“Ohh, shit, it just won’t stop hurting,” groaned Sam as the intense pain in his shoulder forced him to open his eyes.

“Shhh, I know it hurts Sam, but I need you to do your best to stay as quiet as possible. Listen to me. Jen is OK and she is checking the surrounding area to make sure we lost the Roulette Soldiers that were trailing us.” Tamako said, as she was trying to make Sam somewhat comfortable on the forest floor.

Sam’s pain and the heat of the forest made it hard for him to focus his mind, so he just closed his eyes, and tried to shut it all out.

Only a mile away in the forest Jen heard, “I can smell you and hear you,” and the mocking laughter of the General.

Jen had intercepted the coms of the enemy and knew this General was a former Ranger with a tracking skill. The General was leading a small group of Roulette soldiers that escaped the City upon their unexpected defeat in the battle.

After pinging his specific location, Jen used her Ninja skills, increasing her speed, suppressing her mana signature, suppressing the noise she made, and powering up her forgetme charm. She was going to kill this General without him ever knowing what happened. That’s when, almost quicker than the eye could see, the General spun in her direction and shot an arrow right at her.

“Shit!” Jen screamed from the pain, but she immediately rolled with the momentum, hit the ground, sprung up, and raced to some cover and concealment. “Damn, I can’t simply run from this guy, he moves almost as fast as me, maybe faster. If I didn’t have my overclock skill active, this fucking arrow would not be in my arm, but through my damn heart.”

Jen was embarrassed being caught flat-footed. She was so confident that she would be able to kill this guy, just like she had killed the bandits. “Great job Jen, assuming you are Ms. Super Ninja, but this fucking guy could freaking SMELL and HEAR me coming. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!” She berated herself.

Jen called out, “How could you Hear me?”

The General laughed, “I could hear everywhere else, but nothing from the spot where you were. You stupid fucking amateur. I’m going to have fun killing you.” Then the General moved.

Jen could no longer see, or even hear where the General was. Thankfully, she could tell he was trying to flank her by constantly pinging his location. He was not stupid like her; he was being cautious as he stalked her. There was no way he was just going to stand out in the open and let her pull a pistol from her ring and shoot him. “Get your head in the game Jen!” she told herself. There was no need for her to be silent, he knew where she was. She pulled the arrow out of her arm and cast minor mend on it, but her arm was still very weak.

She noticed a sudden change in his location and she instinctively rolled away, but she had to keep moving as arrow after arrow was being shot in her direction. It was all she could do to keep from being skewered.

The big General closed the distance and tackled Jen to the ground. He was not Tamako strong, but Jen realized he was clearly skilled in grappling.

“I can’t let this fucker kill me!” Jen thought, but she was losing, as she struggled to keep the man’s hunting knife away from her face with her injured arm. Unfortunately, her injured arm simply wasn’t up to the task for much longer, and the General had immediately dominated her good arm holding her knife when he tackled her.

She was desperate, trying to twist or buck him off… or anything, but he was overpowering her and had better grappling skills. Jen could see his angry, wild face, determined to kill her in their struggle, but she also saw his coms device in his ear. With a panicked thought of hope she sent a mana blast at his coms device causing it to overload and emit a high-pitch piercing blast of sound in his ear. The man flinched, not much, but enough for Jen to free her knife arm and sink her poisoned blade under the man’s chin and into his brain.

Jen didn’t have time to relish being alive, she had to move before the rest of the soldiers found them. Jen rolled the big man off of her, looted his body and got a safe distance away to rest up and heal herself. She had to use several of Sam’s healing charms before her arm fully recovered, and she used multi-focus with meditation to get her sanity and fear under control.

Later, Jen would learn from Tamako, that she should be dead. If the General didn’t still have his Ranger SMELL and HEARING skill activated during the fight, she seriously doubted Jen’s sonic blast would have done a damn thing to a former Ranger, that was now a level 26 general who probably had over 100 years of battle experience.

After Jen made her way back to Tamako and Sam, Jen explained, “I intercepted their coms messages and learned that a General was leading the Roulette soldiers following us. He tortured some of the guards they captured while retreating out of the City. It turns out those guards, YOUR former guards were hunting you. They believed you secretly had the City Treasury and used some of the money to activate the City defenses so you could escape with the rest of the treasury.”

Tamako was picking up on an odd tone in Jen’s voice, and asked, “What do you mean a General WAS leading the soldiers?”

Jen clarified a little, “I know the plan was to avoid engagement, but he was closing in on our location too quickly. Once I identified his coms, I pinged his location, stalked, and killed him. That is why I was gone so long. The General was the one with a tracking skill, and the remaining soldiers have no idea how to follow us.”

Tamako’s eyes narrowed at Jen suspiciously, she knew the Roulette Generals were at least level 25 with years of battle experience. She promised herself to find out the rest of the story later.

Tamako then changed the subject looking at Sam, “He has woken up, I think he is half awake right now, but he is in a lot of pain from his shoulder stump.”

As Jen moved over to look at Sam’s shoulder stump, she again cast her minor mend spell on his arm, and the cauterized stump appeared to smooth over a bit more.

“That helped a little,” Sam mumbled, as the intensity of the pain decreased just enough to allow him to focus his mind better. Sam sat up with Jen’s help and looked down at his remaining arm, inspecting the legacy healing tattoo, and after a few minutes said, “My healing tattoo enchantment was not damaged. I’m going to push a small amount of mana into my healing tattoo and work on my shoulder.” About 10 minutes later, Sam activated his tattoo enchantment and was able to thoroughly heal his shoulder and stump. His remaining tattoo arm only burned a little from the small amount of mana he used casting the spell, but he didn’t want to push it and destroy his remaining arm and the power of the legacy healing enchantment.

Jen was relieved seeing that Sam was no longer in constant pain, and Tamako was on watch while Jen tended to Sam.

“How do you feel about Tamako joining us on our travels?” Jen messaged Sam as she was preparing some rations for him to eat.

“What does she want to do?” Sam messaged back.

Jen replied as she helped to feed him, “I don’t know. She told me that during the battle she guessed we were from Earth. I then explained your disk enchantment and lightning attack, and my psych ability that I used to help us flee the Roulette Confederation troops. Tamako and I haven’t talked about what happens now.”

Sam paused for a moment with a smirk on his face before messaging Jen, “Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Tamako likes Jen, and I’m sure she wants to travel with you too!” and then gave her a kissy face.

Jen blushed, and “accidently” spilled food all over Sam’s face, while Sam just cackled quietly at her. “Why do I even bother with you,” Jen grumbled.

Before Jen could say anything, Sam said out loud, “Tamako, we are planning to eventually jump all the way to the seventh Deck, and we would like for you to join us, but you should know, Jen’s the boss around here.”

Tamako was surprised by Sam’s question. Not about joining them, but the part about travelling to the Seventh Deck. When she took a minute to really think about everything she learned about both of them, she realized she shouldn’t be surprised at their attitude about jumping to the Seventh Deck.

She liked how straight forward Sam was. There was no one in Casino City that really cared about her. Jen was the only person that ever went out of her way to actually help her. Jen and Sam both had spent countless hours helping her open her mana channels, while expecting nothing in return. She knew she could put her life in Jen’s hands if needed, and Sam, well…he was the kind of guy that would literally burn his arm into oblivion while risking death to save you.

Tamako didn’t need to be told that Jen was the boss, that was obvious, she then thought to herself “But do I care if she is the boss….? Hell no, let someone else take the responsibility for once. I can just sit back and focus on kicking ass! Hmmm, Sam’s assumption that they would be able to eventually jump all the way to the seventh deck, shows his shear arrogance and stupidity, but did it matter if they made it there or not?”

Jen wanted to die inside as Tamako appeared to take a while to think Sam’s invitation over.

Tamako could see the worry in Jen’s eyes, but Tamako wanted to take a minute to be certain she was making the right decision. “No, it doesn’t matter if we make it to the Seventh Deck or not. I will be with people I trust, and that care about me.”

Tamako decided to try being straight forward like Sam with her answer, and she said, “Yes, I will jump Decks with you both.” But she couldn’t bring herself to make the assumption they would make it to the Seventh.

Sam was thrilled that Tamako was joining up with them, and he was thrilled for Jen, but…he just couldn’t help himself when he smirked, “Tamako, something might be wrong with Jen, her face is turning a little red, like she’s overheating or something!”

Tamako turned facing outwards away from their small perimeter, so Sam, and especially Jen, would not see her grin with amusement at Sam’s words, and at the rations that ended up all over Sam again.