Ever since that day, I’ve been plagued by nightmares. One moment, I was heroically fighting against a horde of goblins; the next, one of my comrades disappeared. Replaced by one of the others, the one I trusted least. With them fighting by my side, I finally started to come to trust them a little only for that to be shattered as they left during the battle. Finally, the only one that didn’t go off elsewhere ended up being killed. It was only one goblin and I thought he could have handled it himself, not that I was in any liberty to go help him.

There was no honor in that fight. I may have won out in the end, but I lost all of my comrades. An empty victory if there ever was one. I even suffered a nasty cut in the last moments of the battle. It didn’t seem so bad at the time, I had taken a few hits before. I had underestimated how bad the cut was. Far away from civilization, I had no way of finding a doctor in a timely matter and just stemmed the bleeding. It got infected.

I became one leg short of a man, my chances of living normally falling into the drain, not even speaking of a life with glory. To make such matters worse is that those nightmares kept happening. A new group with a new meeting place. It was some sort of sick joke. I went in the opposite direction of where they told me to go yet they managed to track me down. In every nightmare, they came a bit closer, and I wasn’t in any condition to get away.

Two seasons. It took them two seasons to finally reach me. Summer passed with me desperately dragging myself from town to town, hitching rides with merchants and trying to fix my leg. Fall saw the falling of my leg due to a bone saw from a traveling doctor. At that point, it was dead and rotting, driving the rest of my body to sickness. It had to happen and the surgery had just as much of a chance to kill me as it had to save me. My luck seemed to be above that of most men and I hope it stays that way.

We met up in a bar. I had stayed the night there in a half-drunken stupor and was just putting on my new leg as they walked in and surrounded me as though it was natural. If only I decided not to drink yesterday and just bore the frustration of those nightmares, I might’ve skipped town before they became a reality. Fate was no longer in my hands, but the gods. Nothing was more frustrating or despairing than that knowledge.

The first one was a female priest wearing robes quite similar to the ones Adrian wore. The only thing different about her was that she was female and that she was carrying a fox in her hands. Which made me think she doubled as a tamer or something.

“Hello, my name is Claris. I’m glad that we have finally all assembled. This is Foa in my hands. And now, everyone should introduce ourselves as we’ll be working together from now on. I’ll relay what the gods want us to do once we are all settled in,” said the female priest, now known as Claris.

It was disgustingly similar to the way things went last time. I wasn’t in the mood for this crap and I finished putting on my leg. They seemed to notice my disinterest and my leg unnerved them quite a bit. They continued their conversation with their eyes darting around as they didn’t know where to put them.

“You don’t need to know my name. I was guided here by the dead themselves. My job is to help lost souls find rest and as a perk, I can use their powers,” said the other member. His voice was that of a young male and he sounded overly excited about this. He wore thick, heavy robes that suited the winter months and covered his face. He seemed to be a mage-type as he carried around this fancy metal staff that wouldn’t even work well as a club in a tough situation.

Hiding his face and name? That was familiar; too familiar. I had a feeling that the situation last time was partially caused by that mercenary. After some searching, I managed to find Adrian’s staff, but nothing related to them. I didn’t even get to know their identity.

“The name is Ralph. I’ve already gone through this type of situation before and it’s not as colorful as you might imagine,” I said while lifting my leg into the air, making sure they took in the full weight of it.

“It can’t be that bad. No need to intimidate us, we’ll take things seriously,” said the mage-type guy.

I pulled down his hood and took a good look at his face. He was smiling and had bags underneath his eyes. It didn’t seem like he had much sleep, that I could relate to, but the smile disturbed me. I made sure to memorize his face in case I had to track him down later.

“Tell me your name or I’ll kick you out of the group right now. We had a guy like you in the last group up and disappear midway through a battle with no way of tracking him down. I’m not going to let that happen again,” I said.

“Chad. No worries about that. I have enough people haunting me and I don’t need any more simply because I ran off from a fight. I can hold my own,” said the mage-type, now known as Chad.

“Guys! Stop talking! I’m receiving a message from the gods. We must find and defeat a tyrant,” said Claris.

The same vagueness as last time. It was better than going blindly in one direction but not by much. As for a tyrant, that could mean any number of things. A king, a military commander, or a… noble in charge of a town?

We were fucked.

“Did the gods specify anything about the tyrant? He must be close as the dead seem to be chattering quite a bit about that message,” said Chad.

“Well, yes actually. We’ve got good luck as—“ Claris started to say.

“Shut up!” I shouted, interrupting her as I looked around the tavern.

The barkeep kept his head down while cleaning out a glass with a rag. He didn’t want trouble. As for the others, they seemed mostly asleep, focusing on their breakfast, or were already starting to drink. It seemed like we were still safe for the most part. Except, the door to the entrance was swinging quite wildly. Someone had pushed through it a couple seconds ago in a rush. Things were going downhill.

“Why did you interrupt me?” asked Claris. The fox was stirring about restlessly in her hands.

Chad, on the other hand, was looking at the door as well and his face was turning pale. His smile was wiped off his face. He had realized it as well.

“We need to get out. Now,” I said while pulling Adrian’s staff from behind my seat.

I shoved it into my armpit to use as a makeshift crutch. Claris’s face scrunched up and it seemed she was displeased about this. Too bad. Desperate times call for desperate measures. This wasn’t the first time I had to use something important to others inappropriately to suit my needs.

“Barkeep, any chance this place has a back entrance? The shop we want to go to is on the other side of the block and it’d be nice if we could take a little shortcut,” I asked the barkeep. He may not have wanted to get involved but there was no reason he couldn’t help at least this much. I even asked in a roundabout and loud way to give him an excuse to give the guards and plenty of drunkards around here could attest to his word as witnesses.

“There is no back door. Only one entrance and exit and it’s right there. Quickly use it so there’s no mess here,” said the barkeep.

It was understandable. Even if he did have a backdoor, he wouldn’t let us use it. We pretty much committed treason with our words before. He gave us the advice to leave quickly so we both had a chance to escape and so his tavern wouldn’t turn into a battleground. It was more of self-preservation than kindness, but it was better than nothing.

Chad took the front, rushing towards the front entrance. He was a coward, but I couldn’t fault him for it since I was doing the same thing. Besides, if things went downhill, he would be the first into the pit. I patted my back to make sure all my belongings were in place and started to wobble towards the door. Claris stayed by my side, keeping her arms stretched out. I wasn’t sure if it was to help me or the staff if I fell.

The two of us got outside to find Chad up against the wall with a guard and the person who snitched on us in front of him. Chad had his arms up and seemed to be surrendering, but when we came out he took advantage of the guard being looking away to run over to us.

“You incompetent fool! You let one get away. These are treasonous people talking about getting rid of the baron. No more trying to arrest them, just stick em if you get the chance,” said the snitch while pulling out a short sword.

This was just great. Things were devolving into combat again. There were less to fight but we were in the middle of enemy territory. It didn’t look like surrender was an option anymore so it was either fight or run. Unfortunately, I’m in no condition to run so we had to fight quickly and then move along before more show up. I felt sad that I even considered running as an option but there is no glory in dying a dog’s death.

Thankfully, the leg I lost was my left and I’m right handed. I could still use my axe quite comfortably without letting go of Adrian’s staff that I was using for support. I stepped forward towards my opponents. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Claris setting the fox down and getting ready to fight while Chad was somewhere behind me. If he had run off, I’d track him down and kill him myself later.

The guard seemed a bit unsure of things as he wasn’t even wearing armor and his weapon was still sheathed. The snitch looked at my leg, smiled and began to rush at me. He bounded through the snow with surprising speed. I tried to move to dodge or parry the attack, but all I ended up doing was shift the position of Adrian’s staff onto an icy part of the road and unbalanced myself. I still wasn’t used to having only one proper leg and paid for it with a small sword to the gut. It wasn’t in any of my vitals so with some medical help I’d be fine. Just like how I’d still have both my legs if Adrian hadn’t disappeared.

Claris stepped in from the side and bashed the snitch’s arm badly. He fell over from the sudden hit and dropped his small sword. It fell to the ground with him, soaking the snow red with my blood. Then, Foa, the fox that Claris brought with her of all things, ran up and tore the snitch’s throat out. The snow was dyed red with both the snitch’s and my blood. One wouldn’t be surprised if a wolf or dog was doing this, but this was just a small fox. Foxes were much more vicious than I previously gave them credit for.

From behind me, an arrow whizzed by and hit a wall. If it had been a few centimeters to the left, it would’ve taken out the guard. This was a wake-up call for this indecisive guard. He unsheathed his weapon and lunged towards Claris for some reason. I would’ve expected him to go for me, since I was wounded or for whoever shot that arrow. Thankfully, his swing went wide and she backed up so it was a complete miss.

I tried to give him a taste of my axe as punishment but I couldn’t close the distance fast enough and my swing wasn’t even close to him. He backed off a bit anyways which saved his life. Another arrow whizzed right by his face and would’ve hit him if he hadn’t moved. It seemed like bows were unreliable weapons in their aim. Wait, bows?

A shriek was heard right next to me. There, Claris was covering her mouth while looking at the dead snitch in horror. She wasn’t used to battles and wasn’t paying attention properly, despite her life being in danger just a few seconds ago. I hoped that she would have the time to either get used to this or this farce would end and allow us to all go home. Just some wishful thinking on my part.

Foa, once again to my surprise, turned out to be one of my most competent teammates despite being an animal. The fox grabbed onto the guard’s leg with its mouth and starting tugging, unbalancing him and making him an easy target. I was just about to lift my axe to send a blow when the sounds of crunching snow in the distance reached my ears.

Behind the guard, two more guards wearing actual armor and looking more professional appeared. They were rushing towards us but paused to observe the situation. The guard before us managed to struggle free and ran back to the other guards while trying to explain the situation. Taking advantage of this, I put away my axe and felt that my pack was disturbingly lighter than before, slapped Claris’s shoulder, and began to flee. Chad took the lead once again, searching for an alleyway for us to dip into or something, on his back was an all too familiar bow.

As we were running along, I thought I saw something shiny in Foa’s mouth but dismissed it in lieu of more important things, like running. How dishonorable and how far I had fallen. Eventually, we managed to find a large building that didn’t seemed to be used for anything. It was some sort of abandoned warehouse, a place where people used to keep things but now it was just eerily empty and falling apart from disuse. The perfect place to rest and take a break from this wild situation.