Arcavia's tour left early in the morning, and so Romog found himself seated at a table outside of the Walnut Crosier with a cup of coffee and an apple pastry after he'd seen his wife off. As he sipped from his mug, his mind wandered to cool mornings in hides made of leaves, twigs and bramble, or else set up on cliffsides and composed of stacked stones and mounds of dirt. The coffee he sipped was nothing like what they got when he was out with Smoke. It was smoother, well-roasted and hardly acidic. Ash Legion coffee, on the other hand, was extremely acidic and often outright burnt. Still, he missed it.

The sniper took another sip from his cup and watched the people of the Western Commons begin to rise - likely alongside the rest of the Reach. Sleepy faces trudged past alongside carts of fresh bread, fruits, pies, and more. The day had begun anew.

"Have a seat," he said without looking. Vanguard sat down at the table and Romog turned in his seat to face her. "Morning."

"Your wife left? This early?" asked Vanguard. She took a sip from her own coffee before digging into an enormous omelette accompanied with four thick slices of toast topped with a mound of raspberry butter.

The smell of peppers, sausage and onion made Romog's stomach growl. "Yeah. Not that it matters to me. Ash made sure to beat acceptance of weird hours into you. Just wish I'd ordered something hot instead of this dinky thing." He gestured at the last bite of his apple pasty and then pulled a large chunk of jerky from one of his pockets. "Gotta finish these though, they're right up at the edge of palatable." He took an unenthusiastic bite and then added, "We'll see her again. Uh, maybe. She'll be in Hoelbrak eventually after they finish their tour of the area around the Reach. She wasn't too specific on details."

Vanguard took her time finishing her bite before saying, "Because you did not ask." She took another bite.

The sniper chuckled. "Yeah, you caught me. Was-" He paused and erred on the side of discretion. "Uh, occupied. Preoccupied. Whatever." He shrugged. "So it never came up."

Silence fell between the two as Vanguard demolished half her omelette before turning her attention to a slice of bread and slathering it with raspberry butter. "Do you love your wife?" she asked, not looking up from her bread.

Romog gave a start. "What?"

Vanguard took a bite from her toast and gave him a pointed stare. The sniper returned the stare, and tapped his fingers against the table before finally saying, "You really Vanguard?" The sylvari replied with another bite of toast. "Yeah, you are. Just didn't seem a question you'd ask."

Vanguard swallowed. "Answer the question."

"I do. I've said as much. Not sure why you'd ask though."

"It is not common among your kind."

"She's Olmakhan."

"And you are not."

Romog tapped his claws on the table again at this, though his silence stretched out for two unbroken minutes. "In the end," he said at last, "I love her. Doesn't matter I'm not Olmakhan. She probably likes that."

"You are a strange charr. I imagine she values that." Vanguard returned to her omelette and the two lapsed into silence once more.

It was a comfortable silence, at least, reasoned Romog. He'd become used to not saying much when he was with Smoke. Conversation came up now and again, yes, and it was almost always banal bullshit that was meant to fill dead air as boredom threatened to have the warband turn their weapons on themselves than suffer another hour of watching a separatist scratch his ass, but the lack of conversation between him and his official warband was just as comfortable as it was with this unofficial one. He drained the last of his coffee when Vanguard finally did something other than cut into her omelette and chew.

She set her knife and fork down on the plate, still bearing a quarter of an omelette, removed the two pieces of toast and then slid the plate towards Romog without a word. The sniper smiled and picked the omelette up with a clawed paw and finished it in three bites.

Vanguard nearly choked on her bread and tossed out a strangled, "Glutton." Romog replied with a laugh of his own. When the sylvari finished her toast, she sat back in her chair, clutching her cup of coffee and turned her gaze skyward. The streets had filled with more people now, and some of them even looked completely awake. The sounds of city life were beginning to rise and before they did so any more, Vanguard said comfortably, "Raspberries are my favorite fruit."

Romog filed this bit of useless information away in the cabinet he filed away all of the other useless information Vanguard had supplied him with over time. It was not a common occurrence - the cabinet had maybe six pieces of paper with different bits of random factoids scribbled on them, after all - but the fact it happened at all was good enough for him. It beat being yelled at and insulted, anyway. And even that was fun sometimes.

Might as well try his luck, he reasoned. He would get just one good answer at best, so he had to make it count. "Vanguard?" The sylvari grunted to signal her attention. "We're about to head off towards Bloodtide Coast as a detour for Dunn. Might even learn a bit more about the unintentionally mysterious bastard."

"Yes. I believe 'coward' is the expression you are searching for," said Vanguard, her tone brisk, though the ghost of a smirk danced at one corner of her lips.

"It'll be nice knowing more about our friend, is what I'm saying." He frowned. "But the same goes for you. Vanguard isn't a sylvari name. Not even close. I know you've got your reasons - everyone does, I guess. So, why? Why Vanguard?"

The sylvari leveled an incredibly cold, penetrating stare on the sniper before finally saying quietly, "We are already on my detour." She turned her head and held a hand up. Romog looked in the same direction and saw Dunn and Zhaiah approaching. At least he'd gotten an answer.

Traveling back through the asura gate to Lion's Arch and staying in Lion's Arch instead of simply using it as a transfer area was filled with far fewer problems than their arrival in Divinity's Reach had provided, at the very least. The Lionguard were less interested in grilling Zhaiah about her device, though several standing at a nearby gate pointed at it now and again and whispered among themselves when the matrix began to issue brilliant turquoise smoke that smelled like lemon cake and chopper exhaust.

Perhaps it was the very nature of the city that made them so boring in their eccentricity. The Arch saw all kinds from all places. What about them stood out any better than any of the others that flocked in from asura gates or nearby passages through adjacent canyons and mountains? Not much, it seemed. As they passed out of the Eastern Ward and skirted along the Grand Piazza, the bustle of the port city swirled around them like a raging storm. Divinity's Reach was a busy city, but fittingly for the seat of a waning power, something about the pulse of the people as they went about their day was quiet and subdued.

Not so here. Even as they approached Ashford Memorial Bridge, the din of the port continued to sound in their ears. It was just past noon, and the traffic on the connector to Fort Marriner was thick. So thick, in fact, that Dunn halted the group and suggested they duck into a bar that looked out at the port near the mouth of the bridge and wait for the jam to clear up.

And so, the four found themselves seated at a table, staring out at the glittering waters of Sanctum Harbor. Dunn set his glass of spiked orange juice down and turned to Romog. "Didn't expect to only be in the Reach for a day."

"I know I said a few days but…" Romog gave him a sheepish grin.

"You forgot when she arrived, huh?" asked Dunn.

Romog nodded and took a deep swig from his tankard. "Yeah. Not intentionally, just plain old bad memory."

"So when you joined back up with us, you knew she was going to be going on this caravan?" asked Dunn.

"Now don't go thinking I came back just to avoid traveling around Tyria."

"Seems like it. We spent a few days in Metrica but you were only there for like two of them before we agreed to head to Divinity's Reach."

"Well, I got into contact with Zhaiah about a week prior to that, which was right around when Arcavia left. She asked if I wanted to go along. Which meant I could actually say no."

Dunn laughed. "Alright, I see who's calling the shots in your marriage."

"By the time I got out to you guys and we wrapped up that contract and the business with that deadeye that snuck into the lab-"

"Alright, you've made your point. Stuff did happen that would make you forget. So what was the plan if I told you to fuck off?" asked Dunn.

"I dunno, mope and complain to Zhaiah before going off to meet my wife, I guess," said Romog, shrugging. "But I had a feeling you were just gonna be pissy for a bit. And I was right, but only barely. You were pissy for all of an hour or so."

Dunn smiled. "What can I say, I'm a forgiving kind of guy."

"Tch. Or you welcomed the break you got from me," said Romog, punching him in the arm.

The necromancer shook his head. "We were pretty used to seeing you dip out. What with, you know." He gestured to the Ash insignia on his gauntlets. "But we weren't used to seeing you disappear."

Romog nodded again and made a face into his tankard. "Sometimes you make snap decisions and they aren't the best for all involved. Smoke would have understood." He took a long drink from the tankard. "But Smoke is an Ash Legion warband. Snap decisions and their consequences are just another occupational hazard."

"You haven't told us very much about Smoke, come to think," said Zhaiah, looking up from her tinkering and sealing up her Fortuna Matrix again.

"Well, I'm not really supposed to now, am I?" said Romog, raising an eyebrow. "I could give you names, a little bit about them but-"

"I'm not asking for stories about who you've hung upside down in a barn and skinned alive for information! Just what they're like. You gave us their names a while back and told us one of them should have stayed in his fahrar for another decade. And that's about it." The engineer took a sip from her glass of water and then gently pressed a button on the side of the matrix. A loud, high beep issued from it and the water in her glass turned into seltzer. Zhaiah made a face and tossed the drink out into the sea. "I hate seltzer, you stupid machine. Thanks a lot."

"Is that thing going to keep influencing stuff it's not connected to?" asked Dunn, giving the device a worried stare. "I thought you had to link it to shit."

"A small area around the device is impacted by its magic when it's not tethered to anything and powered on because there's no other way for it to become used to changes in ambient magic. If it's off then it's not doing anything, it's not experiencing different concentrations of-"

"Right, right. I'm just saying, if my head turns into a sandwich, I'm going to figure out a way to haunt you."

"That'd be great! I could figure out if maybe it can impact ghostly ener-"

"Nevermind."

"Dunn! Do you know how helpful that'd be?"

Romog laughed and interjected, "Just take it to Ascalon some time. Find out how it affects ghosts there. Saves you having to put him in the ground."

"They'd just try to destroy it and kill me," said Zhaiah, deflating.

Vanguard drained her mug and said curtly, "We should be going. The bridge has cleared and we should be distracted from our primary goal for no longer than necessary."

"Yeah, Vanguard's right. Let's get a move on." The four rose from their seats and made their way to the bridge and across it towards the fort on the other side.

The winding beaches and gentle rolling hills of the Archen Forelands were a welcome sight to the four travelers, especially now at sunset. After a little over half a day's travel, the shimmering orange hues on the water that reflected the dipping sun immediately draped drowsiness over Dunn, who yawned widely and said to the rest of his friends, "Hardly even traveled much today and that shoreline is already looking like a great place for nap."

Romog chuckled. "Planning on ending up food for some wandering drake or raptor?"

"Our destination is east, in the Portage Hills. Save your sloth for when we arrive," grunted Vanguard, looking up from a large map she held in her hands.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm just saying, it's not often you get nice views like that," mumbled the necromancer. He gestured for the rest to follow as they made their way along a path paved with large, mismatched pieces of cracked stone and overgrown grasses.

"Where did you say we were headed?" asked Zhaiah.

"Marshwatch Haven."

"Is there anything special about this place?"

"No, other than the fact it has some guy named uh… Laurentius Damon? Horace Aeland?" Dunn frowned and scratched his head as they continued down the path. "Name's escaping me."

"Didn't you hear his name all of a day ago?" growled Romog, annoyed. "How did you already forget?"

"I don't need to remember many names! Ho… Horatio. It was Horatio. Uhh…" Dunn shook his head. "Whatever, there can't be that many people in that outpost named Horatio. And I know his last name has a long 'a' sound in it, so that'll help narrow it down."

"You're useless for anything but putting bodies in the way of falling steel," grumbled Vanguard, looking displeased.

"Be nice, Vanguard, he's good for more than that," said Zhaiah, weighing in. Dunn gave her a swift smile that turned immediately to a grimace as she added, "He can throw himself in the way too. Must be nice having a shroud like that."

"Very glad I chose to do business with you guys," said Dunn, shaking his head.

"Hey, we're your friends, not business partners," said Romog. "Glad to know what you think of us."

Dunn threw him a grin. "I mean I'm just acting the way you guys treat me, you know? If I'm just a bunch of cheap bodies to throw at problems…"

The bullshitting carried them all the way to the outpost, lighthearted enough that even Vanguard appeared to be in whatever passed as high spirits for her. A good thing too, as the outpost was a miserably bland little thing, composed of mossy rock walls terminating in ramparts and lookout points. Two immense, weatherbeaten wooden doors welcomed them alongside the pair of Lionguards that stood before them, all in service of defending an interior of awnings, old campfires, and cutaways into stone walls where barracks and storage areas alike sat.

By the time they had arrived, the light of the sun had all but died, and the torches that burned within the walls of Marshwatch cast the interior of the outpost in warm, flickering glow. A few Lionguards milled about, some crouched around cooking fires, others leaned against walls and chatting with their comrades, and still others marching into and out of the makeshift barracks, looking relieved to be going to bed or miserable to be getting ready for a night of watching shadows.

Near the back of the outpost was a figure seated next to a dolyak, fiddling with something on the stool that sat before them. "Bet that's him," said Dunn, pointing them out.

"What makes you think that? Just because they're the only person here that isn't a Lionguard doesn't mean that has to be whatshisname," replied Romog.

"Well, let's find out." Dunn strode up to the figure and cleared his throat.

A man with a thin face, high cheekbones and dark eyes that blended in with his equally dark hair looked up at Dunn. On the stool between them were several pieces of gold, silver and copper, as well as small gemstones and polished semi-precious stones. "Can I help you?" asked the man. His voice was low, but possessed of an air of refinement.

"Yeah, are you uh, Horatio Aesland?" asked Dunn.

"No. I am Horatio Aesmon," replied Horatio. He raised an eyebrow and shifted his gaze from Dunn to his friends and the back to the necromancer. "And I do not owe anyone any debts, if you've come trying to collect." The dolyak beside him let out a long snort. It was covered in ornate saddlebags, many of them trimmed with gold, silver, or damask.

Dunn's eyes fell upon the jeweled scabbard of a long scimitar that hung from the dolyak. "Uh, no, we're not here to collect on a debt. I just had a question about something and a tailor in Divinity's Reach recommended I come to you for information."

Horatio's eyes lit up and his reserved expression eased into a soft smile. "Is that so? Well, let's take a look. Hopefully it won't be something that needs much in the way of strong light." He gestured to the flickering torches around them. "We are in rather short supply, as you can see."

Zhaiah stepped forward and popped a polyhedron out of her gauntlet and held it out over the stool. "Glow up, hold position." The blue crystal began to emit a brilliant pale turquoise light, washing over everyone in attendance and humming quietly as it floated in the air. "There you go."

"Much obliged, Miss…?"

"Zhaiah. And he's Dunn." Zhaiah put a hand on Dunn's arm and gave him a fond smile. "Go ahead Dunn."

The necromancer nodded and fished around in his pockets for a moment before producing a small gold doubloon with a quiet, "Aha." He set it down before Horatio and gestured to it. "The tailor - should have gotten her name, come to think - said you could figure out if there was latent magic in this thing. Maybe even figure out where it came from? Was hoping that was true, I could do with knowing more about it."

The merchant nodded and cracked his knuckles before picking the doubloon up and examining it closely. He reached into a nearby saddlebag without looking and fished about in it for a moment, producing a loupe and a small leatherbound book a second later. He set the book down and examined the coin through the loupe. "Hand cast, though the crude shape made that obvious…" He frowned and then turned the coin over several times before adjusting the lens on his loupe and holding it closer. "Marks on the coin are honestly useless. Just a jumble of letters with no real purpose."

"Is that bad?" asked Dunn.

"No, it's rather common, actually. Pirates don't have a bank or a mint or anything of the sort. Their coins are hand cast by uneducated rabble that do not understand the point of the marks on actual coinage, only that it exists." He turned the coin over and laughed. "The mold they used was carved by very inexperienced hands. This ship looks abysmal."

"That's supposed to be a ship? I thought it was some weird lumpy house or something," said Dunn, his eyes widening. "Who carved this thing, a blind man?"

Horatio shook his head, chuckling. "Sometimes it seems that way. Well, the markings give us next to nothing about the coin's origins as far as the pirates it came from, other than the fact it did indeed come from somewhere on the Bloodtide Coast. Not that such a thing narrows it down much." He gestured around them for added effect.

"How do you know it's from here?" asked Romog, stepping forward. "Do all the pirates around here favor badly carved ships for their coin?"

"By the Mists, no. They favor whatever it is their little entourages favor. No, what gives it away is the fact that 'BC' is carved into it in several places, including next to a set of numbers that is almost certainly the year it was cast." He held the coin up and flipped it in the air with a soft clink before catching it and setting it down on the stool. "About thirty years ago, if you were curious."

"Why do pirates care when their coins were cast? Gold is gold. Silver is silver. They care little that it was paid for in blood, and I cannot bring myself to believe they would find the date they cast their blood money important," said Vanguard, staring down at the coin in disgust.

"Older coins have more value despite being made of the same material," explained Horatio. "Pirates value older coins because it helps reinforce that idea that either the pirates they're dealing with are an older band, or have successfully stolen from or overthrown an older band."

"They're pirates. What stops them from just putting fake dates on their molds and casting away?" asked Romog.

"Let's see the color of your coin," said Horatio. He gestured at the doubloon. "An old expression that means a great deal to pirates. You see, this is a well preserved doubloon - still shiny and not particularly bent or scratched, which is impressive given it is made of pure gold. As such, pirates would believe it to be its age. You take your oldest coins and hoard them, and instead do business with younger coins. Or raw materials. Or swords and pistols - be they traded or wielded."

"Interesting approach," said Zhaih. "It would make sense you'd hoard your best stuff, and that feeds into hiding away plunder and keeping it in places that not only keeps it hidden, but also keeps it well preserved."

"Exactly. Now, that said, we have gleaned all we can from simply observing the material. So let us observe the immaterial, shall we?" Horatio opened the small book he'd pulled from the saddlebag and flipped through the pages, pausing now and again to place his finger on the doubloon and mutter an incantation. Each time he did, his finger would glow cyan, magenta, yellow, black, white… The colors went on and on, and he had flipped through nearly three-quarters of the small book when he finally snapped his still brilliant scarlet finger away from the coin and looked down at it with a furrowed brow. "It bit me."

"It… it what?" asked Dunn.

"The doubloon bit me. Or rather, its magic did. And it is very, very cold magic. Wet? A bit. Cold, wet and bit me," explained Horatio. He smiled. "Curious."

"Does the magic in coins make a habit of biting people?" asked Romog. His eyes shifted from Horatio to Zhaiah. The engineer looked back at him with an expression that made it clear she was the wrong person to turn to.

"Only if the magic is the work of unusual asuran meddling…" Horatio looked pointedly at Zhaiah before turning to Romog, "Or if the magic is the work of Norn spirits."

"Norn spirits bless pirate treasure?" asked Dunn. "That doesn't sound- well, actually, given how some norn can be…"

Horatio laughed in earnest and shook his head. "It is unlikely that this doubloon was part of a purely norn treasure pile. But the gold it was cast from…"

"You think the pirates got a hold of a bar of norn gold?" asked Zhaiah. "That's a bit odd, don't you think? How would they have even gotten it? Pirates aren't known to just march into the Shiverpeaks and start plundering." She paused and frowned. "Uh, are they?"

"Not that I've ever heard," said Romog.

"No, no. It is likely that the bar of gold was taken by less scrupulous norn hoping to buy their way into a pirate crew. Find a cache of spirit blessed treasure, plunder it and head off to join a ragtag group of vagabonds in search of adventure and still more plunder." Horatio handed the coin to Dunn with a nod and a smile. "It certainly sounds attractive, doesn't it?"

"I guess so," mumbled Dunn, looking sullen as he took the coin from the merchant. "Any idea what spirit?"

"Not sure. Cold, wet and a bite… Otter, perhaps?" said Horatio, rubbing his chin. "Fits the bill most, or so I'd guess. I'm no expert on the Spirits of the Wild. What did you hope to gain from this, by the way?"

"Just information about where the coin came from. I had no idea they could hold magical energy, so I figured, you know, might as well see what kind it had. If any. Good to know it does, even if it's just something some otter once lorded over," explained Dunn, tucking the coin away. "What do I owe you?"

The merchant frowned and sat back in his stool, considering the necromancer for a moment before finally replying, "An explanation for the trace magic I found in it other than the blessing of Otter."

"I didn't enchant this doubloon though. Unless my necromancy has something to do with it."

Horatio frowned. "Necromancy is the power and magicks of death, decay, and suffering, yes?"

"That's about the short of it. Curses and what not too, but yeah."

"Then how did you imbue shards of hate into the doubloon?" asked Horatio, his eyes now boring into Dunn.

The color drained from the necromancer's face. "How did I do what, exactly?" he asked.

"Imbue hate into the doubloon. It isn't much. Just the tiniest wisps. They feel like shards of glass. Nearly invisible, razor sharp, but also brittle. The tracest amounts. It would take either a concerted attempt by a very unskilled mage to concentrate hate into the doubloon in the quantities it exists… or it would require years of exposure to a slow, simmering hate."

"Hate isn't a recognized form of magic…" said Zhaiah, cutting in, though she faltered off towards the end of her sentence. "At best it's theoretical with some decent to strong evidence that links it to emotional interactions with the Mists, and to a lesser extent, magic in general. You couldn't stick hate into a scepter any easier than you could stuff it full of love or joy."

"Well that answers it already, does it not?" said Horatio, looking at Zhaiah and laughing. "It matters little what the floppy-eared greyskins in Rata Sum recognize as official, because their will does not impact the realities of magic." He turned his gaze on Dunn again and his laughter died down into a small smile. "Did that tailor tell you the specifics of how magic seeps into doubloons?"

Dunn shook his head. "She explained it a little but-"

"Over time, yes, that's one way. But if the time frame is shorter, you can still manage it if the magic is strong enough." Horatio patted the dolyak beside him fondly. "With that said, I must be turning in for the night. Consider your debt cleared." He stood up and flashed the group a smile before trudging off in the direction of the barracks and whistling for his dolyak to follow.

Zhaiah walked up beside Dunn and put a gentle hand on his arm once again. He looked down at her and was met with a face filled with pity. The necromancer sighed. "Let's get to bed. We have to get moving again tomorrow."

"You're not gonna tell us how you manage to stick hate into a coin?" asked Romog, crossing his arms. His expression looked enormously displeased, though concern flickered behind his eyes.

"I don't really want to. I'm not even sure if I know," mumbled Dunn, refusing to meet the charr's eyes. He shrugged. "Guess necromancy teaches you a lot. Must have not realized my master was teaching me that kind of shit."

"Who even was your master?" The group turned to look at Vanguard, who stared hard back at Dunn. "And how could you have been so dim to not know what he was teaching you?"

"I look back on my time with him sometimes and wonder how it wasn't obvious what was happening," said Dunn, smiling in spite of himself. He sighed and sat down on the stool Horatio had left behind. Zhaiah immediately hopped up on his lap and threw her arms around him.

"So what was your mentor like then?" asked Romog, sitting down. Vanguard joined him.

Dunn sighed. "I wasn't more than a half day's walk into the Heartwood out in Queensdale when I ran into the centaurs I'd been searching for…" he began.

"What were you looking for centaurs for?" asked Romog.

"Wanted to die," said Dunn, looking away.

Romog's ears stood at attention and his eyes widened. "Burn me. You what? Why?" Beside him, Vanguard stared back at Dunn with an expression he'd never seen her wear before. It was like a strange mixture of fear and empathy.

The necromancer shook his head. "That's a story for another time. You asked about my mentor-"

Romog snarled. "Fuck your mentor, wanting to die is a way more important-"

"Stop," said Zhaiah. "Just… trust Dunn, okay?" The charr's ears flattened and he shook his head and gestured for his friend to continue.

"Thank you Zhaiah. And you, Romog, for listening." Dunn cleared his throat and continued, "But they were all nearly dead, and the man I'd call master for the next four years was drinking in Essence like he'd been run through four times. Turns out, he had been. But like any good Wraith, he'd made it really hard for them to finish the job, so he finished them instead. I was pretty hungry and pretty scared at that point so I just meekly shuffled my way up to him and begged him for food. I'd do anything he needed me to. I didn't know what necromancers did- maybe I'd polish skulls or disembowel shit for him. Maybe he'd just eat me or something, it's not like we have an amazing reputation." He smiled bitterly at the memory.

"But he said yes. He'd feed me, and in exchange he'd have his own little acolyte. He was getting on in years and I figured, hey, he doesn't want what he's learned to go by the wayside, right? I was wrong about that, but it was too late for one of us by the time I figured that out.

"See, Wraiths are a little less happy about the whole 'you're going to die' thing than Skulls or Demons. And Alastor - that was his name - was really unhappy about it. He taught me a lot of the intuitive parts that go into necromancy. Understanding how to wrap yourself in the energies of the dead, how to sap the last of life from the dying - lots and lots of very selfish necromancy. Plenty of shroud work and understanding how intimately you tie life itself with the magic of death. Very rigorous lessons on trading blood for time, blood for strength, blood for protection - blood for anything you can imagine, but it all had to be your own.

"But it was all so skewed. He was a master of weaving spiteful energy into the life of his enemies, of drawing horrific curses in arcane tongues and instantly fanning them out like embers in the wind. We would walk through the aftermath of battles between Seraph guards and Tamini and he would raise things with lazy gestures for the most mundane of tasks. And he didn't teach me any of it at all. I had to learn to summon blood fiends on my own and you already know it's not pretty and not very effective."

"Always thought it was weird you sucked at summoning things," interjected Romog, looking thoughtful.

Dunn nodded. "Well, fast forward four years, and he croaked. I wasn't what you'd call even remotely ready to be alone again, but not because I was scared but rather because my only teacher died in the middle of my education."

"How old were you?" asked Vanguard.

"At that point, I think eighteen," replied Dunn. "An adult, but at that point, one with an idea of living among people that was four years out of date. I didn't know anything that was really going on in the rest of Queensdale, nevermind Kryta or the fuckin' whole of Tyria. But it was for the best in the end. That he died, I mean. See, I raided everything in his dingy hut and found a journal filled with ingredients, research notes and tons of other profane shit that was all in service of just trying to get himself into my body, as wholesale as he could manage it. He'd cannibalize everything he could in my brain as far as knowledge went and then just go on living. Because he's a Wraith and 'Grenth be damned, I'm going to linger.'

The looks of abject horror on the faces of all in attendance, even the nearby Lionguard who had crept closer to eavesdrop, did little to deter Dunn as he continued, "So that was that, education was cut short, and I had to pick up everything I do with and through Clarissa on my own. Fortunately, reaping is intuitive. And doesn't rely on you having common sense, because the rest of you would have known the guy was bad news the second you saw him."

The necromancer put his hand on his face for a moment. A flash of green illuminated their surroundings for an instant, and when he pulled his hand away, his face had taken on the appearance of a painted skull. "I took the Skull to dishonor him and play up the irony. I was ready to kick the bucket when I met my master and I left his tutelage with him dead and my will to live restored. And I was going to use the will to do shit that wasn't just mope about my shit fucking father. And then I was going to kick the bucket when Grenth decided I was good and fucking ready, just like any Skull should. And now we're here." The skull faded from Dunn's face and he shook his head. "And I'm heading to bed." He stood, picking up Zhaiah as he did and marched off towards the barracks.

Romog bit his tongue and watched the necromancer leave before finally mumbling to Vanguard, "Did you catch that last part?"

"Something about his father," replied the warrior. "Yes."

"I think I know why that doubloon's got hate in it," sighed Romog. "And why we even came out here in the first place."