“Father is not a pleasant enemy to have,” Turin said to the rest of us. “I once saw him lock a man up that refused to pay a debt for five months before he let him out and made him pay back the debt with interest.”

The six of us were sitting around a table in the common room of the Oakspring. Eldertits had been celebrating by drinking heavily and boasting of her success while Turin, who still hadn’t been told she wasn’t, in fact, his sister, was worrying about what his father might do to her.

“Turin, relax and have a drink with your big sis,” Eldertits said slurring her speech slightly. “I can take care of myself. There’s nothing daddy will do to me that I won’t let him.”

“You don’t know him like I know him,” Turin responded clearly stressed. “He won’t let this go.”

“Why don’t you pull out one of those beautiful dark tits and suckle at a nipple for a while,” Eldertits said a little too loudly.

“Tits!” I hissed. “Keep your voice down, remember Viltria is here in secret.”

“I think she’s had too much to drink,” Viltria said stiffly.

“Oh come on Vil,” Eldertits said using Turin’s pet name for the dark elf. “Don’t be a spoilsport. What do you say you have a few more glasses of wine and then we go upstairs and you get to take turns with the Parthanuun siblings.”

Viltria glowered at her and said briskly, “I’m going to bed, Turin come. We’ll see you all in the morning when hopefully everyone is sober.”

With that, she stood up and left the table and after a brief hesitation, Turin followed her.

“Even she finds you disgusting,” Elaria said after Viltria was out of earshot. “I still think what you did today was despicable.”

“Admit it, you thought it was brilliant,” Eldertits said leaning over towards the other elf.

“I did not think it was brilliant,” Elaria said harshly. “I thought and still think it was despicable. You have no honor and whatever faults Haldir has he didn’t deserve to have his reputation sullied like that. I’m only keeping my mouth shut because of the life debts I owe you.”

“You know what’s awesome?” Eldertits said ignoring the other woman. The amount of Bluff experience you get when you bluff an entire crowd of people. I went up a few skill levels just from that case today. I should really do this every day.”

“Yes you’ve told us,” I said in response.

It was, in fact, the third time she had mentioned it this evening and while I had been impressed the first time, by now it was just getting annoying. Tits was normally over the top sober but after seven glasses of wine, she was a bit too much even for me.

“Ryland,” She said and then chugged her eighth glass of red wine. “You know you’re like my best friend. My best little puppy. Aww, we should all get a dog!”

Her speech was really starting to slur at this point and it was becoming harder to make out the exact words she was saying. At the same time, she said this she leaned over and wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me as hard as she could. It turns out this was pretty hard, because I felt pain shoot through my arms and chest and a small amount of HP dropped from my health meter.

“Tits,” I gasped. “I like you too, but can you let go, you’re doing some real damage.”

She let go and said, “Aww the wittle puppy is trying to run away.” Then she turned and slammed her hands down on the table and yelled, “I’m serious we’re getting a pet! My vote is for a dog.”

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to be taking care of an animal right now,” Elaria said.

“No, I’m serious,” Eldertits said loudly. “This band needs a pet!”

“I’d hardly call us a band,” Elaria said, “I’m going back to the Rangers tomorrow, now that the quest is over. I only stayed through your trial as support for my battle sister.”

“No Elaria!” Eldertits yelled. “You can’t go, you’re the only woman around here who understands me.”

“I don’t understand you at all,” Elaria said flatly. “What are you doing?”

Eldertits had decided at this moment to climb over the top of the table and was now reaching for the ranger.

“Don’t back away from me, you’re part of the band and I need to let you know how special you are,” Eldertits said and succeeded in catching the retreating Elaria.

The poor ranger didn’t have a whole lot of room to move with Rondo sitting next to her. Eldertits wrapped her arms around the other elf and somehow ended up in Rondo’s lap. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Please Tits, that’s enough,” Elaria said. “My place is with the Rangers and while our time together has been, well it’s been.”

“Nope I refuse to let you go until you say you’ll stay with the group,” Eldertits said tightening her grip on the other woman.

“Please,” Elaria gasped, “you’re hurting me now. I will be there for you if you are ever in need because of the bond shared between us, but our quest to save Turin is now over.”

“That’s no fun,” Eldertits said pouting as she let go of Elaria and settled back against Rondo.

“Are you really leaving?” Rondo asked with concern in his voice.

“Yes, Ryland is the one who swore to save Turin and Viltria, not me,” Elaria said. “I have enjoyed our journey together, Rondo, but my duty is here.”

“I’m sorry to see you go,” Rondo said and he truly looked it.

After that, the evening took on a more somber tone and even Eldertits didn’t look to be in the mood to celebrate anymore. Because of this, we ended up wrapping things up quickly and headed upstairs to the rooms we had rented. I was sharing one with one with Rondo while Eldertits was shacking up with Elaria.

“Tits, if you try anything tonight I will cut your throat,” Elaria said as we reached the third floor.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Eldertits said groggily.

She was close to passing out and it had taken all three of us to help her up the two floors we needed to go. Now Elaria and Rondo were supporting her down the hall and into the ladies room.

Inside there were two simple full-sized beds and they threw Tits rather unceremoniously down onto one. The grunted but didn’t complain.

“Hey Rondo, why don’t you sleep in here with me tonight, I don’t think Elaria will mind,” Tits said speaking up to Rondo while Elaria looked very much like she would mind.

“Rondo glanced over at Elaria and then said, “Uh no, I’d better not, I appreciate the offer though, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Rondo and I left the room and Elaria shut the door behind her muttering something about not being a babysitter. Our room was just next door to theirs and it only took us a brief moment to reach it. I walked over and flopped onto one of the beds while Rondo did the same on the other one.

“Well,” Rondo said, “I don’t know how a hangover feels in this world, but if it’s anything like it is back on Earth, she’s going to have one terrible morning.”

“Something tells me that it will be similar,” I said sleepily.

“Can’t believe Elaria is leaving us,” Rondo muttered more to himself than to me.

“Yeah it’s unfortunate,” I said trailing off and falling asleep.

Thud! Boom! CRACK!

This noise woke me with a jolt. I sat upright just in time to see to see a figure clad all in black tumble straight into the bed on top of me. I let out a squeal and fell over backward with his body weight on top of me.

“You dare try to cop feel on these Titties!” Eldertits yelled loudly from somewhere.

I push the figure that had fallen on me off to the side and crawled out from underneath him. Now that he was no longer blocking my vision I could see that there was a large person-sized hole in the wall straight in front of my bed. Eldertits was standing there with her axe out staring through the hole straight at me and behind her in the room, Elaria was going blade to blade with another figure in black. What the fuck is going on here.

“Rondo!” I shouted, “get up. The girls are getting attacked by assassins or something!”

“They’re not the only ones,” Rondo said breathing heavily to my left.

I looked over and Rondo was laying there holding up his two daggers, blocking another assassin from plunging a blade straight into his heart.

Fuck these guys were good, I hadn’t even noticed that one come in. I spun found that had landed on my bed just as he was getting to his feet. Oh no, you don’t I thought as I summoned the Blade of Daybreak and slashed at his chest with it.

It cut him, but it was a shallow cut. With cat-like reflexes, the assassin had reacted as soon as I had moved my dagger and managed to avoid a more serious blow, but in the process, he fell backward into the bed.

I left forward thinking that this was an opening but this was a mistake. As soon as I reached him he twisted underneath me and wrapped one of his legs around mine. With a simple turn, he swept me off of my feet and I plunged face first into the mattress which thankfully was soft.

The dagger that plunged into my shoulder blade a moment later was anything but soft, however. It was ripped out of me almost as soon as it entered and it left me at about the same time the gasp of pain left my mouth. Fuck this guy was quick.

Vanishing my own dagger I pushed backward and threw myself off of the bed onto the floor just in time to see Tits burst through the opening in the wall. She staggered forward still obviously drunk and wielding her gigantic axe. A drunken woman with a massive axe what could go wrong?

Swinging it as hard as she could she smashed it into the bed right where the assassin had been. Her swing was far too slow and at the last moment, he rolled off of the bed and out of the way. The blade of her went straight through the mattress and cracked the frame underneath which then collapsed in on itself as she pulled the blade out.

“Haven’t you ever,” she hiccuped and then continued, “heard of foreplay first? I like to be teased a little first before someone tries to savage me in the middle of the night.”

Standing up I summoned a fireball in my right hand while I charged my fist of the phoenix flame in my left.

You are attempting to dual cast with no levels in this skill.

20% to spell effectiveness 20% accuracy in main hand 50% accuacy in offhand 15% to spell casting time

I mentally flicked this notification away as soon as it had popped up. I was in the middle of a life or death fight, I didn’t have time to read through any notifications. As soon as the assassin stood up I shot my fireball at him and charged after it.

He dodged to the right and it narrowly missed him. I had been expecting this however and I slammed my first of the Phoenix flame straight into where he dodged. Somehow he managed to change the momentum of his body halfway through his first dodge and twisted around my fist and harmlessly rolled off of the rest of my body.

My momentum carried me forward and I slammed my fist into the side of Rondo’s bed where he was still battling with his own assassin. The entire right side of the bed exploded from the force and collapsed. This caused Rondo and his assailant to tumble down towards my feet.

I aimed a kick and somewhat to my surprise I hit Rondo’s attacker square in the ribs as the reached the floor. He let out a grunt in surprise and Rondo seeing his hesitation jabbed him right in the stomach with a dagger, but this didn’t cause him to vanish.

Turning I located my original target dancing around a frantically swinging Eldertits. She was doing a ton of damage, but the problem was that it was to everything but the person she was fighting. The assassin swiftly avoided all of her clumsy blows and poked her over and over with his knife.

Moving quickly I began casting cure on her. The five second charge time seemed to take full minutes to complete while Tits got stabbed again but finally it completed and with a flash of green light I cast it on her. Tits didn’t even seem to notice but the assassin did and he looked less than pleased.

In one swift motion, he disengaged from Eldertits and spun towards me. I summoned both of my daggers and braced for the attack which came seconds later. Feinted an attack towards me with the knife he drew the attention of my blades and then stomped me hard in the shin.

My leg crumpled and I fell forward just in time to meet his boot with my face. The kick halted my momentum and sent me flying backward where I hit the half-opened wall and crashed through onto the floor of the girl’s room.

Looking over I could see Elaria thoroughly getting her ass kicked by the third black-clad figure. Elaria was quick but this assassin was quicker. She had little cuts all over her and looked completely exhausted.

Trying to sit up my progress was halted by a boot resting onto of my chest. I looked up and saw the assassin’s eyes staring down at me. I guess this was it then, I was going to die for the third times since I entered this game. He just had to deliver the coup de grace and I would be well on my way to the madness again.

Smiling wickedly he summoned a small something in his hand. From the ground, I couldn’t quite make it out but it couldn’t be anything good. Suddenly he flicked his hand and the item shot towards me. I held my breath as I waited for the pain to come but it never did. Instead, a notification popped up.

You have been marked. Your icon will appear on the explored map of whoever marked you for as long as you carry the mark. Be warned, removing a mark is no easy feat.

Well, that couldn’t be good I thought as I felt his boot kick me in the head. I slid a few feet back across the floor as a migraine suddenly decided to assult me. Closing my eyes I tried to stop the world from moving around me.

Lying there I battled my own head while I heard the sounds of violence all around me. We were going to lose this fight, there was no doubt in my mind about it. These assassin’s or whatever they were, were just too quick and powerful. Even Elaria and Eldertits, who were usually great fighters were getting completely overwhelmed. Maybe at least Rondo could take out the one he was fighting since he had actually damaged his opponent.

I tried to open my eyes but quickly shut them again because the room immediately swam around me. Looking up at my health bar, which I could still see with my eyes closed, I noticed that I had lost over two-thirds of my health and had a new status icon next to it.

Status: Minor Concussion

“You have taken a severe blow to the head and are now dealing with the effects of it.”

Duration: 2 days, 23 hours, & 58 minutes

Effect: You will have a migraine for the duration of this status effect. You will also have light sensitivity, occasional dizziness, and general fatigue for the duration of this effect.

Well, that’s just fantastic. I’ve really got to start collecting better status effects because the ones I usually get suck. Maybe this guy will finish me off and I won’t have to deal with this, I just lose my mind instead. Cheerful thoughts I know.

Below me or in front of me, it was hard to tell, I heard the sound of crunching wood and a female grunt. That would probably be Eldertits getting beat down then. Don’t mind the floor Tits, it actually gets quite comfortable after a while.

“Come on then finish it,” she growled defiantly.

The only response that came was the sound of a curt laugh and then I heard a blow and another grunt from Eldertits. So he had killed her then. Guess he’ll be coming back to finish me off then.

Opening my eyes I fought against the pain that flooded in with the low light in the room as well as the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me. If I was going to be killed I was going to look this fucker in the eyes while he did it.

Through sheer force of will, I pushed myself up into a sitting position and then slid backward until I could rest my back against one of the beds. Now I could stare defiantly at him as he slit my throat.

Currently, he was busy helping his comrade dispatch with Rondo. With two of them, it went quickly and without much fuss from Rondo. They broke one of his hands with a loud crack and then threw him into, the now caved in bed, that I had been sleeping in. Having done that one of them produced a mark and threw it at the helpless Rondo.

At the same time, the other one finished off Elaria by throwing her head into the remaining wall between the rooms. He then flicked a mark right at her rear end as it was still in the room with us.

The ranger swore as it hit her and vanished. It had to be from the notification because I knew from experience there was no pain associated with it.

“Eldertits and friends of the Tits,” a soft voice spoke from the other room. “This was a simple warning, next time we won’t be so friendly. You have twelve hours to leave the territory of Iltheiltheil or we will kill you. It is now three thirty-four so we will give you until fifteen thirty-four to leave. If you don’t we will know because you have all been marked. If you ever try to return to Iltheiltheil we will know and we will kill you.”

With that said they opened the door out into the hallways and left our rooms.

“Tits,” Elaria wheezed trying to remove herself from the wall. “Tits, I fucking hate you.”

She burst from the wall a moment later panting heavily and ripping some of the wood free around her.

“No, you don’t,” Eldertits said sounding both drunk and exhausted. “You’re just tired that’s all.”

“Would one of you please help me out of this thing?” Rondo snapped sounding irritated.

Pushing myself to my feet I began to tentatively make myself over to where he was trapped in the collapsed bed. Blessedly no spell of dizziness came over me while I made my way over to him.

Elaria beat me to it and reaching down she pulled our large rogue up and out of the bed.

Standing there he looked as tired as the rest of us and said, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Elaria replied looking a little dazed.

I began casting cure, seeing that everyone could use a couple of healing spells.

“Who the fuck were those guys?” Rondo asked as I unleashed my first cure on Elaira.

She sighed in pleasure and said, “Thank you for that Ryland, as for those men I can’t be certain but I’d guess they are members of the Silver Moon clan.”

“The Silver Moon clan?” Rondo asked as I began casting my next spell on Eldertits who still hadn’t moved from her spot on the floor.

“Yeah,” Elaria said. “I’ve never actually seen them before and can’t confirm that they actually exist but almost every elf in Iltheiltheil has heard the rumors about them. They are a group of mercenaries that operates in the secret and performs shadier tasks for those with the means to pay.”

I unleashed cure on Eldertits who didn’t react to my spell at all. She simply blankly at the space in front of her. Hopefully, she doesn’t have anything worse than the minor concussion I got.

“So this Silver Moon clan was sent here to intimidate us and drive out of Iltheiltheil by the sound of it,” Rondo stated as I began casting cure on him.

“I’d bet all my gold that they were sent by her daddy,” Elaria said jerking her head towards Tits. “I knew you shouldn’t done that too him.”

Tits didn’t say anything in response to this and I unloaded cure on Rondo who sighed happily.

“Well, what’s done is done,” I said as I started casting cure on myself. “We’ve got to figure out what to do now.”

“I’m too tired to think about that right now,” Elaria snapped aggravated. “I say we sleep until around seven and then decide how to handle this.”

“Ok, so where are we going to sleep then?” I asked healing myself and starting to cast a second cure spell on Elaira. “These two beds have been destroyed.”

“The two in our room are relatively fine,” Elaria said motioning to the girl’s room. “Rondo, you’re with me because I’m not sleeping next to her.”

I wanted to tell her that I thought she was being unfair and harsh but I just didn’t have the will or strength to argue.

Instead, I simply said, “ok,” as finalized the spell on her and began casting another spell on Rondo.

Five seconds later I finalized this spell and they walked over and crashed into one of the beds. I moved over to where Eldertits was sitting and squatted down in front of her.

“Hey Tits, can you get up?” I asked holding out my hand toward her.

“I’m sorry,” she said ignoring my question and not quite looking at me. “This was all my fault, I almost got us all killed again. I was useless in that fight too I couldn’t hit that fucker to save my life. I shouldn’t have drunk so much wine last night.”

“Hey, hey,” I said in the most soothing voice I could conjure, “It’s alright, shit happens. This is a game remember? It’s supposed to throw tough challenges at us so we can overcome them and I don’t think any of us could do anything against those guys.”

“Its not just a game though,” she responded as I heard her voice crack and saw water begin to trickle out of her eyes. “This is our life now and I put us in serious harm’s way. I thought I was so clever and it seemed so funny at the time and now we’re getting kicked out of this city.”

“It was pretty clever and still is pretty funny,” I said trying to placate her, “I just don’t think Haldir enjoyed it in the same way the rest of us did. Look we’ll figure out what we’re going to do in the morning after we all get a few hours of sleep. I guarantee you’ll feel better after you get some rest, come on.”

Finally looking at me she took my hand and allowed me to help her to her feet. I led her through the opening in the wall and to the non-occupied bed where she laid down.

“I’m going to cast another cure on you so don’t be startled,” I said as I began charging up the spell.

“Okay,” she responded softly closing her eyes.

I finished the spell and cast it on her which caused her to briefly smile as the effects of the spell hit her. After that, I cast one last cure on myself which prompted a notification to pop up.

Congratulations, Cure has reached Level 2!

Range: 5 feet → 6 feet

Charge Time: 5 seconds → 4.8 seconds

HP Recovery: 30% of max HP will be recovered over 20 seconds on the target of the spell → 35% of max HP will be recovered over 18 seconds on the target of the spell

MP Cost: 15 → 18

Well at least one good thing had happened tonight I thought as I walked around the bed and laid down on the otherside with my back to Eldertits. We may have gotten our asses kicked and would be exiled from this city in less than twelve hours but at least my cure spell had reached level two.

I felt movement in the bed behind me and a few seconds later I felt Eldertits latch onto me and nuzzle her head into my back.

“Hey Ryland,” she whispered. “Thanks for being here for me. You’re a good friend.”

Through your words and actions tonight you have gained +1000 reputation points with Eldertits(Player).

Total reputation points with Eldertits(Player): 6000

Reputation rank: friendship

Points to next rank: 4000

“You would have done the same for me,” I whispered back but she was already asleep.