Despite the shaky introduction, it turned out that Jun and Chan got along quite well. Chan’s friendly personality and Jun’s outgoing demeanor complimented each other, albeit the pair were a bit... much.

You fell into step with Kijung and gently pinched his cute, chubby cheek as a greeting. The boy practically cooed under your affectionate touch. “What are you thinking about?” you asked him.

“I’m just wondering if I made the right decision bringing him along,” Kijung confessed, pointing his chin at Jun, who was currently shouting while Chan laughed and pushed him.

You shrugged. “The undead in the graveyard usually aren’t very powerful and with the four of us, I’m sure we can easily protect him if he can’t hold his own.”

Kijung looked relieved at your reassurance. “I think you’re right. I just want everything to go right. I think I’m getting close to getting promoted from adept to priest in maybe a month or two.”

You grabbed his shoulders and shook him in excitement. “That’s awesome, Kijungie! You’re doing so well! Your parents must be very proud.”

The smile he wore in response to your elation slowly fell after you mentioned his parents. “Actually, not so much.”

“What?” you exclaimed. “Why not?”

“They were ecstatic at first, but as I started getting older and moving up in the cleric ranks, they got concerned about my future.” His eyebrows furrowed. “When clerics move up to the priest rank, they have to vow celibacy. My parents want me to get married. They think I won’t be happy in the future if I take this path.”

“I see. What do you want, Kijung?”

Kijung pouted and wiggled his body slightly. “I don’t know,” he whined, “I think I want to eventually get married. When I joined the order, I was barely a teenager. I didn’t know about the desires I would have in the future. Now I’m starting to think that I will eventually want to live my life happily with someone I love.”

You giggled and adjusted his hair on his forehead. “I think you’re becoming a romantic, Kijungie.”

You expected him to smile after you said that but instead he looked at you with an unreadable expression. His mouth was still and his eyes stared deep into yours for a few seconds before he broke eye contact and looked down at his feet bashfully, a light pink dusting his cheeks. “I guess so. But at the same time, I don’t want to abandon my calling. I love being a cleric.”

You took his hand and wrapped your fingers around his. “Take it slow, Kijung. You need to think about where your priorities lie and things will fall into place from there. Think about what you’re willing to sacrifice and where you can find compromise. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. There are many ways to serve Lathander and also many ways to live a happy life with people you love.”

Kijung thought about your words carefully. He always valued your advice so much that you had become a huge source of support for him. He smiled brightly at you and swung your arm as you two walked together hand in hand.

Before long, you had arrived at the entrance to the graveyard, otherwise known as the City of the Dead. It was huge, comparable in size to the Southern Ward, the smallest official district in Waterdeep. It was completely walled off by thick cement. Almost no one touched the grounds inside, including the city guard. Clerics and paladins occasionally went in to quell the numbers. Other than that, only gravediggers went in, and only in the day, to add to the dead inside. Needless to say, the City of the Dead made nearly everyone uncomfortable.

You let go of Kijung’s hand and walked up to Jun, slapping him on the back and making him jump a little. “You sure you want to come?”

“Yeah,” he said with confidence, though his voice wavered slightly. “You’re really perfectly comfortable in there?”

This made you break out laughing. “Hell no. I hate the undead more than anything. They’re terrifying and disgusting. I've just been in there before for Kijung. I’ve never faced anything too hard. They’re just creepy.”

Jun looked slightly comforted but still a little unsure. He did come for something exciting, however. He lifted his mouth into a smile. “Lets go, then.”

Kiijung greeted the guardsman and showed him his insignia, marking him a cleric of Lathander. The guardsman opened the squeaky gate and let your group in before swiftly shutting it behind you, leaving you in the City of the Dead.

The air was thick and rotten. It stuck to the inside of your throat and made you gag on the moldy stench. The graveyard was casted in shadows, waves of fog stretching in front of you, making it impossible to see anything beyond a few feet. You clutched your weapon tightly, a cold sweat sticking to your armor as you deliberately steadied your breathing. You tried to tell yourself that nothing here was too much for you, and with the darkness you were in, you were in your domain.

You took a step forward, when your heightened senses picked up what sounded like two footsteps behind you. Your pulse quickened.

"Calm down." you mentally told yourself. "Those are just the steps of my teammates."

But then the sound of a faint groan started from the direction behind you. Once. Twice. Three times. You brandished your weapon in front of you and willed your body to become as silent as a shadow. You rooted your feet into the ground beneath you and squinted into the fog, trying to locate the source of the sound.

You watched as a shape started to appear from the dense fog, the shape of a person.

You lunged forward towards the shape. It quickly parried and deflected your attack, grabbing your arm and staring at you with wide eyes.

"(Y/N)!" Kijung reassured. "It's just me." You exhaled a large sigh of relief. "You idiot." You scoffed. "You made me think you were-"

Fingers closed around your ankle. Your shrill cry pierced the air.

You looked down to find an ashen grey hand protruding from the dirt gripping your foot. You flicked your saber at it and sliced it to ribbons. You pulled your foot back as the now useless hand flopped to the ground while the rest of the body struggled to free itself from its prison beneath the dirt.

Jun and Chan rushed up to you. Panic flitted in Chan's eyes. "What happened?"

You kicked at the twitching hand on the ground. "Zombie. Can't even get free."

You were about to sheath your weapon when another growl echoed through this air. This one seemed to come from all around you. Then you heard another. A set of glinting eyes peaked at you from the twisted trees. A rustle. A snap of a branch. You spun, trying to assess the situation. It was clear. You were surrounded.

The undead lumbered into sight. They were everywhere, zombies in varying states of decay, some near skeletons.

Kijung was the first to act. He gripped his flail in one hand, and the other held his holy symbol. He lifted the golden sunburst charm above his head and invoked Lathander's power. Pure white light radiated from Kijung, briefly illuminating the area enough to see that there were maybe a hundred of the monsters. Several of the monsters disintegrated from the force of the divine delivered energy. Many more turned in fear and fled from the scene, moving faster than you thought zombies could move.

While Kijung had significantly thinned the crowd, still forty of them approached you. Jun flipped his lute onto his chest, Kijung rushed forward, Chan began a spell, and you melted into the shadows and moved to get the flank.

The sound from Jun's lute floated through the air, a light upbeat tune that got you excited for the fight. All around you, the zombies lit up; a glittering purple light outlined their bodies. Now you could see them much easier through the fog.

Chan lifted his hands and called the magic he naturally held inside of him. A spray of multicolored dust shot from his fingertips into a group of zombies. Their bodies writhed and found their end as Kijung's flail crushed their skulls.

You had gotten around the back and were slicing through the undead, trying not to focus on the horror in front of you. You swiftly bent your body back to avoid the swing of a rotting arm, arching your sword with you as you came back up, slicing a diagonal gash in its chest. Another tried to grab you, but you dropped to the ground and rolled between its legs, swiping your blade to dismember it below the knees. You hopped back up and turned to continue your assault. You weren't expecting the next zombie to be so close behind you.

The half dried blood that oozed out of the jagged gash in its grayed cheek was so thick that it was practically gel-like. Its one eye was completely clouded. The other eye was but a socket that held maggots eating at the dead flesh inside. Its yellowed teeth chomped at your face. You made a startled movement and leaned back just enough so that its incisors clamped down within a hairs breadth of your nose.

You yelped and back peddled retreating into the shadows where you were essentially invisible. You shook your head, trying to erase the macabre image from your brain.

Gods, you hated the undead. You put your game face back on and ran back into the fight, cutting through the zombie that had almost taken a chunk out of your face along with another two. You looked up to see Kijung, Chan, and Jun holding their own. Your glance caught Jun as he played a hard, thunderous note on his lute, sending a shock wave towards the majority of what was left of the hoard, decimating ten zombies in one blow.

You casually swung your saber across the throat of the last remaining zombie near you and approached the group as they cleaned up the last few on their end.

"That was amazing, Jun," Kijung said in awe. "I'm glad you came."

"Plus, the soundtrack made that a lot more fun." You lightly laughed.

"See, (Y/N), I told you it was a good idea to bring him along," Chan cheerfully teased.

You rolled your eyes at him and were about to give him a sassy retort when you heard the sound of stone scrapping on stone. A hush fell over the four of you.

"I'll check it out. Wait here." You whispered.

Jun moved to stop you but Kijung shook his head at Jun to tell him to stop.

Chan whispered to Jun, "It's her thing. She's good at this."

You were already gone, slinking across the patchy grass, unseen and unheard.

(chapter art by ivanalekseich.deviantart.com)