Jaskari Kempe stood amidst the stench of scorched feathers and fermented slime, the draft from Ukko's warning still numbing the nape of his neck. The Sundered Six, however, were already bickering. “My fingers are still tingling,” Roope whined, waving his hands about. “I swear one of those fowl-things tried to peck off a ring!” “The shame!” Päivi lamented, clutching her head. “My most magnificent spell, turned into… into *dinner*!” Hilla merely scowled, checking the edge of an axe that was, by all rights, a new axe, given the last pair had been acid-dissolved. “It was your fault, witch. Your fire made them angry.” “My fault? Your clumsy charge ignited the fermenting yeast!” Ilkka, ever the peacemaker, lumbered forward. “Maybe… maybe we should just scrape this clean? Before the tavern keeper returns?” He gestured vaguely at the congealed slime and singed wall. Jaskari took a deep breath, pushing down the surge of exasperation. “Yes. Clean. I’ll go report to Guildmaster Koski. Tell him… tell him the cellar is now remarkably pest-free.” He didn’t wait for a response, just turned and walked out, leaving the chaos behind. The Korpikyla Adventurers' Guildhall sagged on rotting timber posts beside a muddy alley. Its main hall smelled of stale ale and damp leather. Jaskari bypassed the notice board — probably just another request for rat extermination or retrieving a lost cat from a tree – and headed straight for the Elder's office. Antero Koski’s office was a cramped cave of knowledge, overflowing with scrolls, ancient tomes, and maps that depicted Suonia in various stages of divine upheaval. Grey motes hung thick in the gray shaft of light through the grimy window. Antero, perched precariously on a stool amidst the clutter, peered at Jaskari over a stack of yellowed parchment, his spectacles halfway down his nose. His usual sleepy blink had vanished, leaving two pale gray eyes fixed on Jaskari. “Jaskari. I was expecting you.” Antero’s voice, usually a gravelly mumble, was surprisingly clear. Jaskari’s carefully constructed composure faltered. “Expecting me, Guildmaster? Was the tavern keeper already here? The cellar is… mostly clean.” He tried to sound nonchalant, but the words caught in his throat. Antero slowly put down his papers. “No, not about the tavern keeper. About… the usual. The *Un-Death*.” Jaskari rubbed at the prickle of sweat gathering at his hairline. No one, absolutely no one, knew about Ukko-of-the-Second-Breath. No one knew he was a Reanimator. Ukko was a forgotten deity, a whisper in old texts, his gifts considered a myth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Guildmaster,” Jaskari said, his voice flat, his gaze locked on a particularly impressive cobweb hanging from a tattered banner. Antero chuckled, a dry, raspy sound. “Oh, Jaskari, my boy. You don’t need to pretend with me. I’ve seen enough ‘miraculously recovered’ adventuring parties in my time. And your lot? They’re less ‘miraculous’ and more ‘catastrophically prone to inconvenient expiration.’ No ordinary healer carries the scent of resurrection on their hands.” He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly piercing. “Ukko-of-the-Second-Breath. A bold choice. A dead god for a dying world, it seems.” Jaskari wiped his slick palms against his linen trousers. “Ukko is not dead,” he mumbled, a defensive reflex. “As good as. His followers are scattered, his temples ruined. His power, Jaskari, is a loan. A very dangerous loan.” Antero picked up a small, polished river stone from his desk, turning it over and over in his fingers. “Every time you bring one of your… *enthusiastic* companions back from the brink, you aren’t just mending bones. You’re twisting cosmic law. You’re accruing a debt. A *life-debt*.” [The chill intensifies. Ukko’s agreement. The deadline. The erasure.] Jaskari swallowed, his throat dry. “I know about the deadline.” “Do you truly?” Antero’s expression softened, a hint of genuine concern in his aged eyes. “It’s not just their lives you’re saving, Jaskari. It’s their very existence. The memory of them. The threads they’ve woven into the world. If you fail, they don’t just die again. They are unmade. Not merely forgotten, but *never were*. Like a story erased before it was ever written.” The words settled into Jaskari like cold lead. Not just his friends, but their laughter, their blunders, their annoying habits – all wiped from reality. As if Roope had never tried to pickpocket a dragon, as if Päivi had never turned a goblin into a fluffy bunny, as if Hilla had never accidentally punched a hole through the Guildmaster’s wall. “So, what can I do?” Jaskari asked, the words barely a whisper. Antero rummaged through a pile of trinkets, eventually pulling out a tarnished silver medallion. It was shaped like a stylized six-pointed star, each tip dull and unadorned. “This. The Medal of Shared Renown. A relic from a time when guilds worked together. Wear it. Any renown your party earns, it will amplify. Their names will travel further. Their triumphs, however minor, will ripple through Suonia like a stone skipped across a lake.” Jaskari took the silver token. It felt like well-water against his skin. “And the catch?” he asked. Antero smiled faintly. “The deeper the ripple, the wider the reach. Successes are magnified. Failures… well, failures will echo just as loudly. If they continue to bungle every task, the entire continent will know of the Sundered Six as the laughingstock of Korpikyla. And your deadline will come faster than you think.” “Great,” Jaskari muttered, closing his fingers around the metal. “More pressure.” “Indeed,” Antero said, returning to his papers. “Now, run along. I have paperwork that threatens to bury me alive. And your party will be wondering where their ‘provisioner’ has gone.” As Jaskari stepped out of the office, the door creaking shut behind him, he heard voices from the main hall. One was Antero's, flat and dismissive; the other was Hilla Varis, loud and biting. “...I’m telling you, Guildmaster, it’s not natural!” Hilla’s voice boomed. “We should be dead! We walked into that cave, those Grunt-Goreks had us surrounded, and then suddenly their chieftain just… collapsed? A ‘heart attack,’ you said? And the goblin skirmish last week? Their traps just… *failed*? Even Roope’s traps usually do *something*!” Jaskari froze, halfway down the short corridor. He knew that Grunt-Gorek chieftain had been a particularly stubborn necrotic entity that only Ukko’s touch could fell. He also knew Roope’s trip-wire had set off the goblin's own defense mechanism, turning their ambush into a self-inflicted rout. His quiet interventions, meticulously planned, were the only reason the Sundered Six hadn't become a permanent fixture in the Glimmering Depths. “Hilla, my dear,” Antero’s voice drifted out, laced with dry weariness. “The world is full of strange coincidences. Likely you are simply… overthinking things. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a particularly stubborn ink stain to contend with.” “Coincidences don’t explain why Jaskari, the meekest provisioner in Korpikyla, always seems to be the only one unharmed when everyone else is, shall we say, indisposed!” Hilla roared, her voice rising to a crescendo. “The slimes! The Grunt-Goreks! The goblins! Always that scrawny water boy, walking away without a scratch, while we’re picking ourselves out of the dirt! It’s too convenient!” Jaskari instinctively tried to press himself into the wall, hoping to become one with the dusty plaster. He held his breath and glued his shoulder blades to the lath. He had been so careful. So utterly discreet. He just needed to slip away, unnoticed. But the floorboards beneath him chose that exact moment to let out a protest, a loud, undeniable groan. Hilla’s tirade stopped abruptly. Silence descended. Then, slowly, she turned. Her brows twitched down, sharpening her focus. Her gaze landed on Jaskari, standing frozen like a cornered vole. A predatory grin stretched across her face. “Well, well, well,” she purred, her voice dripping with venom. “Look what the cat dragged in. Or rather, what the mouse was trying to sneak out.” She took a step towards him, then another. The faint glint of her axe-heads seemed to catch the sparse light from the window, throwing pale sparks against the wall. “I know you’re up to something, water boy. And I will find out what.”

The Price of a Second Breath