Wealday, Noon

I am not really a morning person. I spent nearly three years working as either a barmaid or server and—surprise!—taverns, pubs, and dining halls both open and close late. It was, in fact, the perfect schedule for someone who grew up spending more than a couple of nights each week staying out until the small hours. Though apprenticing for Osgood has forced me closer to what misguided people might call a “normal schedule”, I have so far managed to avoid getting up with or before the sun in my adult life. I am more than happy to keep it that way.

I was concerned the half-day’s hike to an abandoned house that I’ve not seen in several years would threaten that stance, but it turned out that there was not much enthusiasm in the group for an early start. The idea of having someplace close to the cairn that we could use as a base of operations meant that we didn’t have to plan for a round trip, so leaving early morning instead of stupidly-early was fine, as there would still be plenty of time left in the day. Granted, this was something of a gamble since we didn’t know what condition it would be in, but I was willing to take that chance.

We set out individually and rendezvoused just outside of town before making the hike. The idea there was to not make it look like we were planning something. One of the downsides of a town as small as Diamond Lake is that there aren’t many secrets, and seeing our group of seven leaving for the wilderness, carrying gear-laden packs and weapons, would likely attract the wrong sort of attention. And by “the wrong sort”, I mean “any at all”. This half-baked plan of ours would only work if we didn’t attract a following.

When we got to the house three or four hours later, it was pretty much as I remembered it except for the gaping holes in the roof. I could see the tattered remains of the tarps I had helped put in place seven or eight years ago.

Stars, had it really been that long?

We had actually done some upkeep on it as Night Walkers, with a large part of that being keeping the weeds in check. What we saw now was a good reminder of what happens when there’s years of uncontrolled growth. The fence had gaping holes, much larger than I remember, where roots and brambles had split the wood and dirt had rotted fence posts. The yard within was severely overgrown as well, and getting a foothold on the building itself.

Those issues aside, the structure still looked pretty sound. The upstairs was sure to be a mess, and there was likely water damage downstairs, too, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared. We were just getting ready to have a look inside when we heard buzzing noises coming from around back.

The source of the noise became apparent very quickly: four mosquito-like things the size of a house cat converged on us. Stirges. Vicious, blood-sucking pests that prey on just about anything that’s warm-blooded, and if enough of them get to you they can bleed you dry.

Just to be clear, these weren’t around the last time I was here.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to come across stirges since this isn’t their typical habitat. You tend to find them in the same place you’d find mosquitos, which usually means around stagnant water of some sort. There’s a huge nest of them not far from the Stirgenest Cairn—we don’t just make up these names, you know—which is closer to the southeastern shore of Diamond Lake (the lake, obviously, not the town that’s named after it).

Regardless of whether they should be here, they were here, and that was no good. I sliced two of them in half with my horsechopper. Viktor blasted another with magic. The fourth turned out to be a tough little bugger but it pushed its luck going after Sera and she skewered it in response. The whole thing was over in less than half a minute.

And then the front door, which was hanging slightly ajar, slammed shut.

Well, crap.

The whole point of this excursion was to claim squatter’s rights on the property, but that was not going to work if someone else was already there. So we did what any reasonable group of people would do in the same situation: we knocked on the door and announced our presence.

The answer came in a raspy draconic. “Go away, humans!”

I’ve spent the last couple of years getting combat training from anyone at the garrison who would teach me, in exchange for a small fee (well, it was a large fee relative to my income, but no one was getting rich off of it). Sometimes that came from commander Trask. Sometimes it was one of the holy knights that sporadically visit from Korvosa. Usually it was from one of the Korvosa Militia soldiers on duty. It was an agreement I made with the commander that, more or less, kept me out of trouble by redirecting my frustrations in a direction less likely to antagonize the Sheriff and his cronies. It also gave the militia a bit of spending money, and a way to break up dull routine. Osgood also encouraged his apprentices to actually learn how to use the weapons we helped forge. So other than keeping me mostly broke, it was a win all around.

You can’t spend that much time around a group of soldiers—I would add “surly” as an adjective there, but it’s more or less redundant—without learning a bit about their duties. Everyone in Diamond Lake knows there’s some tension between us and the lizardfolk that make their home in the marshes to the southwest, for example, but I had learned just how often those tensions turn into pissing contests with the militia. It also occurred to me that this, here, was way outside their usual territory. Enough that the commander would elevate its status to “incursion”.

I honestly didn’t want to start a fight with lizardfolk. Even given this little territorial matter, I see no reason not to live and let live, and try a diplomatic approach. I pointed out to them that they shouldn’t be here, and they answered with an insult followed closely by a javelin, tossed through one of the many gaps in the mostly boarded-up windows.

Well, okay, then. Pissing contest, it is.

Raiding a house is not an easy task, even one that is in severe disrepair. They were outmatched, but had an advantage in that we had to break our way in. Fortunately, the house was not able to put up much of a fight so all it did was slow us down. Viore and Zhog knocked the front door down going in, and Sera squeezed her way in behind them. They ended up face-to-face with three lizardfolk, and a fourth in reserve.

I stayed outside, and moved up to the windows. Two of them were tossing javelins through those, and I answered by stabbing one with the horsechopper. They went down and did not get back up.

Spells went off inside, sent by Viktor and Varin. Two of the lizardfolk in the front room collapsed. And then Sera got stabbed. I watched it happen through a window on my right. She was hurt bad. Really, really bad.

“Sera!” I cried, half in a panic. “Get out of there!” Though I think she had already figured that out on her own.

The remaining javelin-throwing lizardfolk appeared at the window in front of me, and I punched them with a spiked gauntlet. After seeing Sera get hurt, you might say I was in a bit of a mood.

Snagsby did something and I saw some of Sera’s wounds close up, but it wasn’t enough. Zhog and Viore distracted the lizardfolk in front of them by killing them, though, and that allowed Sera to back out of the fray. Zhog got in behind the one I punched, and then it was all over.

Almost over. During the fight, they called out to someone for aid and that aid never came, so we assumed it was still somewhere inside. Viore opened a door next to the stairs, and got it in one. This last lizardfolk was a bit tougher than the others, but had made the mistake of waiting until he was the only one left. I admit that I didn’t understand the point of that. We taught him a lesson in tactics that would last a lifetime: all 10 seconds of it.

This was my first time killing someone. The stirges didn’t really count, because it’s not like there’s a lot of love in the world for giant mosquitos. The lizardfolk, though, were sentient beings. They had lives, friends, maybe families. I don’t really know much about lizardfolk culture, but they operative word there is culture. When the fight started, adrenaline kind of took over and I didn’t think about it much, especially since I was trying not to die or get any of my friends killed. But afterwards? I don’t know. I don’t feel bad exactly, but I don’t feel good about it, either. It feels like the sort of thing that will stick with you.

I’d also never really seen much magic before. Sure, Varin uses little spells to cool drinks at the Rusty Bucket, and that’s fun and flashy, but to see spells cast in anger was a much different experience. Even Allustan, who is Diamond Lake’s resident bigwig, doesn’t go throwing it around. Based on what I saw today, presumably that’s because he doesn’t have to. If people know what you can do, you don’t need to go out of your way to give demonstrations. It also probably explains why his brother, Diamond Lake’s governor-mayor and chief pervert, is able to hold onto power. A little nepotism obviously goes a long way.

There was a surprising amount of stuff inside the house, much of it courtesy of the now-departed lizardfolk, which suggested they had been here for a couple of weeks, at least. The most grim discovery was a set of armor and weapons that came from one of the Korvosa Militia. I didn’t look forward to delivering that news. I don’t know everyone there by name, as the soldiers rotate, but I do know that every now and then one or two don’t come back. Like, for good.

Some magic scrolls, potions, and some coins suggested that more than one person had been using the house in the intervening years, and that not all of them had made it back, either. As Night Walkers, we never bothered to go down into the cellar—kids and cellars don’t really get along—but we’re responsible adults now, so nothing was off limits. There was a bunch of old mining equipment and a few odds and ends down there that were probably older than I am.

The rest of the house was much as Sera and I remembered it, just with a bit more water damage (gross), more snakes (also gross), and more giant rats (really gross). The upstairs was all but a total loss, but we could probably tarp the roof again to keep things from getting worse. It doesn’t rain much this time of year, so we have some time to get that done. For now, it would be fine.

The cairn beckoned.

I just hoped we could find it again. It occurred to me that I’ve never actually been there in the daylight.

Wealday, Afternoon

It took maybe ten or fifteen minutes to make our way to the cairn. Finding the entrance was a bit tricky because it was more overgrown than either Sera or I remembered, though I suppose that wasn’t surprising. Given how large the mouth is you wouldn’t think that weeds, vines, and brush would be enough to hide it, but six years is a long time and the vegetation here has always been thick.

We cleared away the worst of the thickets. People may have forgotten this place, but the wilderness certainly hadn’t. There were lots of animal tracks leading in and out, so many that they ran together, obscuring any obvious signs of what left them, and what, if anything, might be lairing inside. As we studied the entrance, a light breeze rose up and the cairn breathed out a long sigh, as if registering its opinion of our long-delayed return. Oh, you again. Believe me, I was having the same feeling.

The long hallway stretched into darkness. We could see a band of geometric shapes on the walls at waist level, or what remained of it. Most of it had either eroded away or, in some cases, been scratched off deliberately. Just inside the entrance was the graffiti from the kids that used to come in here: initials, faded names, drawings, and the like. These were the marks of those just seeking bragging rights for being inside the cairn, maybe trying to impress some girl or boy. They’d worked on the kids who didn’t ask too many questions, but didn’t stand up to real scrutiny. It just didn’t take much bravado to walk 10 feet in, where the sun was still shining, and ink your initials. This was the toddlers’ playroom.

We slowly made our way in along the dust-covered floor. It was a strange feeling retracing my old footsteps. I’d been in here maybe half a dozen times, and all but one of those was alone. And for all that time I was in here, I never really bothered to actually look. Probably none of us did, because the point was to be here in the dark and say you’d done it. So in a way, I was really seeing the cairn for the first time.

The wind kicked up, and a chorus of almost human sounds rose around us, and I could feel the goosebumps on my skin as chills ran up my spine. This was the cairn I remembered. Just being in here for a few minutes was one thing. Spending the night was another. Every breeze, every shift of the wind, sent new voices, sometimes even amusical tones, echoing throughout. It was not easy to stay calm. You couldn’t tell what sounds were real or just in your head, and of the former, whether they were the cairn or something else inside there with you. It drove more than one kid to panic and an early exit.

I remember my overnight stay in here vividly. Unlike Sera, I couldn’t see in the dark yet, and I was sitting in utter blackness for most of it. I was young, and Sergiu was still riding me, so I purposely chose a windy night because, paradoxically, that impressed the others more. It ended up working in my favor: the noise was nearly constant, and though the sounds rose and fell, I could still filter them out. Breezy nights, where the winds died entirely, were worse. The sounds would kick up with the wind just as you relaxed. You were always on edge.

Now that I had the time and inclination to explore, I could see where those sounds came from: small, metal tubes, hundreds of them, built into the walls. Some were broken off on the ground. The builders spent a lot of time trying to create this weird and unsettling effect. Given how long this must have taken, I had to wonder if they built this cairn first, and then decided “Let’s not do that again” before working on the others. Such a mundane source kind of ruined the magic of it, but knowing the cause didn’t change the fact the effect was still eerie.

Sera and I pointed out our names when we reached the alcoves. If you made it this far in, you were probably spending the night, and that meant you had a lot of time on your hands. It was the only time I used Sergiu’s red lantern, as it provided just enough light to slowly etch my name in the stone. It took a couple of hours, but it made me a proper vandal.

The second set of alcoves was just beyond. The short hall between the two was as far as I’d ever gone. When we reached it, a very human scream rose around us as the temperature plummeted.

I knew that voice. So did Sera. She called out, “Masildi!” and her name echoed within. Unsurprisingly, there was no response.

And then it was gone.

Snagsby had asked me yesterday if the cairn was haunted. I would like to change my answer.

We never really knew what happened to Masi. She went in, and she didn’t come back out. Sergiu and Alina went in the next day and found no trace of her in the first alcoves. That is, however, as far as they looked. There was this unspoken agreement that you didn’t go past the first junction. When Sergiu deliberately tried to wash me out at my initiation, his stone sent me maybe ten feet beyond, but I’d never been that far since. To my knowledge, neither had anyone else. The mental barrier of the first junction was just too much to overcome.

We’d just sort of assumed Masi had died that day, and I guess this was proof that we were right. I didn’t want to imagine what she ran into that caused her to scream in terror like that, but the problem was that I could imagine it. Very easily.

The guilt was overwhelming. Her parents knew she had gone out that night, believing she’d be spending the night out in the woods. It was something a lot of us did, so it wrung true. But I don’t think anyone ever told them the whole truth. They moved away a couple of months later, and we lost our chance. I can’t say that I blame them for leaving. Would you want to stay?

We found Masi’s old bedroll in the second set of alcoves. I don’t know if she had actually come in this far, or if it had been moved in the intervening years. There’s no way to know. It was behind a weird, marble platform, that had what looked like a fragment of a giant mirror frame sitting atop it. The base of the platform had some runes that we couldn’t make sense of, but Viktor said he had seen something similar before, so he made a rubbing of it for later study.

We could make out a faint, green glow in the distance. That was new. What wasn’t new was the sound of a canine growling. I had heard that sound during my initiation nine years ago, and it’s one you don’t forget: wolves. Back then, I was on my way out and admittedly I got lucky. This time, we’d have to face them if we wanted to keep going.

I didn’t enjoy fighting wolves. But we did it, and I’m here to talk about it, so I’ll leave it at that.

There was a third junction just a little farther in. The wolves had made their den to the right, among a pile of debris. It looked like there might have been a chamber beyond, but the structure had collapsed, filling the passage with rubble. This gave me the chills, too, as it was an uncomfortable reminder that caves collapse, especially man-made ones. Mom doesn’t say it, but I think she worries every day when dad goes to work. Cave-ins in the mines are rare, but two have happened in my lifetime and I am not exactly old. I try not to think about it.

We dug through the rubble and found a pack, an armband, and an old lantern with indigo glass. It reminded me of Sergiu’s lamp, only a lot fancier. Oh, and also a stone finger, like it had maybe been broken off a statue.

The other side was intact, and had an enormous mural wrapping around the wall at the end, in faded colors. If you stood there, the effect was one of standing in a room with seven passageways leading away from you. In the image, each hallway ended in a colored lamp hanging from a chain, with the colors arranged in the order of the rainbow. The lamps in the painting looked similar to the indigo one we were carrying, which felt too much like a coincidence to be a coincidence. I mean, I am new to this line of work, but it felt like one of those obvious clues you hear about in stories.

The main hallway continued deeper into the tomb, but it was filled with webs from who knows how many spiders. The green light shone through them from beyond, giving it a haunting appearance. Snagsby and I looked at the webs, then at each other. He nodded and then used a spell to create sparks that set them alight. The webs directly in front of us burned away quickly, but so did the fire before the rest could catch. It was apparently something he could repeat, though, so he ignited the next layer, then the one after that. We moved ahead cautiously, burning the webs as we went and sending hundreds of spiders scurrying into the holes and cracks in the stone. It was slow going, clearing what must have been a hundred feet of web-choked hall, but it was better than cutting our way through it and being swarmed by arachnids. I kept waiting for a larger spider to drop on us, but mercifully that wasn’t on the day’s agenda.

The passage opened up into a large, central chamber with hallways radiating out like eight points of a compass rose. The hall we came from was “south”. At the end of the others hung a lamp on a chain at roughly eye level, the scene nearly identical to the painting we had seen just a few minutes ago. The light came from the green lantern that was hanging straight ahead in the northern point, the only one that was lit. Two of the seven lanterns were missing: indigo, which we seemed to have in our possession, and red.

The ceiling above rose to a dome. In the center of the room sat a sarcophagus. Or what I assumed was a sarcophagus, since I had never actually seen one before. Again, it’s my first day. The lid was carved into a statue of a man lying flat on his back, eternally asleep. One of his hands was outstretched, and Sagsby noted that a finger was broken off. He pulled out the one we found, cast a spell, and it reattached as if it were whole. Neat trick.

Zhog and I each grabbed the lid to lift it off. This was a bad idea. Flames burst out from it as it opened, and in our surprise we both let go. The lid slammed back into place and we checked ourselves for serious burns. I was singed a bit and it hurt like made, but not as badly as my pride did. We tried again, only this time from the sides. Again, flames shot out, but this time we weren’t where they were and no harm was done. We set the lid on the ground and we were feeling rather clever until we discovered that it was as empty as it appeared. Raiding an ancient tomb was turning out to be a lot more complicated than I had thought.

We turned our attention to the other halls. Each went a short distance and dead-ended at the lantern hung from it’s chain below a low, domed ceiling. Taking a cue from the mural, we lit the remaining lanterns, and hung the indigo in its rightful place. Below the blue lantern in the northeast hall, though, we saw someone’s skeletal remains. Several of its bones were broken. Looking up, we saw the ceiling was quite higher than the others, and there appeared to be a passageway there.

“Looks like they fell to their death,” Viktor said. It seemed reasonable.

Several of us set our heavy packs down, and we all climbed the chain, one person at a time, to have a look. Viktor and Varin needed a little help, but we weren’t too worried: Varin said he had spells that could arrest a fall, just in case someone slipped. We emerged in a small chamber with a short hall leading away towards a giant carving of a head at the end, with a mouth several feet wide, open in a raging scream.

Everyone agreed this was some sort of wind trap because what else could it be? Sera and Snagsby pulled out sets of climbing pitons, and started driving them into the cracks in the walls on either side. Viktor, Varin, and Viore—the “V” club—stayed behind as the rest of us worked. Sera and Snagsby tied the ropes to the pitons, and we advanced along the hall, pounding the metal spikes in every few feet, forming a safety line that we all could hold on to. As Sera neared the face, the eyes began to glow red, forming swirling, mesmerizing patterns. Sera and Zhog couldn’t tear gaze away. And then the wind began.

It was a stiff wind at first, like you might find in a summer storm. Sera and Zhog regained their senses in time to grab the ropes and hold on, and resumed their advance. The wind steadily picked up, growing fiercer and fiercer until it was so strong it was like a solid force, pushing us away.

“Let’s do a controlled retreat,” I called out, realizing I couldn’t hold on for much longer. That was easier said than done. The wind was a force so strong we couldn’t easily control our movements, which meant we couldn’t hold on to the ropes. One by one, we peeled away from the wall and tumbled down the hall towards the pit. I bounced hard, barely managing to stay conscious as I was blown backwards. If it wasn’t for the spells, we all might have plummeted to our deaths.

We stood safely on the ground, the wind still buffeting around us from the hall above. “That would have hurt,” Varin said, unnecessarily. We were all thinking it.

Again, my pride took a heavier beating than the rest of me. The wind continued to rage for several minutes, and it was clear that we were not going to be able to brute-force our way through this. Much more complicated, indeed.

“We’re missing the red lantern,” Snagsby said.

Yeah. You think?

This sort of thing—finding clues and solving puzzles—was just not my thing. Once it’s clear what needs doing, I am there to do it and I won’t look back, but working out what to do? I’m not dumb, but this is a little byond me. Logically, I know that’s why we are doing this as a group, so that our collective strengths can cover our individual weaknesses, but it still stings.

“Let’s get back to the house and call it a day,” I said. I was tired. I could see the others were, too. “We can think on it tonight.”

And start fresh in the morning.

Toilday, Mid-Day

It’s funny how some things always stay the same, until one day, they don’t.

Case in point. I was visiting Sera and we were talking about basically nothing, and out of the blue I said to her, “I need to get out of this place.” It is a familiar refrain. She got real quiet and we stared at the wall for a while before she said, “You and me both”. And then we lamented the fact that it took quite a bit of money to strike off on your own, and that was something neither of us had. It’s a conversation we’ve had dozens of times, and it’s like we’re reading off a script.

Diamond Lake isn’t a strike-it-rich kind of town: it’s more of the your-dreams-have-died variety. If you’re lucky, you can work and make enough to stay afloat until you get sick and die. If you’re really lucky, you can do that without resorting to living at Jake’s. For most folks, that means earning enough to stay trapped here. Getting out is so far out of reach that most don’t even talk about it.

Sera and I like to buck the trend.

At least she’s got an excuse for being an optimist: her family is better off than most. They’re not going to give her money just so she can leave—family businesses are their own sort of Diamond Lake—but they could all go if they wanted to. Mine’s not like that and there’s never been an option other than funding my own way, and that’s not exactly panning out. Apprenticing for Osgood has paid okay (no one gets rich on barmaid money, and I certainly didn’t), but there’s not really a lucrative future there. I mean, I’m no genius when it comes to figures, but even I can see that seven apprentices to one smithy is not great math.

So it’s an old conversation, one that dates back a couple of years, with the same beginning, middle, and end. At this point, I think Sera and I have it just because it’s familiar and there’s a twisted sort of comfort in the familiar.

And then it changed.

I don’t like visiting The Feral Dog. For one, I used to work as a server there and going inside brings back memories that are better off repressed, and for two, it’s run by Kullen, who somehow manages to be sleazier than the tavern. But his nephew Zhog works there, and I was dropping off a kukri for Zhog, so I was visiting The Feral Dog. And we got to talking, like we do, and it was like deja vu: I was having that same conversation again, only substitute him for Sera.

Like his uncle, Zhog is a half orc, but that’s both the start and end of the family resemblance. There is not much love lost between the two, either. Kullen has taken care of Zhog since the latter’s parents died, and while I am sure he feels a familial obligation there, I don’t doubt that his loyalty is influenced by having access to cheap labor. Kullen has what you might call a “transactional” parenting style: as long as his nephew works in his tavern, Kullen provides a roof over his head and enough food to eat. Zhog wants to get out from under his uncle, but that takes money which he doesn’t have, and isn’t going to make by working for just food and lodging. So it’s the same story, just with different actors.

Unlike Sera and I, Zhog actually had a shot at it, but he ended up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. He received some sort of inheritance from his parents when he turned 17, and spent it getting equipped to get out of Diamond Lake and see the world. Zhog has been an acolyte of Desna for as long as I’ve known him, and “see the world” is one of those Desnan things where you take a pilgrimage without a destination. Unfortunately, math wasn’t his strong suit, either, and he spent his inheritance on the “getting equipped” bit, and there was nothing left for the part where you “see the world”. And thus, he’s still here. So, that’s only mostly the same story, I guess. I’m calling it close enough.

One of the few things I miss about being a barmaid, or working in a tavern in general, is that you overhear a lot. People are pretty interesting, and by extension, taverns are interesting places—even the seedy ones. While Zhog and I were bemoaning the state of our finances, our ears picked up the conversation at a three-top that was a group from Korvosa. I don’t know why, but adventurer types from out of town always seem to end up in the Feral Dog, despite it being, literally, the worst of their options. It’s like a magnet for people who like to complicate their lives. We could tell they were adventurer types because they were talking loudly and indiscreetly about exploring the Stirgenest Cairn. Typical.

Diamond Lake is surround by ancient burial cairns from some long-dead culture, the kind that built enormous and elaborate tombs to prove their greatness. All of them have been raided by explorers since their discovery decades ago, and consequently emptied of valuables because who doesn’t love a little grave robbing? And yet, for some reason, every year people from out of town—most seem to hail from Korvosa like this bunch, but we get treasure hunters from all over Varisia and beyond—get the idea to come and explore the Stirgenest Cairn, with dreams of looting it’s hidden riches.

There are no riches, hidden or otherwise. Like the others, it was bled dry years ago and there’s nothing left of value inside. Listening to tourists dream about scoring it big in the Stirgenest Cairn is what passes for community entertainment in Diamond Lake. Like, there are several factions in town that do not see eye to eye on hardly anything, but one thing they will all agree on is that tourists who don’t do their research are endless sources of both amusement and money. Which is probably why we don’t, as a community, correct this public misconception. Admittedly, that’s not particularly virtuous of us, but the way most people figure it: treasure hunters are here to exploit the town, anyway, and their money is good, so why not exploit them first? Also, Diamond Lake is one of the last places you go when seeking virtue.

“Too bad all of those cairns are empty,” Zhog said.

I almost agreed as an automatic response, but I cut myself off and just stared at him. Were they all empty?

Zhog was looking at me funny. “You okay?” he asked.

I’m not normally known for sitting quietly with my mouth gaping. The opposite, really. I feel like mom is being polite when she says I have a way of “filling the gaps in conversation”.

“Yeah. I Just…I think I have an idea.” I told him I’d be back in a couple of hours, and left him standing with a puzzled expression while I went to find Sera.

When I was twelve, I started hanging out with a group of teens that called themselves The Night Walkers. Sera was one of them, and also the one who encouraged me to join. We did all sorts of crazy, irresponsible things that only teens would do, and that only parents from Diamond Lake would ignore. It was more than just irresponsible, really. It was, like, irresponsibility taken to staggering heights. We ran around in the night, literally, like a cult of survivalists. The group was actually quite fun, even exhilarating at times, and a good diversion for a town that’s all dead-ends. I learned a lot of useful stuff that is not so easy to learn on your own, but we should still call it what it was: a bunch of kids being reckless in the dark. We navigated the hills, learned how to hunt for food, even played field games, all by moonlight. Sometimes by just the light of the stars. We had initiations, rituals, you name it.

And we also visited a little-known and well-hidden cairn that became an open secret among the Night Walkers and other kids in town. At the time, it probably wasn’t known to anyone over eighteen. We all called it The Whispering Cairn, named after the strange sounds that echoed inside when the wind blew in just right. We even spread rumors that it was haunted (an easy sell just on the sounds alone) which both elevated it to legendary status among Diamond Lake youth, and kept the casually curious ones away.

I am not sure who discovered it—probably Sergiu or Alina, our de-facto leaders at the time— but regardless of its origins, the Night Walkers kind of claimed it as our own, and we used it for our initiation ritual. A brave or foolhardy few, like Sera and myself, even spent the night in it as a test of our mettle. But what we didn’t do was explore the thing, because we all knew at some deeper level that it was dangerous. You could see animal tracks leading in and out, and sometimes footprints from something larger and bipedal. You went in not knowing if you would be alone, or if you would stay that way.

About five years after I joined the group, our collective luck ran out. A friend of mine, Masildi, went in to spend the night and she never came back, and that was the end of the Night Walkers. A couple of years later, another idiot kid tried to do the same thing, because one disappearance wasn’t enough, and Alina found out about it and we went to pull him out. He was attacked while he was inside—by what, we don’t know, and we didn’t wait around to find out—but we got him out before he could bleed to death. As far as I know, no one has been back since.

No one has ever talked about the Whispering Cairn outside of that group of friends. The Stirgenest Cairn was emptied years ago and people still can’t shut up about the thing. If the Whispering Cairn had been explored and looted, you would think we’d have heard about it. We’d probably never stop hearing about it.

What if it hadn’t ever been explored? What if it wasn’t empty, like the others?

I needed to talk to Sera.

Toilday, Evening

There were seven of us in all. Sera and I have been friends for practically ever, and I worked with Zhog and Snagsby back in my serving girl days. As for the others? I had seen them around, and no one is truly a stranger in a town of a thousand people. Snagsby works with Viore, and also knows the newcomer Varin. Most of us probably knew Viktor at least casually.

“For those who don’t know me well,” I said, starting us off, “you can call me ‘Bel’. Seriously, just call me ‘Bel’.”

I always need to get that out of the way, because while I don’t ever use my full name it’s far from being a secret. I want to say that my parents have a sense of humor, but I really think they were being serious when they named me Belessandralena, especially since they use it all the time. They never shorten it: not out in public, not in private with friends and family, and not even casually at home. Never. Most kids’ names get longer when they get in trouble with their parents. Mine just got more enunciation.

Dad has labored in one of the mines for as long as I can remember, and he’s always been close with the local gnome community since several of them are in his same work crew. That is the super-abridged story of how I got my name. Once, when I was younger and feeling particularly feisty, I argued that it’s gnome men that have the long names, while the women’s names tend to be really short. Dad just said that I was missing the point. I was so vexed by this response that I didn’t even think to ask what that point would be. I still haven’t, under the theory that some mysteries are maybe better left unsolved.

“We’re all here for the same reason,” I continued. “The ‘why’ is different for each of us, but we all are looking for something that is outside of Diamond Lake. A better life. A chance to see more of the world. Connecting with our past. But getting out, and staying out, takes money, and none of us have enough of it to survive for long on our own. Sera and I have an idea that might just change that.”

My “why” fell into the last category. A few months after I turned seventeen, I started developing the ability to see in the dark. By “in the dark”, I mean, “in the complete absence of light”. At first I thought it was just getting more sensitive to dim light, but it didn’t take long to figure out that light itself just wasn’t a prerequisite. Once I was done having a panic attack—I didn’t understand what was happening to me, and it’s pretty terrifying the first time the lights go out and you realize you can still clearly see the room—I went to see Sera. She’s been able to see like this since, I dunno, the womb, I guess, and I thought maybe she could help me figure out why it was happening. She suggested that there was something in my ancestry that wasn’t human.

Once I built up the courage to talk to mom and dad, they suggested I write to Aunt Esma, who is the family historian. And she had been digging around, too, because I guess I’m not the only one in the family with…unusual traits. According to my Aunt, if you go back a couple of generations on my mom’s side, you find that my great-great grandmother was pregnant with her oldest daughter before she met her husband. Based on hints found in some old diaries, Aunt Esma believes the father was a dragon in human form.

Think about that for a minute: somewhere in my family history, there is a real dragon. A dragon that, given how long they live, may still be around. As soon as that thought settled in, I kind of grew obsessed with the idea of tracking them down. It’s not entirely crazy. I mean, sure, there is the possibility that they don’t want to be found, and they are a dragon. But I feel like I need to try, and I have a where and a when, and I even have the name they were using, so I have a starting point.

“It’s common knowledge,” I continued, “that all the old cairns around here have long since been looted and emptied, but there’s one that’s about a half day from town that we’re pretty sure has never been explored. Because almost no one knows it’s there.

“Sera and I were part of a group of kids that used to go inside this cairn from time to time. She and I even spent the night in it once. We called it The Whispering Cairn because of the sounds it makes when the wind blows, and for a while we spread stories among the other kids in town that it was haunted so we could more or less keep them away and have it to ourselves.

“The few people that do know about it don’t go there anymore. About five or six years ago, a friend of ours tried to spend the night inside, and she never came back out. We’re pretty sure she died in there. And then a couple of years after that, another kid tried to do the same, and they go hurt, bad. That was the last time I knew of anyone going there.”

I paused to take a deep breath. Talking about what happened to Masildi is never easy. It doesn’t help that she and I parted on such a bad note. I could make all sorts of excuses for why things ended they way they did, but they are all just variations on blaming the victim, and that wouldn’t be right. So I just swallowed my guilt and pushed on.

“Even though we’ve been inside it, none of us went in very far. Just down the entry hall to a junction with alcoves on either side. That is less than a hundred feet in. But the cairn goes back a lot farther than that, and we don’t know what’s there.

“What we’re proposing is that we band together, and explore The Whispering Cairn. I won’t deny that it’s potentially dangerous. Sometimes there are animals living in there, and it’s possible we’d need to deal with that. But we are a group of seven, and we aren’t kids anymore. We’re also armed, and not without some skill.”

“Is it actually haunted?” Snagsby asked.

“I don’t know. It might be? But we never saw anything that suggested it was. The most dangerous things we came across were animals and other people.”

There was some discussion after that, and to my surprise and relief, no one got up and walked out. So that was a start.

“There’s more. If we want to do this, there’s an abandoned mine office near the cairn that we could maybe use for a place to stay. It wasn’t in great shape when we found it several years ago, but if it’s still standing we could maybe fix it up a bit so it could keep us dry, and give us a place to work out of that is away from prying eyes.”

This was another Night Walkers discovery and we used it as our private hideaway for a couple of years. I described the small structure which resembled a farm house, complete with kitchen, bedrooms, cellar, and a well out back. When we found it, the roof was leaking and we patched it with a sort of homemade tarp—we were teenagers, remember—but I doubt that had survived the last seven years. We’d be lucky if the roof hadn’t collapsed. But the idea had a lot of appeal. Even in severe disrepair, it would be better than sleeping outdoors. As long as it didn’t come crashing down on us.

Snagsby asked, “How much do you think we might get out of this? I need to know if I should quit my job.”

And that was the rub. I didn’t know. Abadar wouldn’t allow me to mislead them, either, even if I wanted to. “There’s no guarantee. This isn’t like a secured investment. The cairns around here that have been looted have held phenomenal treasures, but that doesn’t mean this one will, too. And though we are reasonably confident it hasn’t been explored yet, it’s still possible that someone else has already cleaned it out. I wouldn’t quit your job until after it’s paid out.” Past performance is not a guarantee of future performance, and so on.

“Great! I’m quitting my job then,” Snagsby replied. And, I might add, completely ignoring my advice.

After that, everyone else threw in, too. We were officially signing up to be squatters and grave robbers.