With a blade just behind his back, Victor found himself lead to where the campfire had been burning. At the fire, there was one person who seemed to be tending to it and one more who seemed to be sleeping in a tent. The one who was tending the fire simply nodded at the group as they appeared with him in tow.

“Alright, I’m going to go to sleep. Next time you need to check on something wake up Cylla. She’s already recovered from her little burst anyway, even if she says she needs a little bit longer to rest she should be fine.”

The woman behind Victor retorted to the man as he was going towards another tent, “Right, but get the wanted posters first. This guy has odd clothes so I want to check if he’s on any of the posters. Then I will check the list of known symbols to see if it matches the marking his shirt. If he isn’t a concern, then we can decide what to do with him.”

Victor couldn’t help but mentally sigh in relief as he thought to himself that there was no way they would find him on any wanted poster no matter how hard they looked. The relief was only partial because of the fact these people knew from his dress that he wasn’t from the area enough to comment on his clothing.

“I will gladly sit down or something if you take that weapon out of my back. I’m too tired to run even if I wanted to.”

A slight smile went over the woman’s face as she lightly pushed against Victor until he was on the ground in a seated position facing the fire. Before he could thank her for at least listening to him he suddenly had a jolt of excruciating pain flowing through the entirety of his body. It started where the woman had touched him and spread out until not a single part of him was free from the pain. While it wasn’t intense it spread throughout his entire body quickly and faded away nearly as fast.

Shaking his head, the guy who got Victor out from under the beasts sighed, “You could have at least warned the poor guy first.”

“It can be resisted if they know it's coming,” She snapped, “And if he was able to do that we wouldn’t know for sure if he was on a wanted poster or not.”

The woman’s words felt so matter of fact too Victor, but without knowing exactly what she did besides causing him pain he couldn’t judge what happened. As far as he could tell, all that had happened was something spread out from the woman’s hand to cause him pain everywhere.

It was then that the man who was previously watching the fire returned and handed a stack of papers to the other man, the woman moved to look at Victor more closely.

“Time to go over the specifics of this guy. I’ll tell you what I see and you ask me to check some stuff if you got anything else you need to know.”

Turning her attention back to Victor she smiled a smile that was something between interest and cruelty. He hoped that it was just him misreading her because of the stress, exhaustion, and darkness, but he wasn’t sure.

“If we find out you are someone on one of these posters the best you can hope for is to be brought in alive, depending on your crimes. There is a lot that people can survive though, so even if you are wanted alive there is plenty of ways for us to make sure you can’t run. After all, people are surprisingly durable.”

Victor, unable to get a single word to leave his lips, simply nodded. He could still see blood on the woman’s armor. It is hard to make out too well in the night with just the stars, moon, and campfire as light, but it seemed to be made of leather or something similar.

“Staying quiet? Good, now hold still while I check you out. First off I think this guy looks pretty average height. Probably somewhere between eighty and ninety suraiz tall. No noticeable fat, but no real muscle tone either. I see no scars and….”

“I have one on my left leg.”

The woman seemed surprised that Victor interrupted her, but smirked a bit.

“He claims to have one on his left leg. If needed we will verify it. Soft brown hair and eyes and no body parts missing as far as I can tell. He seems to not be a combatant and nothing happened when I did a magical interrupt I suspect that there is nothing hidden that we can’t see. He also appears to be I would say roughly older than fifteen but younger than twenty. Skin tone isn’t tan, so likely someone who doesn’t work outside much or he would at least be a little tanned. Anyone match that description?”

While the man was looking over the stack of papers, he would occasionally look in Victor’s direction. The silence of it was making time seem to slowly drag on as occasionally he would go back a few pages to check on something that he had looked at before. Even then he had a few that he put aside and looked at more closely. Only once he was done looking through all of the posters did he set them aside and hold one.

“Technically this one does look like him.”

“But?” The woman asked.

“It hasn’t been updated in about twelve years. That plus the fact we know he lost a finger on his right-hand means that this is unlikely to be him, but just to be safe I would check his bags. Not that I don’t trust what you did to test him, but it never hurts to check.”

Victor looked behind him, to where his backpack and the purse had been dropped. He wondered how much they would find that they weren’t used to. Especially since he already saw some things he wasn’t used to upon his arrival. During the walk, the woman had already made a comment on the zipper as something she wasn’t used to seeing and he was sure that if she had time to look around more there would be plenty that he would need to try to make up stories for.

“Some of those items are from my home so they probably just won’t make sense for what you’re used to. I mean, I don’t really think you will find anything dangerous.”

Taking out and emptying the bags, the woman started to sift through everything that she found putting it into two different piles as she did so.

“Dangerous or not isn’t the question want to have answered. The question to be answered is if it is illegal or not, as well as is there something that could keep you younger or regrow a finger without leaving any indication that it happened. While it is unlikely, it is technically possible. Now keep sitting still like you have been or else there might be a situation here that goes against what is for the best.”

As the woman started to go over everything that he had, Victor wondered what might draw the most attention. Things like his books, notepads, and other small items seemed to not be a concern. Other items, like the crank flashlight, pepper spray, and other items that weren’t as obvious in their use went into another pile. His mind raced as he wondered what would be asked of him first.

When everything was said and done, a fair amount of the items that he had required an explanation. Luckily, for the most part, they were pretty easy to explain. The makeup from the purse, writing supplies, and edibles were all especially easy to explain and resulted in nobody having much of a reaction, but more than one item did cause both the woman and the man maintaining the fire to show some interest.

A few demonstrations were done for the two of them when he could do them. Demonstrations for the laser pointer keychain, travel umbrella, pepper spray, pocket knife, and lighters were all requested and shown to the pair of them, with the exception of the pepper spray just being explained as Victor didn’t want to have it used on himself and doubted any of the people would volunteer to verify what he was saying.

It wasn’t long until Victor felt the situation lose its tension. Whatever concerns there were from the two people seemed to be gone as they become noticeably more relaxed.

“It seems you’re not anyone to worry about,” The woman started, “Although I hope, you can understand the concerns on our side. Someone alone this late without a weapon, unless you include that puny pocket knife, in such strange clothes. I had to make sure that there was nothing to worry about with you.”

Whistling and pointing her head to where they came from, the man headed off leaving her and Victor alone with the fire.

“So that was Drelt. He is going to get what he can from those beasts and I trust you won’t complain if we keep what we find. I’m Elya. The guy over there either trying or pretending to sleep is Jaul and the last one is Cylla. She had a burst yesterday so she is taking it easy. I keep telling her not to train while we are doing our patrols. Now tell me who you are and why you are out here all alone so we can decide what to do. Also, I want to buy one of those lighters. They seem useful.”

Victor decided to start telling his story, but with tweaks where he felt they were needed. He didn’t want to lie, but he wasn’t sure he could trust someone with the complete truth. The idea that the complete truth might not be believed also crossed his mind.

After sharing his name with the woman, he told her that he was from another country that was on a small island. His family had come here on a boat to try to earn money selling some of the items that might not be as common here after someone from this continent happened to land on the island. Using a cart that they bought for some items they started traveling on the roads, but not knowing the dangers of this non-island country they found themselves overwhelmed by criminals and beasts alike.

While trying to stay vague enough that there wouldn’t be any real reason to think he lied, Victor basically said that now he was alone and just wanted to figure out how things were here and see if he could do well without the support that he was used to having. He even threw in a few tearjerker moments that most people might think was a bit over the top, but he hoped would give him a bit of sympathy for what he was trying to do.

It was both Elya and Drelt, upon his return, who listened to Victor’s story. There weren’t any questions asked by them beyond a few small ones at the end, wondering if he had any plans or if he had anyone that he knew around here that could help him get back on his feet.

“No, not really. I just have what you saw I had,” Victor admitted, “I just need to figure out a way to get started. I need to get some starting money and find a place I can live and build up my life. After that perhaps I can grow and even get to where I want to go. I do have some money, but I’m assuming that it isn’t anything I can use around here.”

The trio became quiet after some time had passed. With the only sound that could be heard being the crackle of the fire and the occasional noise from one of the two people who were sleeping.

“Well,” Elya began, “We are on our way to one of the bigger regions of the kingdom. If you don’t mind selling some of what you have, I am sure you can make some money once you get there. If you sell me one of those fire starting lighters we will even take you there. It’s only a two day trip from here so even if you slow us down we will still be able to report in earlier than expected.”

“Do you accept the deal?”

With a mental sigh, Victor handed over one of the lighters. He wasn’t sure if he was being ripped off or if the woman was being generous to him, especially since she didn’t tell him how much money he would be paid for the lighter. The only thing he felt certain of was that he didn’t see any other options at this time.