I managed to slip us out of town and off towards the east without being spotted, after a few hours I was able to locate a collapsed barn that had just enough room for the two of us to spend the night.

It was unlikely anyone would find us here even if they knew to start looking. I set the still sleeping woman down on the dirty hay and slumped over myself, exhausted. Before I nodded off I decided to tie up Fiona's hands and feet holding the end of the rope tight just in case. Then I fell asleep.

I was awoken sometime in the night as I felt a tug on the rope.

I heard a weak voice call out, "Paul?"

"Yeah," I replied simply.

I heard her start crying, "T-Thank you for rescuing me. I'm so sorry for what I did. I thought you were working with the people following us."

"I bet you are sorry, that doesn't change the fact that you tried to kill me does it," I hissed angrily, trying to keep my voice down, "If it wasn't for your damn Commander's mission I would have left your ass to the Black Dragons."

She shook her head, not wanting to say the words out loud or meet my gaze.

"So what am I supposed to do with you then? Obviously, I can't trust you to have my back, you are as likely to put a knife in it as help me. Unless you want me to wear this all the time," I said pulling out one of the black armbands so she got a good look.

Using the armband would be a last resort, I didn't want to go down that path if I could avoid it. Fiona cried out and huddled up tighter into the corner, fearful of the strip of fabric I held. I felt bad for doing this but she needed to know where she stood and that I wasn't playing around.

I slowly crawled over to the prone silhouette of the woman and helped prop her up. She was shaking uncontrollably as I touched her. I had not consciously noticed before but she was a waif of a woman and must have only weighed ninety pounds soaking wet. She just looked so imposing in her armor.

I held a bottle to her lips so she could sip it and she accepted it without protest. She was probably afraid I would activate the armband. She still sported injuries from her time with the Black Dragon, I had chosen not to heal her completely, deciding the system could fix her in time.

"Sleep, we can talk in the morning," I said moving back across the space, my voice still hard. I wasn't worried about her getting loose to attack me or escape. I doubt she would make it far not knowing the terrain and sporting the slave collar still. But just to be safe I slipped the armband on after she went back to sleep.

When early morning arrived I kicked her boot to wake her. Her injuries had mostly healed overnight. I untied her hands, retying them in front of her so she could eat and drink. I still had some compassion left in me that the system hadn't beaten out of me yet.

"Why?" I asked simply.

That one word caused her to break down in tears again and she refused to look me in the face. I let her get her emotions out of the way and eventually, she answered.

"The Commander said you were hiding something and not to trust you completely so when I noticed someone following us as soon as we left the town. I thought you had betrayed us. When you stopped to inspect that vehicle my rage grew as I assumed you were slowing us down on purpose so they could catch us but we moved on before they caught up so I was left unsure of your true motives."

"When we got to the cliff and you wanted to stop again so early it only confirmed my earlier worries had been correct. I had spotted signs of them closing in and I had to flee the area as quickly as possible but knew I couldn't leave an enemy that knew my destination," she paused there to take a breath, "I made it less than a mile before they captured me. Then to my surprise, they wanted to know where you were, and I could tell by the female mages tone that you were not one of her men. At that point, I realized my horrible mistake."

"They tortured me there to try and find your whereabouts but I told them I had slain you and kicked your body off the cliff. The female mage thought that to be a hilariously fitting end for you. But I knew you had survived the fall and that was my only consolation as they dragged me along with them to be tortured some more, then when we arrived at the encampment they slapped a slave collar around my neck that caused me to obey anyone with the Black Dragon armband."

"I fought off the influence of the collar as long as I was able to and had you not arrived when you did I would have cracked soon and given them the rest of the information they sought."

"What information was that?" I asked, taking in her story. More pieces of the puzzle were starting to fall into place in my mind.

"They wanted to know how you had gained levels so quickly but I didn't know and that made them angry, they also wanted to know about the barracks and personnel but I resisted telling them anything about that."

I guess the Black Dragon doesn't know every secret to leveling within the system, if they wanted that information from Fiona.

Sighing, I said, "Look I don't really trust you, you lost that when you tried to kill me. I do believe you though. So, what do I do from here? I was given a mission and I intend on completing it despite the Commander's feelings towards me. The Black Dragons appear to be a blight that needs to be eradicated but that isn't something you or I am equipped to deal with. That leaves me with only two options. Either I leave you tied up, slowing us down and possibly getting us captured or I release you and wear the armband."

"No, please don't do that... I...," she hesitated to say, "I can offer you a life bond."

I was going to ask her what a life bond was but the system beat me to it.

Fiona Clark has offered you a Life Bond: Those bound by a life bond cannot harm or injure the person they are bonded to in any way shape or form. Life bonds are as they are named, for life. Those who break a life bond will suffer increasing amounts of pain until eventually it becomes too much and they are forced to take their own life. Do you wish to accept this bond Y/N

I didn't really want some strange woman bonded to me for life, it felt way too much like a marriage, and I already went down that road once before. The problem was I didn't see any other option in the time we had. We couldn't afford to sit here all day with the Black Dragon encampment soo close. So I chose yes.

Fiona Clark has been Life Bonded to you.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, you won't regret this," she said sounding a bit manic. I was kind of already regretting it.

"We need to leave before that Mage catches up with us."

"She is leaving for a place called Chic-a-go," Fiona said fumbling over the unknown word, "Apparently her faction? I guess I could call it that is at war with three other groups for that area and they recalled anyone over level ten to assist. I overheard this when they thought I had passed out from the beatings. I guess that's why they are rounding up fodder to feed to others in their group to power level them."

She obviously wasn't aware of the slave contract and how they were using it to level so quickly, should I tell her? No, despite this so-called bond I didn't fully trust her just yet. One of the big unknowns was the fact she had a slave collar that would likely override the bond. Plus I wasn't exactly sure how they utilized it to level myself. Best to learn more about it first.

It also wasn't great that there seemed to be more than one group that got early access if it was true that three groups were fighting it out in Chicago, 'bunch of cheaters,' I thought angrily. I looked over at Fiona she was mostly healed, only a few bruises left from her treatment.

I pulled out one of the messaging spells Frathsar had given me, imbuing it with my notes and a warning for Frathsar and the Commander if he chose to pass it along.

Beware Black Dragon outpost at the bridge, no other way around. Female Chaos Mage is here and all Black Dragon over level 10 headed far south. Encampment consists of approximately 100 low-level people and over a thousand captured civilians. Fiona and I will continue to the Bazaar as we have located its likely position. Also, possible friendly natives heading towards your town seeking refuge.

As soon as I finished the piece of metal glowed bright white and turned to dust in my hand. I just hoped that my hunch was correct and that the Black Dragon somehow knew the location of the Bazaar ahead of time, the only other explanation was that they somehow had access to magical items way in advance and I didn't even want to think about what that possibility could bring.

"Where did you get a message spell?" Fiona asked in surprise.

"From Frathsar," I replied, not seeing what the big deal was.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes, please, I'll answer whatever I can."

"Ok, first of all, relax. All I wanted to know is why your world hunted down healers, not of the faith."

"Well, I only know what I have been told by the clergy and paladins. Apparently, it was to protect the sanctity of healing magic, but I suspect that was more a lie they told the public so they could maintain a monopoly on the healing arts as it brought in quite a bit of credit," she said with a note of anger.

"Especially now that we were transported over to your world, the clergy can still heal but their gods are silent to their prayers, some have renounced their faith saying that if they could still heal that their god had never provided for this ability in the first place. This almost led to chaos amongst the ranks but the Commander enforced his Authority and anyone affected by the ability cannot speak of this if they are within ten miles of him.

A few of the faithful even ended their lives as they were now lost without a guiding hand," she finished sadly.

"So, you weren't of this belief?"

"No...I am sure that there is an afterlife and I will see it one day but I did not follow a specific deity. Most in my world did not. Despite that, the clerics and paladins had a lot of sway in the community and still hunted down people they considered heretics, mostly those using what the clergy deemed unauthorized healing magic."

I mulled over what she said when I remembered I had something of hers. No point in taking up space in my ring if she could wear it.

"Here, I think this is yours," I said, pulling her armor from my ring.

She smiled a bit, "Thank you for saving my armor, Mister Paul."

"God no, please don't start that, just call me Paul, I didn't see your sword in the room with you?"

"No that shrew of a woman took it as a trophy."

I choose to withhold giving her a weapon. Trust needed to be earned no matter what the system said. I was also still wearing the armband under my sweatshirt. I would have to make sure to take it off some time.

We ate another quiet meal and afterward crawled out from our hiding spot to continue on our journey.

I slapped myself in the forehead, "I almost forgot I leveled up yesterday, I need to pick my new skills."

Fiona just gave me an odd look, that said how could you forget you leveled up. It was amazing how women seemed to be able to convey entire thoughts with just a look. I opened up my skills page to see what was available. Making sure to keep Fiona in view.

Healing Aura: Your body emits a healing aura that affects all your party members within 20m, Heal 150 hp over 30sec, excludes caster in effect, Cost 75 mana, cooldown 1min

Imbue: Imbue your weapon with elemental damage for 60min. Must choose damage type when activating the skill - cannot be changed while active, Cost 50 mana, cooldown 60min

Second Chance: Resurrection doesn't exist but this spell comes close. Restores the hit points of spell target to intelligence modifier of caster if target suffers a fatal blow while the spell is active, does not remove any spells or status effects that were active on target before death, duration 6hours, Cost 200 mana, cooldown 3hours

Impact: You have a 30% chance of inflicting 3x your weapon damage with each attack duration 30min, Cost 20 mana, cooldown 5min

I immediately grabbed Second Chance; I would be a blind fool not to. Healing Aura and Imbue were still good choices but I decided against them again in favor of Impact, I also changed my settings to only show current level spells to hopefully keep the clutter down later. I cast the buff on myself seeing the little icon appear in my vision letting me know it was active.

"What did you just cast?" Fiona asked curiously.

"Isn't it rude to ask someone about their skills?"

She lowered her head, "Your right, I apologize, my curiosity got the better of me."

I gave the woman a closer look, and I realized she couldn't be more than twenty. It helped to explain her rash decision making.

I accepted her apology and pointed, "We are heading this way."

She would find out what the spell was eventually, I wasn't about to let her die if we got into a fight and I had it available to cast, I'm not a monster.

She nodded at my words and started walking. She was smart enough to remain in front.

I could have told her about the spell but Frathsar had warned me to not reveal them if I could help it. It was probably best she didn't know right now anyway. We still needed to come to a mutual understanding.

As we walked I checked my level 9 stats.

HP: 448(492)

Mana: 448

Mana Regen(M): 140

All of my modifiers went up one which was awesome that meant my Flurry skill now did ten attacks. It was getting to the point that I could hardly see the strikes as my staff became a blur of movement, and I was wondering if there was an upper limit to the skills progression. I mean there must be otherwise it would just continue to grow as I leveled becoming an extremely overpowered ability.

That wasn't the only thing I was happy about. I was now closing in on 500 hit points with my buff active. Although, it looked like I may need to increase my intelligence though, as some of my more powerful abilities would drain my mana quickly, it would be nice not having to be a mana miser on my skills. 'Considering the abilities I had at my disposal it seemed pretty balanced but I didn't want to be balanced,' I thought with a smile.

If other people were going to game the System, I would do it too. In fact, I already had, multiple times. I doubt Area of Denial was meant to be used to survive a house explosion or be used to fling shrapnel away at high speed. Despite that, the system recognized me as the source of those deaths granting me the experience and additional rewards and I had other ideas of ways to help myself along. I just needed some time to work on the details.