As the wagon was set on its path again, all eyes turned to Maquis–the vampire who'd saved the group from the bandits. Her fist still soaked red, she sat beside Custer and tried to get the worst of the bloodstains out of her gloves. Many questions were floating about her origin, but first, the group had to get away from the capital, as its paths were still riddled with opportunistic smugglers.

To deter them from attacking, the vampire herself had hung the corpses of the last lot by the fringes of the wagon. Their heads dangled along, dripping blood, with a message written with the same on the side of the enclosed cloth dome of their vehicle. Biting though served from the body, the zombie heads kept onlookers away, far-far away from even thinking of approaching the passengers.

The cackling and biting did disturb those inside and travelling, but for now, it was best to deal with a pair of zombies than the influx of looters trying to stop everything and everyone.

"Are we going to talk about this or not?" Finally breaking the silence, Charlotte set her gaze on the vampire. Her fingers had been twitching by the handle of her blade, ready to slice through Marquis's neck if it so required to keep everyone safe. "We've been traveling with a vampire, and you knew about it, didn't you?"

Shifting her attention to Custer briefly, she tapped him on his legs with her feet. Sitting across from her, Custer lifted his head to face the demi-human woman. She wasn't happy in the least about the development, and the sound of rattling teeth from the hanging zombies served as a reminder of the sort of threat that they'd been sleeping around with.

"How long have you known? Or did you know from the start?" She asked, and all eyes turned to Custer.

A bit frustrated at Valentine's actions, Custer tried not to look at the vampiress directly. Ideally, the secret would've gone with them to their graves, but now that it was out, it was time to sell the same lie as they had to Glyea when explaining who and what Valentine really was.

"Here's the truth," weaving a lie about the vampire being one of his many associates who helped him gather information about monsters and such, Custer explained how Valentine was mind-controlled and used by the spirit of the fiend's dungeon to cause chaos in the upper world. Her actions were dictated by the spirit, and her powers were amplified by its influence as well. "And that's why we knew the weakness of the army she was leading and how Glyea could defeat her easily. She was only meant to be our eyes on the field, but the mind control took over, and you know the rest already."

Scrutiny was prevalent in the party's gaze. Something did not sit right with Custer's story. But what was it exactly? They couldn't tell, like a word lingering in memory but stuck on the tongue. What was it? They asked themselves, but the longer they tried to unravel the mystery, the deeper they fell into a dark pit with no answers. Before long, the wagon had moved out of the capital's immediate territory, and once the wagon lost the zombie heads, everyone's minds slowly began to calm. Even so, neither Audrey nor Rudy was willing to let Custer off the hook so easily, and so the moment the wagon stopped by a riverbank to wash the blood off their clothes, they started prodding further into the matter.

"What's next? This acquaintance priestess of yours isn't human either? And what about your slave, it wouldn't be a surprise if she were a devil with that sharp tongue," Audrey whipped, not realizing just how close she was to the truth of the situation.

"If I'm a devil too, then what does that make our goddess? A plaything for the fiend?" Elicia retorted right back, her words carrying every bit of irony as her corrupted personality would allow without spilling the truth entirely.

"Can we just clean up and go? I want to get home already," Freya remarked, and for the most part, everyone agreed.

Many moments of silence passed with only the wind whistling in between the hushed chatter. The slaps of water, the winded sighs of relief as the cold washed over their strained facial muscles, and at last the gulp of cold passing down many a parched lip. As many worries as the group had, in that moment, they withdrew from their memories, and the feeling lingered for a while as they boarded the wagon again.

A few miles later, the cloud that had never cleared since the capital burst into a sudden downpour, washing away the remnant of carnage brought about by their vampire passenger. Listening quietly to the rain, their eyes honed in on the streaks left in the puddles by the wagon's marching wheels. Like the stream of a river, they flowed and grew tame the further they went, and yet it followed them thanks to the rain.

"We might need to make camp soon," placing a hand on Aura's shoulder through the curtained window, Zephyr leaned closer to her ear. "The wheels might get jammed in mud during the night, get us somewhere a little elevated, and we can set up a camp and a fireplace."

Nodding at his demand, the succubus did as she was told without question. Already she had overstepped the lines once today, and the last thing she wanted was to upset her husband any further. Thus, steering the horses away from the main path, Aura followed a muddy trail that led to a somewhat elevated section of the plains. After just a few minutes of dragging the wagons, the horses found good footing on what appeared to be a ruined village.

Cast down by the Anuvi, the group had landed themselves in a ghost town with nothing but ruins. The scars of the past were still prevalent in the form of bloodstains on the walls, but all that could be consumed by monsters and animals was already gone, leaving but a village with a few standing walls and ground made with sedimentary rocks to let the water be soaked into the ground much faster or to simply allow it to pass.

Deciding to camp the night in the rain after all, the party got off the wagon and started setting up loud wiretraps to ward off predators. In the meantime, the devil and his companions cleaned the inside of a smaller house with a somewhat intact roof, but enough to trap smoke within and smother them all. The water drained from the inclined tile roof, and what little that dripped in was now being collected into a container to be boiled and used for disinfecting clothing.

Once settled inside, the group sat quietly with the chirping of rats echoing in the background, and that moment reminded them of just this morning when they'd been sitting inside the academy in the grand tower. How much can change in a day? They thought to themselves, but their bizarre journey with a devil by their side was only just beginning.

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