Ayra was trembling in her hideout, following with horror the happening outside. It was Kroh, the weapon's smith, who had pushed her inside the shelter at the time when the slavers came. She had not even registered the danger at that moment. She was now in his family's hideout, the hideout for his wife and children, who were crying, lying in chains in the plaza. Luckily, she was here in his shop when the slavers came; else, she would also lie with the others.

After hiding her, he ran out with a sword in his hands to defend his family. He was now just another body lying in his blood in front of his crying, chained family. She knew them well; she had played so many times with the two younger boys.

She heard one of the slavers asking:

“Have you found her?”

A second one answered:

“No, she is not here!”

“She must be here; she must be hiding somewhere!”

The voice was now angrier. They were talking about her. One of the slavers, the one speaking now, has been here a couple of days ago. She had recognized him. He had seen her and had praised her beauty. How could she have known that he was a slaver?

She could see them from time to time when they walked in front of the spyhole she was using. She did not dare move not to make any noise.

She heard the first voice again:

“She is worth gold!”

The leader of the gang, a massive brute with a scarred face, lost his patience. He raised his voice, pointing at three slavers:

“You, you and you! You stay here and find her. The rest: we go. I will not risk the whole endeavour for one slave!”

As the caravan left, she watched people crying and screaming, forced to walk in line toward their new lives as slaves. She clutched the small dagger in her hand, her knuckles white under strain. The small dagger that she had just bought from Mr Kroh. It was destined to clean potatoes, but now it was her weapon of choice. Any other sword from Kroh's shop was too heavy for her.

She remembered. She had seen this before. She hoped she could forget it. She had been only three at the time. Her mother had hidden her in a shrank at the time, but she could not follow; there was no place for her. She had put her under a stun and silence spell. Her mother had been a good mage; she had a magical artefacts shop. But all her magic knowledge did not help her. She had been taken by the slavers, and Ayra was left alone. Yes, she remembered now.

If they would find her, she wanted to fight, then end up her life. She would never let them enslave her. She lost them from sight, but she heard them as they were exploring the small settlement. Then she smelled smoke.

“What are you doing? Dorhang forbade us to light any fire!”

“Dorhang is not here. I'll burn all these shacks down if needed until she comes out!”

“Are you crazy? What do you think he will do if he finds out?”

Only now did she hear the third voice:

“If he finds out? Do you think he cannot see the smoke?”

The two others continued their bickering.

“Who says we did it? The bitch did it. If this bitch is here, she will have to come out. I don't want to waste another day looking for one slave. Any moment a denka patrol may surprise us!”

“Dorhang said that there was no patrol planned for today. Now, if they see the smoke, they will come!”

“Dorhang said, Dorhang forbade. We will leave before any patrol arrives here!”

The bickering was interrupted again by that third voice:

“Stop making a row; somebody is coming!”

“Patrol?”

“No. Only two strangers.”

“Future slaves?”

They laughed, but the third one countered:

“A warrior and… I cannot gauge the woman; she may be dangerous. She must be some kind of shadow warrior. Better leave them alone!”

Ayra hesitated. What should she do? If a fight starts, the strangers might lose. Two against three, and the slavers will have the element of surprise on their side. She could try to warn them, but even so, they might lose. With her hand, absent-mindedly, she moved the strands of straw colour hair that were obscuring her vision.

After some time, she heard the strangers. They were talking with the slavers but seemed unconcerned. How could they be so stupid? The slavers were telling a story, lying that they had just arrived and had found the place burning. Smoke started to fill the small cabin where she was hiding. She was still unsure what to do when she heard one of the newcomers speaking. It was a young man, and she thought she recognized the voice: one of the clients that regularly came to their shop in the last few days. Yes, it was definitively him. She decided now would be the time to act.

She gathered all her courage, came running outside with her bare feet stomping the street's dust, screaming from all her lungs:

“These are slavers! Take care!”

They were talking warmly in the middle of the road, sharing a drink that one of the slavers had brought out from the burning saloon.

The last words that were said resonated in her head: “We need to save the drinks!”

A solitary wooden chair removed from the saloon was covered with various bottles and glasses. They all had glasses in their hands.

She ran towards the strangers. She would try to have the strangers between her and the slavers. Maybe they'll protect her.

Two of the slavers put their glasses down and tried to block her way whilst the third remained with the two strangers: the big handsome guy with a shirt that revealed much of his muscled torso and a patchwork armour. Yes, she recognized him. Will he help her? The woman was dressed in high-quality leather armour. She turned, and a pair of strangely grey eyes locked on her. Her heart started to beat stronger at the look; something in her allure, how she moved, scared her.

Another flashback, another shock.

Not long ago, she had seen the angel of death. Nobody wanted to believe her, but she had seen it. It was when a rogue had attacked a mage here in the camp. Everybody had helped the mage, but the rogue still killed it. What a crazy rogue to attack here in the midst of the village! And get away with it!

But the shock was after the mage died, she had seen her, the angel of death, as she came to take the mage's soul. Nobody believed her; nobody else saw it. She was the only one who saw it.

And now, the woman with grey eyes had suddenly forced that memory back. There was a connection between the angel of death and the woman with grey eyes. She knew it. She did not know how she knew it, but she knew it.

She stopped, shocked, then turned towards the handsome former client and implored:

“Sir, help me, please!.. You do know me!? Don't you remember? Please!”

He was the only one who could help her. She will not run closer to the woman with grey eyes.

As the two slavers approached her and the stranger did not make a move, she took in a swift move her dagger, watched it for a second, and plunged it into her breast just above her belly, where she thought her heart was. She missed her heart by an inch but jabbed a thick artery, blood erupting over her simple dress.

He made a gesture shocked and screamed “No!” running toward her.

But the slavers were closer; they ran her down, one of them removing the dagger whilst the other forced her to drink a healing potion, spraying the rest over her wound.

The raider cursed, holding her nose and forcing the drink down her throat.

“Dorhang will have to pay me for this potion.”

He grabbed her fluffy ponytail with one hand. She stood on her knees, and he pushed her head back with her face high. The other slaver bound her hands to her back, then to her feet.

She tried to scream, fighting desperately against the two raiders, and as the liquid invaded her airways, only gargled sounds came out of her throat.

The raider behind her asked her tormentor:

“Hey, leave some of the juice for me; the bitch had cut my hand.”

The tormentor answered with a spit:

“Use your potion!”

Angry by that answer, the man wiped his hand over her face to use the drops of the potion she spat. He flattened her nose in the violent push, waves of foul-smelling sweat invading her nostrils.

The young man, her former client, came closer, whilst the woman with grey eyes stayed with the third slaver calmly drinking her glass. There was a moment when she thought she would move, she thought she saw her muscles strain when she had used the knife, but no, she was still staying, watching her as if she would watch a show as if she would look at some bug trying to escape the spider's net.

The young man raised his voice:

“Leave her alone!”

Behind him, the woman with grey eyes filled her glass with more liquid from a bottle with a skull on it. She then gave the bottle back to the slaver near her, who filled his glass at his turn, both watching the happening. They exchanged some words that she missed.

One of the two slavers turned to him:

“Mind your own business, man!”

The other added:

“Should I have let her die? Wouldn't that be a pity? I own her life now!”

Ayra tried to protest:

“Please, no! Don't let them...”

She tried to scream and explain, but one of them made her smell something, and suddenly she could not talk anymore. She could not move, reduced to only seeing and hearing.

She realized with horror that there was nothing that she could do anymore. Captured and bound like many others before her, her only hope lay now with the young man.

Putting her like a potato sack on his shoulder, the slaver lied to the strangers:

“She is only shocked after the raid. She needs to recover. We will take care of her.”

All she could do was hope and cry. And then the unexpected happened.

The stranger put his right hand on the pommel of his sword and asked the slaver again to let her free:

“Put her back down!”

She saw him from under the armpit of the raider, her head upside down, the raider keeping her bound feet with one hand on his shoulder. The binding strained and cut into her wrists and ankles. She screamed with frustration and pain. A muted scream, air leaving her lungs over paralyzed vocal cords.

The slaver shook his head.

“Look, we do not want to fight. She is with us; she was only afraid and shocked after the raid!”

Then he turned toward his partner:

”Bring the horses! We leave!”

No, no, no, no! This cannot be happening! She wanted to escape and run, but her limbs did not listen to her.

The handsome man looked unsure at them, but now the woman dressed in black addressed him:

“Spartacius, wait, we don't want trouble with the Golden Empire these slavers belong to. If we start a fight, we will have trouble later travelling their land. It covers a huge part of the central regions of this continent. Do you want this?”

Next, she turned towards the slaver near her:

“How much do you think she will bring?”

The slaver beside her nodded.

“Wise words. Maybe we can conclude a mutually satisfying business?”

Ayra's heart sunk. That woman knew from the beginning that these were slavers. She had accepted it. The slaver moved her, and she lost them from sight. What was the other slaver talking about? What business?

It was even more surprising to hear the young man, Spartacius, protesting even more resolute now:

“Slavers? She is certainly not with them. I know her; I will not let them take her!”

A glimmer of hope ignited in her heart, to be immediately crushed by the woman's words:

“She is only an NPC. Look, we can find an arrangement...”

Enpisi? What kind of slur was that? The raider adjusted his load, shifting her on his shoulder. A wave of nauseating smell reached her nostrils from under his armpit.

She was balancing, her long blond hair almost reaching the streets' dust, but now she could see the young man again. He was her only hope. Her watery eyes met his. Will he want to save her? Will he be able to save her? They were three slavers, and the woman in black did not seem to want to help him. Will he risk it? Will he succeed?

He unsheathed his sword valiantly and pointed it towards the slaver

“Put. her. down.”

For a second, they looked at each other; then, the slaver dropped her to the ground like a sack. She fell head first, then on one side with a thud, the air leaving her lungs, her face hitting the dust. She tried to spit the dust she inhaled, but her lips and throat ignored her wishes. She could not see anything but heard the raider's sword leaving its sheath. Then the other one. At least she was no longer smelling that nauseating sweat malodor.

The raider pushed her with his foot, rolling her away from him, and she could see them again.

The woman dressed in black exclaimed, surprised:

“Huh, he did what you asked!”

Then shrugged and sipped from her glass, talking with the slaver near her.

They seemed to argue about something. He mimicked drinking but moved slowly, his left hand towards the dagger at his belt. Ayra watched with the corner of an eye with her face in the dirt, waiting for the moment the slaver would strike. How could that woman be so oblivious to what was happening?

But it did not happen yet. What happened was that the young man, Spartacius, fought with the two slavers. At first, the handsome man was battering them, and she hoped he could win, but with time they pushed him more and more on the defensive.

He was going to lose. He called:

“Cala, help me!”

The woman answered as if not really concerned.

“I am on it; just hold on longer; you can do it.”

Did she not care for his life?

He made a step backwards, avoiding a slash

“Oh, come on! Just a hand?”

Ayra felt tears running down her cheek. That was all she could do. She tried desperately to move when one of the slavers managed to trip Spartacius, who then fell on the side, whilst the other slaver was getting ready to behead him.

She closed her eyes, not being able to watch further.

When she opened her eyes moments later, all three slavers were dead or dying, even if they were not yet on the ground. An arrow was in the hand of the slaver that wanted to cut Spartacius' head, his curved sword already falling, whilst an iron star had burst his temple. The other slaver was falling on his side, also with a burst temple, whilst the third slaver was falling backwards, with his head almost completely detached from his neck. The woman dressed in black was near Spartacius, helping him stand. How could she have moved so fast? In the blink of an eye?

Ayra started to cry. She was feeling relieved, exhausted, and angry. Angry at the world that allowed such things to happen, angry at the woman dressed in black, angry at everything.

Spartacius addressed the woman dressed in black with a reproachful voice:

“Did you have to wait so long?”

“I was negotiating with that guy to sell her to me. If you had held for another minute, it would have been a done deal, and everybody happy ever after. But the two idiots wanted to cut your head. Now we are in a big mess!”

She wanted to buy her? She wanted to make her a slave?

Spartacius sighed as he stood up and approached Ayra looking into her eyes. He protested angrily:

“These were slavers!”

“Yes!” - the woman agreed - “There is an empire full of them over there, an empire that we will have to cross over later. How will you do that with a price on your head?”

He lifted Ayra awkwardly in his arms, and she felt like a puppet with her strings cut, unable to move.

The woman shook her head, looking at her.

“It's ok. She will be able to move normally in a quarter of an hour. You should cut first those bindings. Then you can put her to rest against a wall until she recovers.”

As he tried to help her sit down, he asked:

“You don't plan to leave her here alone?”

He realized her bindings did not allow her to sit, he then put her back on her belly and started cutting those, whilst Ayra endured all with stoicism. She understood that she would not be made a slave. She looked grateful into his eyes.

He raised her now again, placed her in a sitting position, and started to clean her face from dust. A mix of confusing feelings washed over Ayra: she was thankful, afraid, confused, ashamed, and angry. Her head fell to the side as she could not hold her neck straight. He put her head back straight and moved her to be better supported by an adornment on the wall.

The woman shrugged and did not answer, then turned towards a building in the vicinity and asked loud:

“Did you spot anything else around?”

A voice answered from above:

“The three were alone here, but a group of about a dozen is now approaching us.”

The woman turned towards Spartacius:

“You'd better take her inside and wait there until we finish these off.”

“But I want to fight!”

She shrugged:

“Please be careful; better just stay inside and come out once the fight has started. If you get their aggro from the beginning, I cannot guarantee you'll survive the first couple of seconds once they gang up on you.”

He answered, taking Ayra in his arms and walking inside:

“Yes, mom!”

Is she his mother? - wondered Ayra. She seemed to be too young for this, but you never know. She could no longer feel the presence of the angel of death. Was it only her fantasy? An illusion that her too strained brain had created? But she was still afraid of her: of the woman with grey eyes.

She wished he would stay there and never leave her side. She was afraid and cramped herself to him with all she could. She lost herself looking into his deep brown eyes. She wanted to tell him so many things, wanted to thank him for saving her. Will they survive the encounter? Even if the woman dressed in black was strong and even with her ally, the mysterious arrow shooter, they were only two against a dozen?

She heard them talking outside, and Spartacius wanted to put her down.

She mumbled, trying to grasp his shirt with her numb hands:

“Please, no!”

He sighed and held her tight whilst screams and fighting were heard from outside. It was short. Way too short. The woman and her ally must be dead by now. Now the slavers will come in.

“Please kill me, don't let them take me alive!” - was her mumbled request.

He sighed again:

“It will be ok, don't worry.”

His optimism surprised her. That cannot be possible. Only good-meaning words, but then...

The already known voice resonated outside:

“You can come out; it is over.”

Can it be? He stood up and turned around, carrying her in his strong arms outside. Seeing them, the woman exclaimed:

“I am surprised that you listened to me; I did not expect that?”

“Cala, please don't put salt on my wounds. I lost all that good experience!”

“Yeah, but you got the experience of holding a damsel in distress in your arms!”

He shook his head and only grunted.

Outside, a scene of carnage unfolded in front of their eyes, with bodies strewn all over the place.

She heard a snicker, and the archer turned out to be a young woman with fiery long red hair fluttering in the wind as she jumped down from the roof of a building.

Ayra cringed, seeing the height from where she jumped, but nothing bad happened.

Cala turned towards the archer and asked:

“Did any escape?”

“No. There was another one spying on us, but I got him too.”

“Good! Please check them, loot, and do not let any survive. I do not want my reputation with the empire to go down the drain because of this fuckery. Take the money for your change. Let me know if you find any valuable items.”

Ayra was left speechless after taking in the cold-heartedness of their comments. These women, Cala and her archer were monsters. No, that was no fantasy; they were working for the angel of death. She clung even more desperately to her protector, yet she did not have the courage to mention the connection she had sensed to the angel of death.

Spartacius shrugged:

“You should have put on a mask!”

She only sighed:

“I can't go masked all of the time. You can put her down; she can move already!”

Ayra mumbled, looking at Cala:

“You… you are a monster!?”

The woman turned and looked at her raising a brow, but the archer answered:

“A little more respect, miss; that monster saved you from slavers.”

“You would have gladly let them take me. They killed mister Kroh!”

Cala answered with a yawn.

“He will respawn!”

“What do you say? He will never come back!? How could he? Such high magic does not come to a village like ours? Somebody else will come, sure, but mister Kroh is dead!”

She was surprised as Cala looked surprised at her. Why was she surprised? This is how the world worked!

Even more surprising was her question:

“He will not respawn?”

How can she ask such a stupid question?

“No. And his family is in chains!”

Ayra turned towards Spartacius:

“The kids you allowed to play with your knife last week, those kids are now in chains and brought to their fate as slaves. You have to help them!”

“You allowed kids to play with your knife? Something is wrong here!”

Everybody turned and looked at Cala.

“You have to save them!”

This is all that Ayra could say.

It was so much more that she wanted to say, but how could she explain them? How could she explain that a whole world made by those people, their children, the jokes, the games, the tragedies, and the happy moments, everything will get extinct with them going into slavery?

Spartacius, putting Ayra gently on a chair, wondered:

“Is this a quest?”

The named Cala shook her head.

“Quest? Even if it would be, all I could gain is to fall out of grace with the damned Golden Empire. I do not need another Empire to hate my guts!”

Spartacius scratched his head:

“If we do it cleanly, you do not lose anything!”

At this, Cala wondered:

“And what do I gain?”

Ayra answered, looking sharp at her:

“Gain? Do you always need something to gain? Do the right thing for a change!? You may find peoples' gratitude more rewarding than anything!”

Cala laughed:

“Wow, this is an advanced talk for an NPC!”

That was too much. Ayra felt like exploding:

“Slurs when you have no answer! What's an enpisi? Is it some wordplay about pissing? Yes, I pissed myself; yes, I was afraid; this is no reason to let them enslave those good people!”

She was angry. She again used this slur, but she would not let it pass. The sudden silence that followed showed it was the right question to ask.

Cala and Spartacius exchanged a look. Finally, Cala said something:

“Well, this is weirder than expected.”

Then she raised a brow looking at Ayra:

“Did you really piss yourself?”

Ayra wanted to scream. Shame and fury were mixing inside her, but she said nothing as she heard Cala asking the archer:

“Alice, how far are the slavers?”

Can it be? Will they free them?

Then fear invaded her. No, they cannot… They will run to their death… or maybe with this monster with grey eyes, there was a chance?

Alice's answer came after a moment:

“They are moving slowly with all those people afoot. I guess we could catch them easily if we push our horses a bit.”

“Will we get them before the border?”

“Probably. If they do not have some other trick to move faster.”

“Good. I do not want to do this within the Empire's lands.”

Spartacius wondered:

“Why not?”

“The emperor has ways to find out who does things within his empire. Well, if you want to free those NP… ahh folk, we should go now!”

“What do I do with her?”

“Leave her here. We'll come back as soon as we are done.”

“I prefer to take her with me.”

“OK, but your horse will be soon tired, and you'll fall behind. I will not be waiting, as I said, if I do it, then only within the republic. If it's OK for you, then we'll meet when we get back.”

“Go, brave Sir Spartacius, go!”

She watched him as he hesitated for another moment, then left. She was proud of herself and, at the same time, afraid and angry that he had let him go. What if some of the slavers shall come back now? What would she do? She tried to rein in her fear and go fight the fires; then she went back into hiding, and then she came out again to fight the fires.

Did she make a deal with the devil himself? Who could have killed so many raiders so fast? That was impossible. Only somebody who truly had superhuman powers could do such.

By the time when they came back, the fires were almost extinguished. She saw them riding on their exhausted horses and thought they had given up. They were too soon back. Yet they had more horses. Did they kill everybody? Did they encounter another group?

She did not dare ask, but the woman named Cala talked to her half mockingly:

“Well, we freed them. What is now our reward?”

Ayra could not believe it:

“You freed them? Really? Where are they?”

“They are coming behind us; it will take them maybe half an hour to get here. They cannot move fast with all those children afoot.”

“You left them alone? Without horses?”

“They are good. We left some horses. We will check when we will meet them again on our way, we go now to Lilitown. Spartacius here wanted to come back and tell you that we did it.”

She was even more grateful to Sir Spartacius! What a valiant and brave gentleman!

He descended from his horse and smiled at her:

“They'll be alright.”

Ayra ran to him and embraced him, hugging him, kissing his cheeks, then falling to her knees and kissing his hand.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Sir Spartacius, thank you!!”

Cala laughed whilst Spartacius watched her embarrassed, at first unsure how to react, then trying to make Ayra stand up again.

Cala laughed louder:

“Hey, that's his reward and mine?”

Was she truly asking to be embraced, or was she mocking her? Was this a test?

Ayra was poor and knew she could not pay, but even so, she took her purse and turned toward Cala. She would give her all she had:

“Children will sing the praise of such heroes like you! This is all I have. Please take it!”

She curtsied in front of her as best as she could.

Cala took the purse, whistled, and then laughed again.

“Impressive! He gets the kisses; I get the money! You got me! Look, I would appreciate it if you would not sing our praises. They" - she said that pointing towards the Empire's lands - "do not know our names, and we were wearing masks this time. If you don't tell anybody who we are, we would be grateful.”

“But why? Every citizen in the republic would be thankful to you?”

“The citizens of the republic would better do to arm themselves. More raids will come; this is not over. The republic was weakened after the last battle against Mephisto. This has emboldened the slavers. More raids will come.”

“But what can we do? We are no soldiers!? Should we run? Where?”

“Only one archer half as good as Alice would have driven those slavers out. Better keep your money and buy yourself a decent bow and learn how to shoot.”

Ayra hesitated. She understood this was a provocation, but on the other side, what Cala had said was true. They relied too much on mercenary soldiers. Nobody in their small village could fight.

“But who would train me? what can I do if next time more slavers come?”

“They will come and in greater numbers.”

the woman said it gloomily, so sure of herself as if she knew the future.

“You should leave here and go to a safer city!”

“I have nowhere to go. I worked in Aruba's shop since I was little. What else could I do? I learned to be a shopkeeper.”

She then turned towards Alice:

“How did you learn to fight?”

“There is a monastery not far away from here. They train rogues like me to fight Mephisto and all evil.”

Ayra asked, surprised, full of hope:

“You're a nun?”

If she was a nun, then her fear was unfounded!

Alice laughed, shaking her head at the same time.

“No. I am a fire arrow master. I am no nun. One can do the training without becoming a nun.”

“You did not want to become one?”

A fire arrow master? Was she really one? Or was she bragging? She did not show a fraction of such powers in the fights… but this might explain why they were so sure of themselves. What Alice said surprised her even more:

“I was not deemed worthy of becoming one, and besides, the nuns do not fight. I wanted to fight” - she continued with a slight grimace - “so I learned to be a mercenary and was sold in contract to Cala.”

“So you are like a slave?”

She chuckled, visibly amused.

“No. A contract is not slavery; I am a free woman. Cala also released me from the contract on the very first day. I am free even from that obligation and am with her only because I want to be.”

“She bought your obedience by freeing you from the contract?”

Ayra could hardly conceive that Cala had anything genuinely good in her.

“Obedience… bought?”

Alice sighed.

“There are other things beyond that, things that I fear you cannot understand!”

She said it with a shrug.

“ True, I also get paid, and that's a nice thing, but it is not the reason why I follow Cala. I am since many years with her; we grew stronger together, we went through many fights and many lands.”

Ayra tried to protest:

“Why do you think that I cannot understand?”

Alice chuckled.

“Maybe you can. How many times did somebody save your life? How many times did you save back their life? She saved my life; I'm ashamed to say I lost count of how many times. Can you even imagine that? Oh, I saved her life too. It fills my heart with joy when I can serve her. It fills my heart with joy when we overcome the most terrible obstacles, the most formidable enemies. We fought evil you can't even imagine. One day we will end Mephisto himself. That is why I am following her”

“Mephisto? The King of Black Magic? The Great Devil himself?”

“Yes, the King himself. What will come after, we will see.”

“After? There will be no after...”

Cala and Spartacius were preparing new horses for them from the several they brought from the slavers.

Spartacius turned to Cala:

“Wow, crazy, do you hear this conversation?”

“Yep. They overdid the NPCs.”

At this moment, Ayra turned back, came near them, and proved to have good ears. Angry-looking and feeling betrayed, she spoke, looking at Spartacius and then Cala:

“Enpisi? Enpisi? You say it like you would be talking about lower level-humans. No, worse, not even humans. Less than humans! And she was talking about you too!”

As Ayra pointed at Alice, Cala put a hand on her forehead whilst Alice raised her shoulders.

“I did not deserve it this time!” - Cala thought - “What did I say bad about NPCs? Next time they'll do an NPC revolution!?”

But Ayra did not let it pass:

“Yes, you!” - she said now, pointing her finger at Cala's breast and continued - “You laughed about me pissing myself, but she does not deserve it? You do not even look into my eyes as if I would not be worth it? What if I do not know how to fight? People are valuable even if they do not know it. I could learn!”

Cala sighed:

“You misunderstood me. It has nothing to do with the fact that you… err…. whatever. If you want to learn to fight you can come with us. We go to the monastery now to hire a mercenary for Spartacius. Just come and see if you would like to stay there.”

Alice added:

“There are also other roles you can learn, not only nun or fighter.”

“But I do not have enough money to pay for training?”

Cala shrugged.

“Alice and I will put in a good word for you; they'll take you if you want. You can take one of the horses. Let it be yours. We have several that we will leave there at the training camp anyhow. Here you are not safe; the training camp is better guarded. Or you can stay, wait for them” - as she said this, she pointed in the distance at the approaching group, then continued - “and see if they try to rebuild the village or move in a better-secured place.”

It was Ayra's turn to shrug:

“Aruba can manage her shop without me; she even asked if I do not want to leave. They are good people, but… I do not have to follow them. I would very much strive to be able to defend myself against any slavers or other marauders. I would like to come with you to this monastery if you allow. I'll train and be the best archer for you, Sir Spartacius!”

The named Sir asked her:

“Can you ride?”

She nodded.

Cala pointed towards the horses:

“Be our guest!”

then added laughing:

“But be warned, he wants a mage, not an archer, as his bodyguard… Masks up, they are coming closer!”

They left a couple of minutes later.