung low as she sobs quietly. "I... I can't do this anymore. I've come a hairsbreadth from death twice now in the last two days. I've been through the deadliest woods in Avistan fleeing an army of heartless monsters, I lost one of my best friends while I lay in a coma being completely f!%$ing useless, I manage to come back only to find a city in flames, and then I walk into this gods-cursed valley and come within inches of death twice in as many days. I just... I can't anymore! I'm sorry..."
She trails off, speech impossible now as her whole chest wracks over and over with the power of her sobs. She's failing Oona, and Mac, and Catie, and Sarge. But most importantly, she's failing Freyja. She knows the ranger will probably blame herself for Katia leaving, and she hates that most of all. But she can't stay. She can't take it anymore.
She pulls her knees up to her chest and buries her face in them, hugging them with a manic ferocity, no one to hold onto but herself. It's always no one to hold onto but herself. No one to rely on, no one to trust. No one to love. Just her. She's sick of it. She hates it. She just wants to be like everyone else for a while. Someone normal, someone not so full of anger and anxiety and mistrust and fear. Gods, the fear. She's always so f$*%ing afraid.
"I..." She takes a deep, shuddering breath, wiping the snot and tears with her sleeve, and tries again. "I know I'm being a coward. I hate it. I hate that I'm letting my fear win. But I've been strong for three g$+#*&n months now and I can't be strong anymore. I'm just... I'm so tired, Veldanis. I'm so... so tired..."
She buries her face in her knees again. She wants to curl into a ball and cease to exist like Freyja, but she can't quite manage it.
Rand's own cheeks burn now. "I'm sorry. That was... that was thoughtless. You've been through a lot. Nobody in their right mind would blame you for wanting to leave. It's just... You're amazing. At magic, I mean. I've never met anyone who can do what you do. It'll be pretty much impossible to find someone as strong in magic as you on such short notice. We're gonna need your spells to get through this. We're gonna need your hexes, and your knowledge. We're... gonna need you." He tries to will her to look up and meet his gaze, but she doesn't. With a sigh, he turns away. "Do what you gotta do. Can't one of us blame you for that."
He stands up and stretches his long, lithe limbs. "I'm gonna walk the perimeter, take a look around." He heads off into the darkness and almost immediately vanishes from the sight of all but the absolute sharpest of eyes.
V watches his friend disappear, and even manages to keep track of him for a few seconds before even his impressive eyes lose the monk. He finally turns back to Katia.
"If you're going to leave, we should go back now. It will give us the most time to find replacements before coming back here. It's hard to tell with the fog, but I'd say it's not even five o'clock yet. We might make some good time in our search before bed. Mayor Crawbert seemed like a good man, I'm sure he can help us look. As soon as we find someone--or someones, if Freyja also decides to take her leave--then if you could teleport us back here, that would be most appreciated."
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Katia nods, sniffs, and wipes her nose on her sleeve again, for all the world feeling like a gods-damned child. "Okay. Give..." She pauses, taking in another shaky breath. "Give me about an hour to keep studying the area. The more familiar I am with it, the less margin for error."
She gets unsteadily to her feet and slouches off to the section of ruins she was previously studying.
Once she's finished, Katia heads back into the cottage. She's hesitant to disturb Freyja, but unfortunately time is crucial. She gently shakes the ranger's arm.
"Freyja? I'm sorry. I hate to bother you right now, but I'm afraid we need to talk." She bites her lip, unsure how to put this delicately. In the end, she decides delicacy is something they can't afford right now, so she goes with 'blunt' instead. "Freyja, I'm leaving. I'm going back to Longshadow. I... I can't do this anymore. First the rocs, then the oni mage. It's... just too much for me."
She squeezes her eyes shut, willing back the tears threatening to form again. "You should probably come with us, just in case. The cottage will last for almost a full day" "but Veldanis and Randall are coming with to search out my replacement, so you and Trjega would be here alone. Plus..." She chews her lip before continuing. "... Plus, if you want to come with me, this is your chance. If you want to stay with them and keep fighting, you can and should. But if you want to leave, now is the time. Nobody will blame you, least of all me."
Freyja doesn't move, but her eyes open. She can't bring herself to look at Katia. She can't say that she hasn't thought about exactly this. Not long ago, she couldn't miss, but now it feels like she has completely forgotten how to fight. She has to face facts: she is a liability now. She has heard of this happening to soldiers in combat, but it was unthinkable that it would happen to her. She has too much experience, too much training. So why is it happening? And why now?
So many of their friends have died in this war. Leaving now feels like a betrayal to their memories.
She finally shifts her eyes to meet Katia's. "We are the only ones left who were at Phaendar. Can we really leave now?" Her eyes look desperately at Katia, almost as if they are saying please say yes.
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Katia hunkers down and rests her head on Freyja's arm. Freyja's words echo the shame she feels for her decision. With a long sigh, she finally says, "We are. But... this fight has grown beyond Phaendar. The whole country is under siege now. It's not just our fight. It hasn't been for a long time. I know it feels like we dishonor our lost friends. But do you really think Oona would chastise us for leaving? Or would she squeeze our shoulder and say she understands, and tell us to rest?" She laughs bitterly. "Honestly it's worse than if she'd be offended. It makes me feel like a coward."
She raises her head and stares at the door to the cabin. "But it doesn't matter if it makes me a coward, truth be told. It simply is. I can't do it anymore, Freyja. I'm tired, and I'm scared, and I just want to ... to sleep. Somewhere comfortable. With someone comfortable. And just... sleep. Not the uneasy rest of strange beds and foggy wilds. A bed of my own, and my friends by my side. The ones who still live, anyway. I hate that I'm leaving the fight, but I don't have a choice. I can't take the strain anymore."
She slides down to the floor and stares at her hands. "Everything hurts, Freyja. My heart most of all. I need rest. Someone else will have to avenge the lost. Or maybe there is no vengeance, no justice. Can we really say there's justice when the Legion has already gotten away with so much? Will we ever kill enough of them to balance the scales? To punish them adequately for what they've done? Maybe there will never be justice. All I know is that if there is, someone else will have to find it. I'm tired."
She sinks into a sullen silence.
Freyja finally sits up. Even though her wounds are healed, it still takes enormous effort; even magical healing cannot fully remove the trauma of having been hit by half a dozen javelin-sized arrows fired from a 10' tall composite bow. She takes Katia's hand and sits side-by-side with her on the bed. She expects the tears to come, but her eyes remain surprisingly dry.
She stares at the floor for a long time, unable to say the words out loud. Then her eyes drift to Trjega, who is sitting on the shag rug on the floor (nice touch, Katia) and cleaning blood out of her fur. Trjega never asked for any of this, but she would -- and has! -- follow Trjega into peril without hesitation. Doesn't she deserve a rest? She has been close to death just as many times as Freyja has, maybe more.
And, just like that, her mind is set. "Okay. Let's go."
*follow Freyja into peril
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Still holding her hand, Katia heads out to the others. "Everyone take my hands," she intones. "Get close. I've never done this before, but I have heard this can feel... a little weird."
Once everyone is holding onto her, Katia mutters an incantation, focusing her attention on the common room of the inn at Longshadow where she spent so many nights with her friends, planning and preparing for the siege.
With a droning intonation, she completes the arcane words, and all five of them feel a hideous sensation like a dull hook digging into their navels and YANKING them out of the material plane and through the Aether.
Less than a second later, their forms are ripped out of the Aether at their destination: the common room of the Canary Inn in Longshadow.
Katia immediately stumbles and holds herself up using the back of a nearby chair, mumbling a wheezy apology to the bewildered patron who just spilled half his ale down his shirt when four people and a wild cat just apparated right next to him.
Randall sits down on the floor, right into a puddle of something sticky that he really hopes is beer.
"Nope," he says woozily. "No. I. I don't like that."
Veldanis coughs a few times, straightens up, puts his hands on his hips, turns his head to the side, and projectile vomits.
Gestelle, erstwhile tavern owner and current makeshift infirmary owner, looks up at the commotion and gasps. She looks down at the injured guard she had been tending to, seems to decide that he won't die if she greets the newcomers, then hurries to your sides. Along the way, she catches Chrysanthemum's gaze and points at the pile of vomit with her eyes. Chrysanthemum doesn't look thrilled to be asked to clean it up, but she hops right to it; surely she has seen far worse over the past week.
Gestelle looks at the party, wide eyed. "Back so soon? Is everything okay? Should I fetch Elise or the mayor?" While she peppers you with questions, she absent-mindedly scans your bodies for injuries. While she finds nothing urgent, she does notice the dried blood on Trjega and the ruined clothing and sundered armor on the rest of you. Then she looks into Freyja's eyes; a look of recognition passes over her face and she decides not to wait for an answer to her last question. "Iris! Fetch Elise or the mayor if you please! Whichever you find first!"
There are no free cots or bedrolls -- another reminder that the victory was not without casualty -- but the chairs that normally fill this room are stacked in a corner. She waves Rose over to help her and they retrieve four chairs; Rose even finds a wolf pelt for Trjega to lie on. Gestelle says, "Sit, sit, please. Dahlia! Bread, stew, and water for our guests!"
A middle-aged woman with tufts of gray dotting her otherwise raven-black curly hair hunkers near a boy of about seven, a bandage wrapped over one eye that will never see again. She has a few wooden blocks in front of her, doing her best to make a game out of his depth-perception exercises, when the subtle pop of teleportation magic hits her ears. She's already turning to look when several people in the inn gasp.
Frowning, Astrid is on her feet with her hand halfway to her bow before she understands from context clues that these are friendlies. Then she recognizes the ranger; she'd seen the young woman on the walls at some point during the siege, helping wither the hobs' numbers under the archers' combined fusillade. She'd been impressed then, particularly considering how young she is... but the girl doesn't look so young, now. She has the same painfully mature understanding in her eyes that the boy at her feet does. It's a look folks so young rarely get outside of wartime atrocities.
Astrid sighs and moves up to the group and murmurs, "I'm Astrid. How can I help?"
Veldanis's brow furrows as he looks at the newcomer speaking to Elise. He knows he recognizes her from somewhere. "Wait. Weren't you in the infirmary last time we came through here? I mean as a patient."
Astrid raises an eyebrow. "Good memory, considering how full the infirmary's been. Yeah, I took an arrow in my left leg, fractured the femur. Missed my artery by about half an inch, if you can believe it. But as nasty as it looked, once they set the bone it was no longer life-threatening so I got bumped down the priority list. I was in and out with a fever for almost a week, so I didn't have a chance to just heal it myself. Besides, even after I could cast again, others still needed it more. Some big tiefling chick finally shoved me into a chair and pinned me there long enough to make me drink a couple healing potions so the bone would finally set."
She shakes her head in bewilderment. After glancing at the others, she leans in to the big man. "You guys look like you've seen Hell."
V's shoulders droop slightly looking at the two shell-shocked women.
"Yeah, it uh... It was a rough two days." He holds out a hand. "Veldanis. But most people just call me V. That's Randall, that's Freyja, Trjega, and Katia."
Astrid glances at Freyja and Katia clinically while shaking the ranger's hand.
Despite a bit of field medic experience, she's mostly unfamiliar with trauma symptoms, so she lets one of the more experienced healers take care of the two.
She turns back to V. "Alright, well, if there's anything you need from me, just let me know."
Freyja doesn't say anything, but she, perhaps surprisingly, absolutely devours the stew that Dahlia brought over. She nods her head when Dahlia asks if she wants seconds, and says "Ale?" through a mouthful of mutton and bread.
Dahlia has already picked up on the fact that Freyja is not in her right mind, so she hesitates ever so slightly at her request of ale. She quickly decides that refusing any request from a woman with that look in her eyes (not to mention all that she has done for the town) would be unusually cruel, so she nods and says, "Anyone else?" She scurries off to collect everyone's orders.
Ten minutes pass. Finally, the door flies open and Elise rushes in. "Sorry it took so long. I sent a runner for Crawbert; he should be here shortly." She looks over the party and can immediately tell that it would be best to speak with them in private. "Welcome back. Finish your meal. Let's wait for the mayor and then we'll head to his office."
Exactly on cue, Crawbert comes through the door. Before he can say anything, Elise speaks up. "Mayor. Our friends would like to speak with you in private."
Crawbert, no stranger to war and adventuring himself, immediately understands and nods. "I'll find Navah and meet you in my office." He turns and leaves.
Once the party has eaten their fill, Elise escorts them to Crawbert's office, where he and Navah are already waiting. Crawbert assumes his usual position half-standing, half-sitting against the front of his desk, looks into each of the party member's faces in turn, then nods knowingly. "I am glad to see you all still drawing breath. Tell me what happened."
Rand has spent a lifetime reading people. He understands almost immediately what her dilemma is. He clears his throat and steps up.
"We had two straight days of... harrowing... battles, but this morning was particularly bad. Freyja very nearly fell. Her wounds were... extensive. And Katia did fall. We brought her back from the precipice, but I fear the damage goes beyond the physical."
He has no idea how to eloquently say the two are traumatized.
After a moment of chewing his lip, he says, "I cannot in good conscience ask them to continue the fight. They have contributed more than enough. I'd say they have earned a rest."
Crawbert nods grimly; he suspected as much by the haunted look in their eyes. He can't imagine everything they have been through; living through the siege of Longshadow had given him persistent nightmares, and that was only 3 days. Katia and Freyja have been at this for months. "I understand." He looks directly at Katia and Freyja. "You don't owe anyone anything, least of all your guilt. You are heroes. You have given so much of yourselves to this fight. You deserve a break. If you want to stay, you have a place at my manor for as long as you want it. Elise will arrange it."
He stands, walks around his desk, and actually sits down at his desk chair. He sits in silence for a minute, then addresses the women again. "Navah and I need to speak with your companions about next steps. I leave it up to you: you can leave with Elise now or stay for the discussion."
Freyja looks at Katia. "I would like to stay, but if Katia wants to go, I will go with her."
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Far from looking appeased, the mayor's words only make Katia's cheeks burn harder with shame, that such good people would take pity on her for her cowardice.
Still, she has work left undone.
"I'll stay. There are a few details I need to discuss before I take my leave."
She squeezes Freyja's hand gently, thankful for her presence. It makes this whole procession slightly less miserable.
V nods soberly and turns to Crawbert. "Well, the most important step, then, is to find new volunteers. We need at least one, but two or three would be preferable. Considering the somewhat clandestine nature of the mission, more than that would be pushing it." He pauses to consider. "Any veterans of the siege that would be willing, do you suppose? At least one healer would be helpful, but some arcana would not go amiss."