Theodore: Give me a minute. Even if they start swinging. I have an idea.

Jen: Okay.

Barry didn't answer but I was pretty sure he would follow Jen's lead.

I pulled the weaponless thug's club out of my inventory and into my swingin' hand. I would do my best to pull my swings a little so I didn't accidentally unalive another human NPC. I was still working through those emotions and didn't want to add fuel to the fire.

The man whose club I had confiscated had only brought four friends with him. They stood two on either side of him and only had four weapons between the five of them so I liked my odds.

They swung first but I had the advantage of being the fastest of this bunch. I was able to block the blow with my club. The blows I couldn't block I just made sure they hit cloak. None of their blows landed solidly, but I was able to knock down three of the five.

The first, still weaponless thug backed up a couple of steps in surprise as his buddies got a non-lethal beat-down. He was pretty close to the wall that surrounded the estate at this point in the fight as I pushed the last armed one back quite a few steps with a forceful shove.

The man stood up angrily and pulled something from his inside coat pocket. It glinted in the late morning sun. At the same time, I heard a commotion from the top of the wall above us. Another half dozen thugs, these ones armed with bows and arrows, set up on top of the wall to fire downward at me.

I instantly deflated like a balloon that had gotten shot by six arrows like I was about to. Before they could nock an arrow, the thug who had pulled out something shiny put his arm back in a throwing stance and was about to chuck a knife of some sort at me.

That's when the huge greataxe landed in his chest and he changed his mind, him being dead and all. The archers were about ready to pull back and finish me off when I saw the greataxe start flying back to Barry as it was wont to do. It would fly within my reach so I had the bright idea of grabbing it mid-flight and using it to block as many of the arrows as possible like a make-shift shield.

The greataxe had other plans and continued its trajectory back to Barry with me still holding on in a wide-eyed stupor. The archer's changed their aim but I was moving at a high rate of speed almost in an instant and only one arrow managed to hit its mark. It sliced a gash in my calf, but I hadn't lost much HP. Barry stood there with his greataxe back in his hand my hand was still attached but I wasn't standing. My legs rested on their shins and the rest of my body curved up and off the floor. My hand released its grip and I slid to the ground comically.

I got up as quick as I could and we ran into the nearby buildings before we could get shot at. I got an idea if they tried to follow us since I needed to heal before I could run well enough to escape.

We went into a building where we would be fairly hidden in the shadows but I could see a pretty good distance down the ruined street. Sure enough, the five men came running a few seconds after we had gotten set up in our hidey-hole.

I looked at a crumbling wall a good ways away and used my new spell.

"This way!" I shouted using the Distant Utterance spell. The words didn't come from my mouth but originated from the wall where I was focusing.

The clueless thugs ran full speed to the area where the shout came from and continued in that direction.

"We should get out of here before they send out search parties." I didn't know if they would do that, but I didn't want to wait around and find out.

I healed my leg with my healing spell and we quietly took off in the opposite direction. We made it safely back to the inn and sat down for a meal as if nothing had happened.

"What's for lunch?" I asked the woman I had done all the trading with.

"Stew. The basic meal is always stew." She went off to grab us three bowls. I could eat that stew anytime so I didn't mind the repeat meal.

We sat and relaxed as we finished lunch then moved back up into our room to discuss the day's events thus far.

"What was that all about?" Asked Jen. "Why were you being so careful with those guys?"

"I was trying not to take out any more humans. I felt really bad about the few guys I iced back in Bettyford." I was trying to use words other than 'kill' to make me feel less bad about the NPC deaths I had accidentally been the cause of. Using the word 'iced' just made me think about Larry the first one that I had literally frozen and shattered and I felt bad all over again.

"Iced? Just say killed," said Jen.

"I'm trying to try out different words like don't make me feel quite so guilty," I said.

"Whatever. What if we tried to sneak into the compound and just looked for my parents without even dealing with this Edrus guy?" Jen asked sitting down on her bed.

"I don't know that we would be able to do that without someone spotting us. I think it might be too dangerous," I answered.

"Axed," Barry said smiling. We continued our conversation but gave him a smile.

"I don't think it is any more dangerous than trying to have a friendly conversation with a murderer that has a whole town afraid of him," she said.

"I guess we could try." I sat down on my bed facing her.

"Eliminated," said Barry still trying to think of substitutable words.

We both glanced over then continued again.

"Why don't we rest up and go late tonight?" Jen asked.

"If it is okay with Barry, I will go along with it." I looked over at Barry who was definitely thinking hard about other ways to say kill. He nodded his head.

"Encorpsulated," Barry said with a little too much excitement.

"Great. We leave tonight and if you want us to survive you're going to have to be okay with encorpulating some bad guys," she said looking over at Barry and shaking her head.

"If it is a choice between you and a bad guy I would choose the bad guy of course." I needed time to process the fact that I would be axing more human NPCs. Mae had said that they aren't and never have been real humans. I needed to remember that this was like a game. It is a little easier when facing goblins and orcs, but I couldn't hesitate when the time came. I couldn't let them get hurt.

"I'm going to try checking out the shops again. Why don't you guys wait here so we don't look exactly like the group they were searching for?" They agreed and I headed out of the room.

I didn't really need to go to the book store again so my first stop was the general store. I looked for anything that might be useful for tonight's stealth mission and also for items that I might be able to craft into new arrow types.

I ended up trading two healing scrolls and a half dozen goblin bows for a good length of rope, some smaller bits of metal and wire, and a fishing reel along with a spindle of fishing line and some hooks. I thought it was a good trade and put everything away in my dimensional space. As I was exiting the shop I caught glimpse of one of the thugs looking my way in the street. I ducked back in and ran out the back door.

The man followed but I was more concerned with the thug I ran into in the alley behind the shop.

"Hold up, pal. We just want to talk," said the thug in the alley. "Boss heard about how you handled business and wanted to offer you a job."

"I'm not interested," I said backing into the other thug who was coming out of the rear exit of the general store behind me.

"It is a very lucrative offer," the alley one said. "Boss never makes deals this good. Especially for people who have attacked his men. Ain't that right, Bob?"

I looked back at Bob and noticed his black eye.

"No worries. Water under the bridge. Why don't you come with us and you can tell him yourself how thankful you are to be able to receive and accept such a kind offer?" Bob walked over to the unnamed thug as he spoke then he waved me to come along.

"No, thanks. I just wanted to see if I could have a conversation with Roderic about his daughter. It seems like that isn't going to happen. So, I'll just leave town," I said like a person who tells lies.

"Boss doesn't like it when people refuse his offers and he doesn't forget either," said the unnamed thug.

"I'm sorry to disappoint." I watched them as they walked away chatting with each other.

"Good luck," Bob said back at me as I went back into the general store.

I don't think he was being genuine.