As they continued to head northward they traveled in silence. Both had their own things to work through themselves. Adriana wrestled internally with what they just did. Bjorn spent the time sorting through his notifications.

  Congratulations? You have advanced your skill level in: Torture. Reaching skill level 8. The pain that you inflict upon helpless individuals has increased by 32%.

  …

  Congratulations? You have advanced your skill level in: Torture. Reaching skill level 17. The pain that you inflict upon helpless individuals has increased by 68%.

  Congratulations you have advanced from beginner to novice in your skill: Torture. You have gained a perk. When torturing someone for information they are 100% more likely to tell you the information you are looking for.

  In that moment he pushed the thought of torture and the gains in torture to the side, he still didn’t want to sort through that.

  Bloodroot Spriggon Taproot had leveled up. It is now level 18. It has +18 natural armor and increased regeneration. Your health regeneration has decreased by 18%

  The Bloodroot Spriggan Sprout that is attached to your body has passed a minor threshold in its development stage It has grown into a Bloodroot Spriggan Seedling. It had gained the following benefits: Vitality pool, Increased intelligence.

  Vitality pool: The Bloodroot Spriggan Seedling has started to gain sentience as such it has become aware of the power its bond to you has over to, as well as you have over it. If you die the Seedling will die as well. It understands that would be disastrous. As such it has developed a sort of battery that it can divert some of your health regeneration into to stockpile health. In times of need and injury it will invest that pool into your body rapidly healing any damage dealt to you.

  You have 40 attribute points to distribute.

  You now have 100 talent points to spend.

  Personal growth can have more tangible benefits than just your personality. You have grown both in personal power as well as an alchemist. Because you have advanced in 10 personal levels since you have gained your profession you have unlocked the ability to specialize. Would you like to specialize with your alchemy? Yes/No?

  Know this before you decide. Your actions up until this point in your life will shape what options you will have when you start to decide on a specialization. Once this process has started you will not be able to stop, pause, or go back on your decision until you pick your path.

  This process will change you on a fundamental level. It will strain your body. As such you will be unable to pick another profession, specialization, or focus until you progress another 10 personal levels.

  Well those notifications were bull shit. He had progressed way more than 10 levels since he got his profession. He had progressed a total of 35 personal levels ever since he got his alchemist profession. Whatever part of the universe that was in charge of the notifications he received must have not accounted for his own personal synergy. Not for the first time since he found out about the power of Latent Potential he began to wonder if the synergy was a little bit of a cheat. After all he hadn’t heard of anyone else having some kind of synergy.

  In that moment the briefly wanted to see what his profession had in store for him. After a few seconds he decided against that as he had no idea what would have happened if he accepted the specialization. Maybe he would be incapacitated for a time. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  The only real question running through Bjorn’s mind is what he should do with his 40 new attribute points. Just to see where he was he pulled up his character sheet. He had to admit, it was getting excessively long, almost obnoxiously long.

  Yep definitely getting out of hand. He decided to do something about it. The first thing he decided to do was to hide his skill perks. If he ever wanted to look at them again he would enable them as he didn’t need a constant reminder of the perks that he often used every day in his day to day. The next thing he thought about doing was hiding his skills as well. But ultimately decided that he liked to have a reminder of his industriousness, plus it was nice watching the numbers go up. What he did however was hide the percentage to the next level. He found that if he focused on the skill it would pull up that information anyways.

  With that taken care of he had 40 attribute points to distribute. The largest windfall he had ever gotten. Honestly the 40 free points was almost half of the total attributes he had before he did his first reset by using Latent Potential. What would he benefit the most from? The first thing he did was allocate 8 points into constitution and 9 into intelligence. This brought him up to an even 30 for both stats.

  Next he allocated 5 points into both dexterity and agility. It wasn’t glorious but it helped offset the new tightness that he just felt from 8 points of strength getting added to his attribute pool. It pained him to have to do so but it would probably end up having to be done on a regular basis unless he wanted to be lopsided. Especially with how his strength attribute was at 110% effective in relation to normal human values.

  With the last 13 points he wasn’t entirely sure where he wanted to put them. The increased health and mana would be nice, though after Adriana joined his party he was less of a spell caster. But that was his biggest ace in the hole. It was the only thing that really gave him the edge. But with an additional 99 mana points it might just be enough for his needs. No the next main thing he wanted to do was bring his wisdom up to around where the other attributes were. So with a sigh he dumped 7 of the points into wisdom.

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  Which this left the only smart choice left. He didn’t need to invest into strength, his 1 point per level went into that and did wonders. He also didn’t need to invest into charisma. Though it probably would have been helpful when they were in Blackrock Bay, but now he needed more power. He didn’t doubt that this would be challenging, and it wouldn’t do to have his stamina reach zero while trying to take care of what he needed to do. So he put the final 6 points into endurance.

  He was now effectively 2 and a half times more powerful in every regard to a baseline average human. And boy did he feel it. The strength and raw power that flowed through his limbs was almost addictive. It would have been if the enhancement had been temporary. Because it was his new baseline however it just felt liberating. He felt as if he could sprint a marathon, that he could climb to the top of mount Everest. He felt unstoppable.

  He wanted to start spending his 100 talent points however he decided against it. He had work that needed to be done, Some of which was escaping from LeafFalls, though they weren’t actually in LeafFalls anymore they could be considered to be within the realm of its influence. Besides he was certain that specializations would give him access to a bunch of new talent orbs to purchase. No it was better to save them for the time being.

  He still had two more notifications to deal with. He pulled the first one up.

  You have advanced 5 personal levels and have crossed the threshold for your latent potential perk “More spells.”

  You have learned the spell: Constant heat.

  Bjorn had to pull his jaw up from the floor, he had forgotten about this perk. It had been so long since he bought it. Even though this new spell seemed kind of like a dud its potential couldn’t be stated. He wished he could get a power that was more inline with what he needed but oh well. He pulled up the second prompt.

  You have advanced 5 personal levels and have crossed the threshold for your latent potential perk “More spells.”

  Bingo that would most definitely come in handy. He only wished that it was an earth, fire, or dark spell as he had the least amount from those skills. Ever since he found out that summoning magic was something that could happen he dreamed of being able to summon an army of creatures to fight by his side. Who needed allies when you could summon creatures from the beyond to fight his battles for him. He couldn’t wait to try out the summon but now was not the time.

  They had a bit before they got to where Bjorn left off searching for the associates of Ramsey and Luna. Now was the time he could use to start to sort through his feelings. Adriana looked to be lost in her own mind as well.

  On one hand he didn’t regret what he did. After watching what happened to his wife, he felt like they might have deserved worse. The memory of his actions were still fresh in his head, actually part of what he did and his memories of the event were sort of hazy as if he wasn’t really the one experiencing what his body was doing. It was as if his body and the words that left his mouth were those of a puppet master. But as he thought about it they were his words, and his actions that his body carried out.

  On the other hand he questioned the morality of the acts of torture he did. Was he slowly turning into a monster? Was he someone who committed the acts that made him hate the very people who he just tortured? What was happening? In a moment of self realization he finally understood what that old adage back on earth meant. “In order to fight monsters one must become a monster themselves.”

  What he ultimately landed on was that he didn’t regret the actions, and he didn’t feel any kind of remorse for how he treated Ramsey and Luna. The only thing that he did regret was how Adriana had to see it and how she reacted to his actions. The night before he explained to her what he wanted to do, what he was going to do. Yet she had a negative reaction to the acts that they committed. She was fully aware and agreed with what he was going to do. What probably happened was in the moment she started to have her regrets. It is one thing to say you are going to do something, but once your words become reality it can be difficult to deal with.

  The musings of how he was becoming a monster in order to fight monsters amounted to little. It didn’t matter to Bjorn if others viewed him as a monster. He did what he had to do. To expect him to not be chanced, to not be affected by what happened to him was insane. If the changes were good or bad he didn’t care. He still had more work to do, to make more suffer before he was done. To contemplate on if his actions were right or wrong didn’t matter to him.

  The only thing left to do was to talk about what happened with Adriana. He actually kind of feared the conversation with her. Not that she would call him names, or that she would view him as a monster. No the only thing he feared was that she might decide that she didn’t want to travel with him anymore. He knew that he could continue traveling on without her, he knew that he could find this village and kill those responsible to avenge both Meira and Alaric. But he had grown to like her company, to appreciate what she has brought to his journey. A small part of him felt like she was his path to redemption. He felt like if she left he would be truly lost and he had no way back after this.

  However whenever he looked over at Adriana she was almost pointedly not looking at him. So he decided to leave it. Over their time knowing each other he had learned that pushing her would never lead to the outcome or answers he wanted. The only way he had a chance was if he let her come to him, she was like a timid deer or cat. Eventually she would come to him when she was ready.

  They made their way northward until they made it to where Bjorn left off his search the day before. They spread out, far enough away that they could sweep more of the forest, but close enough that they could keep an eye on each other. It was finally mid day when they had a stroke of luck. They were about 9 miles north of the town. Off in the distance there was a faint curl of smoke in the distance.

  Adriana was the one to spot it off in the distance and softly called out to Bjorn. He would have formed a war party so they could communicate to each other telepathically but they were far enough away from each other that she wasn’t within her sphere of influence. As he was making his way over to her he formed the party then.

  “I see a peel of smoke in the distance.” She said to him through their telepathic link.

  “I see that now. Let’s move closer.” Bjorn thought back.

  At least she was speaking to him now, early in the day she hadn’t said a word. He had actually suggested that they stop for the day and rest. Neither one of them slept the night before and both were dead tired, but he was worried about her, she needed considerably more sleep than he did. She hadn’t answered and just shook her head.

  As they drew closer to the smoke trail he started to get more worried due to the lack of sleep. She was clearly exhausted as she was making mistakes she wouldn’t normally. It wasn’t anything big, but a wrong footfall here disturbed a pile of leaves, a clumsy step there snapped a twig. These wouldn’t be concerning normally but they didn’t know what they were getting into. They could easily be walking into an armed camp of dozens of people, they couldn’t handle that yet even if they were fresh.

  “Do you need to rest?” Bjorn asked.

  “Not yet. After this probably, but I need to see this through.” She thought back. He thought the way she stressed need was weird, but now was not the time.

  The closer they got to the origin of the smoke the easier it was to spot on in the distance. He climbed a tree from time to time to see if he could see where the smoke was coming from. Eventually when he climbed a tree he could see where it originated from. It was a small clearing in the trees off to the north east of where they were at.

  When he dropped back down to ground level he nodded at Adriana and together they both entered stealth. From there their movement forward ground to a halt. They had to slow down their pace otherwise they would break stealth. For the umpteenth time Bjorn marveled at how odd it was that while stealthed he was nearly invisible to everyone around him. He actually disappeared from people's views. He would have been invisible to Adriana if not for the outline around him that was formed by the warleader skill.

  From time to time Adriana moved ever slightly too fast, or she stepped on a twig and it snapped. Each time she did so her form reappeared, then after a few seconds it would disappear again going fully invisible. It gave the act of being in stealth an almost video game feel. There were a few times that her stealth didn’t fully break and she became just barely visible. But she was just barely opaque before she slowly faded back into invisibility.

  They inched forward and over the course of 2 hours they finally drew close enough to see into the clearing just through the trees. It held a small camp. 5 tents total arranged around a central fire pit. Lounging around the outside of the fire pit sat 5 people. All of their backs to the outside of the camp. Like everyone else in Escar they were mostly humans, there was a singular dwarf amongst the group.

  On the fire there was a large pot that more than likely held their lunch. But it was hard to tell because they were still far enough back. They watched the group for a few minutes and there didn’t seem to be anything in particular going on. They were talking but they were too far way for Bjorn to make out what was being said.

  He gave a hand gesture to Adriana saying that he would move forward, she should stay here. He had learned that the psionic communication could be overheard, with the mauler. It was unlikely but still possible that those at the camp could listen in on their communication. Without watching to see if she understood he slowly started to creep closer to the camp. He was skilled, he knew what he was doing. A predator in the dark, moving closer to bring death to those at the camp.

  About halfway to the tree line he looked back to check on Adriana. To his surprise she was roughly 5 feet behind him, she was placing her feet directly where he had been walking. Anger at her disobeying him flared, but he swallowed it down. She didn’t have to listen to him, she wasn’t a slave, a servant, but she had put both of them at risk. She was obviously tired and prone to making mistakes. He would have to talk to her about it but not now.

  Annoyed but resigned to his fate he kept creeping forward. Slowly he could start to make out single words that were being said. He didn’t understand the words, but he could pick out a word here and there. He had heard the words before, from Alaric. It was dwarvish, but not the kind that he knew. He had learned Mountain dwarvish from Medera all those years ago, according to Alaric Mountain dwarvish was akin to common, it was the dialect of dwarvish that all dwarves speak. However there were different branches of the language in dwarvish. The dialect that Alaric spoke most of the time, especially when he was annoyed, was what his village had spoken, which was High Dwarvish. He said multiple times that he would eventually teach Bjorn how to speak his native tongue but he never got around to it. Those in the clearing were speaking that language.

  “Thanks for never teaching me.” Bjorn thought to himself sarcastically while being careful to not let his thoughts bleed through their connection. When they got to the edge of the forest they found a nice place to sit, wait, and observe. That is what they did.

  The group sat there and just talked. There was a good amount of good natured laughter but nothing really stood out. Eventually someone stepped out from one of the tents and joined the group. This brought the count up to 6. The conversation continued in high dwarvish even with the newcomer.

  One of the group periodically got up and checked the cauldron that was in the middle of camp, he would grab a spoon, stir the pot, then sit back down. Eventually when he got up he stirred the pot and nodded. He spoke at one of the men sitting there and gestured to him. The guy got up and walked to a spot between two tents that Bjorn and Adriana couldn’t see from their vantage. He came back with a stack of bowls in his hand. It was hard to count how many from where they were but he had another way to find out.

  The man shouted in common. “Come and get your lunch you sorry sacks of shit.” As he started ladling the soup or stew out of the cauldron and into the bowls. Bjorn watched as the man filled a total of 14 bowls. 5 more people came out of the tents and sat down on the ground after collecting their bowls. So now they were up to 11. Three of those sitting around the fire stood up with 3 bowls and each one walked away into the woods heading in different directions. So they had sentries.

  They just continued to sit there, watch, and listen. They had switched to common after everyone joined around the fire, but their conversation was filled with useless information. After around 20ish minutes most everyone was done with their meal, a few had gotten seconds. The other 3 slowly made their way back into the clearing with two empty bowls. Bjorn made a mental note as to where the three sentries were.

  “I think its time we feed the prisoners don’t you?” One of the humans said.

  “They probably won’t eat it even if we do give it to them.” The one of the dwarfs said. There were a total of 3 amongst the 11 in the clearing. 7 of them were humans and finally there was 1 hobgoblin, an ugly son of a bitch.

  “It’s been three days since they ate, I'm sure the hunger is getting to them they might eat today.” One of the humans, a woman said.

  “It would be a waste.” The hobgoblin said.

  “Give them some food.” The other dwarf said. He said it in a tone of authority. Now they knew who the leader was.

  The man who had first talked about it and the woman who argued to give them some food got up and collected three bowls from those who already ate and filled them with the rest of the food in the cauldron. They started walking towards the edge of the clearing and disappeared behind one of the tents.

  “Bazaar, and Tenton go with them. I don’t want the prisoners to get any ideas about escaping again.” The dwarf said. There was a little grumbling at that but they got to their feet as well and started walking in the same direction.

  Bjorn looked over to Adriana and they made eye contact, or at least he thinks they did, as he still couldn’t actually see her eyes, just the outline of her body. Bjorn made a gesture with his head and Adriana made the same one. They got up and slowly made their way around the camp, trying to see where the 4 had gone.

  As they made their way around the edge of the clearing they slowly got a view of the far side of the clearing. There they saw three humans, one woman and two men. They were tied to one of the trees on the edge of the clearing. It was a single tree that was by itself a few feet into the small meadow. Their hands had been tied together and then tied to the tree with only a few feet of rope, enough to allow them to lay down, but not enough to let them wander more than 3 feet from the trunk of the tree.

  The 4 people were giving those tied to the tree food, it looked like their wills were finally worn down as all three of them were eating the food with abandon. They ate like animals, not caring for any heat that the food had.

  “Looks like we found the farmers.” Adriana thought to Bjorn through the mental link.

  Bjorn immediately tensed up. PTSD told him that Adriana just gave away their position. As silently as he could he withdrew his bow and set an arrow to the string. He sat there watching the camp and surrounding forest for any signs that they were found out. When Bjorn hadn’t responded to Adriana she looked over, confused. She saw the outline of Bjorn with his bow and arrow at the ready, not drawn but with his hand to the string.

  “What? Did you see something?”

  Bjorn continued to scan the surroundings. When after a minute there was no sign of reaction he started to relax. Instead of answering with the truth he decided to lie. “Yeah, I thought I did. I was wrong.” He hadn’t told Adriana how it was the psychic conversation that alerted the Mauler to their location. Ever since that happened he had been skittish to use that function of his war leader skill. Meira had been the same, so it had been easy to ignore. Someday he would tell her, but today was not that day.

  There was something off about Bjorn’s response, but today wasn’t the day for it. “I am fairly certain those are the farmers. They match the rough heights, builds, and correct amount of men and women that I was told in LeefFalls.”

  “I think you are right. The next question is do we kill them and free the farmers or do we follow them to wherever their home base is? It might be a few days before they leave but we could follow them and they could lead us right to Kairon. I have no doubt that these are his men.”

  “And women.” Adriana thought. There were 3 women in the group.

  “Yes and women.”

  “We have to get them out of here. If we don't, are we any better than them? How are we different, we condone them to slavery."

  “We are better because we will end their suffering by cutting the head off the snake so to speak. If we kill Kairon then these abductions stop. We have to do something about them, some way. These few may have to suffer for us to stop them.” Bjorn said the words but he knew he didn’t believe them. He moralized like many people did back on earth, they were just empty words that sounded good to say.

  Adriana was quiet for several long moments. “I don’t care what you have to say. I am going to get them out of here with or without your help. I just don’t know how I am going to accomplish that.”

  It was several minutes before Bjorn replied. “There may be a way to get both done. But let's wait for nightfall. That will give up the best chance to get them out as well as get us what we want.”

  They spent the next several hours watching the group. They didn’t learn much as they didn’t talk about much that would be useless. A lot of braggadocios words and posturing. There was only one conversation of note that had been had.

  “When do you think we can move on from here?”

  “I know, I am tired of sleeping out in the woods. I want to sleep under a roof again.”

  “What are they even doing there anyways? It can’t take them this long to find everyone who could be useful in this town, it isn’t that big.”

  “Look.” The man who was the commander said. “We will leave this town whenever Luna and Ramsey are done in town. Not a day before. But with that being said I am starting to get a little worried. One of them should have checked in by now. What is taking them so long?”

  “They are probably fucking their way through town.” One of the women said with a laugh.

  “Yeah you know their reputation, they are probably neck deep in pussy, or dick if you know what I mean.”

  “Closer to reality than you realize.” Bjorn thought to himself.

  “Shut it Dwain what they do with their free time is none of your concern. If they don’t check in by morning we should send a few of us into town to see what is the hold up.”

  “Make Mark do it. He has been dying to go into LeafFalls anyways.”

  “Yeah, I don’t want to spend any time in that shitty town anyways. Mark should go.”

  “We shall see in the morning. It’s time for the watch change anyways, Dwain, Erika, Sam go take over for now. Be vigilant tonight, for some reason something doesn’t quite sit right with me. Maybe its just that they haven’t checked in, but I doubt it. Something is off with this situation.”

  That confirmed it, these people were part of Kairon’s crew. Their purpose was obvious, they were here to take anyone that Luna and Ramsey found and bring them back to the town that they were building. Now that he knew that he knew he wouldn’t feel bad if he had to kill anyone. He would have said that Adriana wouldn’t have felt bad but it had been a long day. Now who knew how she would react.

  Other than that they didn’t hear anything important. Finally when they were happy with what they found they backed out of there and made their way due east. It would be the farthest from any of the sentry posts. It also would be out of the way towards the town making it even less likely for them to be stumbled upon.

  They were both tired and needed rest. Especially seeing how they were going to head back in tonight and either neutralize the camp or save the prisoners, probably both. In a matter of moments they were both fast asleep.

  A loud crashing sound woke Bjorn up from his deep restful sleep. He opened his eyes and looked at the surroundings to see what was the issue, what caused the sound. It was quiet though. Just when he was about to settle back down to go to sleep the sound came again.

  It was the sound of something heavy stepping on wood and the wood giving way under the step. The sound was louder than it was last time, it was getting closer. Bjorn got up and made his way to the tree next to where Adriana was sleeping. He tried to wake her but she was too exhausted and wouldn’t wake to the shaking.

  After a few minutes a form he was familiar with came into the clearing. His stone golem had managed to find him. He had no idea what had taken it so long but he was thankful that it hadn’t made its way to him earlier. There was no doubt in his mind that the golem would have given him away if it had caught up earlier. It had no subtlety.

  Relaxing Bjorn dropped to the ground. The golem stopped 1 foot away from Bjorn, its small rocky frame looking up at him. Bjorn told him good job and then set it to watch over the pair of them. He gave it orders to either wake Bjorn up if something came to attack them or to engage whatever attacked them and kill it, he also ordered it to make sure he was awake at dusk. He had no idea if the golem could follow the order but hey it was worth the shot.

  After that he settled back down and quickly fell asleep again.

  When he woke up the second time it was because there was a stabbing pain in his side. Well stabbing wasn’t the best word to describe what he felt, it felt as if he had been jabbed in the side by a fist sized rock, with surprising force. He opened his eyes and saw the golem standing there preparing for a second swing at Bjorn’s side.

  “Stop.” He ordered and the golem lowered its arm and returned to a mostly upright humanoid position.

  He then woke up Adriana, ordered the golem to stay there, then they started making their way back to the camp. Over the day while they watched the camp they found out where exactly all three of the sentry posts were. They had to take care of the sentries if they had any chance at freeing the farmers and returning them to LeafFalls.

  When they drew close they slowed to a crawl again, 3 of the 6 moons were out tonight which provided more than enough natural light for Adriana to see fairly well in the dark.

  The war party from earlier was still formed so they started to communicate telepathically. “You stay here I will kill the sentries and then signal you to free the prisoners.” Bjorn thought to her.

  “No, I am no longer useless. I can help you take out the sentries. You take out two of them and I will take out the last one.”

  “Are you sure you are up for it?”

  He could see Adriana’s face turn towards him, annoyance plain on her face. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well you seemed to take issue last night.”

  Somehow her tone was icy when she replied. “We will talk about what happened last night, but this isn’t the time. I am sure I can handle killing someone. Torture was a different beast. I trained for what a month? In Blackrock Bay. I am not going to let what I learned go to waste. You take out the south east and south west sentry. I will take out the northern one.”

  “Alright.” That was all Bjorn had to say as the pair of them began to slink off heading in opposite directions. He decided that he would trust her. If she couldn’t handle it and ended up dying that wasn’t his problem, he cared for Adriana but she was a big girl, she had to eventually handle herself. She needed to be tested eventually anyways.

  Now that he didn’t have Adriana to baby sit he could move a lot faster without risking breaking his stealth. With his enhanced dark vision it was easy to pick his way through the forest and to the first sentry. It was one of the human males. He was so focused on the outward that he didn’t see behind him. Bjorn slowly crept up behind him and slowly mounted the tree where the man sat. He was sitting in between a tree that had grown into two trunks around 6 feet up.

  Bjorn struck with speed and precision that only his magical enhanced body could do. In less than a second Bjorn clasped his hand over the sentries mouth to stop any calls for help and stop the body from falling to the ground. At the same time he thrust his dagger through the back of the man’s neck between two of the vertebrae, severing his spinal cord and continuing through to the man’s body until it punctured the back of his larynx and subsequent vocal cords.

  The man’s body went limp as his control over it was forcibly removed. Bjorn had covered his mouth to make sure the man wouldn’t be able to call for help. However with the destroyed vocal cords as well as the inability to force his lungs to expel air it was a pointless gesture. Even though the man wasn’t truly dead it was only a matter of time.

  With the sentry neutralized he moved on to the next sentry. This one was situated on a low branch. Approaching for the kill would have been nearly impossible so Bjorn snuck as close as he could so that he could barely see the top of her head. He withdrew his bow and pulled on the string. He wanted to get to full draw before he released but his bow had other ideas.

  When the bow was almost fully drawn it let out a small creak. It wasn’t loud by any means but in the still night, and with an alert sentry it was just an odd enough sound to draw her attention. As soon as the creak happened Bjorn stopped drawing and let the arrow fly. He was nearly to full draw so the arrow still had most of its power but Bjorn’s accuracy suffered slightly.

  It wasn’t enough to matter though. As the woman looked for the source of the sound the arrow slammed into her head and through to the tree killing her instantly. In a rush Bjorn put his bow back into his bag and moved as quickly as he could to right below where she had been sitting. The arrow had enough force to blow through the back of her skull but it didn’t have enough force left over after that to pin her to the tree.

  Her body did an involuntary jerk backwards when the arrow struck and she fell to the ground. This was what Bjorn had been waiting for and expecting as he had moved to intercept. It was awkward catching a falling dead body but Bjorn managed. He caught her arresting her momentum, then he slowly lowered her to the ground, making sure there was no sound that could have alerted the camp.

  With the second sentry taken out he began making his way around the camp heading for the third sentry when he finally got back into range of Adriana. “Did you finish?” She asked.

  “Both dead, you?”

  “He never saw it coming. Let’s get these farmers away from the group and then talk about heading back into the camp and killing those still here.”

  “Yes, let's.” Bjorn said back. The pair slowly moved back towards each other which just so happened to put them at the edge of the clearing where the farmers were being held. After they met up they finally stepped out of the shadows of the trees and into the clearing for the first time.