“Like I said, there is someone raising the dead at night!” almost screamed the raven haired tall man with an air of frustrated authority around him. Muhin Nataqin was rather famous for his temper, more so than for his post as Nanuq chief’s son and possibly the next chief. Anyone who crossed his path knew not to rub him the wrong way even though they knew he is quite kind at heart and even harmless. However, the memo had not quite reached Eva’s ears when she strolled into his station that morning following a hastily written letter delivered just as much impatiently. If the crisply unintentional welcome to the new Rune Knight in town, taking no more than two sentences, were not enough indication to his personality, then the scowling man in front of her at that moment definitely was.

In Eva’s defense, however, the first word she had heard from his mouth was some less than savory term used for those people that took pleasure in raising people from their afterlife to do their bidding. So definitely, it wasn’t her fault that she had raised her eyebrows like an idiot and gave him a look that probably made him feel just as much foolish. In the end, she had listened to him patiently over some tea, the man finally calming down all by himself against Eva’s unfazed demeanor. Apparently, there had been reports from his personal network of spies of some necromancer raising the dead at the peak of night. It was a rather alarming matter in a village where majority had either water or ice magic and he needed someone brave enough to investigate it since, he emphasized, his overprotective chief of a father had denied him any permission to do so. It was apparently when they had heard news of a new Rune Knight, a seated knight no less, in town, they had immediately sent for them.

Once she had finished her tea, Eva discussed the rewards’ terms with him before heading out, immediately going for the area the sightings were mostly reported from. Away from the village, along the icy cold sea of Nanuq, Eva walked up a frozen path, pulling her jacket snuggly around her. Eva was no stranger to the cold weather but that still didn’t mean that she either liked it or could withstand it without shuddering. It comforted when she reminded herself that she would be leaving the cold village the next day, to Oak where she would actually do some training before heading back down to Crocus and then possibly Hargeon. She had already learned a bit of what she came there to do after all thanks to the healing hut cleaning job that she had done the previous day. In truth, she may have contemplated leaving that very day had the letter addressed to her not arrived and it wasn’t in her authority or favor to ignore it. In the end, she was stuck there doing her job for another day.

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“Yaaah!~” she heard the excited sound of some child as she reached somewhere near a clearing. Surrounding her were mountains of ice and glacier which indicated that she was further up the great icy wall that surrounded Nanu, something that no one actually dared to climb after a limit. It made her wonder what a child was doing in such a place and the disquiet news of a necromancer made her speed up, reaching the clearing where, for a good minute, Eva stood dumbstruck at the scene in front of her. The child she thought was in danger was apparently the real preparatory for the whole necromancer situation.

She watched, almost with a pleasant smile, as the boy played happily around with the slightly wicked looking skeletons that seemed as if they almost loved the child rather than being tortured by him. Eva had wanted to move closer to observe them, stopping immediately when she unconsciously stepped on something that made a cracking sound, alerting the young boy of her presence. He seemed far more terrified of her rather than the skeletons when he promptly broke his magic, turned around and ran up, Eva running behind him at the hard poke of dangerous reality that laid ahead at the trail.

Just as the boy had almost fallen off the edge, Eva took flight with her meteor spell, grabbing the boy with amazing speed before sighing in relief. She almost scolded him for not being careful, at which point, he started explaining to her about why he was doing something like that near night when no one will be able to find him. Apparently, he had been scared because his magic is something that normally anyone would consider to be dark rather than water or ice that is the norm for any mage in Nanuq, Sighing, Eva promised him that she would talk to his parents about the incident before he thought of taking any more drastic decisions.

When she landed right in front of his parent’s hut, Eva saw that the couple was already outside, looking rather surprised at the woman that managed to drop in on them from the sky. Once the greetings and whatnots were done, Eva started explaining to them about why magic, dark or light, kind or not, depends on how it is used rather than what it is. She told them of why they should be appreciative of him when to her surprise, they laughed it off and accepted it all far more easily than how she expected them to. In fact, a few minutes later, the whole town was there appreciating the young necromancer to the boy’s excitement and happiness. Even the chief and his son was there, whom ran over to Eva for rewarding her, a shy smile on his face for helping the young child find courage to face everyone. She smiled in return, bidding farewell to them not just for the night but for a very long time until she would once again maybe decide to stop by the rather peculiar town.

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