Ever since the incident involving chickens, the others have developed a rather unfortunate habit of asking me increasingly absurd questions.
Questions about monsters.
Ancient curses.
Ruins.
Diseases.
Why certain birds migrate.
Whether fish sleep.
Whether ghosts can cross rivers.
I do not particularly mind.
There is little else for me to do during long stretches of travel anyway.
Today marked the eleventh day since our departure from Yggdra.
According to Ryn, we should arrive at the trade city of Windward within several more days.
Apparently the harbor there is large enough to accommodate nearly every kind of vessel imaginable.
Which makes it ideal for securing passage back toward Port Roderick.
I still have not told her I intend to leave the caravan afterward.
At this point, I suspect I am deliberately waiting for the “perfect moment.”
Which is unfortunate.
Because perfect moments rarely survive contact with reality.
This evening, we stopped at a roadside tavern somewhere along the eastern route.
The building leaned slightly to one side.
The floorboards creaked loudly enough to sound argumentative.
And the smell of smoke, old ale, and grilled river fish had permanently fused itself into the walls.
I sat together with the caravan’s core crew near one of the larger tables beside the hearth.
Ryn sat beside me.
The Caravan Master sat across from us quietly eating stew.
At some point during dinner, Master Blackthorn began telling another one of his stories.
This one involved a distant continent somewhere beyond the eastern edge of the world.
According to him, the people there could revive the dead.
“They call them The Immortals,” he said flatly.
“They invade kingdoms and never lose.”
Master Stonefist barely reacted.
Master Grim continued drinking.
Ironbeard listened with the exhausted patience of a man who had survived many years beside someone like Master Blackthorn.
Then suddenly—
Master Blackthorn looked directly at me.
“You ever hear stories like that, Miss DeLuna?”
I considered the question for a moment.
Then nodded slowly.
Immediately, Master Blackthorn leaned forward slightly.
“If you tell it properly,” he declared, “I’ll buy you another plate of salmon.”
Honestly, that seemed like a very fair arrangement.
So I accepted.
I looked at him quietly for several seconds.
Then began explaining.
There exists, according to certain forbidden accounts, an ancient process known as The Hollow Stitch.
A ritual considered so grotesque that even discussing it openly was supposedly enough to invite execution in several older kingdoms.
The process begins with a strict condition.
The head must be completely separated from the body within four hours after death.
If the head remains attached beyond that point, the ritual fails entirely.
The body is then drained, cleaned, and submerged in something called Blackroot Broth.
A thick black liquid created from roots connected to a World Tree, swamp fungi, and strange fluid recovered from a drowned archive beneath the sea.
During immersion, the corpse reportedly swells slightly while the skin loses all natural color.
Afterward, the severed head is placed within an artifact called the Crown of Binding.
A crown-like structure made from twisted root branches lined with nine long needles driven directly into the skull.
By this point, the entire table had become very quiet.
Even the surrounding tavern noise felt strangely distant somehow.
So I continued.
The body and head are then sewn back together using thread made from treated arachnea silk soaked in corpse blood, wild honey, and the first rainfall collected during daylight.
The stitching pattern intentionally resembles an infinity symbol wrapped repeatedly around the neck.
Not neatly.
Deliberately rough.
As though the body had been violently torn apart and stitched together carelessly afterward.
Then comes the chanting.
The Stitcher begins slowly using a nearly extinct language.
Soft at first.
Almost prayer-like.
But the rhythm gradually accelerates until the chant resembles screaming more than speech.
At its peak, the crown begins shaking violently.
Black liquid pours from the corpse’s eyes, mouth, and nose.
Then eventually—
The body rises again.
But not truly alive.
Only animated.
The movements remain stiff.
The eyes completely black.
No memory survives.
No personality.
Only obedience.
According to the old legends, separating the head first creates an “empty space” where the soul once existed.
And the ritual merely fills that emptiness with something else.
When I finally stopped speaking, nobody at the table said anything for several seconds.
Master Stonefist was the first to react.
“That ritual sounds way too complicated,” he muttered.
“If I die, just leave me dead.”
Master Grim nodded immediately in agreement.
“A sensible philosophy,” he added.
Meanwhile Master Ironbeard stared at me across the table thoughtfully.
Then finally grunted.
“You know,” he said slowly, “I’m starting to believe these stories just because you sound too convincing.”
Beside me, I noticed Ryn watching me strangely.
Not frightened exactly.
But concerned in a quieter way.
As though she was trying to understand how I could describe something so horrifying with such calm detail.
Before anyone else could speak further, the Caravan Master suddenly stood from the table.
By then he had already finished eating.
We all looked toward him instinctively.
For a moment he simply scratched absentmindedly at the thin circular scar around his neck.
The same habit he always does whenever thinking deeply about something.
Then his eyes shifted toward me.
“Hm,” he said flatly.
“Almost correct.”
And then he walked away.
That was all.
No explanation.
No elaboration.
Nothing.
The entire table remained silent afterward.
Even Master Blackthorn looked unsettled for once.
As for me…
I still do not know whether the Caravan Master was joking.
Or whether he simply spoke like a man who had seen the ritual himself.
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