As usual, using the Slayers characters of Hajime Kanzaka just for fun, no gain.
Specter of the Past
The damp, gray-clouded weather was just as bad as the Elmekian border inn's food that Lina and Gourry had eaten earlier. They had gobbled the slop down in their usual manner just the same, but now the gurgle in Lina's gut made her regret it. Of course, Gourry with his seemingly iron stomach marched unconcernedly along the overgrown, abandoned road to the isolated, reputedly haunted ruins. He didn't seem to be in any abdominal distress at all.
As they came upon the ruins, she groaned, "Ugh. Gourry, I think I have to visit the bushes and maybe cast Dicleary on myself as well. How are you feeling after eating that bilge?"
Her companion airily replied, "Oh, pretty good, even though it was kinda nasty, wasn't it? Uh, there's a break in the growth there. I don't sense any trouble nearby."
She grumbled, "Idiot," and quickly went through the opening he had pointed out. Kudzu vines draped over and down trees, creating multiple curtained "tents" to choose from to hide her doing her business. The curtains of vines could also hide danger, but Lina felt no blood lust in the area. After ducking under one such "tent," Lina cast a small spell to dig an appropriate hole. Rapidly undoing all her belts, flinging her cape over and in front of her left shoulder, and dropping her trousers and panties, she squatted to relieve herself. After a cleansing spell and casting Dicleary on herself a few minutes later, she looked more carefully in front of her and felt a chill. Something was not right. She hurriedly stood up, pulled up her nether clothing, and donned her belts and weapons.
As she approached what she had seen semi-hidden by weeds and vines, she yelled, "Gourry, come here! Yeah, I'm decent!" she added as an afterthought.
Sword drawn and rapidly swirling, he stormed through the bushes and overgrowth. "You okay, Lina?" he worriedly asked as he stopped in front of her. "Woah!" he exclaimed when he saw what the now kneeling Lina was uncovering and examining.
It was a human skeleton.
Getting down on one knee beside Lina, Gourry helped her clear away more of the undergrowth and dirt from the scavenger scattered bones.
"Looks like this has been here quite a while," Lina commented. "I wonder...Bandits? Wild animal? Illness?"
"Well, definitely murder," her partner responded as he held up a neck bone and the skull. "It was a beheading, as you can see from the sword marks here and here."
Lina shifted position to look and exclaimed, "Ouch! Something hard's under my knee. What...? Oh, it's the remains of a pouch full of coins. Lucky! And here is a very expensive looking bracelet. Not bandits, then."
Upon finding the finger bones of one hand in the debris, Gourry turned pale. "It's definitely a woman," he whispered in horror as he held up a bone with a ring on it. "I know who it is."