"Darlings, get back!" Sienna yelled as she reached out to Saltzpyre.
That was the last thing Markus saw and heard before the radiant light seemingly exploded. Instinctively, he closed his eyes to shield them from being blinded and took a step back. The moment his foot connected with the floor, something strange happened; it sounded like... squishing?
As the former sergeant opened his eyes, he found a scene from his nightmares. Littered around him were the corpses of young men, all completely ravaged with brutal wounds, some seemingly butchered with their bodies disemboweled and missing several appendages; others had chunks torn out from their flesh in patterns similar to bite marks.
'Ostland...' Kruber thought, dropping his sword and shield before collapsing to his knees. His mind returned to the most dreaded moment of his entire life, the one moment that he couldn't drown out no matter how much ale he downed, and that always came to him in his dreams.
"Back again, aren't I, mates?" the sergeant muttered solemnly as he looked around. It was then that he noticed he wasn't on the battlefield that had been burned into his mind, but rather a rural village. A sudden scream broke his trance as he realized that the situation before him wasn't some illusion of the past. The former sergeant hastily picked up his sword and shield before standing up and rushing to the source of the shriek.
A militia boy desperately swiped his sword at a group of goblins, attempting to fend them off as his sister cowered beside him. The goblins had come so suddenly that there was barely any time to react, leaving him able to do little more than grab a sword, his sister, and then rush off towards the perceived safety of the village chief's house, only to be cut off by a group of the savage, leering creatures.
"Stay back!" the boy yelled as he swung his sword at an advancing goblin, causing the creature to step away.
"T- they're surrounding us!" the girl said shakily as she held out a sickle at the goblins to their flank.
"What..." the boy said in terrified awe as a much larger goblin came forward. It was over twice his size and, unlike its smaller brethren, it did not appear to be threatened. The boy had never even known such goblins could exist, and as he looked at the creature's blood-soaked club, he knew it would be his doom.
Just as the goblins began to close in on the pair, pained shrieks began to emanate from the back of the crowd.
"Oi!" a voice shouted, drawing the crowd's attention as they turned to face in its direction.
An abrupt, deafening boom rang out through the air as the pair shut their eyes from the pain in their ears. By the time the ringing subsided and they opened their eyes, the majority of the crowd had been dispersed, either fleeing or dead. The large goblin that once seemed so menacing now lay on the ground with its face caved in and its belly split open.
Before them stood a giant of a man. His sword and shield were covered in blood and grime, a strange staff hung from his side with a smoking tip, and his armor and hat were stained with gore, yet his presence seemed strangely comforting and inspiring.
"Where can I get you lot to safety?" The man asked the pair as they soon began directing him to the chief's house.
The children and elderly of the village huddled together at the back of the chief's hut as the sound of forceful banging continued at the door. The more able-bodied villagers, both men and women, stood ready with farming tools in hand, prepared to make a final, desperate stand.
A few of the cowering villagers let out a scream as a dwarf suddenly stumbled out of one of the rooms.
"Valaya's Lantern! What's going on!?" the stranger called out as he looked around him.
"What's a dwarf doing here!?" one of the villagers yelled out in confusion.
They didn't have much time for answers, however, as the door to the house suddenly burst open and the invaders made their advance.
"Gobbos!" the dwarf yelled out as he quickly drew a strange device and pointed it at the creatures.
A series of loud bangs filled the room as the first few goblins suddenly fell dead, parts of their body seemingly exploding with blood.
"They're still coming!" a villager yelled as she jabbed a pitchfork at an advancing goblin, only slightly grazing the creature before it lunged at her.
The goblin's leap was cut short, however, with a hammer blow to its face.
"Shelter behind me, manlings!" the dwarf shouted as he holstered the device and drew the shield from his back. "Let a dawi show you how to plug up a hole!"
"It should be right ahead," the boy said as he directed his sister and the stranger through the ravaged village.
As they turned the corner on the path, they were met by yet another horde of goblins.
"They're here too!" the girl cried out, before realizing they were swarming the village's shelter. "They're trying to break into the chief's house!"
"Looks like they'll have to be cleared out the old-fashioned way," Kruber stated; he'd already spent the shot from his blunderbuss and it'd take too long to reload. "Stay low, you two."
"Come on! Try to kill old Kruber, you filthy bastards!" the mercenary bellowed as he advanced into the crowd, carving a bloody path through the greenskins with a series of wide slashes and shield bashes, hacking off limbs and caving in skulls.
The goblins that had turned to advance upon him were now wavering as their kin were butchered, and some appeared ready to retreat until one of their archers managed to land an arrow into the man's less protected leg. Knowing that such an injury would impede his abilities, the goblins' confidence was renewed and they once more began rushing at him, only to be cut down all the same. The former sergeant pulled the bloody arrow out of his leg, seeming to only find it a mild inconvenience, before continuing to clear the horde.
Fully realizing the futility of their efforts, the goblins close by finally broke and began to flee. Even the archers appeared to have ceased their firing.
"They broke through!" the boy shouted, watching as the goblins in the back of the crowd breached the door to the chief's house, before flooding in.
The moment of dread was short lived however, as several loud bangs were heard before the lower half of the doorway was filled in by a short figure with a large shield.
"The filthy gobbos sneak about, but we'll grab 'em by the snout!" a voice sang out as the goblins that attempted to enter the house were pushed back, some receiving hammer blows to their head.
"Bardin!?" Kruber shouted out as he continued to wade into the breaking horde, recognizing the familiar singing. "Bloody good timing, dwarf!"
"You're here too, Azumgi!?" the ranger called out as he pushed back another goblin before caving its head in with a shield bash. "Let's show these wazzoks what it means to mess with us!"
Faced with an immovable bastion and an unstoppable beast, it didn't take long before the rest of the goblins broke, fleeing in all directions upon realizing the futility of continuing their assault.
"They're getting away!" Bardin yelled out as he reloaded his pistol and began firing on the retreating greenskins.
A volley of arrows suddenly rained down from above, impaling the rest of the running goblins with unnatural accuracy.
"Problem solved," another familiar voice remarked as Kerillian leapt down from the roof of the chief's house.
"Well, you took your precious time, Wutelgi," Bardin commented as he reloaded his pistol. "Showing up only after we've already routed the grobi."
"Some of us do our hunting more quietly, dwarf," the elf stated before firing another arrow into a nearby bush, causing a sudden death cry to shriek out from it.
It was then that Markus noticed that multiple goblin corpses, separate from the ones he'd just seen Kerillian execute, were pierced with arrows; parts of their bodies were bloated at the impact points, a clear sign of the poison the wood elf coated her ammunition in. Notably, many of those goblins appeared to have been archers, their bows still gripped in their dead hands.
"Guess that's why the buggers stopped firing," the sergeant thought aloud as he remembered the sudden ceasing of the arrows that had been barraging him. "Looks like I owe you a drink, elf."
"You think I want to sample from your barrels of cheap mayfly swill?" Kerillian responded snarkily. "You can give it to the dwarf, it's probably gone sour already anyways."
"Hey, only a few of our barrels have ever gone bad!" Kruber argued. "Besides, I was thinking more about sharing a good old bottle of brandy; would 'Queen Kerillian the First' be interested in that?"
"Now hold on Azumgi, you heard the elf, 'give it over to the dawi' if I remember right," Bardin butted in.
"Don't put words in my mouth, dwarf," Kerillian berated before turning to address the mercenary with angry whispers. "And you said you'd never mention that again."
"So, is that a 'no'?" Kruber asked.
"Just have it opened by the time I arrive," the wood elf answered relentingly.
"Um, excuse me?"
The group turned to face the source of the voice. They saw an elderly, wrinkled man with a walking cane cautiously exiting the chief's house.
"Ah!" the old man gasped in shock as he caught sight of the waystalker's visage.
"First time seeing an elf?" Kruber asked, noticing where the old man's gaze was directed to. The former sergeant understood the mystery and superstition that surrounded the race, especially among rural folk. "Don't worry, she won't bite."
"Don't talk about me as if I were some beast!" Kerillian said annoyedly. "Besides, if there's anyone here who'd bite, it'd be Goreksson."
"That was just one time!" Bardin protested. "And you saw me, Wutelgi, I had my hands full then!"
"Ah yes, an ale and a sausage, such a heavy burden for you to carry," the waystalker replied sarcastically, remembering the bar fight.
"Okay, maybe one of us bites," the former sergeant conceded. "But, it ain't the elf, so no need to be all nervous, right?
"Huh? Oh, no, I've met a few elves," the old man responded, regaining his composure. "Just never one with eyes like that."
"Really?" Kruber said curiously, looking at his companion's pitch-black eyes. Kerillian was the only elf he'd ever seen up close and he'd assumed that all elves had eyes like hers.
"Some of us have them, some don't," the waystalker replied nonchalantly, before realizing what the old man had said. "You've encountered my kin before?"
"Just a couple here and there, travelers, mostly," the old man answered. "But, who might you be? If you don't mind me asking."
"Who are we?" Kruber repeated with a grin, preparing his announcement. "We're the bloody Ubersreik Five!"
"Ubersreik Five?" the old man said confusedly.
"Or four…" the former sergeant retracted, looking at his companions. "Actually, three."
"I knew you struggled with reading, but I didn't know you also struggled with counting, Kruber," Kerillian mocked.
"They must be adventurers!" a boy from behind the trio spoke up, his sister following along, "They rescued us from the goblins!"
"But, we didn't send a request to the guild," the old man stated.
"Yeah, I guess you could say we sort of just popped in," Kruber remarked.
"Some kind of magic likely," Bardin said, remembering the Citadel of Eternity. "Must've teleported us to wherever we're at now."
"Next time One-eye suggests another scheme like this, try knocking some sense into him, lumberfoots," Kerillian added.
"Well, whatever power brought you here, thank you for saving our village," the old man responded with gratitude.
"Bit early to celebrate, manling," Bardin stated, looking around at the goblin corpses. "Got any oil? We'll have to burn the grobi before their spores settle in."
"Spores?" the old man repeated questioningly.
"Just trust the dwarf on this," Kruber said, knowing that knowledge about greenskin reproduction wasn't all too widespread, and even he only had a basic understanding that the creatures were like mushrooms. "He's been killing the bloody things for a lot longer than some of us have lived."
"Alright, I'll see if we can get some oil," the old man responded as he retreated back into the house to inform the others of the situation.
"Let's get to piling them up. Come on dawri!" Bardin said as he dragged a goblin corpse by the legs; as he did, its loincloth loosened, revealing its anatomy underneath.
"Disgusting," Kerillian spat.
"Hm, strange, looks kind of like..." Kruber started.
"A willy?! Euck!" Bardin yelled out and gagged, immediately dropping the goblin's corpse.
Large pyres stacked with goblin corpses burned brightly as smoke rose into the night sky.
The villagers who weren't tending to the fires were either treating their wounded or digging graves and praying for the fallen.
"Grimnir's teeth, grobi with willies! The world's gone mad!" the dwarf ranted; he hadn't stopped since seeing the greenskin's appendage.
"Have you considered that we all saw the same thing and don't want to keep being reminded of it, dwarf?" Kerillian said, clearly annoyed.
Kruber listened on as he reloaded his blunderbuss. The whole experience was strange; one moment they were in the Chaos Wastes, and the next they were in an unknown village that appeared to have been victimized by greenskins.
"We saw you get hit, sir," the militia boy said as he approached the former sergeant with his sister in tow, carrying medical supplies.
"I'm fine, let your folks have it," Kruber said as he raised his pant leg to show the spot that the arrow had struck. Despite not even taking a sip from his draught, the flesh underneath his pants appeared to be completely unharmed, if a bit bloody. He didn't know the exact reason behind it, but similar minor wounds he'd taken seemed to just disappear a while later; it started happening after his time in Bretonnia. "See? No need for that here."
"Are you a wizard?" the girl asked curiously.
"A what?" Kruber responded, surprised at the question. Though he supposed such quick and clean healing did seem magical in a way. 'Who knows, maybe it actually is.'
"Don't be silly, wizards don't wear that much armor," the boy refuted. "And they also don't fight like that."
"But look at him and think about everything he did!" the girl argued.
"What do you mean by that?" Kruber asked curiously, wondering what it was about him that made him look 'wizardly'.
"Well..." the girl began. "You're wearing a big hat."
"It's a nice hat," the mercenary responded.
"You have a fancy moustache," she continued.
"Glad it's been noticed," the former sergeant commented.
"And you cast that spell that made a huge noise and killed all those goblins," the Girl finished. "It looked really powerful. Your staff even looked like it was smoking!"
"Oh, that?" Kruber began, realizing that the place they were in likely didn't have many guns. "It ain't magic. It's kind of like a crossbow, but with explosions and... you know what, ask the dwarf, he'll explain it better."
"You don't understand, Wutelgi! Grobi with willies! They can aim where they piss now!" Bardin continued rambling, his hands tightly holding his head as if he was losing his mind.
"Maybe it'll finally get his mind off that," Kruber added.
"Still, what you did was amazing," the boy remarked. "You must be a high-ranked adventurer."
"Rank?" That was something that caught the former sergeant's interest. He'd never heard of a 'ranking' for adventurers.
"Oh, could you show us your tag?" the girl asked. "One of our friends left to register as an adventurer a few weeks ago. She'll be really excited to hear that some high-rankers visited here!"
"I'm sorry, I don't know what in Taal's name you two are talking about," Kruber replied, scratching the back of his neck confusedly.
"But, aren't you an adventurer?" the boy asked.
"I guess you could say that, but I've never heard of things like 'ranks' or 'tags' for adventuring," the mercenary stated. "Is it some kind of local thing? Actually, what country is this?" he asked, looking around.
"Oh, you're not from around here?" the girl asked. "This is the Western Frontier, it's a territory of the Kingdom."
"Western Frontier?" Kruber repeated confusedly. The only thing west in the Old World was Bretonnia, and while most of the land wasn't as developed as the Empire, it could hardly be described as a 'frontier'. "And Kingdom of what?"
"Just the Kingdom," the girl said, as if that was all there was to it.
"Sorry, but could I take a look at a map of this place?" the former sergeant asked; it was better to have a visual aid on the matter.
"Of course, I'll go ask the chief," the boy answered, heading over to the large house that had once been besieged by the goblins.
"Grobi willies! Not even Cousin Okri's ever seen something so vile!" Bardin continued feverishly.
"We get it, dwarf, quit talking about it already!" Kerillian scolded loudly.
"Oi, pack it in, mates," Kruber called out as he stood up. "Let's figure out where the hell we are."
"And that should be it," the chief concluded as he finished giving an overview of the surrounding region.
"You sure this thing's right?" Kruber asked as he looked at the map. It was relatively detailed, but it didn't look like anywhere he was familiar with.
"It's a bit old, but it should be accurate," the chief answered.
"Never seen roads like these before," Bardin commented. "I've traveled probably over half the Old World looking for Karak Zorn."
"Wasn't any 'Water Town' in the Empire or Bretonnia last I remember," Kruber added, looking at the spot on the map marked with weighing scales. "Don't think there are towns dedicated to Verena now that I think about it."
"These patterns don't match any of our forests," Kerillian remarked; rededicating herself to the Weave had made herself much more in tune with the Worldroots, but that feeling seemed off now. "The trees around here too, they speak... differently."
"To say the least, we ain't in anywhere we know," Kruber concluded.
"Not to mention those gobbos," Bardin spoke up. "They're completely different, they have-"
"If you bring up their phalluses one more time, I'll pin your mouth shut with one of my arrows," Kerillian warned.
"I was gonna talk about their eyes," Bardin corrected. "Grobi eyes are usually red, but these wazzoks had yellow ones. Looked more like the eyes of a goat than anything else."
"Now that you mention it, there was an orc with them, but it also looked a bit off, with its face," Markus added. The creature he killed looked much more like a goblin than an orc, but its size was unmistakable.
"Still, grobi are grobi," Bardin stated before turning to the chief. "Oi, manling, you know where the gobbos came from? There's probably some left wherever they're hiding."
"Our hunter saw a couple of them at a cave in the woods just this afternoon," the chief explained. "We were going to send someone to the guild to post a quest, but they attacked us before we could."
"Well, can't leave a job half-done," Kruber stated. "We'll get the bastards."
"I'm very grateful for your offer, but I'm afraid with all that we've lost here, I'm not sure how much of a reward we can give," the chief stated, looking despondent.
"Just have beds and food ready when we come back, it's already been a long day, it'll be even more of one by the time we're done," the former sergeant responded as he left the house, not willing to abandon the village over such a matter. "Won't have Taal and Rhya hearing I let a village burn to greenskins."
"Going out to fight grobi with no hesitation, you almost sound like a dwarf, Azumgi," Bardin said as followed the mercenary.
"I guess you lumberfoots are dragging me along too," Kerillian stated as she took her leave as well. "Just try to keep up, you might even learn something."
"If you think about it, it's kind of lucky that the grobi had an orc with them," Bardin commented as the group followed the trail of crushed foliage. "The little wazzoks can be real sneaky, likely would've covered this up better.
"Lucky for us, not so much for the folk who had to fight it," Kruber responded, remembering the ravaged corpses he'd seen littered throughout the village. The way that some of them had been crushed could've only been done by the larger greenskin.
"At the very least, there'll be a lot more dead among these pests than those mayflies," Kerillian said consolingly.
"Aye, she's right, Azumgi," Bardin agreed. "We'll avenge them a dozen times over, just you wait."
"Yeah, only thing we can do now, ain't it?" The former sergeant replied, focusing on the path ahead.
It didn't take long for the trio to find the cave. Every one of them held some form of experience tracking down their targets, whether it was from poaching game, decades of wandering, or holding a connection with the very earth that surrounded them.
After scoping out the area, they saw that the cave's entrance was being guarded by a group of goblins armed with rusty tools and crudely fashioned weapons. From the way the greenskins kept looking into the woods, it seemed that they were expecting something, or rather someone.
"Either the bastards are waiting for their raiding party to come home or they're expecting us to show," Kruber observed in a hushed voice. "Did any of the ones attacking the village get away?"
"None of them escaped, I made sure of it," Kerillian whispered back.
"So, we've got the element of surprise over them," Bardin quietly thought aloud as he took a bomb from his belt. "Time for an old ranger trick."
The cave guards fidgeted about impatiently. It was rotten luck that they were stuck out here waiting, to be the few who had been assigned to guard duty instead of participating in the raid. The fact that the raiders hadn't returned after so long likely meant that they were busy enjoying the boons of their pillage, boons that the guards would only get the smallest scraps of.
It was unfair that they were left behind. Their numbers were overwhelming and anything that posed a challenge would've been easily crushed by their leader. In fact, maybe this 'guard duty' was just a way for their leader to assert his dominance over them; hobgoblins always enjoyed bullying their smaller kin.
As the guards continued to seethe over their predicament, they failed to see the ceramic bulb lobbed at their feet. It was too late by the time they noticed it as the bomb discharged, filling the air with a cloud of dense smoke. Soon after, yelps of pain and the cracks of breaking bones could be heard as the confused guards tried to reorient themselves.
When the smoke began to clear, only one guard remained standing, paralyzed with fear at the sight before him. All of his companions were slaughtered. Some had arrow shafts sticking out where their eyes used to be, others were brutally dismembered and bisected, and a large, imposing figure carrying a blood-soaked blade stood before him. Before the guard could let out his cry of terror, a heavy blunt blow struck the back of his head, shattering his skull and killing him instantly.
"Wazzoks didn't even know what hit them," Bardin remarked as the goblin's limp body fell to the ground. The dwarf spat on the greenskin's corpse before turning to look at the cave's entrance. "All that's left is this kruting hole."
"Wish Sienna was around right about now," Kruber remarked as he ignited his lantern. "Looks real bloody dark down there."
"You're not the only one," Kerillian muttered before following her companions into the cave.
As the group traversed down the tunnel, they began to hear the echoing sounds of footsteps and digging coming from deeper within.
"Sounds like the gobbos are doing some excavating," Bardin remarked. "Must be preparing more space for their loot."
"Too bad for them, they'll be getting us instead," Kruber whispered, ready to advance.
Before the ranger and mercenary could take another step forward, they saw three arrows fly past from behind them. As the arrows disappeared into the darkness of the deeper areas of the cave, the sound of pained cries echoed through the tunnel, followed by the thuds of collapsing bodies.
The pair looked behind to see Kerillian holding up her bow. Using her connection to the Weave, the elf had determined the positions of their enemies and loosed a volley of trueshot arrows to seek and dispatch the greenskins, all in just a few moments.
"Guess that works too," Kruber thought aloud, before continuing down the tunnel.
"Typical Wutelgi, always showing off," Bardin muttered, walking alongside the former sergeant.
"If you have a problem with it, learn to take the initiative next time, lumberfoots," the waystalker said tauntingly as she followed her companions.
Entering the room, the group immediately noticed the foul smell infesting the air; looking around revealed the source of the stench.
"For Taal's sake, what a waste," Kruber said in disgust as his lantern illuminated a pile of rotting, partially eaten animal carcasses, most of them wild game. From the state of them, it was clear that no care or respect was shown for the bounty. "Think of all the families that could've been fed with this."
"I'd offer my sympathies more to the beasts themselves," Kerillian stated, looking at the dark bile that oozed out of some of the animals' mouths, a clear sign of poisoning.
"Well, some of it still looks good enough to eat," Bardin suggested. The dwarf's notion of what could be considered 'edible' differed significantly from most.
"You're not taking any of that with us," the waystalker said forcefully, shooting down the ranger's idea, much to his displeasure.
"Guess it'll at least help fuel the fire," Kruber remarked before moving on, turning his attention to a pile of bones and rubble.
'No, wait,' the mercenary thought as he examined the pile further. What he had initially thought were just bones were actually tools made out of bone, ones that were evidently used for excavating the cave. "The buggers have been digging a lot by the looks of it."
"Aye, it's a good thing we arrived here," Bardin added, looking around the cave. "Who knows how big the grobi could've made this place."
"Probably not as big as the ratmen could," Kruber responded. "Though I guess that isn't saying much now, is it?"
As the mercenary began looking around the cave once more, his gaze landed on Kerillian, who was kneeling down on the floor.
"Did you find something?" Kruber asked, approaching the waystalker before his eyes widened. "Taal's teeth..."
Now in the lantern's light, the body of a woman was visible to the mercenary. She'd been cruelly maimed. The lower half of her body was missing, likely bitten off given the pattern of the bisection. One of her arms was also missing, while the one that remained had been broken in multiple areas. Her eyes were gone, dried blood trailing from the sockets and marking her cheeks. That was when he finally noticed the woman's long, pointed ears.
"Kerillian, I... I'm sorry, elf," the mercenary said sympathetically.
"For what?" the waystalker asked flatly, looking at the former sergeant. "What about this are you 'sorry' for? Could you have stopped this from happening? Or are you pitying me because you think I feel a sense of kinship with this woman?"
"Look, I asked Olesya about it, I know what happens to elves when they die without getting their proper rites," Kruber answered sorrowfully.
"Do you?" Kerillian began. "Do you think you can truly understand? Of the Pale Queen and the Mirai? Or worse, the Dark Prince? You know nothing, Kruber."
The former sergeant remained silent. It was true, he didn't understand the full extent of it all when it was explained to him, and Olesya might not even be too reliable of a source on the matter. But that didn't change what lay before him.
"Would it help to bury her?" Kruber finally asked. "I don't know what you elves do for your dead, but doing something for her would help, wouldn't it?"
"Perhaps," the waystalker conceded, turning her attention back to the corpse of the elf woman.
The sound of a gunshot followed by shrieking interrupted the pair's thoughts as noise echoed throughout the cave. The two quickly turned to face the source of the sound, their eyes landing on a fidgeting dwarf.
"I knew it! I knew you wazzoks were there!" Bardin said as he unloaded the rest of his shots, ending the cries that came from within. "Thought you could sneak about a dawi? Bah!"
"Are you trying to deafen us, dwarf!?" Kerillian yelled, covering her ears to protect them from the echoing sound of gunfire.
"Bardin, what'd you find?" Kruber asked, readying his sword and shield in anticipation of an ambush.
"Don't worry about it, Azumgi, I got the little kruti," the ranger reassured, gesturing into a once-hidden hole in the cave wall.
As Kruber shined his lantern into the hole, its light revealed a small room that was littered with tiny green corpses.
"Snotlings," the mercenary observed aloud.
"Congratulations, dwarf, it took you six shots to kill five pests, and in a tunnel no less," Kerillian said sarcastically as she counted the bodies.
"Well, I suppose I could tighten up a few things," Bardin admitted, looking over his pistol.
"Well, is that it then?" Kruber asked, looking around the cave for anything they might have missed.
"There's nothing else alive in here," Kerillian stated, using her connection to the Weave to confirm that all was clear.
"Should get started then, dawri," the ranger said as he began making his way out of the cave. "Let's go get the oil."
"Wait, Bardin," the mercenary called out, causing the dwarf to turn to face him. "Mind if we borrow your shovel?"
"So, she'll be fine now, right?" Kruber asked as he looked at the elf woman's grave.
After burying the body in a remote area in the woods, Kerillian had planted a seed in the dirt that covered the grave, causing a strange sprout to grow from the spot soon after.
"I can't say," the waystalker answered. "By now, it's probably too late for anything we could've done to help."
The pair remained solemnly silent until the elf let out a sigh.
"But, even then, thank you for trying, Kruber," Kerillian said gratefully.
"We have to look out for each other, nobody deserves to die alone and forgotten like that," Kruber said as he turned to look in the direction of the cave. "We should probably get back there. Bardin's probably come back with the oil by now."
"Of course," Kerillian agreed, looking back at the grave one last time before following the mercenary. "And besides, if we leave him alone for too long, he might try sneaking some of that rotting meat into his sack."
After thoroughly sterilizing the greenskin den with the oil they'd brought from the village, the three returned, welcomed by the grateful villagers. With meals and beds prepared for them, they would finally take respite for the first time in weeks.
In the morning, they planned to head toward the nearest town to find more information about their surroundings and the whereabouts of their two missing companions.
"You're leaving already?" the militia boy asked as he saw the mercenary packing a sack of supplies; the group had been gifted a couple of days' worth of rations for the road.
"Have to, not much time for rest for people like us," Kruber commented as he did some last checkups on his equipment.
"Well, you were amazing, I don't think me or my sister would've survived if you didn't show up," the boy stated gratefully. "If you ever return, you'll always be welcome here."
"I'll take you up on that," the former sergeant stated, as he noticed the sad look on the boy's face, likely due to his imminent departure.
The mercenary had an idea and plucked a feather from his hat's plume.
"You know what this means?" Kruber asked, holding out the feather.
"No," the boy answered curiously. "It's a feather, right?"
"Yep, and in my line of work, they're kind of like a sign of good fortune," the mercenary continued as he handed it to the boy. "For you and your sister."
The boy appeared in awe as he accepted the feather, looking at it as if it were a great treasure. "T-thank you, Mister!"
"Get a move on, Azumgi!" Bardin called out from down the road. "We're burning daylight!"
"We're not going to wait for long, Lumberfoot," Kerillian added.
"Alright, alright, I'm moving," Kruber said as he caught up to his companions.
"Bye, Mr. Hat Man, see you soon!" the boy called out as the group left.
"Hatumgi?" Bardin commented as they left. "Pretty fitting name for you Azumgi, surprised I never came up with it myself."
"Yeah, go on, have a laugh at old Kruber's expense," the mercenary said as they moved further from the village.
"For what it's worth, I think what you did was rather sweet, Kruber," Kerillian stated.
"Really? You mean that?" Kruber asked, surprised that the elf seemed to be genuinely complimenting him.
"Of course, it's always endearing to see a group of children getting giddy over the smallest of things," Kerillian remarked.
"Well, thank you, I almost tho-" Kruber began before realizing the implication, narrowing his eyes at the elf. "Wait, did you just call me a child?"
"I was about to think it went over your head," the elf responded. "Congratulations mayfly. A bit delayed, but better late than never."
"Knew it, I bloody knew it," the mercenary stated as he focused on the road.
"It's going to be a long trek; I think I got just the song for it, drengbarazi!" Bardin announced, starting one of his usual dwarfen ballads as the group continued down the path.