“Nii-san, are you going out again?”

I saw the little girl again, a little older now, probably no older than Diane. Her bright blue eyes stared into mine. Her blonde hair had started to darken a little, into a cute dirty blond.

“Just one more time… after this time, I won’t ever have to leave you behind again. We will be able to stay in a nice little house, and I can get you that doll you always wanted!”

I spoke, but the words were not mine. I wanted out, but this kept happening to me, again and again.

“I hate it when you leave, because every time you go out, you always look so sad and hurt when you come back! I’m scared… I’m scared that one day you might not come back…”

Stop it, stop stop stop!

“I do what I have to do, no matter what, I will always take care of you Nina. Just wait for me here, I will be back, I promise!”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Thistleman sat up, fast as a bolt of lightning. His breathing was heavy. He wasn’t even trying to sleep, yet every night for the past three weeks, he kept having these dreams. They were maddening. Who was this kid? Why won’t they stop? She seemed familiar… perhaps… she looks like the girl from the brooch?

I need to investigate this… it has to be connected. But… if the dream is right, then the parents are dead, and Diane definitely killed the brother, whose memories seem to plague me. Is it because I ate the brooch?

I… need to find this kid. She has to know something.

Thistleman looked over at Diane, making sure she was sleeping soundly. She had charged in to the guild every morning since we arrived, and has taken on a new quest every day. Some of them were downright silly, like help an old lady get her cat out of a tree, and others were annoying, like helping Mr. Franz sheer some wild sheep for free wool. He said he wanted to make a really giant tent out of it and hold a big party where people watched a bunch of monsters doing tricks and ate a bunch fried animal parts. He called it… what was it again? A Carnival? The craziest part was that he wanted it to be portable so he can take the show to multiple cities. For the life of me, I cannot understand why anyone would be in to any of that.

However, the one’s Diane seems to be getting the most gung ho about are the hunting quests. We had one for clearing a cave of pests, and while the bugs inside were fairly large, none of them compared to the Giant Hornets. She must have had some pent up aggression, because she went on a pathological smushing spree and had this tyrannical laugh while doing it.

She wouldn’t stop, she just kept repeating herself. “Ahhhhahahaha, die! Die! See how it feels now? I bet you all regret trying to eat me now! Ooooohohohohohooo!”

The sound, and her rampant…. Enthusiasm seemed to make the quest givers more amenable to giving us a better reward. However, returning to the guild covered in bug guts also earned her a massive amount of stares from the townsfolk.

Ah… it has been quite busy. I was no slouch myself. At night, I would sneak out to the woods and study the different wild creatures. Sometimes I found dead ones, so I cooked and smoked those into a nice jerky. Free snacks meant more money for Diane’s chaos fund. I refused to slip up again. Be it in dealing with hostile fauna or making sure she made it to breakfast, her appointments, shopping, budgeting, travel costs, education saving, saving for a house, cleaning and straightening the room, making sure her dress was in tip top condition, and travel and route planning for the quests. All of which I knew next to nothing about. Someone… please… send help…

Worst of all, no matter what I was doing, I kept getting hit by these dreams whether I was back at the inn or out wandering. Ugh, well as long as Diane doesn’t notice it, I should be fine.

Without even a hint of a sound, his body slowly melded with the shadows, and slipped through the cracks in the ceiling.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

It had been several weeks since Gus last left for his job and never came back. By the end of the first week, Nina ran out of food in the pantry, but she waited patiently in their little apartment. During the second week, she got so hungry she started begging for food.

Most people ignored her, but she didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t even imagine stealing from others, and so she just continued to suffer in silence.

By the end of the second week, the landlady came around. She said that rent hadn’t been paid for this month, and that I would have to leave. I begged her to wait for my brother… just one more day… but she wouldn’t listen. She said that word on the street was his token had been collected on, and that she had no more reason to wait.

By the end of the third week, I had started to get sick. I was cold, and hungry. My only clothes were starting to get torn up. Nobody would even look my way. I was desperate, but I didn’t want to do anything bad. I heard that a slavers guild kidnapped kids to sell on the black market. It would have been better than this… so I tried to sell myself to them. But they told me nobody wanted a weak, sick kid about to die. So they threw me out too.

After that, I resigned myself into a dark little alley. The slums would be my grave. I curled up against one of the walls, my body didn’t even have the energy to shiver anymore. My eyes… felt so heavy. And then… this boy just appeared in front of me. Its like he grew out of the shadows.

“I see… death… you have finally come to take me…”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he popped a squat and tilted his head while looking at me strangely. He seemed to be chewing on something… looks like he has some kind of jerky in his hands?

“You Nina?”

“Mmhmm…”

Speaking was hard, and I was so incredibly tired.

“… want some jerky?”

The boy reached out to me, his hand full on monster jerky. God, I was starving. I slowly reached out and took it, before taking a small bite. Its flavor… I don’t know if it was because I was starving, but it was delicious.

“So… does this mean you will stop haunting me now?”

“Haunting… you? Death, does this mean even you don’t want me?”

“I’m not death? So is that a yes or no?”

“Oh… well, then I will wait here for him…”

Her eyelids were getting to be too heavy to keep up. There was no need to fight it anymore. At least she had a little snack and wouldn’t die hungry.

This… was annoying. His only lead was dying right here in front of him, or clearly losing her mind. He didn’t know which it was. Her body… was incredibly cold. He could see it clearly.

“That… is not an acceptable answer.”

If she stayed out here any longer, she would definitely die. However, Thistleman didn’t want to take her back to the Inn either. Too many questions… too annoying to deal with.

He stretched out his arm towards the wall. It has been a long time since he used this spell… and at his current magic power, he wasn’t sure how well it would work. But, best to practice now, before using it on the Inn.

“Time and space, heed my call. Time, I hold thee constant, while space, I command you, provide me refuge from wind and rain, cold and heat. Open a new realm for me, one with a fire to keep me warm, space so I may sleep and a door to keep out my enemies. Come forth, Dimensional Tear!”

An oozing, viscous black fluid congregated into a ball in front of Thistleman’s outstretched hand, before erupting into the stone wall. A small door materialized into the side of the alley wall.

Thistleman reached down and picked the little girl up, before carrying her through the door. Inside was a very small room, no larger than 8 feet wide by 5 feet long. It had a small fireplace in which a magical fire burned, keeping the room warm and making no smoke. The ceiling was also quite low, just barely high enough for him to stand. Other than that, it was quite bare. Thistleman sighed in disappointment.

“Seems I can only do so much right now, well, it will have to do.”

He set his pouch of jerky in the corner of the room, and laid Nina down near the fire. Then, on his way out the door and almost as an afterthought, he took his water skin and tossed it in to the corner with the Jerky. He made a mental note to replace his jerky and water skin the following night by stealing the prize from some other monsters hunt.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Tonight was what the townsfolk would call a lucky night. The sky was perfectly clear, and a full moon illuminated the forest. The numerous stars dotting the sky made for what some called “a romantic view”. Not that I cared. Because for the past week, I couldn’t find a damn thing. The dreams stopped after I gave Nina a room and some food, but a couple days later, they started up again. Now I know she has something to do with them. So I saved some of my dinner each night secretly, and brought it to her, and the dreams stopped. Ryme’s dinner is quite tasty, much better than moss, and much more varied than monster jerky. So… I hated sharing it.

But… tonight is indeed a lucky night! I can hear a monster fight nearby! I leapt from treetop to treetop, as silently as the wind, which, ironically, was gusting and whooshing through the trees, and seemed to be getting colder than usual. I suppose winter is coming on, no?

Finally, I get close enough… and I can see which creatures are fighting.

*booom*

*graaaahk!*

*RAWR*

A huge, green troll is practically swinging a whole tree at a Saber Toothed Tiger! WIN! Troll hide would make for an excellent water skin! Plus, their meat is naturally tough and is considered repulsive to most species, so it preserves really well, and when smoked it loses its acrid smell.

Except… something is wrong? By my analysis, a Saber Toothed Tiger should be able to wipe the floor with a troll, even one this big, by leveraging its superior speed and intellect to outmaneuver the troll. Why? Why is it just taking all these hits?

Not that I am complaining, Saber Tooth hide is just as good for a water skin and their meat is more flavorful, and if I gave some to Nina I could stop these dreams again for a little while. But… this makes no sense. Wait… is that a Saber Tooth cub? Looks like it is hurt. Is the Saber Tooth going to get itself killed protecting it? Why? Is that cub special? Is there a contract? This makes no sense if there isn’t, an injured child is worthless and would only slow it down. It can just have more kids later. So why this one?

*crunch*

The troll finally managed to land a killing blow. After breaking one of the Saber Toothed Tiger’s legs, it took a mighty swing and crushed its skull, splattering chunks of meat and brain on to the rocky ground.

He was quite excited, because it would be a big meal. But, he was even more excited because Saber Toothed cub meat was soft and tender. The troll looked over to his prize, and stared in a stupor for a moment.

Then, he was salivating. Delicious, soft man meat appeared next to the cub! Why was he picking it up and looking all over it? Ah well, A good swing will tenderize them! You can never go wrong with a good swing, you know?

*GRAAAAHK!*

The troll bellowed as he wound up and delivered his blow. However, he didn’t expect to receive a sudden shock from his club.

*Grahk?*

The human… had stopped his club… with his hand. His eyes… aren’t human eyes? They look like the eyes from the monster that took over the barren mountain. Those yellow slits… filled him with fear. With just a small grip from the human(?), his branch shattered. He could feel it, something terrible was looking in to him. He was scared. Scared scared scared scared scared!

With a crash, the troll fled through the underbrush back into the darkness of the forest.

Thistleman determined there was nothing special about the cub. It did have an injured leg though. It was mewing so pathetically. Well, best to leave it then. Thistleman walked up to the cub’s mother, touched it with his hand, and the space around the body began to distort, before disappearing.

Far away, a yelp of shock could be heard from Nina’s new room.

As Thistleman turned to walk away, the cub made a fateful decision. It tried to follow him into the forest, mewing incessantly. Its instinct told him its life depended on this decision.

Thistleman stopped, and looked at the little cub limping towards him. He waited until the cub reached him, then it limped up to him and started… rubbing its face against him. What a weird creature. Thistleman picked the cub up and looked in to its eyes again. Seems the cub was wounded by an arrow to its knee. The power to make others kill themselves for you… strange and unexpected from a Saber Tooth.

Thistleman decided after much thought that the benefits of investigating this strange power outweighed the risks. How he would explain this to Diane… after extremely careful thought, he came up with a plan. A devious plan, indeed.

That morning, Diane woke up to a crash from the window, and started screaming before something fluffy landed on top of her face. Thistleman stealthily warped back in to the room, took a deep breath, and readied himself. He must have his acting skills on point.

“Why, what’s this?! An injured Saber Toothed cub has come flying in through the window! Ahhh!”

Ah, a beautiful delivery! Who needs practice to be an actor when it can just be this easy?