The siblings headed out on a foggy morning, leaving behind a distraught mother and daughter. Velvet did not feel well after leaving before either of them even got out of bed, but she figured it was for the best to get out of their hair for a little while. To herself, she admitted part of her reasoning was that she did not want Margaret to look at her with actual distrust, which she might.

Out of the gates they went, soon to enter the adjacent Volgran Forest; it had an almost eerie air in the fog, the trees yet lush but beginning the process of shedding their leaves. Laphi went off at speed to explore on his own just as he did on the journey so far, which gave Velvet time to brood as she made her way through the thicket. He would always return to her side in time.

Several days passed like that, partly because the countless trees and other obstacles slowed her down. She considered to just fly more than once, but decided against it every time out of a desire to stay inconspicuous. They could never know who might be watching and Velvet did not have Laphi's excuse of being a seraph. In time, her caution was rewarded; Velvet noticed herself being followed and observed. An errant rustle of a bush, a hint of black where the shadows were not that dark, small signs that meant little by themselves and a lot when put together. Whoever it was, they were good; yet they never approached her, either because she kept her guard up or because they were but observers.

If Laphi noticed, he did not say. It might be that his attention was taken up by the sprawling ruin they stumbled over minutes later, though. Velvet stood before the dilapidated complex with furrowed brows, considering to join him on his exploration. But then she shook her head and turned away. "Ruins just aren't for me," she muttered while making a shooing motion toward the entrance. Laphi took the hint as permission and beamed at her before darting inside, leaving Velvet with whatever kind of pursuers were after her. She rolled her eyes and kept wandering, now slowed even further because she had to pretend to be a normal huntress.

While his sister kept up her pace outside, Laphicet wandered through the old stone corridors with wide eyes. There were faded frescos barely still visible, odd protrusions and angles at the walls, even bits of stone furniture that passed the test of time. He ran his hands over as much as he could, taking in how plants fought their way through the stonework. Within Laphicet's mind, he pondered just what era these ruins might be from; he read enough more recent history books to at least guess, but there was little to even hint at the truth; he did not even have time to analyse those frescos. At some points he found small dragon statues, which brought to mind the dragon cult Tintagel, but that was already old history before the time he first lived.

Nonetheless, Laphicet loved to explore these ancient places. A lot of it was dull and long stripped bare, but the architecture remained impressive and he did sometimes find something worthwhile to add to their Bloodwing treasury. After a few minutes of cheerful exploration however, he began to hear voices ahead and paused. Then he crept closer despite knowing there was no need for stealth, curiously peeking around corners until he found the commotion. There were three people there. One a tall and muscular man, the other two in sinister black outfits covering their entire bodies tightly, with matching skull masks. Now that he was this close, he could listen in properly.

"Just one?" The muscled man asked at that moment; Laphi caught before that they were talking about an intruder of some sort.

The first mask nodded at that. "Yep, just one woman. She's hunting out there and pretty good at it. Really knows how to use that sword of hers, I wouldn't wanna fight her one on one."

Now Laphicet knew what led to this and wondered whether they followed them before he entered the place, or only noticed Velvet afterward. As he pondered that, the other mask agreed with her companion: "He's right, but she's still too close. What do you think, Eguile? Wanna make some noise to scare her away?"

The now named Eguile frowned at that for a long moment and Laphicet already prepared to act for his sister, but then he shook his head. "No, leave her be for now. Capture her if she enters the ruins, but don't hurt her. Who knows, if she's that good, we might be able to recruit her!" He could not help but laugh over that, for a different reason than the masked duo; these people had no idea what they were dealing with.

Having determined that everything was fine, he went past the three and deeper into the ruin to poke around. Finding an entire camp ahead was just a small surprise at this point; no one saw him, so he freely scrutinised their various personal effects and watched some of the might-be assassins spar. At least that was what he suspected they were, considering their apparent 'business' attire. He had to admit that they were good, definitely at least one cut above most of the knights he watched spar in Lastonbell and Pendrago. Their weapons were maintained carefully, too.

"I wonder," Laphicet told a group of four black-garbed figures sitting around and playing cards, "are you the Scattered Bones?" No one reacted to him and he did not expect them to.

Yet, the Scattered Bones. It was the most likely case here, seeing that there were at least two dozen of them around this camp. He heard enough to know there was no other assassins' guild with that many active members. Some of them were talking about seeing their boss again soon, which meant this was not even their entire force. There were some valuable insights gained from listening to their conversations, as well as a red face when he poked his head into a separate room he really should have stayed out of after hearing the noise. Laphicet decided to return to his sister's side at that point, both out of embarassment and because he figured he learned most of what he could learn here.

The important information he took away was that they used the Sparrow Feathers merchants as one of their fronts. "It seems someone else had similar ideas to ours," Laphi finished his recap with a smile.

Velvet had to agree. She considered their options and cast a discreet glance around, but found no sign of her previous pursuers. Now that they were far away from those ruins, she figured they had fallen back and it was safe to talk to her brother again. "Let's keep this in mind and contact them later. When we're properly established." Laphi nodded and finished off the notes he added to their slowly growing pile. It would not do to forget valuable intel after all, so they took to writing it down.

They walked through the night afterward; in time the trees began to thin, then vanished entirely around sunrise. Ahead of them was sandy earth with some patches of grass. Their map called it Glayvend Basin and Runette told them how it served as a buffer area between the two rivalling nations. A large area holding an unsurprisingly thick curtain of Malevolence, seeing how it saw the vast majority of all battles between Rolance and Hyland.

They discussed devouring that Malevolence, but decided to take the risk of leaving it as it were; its absence would be noticed without doubt. At least the approach of Winter stalled further campaigns. All they found on the first part of the road was a guarded outpost that watched travel in both directions, as well as a few merchants moving toward Lastonbell. While they decided not to affect the area, Velvet voted to take a closer look at it after some pondering. Laphi agreed with her judgement and they spent a while on doing that.

The eponymous basin itself was humongous, almost a small desert caught in a giant crater. No-man's land that took days to traverse from one side to the other, even when ignoring the fortifications on both sides. It took them a week to check the surrounding countryside, the rivers below and the cliffs breaking off into free falls. Then they needed another week to get a good idea of the entire area's layout, but it was not entirely without interesting finds. For one, there were quite a few more hellions of all kinds around the area. For two and more importantly, even some of the soldiers on guard were turned; most of those were lizardmen. They took note of that without interacting with anyone, just to be safe.

They also found the ruins of a long-destroyed village up to the north, but could not even put a name to the place. It had almost completely fallen apart.

As the two Crowes were traversing the basin however, about a few hours away from Hyland's encampment, the winds picked up and churned around them in a small storm. Sand peppered them for a moment as they slowed, then the air solidified into a familiar form; tall, bare-chested, and with long, flowing hair. Zaveid grinned at them with an idle wave. "Heya, fancy meeting you here!"

Velvet came to a stop, torn between raising an eyebrow and smiling. "I'll say. Were you in Hyland?"

"Ayup, got it in one." Zaveid then proceeded to bump fists with Laphi. "How's it going, kid?" The classic mistake. Now Velvet did smile, seeing how her brother immediately went into detailed recountings of the many things they saw and the people they met since parting with Zaveid; he took the deluge of words in stride, but she could not tell whether he actually listened. It only really dawned on her at this point, but their last meeting had been four months ago. Not that Zaveid appeared any different.

Curiously, Laphi finished his recounting without any mention of Aifread; once he fell quiet, the older seraph chuckled. "Sounds like you guys were busy. Good thing my winds spied you on the way, that's one hell of a tale you got there!"

Velvet peered at him then, curious. "You were looking for us?"

"Eh, kinda?" He shrugged. "Just checking in how you guys are doing."

"How noble."

Her deadpan prompted another laugh and Velvet found herself smiling again. Laphi went to dig in her backpack, so she figured she should keep the conversation going. "You remember the Bloodwings? I think Laphi already mentioned that we're reviving them, do you want in?"

"Hm." Zaveid made a few more thinking noises while watching her. "I'm normally not the kinda guy to join up with a group. More of a lone wolf, y'know?"

"I do and it doesn't really matter, now does it?" Velvet grinned and motioned for their surroundings as she explained. "We need people to travel around and pick up rumours just as much as we need actual staff. So all that changes for you is that you have to drop by in Lastonbell once in a while to tell us what you found."

"Oh, huh." He considered again and shrugged. "Well, sure, why not?"

That made one more. Velvet grinned at their newest member, but they were both distracted when Laphi reemerged from the storage with several leather pouches. Each one was filled to the brim and handed over to Zaveid. "There you go, that's the first batch."

The wind seraph set all but one pouch down in front of him curiously; that last one he opened to reveal a heap of bullets. Velvet could see his eyes widen at the sight, then Zaveid's gaze rose to them. "You serious."

"Yes."

He did not seem to have expected that many, or for them to be complete this fast. Velvet almost laughed at the stupefied face Zaveid made then, but she kept herself under control for this one. He picked out a little bullet and frowned at it, then stood to draw Siegfried. "Alright, then let's give this a shot." He clicked back the loading chamber and paused with a grimace, then looked to the two Empyreans. "No pun intended."

Now she did laugh, if quietly. Laphi just rolled his eyes. Together, they watched him slot the bullet in and bring Siegfried up to his temple, then pull the trigger without hesitation. A loud bang echoed over the basin, mana freed itself before surging into Zaveid with a vivid, green glow, and he vanished from their sight. Storms howled for a few seconds and the earth was torn open in all directions. A fountain of sand turned into a wave which rolled away to the north, reshaping this part of the basin. Then Zaveid reappeared, a few metres behind his original position and still glowing as a deluge of mana surged through his system. He was grinning almost maniacally. "Oh yeah, that's the stuff! You really did it, kid!"

He expelled the leftovers instead of continuing to ravage their surroundings, a stream of green-tinged mana settling over the entire area. Zaveid grinned and returned to them. "I'd owe you one, but I guess we can call it even with me helping out your Bloodwings."

Laphi did not even try to disagree. "That's perfectly fine," he answered immediately. Velvet rolled her eyes, knowing that these bullets were technically worth far more. On the other hand however, Zaveid was a friend. "Anyway, I think it would be good if you dropped by in Lastonbell every month or two to drop off information."

Now the wind seraph frowned at them, if with little heat. "Just a reminder, kid: I'm no god, I can't really go far in a month." It took Velvet a moment to understand where he misunderstood Laphi; when she did, she almost chuckled. Zaveid thought they were going on foot the whole time, that they explored a good bit of the continent and returned back to Lastonbell in four short months. On foot.

Laphi just grinned mischievously. "We'll get to that in a moment. I left out something earlier that might interest you."

She snorted and waved at her brother to stop talking, which he did. Zaveid's gaze flicked between the two siblings and he leaned forward, intrigued. "What is it?"

"We met old pointy-beard on the way," Velvet told him.

He stared at her blankly for a second and another, then his eyes began to widen slowly as he remembered. His own moniker for Aifread, an old friend of his. Velvet could not help but grin. "He reincarnated as a human and regained his memories. And then he decided the best thing he could do was the same thing he did last time."

"Rob other people of their belongings?"

"Yes, Laphi. Just on land this time."

Her brother snorted while Zaveid stared at them both. Searched for a lie he already knew was not there. Velvet raised an eyebrow at him, then laughed when he jumped to his feet with a single question: "Where?"

She got up as well and clapped a hand on his bare shoulder to keep him there. "Zaphgott Moor, Laphi built him a small base below Horsa village." Boys and their secret bases, she almost had to shake her head about it again.

"And before you run off," Laphi chimed in cheerfully, "there is one other thing you should see. As a Bloodwing, you get another nice privilege."

He led them some ways away from the basin, neither sibling answering Zaveid's question about what he would get to see. It took a while to travel the distance, but when they found a good spot near a set of ruins, Laphi needed some more time to set down his teleportation arte.

"Tada!"

Zaveid stared at the completed arte, then at Laphi. Then he let out a roaring laugh and ruffled his hair. "Heh, looks being chummy with a Great Lord has more perks than I thought! Now it makes a lot more sense to be in Lastonbell every month or two."

The younger seraph smiled and accepted his fate of disheveled hair. "But telling you before wouldn't have been as fun." He eyed the arte a moment longer before averting his gaze from them. "But I, uh, did not expect anyone to need them just yet, so I only memorised the locations instead of writing them down or thinking of a way to find them."

"Nah, that's fine. I can just take a look around each one to know where I am. You ready to show me how to use 'em?"

"Of course! You do it like so..."

. .

. .

It was a quiet day in van Aifread's bandit base, at least so far. After some consideration and surprisingly little arguing, Enid and Rodeen had been allowed to put together a small chapel to the Great Lords and the seraphim. It appeared that even outlaws did not forsake the gods and their spirituality, or at least not all of them did.

The lamia sisters were currently busy setting up a small pedestal when the inert arte circle at the room's head flashed in bright, golden light; it subsided as fast as it appeared and allowed them to stop shielding their eyes; this revealed a sight neither of them had expected. They figured it might be their kind saviour or the sweet seraph accompanying her. What they got instead was a hunk of muscle and masculinity that made them both a little uncomfortable to be close to.

The man looked around curiously before peering at the Fortons. "This Horsa?"

Rodeen still stood speechless, but Enid managed to gather her wits and respond: "It is. What brings you here?"

The stranger then gave them a confident grin and pointed his thumb at himself. "Name's Zaveid, I've got business with Aifread." He then proceeded to march past them without even waiting for a response, out the door and into the adjacent room. Both lamias looked at each other with equal amounts of confusion, scandal, and worry. Then, on an unspoken agreement, they slithered along to follow their surprise visitor. By the time they caught up with him, he was already two rooms ahead.

Zaveid went through one further door and stood in one of the two largest areas, where most of the bandits were currently preparing dinner. His head turned this way and that before he hollered an almost ear-shattering "Aifread!" and marched forward; had either lamia seen his face, they would have found the widest grin on it.

Van Aifread himself turned from where he had been discussing with his second-in-command, who watched his leader's sudden distraction with confusion that went ignored. The man's eyes lit up when he saw just who came to visit. "Zaveid! About time you show your face around here!" He strode forward with a grin to match the wind seraph, completely ignoring the baffled faces from his non-resonant underlings. They did not matter at the moment.

Both men approached each other confidently, stopped in front of each other carefully, and then punched each other in the face viciously. Zaveid was thrown back into Rodeen arms, who eeped after catching him and quickly let go. Aifread landed against the soft wall and left an Aifread-shaped dent in it, but pushed himself out of there with a feral grin moments later.

What followed was a quite surreal brawl for all sides involved. For Zaveid, because he traded blows with a man a thousand years dead. For Aifread, because he traded blows with a man he remembered from a life long past.

For Enid and Rodeen, it was surreal because their de-facto leader was throwing fists with a seraph, whom they supposedly revered.

And for the dozen bandits, well, they watched their boss throw fists at empty air and get thrown around by nothing.

It ended almost as fast as it began, with both men on the ground. Aifread sported a bruised cheek and a black eye while Zaveid's entire chest area took on different shades of purple. Both men chuckled heartily nonetheless. "It's still hard to believe," Zaveid told his old friend once they were done. "Didn't think I'd see you again."

"Aye. Should have figured it takes more, to take down van Aifread." The human chuckled despite the heavy breaths he was taking. "Damn good fight, that was."

"Heh, yeah." They slowly sat up and got to their feet, then Zaveid reached behind himself and presented Siegfried. "Here you go, I kept it safe."

The other man shook his head, however. "It's yours now; became yours when I kicked the bucket. Keep it."

His bewildered crew watched the exchange as exactly no one explained any of the details to them. Zaveid hesitated for but a moment, then shrugged and returned the weapon to where it usually rested. "Alright, if you say so."

"I do." Aifread grinned and clapped Zaveid's shoulder. "Say, you interested in joining up with me this time?"

The seraph cast a look around before grinning back and shaking his head. "Sorry 'bout that, but no. I've never been much of bandit, you know? 'sides, I still have something to take care of before I can think about changing my style."

"And what would that be?"

The jovial expression fell away and Zaveid sighed. "Gotta kill Eizen. Gave him my word I would once he turned."

Now Aifread, too, lost his grin. "So he's really gone?"

"Yeah. He was one hell of a guy."

Their somber tones turned to chuckles in a heartbeat. Aifread nodded along with Zaveid's words. "Oh yes, he was. Let's go drink to him." And just like that, they were both grinning again.

"Now you're talking!"

The former nuns were completely exasperated at this point while everyone else remained stupefied.

And so it was that instead of having dinner as normal, Aifread's bandits held a celebration to a man none of them actually knew, and drank far into the night. Rodeen almost threw a fit when Zaveid beckoned her and Enid to join the binge, the only reason it did not happen was the shock of seeing her sister partake in the alcohol, even if not for long.

By morning, people were asleep in various places not their beds and the younger Forton had to contend with her sister being hungover anyway.