Taimanu woke with a start still tired, but already partly refreshed from the little sleep she managed to get.

The moment her nose registered the smell she knew something was wrong. Someone was bleeding and quite heavily too.

Instantly, all sleep vanished and she was wide awake. She couldn't place the smell of the blood, it certainly was unlike anything she had ever smelt before.

Getting up, she surveyed their camp. The first thing she saw was Mary’s unconscious form sprawled next to her pack.

Running over to her best friend, she was relieved to see she was still alive. The other girl was bleeding quite profusely, but she could see the wound healing visibly albeit not fast enough for her.

Now that someone had noticed something was wrong Starshadow, the source of the noise that woke her calmed down.

First, Taimanu cast the same ward that Mary would have used and taught all of them. Secondly, she woke their healer.

“Wake up.” She insisted as he didn't want to wake up at first. After some forceful shaking, he finally relented.

“It’s in the middle of the night, this better be important.” He grumbled.

“It is. Mary is unconscious and Dresk missing.” After that, the training all healers got in the academy took over, being so ingrained in his head he didn't have to be fully awake for it.

“Any visible injuries, is the heart still beating?” He asked her while getting up.

“A bleeding wound on the head.”

“Not good, I’ll take care of it. Make sure nobody interrupts me.”

Afterwards he started his work while Taimanu woke all the others and had them searching the surroundings for Dresk. They found nothing, no sign of struggle or anything else.

An hour later the exhausted human joined them.

“She should wake in an hour. I wouldn't have been able to safely do more than stabilizing the wound but she has some crazy self healing that will take care of the concussion. You wouldn't believe she is human.”

Mary woke with a glaring headache. Looking around, she tried to find out how long she had been unconscious.

It was still in the middle of the night, which was good. She could feel relief flooding through her bond as well. It seemed Starshadow woke the moment she lost consciousness and woke the others. Shaking off the last pangs of unconsciousness Mary sat up to look around.

The fire was crackling with renewed vigor and her team sat around it, chatting somberly.

As soon as she fully sat up, she was tackled by a small form, all restraint the beastkin got in the last months forgotten.

“You are fine. I'm so glad. What happened? Where is Dresk? ...”

The memory of the last moments she remembered came back. Setting up the ward, noticing Dresk stopping at her pack. Confronting the lizardman and his surprising attack.

“Dresk attacked me. I think he wanted to go after the hob himself and when I tried to convince him it was useless he attacked. I wasn't prepared and he must have knocked me out in one hit.”

That stopped everyone and they stared at her in disbelief.

“Dresk was always so quiet.”

“Didn't think he was capable of something like that.”

“Why would he do something like that?”

“I can answer that.” Dehla said quietly.

“You can? Care to explain why anybody would do something like that, we could have died if Tai didn't wake up!” Their elven wizard said heated.

“It’s because of me. He is very traditional and I am the daughter of a clanlord and he thought you all, Mary especially, didn't treat me with the respect I deserve.”

“Why didn't you say anything, if I had known I would have acted differently.” She said.

“Because it shouldn't matter. My family gave up on that title decades ago and only extremely traditional families like his still care enough to know.”

“What's a clanlord?” Taimanu asked.

“A clanlord is like a high noble, a person in direct line to a lizardfolk king.” Mary answered.

“Why did your family give it up then?”

“It’s an old title, we are content in the empire and were no real nobility since quite some time.”

“Nothing we can do about that now!” Mary stated stopping the conversation.

“What do we do know?” Kaeso asked.

“We wait for dawn.”

“And then?”

“Depending on the situation, we continue back to the academy or wait for him.”

“...”

“So, how are you able to heal so fast?” Darion, their healer asked, not able to contain his curiosity anymore.

“My father had someone cast a greater regeneration ward on me. As long as I don't die and have mana I will recover from every wound within a week. If I get enough to eat that is.”

While true, that wasn’t the whole truth. At the start of her sword fighting training she often got bruises which then healed within two hours.

At one time she broke her arm after jumping from a tree. Instead of letting someone heal it, her father had someone cast a spell to suppress the pain to a certain degree and make sure it healed properly and decreed to let it heal without magic. It was to teach her caution.

What he didn't expect was her arm being fine two days later. Her body had abnormal self healing capabilities that were only enhanced by the spell that was ultimately cast.

While her father had had a greater regeneration ward cast on her siblings, it wouldn't help her much considering the spell would try to replace the natural healing of a body.

Instead, he opted for the usually less useful but cheaper and more dangerous method of increasing her natural regeneration.

“Your dad really has to love you, having someone cast such an expensive spell.” He noted. While the others looked impressed, they didn't learn healing and as such didn't know of the ward she was talking of otherwise their reactions would be different.

Commonly referred to as greater healing ward, mages able to cast it were sought after everywhere.

The spell was cast directly on the mana of the recipient and would settle in the body over the course of a week. Afterwards, the spell would lay dormant within the body until you were hurt.

Replacing the natural regeneration of the body, it used the resources and mana to optimally heal everything.

Casting the spell took three hours of continuous casting and cost enough to finacially ruin a small barony.

After a short and sleepless night, Mary sent Starshadow to see if they could save Dresk from himself while they were eating breakfast.

Ever since his evolution, the bird managed to impress her with his speed and intelligence. While he didn't know where Drask was he flew in the direction they were coming from without her suggestion.

With a speed unrivaled by anyone moving on foot, her familiar found the stupid teammate within an hour.

What was left of Dresk was no pretty sight, the lizard had been spotted before he knew he was nearing the goblins and walked right into their ambush.

Most goblins were too stupid to set up an ambush that wasn't obvious, but when they amassed in bigger numbers, the chance of a smart one or a hob appearing increased significantly.

Living in the forest for their whole lives, goblins were able to set up deadly ambushes when properly directed by a leader. Still, there were no problems dealing with goblins most of the time, there were no powerful goblin mages until they evolved two times. And without mages it was nigh impossible to win any battle, let alone a war.

Once that happened the kingdom they were in had a problem though, which was also the reason why hobs were hunted as much as they were, they were easy to kill for most adventurers and had the best potential to evolve in a goblin mage.

Nobody wanted a goblin army rampaging through their lands.

She couldn't spot any goblins near him, the savage monsters probably left him there as a warning for them.

She decided it was safe to go out and retrieve his body and give him a proper burial.

With the wind blowing in their direction, Taimanu was able to pick up Dresks scent only an hour later. It took them another two to get to his body, which looked even more gruesome through her own eyes. The two humans in the party even had to throw up.

Being as inexperienced in moving through the woods as he was, Dresk walked straight into the goblins ambush. Walking through the forest like the brute he was, they had been alerted of his passage long before he was near them and had ample time to set up the ambush.

There had never been a fight, a young tree was used to take his balance as seen by a few scale marks left in its bark.

Afterwards he was probably swarmed by goblins before he could get his weapon ready.

While getting some experience over the last months, they were only now getting to enemies that matched the powers of the students as they joined the academy, so he had yet to experience problems that could kill him.

The goblins had killed him quickly and brutally.

While able to coordinate bigger groups of goblins, hobs weren't able to control them, there needed to be something much more powerful to control them. Being the savage beings most goblins were, they teared Dresk apart spreading the body all over the forest’s floor.

While they were taking turns digging the grave for their teammate, Mary noticed a small group of goblin trying to sneak up on them.

Looking at the grim faces of her team, she was sure a fight, as easy as it would prove would be good to vent some pent up anger on the atrocities committed to their friend.

It didn't matter he attacked her, they were sure any issues could have been resolved and they could return to adventuring, now that wasn't going to happen though.

Mary wasn't as naive, she would have made sure to replace him regardless. She didn't think he deserved that end anyways.

“Prepare, there is a small group of goblins sneaking up on us.” They didn't even wonder how she knew, they accepted she knew such things long ago. Taimanu once stated it was better for their sanity if they just didn't question her in such matters.

“As far as I can tell there are eleven of them, so no problem for us. Dehla will take care of those trying to get near us, I will help if needed, the rest of you kill them!”

Fighting random group of goblins was quite easy for someone of their rank, small groups like these stopped being a challenge quite some time ago.

Dehla could easily hold off the small bodies and the armor the academies smiths made out of the bones of the hugbear were more than enough to stop the primitive weapons without dealing damage to the large lizardgirl.

Mary was still feeling anger from being attacked but her team needed to vent the frustration of their teammate’s death, something they managed to avoid so far and had now happened because something as stupid as misplaced pride.

The goblins never stood a chance, her team made short work of them.

By the end, three goblins were sporting deadly looking icicles through their bodies, three were crushed to a pulp by an unseen force, two were crushed by roots, one had an arrow through his eye, one lost his guts to Dehlas halberd and one was killed by her lightning.

The return to the academy had nothing if the usual joy and cheerfulness.

Mary felt slightly bad for feeling relieved her team had to get used to such emotions now rather than later, but wisely kept these thoughts to herself.

As her team’s leader, she had to personally report the loss to the academy’s headmaster. A meeting she wasn't looking forwards to.

“Come in.” The headmaster answered shortly after her knock.

“I have been waiting for you, tell me what happened.” She commanded as soon as Mary entered.

“We were hired to capture a hobgoblin as you know. When we found it I made sure it wouldn't be able to smell and hear us.

We walked straight in its ward.

It ran and I didn't know where its tribe was and decided we should retreat.

Dresk wanted to sneak back and take care of it himself.

I tried to stop him, but he attacked me and knocked me unconscious.

He walked straight in an ambush.

They killed him and left his body there to rot.

When we buried him we were attacked by a small group which we killed and then returned.” She finished her recollection of the events.

The headmasters eyes had widened a bit at the mention of Dresk attacking her, so that was her first question.

“He attacked you? Any idea why?”

“Yes. Dehla apparently is the daughter of a clanlord. He was unhappy with me treating her as an equal.”

“Oh, I will have to make sure to remember that, that's information she should have told us.”

“That's not fair, her family gave up on the title! She didn't think anyone would know.” She defended her friend.

Afterwards, the interview continued for another ten minutes, until the headmaster was satisfied and said she couldn't have done anything to safe the lizard.

She sent her to one of the academy’s healers to get a full checkup on her head just in case.

Furthermore, Mary and her team would have to have a talk with one of the teachers about the experience of losing a teammate, he was to help them get over it.

With Dresk dead, Mary would have to try and find a new melee fighter. She already had someone in mind, an elven sorcerer how was both a wizard and body enhancer.

She was sure she’d be able to convince him to join her team.