Thanks of the Spirits

The spirit poofed into the air before Eidiri once again, "It was an honor working with someone as upstanding as you are," they said.

"You could've just run and left this task to the adventurers or guards. For that, you have my thanks. I'm afraid this is where we'll have to depart," the spirit said.

"Wait but why?" Eidiri asked, not following the spirit.

"We've been over this before young one. The Murder Crow's victim's souls are tied to it, therefore we must journey to the Death Realm with it," the spirit explained.

"Wait, but that isn't fair though. The Murder Crow was the one that committed all these evil acts, why are your souls condemned to the Death Realm also?" Eidiri asked.

"Despite my appearance before you, I, like my fellow spirits, are dead. We don't necessarily have a choice. All the dead go to the Death Realm when it is their time. And even when it isn't their time, we still make the journey regardless."

"Will you be okay there?" Eidiri asked, "Surely with creatures like the Murder Crow inhabiting the Death Realm over there it won't be safe!"

"The Death Realm isn't much different from this realm based on what we have gleaned from the Crow's time in the Death Realm. We will struggle, work together, and in the end hopefully overcome the opposing forces. Not too much different from our lives here."

"We shall struggle, and struggle. And in the end, all we do is hope to have made something better with our lives..." the spirit said.

"But won't it be hellish?" Eidiri asked, somewhat touched by what the spirit was saying.

"So what if it's hellish?" the spirit asked, "Why can't life in the Death Realm be heavenly. It's what we make of the situation given to us that matters. For all you know, life there could be more desirable than here."

"But regardless of that, I am soon to be off, I call feel the tugging of Death at my soul. Remember, stick true to your principles, whatever they may be," the spirit advised.

"Now I must be off now," a whirling portal appeared behind the spirit and body of the Murder Crow, the familiar wisps being sucked into it.

This time though, the panicked wisp of the Murder Crow was also there, shaking in fear at the sight of the portal.

Strangely enough, the suction didn't affect Eidiri in the slightest, but the wisp of the Murder Crow was pulled into it, despite its actions to escape its grasp.

When the commotion had ended, all the souls were whisked away into the Death Realm, no trace of their existence left behind.

Besides the copious amount of destruction that is, but that's another matter.

Only Eidiri and the body of the Murder Crow remained in the attic, and tired as he was, Eidiri passed out.

When he came to, only 30 minutes had passed.

Sniffing himself, Eidiri smelled like trash, probably due to the large amounts of blood all over him.

He decided to handle that later and maneuvered his bruised and battered body to the remarkably undamaged bag he had been carrying.

Tugging it open, Eidiri retrieved a cold piece of salt-dried meat, while tasting slightly better than cardboard, it was heavenly to the weary Eidiri.

He scarfed the meal down quickly, ravenously ripping into the piece of meat, his hands slightly stinging from the salt of the meat entering his cuts, but that was a small matter for Eidiri at the moment.

As he ate, he reminisced over the events that had occurred not long ago, doubting the validity of his adventure and whether or not it was real.

Bowing his head, he murmured some respects for the dead after swallowing his food.

He wished he had some bodies to bury, but unfortunately, they had all disappeared when the Murder Crow underwent the ritual.

Shaking his head, he cleared his mind of those thoughts, acknowledging that he would face those thoughts later, but for now, he had business to attend to.

When he had finished with his meal, Eidiri shakily stood up, moving to harvest the valuables of the Murder Crow.

Certainly, a being of death would have some sort of special talent or skill.

Taking Saxum Gladius, he slowly stripped off the meat of the bird, storing it away to see if Ken would be able to cook it by any chance.

Of course, by no means did he actually do a field-butchering, he surely wasn't qualified to do that.

Instead, he simply stored some sections of the meat to be taken to the village butcher after he returned.

Then he took the feathers, undergoing the tedious process of plucking the bird.

By the time that was done, Eidiri had a neat pile of soft feathers arranged in a neat pile, he was planning on making a pillow with that, something he had been sorely missing from his nights sleeping on rocks and hard floors.

Despite Eidiri's direction of the body, nothing came out of it really, much like Sha'Varsk's body. Then again, it wouldn't make too much sense for a skill book to drop out of a corpse now, would it?

However, Eidiri wasn't disappointed, by what he had learned from the Caverns of Laroshia, the loot would most likely be stored away somewhere else.

By nature this was still a crow, a Murder Crow sure, but still a crow.

As such, Eidiri deduced that the crow would've most likely stored the valuables in its nest, where it was easily guarded.

And by that logic, the attic where Eidiri had slain the Murder Crow with the help of the spirits wasn't truly the nest of the Murder Crow.

But then, where would the nest be?

'The crow wouldn't want to be too far from the bodies that were stored here, rather it would want to keep a close watch on them, especially if they were the source of energy to power the spread of the Death Realm.'

'So the nest should be close by.'

With that in mind, Eidiri decided to use the boots that he and his buddies had obtained from the Caverns, the Silken Boots of the Matriarch.

By activating the boots skill, Way of the Spider, Eidiri climbed through the hole in the roof, getting a better vantage point over the area.

But such actions were unnecessary, as climbing up the roof revealed a nest constructed out of long-dead branches and leaves.

Continuing his climb, Eidiri swung himself into the oversized bird's nest, coming upon a ghostly egg as well as some weapons and gear, probably loot from hapless adventurers that had happened to catch the bird's eye.