The most recent chapter and by far the one that took the longest. It was fun having a lot of character dynamics in this chappie since I haven't had more than two MCs at a time before. We also get a few more tidbits about everybody's favorite vampire. Raphael and Echo's dynamic was cute in this chapter. I hardly ever let myself write straight fluff so...

I've been waiting to use a map gag in one of my works for ages, but I could never squeeze it in. So here it is (it should be illegal to draw a map like that btw).

No new characters introduced this chapter, which means...

Guessing game's still on! Psych! Given what we learn about the party this chapter, any new guesses?

Echo: Party Training

Echo and Raphael did tell Lilliputian Princess, Black Flame Sword, and Key Mace everything they knew - showing their respective copies of the mysterious note, and describing their awakening in Rainspell and a brief summation of their adventures so far. Lilliputian Princess told them that she and Black Flame Sword, too, were interested in recovering their memories, and she wanted to at least offer the same opportunity to any other adventurers with the same story. As she talked, her standoffish behavior faded and was replaced with a kind of enthusiasm and innocence much more suited for a kid her age. Echo was pretty sure this was the real Lilliputian Princess, and the young fairykin had only been putting on an act before.

She was still kind of a little sassmouth, though. And more mature and focused than Black Flame Sword, who seemed to be built out of muscle, enthusiasm, and nothing else.

Idiot.

"But do you have any idea where to start in finding our memories?" Echo had to say, ignoring it when Raphael jabbed him with his elbow under the table.

"Who asked you!?" Key Mace asked.

"What!? It's a perfectly valid question! Ow! Morrowseer, come on…" The elf had elbows like spears.

Princess's face fell. "We… haven't had any real leads yet. But if we have more eyes looking, it'll be much easier to find something!" she added hopefully.

"Whoa, wait, you mean to ask us to join up? Permanently? Exchanging names and all?" Echo asked. Sure, he liked Raphael plenty - even if he mostly liked being able to mess with him. But opening the party up to three more people? Echo wasn't so sure about that.

"Only if ya wanna," Black Flame Sword said. She frowned - the only time in the conversation she had looked remotely solemn. "My only problem is if whoever sent these freaky notes tries to pit opposing parties against each other. Y'all saw what that message said - Kill to survive. Survive to win. Sounds ta me like this guy is encouraging us to kill other people, an' he won't take kindly to us not doing that. He might force the issue is all I'm sayin'."

"And how will us being in the same party solve that problem?" Echo asked flatly.

Black Flame Sword scratched the back of her head in embarrassment. "I… haven't thought that far."

"People I spoke to when I left the meadow the first time seemed to believe that there was an intrinsic binding oath to joining parties - something magically enforced that inflicted a penalty if party members turned on each other. That was all rumors and hearsay, but even the strangest rumors start somewhere," Key Mace said.

Echo frowned, still not sure about the idea of traveling with these girls. Raphael was a good party partner for him - he could set up his magic force fields and shoot a mean crossbow, which gave Echo the perfect opening to swoop in and stab things, always his favored strategy. But how would Key Mace, the Princess, and Black Flame Sword fit into that perfectly arranged dynamic?

He guessed just by looking at Black Flame Sword that she was the most reliable damage dealer out of all of them. And from what he saw of her personality, she was the aggressive type, like him. Would they end up getting in each other's way?

Key Mace seemed like another straightforward attacker, although being three inches tall probably hurt her chances of being a frontliner like him and (he guessed) Black Flame Sword. Fairies also had magic - would she be best as a supporter, like Raphael? He hadn't seen enough of Lilliputian Princess to know what she had at her disposal, but her weapon led him to conclude she was a more defensive fighter…

"I agree partnering up would be beneficial for us."

Echo was snapped out of his thoughts by Raphael's voice.

"What do you mean, Morrowseer?" Echo asked. "We've got our fighting style all figured out, and staying split will help us cover more ground."

"I know that, Echo, but a larger party allows for us to take on bigger, tougher jobs, which could open up leads that might otherwise be inaccessible. There's a limit to what just two people can do. You didn't mind working with a larger group when we joined the scouting party."

"The guy in charge decided to shortchange us to soothe his ego and tried to smuggle a manwolf foot into the city walls."

"But the rest of the party had nothing to do with that," Raphael said. "And neither do these three."

"He what?" Black Flame Sword asked in surprise. "Now this I gotta hear."

Lilliputian Princess cleared her throat. "We're getting off-topic. Morrowseer? Bat King? Do you want to join us?"

"As I said, I believe a pact would be beneficial. Bat King?" Raphael asked.

Echo shrugged. "Sure. Just don't get in my way. The last guy we partnered with didn't exactly impress me."

"Oh, yeah, you guys gotta tell me that story!" Black Flame Sword said insistently.

"Maybe at a later time. For now, we should get a room at a tavern and sleep. You three have made quite the journey, and Bat King and I also had a full day before your arrival."

Now, several hours later, Echo was lying awake in bed in the large suite the mayor had presented them with as a reward for killing the manwolf.
Raphael was in the bed next to his, already having removed his armor and cloak and now only wearing the shirt and pants he wore under it. The girls were asleep in the next room over - Lilliputian Princess now wearing a ruffled nightgown with her green hair in pigtail braids, Key Mace sleeping on a pillow tucked into a drawer by Lilliputian Princess's bed with her key hanging by a thread of creeper vine from the knob of the drawer above it, and Black Flame Sword sprawled across her own bed in her wool tunic, snoring loud enough to be heard through the wall.

It wasn't official yet - they hadn't exchanged real names - but he and Raphael were now looking at having a party of five.

And Echo still wasn't sure how he felt about that.

He wasn't sure about a lot of things concerning this quest they had just been presented with, actually. Expanding the search for their memories by recruiting and grilling for information everyone they came across who had lost their memory in the same way?

Echo turned onto his stomach and growled, kicking the mattress and venting his confused frustration into his pillow.

Was some part of him desperate to remember his life before arrival in Kosuta? Of course!

But a tiny, nagging part of him warned against it. Insisted he was better off not knowing. Something contained in that enormous void of "I can't remember" was so awful that going completely amnesiac for the rest of his life was the better alternative.

He would've dismissed the worry as he did most nagging thoughts.

Then that memory had seeped through.

That memory, of being surrounded by motionless, bleeding bodies, soaked in blood, and feeling so furious and hateful that he was ready to explode.

Now, no matter what, trying to think back to before Rainspell and the Lucky Goose dredged up that memory again, so vivid he could smell the copper taste of the blood and the stickiness of it against his skin.

If that was what he recalled first about his previous life, what was waiting for him beyond that?

His previous self, whoever he was, felt like someone he didn't like. Would recovering his memory mean owning up to being that person?

Could he do that?

Echo sat up, clenching his hands into fists, hundreds of thoughts pinwheeling through his brain. That memory. Possibilities of what he'd find after it, if that bloodbath was the small sampling his brain felt ready to handle. The reactions of these new girls if they learned who he'd been.

Worse, Raph's reaction to who he'd been. Would his friend hate him? Kick him out of the party on the grounds of being too dangerous?

Echo then heard a faint voice: calm, kind, but firm, like Raphael warning him away from doing something stupid. They spoke in a language he couldn't understand, but he could already feel himself starting to calm down a little.

Echo found himself repeating the strange words he heard under his breath.

He released a breath as the voice faded away. Part of him wanted to call for the voice to come back - they had to be important to him! - but he didn't hear it again.

Echo bit his lip. That voice made him feel… well, the same way being around Raph made him feel. Protected. Loved. Connected to something.

It had to be a memory, how he felt about this voice and how he felt about Raphael. Raphael was a nice guy and all, and the first person Echo had met in this new life who understood what was going on with him because he was in the same boat, but that was no reason to feel such a deep bond with him after only knowing him for a few weeks as party-mates.

But what does it mean?

"Echo? What is it? You sound restless."

Speak of the devil.

Echo moved to the right edge of the bed to look at Raphael, who slipped out of bed, adjusting the collar of his shirt as he stood up.

"Raph, I'm always up at night," Echo excused.

"You don't normally pummel the poor bed like a toddler that's been sent to time out," Raphael pointed out. "You sound upset. Is this about the girls traveling with us? If it bothers you that much, we can stay split-"

"Nah, we're already just short of swapping names, we're a party now, that's that," Echo said. "It's the quest we're going on with them that's bothering me."

Raphael frowned. "What's wrong?"

"I…" Echo trailed off with a scowl. "Raph… we've got a good thing going. Kosuta's been a good place to us. Can't we just… keep doing this? New names… new identities… traveling together like this?"

Raphael frowned. "Do you really never want to get them back, Echo?"

"I've never made it a secret that I'm not interested, have I?" Echo replied defensively.

"I knew you weren't interested, I didn't think you hated the idea," Raphael said.

"Why do you want to have them back so badly?" Echo snapped. "Is this not enough? Am I not enough?"

He immediately regretted it upon seeing the shocked look on Raphael's face.

"...Look, Raph… I…" Echo scowled at the floor. "If you want to get your memories back, I'm coming with you. I just don't want…"

"Do you think I'd leave you if I remembered who I was before? Just like that?" Raphael asked. He seemed to take Echo's scowl as a 'yes'. "Echo, look at me."

Echo thought about not looking, just to be a little petty, but he turned to look at Raphael as the elf sat down on the bed next to him.

"We're party-mates, Echo. That's not going to change, no matter what I - or you - remember. We made a pact, remember?"

Echo, without even thinking about it, leaned against Raphael, letting his head rest on the elf's shoulder. Raphael tensed up at the touch, but didn't pull away.

"I'm not going to push the subject of why you think I'd leave you if one or both of us recovered our memories. For now, what matters is that you know that I'm not going anywhere."

"Thanks, Raph," Echo mumbled.

"Do you plan on sleeping tonight or resting on the road tomorrow?"

"Sleep, probably," Echo said. "I want to spend tomorrow figuring out how the girls fit into our party structure and training ourselves for the next job. I guarantee you a party of five is going to get one as soon as we arrive in the next town. What is that, by the way?"

"According to my map, the nearest town is Adrian, to the west. The next nearest town is Hightower, which is south of here. I'm sure we'll be able to get a job in either place, I was only thinking we'd go to Adrian since it's less of a journey. Not only is Hightower further away, you'd have to cross the Canecreek mountains, and they're unforgiving at this time of year from what I was told."

"You're thinking about the Princess and Key Mace."

"Key Mace is a strong woman, but fairies are hardly the most hardy travelers, and Lilliputian Princess is, as capable an adventurer as she appears to be, a child. I won't deny being concerned for them. I'd be worried for us and Black Flame Sword attempting to scale those mountains now by ourselves, never mind them."

"Yeah, and the Princess is too stubborn to quit even if it kills her," Echo observed. "And Key Mace goes wherever the Princess goes, is the way I figure it, not to mention she's plenty stubborn herself. Adrian it is, then."

"Now that's settled, you should get some sleep if you plan on it tonight," Raphael reminded Echo firmly.

"I know, Raph - you don't have to mom me," Echo said with a laugh.

"You make it too easy," Raphael said, squeezing Echo's shoulder. "I'm going back to bed, too. Big day tomorrow."

"Yeah, operating with a party of five is a big change from a party of two."

Raphael nodded. "They seem like good people, though. I trust them."

"If you trust them, I'll stand by that."

"Do you not trust them?"

"I'm not sure how I feel about them yet." Echo yawned. "Right, unless you want a conked out bat hanging off your cloak all morning, I should get some sleep."

Raphael smiled and winked. "Right."

The next morning, Echo awoke to the comforting smell of something baking and the less welcome smell of meat frying. He walked into the room to find Raphael putting a tray of muffins on the table to cool. Black Flame Sword was bent over the fire frying eggs and sausage links. A pitcher, already filled with what looked like juice, sat on the table, early morning sunshine scattered across the surface.

"What's with the food?" Echo asked. "We didn't buy any of this, Morrowseer, it'd go bad on the road."

"The juice came from fruit I had," Black Flame Sword explained. "Morrowseer an' I made an early mornin' stop at the market. Bunch'a people learned how you guys took care of that manwolf, so they were offerin' us what they had real cheap. Guess he felt like spoilin' us because we bought a lot." She grinned. "Not that I'm complainin', Princess, Key Mace and I've been livin' off just wild fruit and fish for weeks!"

"Hope he's prepared for the challenge of feeding you, Miss "Eats-Like-An-Ogre"," Lilliputian Princess said from the bedroom doorway as she walked in, blinking sleepily. The fairykin girl had undone one of her pigtails and was combing her fingers through the impromptu crimping job that resulted, before she untied the other braid. Key Mace, perched on Lilliputian Princess's shoulder, was looking half-asleep herself, wings drooping and eyelids half-mast, holding her hat like a security blanket.

"I get hungry, okay!?" Black Flame Sword protested.

"She did lend a massive hand in getting all this made before you three woke up," Raphael said.

Lilliputian Princess "hmm"ed in acknowledgement of this information, before a yawn overtook her. "Gah, I must've been more tired than I thought if the vampire got up before me," she said, stretching and rubbing her eyes.

Echo frowned and folded his arms. "Don't patronize me, Princess. Normally now is when I'm going to sleep."

"What's different about today?" Key Mace asked.

"I want to train with you guys, just so we can get a read on each other's fighting styles before we actually go into a job together."

"That seems like a reasonable idea," Key Mace admitted. "Miss, what do you think?" She turned to Lilliputian Princess.

Lilliputian Princess folded her arms. "I don't mind the idea, either. Although I'm pretty sure I already have your styles figured out from your weapons."

"Knowin' what they are is one thing," Black Flame Sword said, pulling the eggs and sausage off the fire and waving away the steam coming off the food. "Ooh! Hot! But seein' how they gel with yours ain't a bad thing to know before a life-or-death fight." She put the pan down on a folded towel on the table with a flourish. "But before we do anything else, let's eat! Bat King, Morrowseer told me you ain't a fan of meat. Are eggs okay?"

"Eggs are fine," Echo said.

"Really? A vampire who hates meat?" Key Mace asked as she sat down on the table and accepted a thimble of juice and small pieces of egg, sausage, and muffin from Lilliputian Princess.

"Yeah, something about the texture and the smell… I hate it. It makes feeding directly from something a pain, but I can stand that as long as I make the bite quick and neat. Eating meat directly?" Echo made a face. "Not happening."

"Speaking of feeding," Raphael said. He passed a wine bottle across the table to Echo. Echo knew from the coppery smell, especially as he uncorked it, that the red liquid inside wasn't the innocent wine it appeared to be.

"Spoiling me is right, Morrowseer," Echo chuckled. "Bottled blood? For little old me?"

"We had a long day yesterday, and something tells me the manwolf wasn't all that appetizing."

"You drank manwolf blood?" Black Flame Sword asked in shock. "How come you ain't turned?"

"Vampires are immune to toxins that can be carried in the blood, such as poisons in the bloodstream or bloodborne pathogens. Which, as it happens, includes lycanthropy," Key Mace explained. "Do I have all that correct, Bat King?"

Echo nodded. "Kind of stupid to have blood be a vital part of your diet and yet still be able to get sick from contaminated blood." He took a sip from the blood bottle. "Ah, that's good."

Lilliputian Princess frowned as she chewed a bite of muffin. "Bat King, if I'm right, you only remember clearly the past few weeks, and when you arrived you knew nothing about Kosuta or its people. How do you know so much about how your people live? I've barely found out anything about my race, the fairykin, and what I do know mostly comes from what Key Mace remembers about them."

"And I admit that isn't much," Key Mace said. "I taught the princess plant magic as much as I could, but her magic is stronger than mine, as well as vastly more… temperamental. And I haven't encountered a fairykin in years, nor have any fairies we've met who are willing to help."

"Well, we had the luck that one of our first employers was a vampire," Raphael said.

"Ah, yeah, Viscount Brandyn. He was an interesting guy," Echo said. "Pretty eager to teach me everything he knew. Would've adopted me if Morrowseer and I didn't decide to leave."

Lilliputian Princess kicked her feet under the table. "Now if only I could find a fairykin that eager to teach me," she muttered, before putting a bite of sausage in her mouth.

"Hey, I've seen you fight with your magic, Princess," Black Flame Sword said. "It's unreal what you can do. If that's you untrained-"

"That doesn't matter, Black Flame Sword, I can't control it," Lilliputian Princess said with a scowl. "Last time I used my magic in a fight, I almost killed you, remember?"

Black Flame Sword's eyes widened and her hand strayed to a red, still-healing scar on her chin that stretched down her neck and disappeared underneath her shirt collar, as if lost in memories of that day.

"So is that your secondary objective?" Raphael asked. "Learning control?"

Lilliputian Princess huffed and nodded. "Finding a fairykin teacher. My race is rare enough that I'm positive the only people who will really know how my magic works will be other fairykin, and we haven't met any."

"Well, I may not be a fairykin, but I learned some techniques to better control my magic. Perhaps they could be helpful," Raphael said.

Lilliputian Princess gave him a doubtful look, but didn't look nearly as dejected as before.

"But before all of that, we should go around the table and give each other our real names, if we really intend to travel together," Key Mace said. "My real name is Earu."

"I'm Sparrow," Lilliputian Princess said.

"I'm Astra!" Black Flame Sword introduced. "Nice to meet ya!"

"It's a pleasure to work with you all," Raphael said. "My name is Raphael."

"My name's Echo," Echo said with a short salute. "Morning, ladies."

Astra snorted, that action causing her to choke on her food and have to guzzle her juice to get it down.

"Say anything like that again and I'll cut you," Sparrow said flatly.

Echo raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, I was joking, calm down."

"Good," Sparrow said, before stabbing a bite of egg with her fork.

Echo watched her do this, wide-eyed. "So, uh, Astra, was it?" he began, searching for a change of subject. "I noticed your sword was dragonhide steel?"

"Yeah," Astra said, drawing the sword and holding it up. The early morning sunlight caught the copper edges of the blade and made them glow bright orange, like embers from a fire. "Guy I got it from said he wasn't sure if he would ever sell it. Then I came along."

"Are you dragon blood then?" Raphael asked. "I didn't think so, you don't have any of the signs…"

"Nah, not that I know of," Astra said, before sheathing the sword. "I ain't sure how I lift this thing either, to be honest." The black-haired girl scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.

"Her strength is unmatched," Earu said. "I have yet to see another human accomplish feats like hers."

"Aw, thanks, Earu."

"Don't let it go to your head," Sparrow said flatly. "So where are we heading?"

"Adrian, a day or so's travel from here. That's the closest town to us." Raphael handed his map across the table for the girls to look at.

"Going west isn't a bad idea," Earu said. "I was always told that the country of the fairykin was to the west."

"No reason to go any other direction," Sparrow said. "The only town to the south is Hightower, and after that is the West Tethys Sea. Unless any of us has a boat, there's nothing for us out there. East is back the way we came, toward Oakfield, and, yeah, we got good business in Oakfield, but I don't want to go anywhere near that town again."

"Hey, the guy in charge of it now is a nice guy," Astra said.

"'In charge of it now?'" Raphael asked.

"Didn't you say overthrowing a corrupt lord was one of the first tasks you were given?" Echo remembered.

"Yeah, this one guy who ran Oakfield cast a curse over the land around it, so nothin' edible could grow. Plant magic didn't work either. The idea was that people would have to go to his city to get food, and he could control them. Jerk," Astra explained. "Sparrow and Earu met me in the Oakfield countryside and we joined up until we could get to a town and some food. Then a villager came to us and confirmed it wasn't natural what was goin' on, asked us to fix it."

"Worse yet, the cursed object's aura was drawing in monsters and bad luck for the town, hence why it was such a lucrative place for adventurers," Earu said. "We were the only ones who bothered to look for the root cause of the problem."

"We had to destroy the object that was the vessel for the curse," Sparrow said. "It wasn't easy to find, either. Eventually we decided that destroying the cursed object wouldn't stop that sleaze from making another one, and so we confronted him and got him thrown out."

"Out of office, out of the city, as thrown out as you could possibly be," Earu added. "We installed a man who had helped us find the curse vessel as the new mayor, and from what I've heard, Oakfield is thriving now."

"Good thing," Astra said. "We met some nice people there."

"Weren't other adventurers angry that breaking the curse disrupted their business?" Raphael asked.

"Th' people of Oakfield were starvin', Raphael," Astra insisted. "If fixing that causes a pay cut, I don't care. It's not like jobs in the area dried up completely. There's just not a ridiculous amount of 'em anymore."

"I admire your resolve," Raphael said. "Anyway, going north is going to take us to the Ice Straits, and I'd like to avoid that area until we're a little stronger as a party."

"What's so wrong about the Ice Straits?" Astra asked.

"What isn't wrong with them?" Raphael asked. "Harsh weather, dangerous terrain, some of the most powerful monsters a party can fight, and the closest town is a week's travel away. I don't doubt our party's ability, I just want to be absolutely sure we're up for it before going anywhere near that way."

"Get used to it, Raph's kind of a momma hen," Echo whispered to the girls, prompting a stern look from Raphael.

"Should we start packing up?" Earu asked.

"After breakfast. I want to at least be halfway to Adrian by the time we choose a campsite for the night."

Several hours later, they were walking down the dirt road toward Adrian. Astra was whistling, Sparrow was in the middle of a hushed conversation with Earu, Raphael was consulting the map, and Echo was looking around, eyes, ears, and nose open for signs of trouble.

"-Yeah, people started singin' it not knowing what it was, and now they keep on singin' it forever-" Astra belted out, having made the transition from whistling to singing sometime in the last minute (Echo hadn't really been paying attention to what she was up to).

"Astra, can you sing anything else?" Sparrow asked in annoyance.

"Wha-haat?! It's funny!"

"Yeah, the first six times," Sparrow replied sharply.

"There's no need to fight back there, alright?" Raphael called over his shoulder. "Astra, you've been asked to stop. Sparrow, Astra was only trying to lighten the mood, I'm sure."

"He really is a mother hen," Sparrow leaned over to whisper to Echo.

"I heard that," Raphael said shortly. He held up the map to the light, turning it from side to side. "Hm. We should've come to Green Table Rock by now."

"You mean we're lost?"

"No, Echo, of course not," Raphael replied defensively. "I just… assumed at the rate we were walking we would have come to Green Table Rock by now. And yet I don't see it."

Echo very obviously mouthed, We're lost, at the girls behind him. Sparrow coughed into her elbow in such a way it looked like the proud little girl was stifling a laugh in a method that saved face, and Astra snorted, quietly cracking up as Raphael gave all of them a stern look.

"Raph, hand me that map," Echo insisted.

Raphael, mouth set in a tight line, relinquished the map, and Echo looked at it, and then the road, then back again.

"We've been walking in the wrong direction, Raph," Echo said. "This map looks like it's oriented upside-down. South is up and north is down, east is left and west is right."

"Echo, is this another-?" Raphael began, only for Echo to point at the road and indicate how the road they were on matched the east road rather than the west road.

"...Joke… Of course. Silly me," Raphael said with a sigh. "This way, everyone!" As he took the map back from Echo, Echo heard him mutter, "I mean, really… who designs maps like that…?"