Tom P.O.V

The two weeks trip to the small village Open Caves did me a lot of good. I was still a little worked up from what had happened but at least most of my anger had bled out and I was only left with a lot of restless energy from just sitting in a cart.

Technically I was here for protection so when the fog came in a bit denser I went to the head of the caravan, to lead the way even though I knew the chances of something happening this close to the village were close to 0. All my thoughts changed when I got the distinct feeling that I was being watched.

It wasn’t something new to me, after all as a guard in the city patrolling the street you always have a few people keeping their eye on you to act as an alarm system for people doing the shady business. The problem was here there was nobody to watch me, everyone was either talking amongst themselves or on watch duty themselves and looking at the forest.

I only had this feeling one time before in my life, at the end of my first year as a member of the guard I took the optional posting of joining the Hunting guard, you need to have 10 cycles of experience before you can sign up and the money is good for going out into the forest to protect a couple of nobles while they hunt for sport. I still get nightmares from the lvl 19 wolf that jumped on my back that day.

That incident is what marked my decision to remain as a normal patrolman and focus on honing my skill through dedication, hard work and time instead of going for the faster method of levelling by putting yourself at risk. After all, experience earned was a result of 3 things : first how demanding is the activity, do you have to spend every resource you have or can you keep doing it for days on end with no issues. Second how difficult is the activity for you, taking on an evenly matched opponent will give less experience than if you take on that same opponent with no mana or better yet a craftsmen making a knife he made a lot of times before levels from his last one, the one he makes after with increased stats will be worth less experience since it was easier to get that result. The last one is risk, and its pretty self explanatory the higher the danger the more experience. You fight an opponent in a spar or to the death the experience will reflect that.

My small brush with danger made it clear to me I was not built to be able to take the danger, so a steady long road was the way for me. I was now on edge, I hadn’t taken those assignments before specifically because I didn’t want to go through that again and now that feeling of being watched came back. I was looking through the fog but couldn’t tell where I was being watched from.

All of a sudden something moves from the tree to my left. I hear the crack of a twig and I swing my shield feeling a solid contact. I look at who I hit and I see a young kid that seems strangely familiar.

“Alzinoth” Kate says from behind me casting a healing spell on the kid I just flattened. “Tom, why would you shield bash a kid who just called you big brother?” she asks with a mix of confusion and anger.

Then I processed her words, he called me what? I take another look at him and yeah he does resemble Ajax, a profound sense of guilt comes over me as I pick him up and start carrying him towards the village thinking of the best way to explain this to my parents and Ajax himself. Still I swear if this kid doesn’t have a stealth skill I’ll eat my left boot.

Ajax P.O.V. :

My head was pounding as I started to shift, finding myself in my own bed. The last thing I remember is seeing my brother's shield coming towards me and hearing a strange word afterwards. So I tried sitting up, finding surprisingly that while I still had a pounding headache I didn’t feel any pain from the actual hit I took and my health now said 70/70.

“Good you’re awake” I hear in a soft sweet voice. I look up and I start to consider just how hard my brother hit me. Standing on a chair next to my bed reading a scroll is a blonde young woman, with cat ears and tail. I know that beastkin are a part of this world, same as dwarves and elves but knowing something exists and seeing it are two very different things.

“How are you feeling, does your head still hurt?” she asks while she moves up to check on me .

“Who are you?’

“Kate, I’m your - “ that’s as far as she got as my mom came in through the door, looking worried and a little out of breath.

“Ajax, how are you feeling? Does your head hurt? Can you remember what happened?” And the questions just kept coming, this has to be the first time I have seen my mother distressed, ever the composed calm merchant, this new attitude threw me through a loop. After about a minute of non stop questions she pauses to take breath so I see my chance.

“Yes mom I’m fine, I think Tom hit me with his shield I’m not sure what happened after that” I quickly threw my brother under the bus, after all I haven’t seen him in almost 4 years and the first thing he does is try to brain me.

“I was just teaching you not to sneak up on someone in a fogged up forest.” Tom said from the doorway with his trademark smirk though some concern for me still showed in his eyes. “Just kidding” he quickly puts up his hands as my mothers attention switches from me and she turns on him. “How is he Kate? He gonna make it?”

“Yeah he’ll be just fine”

“So, why did you take it upon yourself to see if my head is hard enough?” I ask my brother, a small smile working its way onto my face.

“Small hang up from a run in with a wolf in the fog a few years back, you should probably not use your stealth skill within arm reach of me.” he tries to brush it off but from the look in his eyes I think it might be a bit more than a small hang incident he makes it out to be.

“What stealth skill?” mom asks, looking from my brother to me, confusion clear on her face.

“Same one he’s been using since I was looking after him before I left, I wasn’t sure back then if he had one but seeing him get so close to me without anyone in the caravan noticing is a dead giveaway.” He calmly digs my grave, completely oblivious to the look of “for the love of god shut the fuck up”. That Kate catches but only gives me a look of pity as if telling me she can’t help.

“So you’ve got a stealth skill do you?” mom asks, and I find a sudden interest in inspecting my feet. “Is that why I can never find you when I want to deliver something to Mrs. Olena”

“It’s not that I don’t want to help you deliver, it’s the 30 minute revelation of how I remind her of her son, that she gives me every time” I murmur under my breath, Lucky enough she doesn’t catch that and seems to have regained her composure.

“No matter, we can add that to the list of things we need to talk about , right now dinner's getting cold let's all go eat.” She nods towards the door and herds me out after Kate and Tom into the kitchen where dad and Judy are setting the table for 6, it seems that Jonny won’t be joining us this time, which I am glad for. The last thing I want is that gossip getting wind of me having a stealth skill.