Edited by Brett Heller

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

Cynthia's funeral is beautiful. The villagers have wrapped her corpse in silks and clean linens. They have spiced the cloth so that a powerful scent of flowers wafts behind her as she is carried into the forest. The entire village follows. Stephen and Derek accept Kinewyn's warning not to ask the villagers to carry Cynthia. He explains to them that the people of Eramyl believe that once a person has passed their body cannot be touched by family or friends. Doing so reminds the fallen one of their connection to Thrycion making it more difficult, if not impossible, to leave their loved ones.

The village elder sings a sonorous message of sorrow and loss to the night. The women of the village, having never met Cynthia, cry quietly. Stephen realizes that many of the people here have lost members of their families today. fathers, brothers, sisters, and yet they honor Cynthia because they believe her to be a hero, an adventurer like Kinewyn's band members.

Stephen is surprised when Max steps forward to speak. "People of Eramyl. Thank you for this ceremony for Cynthia. You did not know Cynthia, so I will tell you about her. Cynthia was a girl who had dyslexia," Max falters, thinks of a way to explain to people who did not know the young gamer or her world. "Cynthia became confused when she read. We were students together when we were children and I watched her struggle to learn what other children picked up easily. She began to hate books. I'm sorry - I mean scrolls or tomes. She grew to hate the written word because it made her look foolish to her fellow students. And Cynthia was not a fool, she had a brilliant imagination. She could think through problems that others gave up on. Well, Cynthia's confusion went away because of one special tome - a book about your world, Thrycion. This tome (which me and my fellow Plane Walkers thought of only as a game) became a precious gift to Cynthia. She struggled through the first reading and then the second reading went faster. She read that tome a dozen times before three moon's spans had passed. Cynthia then read through all of the tomes written by Korbach, a Plane Walker who traveled to Thrycion decades ago, and then read them again and again. She did not set out to become an avid reader but it is what happened, because of Korbach's tome that detailed Thrycion. Thank you, people of Eramyl, for this tribute to a fallen hero."

Max walks back to his place near Stephen and Derek. The villagers lower Cynthia into a deep grave and men come forward and shovel dirt over her corpse. The village's wisdom, bowed and grey with age brings a paper lantern to Bryong. The paper lantern is simple and rest in the crook of a forked branch. The flame inside the lanterns glows bright white, absent of the oranges and reds of a normal flame. As Bryong holds the lantern the wisdom reaches into pouches in her tattered cloak and takes out a vial of honey. She dabs the honey on thick around the edges of the lanterns top.

"What is she doing?" Derek asks Stephen.

"Im not certain. Ive never seen anything similar to this in any of the B&B source books."

The villagers begin to proceed back. Bryong stands at the start of the path back to Eramyl. As each villager passes her she casts a spell, recreating in her left hand the branch and the burning lantern in her right hand. The villagers each take the lantern and hold it high as they proceed down the clear path through the forest. Stephen and Derek queue up and receive their lanterns. Stephen has to look around before finding Max talking to Kinewyn far back near the last of the villagers waiting to receive a lantern.

The trees are a dozen yards back from the path and Stephen looks at the night sky. He is disappointed to see that there is cloud cover. No moon or stars can be seen. Stephen wonders if he would have been able to make out any constellations. The path is easy to follow and Stephen settles into the silence of those around him. He is startled by a screech from above and behind. He turns to see a patch of dark activity in the sky behind them. The screech is echoed by other creatures and Stephen lowers the lantern and steps back as he realizes a swarm of blue-black bat-like creatures are descending on the villagers. Derek's alarm is evident as he drops his lantern and throws his backpack to the ground to dig for his Glock. The villagers around the two simply stop, turn and hold their lanterns high. The blue-scaled flyers, each a meter in length from clawed wing-tip to clawed wing-tip, swoop down screeching and snatch each of the lanterns from the villagers hands. Stephen's lantern is held low and the fast, adroit flyer going for his light has to dip and dig talons into his shoulder to snatch the lantern and bound away.