Lycore Cemetery is already a ghost town as the people avoid it like the plague. There is so much fear pointed to it that there is a haunting silence in the last hours of the daylight. Yet, Ren and Francesca are at the coroner''s office to get to the bottom of things.


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    The wooden sign creaks in the wind, bearing the words "Coroner''s Office" in faded letters. Ren pushes open the creaky door, and the stench of decay and death waft out, making Francesca''s eyes water. She follows behind him, wiping her eyes to see the figure behind the counter. The dimly lit room was cramped, with narrow shelves lining the walls, stacked with papers of what Ren assumes to be death certificates and other records. The figure in a stained apron looked up from behind a cluttered desk, his eyes framed by his glassed illuminated through the shadow. "Can I help you?" the  man asked in a stern tone.


    Francesca''s anger boils over as she takes in the disorganized space. "You''re the coroner?" she snapped, her voice echoing off the walls.


    The man furrows his brow as his eyes focus on Francesca. "Coroner Galen Abernathy, at your service," he dryly offers.


    Ren steps forward, his expression neutral. "We''re here about the ghosts that would appear tomorrow night."


    Abernathy''s eyes drops, and he fidgets with a stack of papers on his desk. "Ah, yes. The... ghostly possessions. Terrible business, that."


    Francesca''s anger flared. "You''re the one responsible for this mess, Abernathy! We''ve heard the spirits are rising because of shallow graves. Graves that you''re supposed to ensure are properly dug up!"


    Abernathy''s face hardens as he square up his shoulders and widens his frame. He is not sure how these kids managed to learn about him digging shallow graves. Even the authorities have only come over to try to plant their wards. They never looked into the shallow graves, even after the emergence of the ghosts. But with Francesca raising a stink right off the bat, Abernathy does not want to play a losing game where he has to lie. "It''s not my fault. Staffing has always been a problem here, and I do not have enough personnel to meet the demand. A new body is dumped on my desk and I am told to clean it up and have it ready in the morning. I can not help it if people die faster than I can bury them."


    "That... sounds plausible," Ren plays the devil''s advocate. "Do you not have the money for it?"


    "Hell no." Abernathy''s words are direct. "Many families are always pinching pennies and do not pay the fee. But I am required by the city to dispose of the bodies. I''m living off of the few that actually pay, but I still can not do them any special favors because of some other folks dropping Grammy and Pappy off. How the hell am I supposed to hire help?"


    Francesca raises her voice, "Excuses won''t fix this, Abernathy. People are suffering, all because you were cutting corners. Now we have to deal with your mess!"


    Ren placed a calming hand on Francesca''s shoulder to calm her down, his eyes locked on Abernathy. "Coroner, we are trying to deal with the ghosts tomorrow night. We do need your help."


    Abernathy regards Ren''s calm attitude sharply. "You need my help?"


    Ren nods. "We need to know how many people died since you started to digging shallow graves. If the ghosts are only coming from those graves, then we can have a good idea of how many ghosts there are."


    With a sigh, Abernathy slumps in his seat. "Oh... fine." He points to a crate on the far wall, prompting up several more crates. "Fetch that crate for me. It should be the assignments from three months ago. That was when I had to make ends meet."


    Francesca glares at Abernathy before helping Ren remove the crates on top of the one they needed. Paper gets heavy when stacked on top of each other, so the strain in carefully lifting the container burns a little. Francesca and Ren both lift the selected crate onto the coroner''s desk with a heavy thud. Without a word, Abernathy looses the twine that binds an individual case''s papers and quickly cycles through leaflets of information.


    "Ah," Ren notices that the coroner does not have any staples or paperclips. Tilting his head, Ren asks, "Why not just count the strings?"


    Abernathy pauses before putting an elbow on his desk and cup his face in his hand. The oversight is a little embarrassing for someone trained in record keeping. "At a point, you get to a point where you are too through..." He waves his hands over to the crates that Ren and Francesca had lifted away before. "Those are the more recent ones. Go... go knock yourselves out."


    Ren and Francesca look over to the crates and look at each other warily.


    ***


    "Forty-six plus fifty plus fifty-one is..." Abernathy calculates before saying, "One hundred forty-seven..."


    Francesca completely flabberghasted by the number. "One hundred forty-seven?! In three months?!"


    Ren shares in Francesca''s confusion. "That would have to be more than a body a day!"


    "See?" Abernathy says in a somewhat dreadful manner. "It is pretty high for someone working alone, isn''t it?"


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    "That seems criminally high!" Ren says in disbelief. "Why?!"


    "We just came out of winter," the coroner speaks from experience. "Deadliest time of the year. Freezing temperatures, food runs low, crime goes up." Abernathy speaks like it is a foregone conclusion.


    "And there are the ghosts that possess people and kill their enemies, too." Francesca says while glaring at Abernathy, not forgetting that he is a part of the problem.


    "Damn." The reality hits Ren hard. He sits on the number, one hundred forty-seven. He remembers what Edna told them. She counted nineteen ghosts that they can subtract from. "One hundred forty-seven... minus nineteen..." Doing the math, Ren comes up with, "One twenty-eight?"


    Abernathy raises his eyebrow, "What''s that about?"


    Francesca rolls her eyes at Ren. "You serious think that woman stopped nineteen ghosts, Ren? She is an alchemist, not a magic user."


    Ren shrugs, "You don''t know that."


    Francesca scoffs, "She was not all there Ren."


    Abernathy asks again, "What is going on?"


    Ren looks over to the coroner and says, "There is an alchemist woman that specifically pointed us towards counting the dead before coming here. She told us to subtract nineteen ghosts from the total."


    "And I don''t trust that," Francesca says while crossing her arms with a pout. "She was speaking in riddles and everything. For all I know, she could be talking about nineteen ghosts that we should know the specific names for."


    The coroner blinks for a bit and says, "Might be better to work with one hundred forty-seven. I would not trust someone who can not back up their statements."


    Ren nods before bringing up a different idea. "And Abernathy, I think I know how we can stop some ghosts from rising before the full moon."


    "No, Ren..." Francesca groans, knowing that Ren is still hanging on to his idea.


    Ren asks anyway, "What if we point more dirt on top of the shallow graves to make them deeper?"


    A minute passes in the stuffy coroner''s office. Then, Abernathy laughs at the idea. His howling, far different from the no nonsense demeanor he had before, rattles the room and vibrates Ren and Francesca''s bodies through the air. The laughing stops and Abernathy looks at Ren with a new light in his eyes. "Make them deeper?! What are you doing, finding loopholes?!" Small snickers continue to pour out of Abernathy''s mouth. "You trying to be a lawyer, kid?!"


    While he does have a tinge of humiliation, Ren doubles down. "Why not? Can you think of a reason it might not work? As long as they are deep enough underground, then everything would be fine, right?"


    Abernathy snorts as he is still in a good mood. "That would just look so tacky! You would have the normal graveyard on one side, and then there would be a hill in the middle of nowhere. And where would I get the extra dirt from, the other graves?"


    Francesca pouts and quips, "You just don''t want to cover up your mistakes?"


    "Hey!" Abernathy scowls at the healer.


    "Play nice, Franny," Ren scolds Francesca. "We need all of the help we can get."


    "What''s in it for me?" Abernathy sets as his older demeanor resurfaces. "I ain''t going to be doing the hard part for free. I would have to source new dirt and transport it here in one day. You better pay me good money for that."


    Ren looks over to Francesca, the unofficial wallet of the two. She breathes through her nose and shakes her head. She went big on the Microdose Leyleaf Potions and does not have that much to spare anymore. Ren asks the coroner, "Can you put it on a tab?"


    "If everyone else paid theirs," Abernathy answers.


    Ren thinks for a moment and asks Francesca, "Can we talk Father Yu into chipping in funds?"


    "Morning Sun Church used a lot of money on the countermeasures for tomorrow..." She reminds him.


    "What about..." Ren tries to brainstorm of a new idea. "What if Father Yu and the other churches pressure Lycore into giving Abernathy the funds to run the office? That way, it saves him the trouble and this does not happen again in the future."


    "And raise taxes?" Abernathy scoffs as he waves the notion off. "Good luck selling that idea, boy."


    Ren puts his hand to his chin, "Actually, this might be the best time to ask for it. You could not pay for extra workers, and then this happened. They need you. This town needs you, and it is time everyone knows it."


    "You are putting too much faith in someone who did not do his job in the first place," Francesca argues. "It is his fault in the first place. Don''t reward him."


    "I said it is not my fault!" Abernathy stands his ground as he looks at Francesca. "Let me make one thing clear! I did not ''neglect my job'', I was not given the right conditions to do my job right! I needed men! I needed money! I cut corners so that everyone else could save a silver coin! If I had it my way, I would have an assistant behind this desk," he pounds his callused hands on the desk''s surface. "I would have some guys available for the digging! I would outsource building the coffins out of house so that we have less operations here! I know how to do my job, but ain''t nobody letting me do what I do best!"


    Francesca is intimidated by passion and anger coming off of Abernathy and retreats behind Ren. However, Ren sees the potential. "Then twist some arms. Collect debts, make people volunteer to bury the graves, threaten that we are not going to pick up a shovel if you don''t get paid." Ren steps aside and grabs Francesca''s shoulder even though she is trying to hide from view. "Franny and I are going to go to the churches tomorrow any way to count how many ghosts were exorcised. We''ll tell them that the cemetery needs funding, and they would would twist the city''s arm to help."


    Francesca squeaks out, "How do you know they will?"


    "Because," Ren speaks with a wisdom that holds true in both worlds, "this alternative would save them money too."


    Francesca tries to explain, "But Lycore''s elite—"


    Ren interrupts, "Everyone would benefit from this. People do not get possessed, the cemetery could get money, and everyone does not need to spend money in the worst case scenario again."


    Francesca shouts, "Ren! Stop! It is not as easy as you think it is! Father Yu told me that the elite would not want to have any new tax on the city. The churches are some of the greatest meeting places, and the clergy have power, but not enough to oppose the elite! If the churches vouch for a new tax, then they would get buried!"


    Ren flinches as the sharpness of Francesca''s voice. His earlier wisdom should have accounted for the power dynamic between the churches and state. But he was not deterred. Partly because this is a world where he can do what he could not before, Ren had a fervor in his eyes. "And they would win. After all, they would be seen as the ones doing anything. They responded to the first two nights, they would do what they can again tomorrow." He thinks note Francesca''s light magic and says, "And you would lend your strength tomorrow too, right?"


    Francesca grips her staff as she remembers. She has the rare affinity for light magic and the blessing Lumina left behind, ideal counters to the ghosts and spirits. She is the vanguard. It is the best and most logical situation she could ask for. And she did ask to cleanse the cemetery. "Y-Yes..."


    "So why not go all the way?" Ren asks Francesca. "If we cleanse the cemetery and go on our journey together, we would have to make enemies. We just need to be smart and know when to fight back."


    Francesca feels her heart beating fast. She is aware of the social dangers in telling the churches to raise a tax for the cemetery. It would put the churches at risk. She takes a deep breath and says, "I think it is really dangerous, Ren. But... I think we have a shot at it. At the very least, I do not want to go on a journey and leave Lycore undefended for next month''s full moon."


    Abernathy snorts and gives an open mouth exhale. "You are asking for a lot, kid. You have guts saying it here." The coroner puts the bundles of paper back into his crate. "Me? I got nothing to lose. If I do nothing, I am going to be out of a job anyway. Maybe people would think like your girlfriend and blame me for everything."


    Ren and Francesca blush and say "We are not a couple!"


    "Sure, sure..." Abernathy waves it off, not convinced. "Actually, I am pretty sure I am going to get flak anyway. Might as well drag as many people down with me." He points at Ren. "But you, kid. You have a lot to lose. You and your girl."


    Ren tries to spare himself the lecture. "I will protect Francesca. I am already prepared to defend her to the end."


    Abernathy gives a single shout of laughter, "Ha! We''ll see about that."


    Ren turns to look at Francesca. Her eyes are incredibly doubtful and her hands are shaking. Ren does not blame her. This is their first real obstacle with real lasting implications. "Tomorrow is going to be quite eventful." Ren gives a nod to Abernathy before taking Francesca out of the coroner''s office.


    Abernathy sits back in his chair as he looks at the papers of orders of the people he buried. It was not his fault. He securely believes that. This is just the natural cause of what happens when people do not pay for his work. Even the ones that do get hurt just as much. "What a shame," he says as he pinches the bridge of his nose. Sometimes, people have to be taught to do the right thing.