Chapter 8 Hideout

She found some dried fruits she hadn’t found at first. ‘They know the shop that burned so everyone who knows me will be especially alert for someone of my appearance. Or they’re looking for me. Jon won’t be, he’ll hear of it being my house in a couple days earliest. Mike and possibly Irina are the most dangerous at the moment...’ She started eating some of the fruits while looking at an old painting that hung on a cellar wall ‘The general population won’t know about a girl, they will know about a demon and nothing else...’ she concluded that her best bet would be to be discovered by whomever owned this house and play the hurt helpless girl. Only if they’re not awakened though, then she could knock them out if they weren’t cooperative. ‘I’ll pretend to be some small time thief who left their gang and is hiding from both them and the guard...’

‘I need to hide at least a couple days. I’ll try to simply sneak up and steal the things I need from whoever lives here...if they find me I’ll go for the story and hope they’re not some retired dragonslayer...’ For a couple hours she just stood next to the door leading to the ground floor and listened. ‘Nothing...’ no sound for quite some time until later in the evening. ‘One person...’ a sighing could be heard ‘man...no idea about the age...’ he walked to a different room ‘steps uneven, untrained...at least in close combat.’ No trained guard would ever walk in such an uneven manner...only perhaps to confuse an enemy but it was unlikely that someone was that cautious.

She listened and nearly fell asleep with boredom next to the door as she heard the man preparing a meal. ‘Fuck it smells good...’ she thought. The man was singing while preparing the meal. ‘He’s likely living here alone...now what a chance to find a frightened young girl in your basement looking for shelter?’ the plan was set. Parts of her caution thrown to the wind because of this beautiful smell.

She made some noise and prepared herself. ‘At least I’m dirty enough to make it believable...’ The man opened the cellar door after hearing the noise. “Anyone down here!?” he shouted, clearly tense. ‘Perfect, he’s not a warrior at least...’ she moved around some more, ready to shout or attack him if he made the intelligent decision to leave and get a guard. He didn’t, luckily for her. He found her in a corner covered by presumably his old clothes and immediately lowered his guard as he looked at her. ‘Man Shifters must have it easy...’ she thought as she looked at him, trying to seem afraid and non threatening.

“Oh...hello there...” he fumbled with his words. “I though….man this is stupid...hahaha” he gathered himself “You know with the demon and all….what are you doing in my cellar by the way?” He was a tall man, around thirty she assumed. Brown hair and rather slim. She explained her made up story and he ate it all up. She found herself at his table after mere minutes of explaining. “Thisch foood isch amazing!” she said as she smiled at him. He returned it and tried to have a conversation.

Apparently he worked in a nearby inn as a cook and they were closed today because of the demon attack. Few customers would be willing to leave their homes today. “That’s interesting.” she said after he was done explaining. It really was to her but she had a bit more important things on her mind right now. ‘The food really IS amazing though….’ she thought.

Talin was his name apparently and he agreed to let her stay for a couple days to hide from her fellow thieves. ‘He’s lonely’ she noted and tried to talk to him as much as she could. He talked about cooking a lot and the inn he works at. He did have some very entertaining stories that he experienced over the years. And there was a woman working in a bakery opposite of their inn that he apparently really liked but she assumed he was too afraid to ask her out.

“So what would you tell her?” she asked, three days after she first entered the cellar of her now friend Talin. ‘He’s a bit too trustworthy but I guess he was lucky with me.’ he looked at her “What? Who?” she took another bite of the food and swallowed after chewing “Hina...if you could write her a letter...what would you write?” he didn’t like to talk about it at first but after they drank a couple mugs of ale together he opened up and told her about Hina.

After five days Eleonora was ready to leave. The city was back to normal and she didn’t notice any additional guards or commotion from any windows in Talin’s house. ‘I’d love to stay a little longer for the great food though….but I guess now is the ideal time to leave.’ She left the thank you note for Talin on the table which also informed him about what she was about to do with the other letter she prepared.

Hina was quite perplexed after a brown cloaked girl with striking green eyes handed her a letter that she apparently wrote for an admirer she knew all too well. She thanked her and reassured her that she won’t give him any chance of escape. ‘We can be rather scary...’ thought Eleonora as she left the bakery to finally leave the city. She went to the western gate to not see Mike and checked the on the guards. ‘I could wait...or sneak into a merchants chart...’ she scanned the people around her ‘or….’ then she quickly vanished into an empty side alley and looked above. ‘I didn’t yet get the chance to test my new body….’ she tapped the ground with the tip of her shoe twice and ten crouched. She jumped three meters high to the wall on her left and from there to the right. Another two jumps and she was on top of the roof. ‘Oh my, I’m awesome...’ she thought as she checked if any of the guards saw her.

They hadn’t so she waited for an opportune moment and jumped right on top of the city wall. There was a six meter gap between the houses and the wall but she still easily managed it. She managed to land incredibly quietly, checked on the guards and then let herself fall down the other side. From this angle nobody would be able to see her. She however could see the guards’ spears from this angle and knew exactly where they were. She walked next to the wall until she was close to the gate and when a big company of merchants left she simply integrated with them. ‘Now how cheeky can I be….’ she quickly scanned her surroundings and then jumped into one of the wagons that still had a little space in it. It was full of different goods to be sold in the more central kingdoms of the Empire. ‘Perfect, guess I’ll stay for a while and get some stuff that’s useful.’ she thought as she started to quietly search through the goods in her wagon. There luckily was a small bag she could strap around her back and a bunch of food that would come in handy. Some cloths too to keep her warm from the coming cold time.

In the coming night she sneaked away from the carawan and made her way northwards, straight to a place she knew would help her think. And as always...she started running. Elated by her massively improved speed and power in her legs she reached the lake in just an hour, without tiring once. She didn’t have her staff to whirl around but it was still impressive. There were no wolves there today yet the serenity and smell of the herbs immediately calmed her. She jumped up a tree and sat down between two branches to overlook the lake.

The sun illuminated the water and the smell of the herbs was coupled with a fresh wind from the lake. Eleonora sat there for a while thinking about her next steps. ‘I could visit the capital...I heard and read so much about Onarith...’ she was dangling her feet down from the tree ‘Or maybe become an adventurer...now that I have awakened everything is possible...I’m finally not bound anymore by the walls of a city or by my mother’s title as herbalist...’

Her thoughts were disturbed when she heard distant voices. She didn’t move on the tree, her brown cloak hiding her nearly perfectly and simply listened. ‘Who would come here? There is nothing but herbs and animals here…’ she thought. ‘They can’t possibly be looking for me can they?’ She stayed silent as she thought about the possible reason for the trespassers in her sanctuary.

They took longer to get close than she thought. ‘My ears have gotten better too…’ she thought as she heard the conversation going on below her and around thirty meters away. “This is it?” a man asked, his voice a bit tense. ‘Six of them, experienced…on edge…’ she thought as she continued listening. “Seems like a nice place…not somewhere a demon would go, or an evil witch…” said another man. ‘So they are looking for me…’

“Shut it, we don’t even know what we’re looking for so stay alert.” Said another voice, seemingly authoritative. The others continued quietly. After another minute one of the men exclaimed “Someone was here….very recently.” He said “Incredibly recently…” he said before Eleonora heard him unsheathe a weapon. “Are you still here my friend?” he said to her, the other people in his group stopped moving and Elly could feel power surging as they prepared their weapons. Whoever the one challenging her was they seemed to trust his judgement.

‘They will find me. If I attack or flee they will immediately turn hostile…if they aren’t already.’ She slowly moved and jumped down the tree thinking her best option was to talk to them first. ‘Maybe get their guards down so I can flee, I’m pretty confident in my speed…depends on them though…’ as she descended she scanned the group. ‘Golden, adventurers…six people as assumed. Balanced group.’ Four of them seemed to be close combat specialists while two were ranged. ‘An external mage I’m assuming, escape will be difficult.’

“Wonderful day, isn’t it?” she stated more than asked as she looked at the tense group. ‘Why am I so confident…’ she thought to herself. She wouldn’t even have dared confronting a single silver level adventurer on her own a week ago. “It is indeed.” Their apparent leader said as he slowly approached her. He stopped a couple meters in front of her “So you’re the famed demon of Dunewatch?” he asked with a small smile on his face “I think not.” He concluded and sheathed his sword. “The green eyes match though and some people are quite interested in the magic you’ve used. They’re paying pretty well so I hope you’ll come with us without any resistance.” He said “Just to talk…”