“OK, now if we meet those people, don't talk, stay out of it. OK? I'll check what they want.”

“You do not need my help with a team of four?”

“I did not say that. I have no clue what level are they, and the silly bird did not say anything about it.”

I hear a loud chirp not far away. Is that bird listening to us?

We continued talking, walking through the woods. Surprisingly he was not limited to a couple of standard questions and answers. After the experience so far, I should not have been surprised, but I still was. I wondered why the programmers would invest so much energy in his dialogue when he was doomed to be killed in Act 2? There must be thousands of quests in each chapter. There will continuously appear new quests as the game must go on. The programmers did a great job if all of them were planned to such detail and with such surprising results. There must be a lot of artificial intelligence at work and some very high standard AI templates for the NPCs.

Even some 'gamenapping' can be partially excused if they solve it fast enough for me to get to the toilet before the catastrophe happens… If it did not happen already...

At a particular moment, he stopped and said in a low voice:

“There are indeed people coming this way not far away. They do not seem to have heard us so far. Should I let you go alone now?”

“Do that, but stay not too far away… You know, just in case...”

“Sure, boss. Groww, growl”

As I jumped down from his back, he made a couple of steps and disappeared. Almost melted away as I watched him. A moment ago, he was there; now, he is not. If he does not move, I could not say that he is there even if I knew he must be there. Well, not bad for a camouflage! Seems to be even better than my chameleon skin spell, plus he can keep it whilst moving.

As I passed a row of bushes, I stopped. Cala's instincts told me to stop. It is not a skill, it must be simply her experience, or I don't know what. Something looked weird to her. I mean me.

I did not have the time to decide what to do as the next second, a giant plated paladin came running at me. Moments after he came out, arrows came whistling from the left, and a mage erupted out of the bushes on the right, spelling fireballs.

*

Mertan was happy. Finally, exciting things happened in his town. The 'lady from the woods' had sent him to deliver a message in the morning. He used to buy stuff for her from the bazaar, and she used to pay with honey or fruits, but this time he got fruits plus 1 silver from that mercenary girl. A fascinating woman, that 'lady from the woods', now when he thought about her. Why did she not buy herself her things? OK, but if she bought those things herself, he would not get all those fruits and the honey as a reward for buying them. Was she a kind of a hermit? Or was she a witch? No, she was too beautiful to be a witch; he knew witches were old and ugly, weren't they?

As interesting as the lady in the woods was, as mysterious was the one to whom he delivered the message. She was undoubtedly a princess!? No. A lady. No. Maybe a bandit lady? No. Still perhaps a princess of a barbarian tribe? No.

What was she? She was dressed in very high-quality clothes and the most expensive leather. It looked like elven armour, but what did he know? He tried to follow her, to spy on her, but he soon lost her track. Then he saw her fighting in the market. It was by accident as one of his hideouts was in a corner on the market's roof. From there, he had seen the terrible fight between the princess and that mage. Grackak, as they called him when she chased him from the market.

After the fight, he was so shocked and frightened, trembling there on his high perch, that he almost missed the most incredible magic display: a wonder. That sorceress princess had put back the pieces of her bodyguard together and revived her. No, what she created was not undead but a living person!?

Only after some time did he realize he was alone there and had lost the princess. She must be a dragon princess. Yes, that must be it. She could spell too much magic for a human.

He hurried and found them out of the town. He had to hide as the red-haired bodyguard came back toward the city.

Will she punish the soldiers? What is she going to do? But yet what is the princess going to do? He saw her going into the forest and decided to follow.

Is the princess linked to the mysterious lady of the woods? She must be related somehow as he had delivered that message. What are they planning?

Oh, this was much more interesting than anything happening in town. Mertan tried to follow the princess but lost her very fast. She was moving too fast for him. He knew the forest near the town, so he tried to follow her track but stopped when he heard voices. Strangers in the forest are dangerous, so he remained hidden as the voices approached.

“And you said she is low on health?”

“Yes, I told you. Look, we were planning to do this anyhow, now we have a better chance to complete it. She is alone without that damn archer, and she is low on life. What a better chance would we ever get?”

It was a group of five strangers. He had never seen them before, but they seemed to know their way, following the princess' trace. A hunter, a mage, a paladin, a rogue, and a beautiful elf-girl who was probably either a mage or a healer.

“Are you sure she went this way?”

The hunter nodded.

“Yes”

The elf girl turned to him:

“Do you think you can own her? I talked with a soldier in town, and he maintained that she fought and won against Grackak. Against Grackak! Have you seen the devastation in the market? If she really did that, maybe we should reconsider.”

The rogue shook his head.

“No way, Terri, that damn assassin probably hid well, that's what they do, and Grackak got bored and left after bombing the whole market searching for her. Not that I would do otherwise. Not with that idiot. Just run when you see him.”

Mertan wondered. Assassin? Did they call the princess assassin? Was this her class, or only did they call her such out of spite? He had no knowledge of such a class. Anyhow what the rogue had said was simply not true. He had seen the fight.

“Look, we levelled. She did not. She is still there at the same level. She is only four levels above Togas. Five levels above me,” - the hunter said that showing the five fingers of one hand - “That's not much. We are a well-trained group of five with a healer." - he shook his head - "She already has no chance. In addition, we take her by surprise, and she is low on health!”

The elf girl still seemed to be undecided:

“But ten levels above me.”

The rogue tsked:

“As if that would matter! You do not deal damage; you just stay hidden and heal us. Don't worry; you'll level with this kill. That stupid bitch is not even wearing a complete armour set. Pride comes before the fall.”

It was the mage who answered:

“I almost feel sorry for her, but then I remember how she killed us: it is nothing personal, you see: I have a quest to eliminate this fort. You can leave or die. That's what she told us before.”

The elf girl wondered, surprised:

“She warmed you? Why did you not leave?”

“What? That was our fort! With it, we kept ownership of the nearby silver mine that brought 100 gold a day for each of us!”

“Damn, that was nice money!”

The paladin tsked:

“Ow, there are better ways. Look, she is a kind of a robber princess. That raid against our fort was peanuts for her, even if it brought her a couple of thousands.”

Mertan grinned, satisfied with himself: she is a princess! He had been right!

The rogue replied angrily:

“Oh Dotter, you talk as if you would admire the bitch. She killed me three times!”

The huge paladin was surprised to hear this:

“No way? Why did she kill you three times?”

However, the elf-girl seemed to be preoccupied with more mundane things:

“Why did she make 1000 gold when it was only 100 per day for you?”

“Not thousand. Thousands but one time, not daily. She raided the fort and the mine, cashed from the raid, and then sold the mine. She sold it fast and cheap, but she still made good money from it, plus she fulfilled her quest. We were several and had to split the money between us whilst she was alone with her NPC group. Why did she kill me three times? Well, I tried to take revenge twice after that. Alone. That was stupid.”

The paladin shrugged and laughed softly. The elf girl continued to ask questions:

“An NPC group? Did you have no NPCs?”

“Yeah, we had, but hers were assassins, better trained and higher level. They did not fight fair! Hiding and killing from the shadows. Ours could not even find them.”

Mertan was confused and very curious. They were talking in the same language, but many words were incomprehensible to him, for instance, what is an enpiecie? What kind of levels were they talking about? How could somebody be killed three times? There were stories about some strangers who were not spawns like any other people in town, but some kind of demons, monsters with many lives. And here he was spying on a group of demons? He decided to keep a bit further from them.

Meanwhile, the hunter looked down at the trace he was following:

“I see she is now on the path of a beast. Probably a lynx. Is it the Lynx? Does she want to kill it alone?”

“No!? Really? You think it is the Lynx from the quest?”

The hunter went further on the track whilst answering:

“I don't know. That would be a hard job even for us. It is some kind of a huge beast judging from the traces, however… Oh. Oh, oh oh.”

“What?”

“A fight. There's been a heavy fight there. Look at all those broken branches, blood, and… those two dead beasts!”

“What kind of beasts are those?”

“Werewolves? Those are no chapter two beasts!”

“What is going on here?”

“Wait! Somebody is coming!”

“It must be her. Terri, are your heal links fixed?”

“Yes!”

“Perfect, now hide behind those bushes over there and don't show yourself, or you're dead. Heal any little scratch, all you can; we rely on you but don't show yourself. The rest disperse. You!” - the rogue turned towards the mage - “go to the left there, hide behind those trees. Dotter, you stay behind. Yes, those bushes there. Merwan!” - he turned now towards the hunter - “hide to the right there. Exactly. We do as exercised. I'll turn myself invisible. As soon as she passes my position, you start your fire and Dotter attacks from the front. Maximum damage from the very begging, I'll plant my toxic daggers in her back, and we are soon done. It should not take longer than 20 seconds. Now hurry, she is coming straight at us.”

Mertan was following the happening. He was feeling some kind of kindred with the hunter, almost the same name!

He sighed. Will they succeed? How could that rogue possibly know she was coming? That must be some kind of magic. He climbed a tree slowly behind the group to have a better view. Will the five succeed where the damn mage failed and kill the princess?

He watched, mesmerized, as the rogue approached a tree and disappeared from sight like melting into the air. He was fascinated by the group and their highly coordinated and effective movements, yet in his heart, he was rooting for the princess. She was alone and was going to fall into a trap. Will she survive this fight? For a moment, he thought about warning her, but he was too far behind, and the group will certainly want to take revenge on him.

When the princess came, his heart started to beat faster. She came in a light jog and seemed preoccupied with something; however, he observed surprised that she seemed fully recovered. No more abrasions, grazings, or burnings. Even her equipment seemed recovered, but now his keen eye observed that she had replaced some items. The boots were no longer the very fine noble-skin boots but a more militaristic-looking pair. Yes, she was now dressed more like a warrior princess, and she had a pair of long strange sharp straight knives in each hand.

She is running straight into the trap! He saw the hunter bending his huge bow. Then suddenly, she stopped. Did she hear something? She stopped just a couple of steps before passing the rogue and looked alert through the woods.