The two other towers were a repeat of the first. They met two patrols of warriors on the way and used them to give Lance and Andre some archery training. They split the bundles of arrows among them so nobody was overburdened.

For defeating 18 orcs, you earned 2,571 Class Experience Points. For using your Class proficiencies, you earned 3,200 Class Experience Points.

"All clear," Collin reported. "Are you done sabotaging the tower, guild master?" Collin asked.

Cless put the hatchet back around the hoop of her belt and gave him a thumbs up. She wondered if she did something to offend Collin. What made him so vicious back then?

"All good. We are going to approach the town now. Collin, go with Shane and scout ahead for any dangers."

The two went ahead to scout and Cless readied her composite longbow. Lance and Andre did the same.

"What are we doing now?" Arnold asked.

"We are going to invade that village. We need to investigate it. After we are done with the town, we are fleeing to the canyon and then around and back home. Lance and Andre, stay by my sides a bit to the back. You cover one side only. The rest come right behind us. Walk with your heads low. Move."

They moved closer to town and noticed that there were no patrols of either warriors or berserkers around. They could see some green bodies moving around the small houses but they didn't seem to have armor. After moving for a few minutes, they spotted Collin and Shane in a depression.

"What is going on?" Cless asked.

"The houses are too small for people," Shane explained. "But the orcs are using them. It was obviously not built by orcs but we don't know. There are these shrunk heads on stakes all around the village."

"There are very few warriors in the village," Collin completed. "I think most of them left to hunt us. The orcs that are walking around here have no armor or weapons. They have some fancy clothes and lots of jewelry."

"Some sort of nobility or magic caste. did you see any of them using magic?" Cless asked.

"No." They both shook their heads. "But I saw some with purple skin," Shane added.

They moved in and Cless noticed the shriveled and shrunk heads. Something wasn't right. These heads looked like people but the noses were too long.

"We are going to infiltrate the village. Kill any orcs you see and make as little noise as possible. No warcries, please. Lance and Andre, you are to stay out of the engagements and aim for the purple orcs."

They went between the rows of small ground-level houses. The doors were little more than a meter and a half tall and the tall orcs had to crouch to get in or out. They killed the orcs they came across, and they didn't give a good amount of experience. When they passed by a house, they'd peek inside and kill any orc that was lying within. Bodies were dragged to side alleys, the They had to move fast. There were bloodstains on the dirt and they seemed old. Some new bloodstains wouldn't draw much attention but bodies would. They looted the jewelry they found on those they assumed were orc nobles. Who knows?

For defeating 35 orcs, you earned 2,692 Class Experience Points. For using your Class proficiencies, you earned 1,550 Class Experience Points.

They had cleared a third of the village houses when an alarm sounded. Orcs came from another street they already passed through and screamed in their language. Soon the whole village was swarming with orcs and Cless was forced to move the Blind Eye guild inside a larger building. It looked like some sort of pantry mixed with a mess hall. The room was taller and rotting carcasses hung from the beams. Crates of unknown stuff formed a maze and blocked the view.

Cless heard voices, too strange to be human.

"I believe the orcs are going to fight among themselves again, my dear friend," A squawking voice spoke from deeper inside the hall.

"Oh, really, bird-brain. All orcsss can do isss to eat, rape and fight." Another voice sibilantly retorted.

They moved closer in. Silverfang stopped to mourn some carcasses. Cless figured out they were wolves. She was appalled that he took a bite out of each one. Some wolf ritual, she assumed. They made noise as they moved.

"Someone is coming." The first voice said.

"No! Really? I could barely hear their sssteps."

Cless halted but after a while moved on. The boys stopped to check the crates and the carcasses for some human-grade edible food. She hoped they don't find human-type food.

"Someone is definitely coming."

"Maybe they will finally eat you and give me sssome peace."

"Nay. They told us, we are going to be sacrificed for their king."

She giggled at their friendly banter.

"See? Someone is coming and it is a female voice."

"No shit! Maybe it is a neutered orc that has a sharp voice. Maybe I should neuter you and see if you get that sharp a voice."

"Shut up, scale-butt."

"No. You shut up, feather-brain."

Cless had to see what was going on. She moved across some crates and found two cages. It was at the same time what she expected and what she didn't expect. Okay, what she hoped to find. She hoped to find people as they could clearly talk and reason. But what she found was what she already knew she would. A bird-man and a snake-man.

The snake man had the torso of a man with well-defined muscles and a triangular chin. Two fangs stuck from his upper jaw and his eyes were serpentine. He had a wavy blond hair that reached the small of his back. He had no hips and a long serpentine tail sprouted from his waist and while it was hard to measure it coiled, it should have three meters of length at least.

The birdman had tanned skin and colorful feathers of green, red and blue. His was wearing a loincloth and his legs below the knees became scaly and cracked, bird-like. His hair was not hair, it was some fluffy down with a crest made of long feathers jutting out from the crown of his head. The down went over his sides and cheeks, like sideburns of a man's beard. His eyes were beady and slightly jutted out and to the sides, making them more funny than creepy.

For some reason, she found them funny. She crossed her arms and giggled again.

"SEE? I told you it was a female!"

"Yesss. It isss a female, I can sssee that. Those chest bulgesss are no illusion. But not only it isss a female, but it also isss a HUMAN female!"

"Shit. The humans already reached this town? The orcs are way beyond fucked, dude. But at least they are not murdering us, which is a good thing, right? I'd hate to meet those One God fanatics again."

What did he just say? Cless harrumphed and showed her holy symbol.

"If I may correct you once more, dear friend, It sssems the female is both irked by your quip and one of those One God fanaticsss. You can sssee she is clearly frowning and showing usss her sssymbol of affiliation."

"Oh, crap. We are so fucked, dude. It was nice knowing you."

"Please, dear miss. Don't slaughter us. We give very little 'Exp' as you so call our live essence."

"Yeah, and don't eat us either! We are not tasty!"

Cless didn't even know what to say. She just chortled and used one crate as support.

"Can you two stop talking just for a while?" She asked. "Who are you?"

"Who, not what. Interesting." Mumbled the snake-man. "Well, I am a lamiak, miss. One of the snake-folk of the jungle. I understand I am very far from home so don't hold it against me but I had to see the snow."

There was a moment of silence and Cless stared at the feathered critter. "And you?"

"Me? Oh, well. Sorry, you got me startled and I forgot." He snorted and hid his face with his wing. There were some grasping, clawed appendages at the tip of the limb where the longest feathers sprouted but she couldn't see it well.

"For crying out loud. He is a macaw harpy. Yeah, I know, he is a freak. Male harpies. If I hadn't had the disgust of seeing him relief himself, I wouldn't believe it but if he was a female harpy then the orcs would have shoved him in the breeding pens. Dreadful place, I must say. So you can call him a marpy or maybe a macapy?"

"I was actually asking about your names," She pointed out.

"Cless, is everything fine back there? With whom are you talking to?" Lyle asked.

"I found two monsters back here," She answered. "I think they are friendly!"

Lyle and Silverfang came to see what was going on. They immediately assumed a ready position when they saw the two monsters.

"Stop you two. They are not attacking." She put an arm in front of them.

"Cless, that snake monster could spit poison," Lyle pointed out.

"Kind sir, if I may say, I am a constrictor not a venomous type of lamiak. And the kind that does they spit venom, not poison."

"See? Totally safe." She pointed out.

"What are we doing with them? Let's kill them and get over it." Lyle suggested.

"Hold it there, bro! Don't just murder us because we are different. The lady there is different but you are cool. And what is that, a wolf-man?"

"I believe the term isss lycan, my feathered friend. And yes, don't murder us. We can be useful."

Lyle raised an eyebrow. "How?"

"I can point out that you have no qualms about working with monsters, as our lycan friend there can prove. I am a mage and my feathered buddy here is an excellent scout — "

"I got eagle eyes. I can see both sides at the same time!" The macahrpy interrupted the lamiak to complete.

"Yes. His eyesight is indeed very good. We can work with you in exchange for our lives maybe?"

"If you are a mage why didn't you get out of your cage?" Cless asked.

"And do what? The orcsss have warlocks everywhere, I can't just slither out. They would get me! If push comesss to shove and I have to fight for my life I will."

Silverfang crouched and growled.

"But of course not against such a fine lady as yourself, miss totally-not-fanatic priestess of the One God."

"Call me Cless." She bent the knee slightly.

"Oh, a polite one. I'd take the polite onesss over the feisssty any day of the year. Back to the point, we can work with you. Under the same termsss of employment of the lycan, how does that sound?"

Cless perked up. These two didn't know what was coming for them, but she wouldn't look the gift horse in the teeth. Or gift-snake. Or gift-bird. Lamiak and macahrpy. Macawharpy. Mawarpy.

"Mawarpy." She mumbled.

"Yes! That's the one! I knew I'd remember it eventually. I'm a mawarpy." The mawarpy shouted.

"Keep your voice down!" Lyle warned.

"Good. So you two want to enter my employment under the same terms as Silverfang here in exchange for sparing your lives and getting you out of the cages, right?"

"And protecting usss from the orcs." The lamiak added.

"I will expect you to fight," Cless retorted. "Can you fight?"

"Yesss. We promise to fight your foes, not only orcsss, to the best of our abilities in addition to all that."

"Yeah. I'm going to scratch them!"

"Maybe you can keep on the lookout? Or fly really high and see if you can spot enemies for us?" Cless suggested.

"Yeah. That too. I can use javelins and spears too!"

"Then it is settled." She activated her Skill and the contract notification popped for them.

The Mawarpy and Lamiak promise to serve Cless for the rest of their lives in exchange for shelter, food, succor from orcs."

They accepted after exchanging a glance.

You contracted a Mawarpy and a Lamiak as lifelong servants. You gained 6,000 class Experience Points.

"Excellent. Do you have names?"

"No, missstressss. Namesss are rare in what you humansss call monster society."

"Call me Cless. I don't want any 'mistress' or 'milady' stuff. Just my name is fine. So I can give you names..." It wasn't a question. "I'll call you Vic and Kurt"

"I ssshall be henceforth called Vic," The lamiak bowed.

"I'm a Kurt now!" The Mawarpy pointed at himself.

"Vic, tell me how were you going to break out of this wooden cage?"

"Oh. That isss way easy. Let me ssshow you."

Vic slithered the tip of his tail around the bars of the cage, going back inside after four bars. He wrapped his muscular tail around it and squeezed. The wood broke an he got out.

"Good. Now release Kurt," Cless commanded. After the mawarpy was released, she asked. "You said something about breeding pens, what is that?"

"I'm afraid you won't like it, Clessss." Vic hung his head and shook it.

Name: Cless (no surname)

Race: Human.

Level: 28 ( 402,263 / 406,000 Exp )

Class: Cleric 25 (300,000 Exp / ** )

Profession — Warmaster 12 (69,349 / 78,000 Exp) — Weaponmaster 12 (69,349 / 78,000 Exp)

Base Stats — Strength: 17 — Agility: 17 [23] — Health: 27 — Intellect: 38 — Magic: 78

Available Status Points: 3

Skills: [ Absolute Contract (S) ], [ Giant's Stamina (E) ], [ Trick Shot (D) ], [ Dangersense ⦅C⦆ ], [ Nimble Step (D) ], [ Eat Anything ⦅C⦆ ],

[ Elven Longevity ⦅C⦆ ], [ Tinker (D) ]

Proficiencies:

Appraisal — Status: 22

Crafting — Crude Weapons: 5 — Arrows: 1

Magic, Cleric

— Mending: 28 (+3) — Detoxify: 16 — Light: 24 — Turn Undead: 4 — Blessing: 16 — Holy Bolt: 24 — Purify: 10 — Protection: 21 (+2)

— Hallow: 25 — Flametongue: 1 — Cure: 1 — Uncurse: 1 — Banish: 1 — Heal: 1 — Warding: 1 — Revivify: 10

General — Prayer: 27 — Scribe: 2 — Houseworking: 6 — Math: 3 — Reading: 12 — Forestry: 9 — Skinning: 7 — Herbalism: 3 — Sabotage: 2 (+2)

Social, general — Negotiation: 15 — Persuasion: 3 — Bluff: 6

Social, martial — Leadership: 28 (+1) — Intimidation: 21 — Tactics: 26 (+3)

Movement — Tumbling: 3 — Stealth: 3 — Sneak: 3

Weapon — Long Blades: 27 (+4) — Short Blades: 2 — Unarmed: 11 — Archery: 26 — Spears: 3 — Maces: 22 — Staves: 4 — Axes: 9