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  The place was warm; the streaks of light breaking through the curtains were bright yellow, and in this spacious environment the sounds of a mellow melody, struck away from the piano keys, sounded. In a distance of more than ten paces away from the piano, where a young boy dressed in clerical attire sat — was a large oak desk, and it was filled atop by documents.

  A knight in silver armour, solemn, looked over at the one he was meant to guard, his face not covered by a helm. The last to be counted in this room — an auditorium turned personal office — was a woman of fair skin and clean, white and short hair; they barely did not reach her shoulders. She wore an array of cloaks and robes, one smaller than the previous, the white coming down below her knees and the black, as if a short cape, covered her nape and shoulders. The woman was sitting quietly, her face encrusted by a slight smile, the expressionless eyes gliding across the words on the paper, the leathery gloved hands taking up the familial stamp and a pen in determined succession without break.

  The boy who was playing the piano dipped his head at times, perhaps he's been playing for a long time, such that it tired him slightly, or only served to make him drowsy. "Marriott." The woman's voice turned to a silky texture to the ears, interrupting the boy from the diligent mission of providing pleasant ambiance to the scene. His fingers froze over the keys the second she let out a sound, sliding down from the white levers as the echo dissipated in the walls of the office.

  Marriott turned his face around to look at the woman, who slowly blinked while her gaze was posted against the paper. Withdrawing her attention from the many documents, she let her left hand lift to support her chin from underneath. "Don't you think that Liebestraum is a bit gloomy for the weather?" Marriott’s eyes glanced back and forth between the woman and the wall behind her, thinking for a moment.

  After a bit of a detour from the usual pace of things found in this room, the boy spoke up. "Your Excellency?" Marriott turned his entire body to face in that direction, but the woman moved her gaze back down to the documents. That made him hesitate, though eventually an answer to her question would be required, "...Indeed." He finally replied, "Then, what do you think would fit our occasion the best?" Her eyes rose and pointed to the cabinet near the window, behind the boy.

  “Oh... Mhm.” In this affirmation, Marriott stood up and went over to the window to open the cabinet: a compartment full of neatly organised, alphabetised pieces slid out, and he slowly went over each of the paper files, pulling one out with a minute idea. With the file lifted up in the boy's hand, her Excellency didn't take long to recognise the piece, "Czardas?" The woman asked, tapping her pen twice on the table, her smile staying the same without a minuscule change. That only worried Marriott. However, she lowered her eyes back to the documents soon enough, "Wonderful choice."

  Marriott did not show it outright, but on the inside he sighed profusely, but the first notes quickly began to ring out through the room. It started with a brief nod to the side, then to the other — next thing the knight saw was the woman's left hand following the sound, as if she was playing along, hitting the table gently, the placement of the imaginary keys correct to the script.

  The knight looked at her Excellency playing the imaginary piano, but also trying not to seem intrusive with his staring. "Josyf." Now the knight raised his attention at the sudden mention of his name, snapping that attention away from watching her hands to her face. "Yes, your Excellency?" Without lifting an eye from the paper, nor stopping the pen or her free hand, she continued: "Don't you think this song is so fitting of our current affairs?" This question made the man fall silent, as such cryptic and well... More abstract questions were not quite his expertise, but nonetheless, he had to keep her next words in mind — he thought.

  "I think it is." The woman went on without a hitch or stutter from the silence she received, Josyf nodded even though she wasn't looking at him, "The somber intro is the current state of the island..." As she derived that analogy, drawing some interest from within the man, the pace rose gradually, and the second part of the song got to a more hearty, energetic mood. "...while the rest of the song is cheery, I'd go as far as to say that it is grand." Josyf listened, waiting a couple moments before speaking up, just to gather his thoughts. "But... Are you sure of the bright conclusion to our “intro,” your Excellency?"

  As the stack of documents thinned, the woman's hand went towards some letters arranged in a fine line near the documents. It was one of said letters that mattered most, the most schick, made from thick purple paper and interlaced with gold string, the familial crest rather familiar to her. "Bright, you say?" She sliced it open with her extravagant letter knife, taking out the contents, her head swaying to the downplay of the song. "It might not be bright, but it will certainly be entertaining, Josyf." Just a few seconds and the cheery tones of the melody came into play again.

  "If your Excellency says so, then..." — "Indeed, Josyf, it must be right indeed." Her smile turned a grin for a brief moment, her hands put down the paper after folding it several times. "Burn this in the evening." The knight nodded and took the extended letter.

  The woman closed her eyes, not touching a thing on the table, leaning into the cushion of her chair. One over the other, her hands were planted on her lap. She listened to the tune in complete silence, right until it ended.

  She stood up, the hard soles of her leather shoes creating an echo from clashing against the oiled parquet. The boy stopped, already preparing to hide the script into the cabinet that he took it from after sliding it back into the file. Josyf trailed behind the woman. "Marriott." Her voice rose again, "Arabesque." — Another request came for the boy, but this time she sorted through the cabinet herself, not a second passing until she pulled out the needed file with the script. Once again, the room was filled with the sounds of the piano. Both the knight and the woman observed Marriott playing from a three-step distance.

  The knight breathed slowly, but deeply, his right hand gliding over the short but thick hairs of his beard. "Does this calm your mind?" She asked, not turning to face the man, "Oh..." He only pulled at his beard, the question evoking a bit of a tour of his memories. "The first time you heard Debussy, I could tell that you enjoyed this piece in particular."

  “But, your Excellency. I find neither of those pieces somber at all.”

  Without voicing his thoughts, Josyf skipped past them without paying too much mind, "How long ago was it, your Excellency?" He asked, trying to stay still and watch the boy play, "Quite some time ago, I was quite young then, wasn't I?" She added, and the knight lowered his hand from his beard, leading it behind his back. Their first meeting was trivial, one could say that it was mundane. That one was the knight himself: "I was still in training at the Kunzeg Dispanseria, if that's the time you're referring to, your Excellency." Her head slowly tilted to the side, not turning to look at the man, but her eyes did shift in his direction, "Exactly that, I remember it quite well. It was the year I was officially inaugurated as the head of this territory by the latest king." She held her voice for a brief moment, "You weren't that young, however. You aren't that much younger than me to begin with." The knight nodded, stifling an involuntary chuckle... Forbid he insults her Excellency. "But in your case, you are far more preserved in appearance than I am." The song was slowly coming to an end, and Josyf tried to spark up the atmosphere with some humour. Her Excellency didn't laugh, and her monotone reply was all the more a point to end the eccentrics, as even her monotony had an edge to it. "That's the benefit of my race."

  The woman turned away before the song ended. "Marriott, practice Hungarian rhapsody No.2, Josyf, you're coming with me." The sudden change in demeanour made the young man jolt, while the knight obediently traced her footsteps out of the room and into the lavish hallway.

  Surprisingly, it was far more decorated than the main office of her Excellency itself, the carpets were soft and almost combed in appearance, the hairs sinking, turning to shallow grooves and then rising after the foot left its surface. No more clanking, just the muted thumps of two sets of feet, though the sabatons of the knight did create some subtle sounds along with the rest of his armour as he moved and the joints flexed. Each turn made the layout of the building seem more like a maze than a proper estate, which, technically, it was, since it wasn't any ordinary building, but an entire fortress converted into an estate that houses the Excellency herself, an entire knight order and all the main administrative organs. Mellanegi truly had the best defensive structures of all the cities in Ranesairan.

  In the head of her excellency, a parallel monologue continued by itself.

  "This is a pleasant orientation for our predicament. Duke Raressank himself sent a letter to me, all talking about the new lands eastward of the island. I can feel a surge of enthusiasm I had not experienced since the time that I got to rightfully dispatch the king. Besides, I can safely assume that I wasn't the only one who sent recon missions to those territories just as they appeared in my sights. The Grand North and the Unification Legion would not let such a workhorse opportunity of expansion pass right under their noses. Those greedy hands might as well be already digging into those unfettered lands; it does not matter if the territories are unexplored and the creatures of said lands are all uncharted or unrecorded, how much I despise that inconsiderate nature of theirs.”

  Josyf and her Excellency moved in silence, the doors passing them one by one, and yet the monologue had no other option but to carry on.

  “I did not expect the subtle balance of power on the island to remain for long. However, three years is still far below the estimated period of peace I had in mind.”

  In that trail of thought, the woman traced the path along the paintings on the hallway walls with her eyes.

  “Such... unforeseen events weren't a part of any of my hypotheticals, but, so far it is manageable, easily so, I might say. No civilian face is yet knowledgeable about the new lands beyond the islands. But a few runaways are a given in this situation. It's best we don't try to find those curious chicks anytime soon, it would be simply a needless waste of resources. The best I can do is hope that no important figures have moved to the east yet."

  As that monologue concluded, she made a decision to ask the very person beside her. "Josyf." — "Yes, your Excellency?" The knight looked back at her Excellency on a twitch, now prepared for the potential third question of the day.

  "If, let's say, the Grand Northern Federation and the Unification Legion of Ranesairan decided to take new, unaffiliated territories under their control, what would be your course of action as a hypothetical leader of the Saruf Ascension Church?" He still seemed puzzled... Regardless, in this sort of situation the reply felt far more natural to him, "Were that to be the case, your Excellency..." Josyf looked at her from behind, trying to gauge the implications. "Go on." — "Oh, yes.” That kind of nudging made him fall a step behind her stride, “I would try to outpace them, your Excellency." The woman did not react outright, which proved to have a straining effect on her knight as they kept walking in silence for a couple seconds.

  "Interesting. Josyf, you made the right decision. All we would need to do is simply take the lands that they ogle in our own hands, no need to sugarcoat their obvious attempt at gaining an advantage."

  "His idea fits my plan. But, clearly there are more than a few nuances in this barebones plan, if I could call it that. For once, we need to take into account the rest of the nations of Ranesairan and instead of going head first by myself, I should assemble an expedition composed of multiple nobles of the island, like Ollade had already hinted in his letter.”

  Her Excellency waved her left hand at the hip, gesturing to Josyf to catch up and walk at her pace.

  “Gather the group and head straight to whoever is in charge of that immediate locality, announce our presence and establish a proper connection. If that is not the case and there isn't a leader nor a nation overseas, then things will come to be far simpler than I anticipate. Though that will only become a concern once I receive a report from the recon unit. Perhaps I should've invested in long-range independent communicatory transceivers after all."

  They continued on, turning time and time again, taking stairs on their way down. The people they were passing by wore mostly clerical attires, both men and women, bowing in sight of the woman while she didn't spare them a single glance. Finally, their trip ended in front of a large door on the last underground layer of the fortress. "Josyf." She said, "I will enter the treasury, leave the entrance at once." The knight didn't waste a single moment and walked around the corner, his steps quickly fading in the echo.

  She waved her right hand — a key appeared in a soft flash of glowing dust, clasped between her thumb and index finger. Her hand lowered towards the key well, sinking the key into the metal structure, the mechanisms inside the lock began to turn, alongside the process, a collection of veins of light spread in thin roads over the surface of the door. At the last click of metal, they blasted like confetti, the sparks dissipating before hitting the floor.

  Without moving her hands, the door began to open, a shroud of silk obstructing the view inside the treasury. The woman walked straight ahead, pushing the shroud aside. Inside the treasury no blinding gold could be found, only old, polished, but crude objects like swords and shields laid on silk pillows on pedestals made of marble, and the muffled sound of the door closing behind serving to supplement the isolated nature of this space. Giving no attention to the items and books, which were hidden under glass, she continued to walk towards the end wall of the long room, all covered in silk of different colours. Without reaction nor without any visible indicators of affection, the wall vanished in a blink of an eye, a bare hallway revealing itself. She walked inside, the permanent smile she had on her face lowering with each step, until her expression was but a grim, straight face.

  A single turn of a doorknob and her right eye twitched. She stood looking at numerous chains suspended from the ceiling, countless tubes running along the floor, each leaking a thick, gold liquid onto the bare tiles bit by bit. Countless barrels inside the room were filled with the same contents as the tubes, machinery that seemed to be powered by nothing did not move, as the object of their purpose was nowhere to be seen. Passing by the empty barrels by the side walls, she took a quick look inside the cabinet by one of the machines, taking glass flasks full of liquid gold in an amount of over 20, throwing them on the ground. Yet, before they managed to break into a thousand shards, the flasks vanished without a trace. The woman did not spend any more time in the room than needed and left, leaving the silence alone.

  She walked out, and before reaching the stairs leading up from the dungeons of the fortress, the old smile returned to her face. Passing through the wall of the uppermost floor of the dungeon, Josyf greeted her Excellency with a bow. "I hope your visit to the treasury went well, your Excellency." She didn't reply, instead, she walked past his hunched figure. The knight rushed to catch up with her. "Josyf. Gather a platoon of the Church Order Knights. I will lead the expedition personally." The revelation almost knocked the man back, "What? What is the reason for this?" — "Do not question my decision." Josyf shut his mouth instantly.

  "Something very important vanished from the treasury."

  The group of three carried on. Instead of going right to Gastat, they decided to take a detour after talking to Sarbat a bit more. In a short debate, they concluded that the forest massive to the east of the road they were on was the most fitting candidate for a criminal hideout, and such, they hopped off the carriage and spent the rest of the night walking towards the forest. It was day time now, the group had plenty of rest in these fields, which felt quite homely after spending around two days among this tall, yellow grass. The edge of the forest grew closer and simultaneously bigger. Before they knew it, their legs had already walked a hundred steps in those dense woods.

  "This definitely feels like prime free land for a camp." Rurik said, stabbing the ground in front of him with a stick he picked up on the way, while Luka and Neoklipt followed behind. Luka was enjoying the refreshing and damp air of the forest far more than the other two members of their squad. "It would certainly be pointless to try and search for someone or something in such a huge and dense forest with just three people." Neoklipt nodded to himself as his raspy voice sunk into the natural insulation, "But, I suppose you have some crimson dust left over, isn't it right?" He went on as the young man sighed slightly before shoving the stick into the ground and going through the vials on his chest. With the rustling of fabric carrying on for another couple of seconds, Rurik raised the vial that contained a small amount of blood-coloured powder.

  The young man let the vial lay in his hand, looking at it with burdened eyes. "All I hope is that we find someone with this... And if we do, I hope they have at least a mediocre mage among them, otherwise this'll be the last of my powder." He took a full breath of air, and in a swift motion, Rurik pulled out the cork of the vial and both of those to Luka, while himself reaching for another vial with some sort of sap. He opened the vial and reached into it with his finger, getting a bit of the sap out and spreading it onto the entire area of his right hand and fingers, from the palm to the tips of his digits. After finishing up the entire ordeal, he gave the second vial to his sister as well.

  Rurik looked at Luka, extending his right hand towards her with a sorrowful expression, prompting her to pour the entire contents of the first vial onto its surface. He glanced at Luka one more time, and had a short look at Neoklipt, both of them stood there in wait for the action that was soon to transpire, "Now, it's a question of whether they are close enough or not." He said quietly, closing his eyes and squeezing the powder hard in his fist with hopes that it wouldn’t be one of the many wastes that they had to experience... A thin string of very opaque and thick smoke began to spill from his hand, drifting down through the stagnant and moist air of the forest, reaching for the overgrown ground like a ghostly tendril. They watched the smoke in bored anticipation; their eyes widened when the smoke suddenly sprinted across the thick greenery in a thin line.

  "Looks like we have a lead!" Luka delightedly chirped, reaching for the hilt of her sword, which hung in the scabbard on the left side of her hip. Meanwhile, the masked man had more of a practical reaction, leaning closer and speaking with a lower volume, "Rurik, what did you ask the dust?" Rurik took a step, not wishing to waste time like they waste money, and so he began following the smoke that dripped from his hand, humming audibly before replying. "I asked to search for people who aren't us. Asking for bandits or runaway convicts would be too direct, this thing is so finicky...”

  Rurik clicked his tongue, but with the way that this had to be operated — one could understand his frustration. “I wish we had a proper search tool, but even the most basic apparatus like the handheld area scan cost an arm and a leg with some extra. That are the prices in the Usurbruk countdom, by the way, elsewhere the situation is double or triple as bad." The young man waved his left hand to signal for the others to follow, and they did, trying to not trip on the protruding roots and fallen branches. "So we have to keep doing that awful thing to get crimson dust?" Luka pinched her nose, the memories of one awful experiment vivid in her mind. "Obviously, that's the best we can get, and practically for zero cost, too! Besides, it's always curious to do.” Luka recoiled from that admission, but Rurik, unaware of his sister’s reaction, carried on with his elaboration, “I like tinkering with the formula and ratios during the treatment." While Luka was busy groaning with exasperation, and Rurik busy with his spiralling monologue. But, Neoklipt paid no mind to the main topic again, resorting to asking his own questions: "Did you set a contact radius?" This made the young man let out a scoff. "Do I look like an idiot to you? It's about eighty meters, enough for detection to work, but far away enough for some criminals not to notice."

  Luka followed that line of thought with her own smug remark. "You really need to drop this habit of always assuming that our adversaries are braindead." However, Rurik did not fall for the provocation, settling for a snug retort instead: "I'll do that when you stop assuming that they are weaker than us every time." Though he clenched the smoking fist harder, again, he had far too many memories to ignore her words outright... "My journal..." Someone patted his shoulder; it was obviously Neoklipt, who showed much needed compassion to the young man. But even with this gift of gentleness, Rurik turned sour still, "It's easy for you to console, Neoklipt, you've never even lost anything because of my dumb sister." He mumbled, shoving some lush branches away from his face but almost tripping right after. Luka didn't laugh at the clumsiness of her brother, although she did pay closer attention to the ground after witnessing his mishap.

  Walking over the branch that Rurik almost tripped on just now, with extra carefulness, of course, Luka spoke:"What's the maximum distance that the crimson dust can search for something, again?" She asked, which made Rurik grind his teeth a bit. "It really depends on the formula and ratios you're using, in this case it should be around two and a half kilometres." Luka expressed some minor awe at the revelation, "That's far~! I thought it was no more than eight-hundred or so meters." Rurik got a little pride stuck in his cortex, and so he snarked about his special knowledge. "I got a hold of some good words from a witch all the way back in Blade Vale~" The reaction he solicited did not take long to arrive — "Blade Vale?! Witch?! How come you didn't tell us that you met a fucking Witch?!" Luka screamed, even Neoklipt felt a minor twitch, lifting his eyes from the forest floor to look at the young man in the back, "I really hope you aren't bullshitting us right now, because that is a huge deal that you've just dropped onto us." Luka kept talking with considerable fervor, trying to catch her breath, the group thanking the forest for such good sound insulation. While fanning her face with the hand that was previously on the hilt of her longsword, Luka managed to shut up. "I was going crazy there, too." Rurik genuinely giggled, prompting his sister to side-eye him from the back, "I was so scared and excited while talking to her that I almost fainted. A routine leisure in the Blade Vale turned into a full-blown conversation with a Witch, can you imagine? Otherworldly, I tell you." A smug smirk static on the face of that young man.

  "When'd you meet her, even?" — "Not too long before my journal burned up." Oh, that made it all the more guilt-ridden of a situation. Luka sucked in her lips, stopping in her tracks, but Rurik didn't change in expression. But still the other two slowed down and looked at Luka, Rurik reaching his left hand to rub his forehead. "I'm not mad. I am not.” He said, pointing to his sister, as their best interest was not in standing still and lamenting on things that aren’t currently relevant, “Now stop standing in place and help me with clearing these damn bushes!"

  The deeper they ventured into the forest, the denser the greenery got, to the point where it felt like there were actual walls made of live grass and leaves in some places. "Gosh, I bloody hate woods like these... Reminds me of the jungles in Zatlanem, disgusting.” Rurik caught a shiver down his spine, and Neoklipt seemed quite natural in this enviroment, “I hope that there aren't any elves here, at least." Luka finally took out her shiny sword with a fancy guard and some engravings on the blade, the younger brother shook his head in minor disagreement, “As much as I hate those long-eared nuisances — foul insects are much more of a concern in these kinds of places...”

  Rurik quickly rolled his head along his shoulders soon after those words, a stir of discomfort at the nearby critters and something that went undetected at the back of his head. "Well, since I can say for sure that we aren't even in the lands of our world, I can vouch for the chance that there aren't any elves at all!" Rurik said while his sister cut through the branches and collections of green whatever, and though his words were as outlandish as one would have imagined them to sound, Luka didn’t seem to react all that intensely.

  "That's a bold claim, care to elaborate?" Neoklipt also chimed in, after Luka made that very remark. "I had a hunch, but I wouldn't mind hearing what you deduced from the mere two days that we spent here." The young man cleared his throat and went through between the cut branches, thinking of a concise reply to give to the masked individual. "First: the transport stages. They can only work within a set distance of around one thousand kilometres, and besides the stage in Eirpejn, there are no more destinations in the east, only the island, which means that we already moved somewhere where we weren't supposed to. Second: the transport stage here, next to the shore, was completely bare. Only the stage, not a single vendor stand, not even roads leading away from the stage. Third: the impodium of the magic here is different, while the apogee and direction are the same. That is the most obvious giveaway, but there is more. The last point: The soil here is unlike any of the islands." The rest of the group made sense of the first three points, Luka being the one who had a more panicked expression.

  "The soil?" The cloaked man asked, tugging at the bottom nip of his mask like one would a chin when thinking. "Yeah, I did a quick breakdown of the soil when we were waiting for a carriage yesterday, "I didn't even notice." Neoklipt added, "It's far less obvious, I only checked the main components of the soil compound, it's a minute's worth of effort. Most importantly, the soil had the polar opposite properties of our regional soils in the island ring. Far less fertile than any soil on Ranesairan, besides the north, of course. The sand content was very high even a considerable distance away from the shore, plus extra mineral content, that's not the case on Ranesairan or both neighbouring islands." Neoklipt nodded. With all that smart talk, even the brash one of the group decided to add her own bit to the conversation: “I’d think that the impodium being different is much more of a dead giveaway than the bloody dirt being a different kind!” Though she was thoroughly ignored.

  But even in this ignoring silence between the three, Luka still had a question in her mind. "Why'd the transport stage work, then?" With this new idea tossed in the oven, the young man took some time to bake a thought, stopping himself from following the smoke. "The stages work both as anchors and leads, accounting for the rotation of the planet and its general movement in the solar system, and all the other factors.” Rurik stated as he waved around with the index finger of his free hand, “It also tracks its relative coordinates on the ground using the Blade Vale as a constant reference, keeping it stationary. I suppose that it also accounted for complete world transmigration as well, what a feat of engineering and magical prowess!" The black cloak pushed on to clear some bushes from the way. "That means that we got really lucky that the stage had its coordinates within the borders of a rather low shoreline. We could've been transported to the middle of the ocean for all I know, or better: Inside a cliff." Rurik shrugged his shoulders, walking past Neoklipt and after the smoke on the cleared path. "What happened — happened, we were fortunate enough, that's all."

  Not too long after the nonchalant words of the young man, all of them abruptly went silent and stopped moving. Rurik began to whisper: "We're within eighty meters of the supposed runaways... I'll cast detection." He said, the sap with the burned up dust flaking off from his right hand as he opened the fist, taking a deep breath. The two waited for Rurik to cast; then feeling a light breeze coming in a short wave from Rurik. "nine, possibly fourteen people, all armed." He said, pointing roughly northeast of himself. "Possibly?" Luka asked, already prepared with her sword, "There are two raised tents, I made a close guess." Neoklipt was nowhere to be seen; although he was — up on the branches. “Well that's not little people they've got there...” Luka said, adjusting her right hand on the sword's handle under the guard.

  "How many are nearest to us?" Neoklipt asked, holding onto the branch with his hands. Rurik visualised the positions of the people in his head and using some thorough gesticulation, "Two people are cooking at a campfire, quite far from the rest. You'll stumble upon them if you go directly northeast." Neoklipt nodded, and vanished from sight in a few leaps through the branches.

  While Neoklipt moved quickly and quietly over the top of the forest, Rurik rubbed his hands together and cracked his joints, "I'll do the velvet steps on us both." He then waved his right hand at his and Luka's feet, the scrunches from their steps muffling to the point of borderline silence. "You will enter from the northmost point of the camp, it's pretty well-defined so you won't get lost, I'll enter from the Eastmost point, Neoklipt will start at the center. If anything, use the contact." Luka nodded, and went in the same direction as Neoklipt, but with a few degrees of deviation to the left. Finally, Rurik began moving as well.

  It didn't take too long for all of them to reach the makeshift camp. The one who had the broadest view of the territory was Neoklipt, as he was perched on the tallest tree in this immediate vicinity, even if the view was greatly obscured by leaves and branches. The slits of his black mask with gold accents near the eyes and corner edges changed in glimmer everytime he looked to the sides. Judging from their mixed, rugged outfits, the man instantly assumed that they were indeed criminals, as each also had a weapon that also did not fit with the other, aside from that — they had a dead giveaway right on their necks, "Brands." — He whispered, gazing at the right side of the neck of the man to his left. “Quite similar to the practices in Ranesairan... Interesting piece of trivia.”

  There were two men not too far from the tree base, sitting by the campfire, a pot hanging over the flames, boiling something within. Neoklipt went through possible scenarios in his head, ultimately deciding on what Rurik had probably expected him to do: attack the two right away, he was quite good at that. But before committing to the act, he intently listened to the ambience, probably trying to hear if Rurik or Luka had already engaged any of the other adversaries. Hearing nothing but the conversation beneath him, he decided to act.

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  "I hear that the lord hasn't sent a search team after us." The man who was cooking said, the one on the right, dressed in a shirt and some trousers, obviously the more relaxed one out of the pair, as his weapon — a grim-looking short sword, was a good step away from where he was sitting. His brown hair was rather dirty and pretty long for a man, reaching down to his shoulders, some of the strands locked with each other. "I wonder why. Isn't he an obnoxiously thorough one?" The other man asked, clad in proper but worn-out chainmail, a mace hanging from his belt, its head pointing up. He was bold and clean-shaven, but very roughly as there were obvious patches of growth here and there. "I asked Bard, but he doesn't know either. He did say that there was a possibility that the lord was away when we broke out."

  The other man nodded, sighing. The bald one looked up from the pot, rubbing the barely-there stubble, while looking at the other party, which did have some mean growth on his face. "Don't you think of going bald? It's far easier to manage when you're homeless." That made the chef chuckle, "I'd rather keep my hair, my face looks more handsome with hair around it." — He got jabbed in the shoulder for that, and that made the hairy one jitter the pot with the ladle slightly, the bald one laughing slightly as the two stared at the boiling pot. Baldy looked at the chef from under his eyebrows, "You sounded like a maiden, "I don't want to give up my hair." What an ass you are... Go wash yourself, at least." That made the stubble groan, stirring the liquid within the pot with more vigor, "I'd live in that river if Bard didn't insist on going in pairs, I don't like showing off my bum to other men." He retorted, but an addition was en route as well: “Not with you calling me maidenly, don't expect me to satiate your deprivation, dickhead...”

  The bald one only had more comments to give out. "Looks like you didn't spend that much time in pri—" Their conversation got cut short by two throwing knives hitting them squarely on the head — The bald man fell dead instantly, the rather hefty pointed knife penetrated his cranium, the limp body falling over and crashing from the stump that he sat on, the chainmail cluttering as the body relaxed, air escaping from the lungs in a low moan.

  Stubble survived, as the knife only grazed his head, taking some of his scalp and hair in the process. He fell over, quickly trying to locate the assailant and reach for his weapon that was leaned against a tree. He fumbled around on the ground, slipping on the pressed and partly intact foliage in some places, refusing him quick access to his sword. The cloaked figure dropped down with a soft, crunchy landing. Neoklipt took a few short steps to get to the knife that he threw at the stubbly man, it was stuck halfway in the soil. "Ah-! Who are you!? Argh!" Not able to find the words to plead, the man got finished off with the same knife that grazed him: Neoklipt picked it up and threw it again, this time deciding not to take chances with the thick skull, getting a direct hit on the center of the man's neck.

  It was quiet here now, the only sound was the pot boiling and the blood gurgling in Stubble's throat. But, as Neoklipt gathered his two knives and wiped them from the blood on Stubble's shirt, he could hear faint sounds of fighting to his north. After briefly checking the bodies and making sure that they are actually dead, Neoklipt walked through the cleared path between the trees.

  "UOH!" Luka was busy battling two people at the same time, both dressed in cleaner chainmail: one with a halberd and the other with a longsword, the latter was a blondie. And although their weapons were in a far worse condition than her own sword, it did not mean that they were simple adversaries.

  "Phew...”

  The woman rolled her eyes, checking the two opponents and the space around her without stepping foot in any direction, keeping the point of her sword aimed at the pair.

  “Their teamwork is on point... I see that they are stressed as hell since I popped out of nowhere and pounced on them, but they got composed far too quickly, maybe some former soldiers? I doubt that adventurers or some random criminals would have a lot of experience fighting people."

  Luka thought to herself, trying to come up with a plan on the spot. However, her thought process was interrupted by a thrust from the halberd guy, as he lunged from their stationary line. Dodging seemed to be the right choice after all, as the longsword chased after her; had she parried instead, he would swoop in to get some nasty hits on her right side.

  With the Longsword on the right and Halberd on the left, it looks like she had to overwhelm one of them in order to gain an advantage. After exchanging glances, the short engagement provided them with a steady stream of adrenaline to cloud their thoughts. The bunch stood there, staring at each other, the blonde longsword guy exchanged glances with the Halberd that wore a kettle helmet, looking through the thin slits. Luka sized both of them up from the perspective of their threat level: the Halberd had a massive reach advantage, but he obviously lacked skill or was far more nervous than Longsword, so him acting as support to the Longsword was actually far more dangerous than him fighting one on one. So, Luka made her choice — the Longsword guy. Breaking through the strong to expose the weak, perhaps one of her more common tactical choices.

  Denying the silence in this exchange shortly, Luka dashed rightward a few steps, luckily, the area allowed for it, and went straight at the Longsword. The two men seemed to have got caught off-guard in their own deduction process, and so their diagonal formation — Halberd a little bit back, with the Longsword at the front — had worked against them, as the Halberd couldn't change the angle in time, making the Longsword engage Luka in a brief duel.

  The Longsword panicked, going for a very basic attack in the spur of the moment: a straight downward strike. Luka already held the hilt of her sword with a thumb grip, slapping the false edge of the blade hard against the blade of her opponent. As she moved the parry further to her right, Luka raised her left leg and kicked the man in his right elbow. He winced, but had to react — though it was too late. The moment the grip on the hilt of his word had wavered, Luka slammed her left foot into the ground and regained her stability, leading her blade along the entire length of his longsword, tracing the tip of her sword in a rotation over the head, flicking her wrists overhead, simultaneously leaning in and lowering her dome.

  The tip of the shiny blade sunk into Longsword's right brow, hitting the bone and deflecting into the eye. At the same time, she had also blocked a strike from the Halberd... Who had to strike over Longsword, otherwise he risked grazing his side. The base of Luka's blade resisted the pressure, stuck right up against the wooden shaft, the blade of the halberd almost reaching to her neck.

  Luka slid her right foot across the ground, between the legs of the longsword wielder — who had stumbled and fell onto the ground, screaming in pain. Luke pushed both of her arms up, rotating the wrists so the guard of her sword got lodged under the blade of the halberd. Luka leaned back as hard as she could, almost trying to leap.

  Halberd could only either let go or follow the weapon, and he chose the latter, allowing Luka a clear line for a follow-up — a straight right kick to his knee, which forced a severe slip in balance for the man. As she pulled the halberd down to her left side, Luka let go of the sword with her left hand, instead grabbing the shaft of the halberd in the middle, her longsword's blade sliding out with a metal screech. Luka yanked the halberd, forcing him onto his knee. The man held onto his weapon with a commendable grip; but it was his mistake, as her sword was now free of the lock.

  Luka quickly went for the opportunity and swung her sword at the man's head, slamming the blade under his jaw. The steel instantly sunk into the skin of his face and towards the neck as Luka kept pulling the Halberd, splicing the flesh. With a quick pull, her sword made the rest of the way towards the innards of his neck — a gush of blood rushed out of the massive gash and the grip on the weapon vanished, switching to gripping to his own wound as he instantly lost his footing and fell limp on his side.

  Luka's gaze immediately switched to Longsword, who wrapped his legs around her right foot, leaning towards her leg and landing a clean punch to the side of her kneecap like a repetition of her own attack, making her trip and almost fall, as the uncomfortable sound of her kneecap coming back into place accompanied the brief retreat.

  The man glanced at his profusely bleeding ally and reached for the sword that he let go off instinctually during the fall, rushing to stand up. Luka tried to stop his ascent as soon as she felt more or less comfortable on her feet, but the man managed to parry her left-upward diagonal with a frantic flail of his sword. It carried the momentum, and such Luka went for the right-downward diagonal — her sword slid across the chainmail, as the angle was far from favourable, making the man yelp from the hard impact, still.

  Both of them recuperated in mere moments: the man tried to put up an upper guard to his left, expecting her to roll into the trajectory and strike from her diagonal upper-right, but instead, Luka had her hands in a key guard on her left side, the hands horizontal on the same level as her face, going for a quick thrust right into the man's stomach, penetrating the chainmail with the extreme force that Luka managed to exert, pushing the tip of the sword deeper and deeper, until it hit the spine, as it seemed and felt.

  The blonde let go of the sword, stepping back. When Luka twisted the blade, his already grimacing face crunched on itself completely. He fell backwards as his knees and legs gave out completely, the eyes rolling back with the plummeting blood pressure and dark arterial blood coming up from his mouth. She took a step back and looked down as the severe bleeding of the man spread across the green forest floor, her panting breath a companion to her wildly searching eyes. The encounter had thrown her off the groove quite hard, but she still advanced further into the camp. Both of the men lied there, quickly losing blood.

  "Oi, who are you?" Rurik approached a heavyweight clad in half-plate, wielding a pole hammer, the only one to have a full helmet — a sallet, gorget included. Though, his other armour pieces didn't fit the helmet. Rurik watched the Plate walking towards him, approaching slowly with his weapon on the ready. The young man kept staring into the slit of the helmet, until the heavyweight stepped next to a tree, his body perpendicular to the thick trunk.

  "I asked you—" Rurik swiftly lifted his right hand in a fist, instantly pointing left with the index finger. A cylinder of wood protruded from the trunk with a considerable velocity, slamming into the side of Plate's helmet. The man took a few steps to the side, almost dropping his pole hammer and falling over when his hands reached to grasp at his head. Rurik kept his attention on the heavyweight, until a glimpse of a figure further down didn't point something, swiftly alerting the young man.

  He barely managed a squint, quickly realising that it was a "CROSSBOW?!" — Rurik screamed, quickly raising his left arm up, the fingers clasped together in a duck gesture. Not a second later, a metal bolt was travelling through the air, aimed directly at the young man's head — Rurik quickly spread the fingers of his left hand, the tip of the bolt deforming, turning flat. The flat bolt passed between Rurik's middle and ring finger, sticking right into his forehead, the force of the strike made the young man stumble back, a small splatter of blood flying up and down, as well as to the sides of his forehead as his head bent backwards. The bolt plummeted to the ground, and the heavyweight had regained some of his senses, sprinting towards Rurik.

  Hunched over, the young man threw his right arm to the left, a direction where the pole hammer was flying at his dome. Like a punch, Rurik's clenched fist made the shaft of the pole hammer shatter into wooden shrapnel even before it made contact with his skin, covering the leaves of the plants behind the weapon in irregular holes. The head of the pole hammer had its momentum neutralised: it fell straight to the ground, while the rest of the shaft that Plate held missed Rurik by a huge margin.

  "HA?!" The heavyweight exclaimed after realising what happened to his weapon. With the Crossbow obstructed by the large frame of the heavyweight, Rurik knee-kicked the air in front of him, a pillar of earth shooting up, hitting Plate under his arms, sending the remnants of the pole hammer high in the air as the grip of his hand released. The pillar kept going further — higher than Rurik's head in height, and forced the heavyweight to retreat in confusion.

  Keeping up the tempo and tipping the advantage to his side, Rurik punched the pillar with his right hand, sending a huge chunk of earth flying right at Plate. It exploded into dust upon impact with enough force to push the heavyweight over a few paces, revealing the line of sight for Crossbow, but, by that point Rurik had weaved out of the direct sight of the skimpy crossbowman and ran towards the wooden cylinder that he used to surprise attack Plate, hitting it with the same move as he did the pole-hammer.

  This time, the wooden shrapnel was far bigger and much faster, penetrating the clothes and skin of the lightly-dressed Crossbow even at a distance of over ten paces, the thin fingers releasing the contraption with a loud scream. "BARD! BARD!" He kept screaming while running away.

  "Shit!" Rurik shouted himself, seeing Crossbow flee, shifting his gaze back to the heavyweight on the ground, laying on his back while panting, his elbows pushed into the dirt. The young man mended the slit of Plate's sallet with a quick pinching gesture and raised two smaller pillars to either side of the heavyweight's head. Moving both of his arms, Rurik clashed his fists together, the mass of dirt smashing against the metal of the sallet, the earth crumpling the helmet with each repetition until the panicked screams stopped and the desperate arms dropped to the ground.

  Rurik sped off towards the position from which Crossbow had fled and put his thumb to his cheekbone.

  "They have crossbows! A rat is coming to the center of the camp!"

  The big open ground of the center of the camp was already crowded: 3 escapees, only now approaching Luka and Neoklipt — Crossbow who ran to the men that sat at the bushcraft table, talking to each other.

  "BARD! AMBUSH!" The conversation instantly stopped, and the cleanest man of the bunch with braided black hair and a beard rushed to stand up and took up arms: a long and shiny greatsword. Two other men, who looked about as old as Bard, maybe thirty-five or forty years with some weak wrinkles, also rose and raised their weapons: a bardiche for the one right of Bard and a spear with a round shield for the one left of him, all of them equipped with half plate armour.

  "Take another crossbow from the tent!" Bard had instructed the arriving skimpy man, his eyes darting around, catching glimpses of the arriving Luka, Neoklipt, and Rurik, who only now came to the center. "The boy is a mage!" Crossbow kept shouting as he appeared from the tent with a newer-looking crossbow. “WHAT?!” The cleaner man screamed, and the seven exchanged a couple of glances, until Bard opened his mouth again and looked at the assailants in right-to-left succession. "Who are you?! Are you with the lord of Gastat?!" He asked, thinking of defusing the situation somewhat.

  "Who?! Who?! Who?!?! Did we get found out? How did they manage to track us down in this forest?? The masked guy came from where Kuie and Pasfes were... Are they dead??? The girl came from the direction that Kitte and Ganstanne partolled, what's with them?!? If two of them took out four of our guys so quickly, this is bad business! And the boy, he is a mage?! What are people like them doing in this nowhere?!"

  "Nomel, What happened to Hunnes?" Bard hurriedly asked, the three men forming a ring around him, the Shield looking at Luka, Bardiche at Neoklipt, and Nomel — formerly Crossbow, stared at Rurik. "Dead! I think he's dead!" The four got increasingly agitated as the staredown continued. The pressure mounted, the one at the center seemed to be the most despairing, "Answer me! Who are you with?!" Bard kept shouting at the group.

  "No-one!" Luka spoke up, holding a point with her sword in front, each of them was roughly seven steps away from their prospective opponent. Bard gazed at Luka, a flicker disdain and a pinch of anger a highlight of his tone, "Fucking headhunters?! What did you forget in this damn forest?! Who hired you?!" Luka looked him in the eyes, too, "Heard that some bastards escaped from a dungeon, I dunno if y'all got a bounty over your heads yet or not, but we'll find out after we clap you all!" The woman shouted as the four of them tensed, Bard wa sweating profusely, frankly it looked like Bars had a hard time believing that they were being attacked because of a rumour of all things, "You fucking pricks!... what's with the others?!" — "DEAD!" Bard's face kept thrashing around, looking at the assailants, the grip on his greatsword shaking.

  “UUUUGH!! What the fuck do I do?? What do I do?? I don't understand it at all!?”

  "UGHHHH...!! FUCKING KILL THEM!"

  Bard lost his composure and haphazardly ordered the others to attack. As soon as he said that, Bardiche lunged at Neoklipt, Nomel fired his crossbow and Shield tried to start approaching Luka.

  The bolt had been deviated with a swift wave of Rurik's hand.

  "Let's get over this already!" Luka shouted, suddenly pulling her right arm back, a spear — a more javelin shaped object made of what looked like rough rock appeared in her hand. "WHAAAAT?!" Bard reacted wide-eyed; everyone but Rurik and Neoklipt averted their eyes from their opponents. Her brother did move aside from the line of fire, however.

  "Go to hell!" An explosion as loud as a cannon shot behind the javelin launched the projectile at unfathomable speeds right at the center of mass of Shield. In a single blink of an eye the man who held the shield had a gaping hole through and through his stomach, the shield erupted into splinters and individual boards, the metal sheets that had covered the wood were instantly crumpled. The sheer force of the penetration sent the body flying back even without transferring most of the projectile's momentum, the insides exploding from the back of his torso, as even the vertebrae had their connections severed and flew out as additional and possibly harmful elements. The rest of the path of the javelin was clear — Bard and Nomel barely avoided losing their arms and insides respectively. Bard felt his mind going blank for a moment as he almost fainted from the sight in front of him.

  But, only the escapees had halted their assault. Bardiche received multiple stab wounds to his neck, Neoklipt brandished his dagger for only the necessary amount of time, sinking it right into the arteries. Nomel got sent flying by a massive pillar of earth shooting out of the ground, further terrifying Bard as the flying silhouette crossed his field of vision right above. A characteristic and audible crunch was heard coming from the place where Nomel had landed, surprisingly, he didn't scream while he flew.

  Bard took a jittery glance around, his teeth grit against each other, the lips parted and eyes opened wide. His thoughts had become a slurry as the entire ordeal happened in less than ten seconds. The greatsword dropped to the ground, and so did Bard, flailing his arm around while on his knees.

  "Surrender! I surrender!" To the point of tears he screamed, the group approaching the man slowly, all of them relaxing after hearing the man plead into the open air. "Throw the sword towards the man in the mask and take off your armour, all of it." Rurik said, pulling at his collar as he approached, sighing deeply with a trickle of sweat running down his forehead. Luka was also covered in sweat, standing closest to Bard, her sword pointed at him, the blade covered with blood; the engravings filled completely with the red liquid. The trio watched as Bard threw the greatsword to Neoklipt's feet and began to tink off every belt that held his chest piece around his body, then the long pauldrons made from multiple plates and rerebraces with the elbow pieces and forearm protection, gauntlets and after standing up — his greaves. The chainmail was taken off last.

  Rurik slowly came up to search him, while Luka held the blade pointed at his neck. Bard kept breathing fast and shallow with his arms held up at chest level. He had his eyes closed, head pointed up and forward, trying not to notice the feeling of blood on his face, which splattered all the way from the man who held the shield. The young man's hand lifted Bard's tunic, fondled some places and patted down basically everything down to the very toes. "Take off the boots." He told the man, who was considerably taller than him. With shaky hands Bard had obliged, taking a few steps away.

  "He's all clear." Rurik said, Turning away to search for a rope or something else to tie up his hands, Neoklipt had his arms crossed in a rather dismissive manner, looking over at the senseless Nomel somewhere in the bushes to the left: he hit his head hard on the adjacent tree, his body seizing up from critical damage to what seems to be his entire brain.

  "Well, it's better to move him elsewhere." Luka said, not removing her eyes from Bard, who couldn't help but bend over, supporting himself by putting his hands on his knees. "I heard them talking about a river, I suppose it shouldn't be too far. Rurik, can you use detection again and find it?" Neoklipt said, unable to control his urge and going over to poor Nomel, finishing him off — either out of mercy or just to make sure that he's dead, "Sure thing." A weak wave of wind permeated from the young man again after a few moments of static standing. "It's to the East, about sixty six meters. Rather wide and full, we can refill our water." He said, going into the second tent, emerging with a length of rope after less than half a minute.

  "Sheesh... Let's go, then. Watch over the guy while I wash up." Luka began to whine, signalling that the encounter had finally come to an end. It was a gradual release of tension: Rurik tied up Bard, who still didn't open his eyes, and obviously didn't want to. Neoklipt was the one to move him, pulling Bard behind him by the rope between his wrists, Luka and Rurik walked in front the same way that Rurik had ran after Nomel, but instead of going back completely, they turned left into a path of flattened grass and leaves, having a comparatively easy time walking, considering what they had to do to get here in the first place.

  Eventually, the thick brush began to thin out, until running water could be heard and a spacious clearing met the eyes of the group, all but one person sighed with relief. "Get behind the tree over there~" Luka said, pointing to her right, the trunk of that specimen was quite sizable. Rurik and Neoklipt led Bard behind the tree, and the young man sat down with his legs crossed, the walking cloak nudging Bard to sit down as well. Some splashing sounds could be heard not too far from them.

  "Ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a..." Rurik sighed, releasing all the tension in his body, slouching against the trunk of the tree opposite of the one Luka had pointed to. "...I already forgot how nerve-wrecking headhunting is, goddamn." He rubbed his head and shut his eyes; opening his right and leaning forward, propping his arms into his lap. "That idiot didn't have to use the javelin so suddenly, she scared me shitless, I won't lie." Neoklipt glanced at the young man, "I think so, too. She could've ended it quickly without going for such an overkill." Meanwhile, Bard sat with his blood-covered face pointed down, eyes still closed and tied hands in front.

  Rurik moved his attention from his compatriot and spoke to the bearded man. "Bard, was it?" The man nodded, "We won't be questioning you, yet. When Luka comes back I'll go with you and let you clean yourself up, capisce?" — "Yeah..."

  After a short while, Luka crashed by the tree, her hair were soaked, the vest had been taken off and hung over the right shoulder by her belt, the pants over the other shoulder, exchanged for braies that reached to her knees, the sheathed and obviously cleaned sword was held in her left hand. "It was nice~ who's next?" She said, throwing the clothes onto a bedsheet of sorts, or at least a big sheet of cloth that she had snatched from the camp. "I'll go watch the guy." Her brother replied, lifting the man to his feet by the elbow. "Neoklipt, can you get me my wax?"

  Rurik undid Bard's rope. "No funny business, big man." He remarked before slapping the man's shoulder and taking a few steps back, "I'll watch you so go and get that filth off yourself." And so, Bard was quite eager to practically rip off his tunic and a bit rugged pants, plunging into the water. The young man observed with a straight face as Bard started to rub his face with water like a madman. It wasn't a lengthy ordeal, as the bearded man was quite keen to get out of the water as much as he was keen to jump in it; his shaking hands calmed and the eyes were open. "Alright... Let's go back." — "Yeah." Even his replies got less tense.

  All of them sat down by an improvised fire that Luka and Neoklipt had set up in the meantime and decided to boil some tea. Their supplies were far less in amount compared to yesterday, as they gave some to Sarbat and ate the rest on the way to the forest, leaving just tea and a couple rations to spare. "Are we going to talk business now?" Luka chimed, stuffing her mouth full of cheese. "That's the next obvious course of action." Her brother let the man sit down by himself, his hands still untied. "Give the guy something to bite." Neoklipt bent down to sift through the remnants of their food in the bag — which has shrunk significantly compared to previous days — a previously seen kind of a wrapped brick was handed to Bard. "Thanks." He replied, surprisingly, not taking his sweet time to ravage the thing open. "So, are you gonna answer our questions?" Bard nodded, tasting the croutons, "If I know the answer."

  "Seeing how you're being witty, I suppose you finally calmed down." Rurik got his share of food.

  "Were there only nine of you?"

  "Yes, since the start."

  "Did you escape from the dungeon by Gastat?"

  "We did."

  "What were you put there for?"

  "I, Hunnes, Kitte, Gastanne, Kuie, Pasfes, Gottue and Lensi were all tried for war crimes and murder, we were mercenaries for the Gerad Confederation, where we are originally from. The guy you sent flying across the camp was Nomel, he was charged for multiple armed robberies. We all had to serve life but Nomel only had twenty years." Luka shook her head. "Now it makes sense why you people were pretty good at fighting." Bard glanced at her, before shifting his eyes back to the young man.

  “Wonder why they weren't executed.”

  She thought, but really didn't care for the answer that much.

  "No need to get into details, I asked just to know how to present you to the mayor or lord of Gastat, whoever there is. If you lied it'll come up anyway. You've got a brand so it's a given." Rurik said, pointing to Bard's neck. "I don't see why'd I need to do that, but well, You are right, I guess." The man finished the modest ration pretty quickly and threw the box aside, so did the others.

  "Can I ask a question?" Bard spoke out. "I don't see why you can't." Luka said and stood up to stretch, then went to retrieve her pants that were hanging from a nearby branch. "Are you not from Rannette?" She stopped and looked back, "Is it the name of the country we're in?" and went back to taking the pants down from the branch. He quite literally didn't know what to think... Who in the world goes to kill some people because of some rumour, without even knowing the name of the damn country they are in? "Thanks for answering."

  "You're awfully polite." Rurik said, standing up as well. The pot that was over the fire, full of tea at first, was almost empty by this point, "You can drink the rest, by the way." He continued, yawning. Bard, on the other hand, hunched. "I got captured by some freaky powerful who-knows-who, I guess it plays on the character quite a bit..."

  “You also came out of fucking nowhere. Who knows what you might do next. Better be safe.”

  That made the siblings chuckle, Luka hastening her belt, "Freaky? You could've used a different word for that, damn geezer." Unbothered by the naming, Bard decided to ask another question as Neoklipt gestured him to get up as well. "So are you some kind of headhunters?" — "Adventurers."

  The man raised an eyebrow. "Didn't know they made this kind of Adventurers nowadays." Already packed and cruising back to the camp, Bard's hands tied again, Rurik spoke. "We're from Ranesairan, though I doubt you know anything about the place." The man took his time to think, and when he looked around again, they already stood in the middle of the camp again. "Never heard of it." Rurik and Luka went to check inside the tents, "Figures." The sister said, "That's besides the point, let's take what's valuable and get out of this shithole, honestly."

  It wasn't a long time that they took to loot the place, they only had to take Bard's greatsword and the armour of the guys, some valuables that they had and a scarce amount of food. The repeat look at the gruesome scenery didn't shock Bard the second time, his face was quite stoic. "No words?" Neoklipt asked him, speaking after a while, his small slits looking right into Bard's eyes. But the man remained unphased, allowing himself a more concise reply, "Am I supposed to be saying something? They were mercs for the same employer as I, our connection doesn't go much further than accomplices." He took another look at the shield guy, whose name was Gottue, and said: "I was scared shitless because you lot came from literally nowhere and completely unannounced.” Bard looked at Luka and Rurik in the back, “All of you are absurd, too, I just didn't know what to expect of you, I've always been weak to these kinds of “surprises,” to be crystal clear."

  Rurik went where Neoklipt had killed Kiue and Pasfes, and his eyes stuck to the pot.

  "What's this?" He asked the arriving group, who carried a whole lot of stuff on their shoulders already. "No clue." Neoklipt said, also staring at the pot, while the young man squatted by it, the fire beneath the pot long extinguished. "I think it's supposed to be..." Bard tried to explain, but Rurik already stuck his finger into the foul mass within the pot and put it in his mouth. Luka was flabbergasted, Neoklipt did not react, and Bard only squinted his eyes and winced at the sight. "The taste is funky, it's very bitter." An analytical response only worsened the expressions of the bunch. "...It's supposed to be insect repellant." — "RURIK! YOU IDIOT!" Luka screamed at the top of her lungs, dropping the loot and slapping her brother square across the back of his head, "The hell you putting everything in your mouth for?! And you call me an idiot?!" Her brother dropped to the side, his head almost landing on the deceased Pasfes, the blood from his neck had stopped flowing a while ago, too.

  "Well excuse me! This is the fastest way to understand what the concoction is composed of!" Luka pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, "That's the fastest way to poison yourself and fucking die, too!" Bard looked at the initiating conflict with a mild mix of confusion and bewilderment. As the duo began to shout louder and louder at one another, Neoklipt pulled him aside and away from the scene.

  "You'll feel better if you don't listen." Emitted from the mask, and so they stood beside the tree about five paces away from the path leading to the dispute. Perhaps he should've remained terrified till now and from now on, "Does that happen often?" — "Once every other day." Bard clicked his tongue and sucked some air, "Sounds awful." Neoklipt slowly turned to face him. "I don't care." The dismissive tone was enough to shut Bard up.

  "God, what kind of people did you allow to find me? I'd rather get captured by the lord's men than those..."

  Thinking about the appropriate words, Bard looked at the picture of murder in the center of the camp, briefly at Neoklipt, and then at the siblings that came from the path, both covered in scratch marks, slowly emerging bruises and blank expressions.

  "...Odd horrors."

  Luka dragged the loot she had dropped previously across the forest floor, staring off to the side. "We are done, let's cut the damn brands off their necks and go." Neoklipt left Bard in the care of the two infuriated siblings and promptly walked away. "I'll take care of it." Leaving all the tension for Bard to savour, the detour hence has come to an end at last.

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