Name

Gwen Baird

Armour

6

Class

Hunter

Health

57

Level

8

Dodge

3

Species

Half-Elf (Wood/Human)

Species Skills (Half-Elf)

Strength

6

Elf Sight

6

Agility

7

Base Skills (Hunter)

Body

6

Stealth

9

Mind

6

Perception

6

Sense

6

Tracking

6

Charm

6

Archery

7

Edgar emerged from the crowd with a smile. He looked as different as the village, his armour had changed, his helmet in particular now looked like something from a Greek battlefield in a movie, with a glowing bronze tone and a pair of circular eyes separated by a keyhole-shaped nose guard. He carried the helmet under one arm, while a sword was strapped to his waist and a shield sat on his back.

"I am glad to see that you have made it back, even if it isn't entirely in one piece." Looking from Gwen to Jin Ae, who were still clearly covered in blood, he asked, "The temple has been set up to take in the injured, will you make it that far, or do you need help?"

Gwen pushed off from Theo' side, "I'll manage." There was a fine line between being thought incapable and having people underestimate you. She had no intention of crossing it. Around her everyone looked at her doubtfully. "I'll be fine, once we get there I'll sit down for a bit and I'll be fine."

Theo leaned over and, with a delicate grip on her upper arm, pulled her back to a more upright position. "Maybe we could make a stop at the inn first?" He asked.

Frowning Edgar nodded, "That looks to be a good idea. I know you Adventurers heal faster than us normal folk, but there's no sense in pushing it too far."

Everyone made a show of agreeing and with what little grace she could muster, Gwen went along with them.

The decision at least gave her a chance to look around the village and work out what had changed. Mostly it confirmed her previous view. The gentle curves of the architecture had been swapped for harsh lines and angles, it was not an improvement. Even the roads and streets, such as they were in so small a village, had changed. They no longer meandered around the houses in loops, but instead swept from one to the next like someone had marked them out beforehand.

The barricades were still present, but the locals had already started pulling them down. Care was being taken: it seemed that it was less an intent to rip them down and move on, but instead to move them out of the village. Wheel barrows and hand carts were everywhere, the piles on them full of carefully wedged in building materials that was more liberally sprinkled with the greenish blood of the monsters than she remembered.

She frowned, pausing in front of a row of barrels. Theo stopped beside her, he looked at her curiously but she shook her head. It wasn't an immediate danger, but it was something odd.

She had passed this spot. Back then it had been something of a slide, the water from smashed barrels turning the mud slippery. Stones and particularly stubborn grass had done their bit to make the passage something like a slalom race where you were in danger of sliding or tripping over something with every other step.

That was not the setting she found herself in now.

She knelt and picked up a lump of wood, a broken part of a barrel. It was stained with the blood of monsters and, yes, she had been right though she had had to get a closer look to be certain, flecks of red blood.

She looked over to Edgar and called over, "Was there another attack while we were gone?"

He frowned and walked over, "No, nothing more."

"Huh," she tossed the wood back into a nearby husk of a barrel, "It just looks worse."

He nodded, sympathetic, "Battle will do that. It tricks you, so when your blood is no longer up with the fear and blood lust you start to see all the things you missed."

"Yeah, I guess it does," she agreed, wiping off the sticky residue from the barrel on her leggings.

Edgar went back to the front of the group and continued to lead them through the wreckage.

"It's that different from when you were here?" Theo asked, "I didn't get a good look so I can't really be sure, but now you say it..." He looked around, "It's really not just aesthetic, is it, this change?"

She shook her head, "No, no I don't think it is. I think Wylla was right to be upset, I think we are in a very different village to the one we left a few hours ago."

"Shit," he said.

"Pretty much." she agreed.

***

The Inn didn't look like it had changed much. It had always been a tall, boxy kind of building, and whatever changes the village had undergone nothing seemed to have felt the need to bother on this canvas. The square in front was covered in the wreckage of the various barricades that had once stood there. The wall that had ringed it was little more than an impression in the ground, and, she frowned, again, more blood.

The Swan still looked concussed on the sign, the numerous tankards discarded around it were still the same, too. Though she couldn't be sure that the number hadn't changed, she hadn't bothered to count them up.

Abigail came out with a wave, without needing much more than a look at the party of Adventurers stumbling up to her inn she was headed back inside. Gwen hoped it was for something strong to drink. Something that could strip the enamel from her teeth and dilute the troubles she carried.

Was it healthy? No. Was it what she was going to do anyway? Fuck yeah she was.

But, as always, there was work she had to get through first.

With that promise of future drunkenness hanging over her, she managed to get through the doorway of the inn and find a seat at the bar without any help from Theo. He still hovered over her like a worried rain cloud, but once she had settled into her own seat he gave a sigh of relief and folded himself up on the one next to her.

She felt a twitch of guilt. It turned into a kick when he let out a groan and slumped so that his head hit the bar.

"You're not dying are you?" She asked. She wasn't that worried, Marina wasn't far after all, but he looked impressively miserable all the same.

"No," he groaned into the woodwork, "I'm just tired."

"Ah," she said, laying a hand on his shoulder, "Yeah me too."

He turned his head so his face was lying cheek down on the bar, "Outside the village, how'd you know to do all that stuff? How'd you even think of it?"

She shrugged, "I've lied a lot. If you lie well enough you never have to speak a word, it's easier that way." She patted him on the shoulder and looked around. The locals hadn't come over to their corner of the bar yet, Marina seemed to be interrogating them. Jin Ae was leaning against the wall. It was hard to tell if she had placed herself there, or if she had fallen on her way to the bar and had just decided to stay.

Their devil-bard shared a look with Gwen across the dim and gloomy atmosphere of the bar. She looked about as tired as Gwen felt. The days of fighting and running and (in Gwen's case) dying had taken it out of all of them. She gave a grimace and turned back to listen to the conversation happening around her.

As if that was a signal, Nikolai came through the door. It was funny watching the way a tension in Edgar's shoulder's eased, just by his presence. Gwen did her best not to be jealous.

A few words were shared, and then they were all coming over to the bar.

At this point, Abigail reappeared with a keg, which surely, as far as Gwen was concerned, proved that she had the powers of a seer or the blessings of the gods. She told her so.

"Yeah, because it takes all that to know you lot need a good stiff drink," she opened the keg with an impressive bit of sleight of hand involving a hammer, before thumping a tankard of rosy amber liquid in front of Gwen.

"Apple cider?" Gwen asked.

"Mostly apple," she was told with a shrug.

Gwen's eyes lit up and she brought it to her nose. It smelled of sweet summer days and picnics. She took a sip. It tasted like a punch in the face. With scent being important part of taste, the combination felt like a fight at an apple picking festival.

She coughed. Eyes watering Gwen wheezed out a, "thanks"; setting the drink down before she could spill it all over the bar.

"Consider your bill paid for as long as you need it," Abigail said, then she paused, her good sense pushing in front of her gratitude, "as long as you don't push it, mind."

Gwen crossed her heart, still spluttering.

Abigail looked appeased. "Your stuff is still in your room, I doubt anyone's had the time, chance, or has cared enough to go up there."

Gwen nodded in thanks, it wasn't something she had thought of, but she had appeared in the world with a moderate sized camping kit and having it nicked would be an unfortunate irony.

The others arrived at the bar and Abigail was made busy pouring out tankards for them all. Nikolai and Edgar both raised their eyebrows at the sight of the particular vintage and took it carefully like they were being handed something dangerous, like a lit firework, or a goose not sedated well enough.

Or thought Gwen, a swan. Hiding her smirk at the expressions of Marina and Jin Ae when they took experimental gulps (so unwise, she would have tutted) she took a small sip, barely enough to wet her lips. But more than enough to make those lips feel oddly disconnected from the rest of her face.

"So, what did you find out?" Abigail asked, once she had settled back into her pose behind the bar.

"Lots of monsters, wrapped around the village and the lands for miles outside it like a bear trap," Marina said.

"And you didn't get them all?" Abigail asked.

"I doubt we even found most of them. We have no real idea of how many are out there, just that it's a hell of a lot," Gwen said. "The cairn was just an outpost, maybe the closest to here, but not the only one and knowing our luck, not the biggest one either." The second half of her statement unfolded from her tongue as the thoughts rose. They weren't that lucky, you didn't take out the biggest and scariest baddie at the beginning, she knew that well enough. She took a sip of her cider, it went down easier now that she couldn't feel most of her face.

"So, what are we going to do?" Abigail directed this to Edgar and Nikolai. "I assume you four will be moving on, it's what Adventurers do right?"

"You might be stuck with us for a few days, but that is out eventual goal, yes," Jin Ae said with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "We would like to leave as soon as we can, but even with the damage we have done to the ranks of the monsters we don't have a method or a route for getting through them. If we left now we'd likely be wandering in circles, hitting each and every group on the way out."

Abigail gave her a smile, "I'm sorry you're trapped here, but I can't say I'm sorry to see you go, either. The world is a dangerous place right now, having some useful people around could come in handy."

Jin Ae gave a pained-looking smile. Gwen knew what she was thinking, she knew what they were all thinking. You wouldn't be saying that if you knew the truth.

"Once we have a plan we'll be out from under your feet, don't worry. We don't want to take up all the rooms in your inn," she said to Abigail, "The laundry alone would be horrendous."

The group snorted out laughs. Gwen picked at a frayed rip in her gambeson, there were two different types of blood on it.

"Hopefully we've put enough of a dent in the number of monsters that they won't try to attack the village again, but it would probably be a good idea to set up some defences all the same," Theo said.

"Aye, we figured as much. We're going to put up a wall and a watch tower to keep an eye on what's on the other side," Edgar said, "It'll take a few days. The first step will be taking down all the trees around the village."

"How far out?" Theo asked.

"At least as far as an arrow can travel, I should say," Edgar gave a weak smile, "We won't be lacking in wood for the wall, that's for damn sure."

"You might want to put some ditches in as well, you can't charge a wall if you have to climb out of a hole first," Theo said.

"You know a lot about fortifications?" Nikolai asked.

Theo blinked for a moment, then with blatant honesty said, "You know, it's like I'm learning more each day."

This odd answer confused the locals, but Gwen's eyes widened with realisation. Had Dove just downloaded the information into Theo' head? Like, how all the nature stuff and fighting skills had just appeared in Gwen's mind as she had hidden up a tree from a monster in what she was startled to realise was only a couple of days ago.

Theo leaned forwards across the bar, with one hand rubbing his head.

She put an arm around the back of his chair, "I think, Theo, you were saying something about how using a whole bunch of magic in one go feels like a hangover?" Giving him an out if he needed it.

He looked over at her and was agreeing quickly. "As good as this is," he said to Abigail while raising the tankard, "I don't suppose I could get something to eat? I feel half starved."

Abigail frowned looking concerned, "There's some soup in the pot by the fire. The bottom got a little burned during all the fighting, but the rest is still good and warm. I'll bring some through to you, the rest of you want some as well?"

"Gods yes," Gwen said. The beast in her stomach suddenly waking up and demanding sacrifice.

"Rightio then, I'll fetch some," Abigail gave him a smile, before slipping back into the kitchen where she could be heard speaking in low voices with someone, probably her grandmother, Gwen thought.

As they were making their way through the bowls of soup and thick slices of bread that had accompanied them the door opened behind them.

Gwen was out of her seat, her sword sliding out of her scabbard before her feet touched the floor.

Wylla entered. She shot Gwen a nasty glare, before looking to Abigail.

"Can I stay here please," she said stiffly.

"Of course, hon?" Abigail said. She paused, then didn't ask why. "Would you like to stay near the Adventurers? Top floor, overlooking the square?"

Wylla mulled this over for a few seconds, before she nodded. "Yes, that would be acceptable, thank you," she was still sounding stiff, but as she disappeared in the direction of the stairs she also sounded grateful: for the first time since Gwen had met her.

Gwen frowned, then shared a look with the other Adventurers. "I wonder what that was about?"

"I dare say only the gods know. Strange girl, that," Abigail said, "But I'd better follow her and set up a room for her."

"Do you want a hand?" Theo offered.

Abigail shook her head, "That's sweet of you to offer, but this is my job. And there aren't quite enough of you for me to start feeling swamped, just yet, at least."

Theo settled back down into his seat with a nod.

Gwen looked at him speculatively, had that been an attempt at flirtation? Or was he just honestly that good hearted? It was hard to tell.

Abigail disappeared off in the direction Wylla went.

"I think I am going to go upstairs as well," Gwen said with a sigh as she pushed away scraped clean bowl. "I need to sleep off these injuries."

"Of course, you are probably still under the effects of being reborn this morning, with all the fighting and running about I wouldn't be surprised if you are scarcely any better off than when I found you," Nikolai said looking at her with concern.

Gwen froze on being reminded of the fact that it had only been that morning that she had woken on the slap of stone in the temple. And dying the night before had felt mere breaths beforehand.

Marina started to speak, "Oh, I hadn't thought of that!" she bustled over and started prodding Gwen.

Gwen allowed it for a few heart bats before she chased her sister away.

"Shoo! I'm going to bed, that'll fix everything," she said.

Marina frowned, but couldn't deny it. In the game there really was no magic like a good night's sleep.

Gwen slipped off the stool and gave the others a wave. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said, before ducking through the door and escaping away from the watching eyes.