The large stone building was bustling with people hurrying about, priests and priestesses ever busy tending to the large number of wounded.

“Now we just have to find someone to patch us up. That is, if they let us get in.”

“I think I know one.” Regis smiled as he noticed a priestess walking in small circles near the entrance.

“Good morning Lithia!” He greeted the young woman as they walked closer.

“Good morning…” She tried to reply, but the unfamiliar figure of a dark elf made her involuntarily take a step back.

“It’s me, Regis.”

“Regis? That can’t be.”

“I know that I’ve grown a bit taller since yesterday, but you’ve got the soul-space to blame for that. Are you waiting for Norma and the others?”

Hearing the dark elf mention her sister made Lithia believe that it was indeed the boy from yesterday, even if he looked different now. She took a deep breath before nodding.

“I’ve heard that both the east and the west gate got flooded by the fallen and that the defenders retreated. A lot of people came here for healing, but they didn’t show up.”

“Don’t worry,” he put his hand on her shoulder. “We had some trouble last night while having to save some noble idiot. They’re at the city lord’s manor right now.”

“Praise Elora! I was so worried that they’d gotten hurt. What’s wrong?” She asked as she noticed the strange silence from the group.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Quentin sighed. “Most of them only received smaller injuries, but one of the guards got ambushed and he didn’t survive.”

“Oh.” Lithia stopped moving as she looked pained by what she had just heard.

“I’m sorry that we had to bring such news. I know that this is a bad time to ask, but could you take a look at our wounds?” Regis asked the question everyone wanted to mention, but decided not to.

“Of course.” the young priestess shook of her grief as she looked at them. “It’s my duty to help those in need and I’m sure that you fought hard. Everyone did. Come on in.”

The group followed her inside the temple beneath the gaze of dozens of people. Once inside, Lithia led them to the right side of the long sermon chamber. There were several simply crafted room dividers lined up to make private cubicles for the priests and priestesses to work in.

“All right everyone,” the priestess said with a warm tone. “Just line up and come in one by one.”

“Ladies first.” Quentin waved towards the cubicle with Regis and Fabien nodding while Khan was still staring at Valerie’s tiny horns that poked her cloak’s hood.

The first one to enter was Sophie who was soon followed by Amanda. When it was Valerie’s time to have her wounds healed, a surprised squeal could be heard from behind the divider.

“You’re a…”

“Yes, I’m an infernal, but not by choice. I’m an outlander like the others, but generations ago one of my ancestors had an affair with a succubus and when my brother and I crossed over to your world, the Heart chose this form for us.” Valerie repeated her explanation with a bored tone.

“Oh,” Lithia mumbled. “Well, you wouldn’t be able to enter the church’s light if you were corrupted by the darkness, so it’s all right. Now take the hood off. I need to check your wounds.”

“Behave yourself!” Quentin smacked Khan in the back of the head when he tried to inch closer to the divider that hid the infernal and the priestess.

A few minutes later Valerie left the cubicle and her brother entered in her stead. After a polite greeting the priestess chanted her healing prayers and soon Fabien was as good as new. Khan and Quentin went through their check-ups faster than the others since neither of them received more than a few small cuts. When it was Regis’ turn, Lithia frowned as she looked at his damaged armour.

“Could you take off your chest armour and the ones on your arms? It’s hard to see how bad your injuries are.”

“Sure.” The dark elf agreed before removing his upper armour entirely.

“Oh my,” the priestess yelped. “What happened to you to leave so many new scars?”

“What’s wrong?” Amanda pulled aside the cloth sheet that hid Regis and the priestess.

A slight whistle could be heard as Valerie eyed up the bare chested dark elf.

“Not bad. You’re not bad at all, for a wizard.”

“Val, stop staring! Sorry for disturbing your work.” Fabien pulled his sister back before Amanda let go of the tarp.

“So what happened?” Lithia repeated her question.

“I got into a fight with a fallen blade dancer and had to quick heal the cut it left as its farewell gift.”

“No wonder you have such a strange scar. Potions and lesser healing can stich the flesh back together, but it’s far from efficient. Don’t worry; I’ll heal your wounds immediately.”

“Hey Regis,” Quentin’s voice came from outside the cubicle. “Was that the reason of your scream?”

“Yep,” he admitted. “It hurt like hell, but I had to first heal most of the wound around the blade that was lodged in my side, or I would have bled out. After yanking it out, I’ve stitched the rest back together, but I haven’t completely mastered the spell yet.”

“Damn,” Khan blurted out. “I take back those words about you being a wimpy ass fairy. Doing that to yourself sounds crazy painful.”

“Fuck you too, Khan!” Regis chuckled before hissing in pain.

The moment Lithia’s healing light reached the malformed scar; the hastily healed flesh emitted a black smoke that bellowed out from the wound.

“The weapon must have been tainted by the fallen’s blood. I’m glad that you’ve come to get it healed so soon, or else you might have gotten really sick. All right, it’s done. That slash was really deep, so it left a small scar though.”

“That’s fine,” the dark elf sighed. “Girls like scars anyways.”

Several chuckles came from outside the cubicle, making Lithia blush for a moment. She looked at the blood and dirt covered youth as he tried to put back his damaged shirt and armour.

“Do any of you have a proper place to rest and clean up? Any spare clothing?”

“We can always go swimming down at the port.” Khan answered as the priestess and the dark elf left the cubicle.

“Spare clothes are a luxury,” Sophie said downhearted. “But I’m sure that we’ll be able to trade some rations for it with someone.”

“She’s right,” Quentin nodded. “It’s already very kind of you to tend to our wounds. Please don’t worry yourself about the rest. Outlanders seem to be frowned upon and none of us would want you to get into trouble for showing too much kindness towards us.”

“Most people are scared of what you showing up here would mean,” the priestess shook her head. “But it’s still not right to treat you like that. You’ve been doing a great service for the refugees of Hunor these past nights, so you deserve the same respect as the rest.”

She looked around before lowering her voice a little.

“The truth is that only a few priests and priestesses made it into Hunor, so we have plenty of empty rooms. You can have one of those.”

“There’s no need for that,” Regis said. “I don’t want to be in the way of anyone. And besides; I’ll leave the town soon enough.”

“It’s fine. All of you need some proper rest,” She grabbed his hand while sniffing the air. “And you could also use a bath as well. You kind of smell like a sever rat.”

“Very funny.” He scoffed as the others followed the priestess with a slight laughter.

She led them towards an unassuming side door, but she stopped when she noticed Father Steon’s curious gaze. The priestess hurried over and after a few words of explanation, the group of outlanders could see the old priest’s gaze soften before nodding in approval. The side door led to a corridor with a downward staircase at the end.

“The baths are down there. Please, go ahead while I look for a few blankets and clothes for you.”

They did as asked and once at the bottom of the well-lit stairs, a large wooden door awaited them. Amanda put her loot bundle beside the wall and opened the door. Everyone followed her example and once inside, they were greeted by a simple changing room with a small pool in the back. The pool had warm water flowing into it from a small tunnel, leaving on the other end through a hole in the pool’s wall.

“I wasn’t expecting an actual Roman styled thermal bath here.” Regis said as he took a closer look at the neatly carved bath and the waterways that filled it and let the excess water leave.

“Hey Regis,” Quentin called out to him. “Ladies first, so let’s get back to the stairs!”

“Sure,” he scratched his head as he looked downwards. “Sorry about it; just caught me by surprise.”

The four men left the room, meeting with Lithia again as she carried down a heavy package.

“Let me help!” The dark elf said as he took half of the bundle.

“Thank you!” She said before handing Quentin a few more pieces. “These are for the four of you. I’ll bring the rest over to the others.”

“Thank you, Lithia!” Quentin bowed slightly as she went inside the bath.

Regis put the rough blankets and linen clothes on the stairs before turning his attention at his bladestaff. As he identified it with his spell, his face turned into a slight grimace.

{Soulbound sunstone staff (worn)}

{Item rarity: ??}

{Item quality: common}

{Greater enchantments: 2}

{Lesser enchantments: 1}

{Durability: 83/125}

{Damage: ??}

{Arcana cost reduction: 5%}

‘That blade dancer made quite a work of you, didn’t it?’ He thought as he sat down on the stairs. Knowing that the staff would need to have at least 80% of its durability to mend itself over time, he pulled out his coin pouch from his satchel.

“What are you doing, Regis?” Khan asked as he watched him pick out a few bronze coins from the pouch.

“I need to repair my bladestaff.”

“And you’re going to pay the gods for it?” The youth joke it away before seeing the dark elf placing the coins in his palm and the staff above it.

“My staff can mend itself over time using the ambient arcana, but if it gets too damaged, it needs extra materials for the repairs. I don’t know how long it would take it to absorb larger items made from bronze, so I’ve decided to use a few coins at first.”

With his explanation over, the dark elf closed his eyes and steadied his breathing to enter his meditation trance. A few hazy minutes later he felt a firm pat on his shoulder. As he opened his eyes, Amanda’s smile greeted him.

“It’s your turn now, so hurry up!”

“Already?” Regis asked back as he noticed the missing coins from his palm.

He examined his bladestaff that now seemed less banged up.

{Soulbound sunstone staff (scratched)}

{Item rarity :??}

{Item quality: common}

{Greater enchantments: 2}

{Lesser enchantments: 1}

{Durability: 103/125}

{Damage :??}

{Arcana cost reduction: 5%}

“Almost there.” the youth mumbled to himself as he grabbed his new spare clothes, towel and headed inside.

After putting the clean clothes on a stone bench, he pulled off his armour and bloodied rags before heading into the hot water.

“Whoa,” he gasped in surprise. “This is hotter than I thought.”

“Yes, but it’s much better than swimming in the cold sea water.” Quentin agreed as he sank neck deep into the water.

“I can sense the arcana flow of a ley line beneath us,” Fabien explained as he pointed at the densely packed formation of small symbols carved into the pool’s wall. “The church must have hired a highly skilled enchanter in the past to create this heating formation using it as its power source.”

“I couldn’t care less about the magic part,” Khan splashed water on his face. “All I know is that one shouldn’t turn down a free bath and fresh clothes. Hunor is filled with dirt and stinks of fish and corpses. At least I want to smell fresh in this place. And besides; did you guys notice that we all look like pro athletes with these shredded muscles? I mean you guys look fine, but I look downright jacked.”

“Bitch please,” Fabian swept his wet hair back between his horns. “We both know I’m fabulous!”

His words and exaggerated moves made everyone laugh as the quartet lay back to relax for a moment.

“You think it will be any different inlands?” Regis asked after a good minute as he washed his mangy shoulder long azure hair.

“It will likely to be much worse,” Quentin sighed. “I’ve heard from some of the guards that the city lord sent scouts up the river on a boat towards the next town days ago, but they didn’t come back yet. It should have only taken two or three days to go upstream and half of that to get back. There’s no news about the situation upstream, but they’re still planning to send forward a dozen larger river boats after fixing them up. They’re hoping to get rid of a large number of refugees with this.”

“In other words, we might head into our death if we get on those boats.” Fabien interpreted his meaning.

“We can’t stay here either,” Regis leaned back against the pool’s wall. “Your sister said that Natalie is bad news for everyone and I agree with her. It’s also just my opinion, but Hunor is way too low scale. If we take Khan’s delusion of this place being similar to a game as a basis, then right now Hunor is an overcrowded starting town. We can’t get better gear, unless some hard to kill boss monster shows up, but having said gear will only paint a target on our backs. As more refugees arrive from along the coast lines along with the possible outlanders popping up, both living space and food will be even more of an issue. I also doubt that the fallen can swim. Getting upwards along the river is our best chance to get out of here.”

“Agreed,” the dark skinned warrior nodded. “We also have to think about the number of enemies that’s heading towards here. That Grego fellow mentioned to me earlier that when they’ve first arrived, the town was already filled with the undead. Once they took it back, they’ve found notes in the lord’s manor about some territory war a few weeks’ walking distance from here. It could have been a battle of thousands judging from the number of fallen that came towards Hunor. Even if just half those fallen are headed towards here, then that would mean much less threat in the next town.”

“That is, if we’re lucky.” Khan added.

“I don’t know about you,” Fabien got out of the pool and grabbed a towel. “But I’m getting hungry and we still have to head over to the barracks to get our rations.”

“I bet ten bronze that I’ve got the most kill!” Khan jumped out of the pool enthusiastically.

“It wasn’t a race.” His friend shook his head.

“Not for you.” The Mongolian joke it way as he grabbed the nearest towel.

They’ve dried themselves and tried on the simple, but clean clothes. Their new outfits were made from a strong linen fabric and had a natural brownish yellow colour. Regis looked at his damaged armour for a moment before shaking his head. He pulled on his boots and his leg armours, but left the bronze reinforced chest and shoulder pieces off.

“This thing is useless now.” He sighed as he looked at the shredded gambeson.

“We have plenty of loot to replace it with and Sophie said that she’s an armourer. She should be able to fix up any of them to be useable.” Quentin patted his shoulder.

“I’ve already found a perfect replacement.”

“You did?” The man asked surprised.

“That bladedancer I’ve fought against wore an uncommon, named leather armour set. It doesn’t have any enchantments on it, but I can solve that later. It also had a pair of enchanted short swords, if anyone’s interested.”

“Me,” Khan jumped in front of him. “I’ll take it! What can it do? Does it cause shock or poison damage with each strike?”

“Nothing fancy like that. They only have durability and sharpness enchantments on them from what I can tell.”

“Oh,” the youth’s eyes lost their glimmer for a moment. “That’s still better than my current swords, though not by much.”

“Greed is a fool’s downfall.” The aspiring paladin chided.

“Let’s go! The girls must be bored already.” Regis said as he headed towards the door.