We continued walking north on the path towards Bettyford. I was leading the group with Pips on one shoulder and Mae on the other. I had given up on stealth as the cart that Gwen was pulling was not bulit for stealth. I couldn't seem to get one of the wheels to stop squeaking after the first couple of hours of the trip.

"How are you doing, Gwen?" I asked the horse who had been pulling the loaded down cart this whole time.

She made a whinnying noise which made me realize that I had no idea what that meant. I went over the yes and no tapping procedure and asked if she needed a rest. She tapped yes.

"Your horse needs to rest," I said to Jen. "Are you okay to try and find a good camping spot?" We still had some daylight left but I was also a little worn out from all of the emotions that accompany almost getting killed by a big monster that wanted to eat me.

"I'm fine with stopping when we find a good spot," Jen said as we continued to walk.

It took about another hour of heading north before we found a path that led to a suitable camping spot. We didn't want to camp directly on the road for fear of attack. I set up a small fire and put out mattresses for Jen and myself on opposite sides of the fire so she felt like she had space.

"Do I need to put out mattresses for Gwen?" I asked genuinely not having ever thought about how horses slept. I knew that they did sleep, but was it standing up like cows? Was that even accurate? I knew nothing about a horse's sleeping habits.

"Yes, she could use mattresses. How did you think horses slept?" Jen was looking at me like I was not overly intelligent.

"I'd never thought about it," I said pulling a couple of mattresses out of my inventory and laying them next to Jen's sleeping area.

Gwen walked over and laid down on the mattresses. She must've been tired as she fell asleep almost instantly.

Jen and I talked for a while before calling it a night. I just wanted to get her home and be done with this part of the quest. Why did she have to have a smile that reminded me of Paige's?

I woke up to Pips slapping me in the face in the most painfully adorable way possible. He was jumping up and down pointing West and chittering excitedly. I sat up in my bed and scanned the camp area. Jen and Gwen were gone. Their mattresses lay there at odd angles from how I had placed them as if their occupants had been dragged off. How did I sleep through this? Why wasn't I taken?

Then I saw my MP bar was refilling slowly. When had I used magic while asleep? Then all the questions were answered with one realization. The ring of blending must still activate even while the wearer is sleeping. The attackers didn't see me laying there. Good thing the mattress is so comfortable that I didn't need to move at all.

I quickly picked up camp and followed the footprints into the woods. Pips jumped up onto my shoulder and I continued my attempt at balancing stealth and speed. It didn't take long to find the enemy's camp. Relief flooded over me as I saw Jen and Qwen in a large wooden prison. It wasn't much more than thick branches corded together, but it seemed to be tough based on the amount of abuse it was taking.

Their noisy protests were probably what masked my approach the most. That and Gwen's kicks that didn't to do much but annoy the guards. I scanned the camp to know what I was up against. I didn't recognize these enemies as ones I had fought thus far. They were larger than goblins and somehow uglier. They were humanoid and reddish-orange in color. Their skin had bumps all over it like overzealous goose-pimples.

There were five armed with shortswords and small round shields. These looked like the grunts of the bunch. Two were acting as the guards for the prisoners and the rest were sitting around a central campfire. There was a lone tent in the camp that I assumed contained the leader of the bunch but I couldn't see into it.

I waited a few minutes to see if anything would exit the tent but decided to move towards it instead for a better look. The rear of the tent abutted the forrest so I approached as quietly as possible. When I got within a few feet I heard talking from within. I heard two raspy voices talking about their captives.

"We should just eat them," said the deeper of the two voices. He sounded a little perturbed and almost had a growling effect accompanying his voice.

"With all due respect, great one, these are perhaps the most valuable travelers we have ever captured. Town leaders wouldn't care about traveling merchants as much as a well dressed female," said the second voice. He sounded more eloquent than I'd think a goblin-type creature could speak.

"If she was so important, why would she travel unguarded?" the leader asked.

"They must've been killed on the road. This is a lucky find. We could probably trade her for some better gear or maybe something magical. Plus, nothing says we couldn't eat the horse," said the smooth talker. He had made an argument good enough to convince the other as the leader grunted in agreement.

I heard steps walking out of the tent and heard the leader yell, "Build up the fire. Tonight we feast." There was a round of appreciative shouts from the camp and the sound of movement.

I lifted the bottom of the tent and peaked it. It was empty of enemies but had a good amount of loot laying around. I'd worry about that later. It was time to save the day.

I peaked out the front of the tent and saw the grunts building up the fire and building a large cooking spit. I needed to make a plan and fast.

"How was I supposed to take out at least seven enemies?" I asked myself quietly. Pips squeaked from beside me and got that familiar determined gaze like he was ready to attack.

"You have a plan?" I asked the little guy.

He ran out of the tent towards the fire and got the attention of one of the grunts. As soon as he got the guards attention he ran back into the tent. When he followed the squirrel into the tent I was ready with a sneak attack stab.

"One down," I said to the brave critter.

He tried the same tactic and was able to get on more of the grunts to follow him. Unfortunately, before this one died a cry for help alerted the rest of the camp.

We scurried out of the back of the tent to regroup. I was able to sneak back to the opposite side of the camp from the tent and saw the remaining five enemies standing at the entrance to the tent yelling in for me to come out with my hands up.

I thought of my good bow and it appeared in my hand I pulled back an arrow and started imbuing a waterball. I waited for the enemies to start entering the tent and loosed my arrow at the rear enemy.

The waterball exploded into existence as soon as the arrow touched the back of the rear enemy. It was the size of a car and easily sent the enemy flying into the tent as if he was shot from a cannon. He took the rest of the enemies with him. As soon as the first arrow was away I pulled another and aimed for the main wooden pole that held the tent aloft. I wasn't sure if it would work, but I figured it could hurt to imbue this arrow with my spell of unfastening.

The arrow hit the pole and the tent fabric fell to the ground trapping the enemies who were still trying to recover from the initial attack. I ran over to the makeshift trap net and started stabbing through the fabric. It may not have been the classiest way to win the fight but beggers can't be choosers.

I was able to stab the first four enemies multiple times until they stopped struggling to escape. I got to the last enemy and was blasted back at an alarming rate. I used a healing scroll to get my health back up to full and saw what had sent me flying.

This last enemy was just as ugly as the others but stood up straighter. He was wearing a robe and had a staff of some sort. I was more than a little worried to be facing a magic-user one-on-one.

He pointed the staff towards me and a brownish-black bubble shot towards me. I dove out of the way and the sphere hit a tree behind me. At the point of impact shards of the tree exploded in all directions. The trunk of the tree had the same coloring as the original bubble and looked to be withering away. I did not want to get hit by one of those.

I continued to dodge while I thought of how to take away his weapon without taking a direct hit. I pulled out a bow and arrow and sent an arrow in his direction. He dodged it and smiled at me as he fired again.

We could each fire and dodge at about the same rate and were evenly matched. The first person to make a mistake or underestimate their counterpart would lose this fight. He hadn't seen all of my tricks yet so I tried another of my new spells.

I imbued the spell onto an arrow and set a delayed timer and shot it not at the shaman but just over him on a bit of an arch. It hit the makeshift log bench that sat about twenty feet behind him.

"Are you even trying anymore?" he said with a sneer. "Ready to give up?"

"Sweep the legs!" I shouted as I popped my bow back into my inventory. The bench rocketed towards the back of his legs as the pulling spell took effect. His confusion over my response delayed his reaction and he wasn't able to dodge the quickly moving projectile. I was ready and cast my pulling spell at his staff as he hit the ground. I caught the staff with both hands and aimed it at the enemy.

He slowly stood as I used his own weapon against him. The bubble hit him square in the back and he fell down dead on the spot. I didn't feel good about this fight. There were a lot of emotions to unpack but I had to save Jen and Gwen.

Pulled the staff into my inventory and grimaced as I read the description.

Staff of Death (Legendary)

An attack from this staff will instantly kill any defenseless enemy. When the effect hits anything other than a defenseless enemy, there is an explosion of death magic that will destroy organic material.

It was my first legendary item and I never wanted to use it again. I felt more guilt from this last fight than from any previous fight. I'd have to talk to Mae about what I was feeling and hope that she could help me work through them.

I went over to the cage and used a spell of unfastening on the lock. Jen ran out and hugged me. Tears were streaming down her face as she sobbed out her words.

"Thank you for saving me," she said. I gingerly removed myself from her grip and pushed down my thoughts about Paige that I couldn't deal with yet. "Gwen is injured. Can you help her?"

I went to the horse and used my healing spell on her. There was instant relief, but I could see that it wasn't going to be enough. I would need Mae's help to get Gwen walking again.