Marcus and Lyle came from the right.

  Dragon Hearted Human

  Marcus Campbell

  LV: 29

  Dragon Blooded Human

  Lyle Barlow

  LV: 25

  And Jason and Malia from the left.

  Orunmila's Apostle

  Jason Adebayo

  LV: 24

  Fledging of the World Tree

  Malia Nasr

  LV: 32

  "I assume everything went well on your flanks?" Kurt asked.

  "A bit dissapointingly so," joked Jason, who was carrying a compound bow and had a nearly full quiver tied to his back. "I got to shoot two arrows before this human shredder left me without targets."

  The 'human shredder', also known as Malia, smirked at the comment and playfully flicked Jason on the shoulder. "Well, you are the one who brought those teensy, needly arrows to deal with freaking wights. It ain't my fault my method worked better."

  Raising his eyebrows in a 'you really wanna go there?' gesture, Jason turned to Kurt. "Her 'super effective method' consisted on rushing in to the mound's entry, grabbing a wight, and quite literally use it as a flail against the ones that came next."

  "You can question the methods," resolutely said Malia. "But not the results."

  "You rushed in to the mound's door?" asked Kurt, his tone making clear he was questioning the methods.

  "Well, yeah! It's not like these-" She pumped both her fists up like an old-timey boxer. "-can kill from a distance! Yet."

  "Malia!" Mila chidded, scutting off her branch with a quick breath and landing on her feet. She made her way to her roomate immediately after, arms crossed over her chest. "You were supposed to stay away from the mound and pick the wights as they approached you! What if, while you were flailing away, a wight had snuck up to you and bit you? Your healing doesn't work if your lifeforce's compromised, remember?"

  "Aww, come on, girl! Cut me some slack!" weakly defended the (considerably) taller girl. It was rather comical of a picture, actually, seeing Malia look like a scolded child in front of a girl a foot shorter than her and a little over half her weight. Then she pointed at Kurt. "What about your boyfriend, uh? He got into the mound! That's like a hundred times worse than my thing! Take away his smooching rights!"

  To the side, Lyle snickered on his hand, shaking his head, and commented. "Who's that supposed to be a punishment for, exactly?"

  "Excellent question, Mr. Barlow," came the baritone of a voice of one Calum Anderson. Tensing, Kurt spun around to find the imposing figure of his caretaker and the smaller form of his half sister, Blair.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Neither looked very amused, to say the least.

  "Is that why you wanted to supervise the assault on your lonesome, Kurt?" asked Mr. Anderson. "So you could go and do the one thing I told you not to?"

  Kurt had no retort to that. Mr Anderson had told him quite explicitely not to get into the structure or try and defy the chieftain. The group's quest had been to wittle down the wight forces until, through pure backlash, the energies warding the structure against sorceric assault died down enough for Mr. Anderson to take the whole thing out from outside.

  Kurt had agreed to those terms, and had meant to fulfill them but… things had been going too well. He had expected for either of the two other pairs to require his help at some point. When that time hadn't come, and Kurt had faced the possibility of being of no use in this quest (since Mila had taken all five wights on their side so that Kurt was 'free to go at any time'), and when he had felt the mound's wards die down due to lack of occupancy…he had moved.

  Ugh…why had he done that? The plan was going perfectly and Kurt just threw a wrench in it. He had told Mila (and had believed himself) that it was to make the whole thing cleaner and less taxing on the forest around. That by taking the mound's core while the structure still stood, they could avoid any backlash of necrotic energy on the greenery.

  Now, though, he was realizing that had been secondary, which left him to figure out what had been the main reason. A desire to show off to 'his team'? So that he looked strong and leader-like before them? Or simply to fight and kill something after a week of no action?

  Sighing, Kurt dropped his head forward and said. "I'm sorry, sir. I saw everything going so smoothly that I thought I could just press our advantage for a cleaner outcome. It was reckless of me, and I'm sorry."

  In the back of his head, Kurt thought just how would this affect the view his new teammates had of him. Their first quest and he was already screwing up.

  Mr. Anderson looked at him softly, and began to say something (Kurt. I under-), when Marcus stepped forward, his glaive held tightly in a hand and pointing up, and spoke.

  "Mr Anderson, sir!" he called, voice very slightly trembling. "I think you should consider that Mr. Kurt only enetered the mound when its wight reservoirs were all but depleted, and that he very cleanly took care of the chieftain and procured the relic without greater issue!"

  "Uhmm…" murmured Malia, scratching the side of her face. "I really didn't mean the whole 'a hundred times worse' thing, sir. Mr. captain here clearly knew what he was doing. I was just pressing back a bit."

  At this, Mr. Anderson pondered for a moment. Then, he nodded softly, and said. "Fine then. We'll talk about this later, Kurt, but I don't think there'll be any punishment from my part."

  "Can't promise anything myself," Blair said, scowling, and Kurt had no option but to nod and accept it.

  "Now," Mr. Anderson said as he took a heavy leather glove from his coat's inner pocket and, putting it on, extended his hand to Kurt. "Care to hand me the spoils for a second."

  "Yes, sir," Kurt said, reaching for his inventory. The pair of tongs materialized on his hand, the scrimshaw still held in their grasp, and Kurt quickly placed the whale tooth on the man's gloved hand.

  "Thank you," said the order's founder as his free hand went to his coat again. This time he produced a thin wooden wand from it, which he used to tap at the scrimshaw tice, lighting its carvings up each time. Hepulled the implement back, its tip smoking with black and green energy, and pointed it at the mound. Kurt felt an invisible-yet-massive power being flexed, and saw as the mounds surface began wavering and crumbling under its own weight. With an enormous crack and an equally massive dust cloud, the mound collapsed, leaving behind nothing but a small hill of bare earth.

  "Mila, would you kindly cover that up, please?" the man requested.

  Nodding, the girl walked up to the 'hill', taking two fistfuls of grass on her way and, once she stood on it, threw them around before pressing a palm on the dirt. She took a breath, and the bare eart shone green for a moment before grass emerged from its surface at superspeed. In a half minute, there was no bare earth anymore.

  "Excellent job," commended Mr. Anderson as Kurt took the relic from his hand and placed back in his inventory. "Now, kids, let's get back home, okay? Wouldn't want to miss lunch." Then, why a smile and pat on Kurt's shoulder, he added. "Kurt's cooking today, after all!"

  "Oh, hell yes!" exclaimed Lyle, directing his attention to his captain. "It's been like months, dude! Hey, are you gonna make custards today? Those are soo good-!"

  "Uhm," said Marcus as he stepped up, calming his roomate's cheering with a hand to the shoulder. "Mr. Kurt is not being forced to do this, right? You did say he would face no punishment from you, after all."

  "This is no punishment, Marcus," the captain reassured. "I just…felt like cooking and volunteered, that's all. Oh, and by the way, I'm not making custards." At this, Lyle seemed to deflate, his mouth forming into a pout. "I have made custards, which are currently resting and cooling within the kitchen's fridges. I'm gonna serve them as the filling for strawberry tarts."

  And just like that, the cheering came back in full force. For all five teens.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  "Uhm, Mr. Kurt?" Marcus called for him. He was sitting besides Lyle in the back row of the minivan, and so Kurt had to turn back to face him.

  "Yes, Marcus?" he asked.

  "Ah…I was wondering. Those wights we slayed, were they really vikings when they were alive? Like, from the Middle Ages and stuff?"

  "Yeah," Kurt confirmed, nodding. "They sure were, buddy. They probably were alive back in the 11th ot 12th century. No sooner than the year 1000 though."

  "Oh," murmured the blond. "And how does that work? Like, I knew about Leif Erikson and all, but seeing a viking mound near Mount Baker is…well…"

  "Odd, right?" Kurt said, and Marcus nodded. "Well, there's some history to that. There was this necromancer group back in the 1000's, the, uhm…"

  "Heldaudamadr" said Mr. Anderson from the driver's seat.

  "Yeah, that," Kurt said. "So these guys got wind of the Vinland expedition, right? And so they saw an opportunity here. They offered their services as sorcerers to the warriors and expeditioner that went there in exchange for allowing them to do their rituals and collect corpses and stuff. Their plan was to amass a powerbase so big they would be able to conquer that new land, and so they created these mounds as reservoirs for their 'troops' all over the south-canadian area."

  "And what stopped them?"

  Kurt shrugged. "Infighting, the native population, orders that chased them from the old continent… a bunch of factors. But when they all died off, they left a bunch of these mounds behind, and they trigger randomly from time to time, which is why we have to deal with them."

  "As per our contract with the DSP," added Blair.

  "Yeah," Kurt said. "Now we have to make a report, reunite with Mrs. Nichols, give her the artifact… and that secures the order's funding."

  "But that's later," Mr Anderson said. "Right now we are going back home."