Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Found another one over here!”

Every few moments, a voice would call out their discovery of another body or another group of bodies. And every few moments, Sanne would nod before writing it down.

She and her team, along with a few others, had been sent to the ruins of Smurfsborough to recover the bodies and check for any other survivors.

Sanne eyed the town sign or what was left of it before sighing and shaking her head, trying to keep herself from thinking about the stench of death in the air or death being all around them.

“Sweet Smurf…” She turned to her second-in-command Cedric who was failing to keep his horror at bay, “Hard to imagine how the Order’s gonna handle this one. Especially given that Smurfsborough was one of the older ones.”

“Three here!” Another voice called out.

“How many is that now?” Cedric asked.

“58 so far,” Sanne said, writing it down. Smurfsborough had been home to over a hundred Smurfs before its fall. Two hundred to be exact. Two survivors had been found and reported their absence, which, adding the bodies, left only 140 left that hadn’t been accounted for.

At least this was the relatively easy part. Recovering the bodies and sorting them. The hard part would come later.

Didn’t mean this part came without its difficulties. Moving past the whole handling the deceased, it was hard to count the number of bodies due…to the state some of them were in.

Fucking sorcerers. The worst of the worst. Truly, there were no pit in Hell deep enough for their ilk.

“Got another one over here!”

“59,” Sanne corrected herself, scratching out the previous note.

“How do you suppose Smurfsborough got exposed?”

“Someone made a mistake,” Sanne shrugged, “Someone here probably didn’t cover their tracks well enough, and the sorcerers followed the tracks back to here.”

“You don’t know for sure?” Cedric asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Above my level, Ced,” Sanne said, “What the two survivors said will remain a secret to the grunts like us until the Grandmaster says otherwise.”
“Right, classified. Of course,” Cedric sighed, “Poor kids.”

Sanne nodded in agreement at that. It wasn’t fair. From what she knew, the kids were just over a hundred, a hundred and 20 to be exact.

At least those two had made it out. Though she doubted it would be little solace to them.

It was clear as daylight that those two were the only ones to had made it out. The scouts hadn’t reported encountering any other survivors. This…this was just a formality.

She shook her head and continued to listen for the voices of the others as they reported the discovery of yet another body or another group of bodies.

Just a formality, huh? The bodies seemed to say. Or at least the ones with mouths said, Say that to us again.