Scarlet was focused on nothing but keeping her footing in the dark forest, trying to get as much distance between herself and the clearing she had stabbed Telram on as she could. She was certain that the wounds she had caused him would be fatal, the only remaining questions were how long he would remain alive and how long he would take to understand his situation. Right now, he was busy giving off pained noises but far too soon, he would likely try to avenge himself.

The first strike came after she had taken just a dozen or so steps, a savage psionic attack sweeping over her, battering at her mental shields. She easily managed to keep her footing, mostly due to the undirected nature of the attack, she had a feeling that he hadn’t managed to find her, despite the relative close distance. Maybe he was just in too much pain to think clearly. So, without knowing where to strike, his attack felt like it had been directed in a huge arc, hoping to get her to stop hiding. Not that she had any interest to do so, no, she just wanted to get away.

Two more attacks swept through the forest, making her wonder what he was trying, if she had struck with such ferocity, she would be nursing a headache, maybe even bleed from her nose, so it seemed to be a lot of power wasted purely to lash out. Surely, he must have realised that he wouldn’t get her, after his first attack had failed.

Suddenly, she felt a strange sensation behind her, just before the dark forest was illuminated by an explosion of flames, strong enough to cause her to stumble and take cover behind a tree. She cursed silently, having a relatively good idea what was happening, Telram had a reserve crystal monster, likely just at the edge of what he could control, trained up and kept there, as an ace in the hole. The only thing she was not sure about was whether he had unleashed it to hunt her or if he had lost control over it, either due to the pain or simply by dying. Not that she wanted to find out and without her own crystals, she had no desire to go against a monster.

She calmed her breathing and made sure that she was still as psionically well hidden as she could manage before slowly continuing her way through the dark forest. There were a few more explosions behind her but strangely, the forest didn’t catch fire and she was unable to detect a following monster, crystal or otherwise. Hopefully, she had been able to get away cleanly.

For the rest of the night, she criss-crossed through the forest, using the brook to wash away any possible scent-trails, before, just about the time the sun was slowly rising across the horizon, she got back to the camp, guided by the link the her crystals. Thoroughly exhausted, she gave a cursory look over to Keera, seeing no obvious change in her and sank down near the cold remains of their fire, her mind still reeling from the events of the night.

She had, for all intents and purposes, murdered a man. Sure, she could pretty it up for herself as much as she wanted, tell herself that it was no different from the previous times she had used her psionic talent in self-defense, but it felt different. The two times she had been forced to defend herself, she had just reacted, someone attacked her, she had tried to fight back, she had been overpowered and then, without conscious thought, she had struck with her psionic powers, the first time, when she was just a teenager, without even knowing what she was doing, the other time, just before she had been banished to Verdun, she had more control, but so had her assailant.

Now, she had sneaked through the forest, silently making her way to a follower and stabbed him. Sure, she was certain that Telram had meant to harm Keera and her, yet, there was a small part of her that felt uneasy.

Not far from the silently brooding Scarlet, Keera slowly came back to consciousness.Her head felt like it was about to split right down the middle, freeing the band that seemed to be playing inside. But why did they have to go so heavy on the drums?

After a minute or two of silent suffering, her mind was aware enough to remember the events before she had passed out, trying to control the turtle-monster and then, a sudden, splitting pain in her head, a pain that still seemed to linger. Still, she needed to get up, or Scarlet might leave her behind, if it hadn’t already happened. It took effort to open her eyes, they were sticking together because of dried crud on them, still, she persevered and managed to force them open, only to slam them right back shut, thanks to light flooding into them.

Slowly, just squinting, she opened them a second time and that was when she became aware of the monster that was nearby and started to scream, while scrambling away.

Scarlet was completely lost in thought, slowly turning the knife she had used during the night in her hand, remembering what it had felt like to slide it into Telram’s belly, hoping to cause him a mortal wound, but one that wouldn’t kill him too fast, so that she had time to escape, before he lost control over his monsters. She had been relatively sure that the pain of getting stabbed in the gut would prevent him from following her, so his monsters had been the main danger, in her eyes.

The sudden scream, coming from right next to her, caused her to go into complete fight or flight-mode, her psionic powers bursting out in a search-pulse, while her mind reeled with the sudden influx of information. Her eyes flickered around while she leapt up, forcibly breaking the lock on Cyca’s crystal, letting the cat burst out in an attempt to get as much power ready to react to whatever danger there was.

When neither her eyes nor her mind were able to find the danger that had caused the scream, she focused on the source of it, Keera. The other had scrambled away a little, only to trip on the uneven ground.

“What is going on?!” Scarlet barked, her voice slightly hoarse from exhaustion and annoyance. Her heart beat a hundred miles an hour and adrenaline flooded her system, making her twitchy. Cyca must have felt her agitation and joined her, sparks jumping between her tails as the two of them advanced on Keera.

“What… Who…?!” Keera mumbled, incoherent babbling coming from her lips.

“Words, NOW!” she ordered, slowly continuing her advance on Keera.

Finally, Keera seemed to gathered enough sense to realise just what she was looking at. The mud-covered form with the bloody knife had to be Scarlet, the voice and general form fit, even if nothing of her features was visible.

“Scarlet?” she asked, still not sure if she should try running away.

“Who else do you think would drag your worthless carcass to a camp?” Scarlet growled back, her worry now warping into anger at high pace.

“What happened to you? Why are you covered in mud?” Keera asked, causing Scarlet to realise that the mud she had used to mask herself during the night must have dried. She had been so lost in thought, she hadn’t really realised it.

“Your dear boyfriend, he managed to follow us.” Scarlet grumbled, turning away from Keera and walking towards the lake, calling Cyca to follow her.

“WHAT?!” Keera exclaimed, panic engulfing her. Just the memory of the time she had been dominated by Telram was enough to make her despair.

“You don’t need to worry about it, he won’t harm you. Ever again, I made sure of that.” Scarlet answered, raising her hand with the still bloody knife.

Keera followed, wordlessly, her still aching head not quite able to make sense of the words she was hearing.

“What do you mean?” she asked, despite being quite sure she knew the answer.

“I guess he felt you a few days ago, when you carelessly sent out a search-pulse. That said, we will have to cover our tracks, when you just startled me, I used one myself, who knows if there is anyone nearby. It won’t be Telram, of that I am quite sure, he is done for.” Scarlet explained, stopping at the waterline, kneeling down to clean her knife first before stopping for a second and changing her mind and stripping off her clothes, keeping her knife in hand and simply walking into the lake, cleaning herself and her knife at the same time.

Luckily, she was unable to see Keera’s expression, given that she was focused on the lake in front of her, it would just not do if she got ambushed by some water-dwelling crystal monster.