We were huddled together in the dark around the sputtering sulphurous glow of a damaged drake lamp. Quin had taken off most of their armour so they could rest a little more comfortably. Their eyes were distant, glassy, and they kept flinching at every small noise that echoed through the tunnel. Their body might have been here with us, but their eyes were miles away. Mouse was picking through the pages he had written during his vision. From what I could tell, he was having a tough time. His brow was beaded with sweat, a smear of ink marred his left cheek and his hair was a tangled mess that stuck up at odd angles. As for myself, I was enthralled by the worn stone around us, and sat with my knees pulled tight to my chest counting all the cracks in the wall in front of me. And by that, I meant I was doing everything I could to stop myself from completely breaking down. As long as I kept counting the cracks in the wall, or noting how many times Mouse said "this doesn't make sense" then I couldn't focus on the blood and death churning beneath the surface of my mind. I couldn't focus on how close I'd come to death. I couldn't focus on the fact that people I knew were dead.

We had searched the tunnels for hours and found nothing. Nothing that was out to kill us anyway. There were heaps of mouldering old garbage that Mouse said the Guild would love to see, but none of us were interested in that right now. Wherever the Sorcerer was, it wasn't here, and with our search concluded there was nothing left to but sit and stew with the horrible memories of this morning.

The village was gone. The buildings were still there, all the fields were still there, the crops were still growing, but without people to tend them, the village would die. Chances were there was no one left to come back to it. The town was already dead. A wave of memory crashed over me, churning the darkness and gore beneath the waters and stirring it to the surface. I remembered the old farmer I had met on the road last time I had been through town. He had been so helpful and kind. This time he had come at me with a scythe and I had taken his hands off. I choked back a sob. That old man was dead thanks to me. I was a murderer.

Without a word, Quin slid over to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I tried to push them away but they only held on tighter.

"Quin, don't," I mumbled. "I don't deserve to be held right now."

They let go of me and frowned at me, confused. "Snip, don't say that."

I folded in on myself further, wrapping my arms around my knees. "It's true. How many of the villagers did I kill today? Five? Ten? I'm terrible, Quin. I'm a murderer."

"I don't think you got you ten," said Quin. "I barely got ten."

Another wave of memory crashed over me, drenching me with a bitter spray of blood and terror. Quin was right. They had been right in the thick of things, trading blows with the best of the enemy and making it look easy. I had barely held my own against their weakest. If it weren't for Mouse, who had the least training of all of us, I'd be dead.

"I'm sorry," I said. "You're right. I'm not as much of a Hero as you are. I wasn't really doing anything back there. I'm worthless compared to someone who can actually fight."

Quin grit their teeth, shut their eyes for a moment, and took a deep breath. "That's not what I meant." They couldn't quite keep all of the heat from their voice.

That was fine. They were right to be angry with me. I deserved it.

"I wish you weren't so hard on yourself," said Quin. They still sounded angry.

"I'm sorry," I mumbled.

"No you don't have to be sorry. It's fine."

"I'm sorry ... for being sorry too much." Great, I thought, now I'm not only the worst person, I'm not even making sense.

"If it helps at all," said Mouse. "There was nothing we could have done. Those people were long gone before we arrived."

Another wave broke over me and couldn't hold back the tears any longer. I had failed completely and utterly. A hero was supposed to keep people safe from monsters. They were supposed to ride in and save people. I had ridden in and killed them. From the first day of that first Quest, I had failed. I had made these people a target for something that was much more predatory and evil than any Drake ever could be. I was no hero. I was the villain of this story and I should have left these people alone. I should have taken Walter and ridden off into the distance. The Guild would have been better for it.

Quin clearly refused to be dissuaded from their attempts to comfort me. They swooped back in and put their arm around me again. They didn't say anything this time, just held me until the worst of the tears and sobs subsided. They were my anchor in the storm. The piece of driftwood that kept my head above water while the waves crashed around me.

When the storm died down, I wiped my nose on my sleeve and pulled out of the hug. "I understand why you'd want to leave," I said. "I don't think I'd want to put up with me forever either. I know I'm not the easiest friend to deal with."

Quin pushed away from me and tilted their head to one side, brows bunching together and mouth pulling down into a frown. "What in all the hells are you talking about?"

I shrugged. "I know I'm not Mouse smart, but I'm not stupid. It wasn't that hard to piece together."

Mouse ran a hand through his already tangled hair, making another section of it stand straight up, and his cheeks puffed out as he blew out a long sigh. He and Quin shared a knowing look and he glanced back at me, shaking his head.

I had been friends with the two of them long enough to know when a lightning quick conversation had happened with nothing more than a look and a barely perceptible shake of Quin's head.

"I think you'll need to show your work for this one, Snip," said Mouse.

"It seemed pretty clear to me," I said. "I found the half written letters in your room. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snooped but they fell out of the wrapping the bow was hidden in."

Quin's eyes went wide and they winced like I'd slapped them.

"It seemed pretty clear to me you were trying to say something important. And with this gift that's far, far nicer than I deserve, and you finally knocking Sabre on his ass, it all sort of clicked. I'm not upset that you're leaving, I thought about running from the guild after my hunting trip, I'm just upset that I wasn't going to get my goodbye face to face. I know I'm not the best person, but I thought we were better friends than that."

"That's not what I was trying to say in those letters," said Quin. Their posture shifted and they seemed to crumble in on themselves. Their shoulders slumped and their eyes fell to the floor.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach. What could be worse than them leaving the Guild? What were they hiding from me?

"I was trying to say that I ..." They let the sentence trail off, and cleared their throat to try again. "That I care about you and that you're a good friend to me." They chuckled to themselves. "Apparently, I should have written you a reminder that no one is as hard on you as you are, and that I know you always try your hardest no matter what, and that, apart from Mouse, no one else in the Guild is kind enough to accept me for who I am with no questions asked. You are a good person, Snip, and I would never leave you without a face to face goodbye."

All that did was bring on another wave of tears. Happier tears this time though.

"So," I said. "You punched Sabre in the teeth just for me?"

"That was for me too. For using my real name, for all those times he told me not to wear something, for all the times he called me 'lady' when I was feeling more like a 'sir'. For a lot of reasons. But, yeah, that was for you too." Quin paused and drug their finger through the dust on the floor, idly drawing a set of shapers and squiggles. "I don't know if I can explain it without sounding stupid. Growing up all we did was wander. We trekked back and forth through the deserts and grasslands peddling stupid little pieces of shit that no one wanted."

Mouse looked up from his pack of parchment with an idiot grin. "You sold little pieces of shit? No wonder people didn't want to buy that."

"Not literally," said Quin, rolling their eyes. "They were stupid little trinkets, charms that were supposed to magic, jewelry, things like that. And that's all that life was. Roaming, trading, giving people things they didn't want. None of it helped anyone. Hell, with some of the snake oil we traded, we probably actively hurt more than a few people. The Guild changed that for me. It made me feel like I could make a difference, but working under Sabre, I'm right back in that trade caravan again. I'm just going through the motions, accomplishing nothing day after day. It's hell. The last real Guild job I did was two years ago. This was the first time in a long time that I've had a reason to get out of bed, and nothing was going to keep me away from that."

I hung my head and sighed. "I'm sorry it all went to shit."

"It's okay," said Quin. Well, it's not okay. We're all in just about the shittiest situation I can imagine, but we tried and that's all that matters. That's all we can do." They put their arm around me again. "We kind of got our asses kicked, but I want you to know I'm here for you. For both of you. It's okay to not be okay right now. Actually, I think I'd be concerned if you were okay with all this. Things are going to be terrible for a while and that's alright. Once you get yourself pulled together a little, then It'll be Mouse's turn to break down, and we'll be strong for him, and then it'll be my turn and you'll both lift me up when I need it. We can get through this together."

Once again, there Quin was, ready to pull me back from the edge of that deep dark hole that sat at the center of my chest. I leaned my head on their shoulder. "I'm lucky to have the two of you."

We sat like that for a long time, listening to Mouse's quill scribbling across the page. Down here in the dark every sound was amplified ten fold. I lifted my head from Quin's shoulder.

"Mouse," I said. "You've been scribbling away for hours now. Can we help with anything? I feel like I'm hogging all the love and support. We're here if you need it, you don't have to hide in your papers."

Mouse waved vaguely in my direction. "I'm as okay as I can be ... I think. You know I've always been bad at the whole talking and sharing thing." He scowled and scratched something out on the page. "I just can't make sense of this vision. I need to work through it. It's ... well, it's frustrating as hell but it's better than the alternative of falling into the spiral of replaying that battle over and over again in my head. I don't know how we're here or how we even survived so this helps. I think. It's something I know I can do, or at least I thought it was something I knew how to do." He snarled and tossed his quill across the room. "It turns out that I'm just as useless at this as I am at everything else."

I stood and walked over to Mouse's side of the drake lamp, putting a hand on his shoulder and looking down at the pages he'd been transcribing. The document was a mess of scribbled out sections, hastily scratched paragraphs, footnotes, and questions in parentheses.

"I don't know what I'm doing here," said Mouse, picking up a stone and throwing it into the dark. "Why did you bring me here? Why did you force me into all of this shit?"

"I'm sorry," I said.

"No," said Quin, shooting to their feet and towering over the two of us. "We didn't force you into anything, Mouse." They turned and pointed at me. "And you don't get to beat yourself up over that. We all chose this. It's miserable but we are not going to stand here and blame each other for things we can't control."

Mouse rolled his eyes. "That's easy for you to say," he mumbled.

Quin bristled, throwing their hands in the air with a scoff. "What in all the tiny hells of the world is that supposed to mean?"

Mouse stood and squared his shoulders, balling his hands into fists. He tried, and failed, to glare down at Quin. It wasn't really a feat one could manage when they were head and shoulders shorter than the other party.

"It means," said Mouse. "That I never get a gods damn say in anything that you two get up to. You're always just towing from one thing to the next, and this time it's gone too far." He turned and kicked over his pot of ink. "What the hell even were those ... things out there? Because they sure as all hells weren't people. Not anymore. That shouldn't be able to happen. Bringing one body up from the grave and driving it like some kind of macabre puppet shouldn't be possible. None of the wizards can do that, not me, not Stargazer, not even Stormcaller in the Thunder Keep can pull off a stunt like that. And that's just one body. How many were out there? Fifty? A hundred? The scale of that just isn't possible. There's nothing we can do against that, yet here you both are again, taking me by the hand and dragging me through the shit."

The fire of Quin's anger sizzled out and they sank back to the floor, hunching forward and holding their head in their hands. "I don't know what you want from me then. I'm not clairvoyant, Mouse. I can't predict when things will go wrong and tell you to stay home." They sniffled and wiped away a tear. "I guess I'm just not strong enough to keep you both safe."

I shuffled over next to them and put an arm around them.

Mouse picked up his pages and reordered them. "You're right," he said, sitting down on the other side of Quin and leaning his head on their shoulder. "You're not supposed to be the clairvoyant. I am. And I can't even do that." He leaned over, showing us the mad scribblings he'd written down in his vision. "I mean look at this. One village got attacked, and not only did I see it too late, but I kept seeing it on loop over and over again. On top of all that, there was no Guild." He turned the page over, showing us a hastily scratched drawing of the Tower. "There were no heroes left in my vision. Tower Four was empty, the Ravenspire was burned to ash, Thunder Keep was rubble. There was no one left except us."

I tensed, gritting my teeth and felt the colour drain from my face. "And you're sure this isn't what you were supposed to see?"

Mouse shrugged. "It's always metaphor with these things. Nothing means what it actually means. I just need to figure out what the vision was really saying."

A dark peel of laughter echoed through the tunnel, deep and brassy like the bell of a time keepers tower. "Maybe," came a soft slithering voice, echoing off the insides of our skulls. "Maybe that's exactly what you were supposed to see."

Quin reached for their sword, eyes darting back and forth through the dark. Another arc of green lighting rolled over Mouse and fell backwards, every muscle in his body as stiff as stone. I scrabbled to my feet and drew out my bow.

The voice kept talking. "Things back at the Guild must have truly degraded over the years if this is the best they have to offer."

My eyes flicked down to the snarling drake on my arm and a measure of foolish bravado spilled through me. I let out a sharp bark of mocking laughter. I wouldn't give this whoreson the satisfaction of indulging their ego. "We are the furthest thing the Guild has from the best. They don't even know you exist. You're the shit under their boots."

Mouse stared up at me in abject terror.

"No matter," said the sorcerer. "In the end it makes little difference. For now though, it does change a few things." The voice paused for a moment and then chuckled to itself. "Wouldn't you rather be on the winning side for once in your lives?"

"We already are," Quin snapped.

The sorcerer made a contemplative hum. "And who do we have here? Ah, Alessia Sand. Forgotten child of a forgotten merchant clan. Serving no purpose, amounting to nothing. Don't you wish you could be something more?"

Mouse groaned and pulled himself into a sitting position.

"Lord Easton," said the sorcerer. "So glad you could join us."

"Go to hell," said Mouse through gritted teeth.

"Well it's easy to see why they threw you out of court with a tongue like that. And so you slink away to the Guild in shame. I could make you great, you know. We could rebuild the Empire together, you and I."

I nocked an arrow and shot down the tunnel into the dark. The arrow skipped off hard stone, achieving nothing. "Shut up," I snarled.

"Such fire, Beryl," said the sorcerer. "I understand, of course, as the bastard daughter of a bastard peasant from a village that no longer exists you have a lot to be angry about. I have a lot of uses for anger like that. You'd be a true asset to me. You'd be someone important. You all would. And that brings us to your options. There are two ways forward. You can join me and live like kings, or you can watch as my soldiers burn the world clean and leave your precious guild in ruins. I'll give you some time alone to decide."

Inside I was as cold and dark as raw iron, but the sorcerer's voice kindled my despair into a white hot flame of rage. It boiled away the impurities of anxiety and self doubt within me, added a dash of resolve and the iron in my heart turned to steel. An attack like the one on the village, my village, could never happen again. Even if we had to die to prevent it. I slipped a fresh arrow onto my bow string. "I don't know about you, but I think the road ahead is clear. THe Guild is on it's way and we have a wizard to kill."