We moved my training to the next day but I skipped out on that one as well. The Wolf didn’t reprimand me, he simply didn’t show either. Almost as if he had expected it. Or maybe it just played well into his schedule.

The day after that was supposed to be a rest day. As always, I found myself restless, the constant clamor in my mind soon flowing into our real, darker world. It got louder, and louder, and louder. It was everywhere. Except that when I finally decided to poke my head out from my sheets, the clamor that had been regularly echoing throughout the temple turned out to be very real.

We were close to fifty people now, turning this dilapidated place of worship into a real island of light among the darkness. How that didn’t attract all kinds of monsters was beyond me, though the irregular thrum of the gem-eyed sentinel’s greatbow hinted that most of the ones that did poke their head over the ridge were quickly dealt with.

But with fifty people and the setup of Lohan’s grill-corner (free of cost, donations appreciated), quite a few daring individuals set up their own little shops amounting to little more than a scattering of trinkets and baubles on scruffy cloth stretched over the dusty ground.

Makes me feel like I’m at a harvest-festival. Except half the harvest is from graverobbing, the other half from looting fresher corpses.

The prices were all marked in feet of light, dim or bright, but from browsing the wares and talking with a few of the more amiable ones, pretty much everyone accepted barter as well as long as you had something of interest.

Me? I was broke as one can be .Compared to what I was willing to trade, the trinkets strewn about the small businesses seemed like unreachable treasures.

One entire foot of dim light for a ball of Wyckwax. A single ball!

However, everything was relative. Compared to Harris’ emporium of wonderful things, everyone else looked like overly optimistic paupers. Even his pillow castle lent credence to his considerable wealth. Though since he didn’t glow, I was unsure what he was doing with all that soul instead.

I’ll ask him later. Going by the Wolf’s words, he’d be called a ‘Dreg’ simply for not having light. But he isn’t like the monarchs wandering around the temple, without mind or thought within. Which makes me wonder, what would he be called then? Just normal human?

Am I not a human? Wait, what are we called then?

Brighters?

Un-dead?

Soul-stealers?

Ugh, enough thinking. It doesn’t matter what or who we are. It just matters that we’re here.

In the end, this change to the general temple atmosphere wasn’t uncomfortable. Before, it felt like a small watering hole, an exclusive club of people in the know or those that just happened to happen upon it. Now, with the gentle background noises and subdued smell of people and roasted meat, it felt more like a home.

I like this place. People have set up a system of offering-bowls for the gods. Even Glom doesn’t look as grumpy anymore. Wait, no, bad thoughts. Curse glom! Cross your fingers and get butt-rot!

After spending much of my morning wandering around, chatting to random people, and ogling their nice, fancy gear (also light; they’ve all got way more than me or Avice.), I felt the need for another midday nap.

Doing nothing is tiring.

I didn’t sleep well, the clamor within and without keeping me awake. But somewhat soon thereafter, within the late morning hours, Avice and her group came back looking mighty satisfied with themselves. The moment I saw them set foot in the temple proper, I near bolted from my bed and bombarded a red-eyed, tired looking Avice with a landslide of questions.

“Avice! You’re back! How was it? What did you fight? Are you injured? Did you find loot? How are you? Why do you smell so bad?”

I nearly snuck a hug in, but Avice used one of her three hands to gently keep me back, and another to right the mask on her face.

“D-do not get so close, please. I am filthy. And tired.” She said.

“I, sorry, I’m just happy you’re back in one piece.”

“Glad to see you too, Rye.”

I smiled, one of her new friends smiled and I was sure even Avice couldn’t help but smirk under her rocky visage.

“Looks like someone left a lonely maiden waiting.” Said one of the three guys in her group.

He looked like a magpie. Not in the sense that he was a bird, no, he didn’t have the feathers or the beak. His face was as long and pointed like one, but it was from the way he carried himself that I got the strong impression I shouldn’t leave anything shiny unguarded around him.

Avice gave him a look, which was to say she turned her head towards him and stared stone-faced.

“Of course.” She said.

After having her fill of staring holes in his face, she sighed and introduced him with some reluctance.

“Rye, meet Ritz. Ritz, Rye.”

“Hello.” I said, giving a short wave.

He had a smile that could make a demon look innocent. “Avice, you should’ve told me you had a sweetheart already. Tell me, Rye, what did you in? The skin like pale silk, her slightly regal tone? The three hands? Oh, I know it had to be the hands. I wish I was born with that many. People say you can do so much more with three.”

He was clearly having fun prodding us like that, eyebrows up in his mop of brownish hair, lopsided smirk and all. All it did for me was solidify him under the category of ‘annoying brother number 3’. The unflappably energetic kind. Avice shared my irritation, though maybe it was just the tiredness marring her face.

“I am not regal. I am a simple, honest merchant.” she said, indignant. “Go play with Vinesse or chat up a tree. Both would be equally receptive to your floundering advances.”

He mimed getting shot in the heart by an arrow and mock-died, flopping to the floor with all the dignity and drama of a wet potato sack.

“Uhhhh.” I said, leaving him where he lay. “Sooo, I’m assuming it went well, the hunt with your new friends and all? You took almost two days.”

She scoffed and motioned me to the side, to our corner as the rest of the group moved on to wherever they sat up camp. The temple was getting livelier by the day and the smell of roasting meat mingled with that of burning candles.

“They are alright. Most of them.” She said, undoing a pouch and letting it clunk to the floor with her shield and spear, next to her diminished mountain of furs. “Watch that for a while if you would? I require a thorough scrubbing, up and down.

“Sure thing.” I said and suppressed the instinctual need to offer her to help.

That’d be weird. Really weird.

After what felt like far too long, Avice came back. She smelled less like sewer, guts and blood and with her wet hair hanging aside her uncovered face, I noticed for the first time how healthy she was looking. The cheekbones were still pronounced, but her entire face had become more filled out and expressive to boot. Her wound on her cheek was still there, but it looked to be healing, though it was definitely never going to close fully.

In addition to that, she had light. A whole whopping four or five feet of bright light and an indeterminate amount of dim. I was jealous.

It isn’t fair! After two days, she got what took me essentially… two days. Woah, my stupid adventure in the Regent’s graveyard was only two days long? It felt like an eternity.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t that unfair.

Her eyes were constantly darting here and there as she went through the pouch of what I could only assume held one thing.

“Loot?” I asked.

“Loot.” She confirmed.

And out of the bag she took four baubles. First, a bunch of coins, so dirty that it I could barely see the metal beneath them.

“Does Harris accept loose change?” she asked.

“I mean, he accepted my ruby necklace. Why shouldn’t he?”

“You traded a ruby necklace? For what?”

“Pair of underwear.”

She groaned. I pressed my lips together and realized that I may have been scammed, hard.

“…it was good cloth. Very soft. Very smooth.”

She gave me this look, but then went back to rummaging through her bag. I could feel the silent judgement radiating off of her like summer heat.

Next up, she came up with a dagger that looked to be made of black glass. Which would have been really cool, were the blade not shattered into three uneven pieces.

“Fff–” She said, catching her tongue before it could utter the world-ending insult of ‘frick’. “I didn’t think it’d break that easily. It wasn’t like this when I picked it up.”

“Well, you know better for next time now.”

She grumbled and took out the next bit of loot. She held a handful of wooden balls, some splotched with blood.

“Wyckwax?” I asked.

“Wyckwax. A handful of it. We took it off a poor fellow who succumbed to the spiders.”

Not a nice way to go. Though in any case, the wyckwax was going to come in handy. Nothing quite as stupid as fighting for your life and then succumbing to infection. Or bloodloss.

She then took the last of her loot out of her bag. It took the form of three oddly shaped rocks. They had weird signs carved into them and were smooth but with a rough surface. Avice picked one up and froze.

“Avice?”

Then, she took her spear and began sharpening the tip like mad. Her eyes were intensely focused, and her arm perfectly repeated each rasping motion. Suddenly, I knew what she was holding there.

“Avice. Avice!” I shook her, but nothing happened.

I tried to pull her arm back, but I wasn’t strong enough.

“Avice! Stop!”

Then, I tried to pry the stone from her hand. I had the presence of mind to hastily wrap my hands in old bandages to touch it, but I slipped and got my thumb squeezed between it and the sharp edge of the spear tip, cutting myself. But I did manage to get the stone out of her hands. It was already very warm.

“Wh-wha?” Avice said, as if having just awoken from a daydream.

“I-It’s ok. It was the rock. Thing. They do this. They’re some kind of weird… magical sharpening stones.” I said, sucking the wound on my thumb.

I showed her the rock and she eyed it with suspicion and distrust.

“Nasty little things.” She said.

“But they do work. I’ve tried it before. Your hand hurts like hell afterwards, but it’ll make your stuff real sharp.”

The stones looked vaguely different in color and form, but I assumed they all did the same.

“I will take your word for it. But I am going to sleep now. Being out there is… well, you must know.”

“Exhausting.” It was, for the mind, body and soul.

She lay down on her pile of old furs and I sat down on my blanket. After some time of just sitting there and soaking in each other’s silence, Avice turned to me and asked an unexpected question.

“Would you want to come with?”

“With where? Outside?” I asked.

“Yes. We plan to go out again next week.”

The outside is dangerous. The outside is scary. But I don’t want her to go alone, rather, go without me. I want to come with. But I’m still in the middle of training. I don’t know what to say. GAH!

“W-what do you and your motley crew do out there?”

She smiled tiredly. “We search for loot. Treasure. Trinkets. And some soul too. No one wishes to be a half-corpse forever. They are andd bunch, but they are quite adept.”

I sat in silence again, paralyzed with indecision.

“I can introduce you to everyone else. You would probably be a better fit than I am.”

I didn’t think my answer through much. In part because I didn’t want to get left out and in part because I wanted to prove that even with my arm as stiff as this, I could still do something.

“Y–yeah. Sure!” I said.

“Good.” Avice smiled at me. Her face scrunched up as she looked around with mild surprise. “By the way, where is that smell of roasted meat coming from?”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe what happened while you were gone. So, there’s this guy, a caster, like a real mage, hat and everything, he…”

We talked like that for a bit and before I knew it, Avice was gently dozing off, leaving me to worry about how I was going to prepare. There was a lot to worry about. I tried to get into the mindset of mediation, of hearing the sound of Ram. But rather than a calm and concentrated order, my thoughts were bouncing around in my head like hopped-up baby rabbits.

Oh gods, how am I not going to die?

I had an answer to that at least. Stay with the party. Play it careful. Use a shield. Or maybe two.

What about weapons? –

I had exactly one club. On the plus side, it was a club. I couldn't possibly screw up hitting people over the head with that. Unless I couldn't reach that high. On the minus side, it was a club. Very short, not a lot of range and it really didn't cut or stab all that well.

I hope I can find a cool sword. Maybe Harris is hiding one. For paying customers.

Armor?

I waws all good and armored up, except for my neck and upper leg. The chainmail was mostly in tatters and I had nothing to protect me there. Or my right arm. But that was what the shield was for. Which brought me to my next problem.

Shield how?

My first Idea was to attach it to my right. Somehow. If I couldn't grip anything with that hand, at least I could hold a shield.

Planky II is not gonna last long. I need a better shield. A solid one that covers more of squishy ol’ me.

Supplies?

We’d probably hunt whatever was out there. I could do without cooked food for a day or two. As for wyckwax and bandages, I’d have to rely on Avice until I could buy my own stash.

Why did I even agree on to do this stupid, stupid thing?

The answers were many. Loot! I needed that hair-regrowing cream. I needed some more armor. And a better weapon. Harris had some stuff lying around and I was not paying with my soul. Also, making more friends would be nice. Friends with pointy sticks and swords, preferably. Friendly friends.

In truth, I was secretly hoping to find something that would make my arm better again. Be that enough soul to supposedly maybe possibl heal it, some sort of miracle remedy (as if that exists), or even just enough loot to trade Harris for something that’d make me feel better.

I yawned and made myself comfortable under my blankets.

Going out to get some soul should definitely help. I’d like to have more light. To be more me. Maybe this time it won’t be horrible. Maybe it’ll be an adventure. Maybe­…

“Rye?” Avice asked, her voice shaking me awake.

“Hm?”

“I must confess something. I… am not the humble merchant I have been playing at.”

“That so?”

“Yes. I am… a monarch of sorts. A countess.”

“Oh. Ok.” I didn’t know what that meant, except that she was somewhere between knight and king on the old nobility scale. Not that it changed anything. Avice was still Avice.

She turned to look at me. “’Ok’? Is that all?”

“Well, I’ve got the armor, but I’m not a knight. I’m a farmer’s firstborn daughter. Not all that bad off, but still a farmer. Would you rather we be on a ‘M’lady?’ and ‘M’peasant’ basis?”

She snorted. “No. No M’ladies required.”

“Great! Can I call you Avi?”

“A-avi? N-no, I mean, maybe? Later.”

“Later then.”

I smiled and we both quietly went to sleep. Her because she was exhausted, and me because the anxiety I felt from being stuck in a rut was replaced with a creeping dread. I wasn’t ready to face the fact that I was going out there again. Not ready in body, mind or soul.