AN: If you're wondering, yes, this is sort of written therapy. Half reaction, half wish fulfillment, and all bizarrely cathartic to me. Sometimes, it's most important to create instead of destroying, and I just...kinda did that. And it helped. Hopefully, this thing helps someone else a little bit, too. This particular chapter was written in the immediate aftermath of episode 26, so details about Shadycreek Run are a bit off.

Also, this is my first fic in the fandom. And my first time writing these characters. I fully expect some stuff to be off, so thanks for your patience.

Last Note: I spent a lot of time making sure everything that happens in this self-indulgent mess of a story is rules-legal. If there's something that makes you go WTF from that perspective, PM me for a proper answer. Or leave a review and I'll respond.

All in all, Tirane's herb-identifying mission was a clusterfuck.

On the sliding scale of ways to be dignified while cowering, Tirane didn't even merit consideration. While sure, she'd already been on edge and skirting the roadways—anyplace around Shadycreek Run was riddled with monsters, only some of which had the decency to look like they'd eat you alive—spotting a slave-taker caravan was way past anything she was prepared for today. She'd seen people around, because she could see in the dark way better than anyone she knew, then it was just a fucking cacophony of spells going off one after another.

She'd never been more ashamed, yet relieved, by those lessons about keeping her head down. Even before she peeked over a hill to see Cone of Cold busted out like it was nothing, there'd been too many slavers to fight. Tirane wasn't a real veteran adventurer, but it paid to be able to pick them out. Especially the scumbag types.

She hid for a long time.

After, Tirane shoved her red curls out of her face and back under her hood as she hiked down the back of the hill, cutting through underbrush and long grass. The late autumn frost whipped at her hands and her cloak, making an absolute racket that might've had her cringing if she thought there was anyone left still alive. Her tome was tucked safely away and bandits tended to leave their dead behind, so it'd probably be okay to look for those damned—

There was arguing, once she got close enough to hear it. It sounded like it'd been going on a while.

Shit.

Tirane, it had to be said, was not a master of stealth. Warlocks didn't need to be. Generally.

But this time her luck was apparently even worse than normal, because emerging from the bushes ended with four weapons pointed at her face. Crossbow bolts, quarterstaff, and two dwarf-wielded weapons that were bigger than Tirane's entire arm. It was, all told, not the best way to start a conversation with people keyed up from a fight they'd lost.

"We," said a woman at the front, wearing shades of blue and pointing the quarterstaff at Tirane's forehead, "have just had a real shitty day. Who are you?"

Tirane kind of just assumed they'd lost, but… They weren't the slavers. Not the right look. Plus this woman was breathing hard, with red eyes and tear tracks and a jaw set harder than a bear trap, and slavers didn't give a single solitary fuck about anything but money. But they were alive. Somehow.

"Hi, I'm Tirane." The scowl on the woman's face prompted Tirane to hold up her hands in surrender, cloak falling back to expose her tome and her halfway-new boots. She didn't wear robes—Riyaz didn't see the point, and she stole his stuff—but kinda figured it was a little obvious she made with the spellcasting. "Sorry, I just—I didn't mean to sneak up on you—"

"You didn't," said the shortest member of the party, hooded and wielding a hand crossbow.

"—But I, uh," Tirane stammered as the axe blade got closer, just a little. Instead of giving in, though, Tirane said all in a rush, "Are you all right?"

This seemed to bring her up short. "What."

Okay. Okay, she could do this. Tirane slowly lowered her arms, then said as quickly as she could, "I don't know what happened here but there was a lot of magic flying around and you haven't killed me or tried to stick me in shackles, so…" Deep breath. "I'm gonna assume you're not slavers. Right?"

"Fuck no," said the woman in blue, who seemed to be the spokesperson. "We aren't—we were trying to fuck them up but it…" She hissed in pain as an injury pulled, turning a little in place. "We…"

"Don't move and you don't die." The dwarf woman, probably realizing Tirane was about as threatening as a bunny rabbit, stowed both weapons immediately after the threat. There was a story there, between the crinkled brow and cold sweat and shaking hands. Her attention wasn't even on Tirane, not really, so she almost stepped forward before the snikt of a cocking crossbow made her freeze in place.

It was a very tiny, angry version of the one on Tirane's back. And the little hooded figure said, in a raspy voice far higher than anyone else's, "Don't move."

"Got it," Tirane said immediately, trying to avoid doing much more than moving her eyeballs. "Uh—"

"Look," said the woman in blue in a tone that smashed as much bitterness as pain into hardly any sound, "This is not the time for more people come around looking for someone to solve their fucking problems for them." She whirled on Tirane, snapping, "So fuck off. Come back never."

"I—" The thing was, Tirane probably should have done as asked and left, to go and tell Riyaz that whatever weird human-looking root he wanted to see was probably frozen to death under some random asshat's spellwork.

But by this point, Tirane could see over the initial barrage of unfriendly faces to see the actual mess of the battlefield. Even the woman in blue was a good half-foot shorter, giving her a decent view. More perceptive than clever, and more headstrong than either, Tirane pointedly looked directly over the woman's shoulder.

Cart tracks. Another redhead, a man in a patchwork coat, leaning over a rainbow riot of color, unmoving on the ground. Blood here and there. double the usual frost damage for this time of year. A fallen tree, right across the road. Four people, two seconds from vibrating out of their own skins because she was there, and it wouldn't do to fall apart in front of a stranger.

The very air tasted of loss, rage, and sinking despair. She hardly needed to tap into her powers at all to know.

Tirane took it all in for a little bit, breaking her silence by saying, "I just… You look like you need some help." She put as much sincerity as she could into her voice, half pleading, "I promise, that's all I wanted to know."

Gods, I hope it doesn't mean heading to the Run. Riyaz still had nightmares years after leaving. Mitra and Khalil hadn't been kicked out, because the same people who'd do the kicking would just kill if they thought it'd be faster, but they treated the place like the maze of deadly entanglements it was. And Tirane wasn't the one who could change her appearance at will to avoid trouble, so…

It made an impression.

"Look, I swear I'm not trying to be a pain, or to cause trouble, or anything like that," Tirane went on. "It's just—you're hurt, and I know someone who can help."

Behind the woman in blue and the dwarf with the cigar, the smallest party member was totally uninterested in what Tirane had to say. The little figure darted off, instead, toward the redhead and the…toward whoever was down. And not moving. Neither was the redhead, but that was more like shock and awful, awful pain than because he was physically hurt.

Didn't look good.

Tirane steeled her spine, then said in the same soft voice, "Please. Can I do anything?"

Under her breath, the woman in blue hissed, "So awesome how people wanna be Samaritans after the fight's over. Real convenient."

Okay, fair. The fight being a thing was definitely something Tirane knew before walking down into this emotional killing field. So, she let the comment pass. Instead, she pried her tome out from under her cloak and said, while presenting it front and center, "If there's anything…"

"Isn't like we can do fucking anything." And she let Tirane through without punching her in the face, which was one punch less than what she'd been expecting. Still, she hovered right behind Tirane's shoulder like the punch was going to happen sooner or later.

The ground became flat-out icy as Tirane's boots crunched forward, her ritual tome clamped under her arm and her hood still pinned to her hair. She could follow the wagon ruts off into the distance, chasing the dust trail the slavers left behind, but the dwarf lady was looking the same way, so even if she really wanted to run there'd be no point. After saying all those fancy words, Tirane wondered if there'd be anything for her to do.

"Hi," Tirane said softly as she knelt next to the person on the ground. While the redhead she'd noticed before was human, not really listening to her or anything, and looked worse than Riyaz after a week of nightmares, Tirane had kind of expected that. So, instead, she said, "I'm Tirane. I might be able to help some," to the now-obviously-a-goblin jammed up against the man's side.

"What can you do?" the goblin asked in her warbling voice. "Can you—are you a healer?"

"No," Tirane said, and watched the spark of interest go right out of both the grungy man and the lady in blue. She could fix a little of that. "But I know a ritual that might help with getting to one, and I know at least one way to find one."

And hopefully Khalil and Mitra had diamonds on hand.

Not to mention she might need a spell to get to them, which Riyaz didn't always have prepared. The twins could be nearly anywhere if they wanted to be.

Actually… Hm. Tirane probably needed to use Sending just to make sure both of those things happened. Well, she supposed that's what her pact spells were for. Time to get started on something more immediate.

Still, what she'd said seemed to get their attention. But hope seemed a bit beyond them for now, and she could see why.

The person on the ground had a name, and a history and a bunch of friends, Tirane thought, but it was all about to be shorter than it ought if she couldn't pull this off. A lavender tiefling with lots of tattoos, jewelry, red eyes, and a giant hole in his chest. Didn't seem to have the kind of injuries that'd interfere with Raise Dead, so Tirane nodded to herself and flipped to the appropriate page. The blood was still wet and getting into her clothes as she knelt next to him, and that was about as good a sign as any when things got this grim.

"Okay, so the spell is called Gentle Repose. It's a ten-minute casting, but it means you'll have ten whole more days to work with things like Raise Dead," Tirane said, more because she needed to say something to fill her own ears with chatter and not soft sobbing. Even if she wasn't a bleeding heart, grief was kind of contagious. When it wasn't, it still took all of Tirane's focus to get the spell done in a normal-noise environment. This was anything but. "You probably won't need 'em, but it'll also stop decay and nobody creepy will be able to mess with him. That's what I'm gonna do."

"You don't even know our names, and you're gonna do this for us?" the woman in blue asked, in a voice like she'd tried to choke down a scream or a sob until it just tore her up inside.

"Yeah." Tirane pulled two copper coins and a packet of salt from her component pouch, placing them on the pages of her spellbook. "Any chance I get to make people hurt a bit less, I'll take it. I can't do a lot, though, so I… I can do stuff like this." Tirane sat back a little and picked up the salt first.

Gentle Repose, really, was one of about a bajillion stopgaps people had made once against necromancers and death, and also decay as a side bonus. Tirane didn't know what part had come first, or was the focus in the end, but she needed ten minutes to basically prepare the tiefling for transport before anything evil happened.

Two copper coins to close the eyes, like payment for the River Styx. A bit of salt to make sure nature and un-nature knew not to mess around. And ten minutes of quiet spellwork in Elvish, because it was foreign enough to count. Just by a little.

"I-I'm sorry," said the dwarf woman, while Tirane tried to block it out with her own voice, just a little. "For not really knowing what we were getting into."

"It's your fault we even tried—you said you wanted them dead! You thought we could take them!"

"No, I fucking didn't, I just went along after saying 'no' because you guys were so fucking hopeful!" Deep breath. "You let me hire you for—"

"Molly gave you—" A sob.

"Hey, no, no. Dammit, Beau, just fucking punch me."

Instead of responding, Beau slammed her fist down in the frost-covered ground hard enough to crack it. "Fuck you, Molly! You didn't have to fucking die to just—" Another wracking sob.

Tirane did her best not to flinch, and tried really hard not to think about the sheer grief radiating off this group like heat.

"Caleb?" asked the goblin.

No response there, at least for a little while.

Whatever was said after that, Tirane didn't hear much other than gently accented something, because she was almost done with her spell. Not the trickiest part, but rolling a vowel or thirty always felt a bit too much like vibrato. It was weird.

There was a little electric pop in the air when the spell took hold. Tirane's hair frizzled like it always did around necromancy, no matter how mild, then settled.

"You gonna come with?" the woman in blue asked the dwarf.

"Yeah," was the reply. "I need to—I need to see them through, too. But you guys are another thing, too. There's a lot of things I need to fix. Especially now."

"I'm—look, I'm pissed off, but that wasn't really on you, Keg—"

"If you're not gonna blame me, you can't blame yourself either. That's just fair."

"Nothing else has been…"

There was a ton of context here Tirane did not have, but that didn't matter so much. The spell was done. And since she'd muttered her way through a lot of the technical details and requirements, the goblin girl was already winding a strip of bandage around the downed tiefling's eyes to keep the coins in place, like they had to be. After, they wrapped him all up in this big, gaudy thing depicting the Platinum Dragon, which was even more baffling, but no one would hear otherwise.

"So, where's your hideout?" asked the goblin, her big yellow eyes suspicious and shiny at once.

"I suggest," murmured the redhead, who'd been quiet until now, "that you be as forthright as you can."

Something funny settled over Tirane's brain, and she picked it out instantly. Her eyes narrowed a little even though she didn't fight the spell. And she very clearly thought, directly at him, I know you're casting on me.

He flinched, just a bit, and his free hand darted toward his neck.

Weird.

"I'm not from the Run, but there're some places you can go, even there, that are almost safe," Tirane said instead of dwelling on it, pointing vaguely in the direction of the forest. Obeying the spell more because it was what she wanted than because she had to, Tirane rattled off, "I know someone who knows someone. And they might be able to help you get your friend back."

"Sending: Mitra, we need a five-hundred-gold diamond, please! Also, where the hell are you? We need Khalil, too! I found some people and they really—"

"Your message got cut off. I can get the diamond and my brother. Meet me at the Hanged Man after dark. Be careful. Mitra out."

"Sorry about this," Beau heard Tirane say as she helped guide their horses through underbrush way thicker than anything since the Labenda Swamp. It'd only been about a week and a half, but it felt way longer than that. "But the long way around is the only safe way in."

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" Nott piped up, from the saddle just in front of Caleb. Their wizard was still a little out of it, but he'd answered yes or no questions a little. For now, Nott was in full mom mode and not likely to let up soon.

Not that Beau thought she shouldn't. They needed someone who could focus enough on anything to get things done, and Beau was only halfway there. Whenever she looked around, her eyes snapped back to the wrapped bundle lying over their third horse's back, and it felt like getting punched square in the chest every time. There'd been times, before, when she just wished Molly would shut the fuck up. And it'd happened in the worst way possible, and Beau would have taken the thoughts back if it mattered at all anymore.

"Yeah. There's Ed, just like I said he would be." Tirane climbed over a fallen log, stumbling to a stop with her hand landing flat on dead moss and tree trunk. "See how he's pointing the way?"

"Uh, no," said Beau, who still saw a redhead with her hand on a big, twisted conifer. "It's a fucking tree."

"The branch," Caleb said, in a voice as wrecked as Beau's was. His accent was thicker than it had been in ages. "It looks like a hand pointing, ja?"

Beau did look up, trying to see if there was anything special going on, before she spotted the branch that ended in five fronds like a human hand. Four were bent in toward the "palm," with the fifth extended toward a deer-track that went up the hill and through another goddamn thicket.

Squeezing her eyes shut, Beau rested her hand against the Platinum Dragon tapestry, long since gone cold. Molly's blood would be completely dry soon. If that spell did what Tirane thought it did, they might have twenty days to get the fucking resurrection going. Fjord, Jester, and Yasha barely had another two, if they were lucky, before Keg's old friends sold them off and who knew if they'd find them after? They were bleeding daylight away because the Mighty Nein just fucking went for it, like they always did, and it all left Beau's hands rust-red and marked more by her nail imprints than split knuckles.

There was never enough time.

"Question," Beau announced in a flat tone, once they were on their way again.

"Yeah?" Tirane responded. Keg didn't bother. Neither did Caleb or Nott.

"We killed someone down there." Had to make sure. Keg had already shared her side of the story, for whatever that was fucking worth. "Anyone you knew?"

"Nobody really knows the Iron Shepherds, 'cept them." Tirane scowled. Seemed honest enough. She'd almost cried earlier when Keg told her what group had fucked them up, before getting really quiet in a way Beau could already tell was not her usual manner. "And I didn't grow up here, anyway."

"How many times have you been to the Run?" Keg asked, which was probably a sign that the Nein's usual interrogation tactics were starting up. Even if Keg didn't really know about that, except on the receiving end.

Tirane pushed one of the tree's branches back so Caleb and Nott could get through, and Beau felt a chill go down her spine when she realized that the branch stayed bent even after Tirane let go. "Enough times to know who to talk to."

"How?" Nott piped up. "We've heard it's an awful place already. She," and here, Nott pointed at Keg with her flask, "grew up there. And we've heard a lot about stabbing."

"Nott," Caleb muttered.

"I'm trying to be a detective! Not knowing enough was how we got here," Nott hissed back, and if Beau wasn't seeing things, her cat-yellow eyes were bright with tears.

But still, she subsided. The group fell into a miserable silence, though Tirane kept pushing forward. A stranger, somebody taking pity on the Nein… It burned, burned Beau's pride down to cinders, but losing half her fucking family and then losing Molly to Lorenzo was—

Beau could deal with pity. Could deal with pain, with being wrung dry for favors because they didn't have any choice. Just so long as, for once, things went against her expectations and turned out better than this goddamned streak they'd had.

They passed probably the better part of an hour in that quiet, until Tirane found an ancient, bald oak practically turned into a knot on itself right around a big patch of brambles that didn't look friendly.

"Okay, gonna get a bit of help from a druid friend," Tirane said, and didn't wait for a response she wasn't going to get. "The back way is kind of hard for horses."

And this tree, rather than just making creepy hands or whatever the fuck had happened with the other one, shook. With a creak of splitting wood and shaking scraps of branches, the tree lurched out of the ground like its roots were feet, dozens of more sturdy limbs bending slowly down to reach for Tirane's outstretched hand.

"Honestly," Beau said though everyone else was silent—and not because they were super surprised or anything. Maybe because they were polite. But fuck that. "If it wasn't for the day we'd just had, I'd maybe give a fuck. Hurry it up."

Tirane nodded, then patted the nearest branch. With a little tilt of its crown, the tree shuffled away and forward until it crossed the path. Beau was a little too busy to watch what happened immediately, because the horses were busy freaking the fuck out about walking trees. Even if Keg's actual strength was busy keeping both her and Nott's horses from moving, Beau wasn't about to let anything dump Molly's body on the ground.

"Fucking—stay still," Beau snapped, her hands wrapped twice around the reins until she could try to force the spooked animal to heel. "It's just a tree. You see trees all the goddamn time!"

The horse didn't seem to agree, shrieking in terror as the tree crashed through the brambles in their way. Nonetheless, Beau wrestled with it until she could get her hands over its ears, swearing the entire time under her breath. Horses weren't built for this shit and Beau wasn't built for handling them, but they were all expanding their horizons today, weren't they?

"The way is clear," said a voice like someone deliberately trying to sound like a ghost, and Beau nearly snapped at Fjord before she realized it didn't sound like anyone in their group. Especially not the one person who could do accents, who was gone. No, it was probably the tree, which was already trudging back to its spot from before.

Fucking druids.

"Thank you, Mister Tree Thing!" Nott said all at once, jittery as all hell. Her ears are pinned back, like Frumpkin's would be if the cat were a cat again.

"That's Merle," Tirane said.

"Thank you, Mister Merle," Nott corrected herself without so much as looking in Tirane's direction.

The tree bowed a little, again, and settled back down into the dirt as they continued to walk. Or ride. Or whatever. Even as they passed through, Beau could see the brambles sealing themselves up again like some weird wall, blocking the rest of the trail from view.

"What's this druid guy like?" Beau asked, once she was sure the magical bullshit was over.

She was digging the heel of her hand into her eye, thinking distantly how much of a disaster she felt and probably looked like, when Tirane answered with, "He's a hermit who makes trees walk around. If you see a bear, it's probably him."

"And him, and the other two, they're all just...gonna help us. Just like that." Beau didn't even bother trying to rein in her skepticism. It hadn't gotten enough of a workout lately, and now it was back with a vengeance.

Tirane nodded, already steering the horses into the next patch of hell-forest. "Mm-hm."

"Well, fuck, with an argument like that…" Beau trailed off with a sigh. It shook her down to her bones. "Sure, let's fuckin' do this."

"And a point goes in the 'evil witch who's gonna eat us' column," Nott muttered from the back, but no one joined in. Jester's absence, once again, ached like a physical thing.

"Is this really the time for that?" Keg asked, sounding exhausted down to her bones.

"It's not that they'll help you." Tirane sighed. "They'll help me."

And there the conversation died again, which almost hurt to think.

By the end of it all, they stumbled into the farthest outskirts of Shadycreek Run. The town. Their horses nickered when they had solid ground under their hooves again, and every single one of them was thoroughly sick of the entire day. The sun burned dim, long behind the trees, and it'd only been half a day of wilderness, but it felt like a lifetime since this morning. Since the beginning of the week. Since… Since things were last okay.

"There it is. The Run," Keg said softly, chewing on the end of her cigar. "The Hanged Man is near the edge. Cheap-ass place with no rooms and ale that tastes like horse piss. It doesn't have enough class for Lorenzo. Not anymore."

Tirane shrugged, her hand on the side of the horse's neck. "Mitra probably picked it on purpose. I mean, why go there if you can afford better?"

"That's my question." Beau glared at them both.

"Mitra," Tirane said after a second's thought, "is super shady. She can get her hands on anything if she stabs the right person. And I think she might've done that."

"...Well, she'd fit right in," Keg remarked, and if her eyes drifted to Molly's body, Beau gave up and let her have her fucking regrets. Even if Molly had been some random, colorful, helpful stranger to Keg, that distance probably saved her.

Beau would have given a lot to live in that headspace for a bit.

Caleb, with the rasp in his voice almost overwhelming it, said quietly, "As soon as the sun sets, we should go. We will be difficult to recognize. We need that."

Beau held out her hand. A deal was a deal. And she'd get a promise for Molly's sake.

Tirane blinked. "Beau, you don't need to make a deal with me. I mean, I'm a warlock. It's a bit of a—"

"So, where's her seawater vomit and weird sword?" Nott wondered in a stage whisper, mostly to Caleb.

Beau ignored her. She blocked Tirane's path, hand still out. "Doesn't fucking matter." Molly was probably laughing at her from the other side for being so fucking sentimental. That was how their shit worked. And she still wanted to hear him laugh again, even if it took some extra epic goddamn quest to pull it off. "We're not losing anyone else."

"Sending: Riyaz, I'm heading into the Run. I didn't find the person-plant, and I'm sorry, but I found people. Gonna be back late. Love you!"

"You're what?!"

Mitra turned out to be a hooded figure hanging out by the bar's nearby alleyway, unbothered by the corpse lying at the back of it or the one they were carrying. What they had heard of her hinted that she may have even been the reason behind the former. Still, Tirane ignored the body when she went to greet her. It didn't draw attention at all.

In fact, no one so much as gave their ragtag group a second glance. Tirane was the only one who could even think of risking walking around unrecognized, and so that was their only advantage.

It was a return to form, at least for Caleb. Hood up, Nott disguised as a halfling, and Beauregard's Cobalt Soul robes turned inside-out and hood pulled over her undercut. Keg, shrouded in Tirane's cloak. They'd thrown a blanket over Mollymauk's shroud to keep any interested eyes from noticing, but it seemed as though they were, for a given value of safe, secure enough in the moment.

All Mitra had said, even in the face of Tirane's questioning, was, "Khalil is meeting us at the Moonweaver's shrine. Come along."

And they had arrived. Khalil, it appeared, was late.

Mitra didn't speak to any of the Nein, instead turning all of that quiet focus toward the mess of offerings to the Moonweaver all over the place and started moving the pieces into some semblance of order. The shrine was empty of any stray worshippers, but the altar was well-decorated with flowers and purple candles that smelled strongly of lavender. Beauregard helped clear the ground where the ceremony would take place, more out of a burning desire to do something with her hands than any knowledge on her part.

Tirane lit the candles. Caleb couldn't muster the will.

Caleb sat with his feet near a sad little fire, tucked out of the wind. Hunched over a tin mug with herbal tea he could hardly taste, Frumpkin on his shoulder and Nott in his lap, he tried to remember how to breathe. Ein, zwei, drei…

His back was to Molly—to Mollymauk's body. Everyone had flinched when Mitra unwrapped him, checking the fatal wound and for whatever else was a part of the resurrection process. And whatever she had been looking for, she found, because then they started talking about practical concerns. Transport. Rituals.

Caleb knew he was a smart man, but this—

This was something a cleverer man could have avoided. A stronger one could have done something before one of their friends was lying dead in the snow. A better wizard could have gotten every slaver with Slow and prevented…everything, maybe. Certainly, a less stubborn man could have seen the warnings and convinced the others not to attack a group that so clearly overpowered them, but the fire had gotten into him, too. And it burned them all, in the end.

Just another failure to added to the list. Another thing only powerful magic could even hope to fix, and it was always magic Caleb didn't have. Always.

And then Mitra upended a bag containing a massive diamond into her hand. She placed it carefully where Mollymauk's collarbones met, above the gaping wound Lorenzo's glaive had left. Caleb had to look away before the morbid comparisons sprang into his head.

"Now, we just wait for Khalil." Mitra sat back, staring out into the dark beyond the open-air shrine. "Tirane."

"Huh?" Tirane stirred, having been staring out into the dark as surely as Caleb looked into the fire for answers.

"Why did you ask for help now?" Mitra's hood shifted. "You could have asked for anything else. We don't tend to deal with strangers. You know that."

"Join the fucking club," Beauregard muttered, and Caleb found himself nodding along just slightly before he caught himself. She had curled up almost entirely, arms folded across her knees and her staff in a deathgrip. "I wanna know the answer to that, too."

Tirane shrank in on herself a little. "That's, well. Uh."

Beauregard's eyes narrowed in the dim firelight. "Hey. Cough it up."

"All right, fine!" Tirane didn't jump up, or shout. Or really do anything other than hunch over her knees as much as Caleb was. "It—I was afraid, but the people who did this were slavers. The Iron Shepherds, even! I couldn't not help!"

Mitra's expression hardened. There was something there, if only Caleb could just muster enough will to reach out and make her speak her mind for all to hear…

But it didn't happen. Instead, Mitra only said, "I see. You found the chains, didn't you?"

Tirane ducked her head. "Yeah. And I asked about them."

Mitra muttered something under her breath that sounded like, "Why does he even keep them?"

Instead of elaborating, though, she withdrew further into the shadows before crossing the length of the temple. The hollowed-out archway that they'd entered through, it seemed, was more interesting than any conversation with the Mighty Nein.

Caleb almost agreed, and he hadn't spoken in almost four hours.

Inside, his mind raced through the fog of grief. Oh, verdammt, another situation involving those blasted manacles. It was as though the Nein were secretly made of lodestones and had been dropped in some cosmic pit where manacles replaced iron filings. Had Mollymauk been alive—no, able—to comment, even his best joke would have fallen flat.

Caleb barely had to look at Tirane's face to confirm what he'd already suspected. Yes, this society of kidnappers were likely the source of all the enchanted manacles they'd ever seen, starting with the manticore they had slain nearly a month ago. Even in the Harvest Close arena, there'd been more. The patterns were all the same. He'd seen them a dozen times since, and each occasion burned more now for the naivete in those memories.

There was a pattern no one had been willing to see.

"You got a history with them?" Beauregard asked, to keep the conversation going.

"No, not directly," Tirane said, after watching Mitra go. "My friend, though—"

Keg, without so much as casting a look in Tirane's direction, shoved a flask into her hands.

"Uh, thanks."

"Don't, it's empty," said Nott, just before guzzling booze from her own flask.

"By 'your friend'..." Beauregard began slowly—almost dangerously.

"A couple of years ago, Mitra and Khalil helped free Riyaz. They all almost died, but they snuck out of town anyway and got away." Tirane glanced down at the flask and shook it experimentally. "Riyaz is the druid I mentioned earlier. I—I might not be strong, or clever, but I've known them for ages. So, it's not really about you, I guess, but…"

Caleb had suspected not. But this was a little better than the worst parts of his imagination insisted.

"Tirane," Mitra said from the archway.

"Sorry, Mitra." Tirane rubbed the back of her neck. "Is Khalil here?"

And an entirely different voice said, "Did someone ask about me?"

The speaker was buried under Tirane's complaints about tardiness, at least for a few seconds. But one crushing hug apparently counted as payment enough, and he was allowed into the light. Caleb could see that his features were similar to Mitra's and, like her, he was darker than Beau was, but almost any other detail was too dimmed to determine. He did get a glimpse of armor and a scimitar, but that was all.

Khalil, it turned out, was not a cleric. Oh, he worshipped the Moonweaver, perhaps approximately as much as Mollymauk h—did—but he did not associate with true temples. That had only partly to do with his personality or the legality of worship.

"You're a bard," Nott said, but only after the greetings were all done and she was safely tucked against Caleb's side again. Her accusatory tone rattled up through Caleb's ribs when her hiss worked its way through her voice.

"Yep." Khalil sat down next to Mollymauk's body, pulling a lute from his back and plucking a few experimental notes. While he tuned the instrument, he hummed a little.

Caleb said softly, "I thought only clerics could raise the dead."

"That's what they want you to think. Really powerful paladins can, too. It's just rarer," Khalil replied, distracted. "Hell if you'd find any out here, though. Most of the clerics are sketchy, too."

"'Sketchy' also describes us fairly well," Mitra remarked under her breath.

"But at least Molly will be back!" Nott and optimism were no more on speaking terms than they had been before. It was almost painful to listen to. But she was trying, which was more than they'd managed in a while.

Caleb did not mention the suspicion that crept up from the depths of his mind. While no one could bring themselves to voice it yet, Mollymauk had once been dead long enough to convince others—including a cleric—that he was beyond saving. And the person who crawled out of his grave, per his own testimony, was not Nonagon or Lucien. Cree had lost a friend twice over the day the Tomb Takers buried their leader, even if she did not know it. If Mollymauk came back without his memories—if he could not be the person they knew—then Caleb did not know what they could do.

Tirane's voice, for the second time, echoed in his head. This is better than Reincarnation, at least. I'm sure you'll get your friend back the same shape he was before. Okay?

A part of him wanted to take her at her word. The rest could not and did not, recognizing the intrusion and snapping immediately, Get out of my head. Now.

She withdrew as though slapped, looking chastised, but the damage was done.

For a split second, Caleb tried to imagine how Mollymauk would react to being brought back into a body he wouldn't recognize in a mirror. Again. He'd told them so much about claiming this body after digging his way out of his own grave, though the truth needed to be pulled out of him like milk teeth, and to lose all of that… Well, Mollymauk would probably be happy to be alive again, but it wouldn't last. Having a beating heart would be a welcome change. The conflict would sink in afterward, seeping like water into rock, and start eating him away.

The Mighty Nein were in shambles without half their number, and Mollymauk's death could only—it was another nail in a coffin, and Caleb desperately did not want it to be the final straw before they shattered. He could leave, yes, but he'd told himself that the night before and just. Not managed it.

He was too attached.

Shaking himself a bit, Caleb watched the others to offer some kind of reassurance to Nott's declaration, but no one seemed to have one. Well, fine. "I have a practical question."

"What?" Mitra prompted flatly.

"This resurrection magic. I know it requires a diamond, much like Revivify. I know that the spell must be used inside of time constraints," Caleb began, after taking a sip from his mug again. Its warmth didn't help, but the taste of strong herbs at least broke through the fog in his head. "But it is necromancy of some kind, ja? No legal temple in the Empire will help us. We are lucky this time. Barely."

"Like any of us give a flying fuck about 'legal' right now," Beauregard growled, her hands tightening on her staff. "Half our party's heretical anyway."

"But in the future…"

"Making something illegal doesn't make it not exist," Tirane said, still shamed enough not to look at him.

Gut. She should be.

"And in the future, we'll have Jester, Fjord, and Yasha back," Beauregard added. It did not take someone who knew her as well as Caleb did to see through her bravado. No one else commented on that, exactly.

"Well said." Khalil twisted the last little peg on his lute, then looked up. "Is there anything you would like to add to this ritual?"

Caleb started. "Was?"

"In resurrections, it's best to have people trying to help. I mean, I don't know him. He might not listen to me alone." Khalil's fingers strummed the strings gently, just to catch the sound. "You're his friends, right? Then you can help." As he started to pluck out a tune, he said, "You can offer a speech, an object, whatever. What do you think will call him back?"

Beauregard responded first. Ever-brash Beauregard, whose eyes were already welling up. "I've got something."

I'm sorry I didn't explain before, Mitra. Word limits suck. Um, did you want to know what happened here?

It would be helpful. You just threw my brother and me into this situation. He has to sing someone back to life, and you're entangled with a group who's angered one of the few consistent powers in the Run, not to mention traveling with an ex-member. What were you thinking, Tirane?

I couldn't just not help.

You could have walked away. You damn well know better than this.

I couldn't!

Why? Because they remind you of us? They are not us. They are half a gang of bedraggled thugs who picked a fight they couldn't win against people we happen to hate. Your sympathy is—

Khalil agrees with me! He knows how important it is to try to do good even if it fucking sucks. Why else is he even here? Why are you here? Both of you could have teleported to Tal'Dorei or something and never had to come back to the Run, ever.

…And in "doing good" you may have just gotten yourself into something deeper than you can survive. Besides, you know nothing of these people. Anyone can get on the bad side of unrepentant murderers.

They were trying to get their friends back. You might not care why they got into trouble like that, but... That's… That's not how I feel about it.

And will that soft heart save you from dying?

No. But it doesn't have to. I just want to save someone else. If I can just save one person… It feels like I'm at least doing something.

And did you ever think that, perhaps, the rest of us care rather more about you than we do about people we don't know?

Mitra…

I'll listen. I don't like it, but I'll listen. I promise nothing more than that.

Well, they're called the Mighty Nein…

The music reached out from nowhere and everywhere, carrying voices with it. Between the notes, drowning them out, Molly heard his friends.

Beau's shouting, tone like broken glass in her heart but alive, so alive: "—can't get the last word like this, you asshole. W-We still need you back here, with us. Our family doesn't leave anyone behind, and that includes you!"

Caleb's soft murmur, hesitant and oh so very guilty: "…Mister Mollymauk, I-I have spent my life wishing to undo mistakes. Terrible mistakes, which you have never asked about. It is like… We are opposites, you and I, and—and we most definitely need you. Our group is not complete without you."

Nott's high rasp, watery with snot and tears: "Molly, I know we didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things. That's fine. That's how we are, right? But—back in Hupperdook, you were the first person to ever dance with me. I—please, come back."

"Ah, there we go," said the Champion of the Raven Queen. His dark wings curled around and overhead, shading Molly's head from the brilliant light of this in-between place. The half-elf's smile was soft, understanding. "You're being called, Mollymauk Tealeaf. Do you want to answer? It's up to you."

"You know, if you'd asked me that before," Molly said softly, watching the colored strands of his self unravel into rainbow lights streaming up into the too-bright sky, "I might've said I'd done enough. As long as Beau got away all right, and she did. Can't top that."

"And your answer now?"

"It's like she said, isn't it? No one gets left behind." Molly turn to face his guide fully, then added as the world began to fade to white, "Thank you, Vax. For listening."

"Or helping you listen, perhaps." Vax stepped aside with a bow. "Until next time, try to be a little less like me. A little more careful, maybe?"

"No promises," Molly replied with a laugh, and everything vanished.

His first breath ached, deep in his chest and through his back. He coughed, which hurt worse, and there was something holding him down, pressing—not again, not again, can't wake up empty again—!

His eyes snapped open, and the scream on his tongue withered immediately. He knew the eyes staring down at him, all three pairs, even if the names were slower to appear. Knew the faces, too, when he thought about it. It was enough to calm his stuttering heart a little, to stop the litany of confusion and panic.

Then there was shouting.

"Molly!" cried Nott, cat-yellow eyes huge in the dark. She was shorter than him, he remembered in a distant sort of way, so why was she overhead?

"Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends."

That was his name. His name.

He'd almost forgotten again.

Caleb spoke next, his voice nearly meshing with Nott's as his bandaged hands grabbed for Molly's. "Mollymauk, you are—"

And Beau, pushier as always, crushed him into a hug that yanked him halfway upright, making his head spin. While he buried his face against her shoulder and clung weakly to her robe, trying to keep balance, she half-sobbed against his. "Never fucking do that again, you asshole!"

Molly turned his head slowly, careful not to poke her with the ends of his horns. Beau, of course, pulled back far enough that it didn't matter, but the thought probably still counted. Her scowl hadn't changed, underneath the tears, but she held him out at arm's length and said, "Come on, do your thing. No 'unpleasant one?' No 'fuck you, Beau?'"

"Come on, unpleasant one."

"Lead the way, obnoxious one."

If it'd make her feel better, Molly could give it a shot. But the words wouldn't form, his silver tongue turned to lead, and he just had to shake his head helplessly.

"Oh, fuck." Beau's expression crumpled a little. She sent desperate glances to Caleb and Nott before asking, "You remember us, right?"

Molly nodded, then felt himself start to tilt sideways as his vision went dark around the edges. Quite without intending, he was halfway to the ground again before Beau and Caleb caught him. Already, his eyes were sliding shut.

He was so tired.

Nott squeaked, "Is this normal?" Her little clawed fingertips pressed against his pulse point, practically trembling with nervous energy. It felt strangely familiar. "Hey, don't fall asleep!"

"What did we say about grumpy people?"

"Dying takes a lot out of you." A stranger's voice. Accent, check, but younger than Caleb's and far faster. "Physician's orders: Just eat and sleep for the next couple days. He's not going to be able to do much else."

Beau moved, leaving Molly probably lying in Caleb's lap, right? So much for being able to get out of here. Wherever "here" was. Caleb had the same noodle arms Molly did, just for different reasons. At least, he thought so.

"I don't have a wizard. Well, I have one wizard."

"Hey, you said you knew a place? Someplace they can't find us." Beau still sounded awful. Was that over him? How strange…

Another new voice. "Yeah, I do. Hey, do you two want to—"

"Like hell we're staying in town after that. People probably heard us." The first stranger, again. A murmur. "Gotta cover our tracks. Prestidigitation. Prestidigitation. Healing Word. Aaaaand Seeming!"

When Molly was hauled upright, finally, he sagged heavily between Beau and a stranger. Caleb wasn't that short, and Nott couldn't hope to be that tall. Keg either. When he opened his eyes, though, he hardly recognized anything. Those were...not the tops of his boots, and when he glanced at where he thought Beau had to be.

Huh. He remembered being purple, not brown. And he felt his coat, even if he couldn't see it.

"And we're out. Pretend he's just some drunk friend." Someone dropped the shroud—the tapestry?—over his head. Gruff, familiar. Smelled like cigar smoke. Keg.

"That's how I know you can afford us!"

"And if someone tries to mug us?" Beau demanded, while Molly's head rested somewhere near enough for her gauge to poke his face. The half-elf on his right was definitely Beau. Even if she didn't look like her.

"Then they're dead. Right, Mitra?"

"Without question."

After the fact, Molly wasn't sure when he passed out. It felt more like the inevitable, gently insistent pull into sleep, and he didn't fight as it dragged him down.

What he was surprised by, later, was that he woke up again.

The first thing he noticed, this time, was that he felt slightly less like he'd been hit by a cart and trampled for good measure. His chest and ribs ached like the Hells, his arms were still asleep, and exhaustion settled right into his bones, but it was still better than before. He couldn't remember "before" that well, but it had to have been awful. Second, there was quite a lot weighing him down.

First on the docket was a pile of furs, on top of what felt like blankets and not his coat. As Molly turned his head, the clink of his horn jewelry was entirely absent, but that was a background concern to the problem that Beau was apparently leaning on his shoulder in the dawn's gray light, and had been for long enough that he couldn't feel his fingers and she was drooling. A quick glance to the other side revealed Nott with her back to him and Caleb just past her, with Frumpkin the owl perched atop them both. Keg was sitting by a fire, fast asleep with a mug dangling off her hand. There were a couple more people around, but they weren't the ones Molly cared about.

One, two, three, four. Not enough of them, not nearly, but at least the friends who'd fought alongside him in that last battle were all still here. Molly let out a sigh of relief he didn't know he'd been holding onto. He hadn't counted wrong last night. They were all still here.

Worth it.

Beau, of course, stirred. She caught sight of his open eyes before he could decide to play dead or not. She didn't say anything at first, glancing toward Nott and Caleb with a pinched expression. Then, slowly, she shifted on the makeshift mattress so Molly could move his left arm again. If he wanted to. Gods, he was still so tired.

"Hey," Beau whispered, once she was sitting cross-legged next to him. After she wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth, she asked, "Can you talk?"

And Molly just managed to croak, "A… A little."

"Good." Beau paused uncomfortably, then added with her usual bluster, "If you ever do that again, I'll break your fucking nose, asshole. Don't die on us again."

Not planning on it, Molly thought. Instead of trying to talk, he shifted his arm as far as he could out of Beau's way.

She didn't accept the invitation at first. Beau made a show of glancing out the window to this…hut, stretching more for effect than practical purposes, and looking anywhere but Molly. Then, "Fuck it. It's too early for this shit."

She made a point of lying down again only after she'd moved his limp arm over his chest and stolen half the furs. Even then, she had her back to him just like Nott and Caleb did.

They were here.

They were safe.

They'd find the others soon. Come hell or high water, no one got left behind.

Molly closed his eyes again and drifted off to sleep.

And you ask me what I want this year
And I try to make this kind and clear
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days
Cause I don't need boxes wrapped in strings
And designer love and empty things
Just a chance that maybe we'll find better days

- "Better Days" by the Goo Goo Dolls

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